Tonight ABC will run a new Charlie Gibson interview with Dubya (full transcript here).  Apparently, our President-in-name-only has finally found the portion of his brain called “regret,” and is ready to admit what the rest of us figured out oh, say, SEVEN FREAKING YEARS AGO:

GIBSON: What were you most unprepared for?

BUSH: Well, I think I was unprepared for war. In other words, I didn’t campaign and say, “Please vote for me, I’ll be able to handle an attack.” In other words, I didn’t anticipate war. Presidents — one of the things about the modern presidency is that the unexpected will happen.

GIBSON: You said you were not going to be in the business of nation-building. And so much of what you had to do was nation-building.

BUSH: Well, what I said was, in the course of a debate, I said the military shouldn’t be used to build nations. In this case, it turns out the military, in my judgment, was needed to remove threats to our security, and after that removal, the military, as well as our diplomatic corps, needed to help rebuild after tyrannical situations. . . .

GIBSON: You’ve always said there’s no do-overs as President. If you had one?

BUSH: I don’t know — the biggest regret of all the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq. A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein. It wasn’t just people in my administration; a lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington D.C., during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence. And, you know, that’s not a do-over, but I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess.

You guess?  You guess?  Oh. My. God.  I don’t even know where to start.

For someone firmly convinced that history will absolve him, Bush certainly seems to have forgotten that history is particularly unforgiving when you admit that you’ve completely screwed up.

Every time I think that Bush can’t sink any lower, he finds a new way to make himself look like an idiot.  Too bad Gibson didn’t ask him to explain the Bush Doctrine.  Something tells me he would have been more in the dark than Sarah Palin.

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So we now have a Status of Forces Agreeement, and the Bush Administration already is arguing — as if anyone cares anymore — that the 2011 withdrawal date is nothing more than an aspirational timetable.  Here’s Dana Perino during yesterday’s press briefing (h/t Think Progress):

QUESTION: The President has said for months that he opposes any timetable and that any decision should be based on the conditions on the ground. How much is the latest agreement a departure, if not a repudiation?

PERINO: [W]hen you work with a partner on a negotiation, you have to concede some points. One of the points that we conceded was that we would establish these aspirational dates.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. . . Oh Dana, you’re such a joker.  Really, stop it.

Please.

Given the fact that events in Iraq are not exactly standing still, the Bush Administration’s continued delusional thinking does point to the need for the Obama team to start making clear its positions.  That, in turn, means they must already have started to think not just about who’s going into the top jobs, but also who will fill the key jobs related to Iraq:

• Undersecretary of Defense for Policy
• Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs
• Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs
• U.S. Ambassador to Iraq

Yes, it will matter who gets the top jobs at State and Defense (and yes, several of the State jobs may go to career foreign service officers), but I find it odd that nobody in the MSM media seems to be paying any attention to such questions.

Given the fact that Hillary get the top post at State and Robert Gates be asked to stay on at Defense, this is an especially pertinent question.  Last I checked, Gates still favors aggressively prosecuting the war and Hillary hasn’t ever apologized for her vote on the authorization resolution.

I mean if you’re going to put a pair of hawks in charge, it might be useful to make sure that someone like Ken Pollack doesn’t end up as A/S for NEA or U.S. Ambassador to Iraq.

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The Connect U.S. Fund has launched a new two-year initiative to help shape debate during the upcoming Presidential transition.  As part of this effort, they’ve asked leading thinkers and advocates to talk about what should be the top two or three foreign policy priorities for the next President.  They’ve also kindly allowed us to cross-post the responses here.

Today, we’ll hear from Emira Woods.  You can find the previous posts here.  Thanks again to Heather Hamilton and Eric Schwartz for making the cross-postings happen.

With a global economic slowdown and a deepening food crisis, the biggest foreign policy priority for the next President must be building a global economy that benefits poor and working families in the United States and around the world.

The World Bank estimates that 100 million people have been pushed into poverty this year by rising food and fuel prices.  In the U.S. 13.3 million children live below the poverty line.  Throughout the world, 3 billion people live on less than $2 a day.  The statistics, already staggering, will only worsen with the current economic crisis.  Wall Street executives and their surrogates have accumulated wealth in unregulated markets at the expense of the poor and middle class.  Bold action is needed to reinvigorate economies, invest in people, and build the infrastructure of the 21st century.

First, the new President must invest in global development that brings health care and education for all. The challenges of global poverty can be met by prioritizing human security.  Health care, education, housing, decent jobs: these are the core building blocks of healthy communities.  Investing in these pivotal areas anchors our global village in the interest of lower income people and builds a safer, more stable world.  A just and responsible foreign policy would cancel the external debts of the poorest countries and eliminate “odious” debts of middle income countries.  It would advance fair trade regimes so that the resources of countries around the world can be directed towards the needs of the people. Strengthened communities can unleash the human creativity needed to meet the demands of a changing global economy.

Second, the next President must commit to a global green investment agenda. The U.S. must end its addiction to oil.  An economy based on fossil fuels has led to unnecessary wars, economic crisis, and environmental catastrophe.  The new President can use political leverage for technology transfer as well as private-public partnerships to advance solar, wind, and other renewable energies.  Creating innovative green jobs can sustain the environment while allowing countries in Africa, Latin America and other regions of the global South to leapfrog their development in creative new ways.  Manufacturing renewable technology equipment like wind turbines or solar panels could reinvigorate economies from Detroit to Dakar.  Similarly, building and improving public transportation systems like high-speed trains can create new jobs while protecting the environment.  Survival of the planet hinges on bold and immediate action by the next President.

The third and perhaps most urgent foreign policy priority for the next President must be ending the cycle of continuous war.  The overall U.S. military budget currently stands at $965 billion, nearly half of the world’s military spending.   According to a recent report produced by Foreign Policy In Focus, the ratio of U.S. funding for military forces vs. non-military international engagement is 18:1.  This dramatic imbalance in the foreign policy toolkit allows military objectives to drive international engagement, leaving development and diplomacy poorly resourced.  The next President must end the war in Iraq with its escalating human and financial costs; halt the expansion of U.S. foreign bases; curb the global arms trade by stemming the flow of U.S. weapons around the world; and rebalance global engagement to advance principles of peace and justice.   U.S. leadership on these initiatives will not only create a safer, more stable world, but will also unleash resources that can sustain the global green economy the world needs in this 21st century.

Emira Woods is the co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies. Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF) is a think tank for research, analysis, and action that brings together 600 scholars, advocates, and activists who strive to make the United States a more responsible global partner.  The Institute for Policy Studies is a multi-issue research center that has transformed ideas into action for peace, justice, and the environment for over four decades. Ms. Woods is an expert on U.S. foreign policy with a special emphasis on Africa and the developing world.  She has written on a range of issues from debt, trade and development to US military policy.

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In the end, I think Obama gets the edge:  looked Commander-in-Chiefy, McCain looked condescending on at least four occasions, 45 minutes on the economy helps him, and I think he won the Iraq section of the debate.

But it was close.  Not sure yet who will benefit more.  My instinct is Obama because he looked like he could do the job.

Now debate amongst yourselves.

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Twenty questions I would like to see asked at the debate tonight:

1.  Are we at war with Pakistan?  Senator Obama, given your pledge to go into Pakistan, if necessary, to take out Osama bin Laden, do you support President Bush’s current counter-insurgency efforts along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border?  And Senator McCain, when Senator Obama made those comments, you accused him of being reckless.  Do you now think President Bush is being reckless?

2.  Numerous reports have indicated that the State Department is woefully underfunded and understaffed.  Secretary Gates, among others, has urged Congress and the President to take steps to address these concerns.  Congress has largely been unsympathetic.  What would you do, as President to make the State Department more effective, and to give it the resources it needs to succeed?

3.  Do you support making USAID a cabinet-level agency?  Given the current financial crisis, can the United States afford to continue its foreign assistance programs?  Do you support reestablishing the US Information Agency or a similar construct to coordinate and strengthen our public diplomacy?

4.  Is the United States more or less safe and secure than it was on September 12, 2001?  Why or why not?

5.  Senator McCain, can you please tell me what the difference is between Russian incursions into Georgia and American incursions into Pakistan?  Don’t both involve a large power moving into territory controlled by a democratic ally of the United States?

6.  Some have argued that the American century is over and that China will soon be the world’s dominant economic and political power.  Do you think that is accurate?  Why or why not?  Would it matter if the United States wasn’t the biggest dog in the yard anymore?

7.  Senator McCain, five former Secretaries of State, including two who have endorsed you, have called for dialogue with Iran without preconditions.  You have stated your opposition, and your candidate for Vice President has suggested that such views are naive.  Yet when it came time for you to choose someone to brief Sarah Palin on foreign policy, you asked Henry Kissinger, one of those five, to do it.  Do you still believe that it is not possible for the United States not to talk to Iran?

8.  Senator Obama, are there any situations where you think it would be necessary to set conditions before meeting with a foreign leader?  In other words, is there anything that any leader can do that would make it impossible for you to meet with him or her?

9.  Senator McCain, your running mate has suggested that the United States should not second-guess Israel should it decide to attack Iran.  Is that your view as well?  Senator Obama, do you agree or disagree?

10.  Both of you have called on the Bush Administration to close Guantanamo and to end the practice of torture.  There is growing evidence that Bush Administration officials may have violated U.S. law as well as treaties to which the U.S. is a signatory.  Would you favor the investigation of such allegations and the prosecution of those, up to an including President Bush and Vice President Cheney, found to have broken American laws including statutes against war crimes?

11.  What can the United States do to strenghten the United Nations?

12.  Should the United States ratify the International Criminal Court treaty?

13.  What can the United States do to prevent genocide?  Would you favor military intervention by U.S. forces if it could help prevent a genocide?  Would you have intervened in Rwanda?  What are you going to do in Sudan?

14.  What is the one foreign policy issue that you think is currently under the radar but will have an impact on your administration?

15.  Most of the world has come to regard the United States as part of the problem rather than part of the solution.  What steps would you take to reverse that?

16.  Have we “lost” Latin America?  What steps would you take to reverse growing anti-Americanism in the region?

17. When this campaign started, no issue was bigger than Iraq.  Now it appears to be an almost forgotten issue.  Senator McCain, given Prime Minister Maliki’s outspoken desire to see American troops leave, why do you continue to oppose a phased withdrawal from Iraq?  Senator Obama, is there any situation where you can see American troops remaining in Iraq beyond the timetable you outlined?

18. Is the war in Afghanistan lost?  Would you favor a surge there along the lines of what happened in Iraq?

19.  Senator McCain, how can we afford to stay in Iraq and deal with the financial crisis at home?  Senator Obama, you have suggested moving troops in Iraq to deal with the growing crisis in Afghanistan.  Can we afford to do that as well?

20.  Given the fact that Russo-American relations have cooled considerably since Russia’s invasion of Georgia, what steps would you take to ensure continued Russian-American cooperation on anti-proliferation measures, including not only implementation of Nunn-Lugar, but also the situations in Iran and North Korea?

Add your own questions in the comments below.

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I’ve been a fan of Timothy Garton Ash since the days of his fine books about the end of Soviet rule in Eastern Europe.  He has a new piece in today’s Guardian worth reading.

The irony of the Bush years is that a man who came into office committed to both celebrating and reinforcing sovereign, unbridled national power has presided over the weakening of that power in all three dimensions: military, economic and soft. . . . The massive, culpable distraction of Iraq, Bush’s war of choice, leaves the US - and with it the rest of the west - on the verge of losing the war of necessity. Here, resurgent in Afghanistan and Pakistan, are the jihadist enemies who attacked the US on September 11, 2001. By misusing military power, Bush has weakened it.

Economically, the Bush presidency ends with a financial meltdown on a scale not seen for 70 years. The proud conservative deregulators (John McCain long among them) now oversee a partial nationalisation of the American economy that would make even a French socialist blush. . . . The decline in soft power - the power to attract - is also dramatic. . . . Iraq has been central to this collapse of credibility and attractiveness. When Bush denounces Russia for invading a sovereign country (Georgia), as he did again at the UN on Tuesday, a cry of “humbug” goes up around the world. Now American-style free market capitalism is taking a further hit, while some of the alternative models are looking better. . . .

At the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, you can still see the painted glass sign that president Harry Truman placed on his desk in the oval office: The Buck Stops Here. (On the back it says: I’m From Missouri.) The buck stops there. The contrast between the president from Missouri and the president from Texas is painful. Judgment, prudence, vision, patience, honesty - every quality that the 33rd president so signally possessed, as the US remade the world after 1945, has been signally lacking in the 43rd. . . .

For years now, we have seen those who hate the US abusing and burning effigies of Bush. The truth is, the anti-Americans should be building gilded monuments to him. For no one has done more to serve the cause of anti-Americanism than GW Bush. It is we who like and admire the US who should, by rights, be burning effigies. But now, at last, we live in hope of a better America.

Devastating and deadly accurate.  And, not coincidentally, a pretty good description of what would happen under a McCain presidency.

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Matt Yglesias on the cowardly decision by Congressional Democrats to support any bailout only if Republicans go along:

May I just observe that it’s distressing to see the news reports — and even worse, the rumors and gossip in DC — that have Democratic legislative leaders putting their primary emphasis on making sure that there are enough Republican votes for a bailout package to provide adequate political cover. Not only is it a mistake to put a primary emphasis on politics rather than on the merits of the bill, but focusing on trying to make sure that the Republicans don’t stick Democrats with the blame for a bailout guarantees a bad bill. . . .

[Democrats should] make Bush and the Senate Republicans choose between allowing a good bill to become law, or blocking a proposal that would prevent a financial meltdown. If they want to block a good bill and then pass a bad one with Republican votes and a handful of moderate Democrats, let that happen. Or if they want to let Democrats pass a good bill, let that happen. But why pass a bad bipartisan bill? And what makes you think you could get a good bipartisan bill? It doesn’t make sense. Congress shouldn’t be looking for “cover” for embarrassing votes; members should be casting votes they’re prepared to defend on the merits.

This is the problem with being a Democrat.  As much as I admire Barack Obama and about 15-20 Members of Congress, the rest of our Representatives, particularly in the House, are a bunch of spineless scaredy-cat scum-sucking surrender weasels.  They rolled over on Iraq, they rolled over on the Patriot Act, they rolled over on FISA, they rolled over on Alberto Gonzales — they’ve rolled over on everything.

If I were Barack Obama, I would make replacing Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid one of my top priorities should I get elected.  Yes, I know it doesn’t work that way, and yes, I know that Congress gets angry when the President starts trying to mess around with Congress’s prerogative to choose its own leadership, but this is freaking ridiculous.  We can do better.

Here’s a brief list of some of the Democrats whose spines would make them better Majority Leaders in the Senate, in rough order of my preference:

• Barbara Boxer (CA)
• Russ Feingold (WI)
• Jon Tester (WY)
• Jim Webb (VA)
• Amy Klobuchar (MN)
• Patrick Leahy (VT)

Pick one of these folks and you change the game in the Senate.  And notice that I’m not including Hillary, Schumer, Dodd, Kerry, or Durban on this list.  Perhaps Hillary could do the job, but I can’t help feeling that she would be part of the problem as well — and try to dictate Obama’s agenda.

Where is Hunter S. Thompson when we need him?

So who should we choose for the House?  My instinct is Rahm Emmanuel, but part of me is convinced that even with a strong spine, he would be too poisonous.  Jim Clyburn?  Marcy Kaptur?  There has to be somebody out there who knows how to run things and has the guts to make things happen.

Anyone?

Anyone?

Bueller?

Sigh.

Image:  Wikipedia, using a GNU Free Documentation License

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Two of my least favorite people in the world got together yesterday to have some laughs and share some good times.

No, I’m not talking about Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson.  In case you didn’t hear, Sarah Palin met with Henry Kissinger yesterday.  I wonder if Henry tried to pick her up?  “Vell Sarah, you are very pretty.  Have you ever done it with a war criminal?”

Ewwwwwww.

In any case, I happened to have an inside source at the U.S. mission to the U.N..  S/he was kind enough to make a list of all the questions the Sarahnator asked Hank the K:

1. What’s the difference is between a hockey mom and a Secretary of State?
2. Why can’t I see Afghanistan from my house?
3. Is a foreign minister kinda like a community organizer?
4. Do I have to read foreigners their rights before I talk to them?
5. Do I get to torture people personally the way Cheney does?
6. Are there foreigners I might mistake for moose?
7. Have you met John Bolton?  Is he as cute as everyone says he is?
8. Why does this Karzai guy wear those funny dresses?  Is he gay or something?
9. Why am I meeting with the President of Columbia University?  I never went to that college.
10. Why does the President of the United Nations go by the name Binky Moon?

Here’s the scary part.  Apparently a CNN sound tech picked up a small part of the conversation:

Kissinger: (something about a speech, not sure to whom he was referring) “And I’m going to give him a lot of credit for what he did in Georgia.”

Palin: “Good, good. And you’ll give me more insight on that, also, huh? Good.”

As I said yesterday, sometimes reality transcends satire.

Today, the fun continues.  Palin is meeting with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, new Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Word is that she spent at least two hours last night just learning how to say their names.

Photo illustration:  New York Magazine

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Is it me, or is the proposed bailout (whether the Paulson plan, the Dodd plan, a hybrid, or another version we don’t know about yet) sound increasingly like a really, really bad idea? I’m getting this queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, like nobody — not Paulson or Bernanke, not Bush or Dodd or Frank or Shelby, not even McCain or Obama have any freaking clue what to do.

Lindsay Beyerstein over at Majikthise has many of the same doubts I’ve been having.

I’m troubled by the instant bipartisan consensus that the the government must bail out the investment banks. It reminds me of the run-up to the Iraq war when every discussion was framed in terms what should be allowed to happen before we invaded, not whether overthrowing Saddam Hussein could solve anything.

Remember that the Democrats are just as beholden to the financial services sector as the Republicans. It’s not coincidental that the options on the table all involve bailing out these companies. At this point, the Democrats are arguing for a bailout, plus executive pay controls, mortgage-related bankruptcy reforms, and maybe an economic stimulus package.

My question is this: What if the government were to take the $700 billion to $1.5 trillion set aside for the bailout and put that money into programs to help those hardest-hit by the meltdown and Americans in general[?]

For example, progressives often note that pension plans would be decimated without a bailout. If that’s the worry, why not invest in retirement security for our people directly? An extra $700 billion in the Social Security trust fund would cushion a lot of retirements.

These are our tax dollars. We can either invest them for our future, or we can buy a lot of worthless paper to bail out reckless banks. Ultimately, bailouts just set us up for more crises by proving, once again, that the government will cover the losses of big business.  Maybe a bailout is necessary, but I troubled that no one seems to be articulating the case explicitly or considering alternative options.

I don’t want this country’s economy to collapse, but do we have any guarantees that the bailout will prevent that?  Yesterday we had some indication of what might happen if the bailout does go through — oil had it’s biggest one-day jump ever, gold also went up significantly, and the dollar declined to a level close to its all-time low against the Euro.

If I’m not mistaken, those numbers were not the product not of jitters over a bailout not happening, but rather over fears that a bailout will happen. If we print $1 trillion in new money to fund the Paulson plan (and let’s not kid ourselves, that’s what we’re talking about here), we would seriously cut into the value of the dollar.  That in turn means that the price of commodities would skyrocket.  In other words, serious inflation.

But if we don’t pursue a bailout, the economy collapses, credit disappears, and, I presume, trillions of dollars of value disappear overnight.  That probably will bring on massive deflation, a run on banks, and the biggest economic crisis since the 1930s.

But wouldn’t the latter option at least leave us with the capital to try to restore the system?  Wouldn’t that $1 trillion then be available to fix the systemic problems in a way that dropping it into the black hole we’re calling the bailout can’t?

We have no guarantees that the bailout will solve the problems we face.  The people telling us it will are the same ones who, six months ago, went on national television and assured people, post-Bear Stearns, that the economy was sound.

I had hoped today to attend a meeting put together by Steve Clemons that is looking at these questions.  Unfortunately, some obligations on the consulting side of my life prevented me from doing so.  One of the people I wanted to hear was my friend Leo Hindery, one of the smarter guys around on these issues and an economic advisor to the Obama campaign.  Yesterday, Steve released a portion of what Leo plans to say today:

As we all know, the Bush administration is asking Congress to let the government buy $700 billion in troubled mortgages, which would raise the statutory limit on the national debt to $11.3 trillion from $10.6 trillion. This $700 billion is over and above the $85 billion already committed to AIG, the $29 billion related to Bear Stearns, and the very conservative $25 billion associated with the bailouts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The solutions being proposed are the most expensive combined bailout in the nation’s history and will sharply curtail the ability of the next president to push for tax cuts or new spending. And yet I believe they are not nearly enough, since they do not adequately cover the exposure associated with leveraged loans and, especially, the credit-default swaps market which has ballooned to a nearly unimaginable $45.5 trillion, from $900 billion in 2001.

This credit-default swaps market, which was developed by financiers who hired the best lobbyists they could to keep regulators away, is essentially nothing more than insurance on debt, but because there are now many more credit-default swaps outstanding than there are bonds for them to cover, it could potentially be a black hole of distress at least as large as the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Tens of trillions of dollars ago these swaps became nothing more than a way to gamble with almost no money down.

Leo clearly thinks that $1 trillion is little more than a shot in the dark  We’re standing on the edge of a cliff, throwing a rope over the edge, and hoping that it’s long enough to get us to the bottom.  But we really have no idea whether that’s true.

About eighteen months ago, I had dinner with Leo, Steve and a few others.  I told Leo that, sooner or later, we as a nation were going to face the equivalent of another margin call — some event that would demonstrate just how much trouble we were in.  Here’s a good short description of what that meant in 1929:

Margin calls played a role in the Great Depression. Speculators used leverage to play the market. They borrowed money, bought stocks, and put the stocks up as collateral. This only works when the stocks do not lose in value, so their price better go up. If it goes down, the value of the collateral will eventually fall below that of the loan. This is when the bank gets worried and sends you a margin call so that you close the gap.

Sound familiar?

Eighteen months ago I said that something would happen to produce a similar result.  I didn’t know what it was going to be  — an end to the real estate buble, a collapse of the dollar, another terrorist attack, China calling in its marker — but something was going to catch up with us and we would face real trouble when it did.

I think we’re there.  This is our margin call.  Not literally, of course, but the impact on the economy is going to be essentially no different from what happened in 1929.

If Paulson and Bernanke are wrong — again — and Hindrey is right, dropping $1 trillion now isn’t going to make a difference.  We would still have a meltdown, except we won’t have that $1 trillion available to fix the underlying structural problems that have caused this mess.

In addition, we would have a dollar worth considerably less than it is now.  We would still be dependent on foreign oil that now will cost much more than it does now.  We would still be stuck paying for a war in Iraq that is in the process of sucking an additional $1 trillion out of the economy. And we have no money to fix all the other problems we face — like a crumbling infrastructure, health care, a failing educational system, and social security and medicare insolvency, to name just four.

In other words, if the bailout fails to prevent the crisis, we would face an even worse scenario than what we do now:  massive inflation, a collapsing economy, and no way to fix it.  We’re talking Zimbabwe, Argentina, Germany in the 1920s.  That way lies madness and most likely dictatorship.

I’m not an economist, but it sure seems like we’re between a rock and a hard place here.  Tell me I’m wrong.

Tell me that these guys — the same guys who got us into this mess — know what they’re doing.

Tell me that we’re better off bailing these crooks out than we would be putting the money into saving social security and pension funds, investing in clean energy, fixing our infrastructure, developing a better health care system, and all the other things that are going to fall by the wayside if we use this good money to chase after bad.

Tell me.

I’ll try to believe you.

Photo: via Wikipedia, photo in the public domain

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David Weigel over at Reason magazine has an interesting and provocative piece up in which he argues that Obama represents a continuation of the liberal interventionist tradition in the Democratic Party — a development that he does not regard as a good thing.  Here’s the money quote:

Obama’s advisers don’t pretend that their candidate is moving very far from the legacy of Bill Clinton—a legacy of humanitarian interventionism that provided some of the moral and legal justifications for Iraq. The problems of this decade, in their view, came because the Bush administration looked at unilateral action as a first course of action and multilateralism as a patina, gathering allies after military decisions had already been made. That’s the reverse of what Obama says he wants: multilateralism first and unilateralism as a last resort. . . . Obama has taken what he likes from Clinton’s brain trust and welded it to his own vision of intervention. Plenty of likeminded liberals agreed with Obama about the Iraq war—that it was an aberration, an unusually bad war botched by a Republican president. They may not necessarily share his views about the next war.

I have several concerns with Weigel’s piece.  First, he argues that all interventions, humanitarian or otherwise, are wrong.  Unlike Weigel, I share the notion held by former Obama advisor Samantha Power (among others) that American military intervention can, if used wisely, help prevent (rather than cause) humanitarian disasters.  A unilateral blanket pledge that the United States would no longer intervene in such situations would almost certainly embolden dictators, warlords, and terrorists to commit more rather than fewer atrocities.

Second, expressing a willingness to use American power to advance American interests does not make Obama a liberal interventionist.  Were an Obama Administration to work through the United Nations, building consensus for such action, it would represent a significant break from the Bush Administration’s go-it-alone policies.  It also would demonstrate a strong streak of pragmatism in the Administration’s approach to foreign policy problems.  But even were Obama to act unilaterally, it would not necessarily be unilateralsim.  As Weigel himself notes, the Bush Administration essentially acted and then asked for help.  An Obama Administration not only would ask for help before acting, but would reserve acting alone as an occasional necessary evil.  Just because you don’t want to use a weapon doesn’t mean you eliminate it from your arsenal.  And conversely, keeping a weapon in your arsenal doesn’t mean you want to use it.

Last but not least, Weigel’s thesis is predicated on assumptions — such as the capacity of the United States to project its power when and where it wants — that no longer may be true.  Given the severity of the current financial crisis, future interventions may prove to be fiscally impossible.

Nonetheless, it’s worth your time to read Weigel’s analysis.  When you’re done, come back and share your thoughts here.

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By now my fellow bloggers have spilled plenty of bytes on the serious problems with the Administration’s bailout proposal.  I have nothing new to add to that discussion, but I do want to some thoughts on one provision of the bill that many people have overlooked.

If the current bailout proposal passes unamended, Congress will have just given Henry Paulson a degree of power that no Cabinet Secretary — or President for that matter — has ever had.  This is Section 8 of the bill as it now stands:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

This language represents nothing less than the institutionalization of the Cheney-Addington concept of an all-powerful, unitary executive that cannot be checked by either Congress or the courts.  It would represent the single greatest expansion of Presidential power in American history.  As written, not even the Supreme Court would have the authority to overturn it as unconstitutional:

As Congress prepares to act speedily on the grant of power to the Treasury Secretary to buy up $700 billion worth of bundles of bad mortage loans, the Supreme Court may watch in fascination, but it would have no power to second-guess the “bailout,” if enacted.  Given the sweep of the authority that would go to the Secretary, it might raise some constitutional questions. But there would be no way to test those in court.

According to press accounts, when Barnake and Paulson went up to Capitol Hill to brief Congressional leaders last week, they painted a terrifying portrait of economic collapse.  They warned lawmakers warned that we are teetering on the edge of a precipice, and that Congress needed to take urgent action to prevent a disaster.  Congressional leaders emerged from the meeting looking like they had been hit by a bus.

Sound familiar?  The Bush Administration used similar language to convince Congress to pass post-9/11 restrictions on civil liberties (most notably the Patriot Act); to authorize the invasion of Iraq; and to adopt both the Military Commissions Act (including the provision exempting CIA agents from laws banning torture) and the recent FISA bill.

To put it another way, every time this Administration has convinced Congress to adopt laws that expand executive power or erode civil liberties, it has scared Congress into going along it.  This time the threat is not terrorism but economic collapse.  But don’t kid yourself:  Section 8 could mark the beginning of the end of the separation of powers and the rule of law.

To me, all the other questions about this highly problematic bill pale in comparison.  Congress must not agree to this bill as long as Section 8 remains. If it does, it might as well pack up and go home.

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The Bush Administration is now suggesting that the $700 billion price tag for bailing out Wall Street may be off because some of the assets purchased could be resold at a profit.

Just remember that this is the same gang of idiots and liars who  told us that the Iraq war would start paying for itself within a few weeks of the invasion.

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This morning, The Washington Postdated confirms that yesterday’s attack on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad was the work of a group known as the Soldiers’ Brigade of Yemen, an affiliate of al Qaeda, using techniques that they may have learned while fighting in Iraq:

[T]he first vehicle exploded near a guard post. Cameras then recorded attackers taking positions nearby, until a second vehicle packed with explosives detonated near a sidewalk. . . . The use of two vehicle bombs — one to breach the perimeter of a compound, a second to drive inside and explode — is a tactic used by the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Matt Duss over at Think Progress demonstrates how this blows away yet another justification for the Iraq war — the “we’re fighting them over there so that we don’t have to fight them over here” idea, also known as the flypaper theory:

Those who have been following the Iraq debate might remember “flypaper theory,” which was one of the earliest exponents of the “incoherent post hoc justifications for the Iraq war” genre. The idea was that there was some limited number of terrorists in the Middle East, and the presence of an occupying U.S. army would lure them to Iraq, whereupon they could all be conveniently killed, presumably as soon as they stepped off the bus.

This plan was prevented from working only by the fact that it was staggeringly dumb. The U.S. occupation radicalized scores of young Muslims, many of whom traveled to Iraq, where they learned terror warfare and were galvanized in the global jihad. And now they’ve begun returning home, to share the tactics and technology developed in a laboratory we provided for them by invading Iraq.

Of course, that doesn’t even take into account the role of torture, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and other such obscenities in helping to radicalize Muslims as well.

To put it another way, the Bush Administration have spent  billions upon billions of dollars on the Iraq War, largely based on the bankrupt theory that we are building an island of democracy that will de-radicalize the Middle East.  In reality, we have made things far worse than they would have been had we never invaded, so much so that we have unthinkingly created another generation of terrorists, in the process weakening ourselves to such a degree that we may not be able to fight back the next time the come “over here.”

Imagine how bad things would be if Bush had taken a similar approach to the economy.

Oh.  Wait.

Never mind.

Hat tip:  Obsidian Wings

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We’re trying out a new feature here at Undip:  “What You Might Have Missed,” which will highlight stories that other stories have kept off the front page.

Today, it’s the transfer of authority from Gen. David Petraeus to Gen. Ray Odierno in Baghdad.  Petraeus will now head Central Command, which oversees all U.S. military activity from Egypt to Pakistan, an arc that includes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What I find particularly interesting about this story is that Petraeus and Odierno had completely different approaches to the occupation of Iraq in the immediate aftermath of the invasion.  When Petraeus led the 101st Airborne, he was praised for applying counterinsurgency doctrine in Mosul in a way that helped keep the region calm — until he left.

In Mosul, a city of nearly two million people, Petraeus and the 101st employed classic counterinsurgency methods to build security and stability, including conducting targeted kinetic operations and using force judiciously, jump-starting the economy, building local security forces, staging elections for the city council within weeks of their arrival, overseeing a program of public works, reinvigorating the political process, and launching 4,500 reconstruction project. . . . [I]n the book Fiasco, Washington Post reporter Tom Ricks wrote that “Mosul was quiet while he (Petraeus) was there, and likely would have remained so had his successor had as many troops as he had–and as much understanding of counterinsurgency techniques.” Ricks went on to note that “the population-oriented approach Petraeus took in Mosul in 2003 would be the one the entire U.S. Army in Iraq was trying to adopt in 2006.”

Contrast that with Odierno’s time commanding the 4th Infranty Division during the same period:

Odierno’s tenure as 4th ID commander in Iraq and his unit’s actions there have subsequently come under criticism from several sources. Many officers from the 1st Marine Division were critical of 4th ID’s belligerent stance during their initial entry into Iraq after the ground war had ceased and the unit’s lack of a ‘hearts and minds’ approach to counter-insurgency. Several authors have echoed similar criticisms shared with them by other military personnel in the theater. In his unit’s defense Odierno strenuously argued that the situation was that such an approach was required and subsequent insurgent activity justified the actions of 4th ID as former insurgents began to join the fight against Islamic extremist groups, such as al-Qaeda, in 2007.

To this day, Odierno rejects these arguments, saying that the situation then required an aggressive approach.  That said, Odierno did spend the past few years helping Petraeus craft the surge, and it’s doubtful that Petraeus would support the choice of someone he thought could not build on his success.

There’s an old saying in sports that you’re much better off being the guy who replaces the guy who replaced the legend.  Odierno doesn’t have that luxury.  If he fails, he may find that he’s on a short leash, as Petraeus, Gates, and Bush are unlikely to let Iraq to fall back into chaos.

Photo: Outgoing commander Gen. David Petraeus hands over the Multi-National Force Iraq flag to U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates as Gen. Ray Odierno looks on during a Change of Command ceremony at Camp Victory on September 16, 2008 in Baghdad, Iraq. David Petraeus, the American general who presided during “The Surge”, the increase in American military presence believed to have been critical to reduced violence in the beleaguered country, handed over his command today to Gen. Ray Odierno. (Getty Images via Daylife)

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An excerpt from Charlie Gibson’s interview with Sarah Palin tonight:

GIBSON: But this is not just reforming a government. This is also running a government on the huge international stage in a very dangerous world. When I asked John McCain about your national security credentials, he cited the fact that you have commanded the Alaskan National Guard and that Alaska is close to Russia. Are those sufficient credentials?

PALIN: But it is about reform of government and it’s about putting government back on the side of the people, and that has much to do with foreign policy and national security issues.

She then changed the subject to energy.

But hold on a second, Governor.  You said that “putting government back on the side of the people. . .has much to do with foreign policy and national security issues.”  I’m willing to take you on your word on that — at least for the moment.  But I have a few questions for you.

1. Given that a majority of the American people believe that we should not have gone to war in Iraq, does that mean that you favor us getting out?
2. Given that a majority of the American people want the United States to be an international leader on climate change, are you willing to support much more aggressive measures to combat global warming, even if it means cutting back on the use of internal combustion engines, thus hurting your state’s economy?
3. Given that a majority of the American people support the end of torture, the closing of Guantanamo, and as you so quaintly put it in your acceptance speech, “reading their rights” to terrorist suspects, are you and Senator McCain in favor of ending the Bush Administration’s assault on civil liberties and the rule of law?  Would you prosecute those in the Bush Administration suspected of committing war crimes?
4. Given that a majority of the American people want the United States to work within the United Nations system and with our allies, would you and Senator McCain support reengaging with the United Nations in a meaningful way, including an end to the rhetoric we saw at the Convention attacking the UN?  And if so, can you explain the presence of John Bolton as an informal foreign policy advisor to the McCain-Palin campaign?

Because, Governor, that’s putting foreign poicy back on the side of the people.  Because that’s what a majority of the American people want.

I didn’t think so.

By the way, on Pakistan, she agreed with Obama and contradicted McCain.

And she thinks we should go to war with Russia if it invades Georgia again (or Ukraine).

Last but not least, Governor Palin might want to check out this page before her next interview.

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Here’s what the State Department’s most recent human rights report has to say about Libya:

The Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya is an authoritarian regime with a population of approximately six million, ruled by Colonel Mu’ammar al‑Qadhafi since 1969. . . .Qadhafi and his inner circle monopolized political power. . . . The government’s human rights record remained poor. Citizens did not have the right to change their government. Reported torture, arbitrary arrest, and incommunicado detention remained problems. The government restricted civil liberties and freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and association. The government did not fully protect the rights of migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. Other problems included poor prison conditions; impunity for government officials; lengthy political detention; denial of fair public trial; infringement of privacy rights; restrictions of freedom of religion; corruption and lack of transparency; societal discrimination against women, ethnic minorities, and foreign workers; trafficking in persons; and restriction of labor rights.

Now here’s what our favorite government blog, Dippynote said after The Condi finished her Weekend at Moammar’s:

Libya’s journey to rejoin the community of nations came after a long process of reengagement. Its historic 2003 decisions to voluntarily rid itself of its WMD program and renounce terrorism created the foundation from which Libya has today become a leader in Africa and a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council. . . .Today, Libya is a vital partner in the fight against terrorism, helping to stem the flow of foreign fighters to Iraq. It works closely with its neighbors to combat the growth of terrorism in the Sahara and Trans-Sahel regions.

Libya is also a leader on the African continent. It maintains a humanitarian corridor that provides much needed supplies to the people of Darfur. Working with the African Union Contact Group, it is helping to mediate the conflicts in Chad and Sudan. Additionally, Libya provides development assistance to other African countries. . . .

The U.S. and Libya have shared interests, but have also differed at times on some key policy points and use of diplomatic tools. Naturally, we would prefer to have their support on some of these issues, but it is noteworthy that Libya — which serves as a model to others — voted in favor of placing additional sanctions against Iran for its non-compliance with international efforts to ensure the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program.  Libya has come a long way in its transformation from an isolated pariah to renewed membership in the international community.

One of these things is not like the other.

By the way, this is the sixth consecutive Dippynote post on Libya.  That’s more than the total number of posts on Iraq (five) since the beginning of April — and equal to the number of posts on Afghanistan (six) since Dipnote began.  And they wonder why nobody takes them seriously?

Here’s the best part:  it’s very likely that the two statements above were written by the same person — Amanda Johnson, a Libya Desk Officer in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA).  Ms. Johnson is identified as the author of the Dippynote piece, and since there was no diplomatic presence in Tripoli at the time of the last human rights report, it proba