As I was scanning the New York Times op-ed page this morning, I thought, “Huh, isn’t that quaint. The Times thinks John Bolton still has something relevant to say about anything.”

Then, I switch over the Washington Post and do a double-take. “WTH, Bolton has an op-ed in both of the country’s leading newspapers on the same day?!”

Argghh. Looks like it could be a long week.

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Ezra Klein on whether the new alliance between foreign policy liberals and realists can hold:

[T]he post-Iraq consensus between liberals and realists. . .will hold as long as the question is Iraq. But what if the topic changes? If China triggers a confrontation over Taiwan or a threatening genocide cries out for a swift intervention? Where does Gates, or Jones, stand then?

On one level, it may not matter. Policy on pressing priorities is set from the top. Cabinet secretaries can either implement the agenda or resign in protest. There’s the question of advice, of course, but Samantha Power and Richard Danzig will be able to send Obama memos, too. That said, it does raise the question of tensions and divisions. The consensus around Iraq may or may not signal broad agreement on other foreign policy issues, but this will nevertheless be the team that faces down the full spectrum of foreign threats and crises. It will be a harsh test for the young bond between the two camps.

I don’t take issue with Ezra’s broader point, but if past experience is prologue, sub-Cabinet personnel will not have direct access to the President.  Not only will their own Department heads not approve, the entire NSC apparatus is designed to force consensus through carefully established channels (some would say stovepipes).  To put it bluntly, sub-Cabinet officers serve at the pleasure of the Department head, not the President, and while Obama probably could save their hide, he may choose not to do so (see Power, Samantha: primary season).

This is not to say that Obama won’t change the system.  He could, for example, set up something like the dissent channel at the Department of State, which gives junior foreign service officers the opportunity to raise policy concerns without risking their careers.  In fact, Obama should do just that, even if every member of his Cabinet fiercely opposes it.

But if he doesn’t, people like Power and Danzig are unlikely to have access to the President.  It’s one thing for an Assistant Secretary to have a direct line to the Secretary, bypassing the relevant Undersecretaries (and Deputy Secretary), but it would be a whole different order of magnitude for someone outside the White House to maintain direct contact with the President.  The obverse also is true:  if Presidents want advice from particular people, they put them on their own staff, not in a secondary position in a distant Department.

Perhaps the best example of this is John Bolton, who served as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control before being named U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.  Powell and Armitage hated Bolton and often avoided working with him, both because he didn’t understand even the most basic concepts of teamwork and because he was widely regarded as as Cheney’s spy at Foggy Bottom.  In fact, at the time of Bolton’s appointment to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., many analysts speculated whether it had as much to do with Rice’s desire to get Bolton out of the building as it did with the notion of assigning an attack dog to Turtle Bay.

If folks like Danzig and Power feel the need to reach out to Obama, they’re far more likely to go through someone they trust within the bureaucracy than to contact the President directly.

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John Bolton — John Bolton! — offers his reaction to the appointment of Susan Rice as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations:

John R. Bolton, who was one of Mr. Bush’s ambassadors at the United Nations, would not discuss Ms. Rice’s selection, but said it was unwise to elevate the position to the cabinet again.

“One, it overstates the role and importance the U.N. should have in U.S. foreign policy,” Mr. Bolton said. “Second, you shouldn’t have two secretaries in the same department.”

Apparently Bolton has forgotten that Jeane J. Kirkpatrick held Cabinet rank in the Reagan administration.  Last I checked, nobody has ever suggested that she was a second Secretary of State, or that her role somehow overstated the “role and importance the U.N. should have in U.S. foreign policy.”  If they had, Kirkpatrick herself probably would have laughed them out of the room.

This demonstrates just how far removed Bolton is from the mainstream of foreign policy:  he can’t bring himself to be gracious about the appointment of the successor to the man who succeeded him.  I’m not arguing for intellectual dishonesty here, but all Bolton had to say was “I congratulate Dr. Rice and wish her the best.  That said. . .blah blah blah. . .I continue to freaking hate the UN. . .blah blah blah.”

Setting aside the obvious ax he has to grind (or is it a wrecking ball?), Bolton argument that elevating the post to Cabinet rank somehow creates a second Secretary of State reminds me of a friend of a friend who was yammering on about how she didn’t think that beauty was that important in a relationship, to which my friend, who happens to be quite attractive, smiled sweetly and said, “Jealous?”

It’s must be galling to see others get what you never had: respect.  It must be doubly galling to know that, unlike Bolton, Ambassador Rice will have the ear of her President.  Oh, and that she’ll actually get confirmed. And that even leading Republicans will vote for her.

I’d say I feel Bolton’s pain but I’d be lying.

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If, as expected, Barack Obama is elected in ten days, attention will turn almost immediately to the transition.  Several friends close to the Obama campaign have shared some of the speculation they’ve heard on who will be named to Obama’s foreign policy team.  Several other bloggers, including Steve Clemons and Marc Ambinder, have heard similar rumblings.

There are two problems with such rumors.  First, as one of the commenters over at Steve’s site noted, they usually are little more than trial balloons designed to find out what folks think of a particular candidate.  Perhaps the best recent example of this were the stories that Evan Bayh was a sure thing for Obama’s VP.

Second, as one of my friends said to me recently, “people are anxious about Obama winning, but they’re just as (if not more) anxious about whether they’re going to be offered a job.”  I’ve heard that too — in fact, it’s not just concern about being offered a job, but also worrying about whether they’ll be offered the right kind of job.  If past is prologue, it is often the candidate who starts the rumor in order to advance his or her own cause.  Most of the time, it doesn’t work.

Given the degree to which the Obama team has managed to remain leak-free so far, I find it hard to believe that its discipline would start breaking down now, especially given the fact that, as Ambinder reported, most senior campaign staff have excluded themselves from transition deliberations in order to remain focused on winning the election.  In addition, Obama remains focused on the campaign, meaning he is unlikely to havesigned off on any of these appointments.

One rumor I’ve heard (as has Steve) is that Obama will announce a number of key appointments as early as Friday, November 7th in order to speed up public vetting and, to the degree possible, Senate confirmation.  If that’s the case, I’m guessing that any announcement will be limited to the national security team (State, Defense, National Security Advisor), the Attorney-General, and the Secretaries of Homeland Security and Treasury.

I’ll leave speculation on the last three to others more qualified than me, but I would like to offer my thoughts on who is (and who should be) on the short list for the first three (as well as their Deputies and the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations).  To be clear, this is more speculation than reporting.

Secretary of Defense:  The most likely scenario has Obama keeping current SecDef Robert Gates for at least one year, and appointing a key Obama team member as Deputy Secretary — probably either Richard Danzig , who was Secretary of the Navy under Clinton, or Scott Gration, who is a retired three-star general.  The deputy will then step in after learning the ropes.  The other strong contender is Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed, but I would be surprised if Gates doesn’t stay for at least six months.  The long-shot outsider is Wesley Clark, who has not played a prominent role in the Obama campaign.

National Security Advisor:  The safe money is on Susan Rice, who has been one of Obama’s top foreign policy aides during the campaign, and has managed the 300-odd (now probably closer to 600) members of the two dozen foreign policy advisory teams.  Susan would be a fine choice, but I’m not sure that she’s a lock.  Some are suggesting Gregory Craig, who headed policy planning in State under Clinton and served as one of Clinton’s attorneys during the impeachment trial (only to break with the Clintons fairly early in the campaign).  Although that certainly is plausible, I think Craig may be a better fit as Deputy Secretary at State.  I’ve heard through the grapevine that James Steinberg, who currently is managing the foreign policy transition team and who served as Deputy National Security Advisor in the Clinton Administration, also is a strong contender.

Should either Craig or Steinberg get the top post, then Rice probably would be named Deputy National Security Advisor (the other two are unlikely to serve in that role).  Other possible candidates include Dennis McDonough, who formerly served as Tom Daschle’s chief foreign policy advisor; Mark Lippert, who has been Obama’s chief foreign policy aide in the Senate; and Sarah Sewell, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Peacekeeping Operations in the Clinton Administration.  Samantha Power, who also served on Obama’s staff is a long-shot, but I think she’s more likely to be named Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (she would be an outstanding choice).  All four have been part of Obama’s inner circle of foreign policy advisors (although Power had to resign after calling Hillary a “monster”), but none are senior enough to get the top job.

State:  Joe Biden is likely to play a central role in foreign policy decision-making, and may serve as a de facto Secretary of State.  That means that certain individuals who otherwise would be interested in the job, may pass on it.  Among Obama’s current advisors, Anthony Lake, who served as National Security Advisor in the Clinton Administration, would be a strong contender, but I hear that he has made it pretty clear that he’s not interested.  Other names I’ve heard include Chuck Hagel, Richard Lugar, John Kerry, and Bill Richardson.  Although Obama will want to demonstrate bipartisanship, he would get significant pushback from Democrats were he to appoint Republicans to both State and DOD.  That would exclude Hagel and Lugar, unless Gates doesn’t stay.

That leaves Richardson and Kerry.  Given the fairly dynamic figures that have held the post more recently, Obama will want someone who can be an effective leader with the capacity to push back against Biden (when necessary).  He also should pick someone who can fix what’s wrong with the current bureaucracy, including the challenges facing existing foreign assistance and public diplomacy operations.  That pretty much excludes both Kerry and Richardson, who are neither assertive nor reformers.

Steve Clemons believes that, if those are the choices, Obama should go with Kerry — largely because of Clemons’s concerns (which I share) about Richardson’s temperament, mistreatment of staff, and tendency toward personal self-aggrandizement.  Richardson also might face the toughest confirmation fight, given his erratic tenure as Secretary of Energy and a talent for exaggeration that exceeds even Joe Biden’s.

But I’m not so high on Kerry either.  Despite his brilliant speech at the convention, Kerry is, in many ways, a slightly younger version of Warren Christopher, Clinton’s first Secretary of State.  Christopher was a weak Secretary, lacking the energy to reform the Department (not that his three successors did much better) or the charisma to influence policy.  Kerry also would reinforce the now-outdated perception of the Department as a striped pants-wearing East Coast elite out of touch with mainstream America.

There are two other factors concerning Kerry that Steve may not have considered — neither of which is likely to prevent him from taking the job, but still should be remembered as we discuss the possibility of it.  First (and sadly to say), Ted Kennedy probably doesn’t have long to live; Kerry may hesitate to leave his state with two fairly junior Senators (then again he may not).  Second, assuming that Chris Dodd wants to continue playing a central role in managing the Congressional response to the financial crisis, Kerry is next in line to succeed Biden as Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee.  Again, that may not prevent him from taking the job, but I could see Obama encouraging him to play that role for at least a couple of years.

So where does that leave us?  I see four likely scenarios:

• Obama goes with Reed, Danzig, or Gration at DOD, enabling him to pick Lugar or Hagel at State;
• Obama picks Kerry or Richardson;
• Obama picks a younger, more dynamic figure from his inner circle (Danzig, Rice, or Craig are the most likely);
• Obama goes long and makes an unexpected pick.

If it’s the fourth scenario, let me throw out some names:  former Vice President Al Gore; former Senator Gary Hart (who has done some of the more creative thinking out there); and former Congressman (and 9-11 Commission co-chair) Lee Hamilton.  Gore would have the gravitas, the ability to push back when Biden gets a bit assertive, and experience in trying to reform government institutions.  Hart also has those qualities, although his track record as a reformer is more the result of his post-Senatorial career promoting change from outside the political process.  Hamilton flunks the dynamic leader test, but his leadership on the 9-11 Commission demonstrates that he understands the structural challenges.

Let me suggest three other possibilities, all of which would pass the dynamic leader and reformer tests: Russ Feingold, Barbara Boxer, and Eric Holder.  Neither Feingold or Boxer has much executive experience, but Hagel, Lugar, and Kerry don’t either.  Of the two, I think Feingold is more likely, if only because James Doyle, a Democrat, would appoint his replacement, while Schwartzenegger would pick Boxer’s.

Holder, who served as Deputy Attorney-General in the Clinton Administration, is usually viewed as a leading candidate for the top job at Justice.  But when Obama announced his national security advisory group back in June, Holder was on the list.  He certainly passes the dynamism test, and he also should be able to shake up the foreign policy apparatus.

In terms of who definitely won’t get the job, my money is on Richard Holbrooke, who would have been the frontrunner had Gore won in 2000.  Holbrooke is smart, capable, and has the confidence to be an effective leader, push back against against Biden, and reform the foreign policy apparatus.  Unfortunately, he also has a track record of angering the wrong people at the wrong time, and treats his staff as abysmally as Richardson does.  According to what I’ve heard, neither Rice nor Lake like him much.  CQ’s inclusion of him as one of the three most likely candidates (along with Rice and Richardson) is laughable, especially given the fact that he was consciously excluded from the senior foreign policy advisory team created after Obama brought the Clintonistas on board.

Deputy Secretary of State is a much more significant position than it used to be — Richard Armitage, Robert Zoellick, and John Pointdexter all were important players during the Bush years, and both Zoellick and Pointdexter left cabinet-level positions to take the job.  If Obama goes with one of the more senior figures as Secretary, then he’ll want someone younger and more dynamic to lead the charge on foreign affairs reform.  As I noted earlier, Gregory Craig would be a solid choice, although his role as Elian Gonzalez’s father’s attorney may hurt his chances for confirmation (something he wouldn’t face were he to be named National Security Advisor).  Susan Rice also would be a good pick, although my gut says she’ll want to stay closer to the White House.  If he doesn’t get one of the top two jobs at Defense, Richard Danzig also is a possibility.  Two other possibilities are Morton Halperin, who served as head of policy planning under Albright, among other positions over the years; and Dennis Ross, Clinton’s Middle East guru.

Some Presidents have made the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations a Cabinet-level position.  Bush did not (thank God in the case of John Bolton); Obama should do so, even if he does not name someone in the near future.

In terms of who would be best for the job, Obama should pick someone who not only can play the role effectively, but will be seen as credible advocate to the rest of the world.  My choice would be Harold Hongju Koh, current Dean of Yale Law School and former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor in the Clinton years (full disclosure:  Harold is my former boss and a close friend) — although he’s far more likely to be on any short list for the Supreme Court.  Another possibility is former Senator Timothy Wirth, who now heads the U.N Foundation.  A third is former Deputy Secretary of Treasury Stuart Eisenstadt, though he is more likely a candidate for Secretary of Treasury or U.S. Trade Representative.

So who do I want and who do I think will get it?  First, here’s who I would like to see named:

• Secretary of Defense:  Jack Reed or Richard Danzig (although I could live with Gates staying on);
• Deputy, DOD:  Danzig or Gration
• National Security Advisor:  Susan Rice or Jim Steinberg
• Deputy, NSC:  Susan Rice if she doesn’t get the top job, Mark Lippert if she does
• Secretary of State:  Chuck Hagel (unless Gates stays on, in which case I’d like to see Russ Feingold)
• Deputy, DOS:  Greg Craig or Mort Halperin
• USUN:  Harold Koh

Now here’s who I think will get it:

• Secretary of Defense: Robert Gates
• Deputy, DOD:  Richard Danzig
• National Security Advisor:  Jim Steinberg
• Deputy, NSC:  Susan Rice
• Secretary of State:  Bill Richardson
• Deputy, DOS:  Greg Craig
• USUN:  Tim Wirth

Share your ideas in the comments below.

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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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Marc Ambinder has a hunch that Obama’s VP choice will be Richard Lugar.

Here are some of the arguments for Lugar:

• He was an able Chairman (and more recently, ranking member) of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  Like Biden, he would give the ticket an elder statesman with significant foreign policy gravitas.
• He often supports or even champions causes that gave conservatives indigestion (stem cells, climate change, the United Nations, the Law of the Sea Treaty, even the International Criminal Court).
• He served as a mentor to Obama when the latter joined the SFRC, and they worked together to secure passage of the Lugar-Obama initiative on reducing stockpiles of conventional weapons.
• He has, over the past two years, been among the most vocal Republican critics of the Administration’s handling of the Iraq War.
• He’s good on climate change and favors increased CAFE standards.
• He’d probably be an even better bet than Bayh to bring Indiana to the Obama column.  And he might also help in other states like Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, and Missouri.
• As Jonathan Martin notes, he has, on several occasions, defended Obama, most recently by criticizing Lieberman’s latest rant.
• He is to Obama as McCain was to Kerry.

Here’s are some of the arguments against Lugar:

• He’s a social conservative.  You can find his voting record on abortion (through 2006) here. He’s opposed to gay marriage (voting for the Defense of Marriage Act and supporting cloture votes on the Marriage Amendment).
• His selection would push some folks (particularly Hillary dead-enders) into the McCain camp, particularly if the latter chooses a pro-choice VP.
• He voted for the war back in 2003, and largely supported the Administration’s positions for the next three years.
• If you want to put a Republican critic of the war on the ticket, Hagel would be a much better choice.
• His main passion, other than foreign affairs, is agriculture.  He’s a strong supporter of the current subsidy system as well as ethanol.
• His energy plan envisons roles for “clean” coal, nuclear power, and enhanced domestic oil production.
• Just yesterday, he published an op-ed in the Evansville Courier-Journal outlining his strong support for lifting the moratorium on offshore drilling.
• As Chairman of the SFRC, he often failed to stand up to the Bush Administration.  In the case of John Bolton, for example, he voted to move the nomination out of the SFRC.  According to what a reliable source close to Lugar told me at the time, the Administration had threatened to kill some of his pet projects (the source did not say which) if he did not stay in line.
• He’s not just wonky, he’s unbelievably boring.  He will not ignite passion in the base, nor in the general public.  In fact, he will put people to sleep.
• He’s a consummate Washington insider.
• The netroots, who already are very unhappy with Obama, would revolt.  Some may choose to sit out or find someone else to support.
• Four years ago, Kerry flirted with McCain, who ultimately actively campaigned for Bush.  That hurt Kerry and only helped Bush.  Obama doing the same with Lugar would make it look like Democrats can’t pick one of their own for VP.
• He’s older than McCain (76).

If Obama is absolutely wedded to choosing a Hoosier, I guess that Lugar would be better than Bayh. But if he wants an old white guy from Indiana, why not Lee Hamilton?  He’s only a year older (almost to the day), and he’s far better than Lugar.

At one time, I was intrigued by the idea of Lugar on the ticket.  These days, however, I don’t think it’s even remotely a good idea.  I think it hurts Obama with his base without generating any real passion among independents.  My gut says that he costs Obama as many (if not more) votes as he brings.

In the end, there are better choices.  Biden has almost all of Lugar’s positives without any of his negatives (except for his initial vote in favor of the war).  He or Sebelius (now that Clark is out of the running) remain at the top of my list.

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As I’ve noted in my two previous posts, I’m both a fan and a critic of the United Nations.  But if there’s one thing the United Nations does really really really badly, it’s human rights.

It wasn’t always this way.  Thanks in part to the leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt, the early years of the United Nations adopted both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Genocide Convention.  Over the next several decades, a number of other important treaties followed, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention against Torture, and the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, among others.

Lately, however, not so much.  The UN Commission on Human Rights became so disreputable — by doing things like electing Libya as chair and failing to take action on Rwanda — that the UN decided to abolish it and replace it with a new body that would address many of its shortcomings.

During the 2005 UN Millennium Summit, the General Assembly agreed to the creation of a new Human Rights Council, supposedly putting into place safeguards that would prevent similar problems in the future.  Sadly, the United States chose not to play a central role in the negotiations over how the Council would be constituted or how it organizes itself.  Thank you, John Bolton, you self-righteous paleocon jerk.

(Full disclosure:  Steve Clemons, Scott Paul (both of the Washington Note), Don Kraus (my successor as CEO of Citizens for Global Solutions) and I organized the successful opposition to the Bolton nomination.)

(And for the UN wonks out there, yes I know I’m oversimplifying this timeline.  But please keep in mind that I’m not writing for you.)

So there we were, a new start, a new opportunity to do serious human rights work.

Whoopsie.

Sigh.

Today we have a body that in many ways is worse than its predecessor.  There are a lot of issues that the Council should be looking at these days — Darfur, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Burma, Pakistan, and Iraq, to name just a few.  Instead, the it has spent almost all of its time on one issue:  Israel.

The reasons for this have to do not with human rights in that country –- which, to be clear, should be looked at, as should human rights issues in every country.  Rather it’s the product of those who currently sit on the Council.  Dictatorships make up over half the Council’s membership. They have spotlighted Israel to deflect attention from the human rights abusers within their own ranks, as well as to stick it to the West (and, to be clear, Israel).

Meanwhile, the Bush Administration continues to refuse to engage the Council, deciding not to stand for election and even failing to send an Ambassador to Council meetings.  Of course that’s assuming it could even get elected to the Council, given its own human rights record.  Either way, its actions have only encouraged the misbehavior and discouraged those who would stand up to such nonsense.

And then, late last week, we have the latest outrage:

A former spokesman for Cuba’s foreign ministry was appointed this week to head the United Nations Human Rights Council’s advisory committee.  Radio Rebelde says Miguel Alfonso Martinez, is president of the Cuban Society of International Law, was appointed this Monday to head the Advisory Committee of the UN Human Rights Council.

Oy vey.  Oh wait — saying that might get me investigated by the Council.

This isn’t the first bad appointment either.  Richard Falk, a Princeton professor who has compared Israeli policy in the Gaza Strip to Nazi Germany, is the Council’s Special Rapporteur on. . . wait for it. . .Israel.  And Jean Ziegler, who once helped Muammar Qaddafi establish a peace prize named after the dictator and who has praised, among others, Robert Mugabe and Fidel Castro, was elected to the Council’s Advisory Committee.

The Council has more than a bad joke.  It’s a black eye for the UN and and embarrassment to the entire world.  Furthermore, it has become a convenient whipping boy for the paleocons here in the United States.

It’s time to start over. . .again.

Maybe the third time will be the charm.

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The Star Trek character, not the California college.

George Bush has long been on the record as hating opposing the International Criminal Court and its evil plan to feed American babies to wolves. Shortly after taking office, Bush announced that he was “unsigning” the treaty, an event that troglyoconservative John Bolton called “the happiest moment of my government service.”

Read the rest of this entry »

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