If the new president is serious about Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State as he follows Lincoln’s “team of rivals” approach, Barack Obama should consider John McCain as Secretary of Defense.
When the two meet on Monday, at Obama’s suggestion it turns out, “sitting down in a serious way” to “find common ground,” the discussion might include a role for McCain in the new administration.
McCain’s maverick history makes it unlikely that Senate Republicans will look to him for leadership. (One of them, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, is already accusing him of betraying Republican principles.)
Despite campaign differences over the past in Iraq, Obama and McCain, if they teamed up, would be faced with implementing an exit strategy being firmed up in the last days of the Bush Administration…
On our Thursday radio show, we took a look at some of the speculation around President Elect Obama’s appointments for his cabinet and staff. I’d like to summarize some of our discussion and add to it with some suggestions and analysis of where we stand so far. The first choice, of course, was Barack’s selection of Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff. He’s certainly qualified, but he represents the sharp elbows of partisan division which have characterized Congress for far too long and stands in denial of Obama’s goals of a post-partisan administration. Someone with a greater history of reaching across the aisle would have been better, so we gave a partial thumbs-down to Rahm for this post.
The second, and much larger focus of our discussion was on the position of Secretary of State. There has been far too much discussion of John Kerry for that position. Mind you, this comes from somebody who was never one of the 2004 “John Kerry Hates America” contingent. Hell, as an opponent of the Iraq war, I actually voted for the guy, though I held my nose and thought he was a flawed candidate. But the fact is that Kerry’s military service, while admirable, did not rise the the expansive, diplomatic levels of people such as Colin Powell who commanded an entire theater, along with being head of the Joint Chiefs and a number of other positions of international responsibility. Nor does his domestic experience rise to the levels of Condi Rice or Madeline Allbright, with their backgrounds in international affairs. He has the same junkets that most Senators take, but that’s hardly a formula for a Secretary of State.
We had a radical and more mending suggestion, though I’m not sure if Obama would consider it. How about David Petraeus? He has not only a military record in warfare, but in managing a coalition of leaders from various countries and experience in dealing with problems specific to the Middle East. He is also wildly popular with the opposition party and would serve as a silent mea culpa regarding his success in Iraq, which only the most hard core partisans would deny. Petraeus was a success and likely deserves a career in the civilian sector. This would be a good start and would set your bona fides in terms of a post-partisan administration.
You have many other posts to fill, but here is one name to consider who might be good for any of several of them… Joe Lieberman. This could be an appointment where you reap multiple benefits. You have claimed to be someone who also crosses party lines and stands up to the party machine while you were out on the campaign trail. Right now the wolves are at the door and your party is getting ready to send Lieberman to the curb. But he is an experienced member of the party and quite popular with the opposition. Rather than allow him to be stripped of his party chairmanship and power positions, driving him into the arms of the Republicans, you could give him a prestigious position in the cabinet. Not only do you further your claim to leaving partisan bickering behind, but your party is mollified when a new Democrat takes his Senate seat. It’s something to think about.
If you go through and stock your appointments with nothing but Clinton-era leftovers and hard core Democratic Party warriors, one of the basic pillars of your campaign dissolves. Obviously you will need to name some trusted insiders who have worked hard for you and proven themselves over time, so I’m not saying you need an entire cabinet full of enemies. But if you take a few chances and really reach across the aisle, and you may find your road far easier in the years to come.
October 16th, 2008 By SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
Christina Lamb, of The Times of London, has provided one of the best assessments of the ground realities in Afghanistan. She should know as she has been reporting from Afghanistan for 20 years. I strongly recommend that her present analysis should be carefully read.
One has to be patient as this is a longish report where she argues why the US and the NATO forces cannot beat the Taliban.
Here are the excerpts from Lamb’s report: “Most alarming is the way Kabul has been encircled by the Taliban, prompting a sense of being under siege both among Afghans and foreigners, behind their concrete blocks and armed guards.
“Of four highways into the capital from the south, east, west and north, built with hundreds of millions of foreign aid money, only the northern route is considered safe. Even that has become prone to rocket attacks.
“Complicating matters is the fact that the Taliban are not the only source of violence. Like a franchise of the disgruntled, there are also militants from the Hezb-i-Islami of the warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Al-Qaeda militants from the Jala-luddin Haqqani network based in the Pakistani tribal area of Waziristan, drug networks, armed criminals and corrupt elements inside and outside the government.
“With most of the population unemployed, there are plenty of people who will happily fire a rocket for a few dollars. ‘It’s not the Taliban that are winning – it’s the government who are losing,’ says Haroun Mir, deputy director of the Afghan Centre for Research and Policy Studies.
“ ‘The Taliban are mining in a sea of acquiescence, a sullen, frightened acquiescence,’ agrees a western diplomat gloomily. ‘If you ask people, they don’t want Taliban; but if it’s a choice between them and corrupt, predatory government, they prefer Taliban’. If there is one positive to be found in the mess, it is that from London to Washington all agree that the situation is critical and things have to change.
“So bad is the situation that British and American forces are indirectly funding the Taliban as they get their own fuel and water supplies through. The private contractors they use estimate that 25% of the $4,000 per truck paid for security ends up with the Taliban. To read the complete report please click here...
Photo above courtesy The Times: British soldiers in Afghanistan - The Stress shows.
Elsewhere, Amy Goodman’s article is also worth reading…Please click here…
History tells us that even the best foreign soldiers, and great conquerors and diplomats, in the world have met their nemesis in Afghanistan. So it would do no harm even if presidential hopefuls Obama/McCain too leaf through the past and recent history.
The intelligent US soldier Petraeus is likely to discover that Afghanistan has been a graveyard of the ambitions of the mighty empire builders — including Alexander the Great, the Great Mughals, the clever British colonialists, and the powerful Soviets. All of them failed to subdue its hardy and fiercely independent people inhabiting the toughest of mountainous terrain.
What have the US/NATO forces achieved in the past six years? Is there any other option to sort out the Afghanistan mess? General Petraeus has one month before he takes up the challenging Afghanistan assignment. I strongly recommend that he, or any other person interested in Afghanistan, should read at least three books to get an inkling of the enormous challenge ahead.
In Afghanistan the invading forces are fighting not just ‘militants/terrorists’ but a centuries old way of life and culture that have flourished to this day. So the biggest challenge before Petraeus/NATO forces is how to win the “War against Terror” without losing forever the goodwill of the people in Afghanistan/Pakistan. (In an interview this week General Petraeus expected the fight against the insurgents in Afghanistan and Pakistan to get worse before it got better).
General Petraeus must know that “low intensity war” is different from a full-fledged war and hence the strategy has to be different. In such long-lasting wars, the armed forces should play a stand-by role, leaving the civilians to tackle day-to-day exigencies. India learnt it the hard way. In fact, General Petraeus should seek active participation of seasoned Indian and Pakistani soldiers in his new enterprise.
Meanwhile to get a fascinating insight into the complex yet fascinating past (as well as present) of this part of the Indian subcontinent I recommend a newly-released book by a young British woman (Empires of the Indus — The Story of A River by Alice Albinia) that I read recently.
I quote from a review in the Financial Times: “Empires of the Indus is a magnificent book, a triumphant melding of travel and history into a compelling story of adventure and discovery. Alice Albinia has…a captivating account of her explorations through Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Tibet, taking us back in time to the earliest days. We have been drawn through an array of peoples, cultures, landscapes and stories.” More here…
Or the review by Nigel Collett (author of The Butcher of Amritsar: Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer). “She (Alice Albinia) traverses areas darkened by the fanatics of the Muslim world, areas from which the faint hearted of the west have been frightened by books such as Bernard-Henri Levy’s account of the murder of Daniel Pearl. Read the rest of this entry »
Iraqi Legislator Mithal al-Alusi: Punished for visiting Israel.
So how is Iraq’s experiment in Western-style democracy coming along, a curious American might ask?
Judging from the recent dust-up over Iraqi legislator Mithal al-Alusi, who decided to visit Israel to attend an anti-terror conference - Iraqis is still have a long way to go. Mr. al-Alusi has been stripped of his parliamentary immunity and is about to be charged with treason for traveling to the Jewish state - all of which has sparked a debate in Iraq about the potential benefits of relations with Israel and the suggestion by some - that Israel would be a better ally for Iraq than Iran.
But according to this article from Iraq’s Kitabat newspaper, there is something more sinister at play: It’s all part of Washington’s ploy to acclimatize Iraqis to something that not long ago would have been unthinkable.
Al-Alusi, who is so loyal to the occupation, which is where he came from and where he will return, like all the others in the National Assembly of donkeys, serve only one religion - complete submission to Uncle Sam. They differ in their support for this or that minor item, but their one and only master is the Lord of the Green Barn [referring to the fortified Green Zone], which is also the Lord of his chosen people [Israel] and the rapist of occupied Palestine.
It’s the game of the American occupation that steers the debate over which side would be better to follow and collaborate with - Iran or Israel. … Now the question of “visits to Israel” and calls to “reestablish relations with her” is a viable topic of debate, whereas before it was the most taboo of taboos. … Friends of Iran have sparked the uproar over this friend of Israel [Al-Alusi], but it’s all just electoral clatter being permitted by the American master to create a huge debate about the advantages of friendship with Israel.
The President and Gen. David Petraeus exchanged betting metaphors in planning the Surge, according to Woodward’s new book to be published next week.
In January 2007, when Bush told the new Iraq commander that the Surge was an attempt to “double down,” Petraeus replied, “Mr. President, this is not double down. This is all in.”
Five years and thousands of American lives after the invasion, a disconnected Commander-in-Chief was still being briefed with figures of speech that recall Colin Powell’s Pottery Barn warning, “You break it, you own it.”
In a preview of “The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008,” the Washington Post describes “an administration riven by dissension, either unwilling or slow to confront the deterioration of its strategy in Iraq…
“Publicly, Bush maintained that U.S. forces were ‘winning’; privately, he came to believe that the military’s long-term strategy of training Iraq security forces and handing over responsibility to the new Iraqi government was failing.”
Before the 2006 elections, according to Woodward, Bush asked for a review of the war “under the radar screen” after Condoleezza Rice challenged the wisdom of sending additional troops to Iraq. “You’re not getting a clear picture of what’s going on,” she reportedly told Bush, claiming that Don Rumsfeld was giving him “a fable, a story…that skirted the real problems.”
September 2nd, 2008 By SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist
First, who are Australian ‘Diggers’? Briefly, the words ‘mateship’ and ‘diggers’ are interchangeable in Australia. See here… To his delight the US army chief in Iraq, General David Petraeus, found them to be different and has a special word of praise for them.
The Australian has a story under the heading ‘Give me more Aussies, pleads general’. The report says: “David Petraeus would like more Australians to work alongside him as he assumes overall command of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars next month.
” ‘We are privileged to have them with us,’ he said. ‘They have initiative. They have a great work ethic and they have a wonderful sense of humour. They don’t hesitate to offer a view, even when not solicited…” More here…
Just as it seems that the Bush administration is on the point of signing off on that draft security agreement with the Iraqi government (WSJ), there are disturbing allegations that a cornerstone of the surge—the success of the “awakening groups”—may be on the point of collapse (McClatchy).
About Iraq the dueling pair
Have a very different take;
McCain thinks ’twas a good idea,
Obama a mistake.
Barack says that if he gets in
We’ll leave “I’ll set a day.”
While John says he won’t get us out
‘Til Petraeus says O.K.
So here’s the choice, one that’s quite clear
Not hard at all to see:
Move on from this unending quest
Or stay,
Come what may,
And pray,
For a day,
We can call it victory.
No, I’m not talking about replacing John McCain for this year’s election. While almost all of the political news from the weekend for McCain looked better suited to an M. Night Shymalan film, I don’t expect anyone to be rushing the Senator toward the door. But for the moment, let’s assume that Shaun Mullen was correct in his earlier column and Barack Obama wins in November. (By the way, Shaun, I get nervous whenever anyone starts counting chickens before beaks are visible.) If the GOP needs a candidate for the next cycle, would it be so far fetched to consider General David Petraeus?
This crossed my mind as I watched Morning Joe today over my morning… joe, and saw Petraeus walking the streets of Baghdad with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. There is a body of media accumulating, along with the General’s larger than life and still growing personal story, which are the makings of a dream portfolio for any potential candidate. Petraeus already has his signature on a strategy which took a botched and failing war and turned it around to the point where it now stands on the verge of handing a functional democracy over to the Iraqi people. He will shortly be in charge of a larger theater with responsibility over our expected efforts to turn things around in Afghanistan. Should he pull off similar, measurable success there, what better point to close out a decorated and highly successful military career and shift his focus to a different type of public service?
It is true that our nation has a less than stellar history when electing military men to the White House. U.S. Grant was, by all accounts, an ineffective drunkarnd who was either prone or blind to massive corruption in his own administration. Ike often gets glowing reviews among sentimental Americans, but most neutral observers admit that he was a hands off leader, content to let others slug it out in the muck while he rode above the fray, and had the good fortune of leading during possibly one of the easiest political eras in our history. The post war boom, with national pride at all time highs and the economy surging on the shoulders of the greatest generation, could probably have been led by a blind badger. But we have also begun to recognize that no one person can master all the disciplines required to run America, and if they surround themselves with competent advisors and staff, strong leadership and a good moral compass may be enough.
There are also advantages to having a candidate who comes from a place entirely outside the political system. A quick look at our current candidates provides a reminder of how much trash you drag along from such a background. Obama gets the worst of it in the media, given all the grease on his sleeves from years spent grinding through the Chicago machine. But McCain has a few bruises himself, from the Keating Five scandal to land grab questions, the Martin Luther King jr. holiday and more. Petraeus emerges from a lifetime of military service with no such skeletons in his closet. Granted, we would need to check for any serious personal scandals in his past, (questions completely inappropriate to ask while the man is leading two wars) but assuming there’s nothing worse than a couple of youthful highjinks or indiscretions it should be a fairly easy vetting process.
So how does Petraeus make it from the battlefields of Basra to the White House Rose Garden? He’s a New Yorker, born (natural born!) and bred. His wife is the daughter of another distinguished general, and his parents have a compelling story. (His father was an immigrant sea captain from the Netherlands.) You may not have heard, (snicker) but we’ve had a spot of trouble in the Empire State Governor’s Mansion of late, with one guy leaving because of “family issues” and the current Democratic resident admitting to a history of drug abuse and marital problems. The seat is up for grabs in 2010. Were Petraeus to retire in the early part of that year and jump into the fray, New Yorkers would likely be gaga over him as he returned victorious from the battlefields to a ticker tape parade in the Big Apple. It’s true that Hillary has hinted at a 2010 run, but her image has taken a beating during her bloody primary with Obama, and while New York is a majority Democratic state, we have a history of electing moderate Republicans as Governors.
From there the math becomes easy. If either McCain is president in 2012 or Obama looks strong, Petraeus could sit tight, gaining more executive administrative experience and waiting until 2016. (He will only be 64 at the time.) Should Obama look shakey or McCain decide - at 76 years of age - to not run for a second term, the General would find himself ideally positioned to throw his hat in the ring in 2012.
Crazy? Maybe. But this is American politics. Crazy is almost a requirement any more. Oh, but General…? Just one word of advice. If you come to Albany, do try to stay away from the hookers. There seems to be something in the water here…
The nation’s elected lawmakers of both parties have just spent two days pleading with two bureaucrats to give them some idea of when our young people will stop being killed and maimed thousands of miles from home.
Who empowered David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker to make the judgement that progress in Iraq was “fragile and reversible” and that consideration of any new withdrawals of American troops be delayed until the fall?
If George W. Bush has delegated these powers to two unelected employees of the US government, he is in dereliction of his duty as President…
No, I’m not talking about replacing John McCain for this year’s election. While almost all of the political news from the weekend for McCain looked better suited to an M. Night Shymalan film, I don’t expect anyone to be rushing the Senator toward the door. But for the moment, let’s assume that Shaun Mullen was correct