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Obama's New Team at State, Defense, NSC
By Robert Dreyfuss
The Wall Street Journal, evidently keen readers of this blog, devoted an editorial on Friday to my criticism of Barack Obama's foreign policy team. Its November 28 editorial, entitled "Obama's War Cabinet," quoted thus from a piece I posted here last week. The Journal began:
The names floated for Barack Obama's national security team "are drawn exclusively from conservative, centrist and pro-military circles without even a single -- yes, not one! -- chosen to represent the antiwar wing of the Democratic party." In his plaintive post this week on the Nation magazine's Web site, Robert Dreyfuss indulges in the political left's wonderful talent for overstatement. But who are we to interfere with his despair?
Despair might be too strong a word. But certainly glum fits. As the Journal gloats:
(3) CommentsDecember 1, 2008
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Mumbai Terror Could Cascade Across Region
By Robert Dreyfuss
The bloody terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, have the potential to cascade across the region. If Pakistan's army and intelligence service, which have long supported anti-India terrorist groups, are deemed responsible for the attacks, the results could be catastrophic.
In 2001, an attack on the Indian parliament, carried out by Pakistan-based Islamist terrorists, brought the two countries to the brink of nuclear war.
This time, even if it doesn't go that far, the results could be far deadlier than the attacks themselves, which killed more than a hundred people. The assault could upend the peace process now underway between Pakistan and India. That, in turn, would strengthen the hand of Pakistan's military establishment, which is already brooding about the new civilian government that replaced President Musharraf, the army dictator. And the army could use the renewed tension to redouble its alliance with radical-right, anti-Indian Muslim groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan. By doing so, the idea of negotiations between various Islamists components of the Taliban movement, on one hand, and the civilian governments of President Karzai in Afghanistan and President Zardari in Pakistan, on the other, might be put on indefinite hold.
(13) CommentsNovember 28, 2008
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The US-Iraq Deal Doesn't Bode Well
By Robert Dreyfuss
Secular and nationalist opponents of the Baghdad regime of Nouri al-Maliki failed, and spectacularly so, to block the US-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), and their failure is not a surprise. The ruling alliance of Shiite religious parties and Kurds, who moved forward with the tacit support of Iran, steamrollered opposition to the accord, which passed with at least 144 votes out of 198 members of parliament in attendance.
"A huge number of members left the country, supposedly on hajj [to Mecca] or for other reasons," said a leading Iraqi insider.
But, although the vote is a victory for Maliki, it says little about the future stability and security of the Iraqi state. And it says even less about the future of US-Iraq relations.
(10) CommentsNovember 27, 2008
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Obama's Foreign Policy Team
By Robert Dreyfuss
I hate to say I told you so, but here it goes.
In late September, in this column, I criticized Barack Obama for what I called a "pathetic" debate with John McCain, in which Obama got nearly everything about foreign policy wrong:
"He checked all the boxes. Barack ("Senator McCain is right") Obama couldn't find anything to disagree with the militarist Arizonan about. Support for NATO expansion? Check. Absurd anti-Russian diatribes? Check. Dramatic escalation of the war in Afghanistan? Check. I'm ready to attack Pakistan? Check. (Actually, on this one, McCain was the moderate!) Painful sanctions against Iran, backed up by the threat of force? Check. Blathering about the great threat from Al Qaeda? Check. It went on and on."
(23) CommentsNovember 23, 2008
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That Iranian "Bomb"? Relax.
By Robert Dreyfuss
With the Bush administration swirling around the drain -- get out the plunger! -- it's now time to stop hyperventilating about the "Iranian bomb." For goodness sakes, let it go!
Ever since the U.S. intelligence community concluded, in that famous National Intelligence Estimate a year ago, that Iran had halted its secret weapons program, assorted neocons and hawks have tried to continue sounding the alarm about Iran, with only limited success. With the election of Obama, now, the hawks are regrouping -- see, the formation of the bipartisan collection of hawks flocking together in United Against Nuclear Iran -- and the usual suspects at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) are venting their spleens. But it's clear that Iran isn't going to build a bomb next week, or next year, or even the year after, and that Obama will have lots and lots of time to deal with this problem in a leisurely manner. So relax.
Umm, Israelis? That means you, too.
(83) CommentsNovember 20, 2008
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Rewarding War Crimes
By Robert Dreyfuss
A doddering old former US secretary of state wants President-elect Obama to do more than keep Robert Gates on a secretary of defense. He suggests that Obama ought to retain W.'s policy of preventive, unilateral military assaults on, well, anyone we don't like.
No, it's not Henry Kissinger. George Shultz, who served under President Reagan, in an interview with the Washington Times, said that Bush's "doctrine of pre-emptive defense against terrorism" was "a controversial but important idea," adding:
"That is, that in this age where there are people who want to do damage to us through terrorist tactics, you want to be aggressive in trying to find out what might happen before it happens, and then stop it from happening; that is, take preventive action.(60) Comments
November 18, 2008
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Obama, Iran, and the US-Iraq SOFA
By Robert Dreyfuss
Why, after so many months, was the US-Iraq security pact approved now? True, the two countries were facing a deadline of December 31, when the UN authority for the occupation expires, but they could have gone back to the UN for a temporary extension or simply signed a bilateral statement not nearly as involved as the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA)approved yesterday by the Iraqi Cabinet.
Here's the reason, in my opinion. The election of Barack Obama changed Iran's calculus, and so Iran decided, very subtly, to shift to neutral on the pact. As a result, many politicians in Iraq who are either influenced by Iran or who are outright Iranian agents now support the pact. It's an important sign from Tehran to Obama that they're willing to work with the United States.
For months, the United States has blamed Iran for sabotaging the prospect for an agreement, and there's little doubt that had John McCain won the election, Iran would have concluded that the likelihood was very high that Iraq would be used as a base for attacking Iran over its nuclear program.
(28) CommentsNovember 17, 2008
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O'Hanlon Gives Obama Some Bad Advice
By Robert Dreyfuss
In today's Wall Street Journal, a top hawkish Democrat -- a supporter of Hillary Clinton in the primaries whose hardline views on Iraq forced Hillary to break with him -- gives Barack Obama some advice he doesn't need. This time, it's on Iraq.
In "How to Win in Afghanistan," Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution writes:
President-elect Barack Obama has wisely promised an increase in U.S. forces for Afghanistan. But his proposed minisurge of perhaps 15,000 more troops, on top of the 30,000 Americans and 30,000 NATO personnel now there, will not suffice as a strategy. More is needed. ...(95) Comments
November 14, 2008
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End of International Law, Part II
By Robert Dreyfuss
Last week, I wrote a post here about the emergence of a parallel new Bush admininstration doctrine that allows US forces to raid countries at will whenever supposedly "actionable intelligence" reveals the presence of bad guys.
Today, in the New York Times, there is explosive confirmation of that:
The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials. (73) Comments
November 10, 2008
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Obama and Iran
By Robert Dreyfuss
In the realm of foreign affairs, the two wars that America is fighting, in Iraq and Afghanistan, may have higher priority for President Obama than the war it isn't fighting, namely, with Iran. But the battle lines are being drawn already, on all sides of the Iran issue.
During the campaign, Obama stated repeatedly that he is prepared for unconditional, but well "prepared," talks with Tehran. Yesterday, seizing the moment, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote a meandering open letter to Obama, which included the following, according to the New York Times translation:
"I congratulate you for attracting the majority of votes in the election. As you know, opportunities that are bestowed upon humans are short lived. (103) Comments
November 7, 2008
The Dreyfuss Report
A chronicle of America's adventures in foreign policy and national security.
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