I am pleased to see that since my last post, the country has indeed begun following Iowa’s lead and Obama and Huckabee are surging in national polls. Frank Rich offered this explanation on these two candidates’ surge:

“Both men have a history of speaking across party and racial lines. Both men possess that rarest of commodities in American public life: wit. Most important, both men aspire (not always successfully) to avoid the hyper-partisanship of the Clinton-Bush era. Though their views on issues are often antithetical, Huckabee and Obama may be united in catching the wave of an emerging zeitgeist that is larger than either party’s ideology. An exhausted and disillusioned public may be ready for a replay of the New Frontier pitch of 1960.”

Rich is right on in this analysis. It’s clear that both candidates’ success is tied to a yearning by the public to get beyond the partisanship. The question I have is why are the other candidates in this race missing this clear public preference. What is interesting is that the apparent success of Huckabee and Obama has not yet seemed to change the tone of the other candidates. Hillary is still talking about the right-wing and the GOP candidates are still talking about Hillary and only Obama and Huckabee seem to be speaking across party lines. If these candidates are smart, they’ll stop trying to get ahead by attacking Obama and Huckabee and instead try to emulate their optimism and independent thinking.

I was privileged to know Elspeth Rostow for the past two and a half years.  Her office was two doors down from mine at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas.  She welcomed me to UT — and played a big roll in stimulating the new push towards global affairs campus-wide at UT that was what attracted me to move to Texas.  She was dean of the LBJ School in the late-1970s, and she was an important fixture throughout her career. She turned in her grades for the fall semester on Friday, and she passed away Sunday morning. Her insight and wit helped her influence the policy world and countless students (although she probably knew the count; she cared deeply, remembered most everyone, and meticulously followed up). I, along with many others, will miss her.

This past semester, I drifted away from the blog. I hope to reinvigorate my commitment, because the issues confronting us are truly interesting. But reflecting on Elspeth Rostow also reminds me of the goal of my blogging. Elspeth embodied many of the aspirations of the PSA. She enjoyed civilized policy debate; she was sharp and witty and did not accept foolish thinking, but she was never mean-spirited, and she presented her thoughts with such clarity that they often helped to resolve disputes — or at least define their parameters in a way that people could see what mattered and what didn’t in their differences. In educating generations of students in the policy-making process, she tried to impart a sense of historical perspective and of the limits of ideology.

In policy-making circles, she might be best-known for her relationship to Walt Rostow, President Johnson’s national security advisor whose theories of economic and political development helped lead the United States into Vietnam. The association with Johnson of course leads many people to think of her as a great Democrat and (not unreasonably) to presume a level of partisanship. But her own national service at the highest level came during the Reagan administration, when she served on several advisory commitees (e.g., the President’s Advisory Committee for Trade Negotiations) and was appointed to the board of the U.S. Institute for Peace. I suspect she was an ideal committee and board member, because she had the presence to enforce civility and to control an agenda — to make meetings productive. Her skills and perspective were recognized in both parties.

I will miss seeing Elspeth around the LBJ School, and I will miss her company at dinners and events. But we will all miss her style of discussion and debate. Thinking of her and other greats of her generation may help us to improve our own era of policy-making in global affairs.

The release several days ago of the new National Intelligence Estimate has been received with predictable responses by both Democrats and Republicans.  The Democrats argue that this NIE repudiates Bush’s hard line stance against Iran.  There are plenty of hardline commentators who just dismiss the report entirely.  Yesterday Chris Preble took Michael Ledeen to task for this approach. 

The hardliners are stuck between a rock a hard place.  If they concede that the report is accurate it harms their rationale for forceful action against Iran.  However, if they dismiss the report they must concede that if the intelligence agencies were wrong this time, who is to say that they weren’t wrong last time?  The hardliners’ justifications for military action could just as easily be dismissed since a fault in this current estimate calls into question the accuracy of previous estimates that are more dire.  I’ve yet to hear a good argument about why this one was simply a screw up and the other ones were the “the truth”. 

The Bush administration has chosen another tactic.  They argue that in fact this result justifies its hard line stance against Iran.  In speaking about the release of the NIE, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley said,

And it suggests that the President has the right strategy: intensified international pressure along with a willingness to negotiate a solution that serves Iranian interests while ensuring that the world will never have to face a nuclear armed Iran. The bottom line is this: for that strategy to succeed, the international community has to turn up the pressure on Iran – with diplomatic isolation, United Nations sanctions, and with other financial pressure – and Iran has to decide it wants to negotiate a solution.

The problem here is a common mistake of mistaking correlation with causality.  Is assumes that simply because the U.S. chose not talk with Iran and chose instead to follow a strategy of diplomatic isolation reinforced by a sabre rattling campaign, that Iran actually got the message and decided to halt its nuclear weapons program.  It’s possible, I suppose.  However, there are other possible explanations that many might consider a bit more plausible.  (more…)

Predictably, the release of the NIE on Iran has elicited howls of protest and rage from the “Iran-is-an-existential-threat-and-how-can-you-be-so-stupid-not-to-figure-that-out?” crowd. (“The Crowd”, for short).

I find most of these critiques to be pretty hysterical. (Both hysterical, as in hilarious, and hysterical, as in “Iran is an existential threat and how can you be so stupid not to figure that out?”) 

Particularly risible, however, is how the critics point to past intelligence failures as justification for dismissing the IC’s collective judgement this time around. It is the critics, however, who have a credibility gap.

Take, for example, Michael “Faster Please” Ledeen, Freedom Scholar at AEI, and one of the most outspoken critics of the Iranian regime, and of U.S. policy toward that regime.

Ledeen summarized the key findings of the NIE and, before launching his own interpretation of the “facts” asks:

“At this point, one really has to wonder why anyone takes these documents seriously.”

With all due respect, one wonders why anyone takes Michael Ledeen seriously.

This is, after all, the same Michael Ledeen who in April 2003 ominously warned that Iran might conduct a nuclear test by the fall of 2003. (Oops!)

This is the same Michael Ledeen who solemnly declared that Iran’s Supreme Leader was in failing health, and then in January 2007 broke the news that “Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, is dead.” (He’s still alive.)

And this is the same Michael Ledeen who reportedly told a group of Iranian expatriates living in Los Angeles to “Give me $20 million, and you’ll have your revolution.” (And give me $20 million dollars, and I’ll sell you a bridge.) (more…)

Here’s an idea.

Although the high price of oil is creating a much more attractive market for investment in the development of alternative energy sources and energy conservation, our historical experience has shown that this increase in investment will likely decrease if the price of oil goes down. As a result, current investment levels in alternative energy are likely less than they would be if there was more certainty in the market that oil prices would not dip below an established minimum price.

While the costs of America’s over-dependence on oil are well known — supporting dictatorships, indirectly funding terrorism, harming US economy and global environment, etc. – the political costs of promoting a gas tax provide additional market certainty that oil prices will not dip so low as alternative energy sources begin to emerge so as to undermine the growth of alternative energies (as happened in the 1980s) have thus far proven insurmountable.

One way of creating this level of market certainty and therefore of further promoting investment in alternative energy sources and efficiency would be for the United States government to pass a gas tax at a level per gallon to be determined, that would only go into effect if oil prices fell below a certain value per barrel. All tax increases gained from this tax method would be offset by decreases in the payroll tax (a more progressive tax outcome).

If, for example, a gas tax were passed that would not go into effect until the price of oil per barrel dropped below sixty dollars a barrel (assuming that as the agreed minimum cost), no tax would be imposed under current conditions. If prices were to below this level, the tax would kick in and be updated quarterly to increase the price of oil per gallon to the equivalent of sixty dollars per barrel. Payroll taxes would be reduced by a fractional percentage to make sure that the overall cost to American consumers would be zero, although the wealthiest Americans would end up paying slightly more because many people in this group do not pay significant amounts of payroll tax relative to their incomes. Investors would know for certain that oil prices would never drop below $60 a barrel and could therefore plan, and act, accordingly.

Passing such a law would give a strong push to investors to more strongly promote the development of alternative energy sources and would make clear that the American government is serious about reducing our reliance on oil and imported oil. Taking this step would also itself have the potential to reduce oil prices.

What do readers think?

By now most of us are aware that Mitt Romney will deliver an address Thursday entitled “Faith in America.” If I were a skeptic, I would say that this is Romney’s not-so-sneaky way of stealing back the early lead in Iowa by convincing the Evangelical Christians that the two faiths aren’t as different as they think. If I were a sympathizer, I would say that Romney is merely defending his faith, which has been unfairly attacked from day one. But I am neither a skeptic nor a sympathizer.

(more…)

First the good news – Republican Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee came out and endorsed the position taken by Senator McCain on the use of water boarding:

“Senator McCain on this issue is right that torture should not be the policy of the United States of America” Huckabee told reporters in Iowa.

As we have discussed on this blog, the country needs the next President to break from the pro-torture posture of the Bush Administration — it is good to see Huckabee join McCain in opposition to torture.

Now for the bad news – U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to name Paul Wolfowitz, the former deputy defense secretary and an architect of the Iraq war, as chair of the International Security Advisory Board. This is a terrible idea and my organization has just come out and urged her to reconsider:

“Citizens for Global Solutions strongly urges Secretary Rice to reconsider her decision to appoint Paul Wolfowitz to the chairmanship of the State Department International Security Advisory Board. His lack of judgment on critical security policy matters as deputy Defense Secretary should preclude him from consideration for this prestigious and key post. The Board is designed to provide the Secretary of State with important independent insight and advice on all aspects of arms control, disarmament, international security, and related aspects of public diplomacy. Mr. Wolfowitz has shown that his analysis on weapons of mass destruction and related security matters cannot be trusted; therefore he is an inappropriate choice for this position.”

I’ll try and pop back on later with a few more details on both matters.

While the news from the Annapolis conference has been mixed, there was one positive development for American foreign policy in the region. The attendance of Syria (even though it was at the deputy foreign minister level) signals a willingness on behalf of the Assad regime to perhaps work its way out of the Iranian orbit in the region (Iran wanted them to stay at home). This is welcome news for those who seek to reduce the influence of Iran and a more peaceful Middle East. Rapprochement with Syria would yield significant dividends in various arenas in the Middle East, and, if this opening is real, it is an opportunity to pry an ally away from Iran and make strategic inroads into Damascus.

The recent news from Beirut is also promising. The Syrians and Americans have apparently agreed on a presidential candidate for Lebanon, army commander Michael Suleiman. Apparently there has been serious cooperation on this front for some time and hopefully it can continue into other areas. The overlap between American policy and Syrian influence is considerable. Syria shares a large border with Iraq and has accepted a large number of Iraqi refugees. Unfortunately, refugees are not the only things crossing the Syrian border. Weapons and insurgents have been coming into Iraq from Syria since 2003, sometimes with tacit support with Syrian regime. (more…)

The latest polls out of Iowa are showing some very exciting signs for those of us who hope for a president who can bring this country together. Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee are now the preferred candidates in Iowa and both symbolize a new politics for our country that could offer a new approach to policymaking based on hope and opportunity, rather than fear. The candidates have very different positions on many issues, especially social issues, but I actually think they have a lot in common in their approach to politics, which is badly needed in Washington. Both stand out for NOT taking the opportunity to score political points bashing their opponent. Huckabee was asked about his views on illegal immigrants in the last debate and instead of ignoring his record to make cheap personal attacks on Romney (a la Giuliani), he answered the question directly and defended his views rather than changing them (a la Romney). “In all due respect,” he said ”we are a better country than to punish children for what their parents did. We’re a better country than that.”

Obama has similarly decided to stay above the mudslinging and stick to putting out a positive vision, rather than trying to bring down his opponents. This week, Bill Clinton provided a perfect opportunity for Obama to pounce when he tried to rewrite history by claiming he was against the Iraq war from the beginning. But rather than spending every single speech from here on explaining that Bill and his wife “were for the war before they were against it” (a la Bush) he merely said “If he did, you know, I don’t think most of us have heard about it. But I’ll let you check with him as to where he made these, made these statements.” Then, he want back to defining himself and what he offers to America.

And perhaps most refreshingly, neither of these guys is an ideologically driven partisan or a Washington insider that thinks experts always know what’s best. Obama told us he would speak with foreign leaders without preconditions because it’s just common sense, even if it does not fit into the American exceptionalism and stubborness that fakes as a foreign policy strategy in Washington today. And Huckabee has defended giving educational opportunities to kids of illegal immigrants because we’d rather have these kids in school than on the streets with no skills and no future.

Wow, just imagine if this election came down to Obama v. Huckabee. Imagine, two people who want to talk about the issues and who define themselves by telling us what they believe. Imagine, civil debates and humble candidates who actually appear to enjoy interacting with the public in town hall settings. That would make this the first general election in a long time where this country actually grows together through a discussion about our common future. (more…)