Center for a New American Security

As the names of those indicted by the special tribunal for Lebanon begin to leak out, please go to Qifa Nabki for invaluable background reading on the tribunal itself.

Let's give Gov. Tim Pawlenty some credit for wading into the Middle East in a serious policy speech yesterday. I'm going to pick through it in this post, taking major issue with some things he said and commenting in a more neutral manner on others. Ready? Okay...

I want to speak plainly this morning about the opportunities and the dangers we face today in the Middle East.  The revolutions now roiling that region offer the promise of a more democratic, more open, and a more prosperous Arab world.  From Morocco to the Arabian Gulf, the escape from the dead hand of oppression is now a real possibility.  

Agreed.

Now is not the time to retreat from freedom’s rise.

Agreed. Though it was right here that I started to think about how the United States can effectively respond to what is taking place in the Middle East with limited and reduced resources.

Yet at the same time, we know these revolutions can bring to power forces that are neither democratic nor forward-looking.  Just as the people of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria and elsewhere see a chance for a better life of genuine freedom, the leaders of radical Islam see a chance to ride political turmoil into power. 

Probably true. Thought not chief among my own concerns about the revolutions in the Arabic-speaking world.

The United States has a vital stake in the future of this region.  We have been presented with a challenge as great as any we have faced in recent decades.  And we must get it right.  The question is, are we up to the challenge?  

Probably not, actually. Gov. Pawlenty's teammates in the Congress aim to slash the International Affairs budget.

My answer is, of course we are.  

Oh.

If we are clear about our interests and guided by our principles, we can help steer events in the right direction.  Our nation has done this in the past -- at the end of World War II, in the last decade of the Cold War, and in the more recent war on terror … and we can do it again.

Sometimes, though, as we have seen in the Middle East, our interests do not match up with our principles.

But President Obama has failed to formulate and carry out an effective and coherent strategy in response to these events.  

This is certainly true. But I have a little sympathy for the president here. It's tough to formulate a coherent regional strategy when our interests vary to such a high degree from country to country.

He has been timid, slow, and too often without a clear understanding of our interests or a clear commitment to our principles.

Meh. I actually see the guy's advisors trying to balance our interests against our principles, which is not the easiest thing to do in a region with Saudi Arabia in it.

And parts of the Republican Party now seem to be trying to out-bid the Democrats in appealing to isolationist sentiments.  This is no time for uncertain leadership in either party.  The stakes are simply too high, and the opportunity is simply too great. 

Well! At this point in the speech, I started to wonder whether or not we were about to get a taste of the full-throated freedom agenda stuff that kind of died in the maelstrom of Iraq and Israel's debacle in Lebanon in 2006.

No one in this Administration predicted the events of the Arab spring - but the freedom deficit in the Arab world was no secret.  

True.

For 60 years, Western nations excused and accommodated the lack of freedom in the Middle East.

True.

That could not last.  The days of comfortable private deals with dictators were coming to an end in the age of Twitter, You Tube, and Facebook.

True.

And history teaches there is no such thing as stable oppression.

True.

President Obama has ignored that lesson of history.  Instead of promoting democracy – whose fruit we see now ripening across the region – he adopted a murky policy he called “engagement.”  

Not sure how one is the opposite of the other, though I'm now sensing where this is going...

“Engagement” meant that in 2009, when the Iranian ayatollahs stole an election, and the people of that country rose up in protest, President Obama held his tongue.  His silence validated the mullahs, despite the blood on their hands and the nuclear centrifuges in their tunnels.  

 

While protesters were killed and tortured, Secretary Clinton said the Administration was “waiting to see the outcome of the internal Iranian processes.”  She and the president waited long enough to see the Green Movement crushed.  

I'm sure the administration has some good reasons for not wanting to openly side with the protesters in 2009 in Iran, but that decision has made the administration an easy target for the other party.

“Engagement” meant that in his first year in office, President Obama cut democracy funding for Egyptian civil society by 74 percent.  As one American democracy organization noted, this was “perceived by Egyptian democracy activists as signaling a lack of support.”  They perceived correctly.  It was a lack of support.  

Interesting. I had not heard this. It would, of course, be interesting for Gov. Pawlenty to point out here that his own party now controls the purse strings. Should the Congress now spend more on these kinds of democracy promotion programs abroad?

“Engagement” meant that when crisis erupted in Cairo this year, as tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Tahrir Square, Secretary Clinton declared, “the Egyptian Government is stable.”  Two weeks later, Mubarak was gone.  When Secretary Clinton visited Cairo after Mubarak’s fall, democratic activist groups refused to meet with her.  And who can blame them?

Plenty of activists met with Sec. Clinton, actually, though Gov. Pawlenty is correct that the United States was on the wrong side of history on Egypt.

The forces we now need to succeed in Egypt -- the pro-democracy, secular political parties -- these are the very people President Obama cut off, and Secretary Clinton dismissed.  

This is weak sauce. You can't blame the U.S. government for the fact that secular political parties are not stronger than they are.

The Obama “engagement” policy in Syria led the Administration to call Bashar al Assad a “reformer.”  Even as Assad’s regime was shooting hundreds of protesters dead in the street, President Obama announced his plan to give Assad “an alternative vision of himself.”  Does anyone outside a therapist’s office have any idea what that means?  This is what passes for moral clarity in the Obama Administration.  

I'm with Gov. Pawlenty on this one, but there is a contradiction coming up later. Wait for it.

By contrast, I called for Assad’s departure on March 29; I call for it again today.  We should recall our ambassador from Damascus; and I call for that again today.  The leader of the United States should never leave those willing to sacrifice their lives in the cause of freedom wondering where America stands.  As President, I will not.

Cool.

We need a president who fully understands that America never “leads from behind.”  

Oh, man. Whichever advisor uttered those infamous words in front of a reporter from the New Yorker needs to be flogged.

We cannot underestimate how pivotal this moment is in Middle Eastern history.  We need decisive, clear-eyed leadership that is responsive to this historical moment of change in ways that are consistent with our deepest principles and safeguards our vital interests.

 

Opportunity still exists amid the turmoil of the Arab Spring -- and we should seize it.

Hahaha, Tim Pawlenty sounds like Brad Pitt's Achilles from that horrible Troy movie. I'm fired up, Tim! Let's storm the beach!

As I see it, the governments of the Middle East fall into four broad categories, and each requires a different strategic approach. 

Just four?

The first category consists of three countries now at various stages of transition toward democracy – the formerly fake republics in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya.  Iraq is also in this category, but is further along on its journey toward democracy.  

 

For these countries, our goal should be to help promote freedom and democracy.  

Okay, I'll buy that.

Elections that produce anti-democratic regimes undermine both freedom and stability.  We must do more than monitor polling places.  We must redirect foreign aid away from efforts to merely build good will, and toward efforts to build good allies -- genuine democracies governed by free people according to the rule of law.  And we must insist that our international partners get off the sidelines and do the same.  

Okay, but now I'm starting to ask those questions about where the money for this will come from.

We should have no illusions about the difficulty of the transitions faced by Libya, Tunisia, and especially Egypt.  Whereas Libya is rich in oil, and Tunisia is small, Egypt is large, populous, and poor.  Among the region’s emerging democracies, it remains the biggest opportunity and the biggest danger for American interests.  

True.

Having ejected the Mubarak regime, too many Egyptians are now rejecting the beginnings of the economic opening engineered in the last decade.  

True. But that liberalization allowed Egypt's economy to grow but only benefitted a small percentage of the richest Egyptians. Sounds a lot like another country I know, actually.

We act out of friendship when we tell Egyptians, and every new democracy, that economic growth and prosperity are the result of free markets and free trade—not subsidies and foreign aid.  If we want these countries to succeed, we must afford them the respect of telling them the truth.  

Nothing controversial there. A lot of truth, in fact. Read the Economist's special briefing on the Egyptian economy for more.

In Libya, the best help America can provide to these new friends is to stop leading from behind and commit America’s strength to removing Ghadafi, recognizing the TNC as the government of Libya, and unfreezing assets so the TNC can afford security and essential services as it marches toward Tripoli.  

I'm with this. The United States either needs to focus on a) removing Qadhdhafi or b) supporting the TNC militarily and politicially. One or the other. If Gov. Pawlenty wants to do that latter, I'm down with that. By the way, there's that "leading from behind" phrase again. Expect to hear a lot more of that in 2011 and 2012.

Beyond Libya, America should always promote the universal principles that undergird freedom.  We should press new friends to end discrimination against women, to establish independent courts, and freedom of speech and the press.  We must insist on religious freedoms for all, including the region’s minorities—whether Christian, Shia, Sunni, or Bahai.  

Outstanding.

The second category of states is the Arab monarchies.  Some – like Jordan and Morocco – are engaging now in what looks like genuine reform.  This should earn our praise and our assistance.  These kings have understood they must forge a partnership with their own people, leading step by step toward more democratic societies.  These monarchies can smooth the path to constitutional reform and freedom and thereby deepen their own legitimacy.  If they choose this route, they, too, deserve our help.  

I'm skeptical of how far Jordan is going to promote reform, actually. They still have one of the more brutal secret police in the region. But okay, I'll go along with this.

But others are resisting reform. While President Obama spoke well about Bahrain in his recent speech, he neglected to utter two important words:  Saudi Arabia.  

Yup.

US-Saudi relations are at an all-time low—and not primarily because of the Arab Spring.  They were going downhill fast, long before the uprisings began.  The Saudis saw an American Administration yearning to engage Iran—just at the time they saw Iran, correctly, as a mortal enemy.  

Oh boy, where are we going with this, Gov. Pawlenty?

We need to tell the Saudis what we think, which will only be effective if we have a position of trust with them.

Relationships of trust with the Saudis are built over decades, by the way.

We will develop that trust by demonstrating that we share their great concern about Iran and that we are committed to doing all that is necessary to defend the region from Iranian aggression.

Maybe. But I have spoken with a lot of high-ranking Saudi officials and princes, and all of them agree on two things: a) the United States must attack Iran because an Iranian bomb would destabilize the region and b) the United States must not attack Iran because a U.S. strike would destabilize the region. I wish Gov. Pawlenty the best in trying to reconcile this mixed message.

At the same time, we need to be frank about what the Saudis must do to insure stability in their own country.  Above all, they need to reform and open their society.  Their treatment of Christians and other minorities, and their treatment of women, is indefensible and must change.

Amen. But this is not the way to build up a position of trust with Saudi Arabia.

We know that reform will come to Saudi Arabia—sooner and more smoothly if the royal family accepts and designs it.  It will come later and with turbulence and even violence if they resist.  The vast wealth of their country should be used to support reforms that fit Saudi history and culture—but not to buy off the people as a substitute for lasting reform.

#realtalk

The third category consists of states that are directly hostile to America.  They include Iran and Syria.  The Arab Spring has already vastly undermined the appeal of Al Qaeda and the killing of Osama Bin Laden has significantly weakened it.

True. I might have myself argued much the same thing.

The success of peaceful protests in several Arab countries has shown the world that terror is not only evil, but will eventually be overcome by good.  Peaceful protests may soon bring down the Assad regime in Syria.

Peaceful protests? Probably not. Civil war? Maybe.

The 2009 protests in Iran inspired Arabs to seek their freedom.  Similarly, the Arab protests of this year, and the fall of regime after broken regime, can inspire Iranians to seek their freedom once again.  

Let's hope.

We have a clear interest in seeing an end to Assad’s murderous regime.  By sticking to Bashar al Assad so long, the Obama Administration has not only frustrated Syrians who are fighting for freedom—it has demonstrated strategic blindness.  The governments of Iran and Syria are enemies of the United States.  They are not reformers and never will be.  They support each other.  To weaken or replace one, is to weaken or replace the other.

 

The fall of the Assad mafia in Damascus would weaken Hamas, which is headquartered there.  It would weaken Hezbollah, which gets its arms from Iran, through Syria.  And it would weaken the Iranian regime itself.    

I'm going to give Gov. Pawlenty a pass on this for the moment. You'll understand why later.

To take advantage of this moment, we should press every diplomatic and economic channel to bring the Assad reign of terror to an end.  We need more forceful sanctions to persuade Syria’s Sunni business elite that Assad is too expensive to keep backing.  We need to work with Turkey and the Arab nations and the Europeans, to further isolate the regime.  And we need to encourage opponents of the regime by making our own position very clear, right now:  Bashar al-Assad must go.  

 

When he does, the mullahs of Iran will find themselves isolated and vulnerable.  Syria is Iran’s only Arab ally.  If we peel that away, I believe it will hasten the fall of the mullahs.  And that is the ultimate goal we must pursue.  It’s the singular opportunity offered to the world by the brave men and women of the Arab Spring.

I'm with the governor here.

The march of freedom in the Middle East cuts across the region’s diversity of religious, ethnic, and political groups.  But it is born of a particular unity.  It is a united front against stolen elections and stolen liberty, secret police, corruption, and the state-sanctioned violence that is the essence of the Iranian regime’s tyranny.  

 

So this is a moment to ratchet up pressure and speak with clarity.  More sanctions.  More and better broadcasting into Iran.  More assistance to Iranians to access the Internet and satellite TV and the knowledge and freedom that comes with it.  More efforts to expose the vicious repression inside that country and expose Teheran’s regime for the pariah it is.  

Okay.

And, very critically, we must have more clarity when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program.  In 2008, candidate Barack Obama told AIPAC that he would “always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally Israel.”  This year, he told AIPAC “we remain committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.”  So I have to ask: are all the options still on the table or not?  If he’s not clear with us, it’s no wonder that even our closest allies are confused.    

Gov. Pawlenty, I have a question: would you launch military strikes against Iran to prevent the Iranians from acquiring nuclear weapons? (y/n)

The Administration should enforce all sanctions for which legal authority already exits.  We should enact and then enforce new pending legislation which strengthens sanctions particularly against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who control much of the Iranian economy. 

Again, what about strikes?

And in the middle of all this, is Israel. 

Actually, to the left and upper right of all this.

Israel is unique in the region because of what it stands for and what it has accomplished.  And it is unique in the threat it faces—the threat of annihilation.  It has long been a bastion of democracy in a region of tyranny and violence.  And it is by far our closest ally in that part of the world.  

 

Despite wars and terrorists attacks, Israel offers all its citizens, men and women, Jews, Christians, Muslims and, others including 1.5 million Arabs, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, the right to vote, access to independent courts and all other democratic rights.  

[Lips bitten. I suspect Arab Israelis and Palestinians living under occupation might have a few words to say, though.]

Nowhere has President Obama’s lack of judgment been more stunning than in his dealings with Israel.

 

It breaks my heart that President Obama treats Israel, our great friend, as a problem, rather than as an ally.

This is complete B.S. And Americans do not buy it.

The President seems to genuinely believe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lies at the heart of every problem in the Middle East.  He said it Cairo in 2009 and again this year.   

This is also complete B.S. But you know who does care about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? All those Arab democrats you've been talking about for the past 10 minutes.

President Obama could not be more wrong.  

 

The uprisings in Tunis, Cairo, Tripoli and elsewhere are not about Israelis and Palestinians.

This is actually true. But just because the uprisings were not about Israel does not mean our secular, Arab democratic heroes do not care about the Palestinians.

They’re about oppressed people yearning for freedom and prosperity.  Whether those countries become prosperous and free is not about how many apartments Israel builds in Jerusalem.

See previous.

Today the president doesn’t really have a policy toward the peace process.  He has an attitude.  And let’s be frank about what that attitude is:  he thinks Israel is the problem.  And he thinks the answer is always more pressure on Israel.  

Okay, this is nonsense, and most Americans do not buy this. Most Jewish American voters do not buy this either and are not animated by this nonsense. But I suspect that most of this is not directed at Jewish voters but rather at conservative Evangelical Christian voters -- the kind who vote in Republican primary elections.

I reject that anti-Israel attitude.  I reject it because Israel is a close and reliable democratic ally.  And I reject it because I know the people of Israel want peace. 

They most certainly do. Here's a question I have for Gov. Pawlenty, though: he realizes that many Israelis are scared to death about what will follow the al-Asad regime in Syria, right? I ask this because he seems to argue that we should a) support Israel on everything but b) work toward the overthrow of the al-Asad regime. What will Gov. Pawlenty do when our Israeli friends voice their concerns about post-Asad Syria?

Israeli – Palestinian peace is further away now than the day Barack Obama came to office.  But that does not have to be a permanent situation. 

Correlation =/= causation. Domestic Israeli and Palestinian politics might have more to do with this situation than the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

We must recognize that peace will only come if everyone in the region perceives clearly that America stands strongly with Israel.  

I would love to hear Gov. Pawlenty prove why this statement is true.

I would take a new approach.

 

First, I would never undermine Israel’s negotiating position, nor pressure it to accept borders which jeopardize security and its ability to defend itself.

 

Second, I would not pressure Israel to negotiate with Hamas or a Palestinian government that includes Hamas, unless Hamas renounces terror, accepts Israel’s right to exist, and honors the previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements. In short, Hamas needs to cease being a terrorist group in both word and deed as a first step towards global legitimacy.

 

Third, I would ensure our assistance to the Palestinians immediately ends if the teaching of hatred in Palestinian classrooms and airwaves continues. That incitement must end now. 

 

Fourth, I would recommend cultivating and empowering moderate forces in Palestinian society.

This is a new approach, actually. The first, second, and fourth points sound a lot like the approach taken by the Bush Administration between 2000 and 2006. But even the Bush Administration continued support for Palestinian security forces in the face of anti-Israeli sentiment among Palestinians. So this is actually more hardline than even the George W. Bush administration. And how the hell do you do #3 and #4 simultaneously? Also, good luck doing what you have just described in the above while at the same time engaging with Arab civil society and the new governments of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya as described earlier.

When the Palestinians have leaders who are honest and capable, who appreciate the rule of law, who understand that war against Israel has doomed generations of Palestinians to lives of bitterness, violence, and poverty – then peace will come.

Demonstrably false, actually. See Fayyad, Salam.

The Middle East is changing before our eyes—but our government has not kept up.  It abandoned the promotion of democracy just as Arabs were about to seize it.  

True.

It sought to cozy up to dictators just as their own people rose against them.  It downplayed our principles and distanced us from key allies.

Like Hosni Mubarak? Oh, wait, you mean Israel.

All this was wrong, and these policies have failed.  The Administration has abandoned them, and at the price of American leadership.  A region that since World War II has looked to us for security and progress now wonders where we are and what we’re up to.

That's probably true. But I think U.S. influence in the region is on the wane anyway, and I am not sure this is entirely bad.

The next president must do better. Today, in our own Republican Party, some look back and conclude our projection of strength and defense of freedom was a product of different times and different challenges.  While times have changed, the nature of the challenge has not.  

Well, let's give Gov. Pawlenty credit for making it clear where he stands on the primacy/restraint divide within the G.O.P.

In the 1980s, we were up against a violent, totalitarian ideology bent on subjugating the people and principles of the West.  While others sought to co-exist, President Reagan instead sought victory.

Aaaaaand also withdrew from Lebanon in the face of violent Islamist extremism.

So must we, today.  For America is exceptional, and we have the moral clarity to lead the world.

 

It is not wrong for Republicans to question the conduct of President Obama’s military leadership in Libya.  There is much to question.

True.

And it is not wrong for Republicans to debate the timing of our military drawdown in Afghanistan— though my belief is that General Petraeus’ voice ought to carry the most weight on that question.

Half true. The president's voice should carry the most weight on that question, though I wish he trusted his field commanders more than he apparently does. 

What is wrong, is for the Republican Party to shrink from the challenges of American leadership in the world.  History repeatedly warns us that in the long run, weakness in foreign policy costs us and our children much more than we’ll save in a budget line item.  

Again, bold words for his own party.

America already has one political party devoted to decline, retrenchment, and withdrawal.  It does not need a second one.

Wow. I suspect we're going to see this "Democrats = Isolationism" meme more in 2011 and 2012.

Our enemies in the War on Terror, just like our opponents in the Cold War, respect and respond to strength.

Oh, goodness, has he been reading this?

Sometimes strength means military intervention.  Sometimes it means diplomatic pressure.  It always means moral clarity in word and deed.  

 

That is the legacy of Republican foreign policy at its best, and the banner our next Republican President must carry around the world.   

 

Our ideals of economic and political freedom, of equality and opportunity for all citizens, remain the dream of people in the Middle East and throughout the world.  As America stands for these principles, and stands with our friends and allies, we will help the Middle East transform this moment of turbulence into a firmer, more lasting opportunity for freedom, peace, and progress.  

 

Thank you.

Thank you.

I was unable to hear the president give his speech on Afghanistan, but it does not seem to have pleased many people. Reading it a few days later, I had a similar reaction of dissapointment to the one I had to the 2009 speech at West Point. 

In that earlier speech, the president blunted a lot of any possible advantage he might have drawn from a renewed commitment to Afghanistan by simultaneously announcing we were going to begin a withdrawal in July 2011. On the one hand, that promised withdrawal provided reassurance to the peoples of the United States and other troop-contributing nations, who obviously wanted their men and women home from Afghanistan as soon as possible. But it was a terrible blunder in terms of the way it played in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It offered no reason to the people of Afghanistan to choose to support the institutions of the government of Afghanistan -- such as the security forces -- if the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan was temporary. It convinced the Taliban that their strategy of waiting us out was the correct one, and it also did nothing to persuade the Pakistani security services that their hedging strategy of continuing to arm and train insurgent groups in order to safeguard Pakistani interests after a U.S. and allied withdrawal was anything but wise. So the Surge of troops into Afghanistan was consigned to have less of an effect than it otherwise might have had.

In this speech, meanwhile, I thought the president was well within reason to withdraw all the Surge troops by the end of 2012, and I myself co-wrote a paper on the mechanics of transition. But forcing commanders to remove all the Surge troops by the end of the summer just made no sense to me. No sense at all. Why not give commanders an extra 60 days until the end of the "fighting season"? As it turns out, administration officials confessed they think this whole "fighting season" thing is a bit of a false construct -- which it is, to a degree. Anyone who says the conflict in Afghanistan is like the baseball season, starting in the spring and ending in the fall, is simplifying things a bit too far. But there is an annual rhythm to the conflict -- if you measure the conflict by violent acts against either NATO and Afghan security forces or against Afghan civilians. The conflict is at its strongest in terms of violence in the summer and at its weakest in the winter. So why demand commanders withdraw so many forces right when things are getting most violent? Why? Why not give commanders a 180-day window or a target at the end of the year? One can only conclude the administration simply does not trust its generals in the field. But like Hew Strachan and for the same reasons, I think the administration itself is largely to blame for the disconnect between civilian leaders and field commanders.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for many of the national security professionals in this administration but have been frustrated with the way the administration has handled both the conflicts in Afghanistan and Libya. In both conflicts, the administration has failed to provide clear strategic guidance to military commanders, and in Afghanistan, it has concentrated its message on voters at home at the expense of hearts and minds abroad.* That's hardly a recipe for success in this kind of conflict. I would give the Obama Administration higher marks on overall defense policy and on counter-terrorism operations than on waging wars, which demand the kind of resolve and strategic clarity from above that the president and his advisors do not seem very comfortable giving.

*There is a tremendous amount of confusion, both within and outside the U.S. military, about what "hearts and minds" means. For more on this, read my latest essay in the French journal Politique étrangère. (It's in both English and French.)

As some of you know, I have been traveling for the past 10 days in Europe. My wife and I celebrated two weddings, one in London and one in Milan. The London wedding celebrated the marriage of longtime blog contributor Amil "Londonstani" Khan and his lovely wife, so be sure to leave your best wishes in the comments section. My wife and I then spent a few days trekking in the Val d'Ayas, but not before I defended my doctoral dissertation in London. Since the subject of the doctoral dissertation might be of interest to the kind of people who read this blog, I will copy and paste the abstract below:

The way in which the existing social science literature measures military capability does not explain how Hizballah, a small Lebanese militant group, has managed to defeat the Israel Defense Forces and its allies throughout the 1990s and in 2006. Conventional approaches measuring numerical preponderance, technological advantages or the way in which actors employ force cannot explain conflicts in 1993, 1996 and 2006 – in which a smaller, technologically inferior adversary using only basic light infantry tactics managed to deny victory to the most powerful military actor in the region.

 

This study, by contrast, demonstrates the way in which Hizballah has developed a ‘comprehensive’ approach to warfare incorporating both kinetic and non-kinetic lines of operation. Not only combat operations but also propaganda campaigns and the provision of social services have enabled Hizballah to consistently realize political objectives on the battlefield. Only by expanding the definition of what constitutes military power and operations can victory and defeat in southern Lebanon be explained.

As you might imagine, then, in light of my own research, I am very much looking forward to the publication of two books, one of which I have already read in draft form and one of which was waiting for me on my desk when I arrived back in Washington. The former is Nick Blanford's Warriors of God: Inside Hezbollah's Thirty-Year Struggle Against Israel. The unedited, unabridged version of this book was both majesterial and fascinating, and I can only assume the finished product is also great. The latter book is Daniel Byman's A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism. I had known Byman was working on this book and now have high expectations about it after reading an excellent, glowing review in the Economist. I suspect that these two books are best read in tandem with one another, so order both and let me know how busy it keeps you through the fall. 

Meanwhile, let me thank you the readers of this blog for often providing interesting articles and others sources that I incorporated into my dissertation. I should also thank, in addition to my long-suffering wife, my supervisor, Yezid Sayigh, who sets the standard for anyone writing on security issues in the Arabic-speaking world. I also got a nice grant from the Smith Richardson Foundation to carry out my field work, and my bosses at the Center for a New American Security gave me plenty of time off to tackle my dissertation while working at CNAS. There are many, many other people to thank, but they are, as you might imagine, all listed in the acknowledgements.

I understand the nuances of the Obama Administration's position on Bahrain. I really do. But would you place bets on the stability of a regime so insecure it jails a woman one year for the crime of reciting a poem?

1. I will be participating in two events tomorrow on reconciliation in Afghanistan. I am not really a specialist on the subject as it pertains to Afghanistan when compared with others, but I will discuss reconciliation efforts in terms of civil wars in general and will offer comment on how operations in Afghanistan may or may not be setting the conditions for what we have come to expect based on historical experience. The first event, hosted by the Institute for Inclusive Security, will be held at the National Press Club and will feature me along with David Kilcullen, Rangina Hamidi, and Wazhma Frogh Mohammad Yonus. The great Elizabeth Rubin will moderate. Details here (.pdf). (Also, the event will be televised on PBS at some point.)

The second event will be at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Hamish Nixon and Andrew Wilder asked me to participate in an event with Ali Jalali, Michael Semple, Bill Taylor, Ashley Tellis and other smart people. Details here. (I suspect we'll spend much time talking about Hamish's new paper, which I read last week while attending a conference with both Andrew and Hamish.)

2. There was an article in the Washington Post today about a new strategy in Afghanistan. Here are my two cents: The so-called "Biden CT option" for Afghanistan was a really bad idea in the fall of 2009 but may be a good option, as I and others have argued, once we have bought enough time and space to build up effective Afghan security forces that allow us to fight a counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan by, with and through the Afghans rather than with costly and large deployments of U.S. general purpose forces. The debate, as I see it, surround whether or not we have suffiently set the conditions to fight this kind of lower-cost counterinsurgency campaign. (And this debate, of course, only applies if no progress has been made on reconciliation.) The military, based on the remarks of Sec. Gates and LTG Rodriguez, among others, feels the Afghan security forces need more time and space to develop. In the end, I do not see a way to transition in Afghanistan much faster or much slower than the timeline LTG Barno and I came up with, but if you've got other ideas, knock yourself out.

3. Chaning gears, if the Libyan rebels seize control of the road connecting Tripoli with Tunisia, that's a huge and strategically important victory. I really think the administration has been terribly sloppy in its own management of this conflict, but the rebel gains should be cheered nonetheless.

Today is the 67th anniversary of "Goddammit, Rangers, Lead the Way." If you are able, and especially if you are a youngish man thinking of trying your hand at Rangering, watch the first 25 minutes or so of Saving Private Ryan today. All of the rest of you should at least raise a glass for the Boys of Pointe-du-Hoc and all the other men who fought that day in Normandy. (And boy, think whatever you wish of Ronald Reagan, but the "Boys of Pointe-du-Hoc" speech is incredible.)

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As far as yesterday's fighting in the (occupied) Golan is considered, let me just say this, speaking as someone whose own research on the fighting in southern Lebanon is highly critical of the Israeli Defense Force and who has never been hesitant to criticize anyone's military forces (including my own) when they deserve it: You can have whatever opinions you wish to have about Israeli policy or the plight of the Palestinians, but if the IDF units did in fact employ escalation of force as is currently being described, starting with non-lethal means and then proceeding to lethal force, you can't ask any more of them tactically and operationally. That will infuriate some of you unable to divorce consideration of tactics and operations from the strategies and policies they serve, but there it is.

(Considering both Israel's leaders and Syria's leaders might want Bashar al-Asad to stick around for a while longer, a friend in Beirut only half-jokingly suggested yesterday's events were staged on both sides to take the attention off the crimes of the al-Asad regime against its own people.)

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I'll be traveling internationally for the next few days and will likely not be blogging very much, if at all. On the flights, though, here's what I'll be reading:

1. The manuscript for Daveed Gartenstein-Ross's new book.

2. Kissinger's On China. People who actually know a lot about China and know better books about China might make fun of me for this, but I know next to nothing about China and figured it might be a good time to learn something.

3. Bob Kaplan's forthcoming essay for the National Interest on John Stuart Mill and the Arab Spring. (Bob was kind enough to slip me a copy last week at the CNAS conference.)

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Speaking of the annual CNAS conference, if you did not attend, you can still watch a stellar conversation about Afghanistan and Pakistan moderated by Rajiv Chandrasekaran and featuring LTG (Ret.) Dave Barno, Amb. Anne Patterson, Steve Coll and Bing West on C-SPAN online. The five discuss, among other things, this report (.pdf) I co-authored.

You can also watch, here, the panel on internet freedom and the Arabic-speaking world for which I served as the jester. Shadi Hamid and Richard Fontaine were both excellent, and Colin Kahl, as the panel went on and as he veered off the script, just starting owning it. Highly entertaining.

On Thursday Today, CNAS hosts its fifth annual conference, which you can watch here. I'll be participating in a panel on internet freedom and the Middle East with Richard Fontaine, Colin Kahl and Shadi Hamid at 9:40, and readers of this blog in particular will then want to stick around for the all-star panel on Afghanistan and Pakistan at 11:50 featuring LTG (Ret.) Dave Barno, Bing West, Amb. Anne Patterson, and Steve Coll. The former panel will be moderated by Karen House, and the latter will be moderated by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Once those panels are finished, I'll be wandering in and out, listening to smart people like Patrick Cronin and Zbigniew Brzezinski but otherwise just hanging out. So if you're one of the 8,000 or so planning on attending, find me and say hello.