INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
The Fruits Of Negotiation

Last May, while delivering an address before the Israeli parliament commemorating Israel's 60th anniversary, President Bush compared those who advocate speaking directly with America's adversaries to Nazi appeasers -- a criticism widely interpreted as an political attack on Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and other Democrats. Soon after, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) wholly embraced Bush's "veiled rebuke" of Obama. "Yes, there have been appeasers in the past, and the president is exactly right, and one of them is Neville Chamberlain," McCain said. McCain then criticized Obama because of his stated willingness to negotiate with leaders from states such as Iran. Newsweek recently called this particular argument, "The Mythology of Munich": the notion that diplomacy and negotiation is a sign of weakness and doomed to failure. "[N]o metaphor has been more used -- or abused -- than 'Munich.' The lesson of appeasement -- that giving in to aggression just invites more aggression -- has calcified into dogma," Newsweek wrote. McCain continues to ridicule Obama's willingness to negotiate, recently releasing an ad suggesting that negotiating with Iran would mean that "the U.S. must cease its support of ." But in fact, putting aside the hyperbole from the McCain campaign, even the Bush administration -- which has largely shunned diplomatic engagement around the world -- is beginning to see the value.

TALKING TO THE 'AXIS OF EVIL': Having branded North Korea part of the "axis of evil" in 2002, the Bush administration has refused to engage with the communist nation for much of the last seven years. But North Korea's successful test of a nuclear weapon changed the calculation and the White House soon stepped up diplomatic activity.  The negotiations have produced results. In June, North Korea destroyed a water cooling tower at a facility used to extract plutonium and this month reacted positively to being removed from the U.S. state sponsors of terror list, agreeing to allow U.N. experts to monitor the dismantling of its nuclear weapons program. In Iraq, negotiation with Sunni insurgents has also proved to help mitigate the violence there. Centcom Commander Gen. David Petraeus, the former top commander in Iraq, recently acknowledged that the U.S. military "sat down with some of those who were shooting at us." The talks formed the basis for the Anbar Awakening -- Sunni insurgents allied themselves with U.S. forces to fight al Qaeda in Iraq. The Bush administration has even begun to open the door to Iran, another member of the "axis of evil." After having authorized the  highest level diplomatic contact with the Iranians in 30 years in July, Bush will reportedly announce after the presidential election that his administration "intends to establish the first U.S. diplomatic presence in Iran since the 1979-80 hostage crisis."

LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE: The situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated significantly over the last year. A new National Intelligence Estimate set to be released next month "concludes that Afghanistan is in a 'downward spiral' and casts serious doubt on the ability of the Afghan government to stem the rise in the Taliban's influence there." In a major policy shift, the Bush administration has responded by "actively considering talks with elements of the Taliban." Senior U.S. officials have said their recommendation for the change in strategy "calls for the talks to be led by the Afghan central government, but with the active participation of the U.S." Indeed, Petraeus endorsed the idea of opening talks with the Taliban. "I do think you have to talk to enemies," Petraeus said earlier this month, adding that engaging some members of the Taliban would be "a positive step." The United States. has stressed that its involvement in the talks "would primarily include lower-ranking and mid-level Taliban figures, not top officials from the group's ruling body." But Afghan and Pakistani leaders and tribal elders recently agreed to make contact with insurgent groups, including the Taliban, "in a bid to end bloodshed and violence in their troubled border regions." Owais Ghani, the head of the Pakistani delegation and governor of the troubled North-West Frontier Province, said that "it includes all those who are involved in this conflict situation."

McCAIN'S VERSION OF DIPLOMACY: Soon after the Bush administration announced its decision to remove North Korea from its state sponsors of terror list, McCain expressed concern, "complaining that North Korea had yet to demonstrate that it was serious about adhering to its commitment to denuclearize." McCain has instead proposed that the United States try to influence North Korea, Iran, and even other countries such as Russia, though a so-called "League of Democracies." "I am convinced that together we can, with the French, with the British, with the Germans and other countries -- democracies around the world -- we can affect Iranian behavior," McCain said during a presidential debate. But McCain's idea could diminish, even "kill," the role of the United Nations and thus discourage diplomatic overtures to nations whose interests conflict with America's. Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel (NE) recently criticized McCain's idea. "[I]n order to solve problems you've got to have all the players at the table," Hagel said. "How are you going to fix the problems in Pakistan, Afghanistan -- the problems we've got with poverty, proliferation, terrorism, wars -- when the largest segments of society in the world today are not at the table?" Indeed, a report from the Center for American Progress has found that in terms of diplomatic engagement with America's adversaries, "the next U.S. president can learn much from looking at that time and the approaches of Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. Their pragmatism and willingness to talk not only allowed them to manage those crises-riddled years, but demonstrate to today's leaders the value of diplomacy and provide the lessons needed to overcome today's challenges."

Under the Radar

IRAQ -- CHALABI A 'KEY FIGURE' IN IRAN'S EFFORT TO SCUTTLE U.S.-IRAQ SECURITY COMPACT: The United States and Iraq are currently engaged in "tense" negotiations regarding the future of the U.S. military presence in Iraq after the U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year. Just yesterday, the Iraqi Cabinet proposed changes that the U.S. has yet to approve. But now, CQ's Jeff Stein reports that according to NBC investigative reporter Aram Roston, former Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi -- the White House's favorite Iraqi in the run-up to the Iraq war -- has been helping the Iranians stand in the way of the agreement. Stein writes, "Roston calls Chalabi a 'key figure' in Iranian efforts to scuttle the status-of-forces agreement that is under fierce negotiation between Baghdad and Washington. 'He is seen more and more by the U.S. as a foreign agent, an Iranian agent,' Roston told me by telephone from Mexico, where he is vacationing. What Chalabi says is 'equated' with the Iranian position on the status-of-forces agreement, Roston said, which it opposes." Chalabi told Iran's state media last month that the United States reportedly wants secret military bases in Iraq and Stein notes that yesterday, a Shiite newspaper in Baghdad featured his opposition to the security agreement. Last May, U.S. officials cut off all contact with Chalabi because of "unauthorized" contacts with the Iranian government.

RADICAL RIGHT -- DENNIS PRAGER: EQUALITY IS A 'EUROPEAN VALUE, NOT AN AMERICAN VALUE': Earlier this week, right-wing radio host Dennis Prager spoke before an audience of 3,000 at Minneapolis's Orchestra Hall, during which he attacked the "left" for constructing "a grand edifice of lies about America." One of those lies, according to Prager, is that "equality" is an American value. "Equality, which is the primary value of the left, is a European value, not an American value," he told the audience. It's a good thing Prager was there to explain the ideals behind the American Revolution. Otherwise, Americans might have relied on "Europeanized" documents like the Declaration of Independence, which states, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." Or if they had looked to the United States Constitution, they may have erroneously thought "equality" was an important American value. "No State shall...deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," the Constitution states. 

IRAQ -- REPORT: OVER $6 BILLION SPENT ON IRAQ SECURITY CONTRACTS: According to a report released today by Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen, "the United States has paid well over $6 billion to private security companies who have been guarding diplomats, troops, Iraqi officials and reconstruction workers in Iraq." This "amounts to about 12 percent of the $50 billion Americans are paying for reconstruction in the country." The report also notes that 310 private security companies from around the world have received contracts, a list "more extensive than any that had previously been disclosed" that includes "hundreds of obscure firms from places as far-flung as Uganda, the Philippines, Cyprus, Romania and the Czech Republic." Bowen said in an interview that "there probably are more contractors he has yet to count, so the $6 billion is almost certainly not the full picture." Because "government agencies in Iraq were not required to keep track in one place of how much money was going to security," Bowen's office "spent three months going through records...to try to pull together the figure."

Think Fast

New data from insurance companies and online brokers show that "women pay much more than men of the same age for individual insurance policies providing identical coverage." At times, a woman's insurance can "cost hundreds of dollars a year more than a man's."

$14.83 billion: Exxon Mobil's third quarter profits, shattering "its own record for the biggest profit from operations by a U.S. corporation."

0.3 percent: The amount by which the U.S. economy shrank in the third quarter. "The figure, the last major piece of economic data before the presidential election, follows a 2.8 percent growth rate the prior quarter."

According to Democratic aides, there is "a good chance" that Sen. Joseph Lieberman will lose his only committee chairmanship next year" on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, perhaps replacing it with a subcommittee gavel.

The CIA is allowed to "hide statements from imprisoned suspected terrorists that the agency tortured them in its set of secret prisons," a federal judge ruled yesterday. Judge Royce Lamberth issued his ruling without reviewing the CIA's claims that revealing such accusations of torture would jeopardize national security.

The Iraqi government demanded changes yesterday to the long-delayed security pact with the United States., requesting amendments that "would ban American troops from using Iraqi territory to carry out attacks on other countries, further limit when the troops would have immunity from Iraqi laws and allow inspections of American arms shipments." Recently, the U.S. launched an attack from Iraq into Syria.

The Bush administration is "discussing a plan that could help up to three million homeowners struggling to pay their mortgages to stay in their homes," sources told the New York Times. "Under the plan, the government would agree to shoulder half of the losses on home loans if mortgage companies agreed to lower borrowers' monthly payments for at least five years."

And finally: Does Sarah Palin make you sit "a little straighter on the couch?" Do you find her smile "so sparkling it [is] almost mesmerizing?" Then we've found the calendar for you. Anchorage-based photographer Judy Patrick has created a 2009 Sarah Palin calendar, filled with "dozens of original portraits and candid shots of the Alaska governor on the job and with her family." The calendar, which initially has a 30,000 print run, costs $15.95 and can be found at www.sarahcalendar.com.

Good News

The Army announced plans on Wednesday to "collaborate with the National Institute of Mental Health in an ambitious five-year project to identify the causes and risk factors of suicide."

State Watch

ARIZONA: "Arizonans on Tuesday will be asked to vote for the second time in two years on a proposal to amend the state’s Constitution to bar same-sex marriage."

MASSACHUSETTS: State may lose 7,200 jobs in finance.

NEW YORK: "More families entered the homeless shelter system in September than in any other month since data has been collected."

Blog Watch

THINK PROGRESS: Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) calls on Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) to resign.

WONK ROOM: Syria, Iraq, and the misnamed war on terror.

YGLESIAS: The New York Times' David Brooks offers a false choice about political movements and opportunity in America.

MEDIA MATTERS: Conservative radio host Bill Cunningham: "People are poor in America...because they lack values, morals, and ethics."

Daily Grill

"Equality, which is the primary value of the left, is a European value, not an American value."
-- Right-wing radio host Dennis Prager, 10/28/08

VERSUS

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
-- Declaration of Independence, 1776