The Best Way to Try Terrorists – Room for Debate Blog – NYTimes.com

What do you think?

Is federal court the right place to try these cases or is there a better way to prosecute them?

via The Best Way to Try Terrorists – Room for Debate Blog – NYTimes.com.

This Time, the Hawks Are French – NYTimes.com

Role reversal, l’amie?

But there’s something that’s not clear: how this America reacts now when it’s told it’s behaving weakly, indecisively, or perhaps deceptively in inadequately trying to stop Iran’s rush toward a nuclear weapon.

Which is just the argument that France’s nuclear nonproliferation experts are making. They suggest the Americans are selling likely Iranian trickery as hopeful signs, and toying with potential agreements with the mullahs that resemble the American concessions on North Korea which have led only to its nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

Their warnings can be blunt: that the United Sates is playing a flabby, losing game against Iran; and even that it’s failed to arouse any nervousness in Tehran that the Americans would eventually dare acknowledge the failure of current negotiations, or subsequent sanctions, and consider a military strike on Iranian nuclear installations.

These French concerns are not feigned. Why this so-called French hawkishness?

via Politicus – This Time, the Hawks Are French – NYTimes.com.

Going to Extremism – The Conversation Blog – NYTimes.com

In a Kennedy Center Lecture yesterday, a terorrism analyst painted a grey picture of the threats 8 years after 9/11 that isn’t a whole lot better.  In that spirit, see this fascinating chat between two Times columnists, Gail Collins and David Brooks:

The mind gapes at events like these, yet each year there are thousands and thousands of honor killings.  Now, of course, it should be said immediately these sorts of practices are perpetrated by an extremist fringe. But this extremism seems to have an outsized influence on world events….Does any of this ring true? Do you see a confrontation looming?

The Fallout of a Reversal on Missile Defense – Room for Debate Blog – NYTimes.com

According to a Sunday NYT report:

The president’s defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, had supported the plan while serving George W. Bush. But new intelligence, he said, led him to a different conclusion: Iran poses a more immediate threat to neighbors and parts of Europe with shorter-range missiles, a threat that should be countered quickly and from sites closer to Iran.

A debate on the implications from various policy scholars from the “Room for Debate” NYT blog will provide a running tally of the issues, arguments, and implications.

From Sunday’s NYT, here’s a breakdown of Obama’s plan compared to Bush:

According to Roger Cohen, an opinion writer in NYT/IHT, the timing couldn’t have been worse.

Poland is now one of the very few places in Europe that prefers former President Bush to Obama.

Now I’m sure Obama had no desire to insult Poland, even if the announcement also came as Russia conducted large-scale military maneuvers with Belarus, an exercise on its western flank that summons the darkest specters of post-Soviet Polish and Baltic-state angst. As U.S. timing goes, this was pitiful.

Agencies Say Iran Has the Nuclear Fuel to Build a Bomb – NYTimes.com

News of this development slipped by the US Ambassador to the IAEA helps to further clarify–and complicate–the delicate discussions about a potentially dangerous issue:

It is unclear how many months — or years — it might take Iran to complete final design work and then construct a weapon that could fit atop its long-range missiles. That question has been the subject of a series of sharp, behind-the-scenes exchanges between the Israelis and top American intelligence and military officials, dating back nearly two years.

The US/Israeli positions may have moved further apart:

The American position is that the United States and its allies would be likely to have considerable warning time if Iran moved to convert its growing stockpile of low-enriched nuclear fuel to weapons grade.

The Israelis have argued that there could be little or no warning time — especially if Iran has hidden nuclear facilities — and charged that in the aftermath of Iraq, the American intelligence agencies are being far too cautious.

“We’re all looking at the same set of facts,” one senior Israeli intelligence official said on a recent visit to Washington, talking about the exchanges with Mr. Obama’s national security team. “We are interpreting them quite differently than the White House does.”

via Agencies Say Iran Has the Nuclear Fuel to Build a Bomb – NYTimes.com.

Nuclear Iran No Big Deal? So Says IAEA Chief

Iran’s long march toward nuclearization has been big news, but consider this report in WaPo earlier this week:

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei told the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published by a group of prominent scientists, that there’s still cause for concern – just not panic.

“We have not seen concrete evidence that Tehran has an ongoing nuclear weapons program,” the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize laureate told the Bulletin for its September/October issue.

“But somehow, many people are talking about how Iran’s nuclear program is the greatest threat to the world,” added ElBaradei, whose Vienna-based agency long has played a key role itself in raising international concern about Iran’s intentions.

“. Yes, there’s concern about Iran’s future intentions and Iran needs to be more transparent with the IAEA and the international community … But the idea that we’ll wake up tomorrow and Iran will have a nuclear weapon is an idea that isn’t supported by the facts as we have seen them so far.”

Pushing Peace One Meeting at a Time

Its a tough job for George Mitchell, but he’s seen this once before.  How to push for peace– a process and a destination–one meeting at a time?

Even the Saudis, he said, “want to be helpful. They, like everyone we’re talking to, want a peace agreement that will lay the foundation for the end of this conflict. I truly believe that’s what they want.”

The trick, analysts said, is persuading both sides to act simultaneously when each wants to see the other move first.

via Diplomatic Memo – U.S. to Push Peace in Middle East Media Campaign – NYTimes.com.

On another front, how should the U.S. deal with Iran?  Another NYT report observes: “The question we have to face,” one American diplomat said, “is whether any sanction at this point can really deter them, given how close they are now.”

The approach would be to empower President Obama so he would be able to forge a multi-nation sanction:

In a visit to Israel last week, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, James L. Jones, mentioned the prospect to Israeli officials, they said.  The White House refused Sunday to confirm or deny the contents of Mr. Jones’s discussions. But other administration officials said that they believed his goal was to reinforce Mr. Obama’s argument that the Israeli government should stop dropping hints about conducting a military attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities if no progress is made this year, and to give the administration time to impose what Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton calls “crippling sanctions” that might force Iran to negotiate.

The “Bug Pit” of Bukhara and Other Reflections on Torture

A British officer named Charles Stoddart was sent on to Bukhara, in what is now Uzbekistan, to assure the emir he had nothing to fear from Britain, and to try and make an alliance against the Russians. Known for his depravity and cruelty, the emir had Stoddart thrown into a 20-foot pit filled with insects and other vermin.

via Bukhara on the Potomac | GlobalPost.

Obama at 100d | Assessing the People Behind the Foriegn Policy

From Carnegie Endowment scholar David Rothkopf–someone who understands the inner machinery very well thank you–an assessment of what all the advisors, ambassadors, and senior staffers add up to in the messy business of making government policy.  He notes that many media reports focus on these “people,” creating a few concerns:

First there’s the impulse, which was characterized by Will Inboden writing for Foreign Policy, of confusing appointments with action. Putting a lot of people in charge of things looks decisive, but the problem is that senior-official positions already existed with responsibility for all of these areas. So, having an envoy per se adds limited value unless the person in question possesses extraordinary skills, although of course one might wonder why such people weren’t given the jobs that already existed. Second, problems of too many cooks spoiling the broth, or get-off-my-turf-or-I-will-destroy-you-with-leaks, are likely and destructive. In other words, putting so many people in charge of so much breeds ill will unless roles are very, very carefully managed. It also creates potential tension at the senior level. Holbrooke and Mitchell report to both the secretary of state and the White House. If everyone is on the same page, fine. But the first time an envoy goes to the president to argue against a position taken by the secretary of state, or simply seems to be backdooring the State Department, further tensions ensue.

Organization isn’t destiny–except to sociologists–but it does make an important contribution to the administration’s agenda.  Rothkopf’s example:

What all of this illustrates once again is that how many czars, four-star generals, best-students-in-the-class and rivals you appoint and how much power you give them goes a long way toward determining whether or not you have a high-functioning national-security process.

Memo From the United Nations – In Peacekeeping, a Muddling of the Mission – NYTimes.com

The downward slide of peacekeeping effectiveness has paralleled the decline of resources, support and member-state contributions.  Should the Security Council aspire to do less–see Congo as the most recent setback–as to manage expectiations?  Or should this noble but overwhelmed initiative be revamped?

“Peacekeeping has been pushed to the wall,” said Bruce Jones, the director of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, which is working with the United Nations on reform efforts. “There is a sense across the system that this is a mess — overburdened, underfunded, overstretched.”

via Memo From the United Nations – In Peacekeeping, a Muddling of the Mission – NYTimes.com.