(Moments before the destruction of the Bedouin village of al-Arakib, Israeli high school age police volunteers lounge on furniture taken from a family's home; photo credit: Ata Abu Madyam, Arab Negev News; click image to make larger)

I support Israel's legitimate interests and rights in what is a very tough neighborhood, but this behavior -- reported by Max Blumenthal -- is not that of an Israeli that is behaving responsibly and is rather, an Israel that is playing recklessly with its own interests and America's.

This story is one among many outrages that are piling up -- but do read.

Here is the first part:

AL-ARAKIB, ISRAEL -- On July 26, Israeli police demolished 45 buildings in the unrecognized Bedouin village of al-Arakib, razing the entire village to the ground to make way for a Jewish National Fund forest.

The destruction was part of a larger project to force the Bedouin community of the Negev away from their ancestral lands and into seven Indian reservation-style communities the Israeli government has constructed for them. The land will then be open for Jewish settlers, including young couples in the army and those who may someday be evacuated from the West Bank after a peace treaty is signed. For now, the Israeli government intends to uproot as many villages as possible and erase them from the map by establishing "facts on the ground" in the form of JNF forests. (See video of of al-Arakib's demolition here).
"]Israeli high school age police volunteers lounge on furniture taken from an al-Arakib family's home. All photos by Ata Abu Madyam of Arab Negev News.

One of the most troubling aspects of the destruction of al-Arakib was a report by CNN that the hundreds of Israeli riot police who stormed the village were accompanied by "busloads of cheering civilians." Who were these civilians and why didn't CNN or any outlet investigate further?

I traveled to al-Arakib yesterday with a delegation from Ta'ayush, an Israeli group that promotes a joint Arab-Jewish struggle against the occupation. The activists spent the day preparing games and activities for the village's traumatized children, helping the villagers replace their uprooted olive groves, and assisting in the reconstruction of their demolished homes. In a massive makeshift tent where many of al-Arakib's residents now sleep, I interviewed village leaders about the identity of the cheering civilians. Each one confirmed the presence of the civilians, describing how they celebrated the demolitions. As I compiled details, the story grew increasingly horrific.

After interviewing more than a half dozen elders of the village, I was able to finally identify the civilians in question. What I discovered was more disturbing than I had imagined.

The rest is here.

-- Steve Clemons

(A digital rendering of the U.S. Capitol as it would have looked in 1814; credit: Scott Berg)

Pierre Charles L'Enfant's genius in planning Washington, DC becomes even more dramatic when reading and looking through this material presented in an interactive presentation in the Washington Post Magazine by George Mason University's Scott Berg.

Be sure to watch the animated treatment of the building of Washington, DC midway down the article.

-- Steve Clemons

China's Vice President Xi Jinping is widely seen in Beijing power circles as Hu Jintao's likely successor as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and President of the People's Republic of China.

There is an increasing amount of reporting about him as his ascendancy becomes more clear, but one of the interesting tidbits I have learned in the last few days is that Xi really loves Iowa. Of those politicians I have met here who know Vice President Xi, they all know that he spent a bit of time -- just a few days apparently -- near Des Moines, Iowa. And he fell in love with the small town feel of the place -- and a particular family.

I haven't been able to learn more than that -- but if he does secure China's top job, Iowa may be the pearl in the eye of China's next emperor.

-- Steve Clemons

Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Brian Katulis has given Politico an essay on the foreign policy divide in the GOP that I would have loved to run here at The Washington Note.

His oped captures well the brewing tension inside Republican circles between those who on one hand want to put forward a constructive, national-interest driven strategy that has at its core a patriotic commitment to reinventing American power and those on the other who engage in blustery, pugnacious nationalism that either clobbers other countries in efforts to remake them or walls them off from America.

Katulis is anticipating a major speech to be given by Newt Gingrich at the American Enterprise Institute tomorrow, Thursday, titled "America at Risk: Camus, National Security, and Afghanistan". (Gotta love the title.)

The question Katulis asks is which part of the GOP foreign policy crowd will Newt Gingrich, who will likely attack the Obama administration's national security course and priorities, reach out to.

As Katulis writes in his essay:

Dissension in the Republican ranks was on full display in the conservative reactions to the Obama administration's National Security Strategy this spring. Conservative foreign policy analysts couldn't decide whether to accuse the Obama administration of plagiarism or treason. Some praised the strategy as a continuation of the Bush administration's approach; others condemned it as a recipe for weakness and an appeasement of America's enemies.

Newt Gingrish's speech will livestream here or can be seen in the box above starting at 2 pm on Thursday, 29 July.

Should be an interesting show. I hope Dick Cheney or John Bolton get the first question.

-- Steve Clemons

As it becomes increasingly clear that Pakistan will likely play an important role in any negotiated settlement in Afghanistan, it is important to understand Pakistan's motivations and strategy in South Asia. But in order to understand Pakistan's government, we must also understand how average Pakistani's view their country, it's policies, its neighbors, and more.

Please join the New America Foundation and the Pew Research Center for the release of Pew's new polling on Pakistani public opinions on issues of militancy, India, and the United States, with a presentation by Pew Research Center President Andrew Kohut followed by commentary from New America President Steve Coll. The event will take place from 12:15 pm-1:45 pm, and will live stream here at The Washington Note. To RSVP, please sign up here.

-- Andrew Lebovich

(photo of Jackson Ikenberry next to Hachiko at Shibuya Station, Japan; photo credit: G. John Ikenberry)

Sorry folks. This may be a bit inside for some of you -- but I have this sort of weird, psycho connection with G. John Ikenberry, a professor of international relations at Princeton University.

Ikenberry is a policy intellectual I always have time for -- even though he 'wrongly' thinks that the problem the world is facing is an America that is so vastly powerful and outstrips all other global stakeholders that it runs big risks of seeing its power bounded by other competitors who will converge and conspire against its interests. (I see 'wrongly' in a friendly, jesting sense -- as Ikenberry is usually right)

I, in contrast, see a deficit in America's power as being the most serious contributor to global instability today. Allies are not counting on the US as much as they once did -- and foes are moving their agendas. The international system is in flux because of the profound doubt around the world in American power.

All that said, we are just sort of connected.

At exactly the moment I posted my piece on Dogs in China: More on Leashes, Less on the Menu, Ikenberry snapped this pic of his son, Jackson Ikenberry, standing next to the famous Hachiko statue outside of Shibuya station in Tokyo.

Hachiko stood by his owner, and now everyone gets to stand by Hachiko.

If you are a sucker for tear-jerkers, get Hachiko: A Dog's Story with Richard Gere at Red Box. Yes, I watched it -- and yes, I have to admit to liking it, but I'm a sucker for independent-minded pups.

OK, back to the serious stuff.

-- Steve Clemons

Update: Ikenberry writes in that the following better describes his position:

The "Ikenberry position" might more accurately be:

the US has exercised its unrivaled power most effectively when it has invested it in institutions, alliances, and partnerships. The world still wants the US to be strong, if not unipolar, and oriented toward pragmatic global problem solving. No one else can!

My view is that America invents its power and builds it through the investments Ikenberry describes. His book, Liberal Leviathan, should be out soon -- and we hope to have him participate in these pages frequently discussing these themes.

-- Steve Clemons

I was pleased with how this discussion came out on WNYC's The Brian Lehrer Show in which we discussed the secret military field reports recently made public by Wikileaks.

Also on the program was New York Times chief Pakistan correspondent, Jane Perlez.

A side note about the line I used.

I did the entire interview on Skype.

Yep, I did.

It's sort of sad when it's tough to get a Skype line that clear in DC or New York -- but Beijing? No problem.

-- Steve Clemons

(Two boys and a pup in a tub being pulled to safey in Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province, China; photo credit: Li Jinxiong, China Daily)

The real story behind the picture above is that there have been devastating floods in several of China's provinces -- including Zhejiang Province and Henan Province.

An aside though to this more troubling story of environmental pressures in China is the growing prevalence of dogs as pets -- as opposed to dogs for food.

Unlike the Bugs Bunny commercials in which the rabbit often ended up in tubs to be cooked, these boys and their little dog are safe. During other trips to Beijing years ago, I had difficulty finding restaurants that didn't serve dog on the menu. Perhaps I was just in the wrong part of town or didn't know the city well -- but dog meat was widespread as far as I was concerned.

But on this trip, I have seen more dogs as pets than I have ever seen before. Citizens in the district where I am staying are also petitioning the government to allow larger dogs as house pets.

And pleasantly, despite eating out at all sorts of places around Beijing these last couple of weeks, I haven't seen dog on the menu once -- neither in English nor in Chinese characters.

Just saying. . . Now if you are into bullfrog, snake, pig cheeks, pigeon, and boar -- you'll have an awesome meal throughout the city.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a guest note by General Asad Durrani, who previously served as the head of Pakistan's ISI, or Inter-Services Intelligence. Durrani later served as Pakistan's Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany and to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As a side note, current Pakistan Chief of Army Staff Ashfaq Kayani was a student of Durrani's.

The WikiLeaks "Coup"

There is general consensus that these "tens of thousands of classified documents" procured by the Wikileaks are mostly raw battlefield reports from Afghanistan, and reveal little that was not already known.

All the same, it has created an impact and confirmed many fears: that the war in Afghanistan was not going too well for the US led forces; that it was largely because of Pakistan's inter-services intelligence (the ISI) playing a "double game"; also that the Karzai led dispensation in Kabul did little to help; and that the indiscriminate use of force by the American military, a euphemism for war crimes, too has contributed to this failure.

If that was the intended message, the leak was obviously deliberate. The number and the nature of reports reinforce this inference. The following developments lead me to believe that it was done to win more support for the course correction that Obama's administration has undertaken.

During the last two years, it has often been claimed, and may even be partly true, that under the new counterinsurgency strategy, "collateral damage" was generally avoided.

Again, during the same period, since Pakistan has been successfully persuaded/ coerced to undertake military operations against some of the groups allied with the Afghan resistance, its support to the latter (must have) considerably reduced.

Most importantly, as the 'project Afghanistan' has gone so hopelessly awry, Obama's decision to start withdrawing the military next year was, at the very least, the least bad option.

Pakistan and its sympathisers will indeed now find their own arguments to control the damage.

The official spokespersons cannot do much better than reiterating that the "situation on ground" was different, that Pakistan has taken effective measures against the militants operating on its side of the AfPak borders, and that its policies have now won applause all around.

A number of regional experts have rationalized Pakistan's (alleged) support to the Afghan Taliban because it needs a countervailing force against the growing Indian influence (some of them even believe that in due course Pakistan would employ them in the Indian held Kashmir). Since this perception also exists in Pakistan and provides us with a reasonable excuse to keep the Afghan Taliban in good shape, I have no intentions to contest it in the present scenario.

Not many would pick up the courage to suggest that some other countries in the region -- Iran, Russia and China for example -- too are genuinely concerned about the presence of the US-led alliance in Afghanistan. All of them would therefore take their own respective course to subvert the NATO's "out of area" missions. While Pakistan and Iran would be the obvious suspects interested in a potent Afghan resistance, there are other players as well in this new Great Game.

An unintended consequence of these "leaks" may well be the ISI's enhanced stature in the eyes of the ordinary Pakistanis. With the all pervasive "anti-Americanism" in the country, if the agency has had the gumption of supporting the Afghan resistance against the US occupation, it would be credited with "yet another" coup.

Hamid Gul may also reap similar benefits thought at a much reduced scale. People here have a fairly good idea that his overt support to the Taliban notwithstanding, he has no wherewithal to covertly contribute.

-- Asad Durrani

(Photo Credit: State Department)

This post also appears at The Race for Iran.

Iranian Petroleum Minister Masoud Mirkazemi's visit to Turkey last week highlighted Turkey's multifarious equities vis-a-vis Iran.

A new article by Kadir Ustun, "Turkey's Iran Policy: Between Diplomacy and Sanctions" in the current issue of Insight Turkey offers a Turkish perspective on Ankara's relations with Tehran in the context of the nuclear issue and relations with the United States.

Several conclusions can be drawn from the piece.

First, while Ustun does not say this explicitly, he indicates that Turkey must keep some distance from the United States in order to maintain its credibility in the Middle East. During the Cold War, many Arab countries viewed Turkey with suspicion due to its close ties with the United States and Turkey has no interest in allowing anti-Americanism to prevent Ankara from exerting regional influence. This sentiment is understandably unpopular in Washington, but it is a fact of life for Turkey.

Second, Turkey sees itself as a natural candidate to mediate regional conflicts. Turkey's leaders relish this role both because they view the resolution of local conflicts as in Turkey's national interests and because mediation raises Turkey's international profile and is popular at home. Effective mediation requires maintaining positive relations with all sides. Therefore, Ustun says that "Turkey saw no choice but to vote 'no' to the sanctions [on Iran] in order to protect its reputation as an honest broker."

It is noteworthy that while Turkey has been (rightly) subjected to vehement criticism in Washington for its over-the-top reaction to the Gaza Flotilla crisis, many of those same people have criticized Ankara for seeking to maintain friendly relations with Tehran. The fact is that Turkey is most valuable as a partner when it enjoys friendly relations with all of the Middle East's major stakeholders.

With that goal in mind, Ustun's major theme is that Iran simply believes that diplomacy, rather than sanctions and threats, is the best way for the international community to engage the Islamic Republic of Iran. That is the crux of the problem between Turkey and the United States and will remain so until either the United States engages in more vigorous engagement or Turkey determines that diplomacy has failed and that a more confrontational policy is necessary.

-- Ben Katcher

General Curtis LeMay was a tough, often brilliant, pugnacious deployer of air power -- organizing the debilitating and destructive carpet bombing campaigns of Japan and later viewed by many as being a bit too trigger happy when it came to using nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Curtis LeMay as metaphor captures the likes of John Bolton, Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Max Boot, Joshua Muravchik, Liz Cheney, Richard Perle, Elliot Abrams, and others who seem unable to resist hatching the next military conflict rather than thinking through first how to resuscitate American power in a turbulent world doubtful of America's abilities and designs. Most of these voices think we should have already bombed Iran -- or think we should have allowed Israel to prick the Iranians thus "tying our hands" and forcing America into yet another power-paralyzing quagmire.

Like many, I was surprised to see former National Security Agency Director and Deputy Director of National Intelligence Michael Hayden, now at the Chertoff Group, quoted as saying that a war with Iran was "inexorable."

Although he has his share of critics, this blogger has always found Hayden to be steady and balanced, a results-oriented pragmatist unaffected by the ideological currents that overwhelmed many in the Bush administration. He had a rough time in the debate over torture -- but as a serious national security strategist, Hayden is not one to carelessly suggest that America ought to put "bombing Iran" higher on its 'to do list'. Or so I thought.

His comments were surprising -- and thankfully, misquoted.

This in from the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON - In a July 25 story, The Associated Press reported that former CIA Director Michael Hayden told CNN's "State of the Union" that U.S. military action against Iran now "seems inexorable." A spokeswoman for Hayden responded that he made his reference to Iran's push toward acquiring a nuclear program and not to military action.

So, we at The Washington Note move retired USAF General Michael Hayden out of the "Curtis LeMay Today List" that we are beginning to compile -- and back on to the roster of reasonably sensible strategists.

-- Steve Clemons

(Moon Over Paris, photo credit: Ben Rosengart; click image to make larger)

Long-time TWN reader Ben Rosengart sent me three terrific shots this past week from three different windows he was housed in. I decided to post them one at a time.

Above is part three, taken in Paris. I love the moon in the sky and the antenna pointing at that moon.

The first two were taken in Brittany. This was part one. And then part two.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a really terrific segment by Jon Stewart on the WikiLeaks war diaries.

For fun, the Al Jazeera clip by Clayton Swisher of Afghan National Police taking bong hits before going on patrol shows up at the end of Stewart's comments.

It's important to note that the taping of the police smoking marijuana was actually filmed by soldiers in the 82nd Airborne and given to Swisher. Cool.

-- Steve Clemons

No matter how different observers have reacted to the massive dumping of classified documents by WikiLeaks on Sunday, one of the themes garnering the most attention was that of connections between the Taliban, al Qaeda, and Pakistan's powerful Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). As many have pointed out since Sunday evening this is hardly news (though The Atlantic's James Fallows argues that, in fact, it is), it is startling to see primary source accounts of possible meetings and even operational planning and coordination between our ostensible ally and our enemies in South Asia.

Still, for the moment commentary from Pakistan has been limited, and nuanced interpretations of the data even more limited. One exception to this is Pakistani blogger Mosharraf Zaidi, who often provides a refreshingly honest, intelligent foil to much of the reporting on Pakistani issues in the Western press. Zaidi has an interesting take on what WikiLeaks does and does not reveal about Pakistan. This section in particular stood out to me:

Virtually no serious commentator or analyst anywhere, even those embedded deep in the armpit of the Pakistani establishment, claims that the Pakistani state was not instrumental in the creation, training and sustenance of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan. Given the nature of the relationship between the Pakistani state and the Afghan Taliban, one that goes right to the genetic core of the Taliban, it is hard to imagine that all ties can ever be severed. Again, for serious people, this is an issue that is done and dusted. Pakistan's state, and indeed, its society, had, has and will continue to have linkages with the Afghan Taliban. Moral judgments about these linkages are external to this fact.

These linkages do, however, deserve the scrutiny of the Pakistani parliament. If somehow, Pakistanis are involved in supporting any kind of violence against anyone, that kind of support had better be couched in a clear national security framework that articulates why it is okay for Pakistanis to underwrite such violence. Absent such a framework, the violence is illegal, and the space for speculation and innuendo about Pakistan is virtually infinite. It is that space that Pakistan's fiercest critics exploit when they generate massive headlines out of small nuggets of insignificant and stale information that implicates Pakistan in anti-US violence in Afghanistan (among other things).

This kind of statement has real policy consequences for the United States, and reinforces the need to understand the Pakistani government's attitude towards extremist groups and their utility. But it is equally necessary to understand the attitudes of average Pakistanis towards extremism, violence, how their government behaves, and even who Pakistanis perceive to be their real friends and adversaries. This kind of knowledge can inform our approach to Pakistan and South Asia as a whole, from how we deploy our military, to how we give aid, and how we communicate our policies to Pakistanis.

On Thursday July 29, the New America Foundation will host the public launch of the Pew Research Center's new Global Attitudes Project poll of Pakistani attitudes towards a wide variety of issues. The data will be presented by Pew Research Center President Andrew Kohut, with a discussion to follow between Kohut and New America Foundation President Steve Coll. If you are in Washington and would like to attend, please RSVP here. The event will also be livestreamed here at The Washington Note.

-- Andrew Lebovich

One of the zingers from the WikiLeaks War Diaries -- some 92,000 classified reports on secret military hunting squads, on military encounters with the Taliban, unreported accidental killings of innocent civilians, and more -- is that there may be detailed logistics and financial support of the Afghanistan Taliban by Pakistan's ISI, or Inter-Services Intelligence.

As some have commented, this is not necessarily a surprise -- but given frequent Pakistan denials coupled with US military and White House claims that it has confidence that Pakistan's national security chiefs are "with us" and "not with them" -- this kind of evidence, if true, is clarifying and troubling.

King's College London War Studies Professor and New America Foundation Senior Fellow Anatol Lieven captures well the strong linkages between Pakistan's military elite and the Afghan Taliban in this graph from a longer essay, "All Kayani's Men," that ran in the March/April 2008 edition of National Interest:

TNR Senior Editor Noam Scheiber thinks that Elizabeth Warren is confirmable if nominated and thinks that Obama wins by pushing this button.

Scheiber thinks the Dems will hold behind her for the most part -- and even with a defection or two, Grassley, Snowe, Collins and perhaps other Republican Senators have much to gain by supporting Elizabeth Warren as the head of a new consumer protection agency.

~~

The Fiscal Times has an interesting clip in an opinion piece titled: "Prime Numbers: Deficit Cuts A Priority for Americans":

A 2003 Federal Reserve study showed that each percentage point rise in the ratio of federal debt to GDP lifted long-term interest rates by four basis points, or 0.04 percent. Applying that relationship to the CBO's projections implies that borrowing costs ten years from now would be 1.4 percentage points higher than they would be at the 2009 debt-to-GDP level.

While the Fiscal Times tends to focus on the country's budget deficit, the nation's "jobs deficit" and "infrastructure deficit" are far more deleterious at this moment in time to the nation's future opportunities.

The article, written by James C. Cooper, makes clear that borrowing a decade from now may be 1.4% higher than rates that can be locked in today. America needs smart investment now -- not reckless investment with low returns to the economy. The key is to design an investment strategy that drives the economy towards high-wage job generation and innovation.

The US economy can lock in remarkably low rates for the next 30 years on monies that it borrows in the current economic climate.

America may forfeit its future to China, which is making huge comparative investments in its infrastructure and innovation base, if the US doesn't rewire itself for growth, for innovation, and job creation.

Just cutting deficits is not an economic strategy.

-- Steve Clemons

(Boats in Brittany, photo credit: Ben Rosengart; click image to make larger)

Long-time TWN reader Ben Rosengart sends in three views from three windows. I'm going to post them one at a time.

This is part two, taken in Brittany. This was part one. The next yet to come is Paris.

-- Steve Clemons

(photo credit: PBS NewsHour)

My New America Foundation colleague Steve Coll, a winner of two Pulitzer Prizes and one of the nation's leading national security and intelligence experts on Pakistan, Afghanistan and India, appeared on The PBS NewsHour yesterday evening along with NewsHour correspondent Jeffrey Brown and journalist Philip Smucker to discuss the impact and significance of the massive dump of Afghanistan war logs at WikiLeaks.

While I think that RNC Chairman Michael Steele was pretty much on the money with his critique of the Afghanistan War, this is probably yet another wrong-headed landmine he's stepped on.

As TPMdc has revealed, Steele is organizing a party fundraising event at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles featuring Andrew Breitbart and others.

What does one do when its hard to outdo reality with things we'd otherwise make up?

-- Steve Clemons

A member of the 82nd Airborne Division recorded this clip above of Afghan National Police puffing on a marijuana pipe before going out on patrol.

In an interview with Al Jazeera correspondent Clayton Swisher, US soldiers don't feel as threatened by the drug-dazed ANP but find them "silly" and have a hard time getting them to be quiet and to focus.

This is the group that President Karzai says will be able to take over full responsibilities for security from ISAF soldiers by 2014.

These are also the units that Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin has reported so much progress in US-led ISAF training and partnering programs. My respectful difference with Senator Levin is that the Afghan military and police drug use Swisher reports on is not anomalous and more the norm.

-- Steve Clemons

The editors of the Sun Herald, the leading paper for Biloxi-Gulfport and South Mississippi, certainly are able to see good sense through the war hype.

Here is some smart commentary about the "costs" of America's very full plate of wars:

Costly Endeavours

The United States is currently planning war games with South Korea, which would seem to indicate that the military option is on the table for that country. Saber-rattling is now getting louder against Iran with the Israelis saying that the United States military has planned targeted air strikes there and that a military option is now seriously considered. John Bolton in a TV interview said we have a new axis of evil consisting of Syria, Iran and Venezuela. We are going to have to find a lot of money to put all these ideas into action. It definitely feels like us against the world, and I for one do not believe we can afford it.

Time to rethink what our role in the world should be.

Listen up Washington. John Bolton is not selling like he used to.

-- Steve Clemons