By Steve Clemons

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Some thoughts on how Obama may have constructed a new approach to foreign intervention on last night’s Rachel Maddow Show.

Like Qaddafi, Saddam Hussein was also a horrendous thug whose arbitrary and brutal rule resulted in the deaths of vast numbers of his own citizens — but there is no doubt that taking Saddam out removed one of the effective constraints on Iran.

Just had to share this pic on the personal channel.  Daddy’s Home.  Just back from a good trip to Kabul.  Will be writing a number of pieces based on what I learned and saw.  More soon. — Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared.

I look pretty ragged in this pic because it was a ragged morning, blogging about the bombings and gunfights in Kabul this morning.  The British Council offices in Kabul were attacked by insurgents on a national holiday commemorating Afghanistan’s independence from Great Britain.

Vice President Joe Biden has this exactly right.  The time is not right for a formal G2 arrangement between China and the United States — but a defacto G2 now exists.

A new bar is opening in DC, called “Hemingway’s Bar”, in the invite only Cuban Interests Section.  This is vastly better public diplomacy than the US-Cuba tit-for-tat shenanigans of the past.

Speaking at Offutt Air Base, Nebraska — Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has disconcertingly started his tenure fear-mongering about al Qaeda as a justification not to go beyond the President’s proposed $400 billion cuts to the Defense Department over ten years.

Convicted spy Jonathan Pollard has numerous advocates close to President Obama advocating his release from a life sentence.  Pollard betrayed his fellow US citizens and should only be released if he can be used as bargaining chip to move US interests forward — meaning a real deal on an Israel-Palestine two state arrangement.

Kenneth Cole nails it.  h/t to Bob Witeck. — Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared.

In August 2005, because of growing US political resistance on national security grounds, the China National Oil Company (CNOC) withdrew its bid to purchase the US oil company, UNOCAL.