Afghanistan Unraveling

Things have gotten ugly in Afghanistan in the past week. The worst setback, by far, was the massacre of Afghan civilians by a rogue U.S. soldier, but new demands from Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the Taliban's withdrawal from peace talks and a would-be-attack during Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's visit on Wednesday didn't make the picture any rosier.

The latest developments will only make it harder for the Obama administration to sell their long-term vision for Afghanistan on Capitol Hill. As a colleague and I reported in Congressional Quarterly's magazine on Monday, there is already serious resistance in Congress to several pillars of Obama's strategy for stabilizing Afghanistan as foreign troops withdraw. 

In interviews this week senators on both sides of the aisle expressly avoided  knee jerk reactions (CQ, subscription required) to the civilian killings, and there were few signals that anyone was changing their stance about the pace of troop withdrawals between now and 2014. But these events will inevitably reinforce security concerns for American advisers and diplomats and play into the argument that the international presence has worn out its welcome in Afghanistan. And that throws into doubt future Hill support -- and dollars -- for the counterterror/training/development footprint the administration has envisioned maintaining after security responsibility is shifted to the Afghans.

Bullying by Another Name

There aren't too many occasions for profanity-laced tirades with press staff on the foreign affairs beat (thank goodness), but I still get my hackles up reading this WaPo story about the verbal abuse the White House press shop metes out to reporters for stories it doesn't like.

I've never understood this practice. As far as I'm concerned, screaming and cursing at people by phone or e-mail is unprofessional, unproductive and just plain rude. Arguing that this is "how it's always been done," as White House spox Jay Carney seems to imply in the WaPo piece, is no excuse. When you are in a professional setting, discussing the way people are handling their professional duties, there are plenty of ways to hash out disagreements or correct potential errors without resorting to name calling, f-bombs and threats. It isn't a question of whether the White House press corp can "take it," it's a question of whether that approach is the best way to improve the journalism. I doubt it.

I was shocked starting out as a young 20-something reporter in Washington that this was how middle-aged press flacks sought to handle their business. It struck me as entirely juvenile.

I haven't changed my opinion since then, but I've also learned that more than that, it's a strategy to brow-beat and intimidate reporters who portray these flacks' bosses in an unfavorable light. Young press aides pick up these tactics from their seniors, and the cycle churns on. That shouldn't make it accepted practice.

After all, wasn't is President Obama who called for an "adult conversation" in Washington?

The War's Over, Stephen

As the Washington Post noted this morning, it's been an understated end (yes, REAL end, not that "we're starting the drawdown" 2010 announcement or the administration's "we couldn't reach an agreement to keep troops here any longer" revelation earlier this fall) to what for years was the most politically explosive of American military operations. Of the commentary and reaction that has been circulating over the last 24 hours on Iraq, this Stephen Colbert's show with Gen. Ray Odierno Wednesday night struck me as one of the more fitting ways to mark the withdrawal of the final U.S. troops from Iraq.

Remember, it was Colbert who took his whole show to Baghdad when American attention to the conflict was waning in 2009.

Click here to see Ray & Stephen (sort-of) harmonize on "I'll be Home for Christmas." 

GOP Attacks Obama's Foreign Policy Cred

Given Obama's polling on foreign policy and national security issues -- definitely his strong suit these days, particularly when compared to his ratings on jobs and the economy -- this line of attack does not seem like the wisest general election strategy to me.

Appealing to the GOP primary base is another story ...

Iran Back on Washington's Front Burner

The mullahs in Tehran have got to be starting to feel the heat, with an IAEA report slated for release on Wednesday expected to detail Iran's advances in building a nuclear weapon and chatter growing in Israel about a preemptive strike.

The rhetoric is ramping up in Congress, as well, and the IAEA report will likely only strengthen the hawks on Capitol Hill. Already, the revelation last month of an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States have prompted calls for punitive measures, as my colleague Tim Starks and I reported at the time.

Since then, the House Foreign Affairs Committee has marked up and passed an aggressive bipartisan sanctions bill that would force the administration to pursue a wide array of international companies doing business with Tehran. The Senate outlook for the bill is hazy at the moment (CQ, $) -- different blocs of senators are pursuing different tracks which makes action this year unlikely. But freshman Sen. Mark Kirk, R-IL, is now threatening to try and enact one of the toughest measures in the House bill -- sanctioning companies doing business with Iran's Central Bank -- through an amendment to pending appropriations legislation.

That no doubt is making the Obama administration uneasy. However, it's going to be difficult for the White House to resist the drumbeat for stiff countermeasures against an ever-defiant Iran. What remains unclear is whether any amount of international pressure can shift Iran's calculations at this point. It has not looked promising up to this point.

Mullen's Comments on Pakistan Changed Everything ... and Nothing

Every few months, it seems, relations between the United States and Pakistan reach a new low --just this week, in fact, former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said told an audience at the Carnegie Endowment they had reached their lowest point yet. And yet, behind the scenes, officials with both government continue to communicate and cooperate on a number of different fronts.

Retiring Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen’s testimony to Congress last month that one of the region’s most notorious militant groups was a “veritable arm” of Pakistani intelligence is likely to make that dialogue more difficult. In a piece for this week's CQ Weekly magazine, I looked into the ways that Mullen's remarks strengthen the hardliners on Pakistan in Congress, and the likelihood they will force cuts in aid to Islamabad.

What still remains in question whether just some or all of the approximately $5 billion aid requested for fiscal year 2012 will be cut, and whether policymakers will try to go further, perhaps pushing for inclusion of the Haqqani network on the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations, among other measures. Such moves would increase the pressure on elements inside Pakistan, but they also are bound to make it more difficult to build a cooperative, regional solution to the war across the border in Afghanistan. Because there's still no getting around the fact, experts say, that Islamabad will need to play an integral part in any such settlement.

Is the GOP trying to starve the United Nations into submission?

House Foreign Affairs Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) -- and longtime United Nations critics -- has been drawing a lot of press for a bill she says would force major reforms at the UN, but which critics say would undermine the entire institution.

In a piece I wrote for Foreign Policy that ran on their web site this week, I explain how Ros-Lehtinen's bill is unlikely to get through Congress, but the U.N. and their backers still have plenty to worry about from Republicans on Capitol Hill.