While the debate over Gen. McChrystal’s recent comments to which James referred yesterday continues to rage, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has entered the lists in the policy battle over the strategy in Afghanistan:

The request for additional forces by the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, poses cruel dilemmas for President Obama. If he refuses the recommendation and General McChrystal’s argument that his forces are inadequate for the mission, Obama will be blamed for the dramatic consequences. If he accepts the recommendation, his opponents may come to describe it, at least in part, as Obama’s war. If he compromises, he may fall between all stools—too little to make progress, too much to still controversy. And he must make the choice on the basis of assessments he cannot prove when he makes them.

He comes down along the lines that have been proposed by Gens. McChrystal and Petraeus:

President Obama, as a candidate, proclaimed Afghanistan a necessary war. As president, he has shown considerable courage in implementing his promise to increase our forces in Afghanistan and to pursue the war more energetically. A sudden reversal of American policy would fundamentally affect domestic stability in Pakistan by freeing the Qaeda forces along the Afghan border for even deeper incursions into Pakistan, threatening domestic chaos. It would raise the most serious questions about American steadiness in India, the probable target should a collapse in Afghanistan give jihad an even greater impetus. In short, the reversal of a process introduced with sweeping visions by two administrations may lead to chaos, ultimately deeper American involvement, and loss of confidence in American reliability. The prospects of world order will be greatly affected by whether our strategy comes to be perceived as a retreat from the region, or a more effective way to sustain it.

He also urges a political offensive within Afghanistan, cultivating regional even local authorities, and a diplomatic offensive, an effort to get all of the major powers that border Afghanistan pulling the same way:

In a partly feudal, multiethnic society, fundamental social reform is a long process, perhaps unrelatable to the rhythm of our electoral processes. For the foreseeable future, the control from Kabul may be tenuous and its structure less than ideal. More emphasis needs to be given to regional efforts and regional militia. This would also enhance our political flexibility. A major effort is needed to encourage such an evolution.

Concurrently, a serious diplomatic effort is needed to address the major anomaly of the Afghan war. In all previous American ground-combat efforts, once the decision was taken, there was no alternative to America’s leading the effort; no other country had the combination of resources or national interest required. The special aspect of Afghanistan is that it has powerful neighbors or near neighbors—Pakistan, India, China, Russia, Iran. Each is threatened in one way or another and, in many respects, more than we are by the emergence of a base for international terrorism: Pakistan by Al Qaeda; India by general jihadism and specific terror groups; China by fundamentalist Shiite jihadists in Xinjiang; Russia by unrest in the Muslim south; even Iran by the fundamentalist Sunni Taliban. Each has substantial capacities for defending its interests. Each has chosen, so far, to stand more or less aloof.

The summit of neighboring (or near-neighboring) countries proposed by the secretary of state could, together with NATO allies, begin to deal with this anomaly. It should seek an international commitment to an enforced nonterrorist Afghanistan, much as countries were neutralized by international agreement when Europe dominated world affairs.

While I agree completely with the position that James articulated in his post, I would only add that I would hope that President Obama might arrive at his decision on how to proceed in Afghanistan and state that position unambiguously soon. Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum and the current ambiguity over the future direction of our policy in Afghanistan creates an opening for generals, politicians, and former secretaries of state to attempt to influence the direction of that policy. The situation in Afghanistan is probably as well understood now as it is likely to become and little good will come of further delay.

Obama administration officials are now admitting what has been apparent for weeks: that they are giving serious consideration to radically downsizing the Afghanistan mission.  Peter Baker and Elisabeth Bumiller break the story in this morning’s NYT, noting that a combination of factors have President Obama strongly reconsidering the Biden Plan, which he rejected as recently as March, which calls for a narrow counter-terrorism strategy combined with accelerated handoff to Afghan security forces.

I assess this at some length in my New Atlanticist piece, “Obama Having Buyer’s Remorse in Afghanistan?”

Given that I both anticipated this policy change and that it largely accords with my own instincts on the matter, I’m inclined to give Obama a great deal of slack here.

While I agree with CNAS scholar Andrew Exum that me must consider the costs of withdrawing from Afghanistan along with the advantages and that there are indeed American interests that merit risking American lives in that theater, I also agree with Dr. Henry Kissinger that we must consider our capacity and staying power as well as our desires when deciding what to do next.  Given that the American public will not put up with heavy casualties in Afghanistan for decades on end, especially given a corrupt host government and the lack of progress in building infrastructure or training Afghan security forces, it’s incumbent upon the president to steer the course of our policy accordingly.

Much more at the link.  I’ll also be discussing this tonight on OTB Radio with Dave Schuler and special guest Joshua Foust of Registan.net.

Photo: Getty Images.

Gary Farber continues his look at the latest document release from President Nixon’s archives and finds corroboration for his long held belief that Nixon and Henry Kissinger believed the war in Vietnam was unwinnable and “simply wanted to punt the issue until after the 1972 elections, after which they expected South Vietnam to collapse.”  And, of course, we learned not long ago that Robert McNamara, who served as Secretary of Defense for most of the Kennedy-Johnson era (and died this morning) had the same thought and similarly nonetheless prosecuted the war vigorously.

While I’m neither a military historian nor even a Vietnam War buff, for my money the best short case that Farber, Nixon, and McNamara were right remains Jeffrey Record’s Winter 1996 Parameters article “Vietnam in Retrospect: Could We Have Won?”   The piece is short and worth reading in full.  The conclusion:

Norman Podhoretz, who believes that American intervention in the Vietnam War was “an attempt born of noble ideals and impulses,” has concluded that “the only way the United States could have avoided defeat in Vietnam was by staying out of the war altogether.”[50] His judgment, in retrospect, appears to be as reasonable as any. The United States intervened in the Vietnam War on behalf of a weak and incompetent ally, and it pursued a conventional military victory against a wily, elusive, and extraordinarily determined opponent who shifted to ultimately decisive conventional military operations only after inevitable American political exhaustion undermined potentially decisive US military responses. Even had the United States attained a conclusive military decision, its cost would have exceeded any possible benefit. Vietnam was then, and remains today, a strategic backwater, and the US decision to fight there in the 1960s was driven by a doctrine of containing communism that in the 1950s was witlessly militarized and indiscriminately extended to all of Asia. Bernard Brodie observed in the early 1970s that “it is now clear what we mean by calling the United States intervention in Vietnam a failure. . . . We mean that at least as early as the beginning of 1968 even the most favorable outcome . . . could not remotely be worth the price we would have paid for it.”[51]

The key to US defeat was a profound underestimation of enemy tenacity and fighting power, an underestimation born of a happy ignorance of Vietnamese history, a failure to appreciate the fundamental civil dimensions of the war, and a preoccupation with the measurable indices of military power and attendant disdain for the ultimately decisive intangibles. In 1965, Maxwell Taylor confessed that “the ability of the Viet Cong continuously to rebuild their units and make good their losses is one of the mysteries of this guerrilla war. We still find no plausible explanation of the continued strength of the Viet Cong.”[52] Four years later, Vo Nguyen Giap commented that the “United States has a strategy based on arithmetic. They question the computers, add and subtract, extract square roots, and then go into action. But arithmetical strategy doesn’t work here. If it did, they’d have already exterminated us.”[53]

The United States could not have prevented the forcible reunification of Vietnam under communist auspices at a morally, materially, and strategically acceptable price.

Within the last couple of days both Sen. John McCain and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger have offered contrasting strategies for Afghanistan. John McCain’s plan was explained in a speech before the American Enterprise Institute and Henry Kissinger’s plan in an op-ed in the Washington Post.

There are some points on which the two men agree. Both agree that Afghanistan is too important for us just to walk away.

McCain

I am confident victory is possible in Afghanistan. I know Americans are weary of war. I’m weary of it. But we must win the war in Afghanistan. The alternative is to risk that country’s return to its previous function as a terrorist sanctuary, from which al Qaeda could train and plan attacks against America. Such an outcome would constitute an historic success for the jihadist movement, severely damage American standing and credibility in a region that already doubts our resolve, and threaten the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A terrorist sanctuary in Afghanistan would encourage and enable al Qaeda and other terrorist groups to destabilize neighboring countries. Broader insecurity in Afghanistan – with the violence, refugee flows, and lawlessness it would engender – could spill beyond its borders to nuclear armed Pakistan or other states in south and central Asia, with the gravest implications for our national security.

Kissinger

The Obama administration faces dilemmas familiar to several of its predecessors. America cannot withdraw from Afghanistan now, but neither can it sustain the strategy that brought us to this point.

The stakes are high. Victory for the Taliban in Afghanistan would give a tremendous shot in the arm to jihadism globally — threatening Pakistan with jihadist takeover and possibly intensifying terrorism in India, which has the world’s third-largest Muslim population. Russia, China and Indonesia, which have all been targets of jihadist Islam, could also be at risk.

Both agree that what we’re doing now isn’t working.

McCain

The situation in Afghanistan is nowhere near as dire as it was in Iraq just two years ago – to cite one example, civilian fatalities at their peak in Iraq were ten times higher than civilian deaths at their peak in Afghanistan last year. But the same truth that was apparent three years ago in Iraq is apparent today in Afghanistan: when you aren’t winning in this kind of war, you are losing. And, in Afghanistan today, we are not winning. Let us not shy from the truth, but let us not be paralyzed by it either.

Nearly every indicator in Afghanistan is heading in the wrong direction. Civilian fatalities in Afghanistan have increased dramatically as security has deteriorated, particularly in the southern provinces of the country. The number of insurgent attacks was higher every single week in 2008 than during the same week in 2007. Since 2005, violence has increased over 500 percent, and despite the presence of tens of thousands of coalition troops, growing portions of the country suffer under the influence of the Taliban. The percentage of Afghans rating their security positively has declined from 77 percent in 2005 to 40 percent today. Only a third of Afghans say that U.S. or NATO forces have a strong presence in their areas, down from 57 percent just two years ago, and Afghans cite the lack of security and corruption as the foremost reasons their country is moving in the wrong direction.

Kissinger

Heretofore, America has pursued traditional anti-insurgency tactics: to create a central government, help it extend its authority over the entire country and, in the process, bring about a modern bureaucratic and democratic society.

That strategy cannot succeed in Afghanistan — especially not as an essentially solitary effort. The country is too large, the territory too forbidding, the ethnic composition too varied, the population too heavily armed. No foreign conqueror has ever succeeded in occupying Afghanistan. Even attempts to establish centralized Afghan control have rarely succeeded and then not for long. Afghans seem to define their country in terms of a common dedication to independence but not to unitary or centralized self-government.

However, although the two men have differing views on the way forward in Afghanistan, even their contrasting approaches have distinct similarity. Kissinger proposes what is essentially the denial of territory approach that I’ve favored over the period of the last seven years. Keys to this are a classic COIN strategy in the vicinity of Kabul:

Military strategy should concentrate on preventing the emergence of a coherent, contiguous state within the state controlled by jihadists. In practice, this would mean control of Kabul and the Pashtun area. A jihadist base area on both sides of the mountainous Afghan-Pakistani border would become a permanent threat to hopes for a moderate evolution and to all of Afghanistan’s neighbors. Gen. David Petraeus has argued that, reinforced by the number of American forces he has recommended, he should be able to control the 10 percent of Afghan territory where, in his words, 80 percent of the military threat originates. This is the region where the “clear, hold and build” strategy that had success in Iraq is particularly applicable.

a more restricted mission in the rest of the country:

In the rest of the country, our military strategy should be more fluid, aimed at forestalling the emergence of terrorist strong points. It should be based on close cooperation with local chiefs and coordination with their militias to be trained by U.S. forces — the kind of strategy that proved so successful in Anbar province, the Sunni stronghold in Iraq.

and diplomacy to gain the support of Afghanistan’s neighbors:

In Afghanistan, such an outcome is achievable only if its principal neighbors agree on a policy of restraint and opposition to terrorism. Their recent conduct argues against such prospects. Yet history should teach them that unilateral efforts at dominance are likely to fail in the face of countervailing intervention by other outside actors. To explore such a vision, the United States should propose a working group of Afghanistan’s neighbors, India and the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. Such a group should be charged with assisting in the reconstruction and reform of Afghanistan and establishing principles for the country’s international status and obligations to oppose terrorist activities. Over time, America’s unilateral military efforts can merge with the diplomatic efforts of this group.

John McCain, on the other hand, favors a reemphasis on counter-insurgency in Afghanistan:

As it was in Iraq, security is the precondition for political and economic progress in Afghanistan. And the way to provide enduring security is by applying the same basic principles of counterinsurgency tailored for the unique circumstances of Afghanistan, backed with robust intelligence resources and a sufficient number of troops to carry it out.

This strategy should be operationalized through a nationwide civil-military campaign plan. There is today a campaign plan for Regional Command-East, one in the works for Regional Command-South, and a patchwork of other operations throughout the country. There is no comprehensive, nationwide plan for the war that spells out what level of combat troops and resources will be required, where, and to do what. The fact that we are engaged in this fight without such a plan more than seven years after our initial invasion explains much of the failure of our efforts thus far.

encouraging the Afghans to increase the size of their military:

The Afghan army is already a great success story: a multiethnic, battle-tested fighting force. The problem is that it is too small – it currently stands at 68,000 – and, even with the increase in projected end strength to 134,000, it will remain too small. For years, the Afghans have been telling us they need a bigger army, and they are right. After all, their country is more populous and significantly larger than Iraq. At a minimum, we need to more than double the current size of the Afghan army to 160,000 troops, and consider enlarging it to 200,000. The costs of this increase, however, should not be borne by American taxpayers alone. Insecurity in Afghanistan is the world’s problem, and the world should share the costs. I believe we should work with our allies to establish an international trust fund to provide long-term financing for the Afghan army. At the same time, we need to increase the number of trainers and mentors assisting the Afghan police, who have suffered neglect and mismanagement for too long.

and using diplomacy to gain the support of Afghanistan’s neighbors:

A special focus of our regional strategy must be Pakistan. For too long we have viewed Pakistan as important because of our goals in Afghanistan. Yet Pakistan is not simply important because of Afghanistan; Pakistan is important because of Pakistan. We cannot simply subordinate our Pakistan strategy to our Afghanistan policy.

We should start by empowering the new civilian government in Islamabad to defeat radicalism with greater support for development, health, and education. Today, development assistance constitutes just one percent of all U.S. funding directed toward programs in the tribal and border areas. This must change. We should also strengthen local tribes in these areas who are willing to fight terrorists – the strategy used successfully in Anbar and elsewhere in Iraq – while recognizing that such an approach will not be nearly as quick or far reaching as it was in Iraq.

Interestingly, both McCain and Kissinger make a similar point about the NATO allies. They should be encouraged to give the support they’re most likely to offer, i.e. development support rather than additional military assistance.

Kissinger

Symbolically, the participation of NATO partners is significant. But save for some notable exceptions, public support for military operations is negligible in almost all NATO countries. It is possible, of course, that Obama’s popularity in Europe can modify these attitudes — but probably to only a limited extent. The president would have to decide how far he will carry the inevitable differences and face the reality that disagreements concern fundamental questions of NATO’s future and reach. Improved consultation would ease this process. It is likely to turn out, however, that the differences are not procedural. We may then conclude that an enhanced NATO contribution to Afghanistan’s reconstruction is more useful than a marginal military effort constrained by caveats. But if NATO turns into an alliance a la carte in this manner, a precedent that can cut both ways would be set. Those who tempt a U.S. withdrawal by their indifference or irresolution evade the prospect that it would be the prelude to a long series of accelerating and escalating crises.

McCain

While I believe the United States should continue to encourage European troop contributions and press for the reduction of caveats on their use, I also believe we should move away from stressing what Washington wants Europe to give, and more toward encouraging what Europe is prepared to contribute. Many of our NATO allies – and other allies and partners outside NATO, including countries in Asia and the Gulf – are fully capable of contributing many badly needed resources. In many areas, non-combat related contributions – from police training to a trust fund for the Afghan National Army – will be as critical to long-term success as more European troops on the ground.

I’m skeptical that Afghanistan will be able to muster a substantially larger force in the absence of a functional central government less corrupt than the one in Kabul now and I believe that creating such a government in Kabul remains beyond our grasp. As I understand the Obama Administration’s current policy with respect to Afghanistan, it rejects the nation-building aspects of the Bush Administration’s approach while retaining most of the military objectives of its predecessor’s strategy, which it will secure by increasing the American troop level in Afghanistan while hoping for increased military support from our NATO allies.

To his credit John McCain emphasizes the importance of explaining the importance of Afghanistan to the American people. That will be important since even under the best of circumstances we’re not going to see success in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Capitol Hill January 27, 2009 in Washington, DC. Gates served as defense secretary under former President George W. Bush and was asked to continue at that position under President Barack Obama. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

My New Atlanticist post “Obama’s New Afghanistan Strategy“details the rather far-reaching reboot of our goals in that conflict as outlined by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in testimony yesterday before the Senate Armed Services Committee.    Two of the three changes recommended — getting Hamid Karzai and our NATO allies to do more — strike me as exercises in futility, for reasons I outline.  The third, however, is quite welcome:

The one thing that’s within our ability to change, however, is most important one:  setting achievable goals for the mission.  As Henry Kissinger told the Council recently, our implied goal in Afghanistan is a democratic state — in the fullest sense of the term, including equal rights for women and religious tolerance — that is centrally governed.  Given Afghanistan’s history, he argued that we “need to examine whether this is a conceivable objective.”  If Gates’ testimony is any indication, it appears that examination has taken place and resulted in the only plausible conclusion:  Afghanistan is simply not going to be a modern, stable democracy within the timeframe that we can sustain a huge commitment of resources.

Given that, Kissinger suggested we “need a different strategy”  that is “designed to prevent what we fear most: the return of a terrorist state.”  While Gates did not put it quite so bluntly, it looks like that’s precisely our new baseline strategy.   It’s not a slam dunk that we can achieve that, either — but at least it’s not tilting at windmills.

Read the rest here.

I missed President Bush’s farewell address last evening, as I was otherwise detained at the British ambassador’s residence listening to Dr. Henry Kissinger deliver the Atlantic Council’s annual Makins lecture.  It was, I suspect, a good trade.

I’ve been blogging up a storm about the speech this morning at New Atlanticist.

In “Kissinger: Iran Diplomacy More Than Just Talk,” I bring the sad news that, while sitting down and chatting with our adversaries is a good idea, it’s a bit more difficult than it sounds.

In response to a question from Boston Globe foreign policy reporter Farah Stockman, who asked him for creative solutions to our nuclear standoff with Iran along the lines of the Nixon administration’s opening to China, Kissinger quipped that they didn’t simply hop on an airplane one day and begin talks.   Instead, it was “a three year project” that was “developed slowly and carefully.”   The real breakthrough “did not come at the negotiating table” as a result of his considerable charm and diplomatic brilliance but rather in seeing the strategic opportunity three years earlier presented by the massing of 42 Soviet divisions on the Manchurian border.

In “Kissinger’s Formula: Goal + Capability + Staying Power,” I observe,

If brevity is the soul of wit, perhaps simplicity is the soul of strategy.  A theme that Kissinger returned to over and again during his talk is simultaneously obvious and overlooked.   For every policy issue, the great statesman told us, we must consider three aspects:  Our goal, our capabilities toward acheiving that goal, and our staying power.

This is, of course, International Relations 101.  Yet, if we look at how foreign policy is actually practiced, we will generally see that at least one of these facets is ignored.

Finally (for now, at least), in “Henry Kissinger: Optimist!” we get a surprisingly rosy view of the future to compensate for decidedly dark view of the present,

If we play our cards right, we are about to “enter an extraordinarily creative period.”

For the first time in living memory, we have an international great power consensus on the major goals, albeit with differences in how to go about achieving them.  With respect to the global financial crisis, “no major country believes they benefit from the crisis or deliberately undermining the international system.”   Further, the crisis is in at least one way a blessing: with resources shrinking, “no country believes it can solve its own problems” without international cooperation.   This will force states to align their priorities with others, ultimately leading to necessary restructuring of the global system.

More to follow later in the day.

AP Photo by Charles Dharapak.

A series of media reports questions whether former New York Senator and Secretary of State nominee Hillary Clinton gave special treatment to donors to Bill Clinton’s charity.  AP’s Sharon Theimer has what appears to be the lead story.

Secretary of State appointee Hillary Rodham Clinton intervened at least six times in government issues directly affecting companies and others that later contributed to her husband’s foundation, an Associated Press review of her official correspondence found. The overlap of names on former President Bill Clinton’s foundation donor list and business interests whose issues she championed raises new questions about potential ethics conflicts between her official actions and her husband’s fundraising. The AP obtained three of the senator’s government letters under the Freedom of Information Act.

[...]

The letters and donations involve pharmaceutical companies and telecommunications and energy interests. An aide to the senator said she made no secret of her involvement in many of the issues. Bill Clinton’s foundation declined to say when it received the donations or precisely how much was contributed.

The story details specific interventions on behalf of PAETEC Communications, Merck pharmaceuticals, Bar Laboratories, and KeySpan Corp (now National Grid). All paid to join Bill’s Clinton Global Initiative and got intervention by Hillary Clinton. Given the amounts involved ($10,000 to $20,000 a year) and the sequences (sometimes HRC action preceded them joining CGI) the overlap of a handful of names is hardly proof of misfeasance. It does, however, highlight the inevitable “appearance of impropriety” issues when a husband and wife are both involved in extremely high level activities, especially those which overlap.

The WSJ editorial page warns,

Here is the spectacle of a former President circling the globe to raise at least $492 million over 10 years for his foundation — much of it from assorted rogues, dictators and favor-seekers. We are supposed to believe that none of this — and none of his future fund-raising — will have any influence on Mrs. Clinton’s conduct as Secretary of State.

The silence over this is itself remarkable. When Henry Kissinger was invited merely to co-chair the 9/11 Commission, the political left went bonkers about his foreign clients. In this case we have a Secretary of State nominee whose husband may have raised more than $60 million from various Middle East grandees, and Washington reacts with a yawn. Maybe someone will even ask about it at her nomination hearing today.

That’s not unreasonable. While I have no love lost for the Clintons, especially Bill, what I’ve read of his Global Initiative and related related post-White House endeavors his been glowingly positive. There is, however, a certain awkwardness to having him go around with a tin cup in hand and having not only his considerable personal charm but also the specter of his wife’s high office as negotiating tools.

We’re simply in uncharted territory here. We’ve simply never had a former First Lady with anything like Mrs. Clinton’s political power. The closest we’ve had is Eleanor Roosevelt; and Franklin was dead and buried by that point.

Leon E. Panetta, the former congressman and White House chief of staff. (Kevin Wolf/Associated Press)

When I saw the news yesterday afternoon that Leon Panetta was Barack Obama’s pick to head the CIA, I decided to hold off on posting and go play with my baby instead.  My initial reaction was much the same as to the news that Hillary Clinton was going to be the next Secretary of State — that it simply didn’t make sense given the lack of relevant experience — and I was in a distinct minority on that one, with the likes of Henry Kissinger praising the pick.   Not so much on Panetta.

To be sure, Panetta is a smart, decent fellow and he’s an excellent manager.  As David Corn writes, “Panetta is an even-tempered and highly regarded Washington player–kind of a Mr. Fixit in a nice suit.”  But he’s got essentially zero national security or intelligence experience.

Jules Crittenden has a good roundup of conservative blogger reaction which, not surprisingly, is scornful. But it’s not just the usual suspects scratching their heads.

Hudson’s Ron Radosh says the appointment “has created not only shock waves in Washington, but an obvious lack of enthusiasm on the part of some influential Democrats.”  Dianne Feinstein, the incoming chair of the Senate intel committee and a liberal Democrat, is less than sold.

“I was not informed about the selection of Leon Panetta to be the CIA Director. I know nothing about this, other than what I’ve read,” Feinstein said in a statement. “My position has consistently been that I believe the Agency is best-served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time.”

Byron York says, “Word is Obama didn’t tell outgoing chairman Jay Rockefeller, either.”  Unusual if true.  And, frankly, odd for a transition team that has been universally praised for its diligence and smoothness.

CQ’s Jeff Stein says the pick “is likely to give Republicans fresh ammunition to reopen questions about the Clinton administration’s counterterrorism policies.”  Of course, Obama might view that as a feature rather than a bug.

Spencer Ackerman reports that, “initially at least, the Panetta pick has not generated consternation from intelligence veterans, despite his lack of experience with intelligence.”  Why?  “Although there is concern about putting an inexperienced director in place during wartime, some longtime intelligence officials see Panetta’s proximity to Obama as a silver lining, as having a director with Panetta’s close ties to Obama may ensure the agency’s continued relevance.”

Of course, that brings up another question, which  Noah Shachtman asks: “[W]hat about those pledges, to keep the intelligence community out of politics?”

In an update to his post, though, he notes the flip side:

Rozen gets an e-mail from retired CIA deputy director Milt Bearden, who goes even further. He calling Panetta a “brilliant” choice. “It is not problematic that Panetta lacks experience in intelligence,” Bearden e-mailed. “Intel experience is overrated. Good judgement, common sense, and an understanding of Washington is a far better mix to take to Langley than the presumption of experience in intelligence matters. Having a civilian in the intelligence community mix is, likewise, a useful balance. Why not DNI?”

Steve Benen makes a fair point as well:

That last point is of particular interest. Pretty much every official from within the CIA in recent years has been tainted in some way by Bush administration policies. Obama needed someone capable who had nothing to do with the last eight years, and Panetta fit the bill. At a minimum, he had the highest of security clearances during his tenure as White House chief of staff, and no doubt spent a lot of time in intelligence briefings and in the situation room, and he was a member of the Iraq Study Group*, so it’s not as if Panetta is going to the CIA with no background.

What’s more, while hiring from outside the agency seems a little odd, former CIA Director John Deutch told the New York Times that “two of the agency’s most successful directors, John McCone and George H.W. Bush, had little or no intelligence experience when they took over at C.I.A.”

Indeed, they’ve named their headquarters building after the last guy.

UPDATE: Matt Yglesias notes that it’s “long been the case that past service as a White House Chief of Staff has been viewed as a wide-ranging qualification for future public office.”

Alexander Haig became Secretary of State. Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney both went on to serve as Secretary of Defense. James Baker become Secretary of Treasury and Secretary of State. There’s nothing unusual about the idea that service in that job qualifies people for senior national security positions.

Well, Haig was also a 4-star general and Supreme Allied Commander, so he’s in a different category.  And Baker’s tenure at Treasury, where he negotiated several key international economic agreements, were probably a stronger qualification than his previous stint as WHCOS.

Still, Matt’s right that that position is hugely important.  Rumsfeld was a naval officer and had served on the defense committee as a House member but was certainly no defense expert when he was appointed SECDEF the first time.  Cheney’s defense experience was limited, too, although he served as Republican Whip long after his tenure as WHCOS.

In its quadrennial no-brainer, TIME has named Barack Obama its Person of the Year. Oddly, it takes several paragraphs of throat clearing to get to anything like making a case for the choice:

As Obama has moved with unprecedented speed to build an Administration that would bolster the confidence of a shaken world, his flash and dazzle have faded into the background. In the waning days of his extraordinary year and on the cusp of his presidency, what now seems most salient about Obama is the opposite of flashy, the antithesis of rhetoric: he gets things done. He is a man about his business — a Mr. Fix It going to Washington. That’s why he’s here and why he doesn’t care about the furniture. We’ve heard fine speechmakers before and read compelling personal narratives. We’ve observed candidates who somehow latch on to just the right issue at just the right moment. Obama was all these when he started his campaign: a talented speaker who had opposed the Iraq war and lived a biography that was all things to all people. But while events undermined those pillars of his candidacy, making Iraq seem less urgent and biography less relevant, Obama has kept on rising. He possesses a rare ability to read the imperatives and possibilities of each new moment and organize himself and others to anticipate change and translate it into opportunity.

The real story of Obama’s year is the steady march of seemingly impossible accomplishments: beating the Clinton machine, organizing previously marginal voters, harnessing the new technologies of democratic engagement, shattering fundraising records, turning previously red states blue — and then waking up the day after his victory to reinvent the presidential-transition process in the face of a potentially dangerous vacuum of leadership.

Of course Obama is the Person of the Year.    For one thing, he got elected president, which almost always gets you the nod.  George W. Bush won in both 2000 and 2004.  Bill Clinton in 1992.   George H.W. Bush lost out to “The Endangered Earth” in 1988 but got a makeup in 1990,  Ronald Reagan won in 1980.   Jimmy Carter in 1976, Richard Nixon (along with Henry Kissinger) in 1972, and Lyndon Johnson in 1964.   John Kennedy was passed over in favor of “U.S. Scientists” in 1960 but got it in 1961.   Harry Truman won in 1948.  Franklin Roosevelt won in 1932, 1934, and 1941.

Since the award was established in 1928, the presidents who have been snubbed include:  Herbert Hoover and  Dwight Eisenhower.   That’s the list.  And Ike had won the honor as a general in 1944.  Richard Nixon didn’t win it upon winning the office, either, although he shared the award upon re-election (albeit for the China opening).

Even aside from tradition, Obama deserved the award.  He dominated media coverage for a whole year.  Other contenders — Michael Phelps, Sarah Palin, and Henry Paulson — were in the spotlight for a short time.

Beating Clinton and overcoming the barriers of inexperience and racial prejudice to win the presidency were remarkable achievements and his transition has thus far been superb.   Given the troubled times in which he’s taking office, he’s got every opportunity to repeat.

Readers can easily peruse Memeorandum for a good sampling of blogger reactions. The short version: People who supported Obama going in thought he won while those who supported McCain going in thought he won. Not surprisingly, there aren’t a lot of prominent undecideds blogging.

I got 27 emails from Patrick Hynes, McCain’s blogger outreach guy, between 8:51 and 11:36 Eastern rounding up “Debate Facts” (which, oddly, were numbered 1-13 and 16) and various pro-McCain or anti-Obama statements from pundits. Presumably, those on Obama’s list got similarly inundated.

Nothing much jumped out at me last night during the debates as wildly unfair. The biggest factual contention last night was Obama’s assertion that Henry Kissinger supported him and disagreed with McCain on the issue of talks with Iran. Here’s the exchange from the transcript:

OBAMA: Senator McCain mentioned Henry Kissinger, who’s one of his advisers, who, along with five recent secretaries of state, just said that we should meet with Iran — guess what — without precondition. This is one of your own advisers.

Now, understand what this means “without preconditions.” It doesn’t mean that you invite them over for tea one day. What it means is that we don’t do what we’ve been doing, which is to say, “Until you agree to do exactly what we say, we won’t have direct contacts with you.” There’s a difference between preconditions and preparation. Of course we’ve got to do preparations, starting with low-level diplomatic talks, and it may not work, because Iran is a rogue regime.

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MCCAIN: Look, Dr. Kissinger did not say that he would approve of face-to- face meetings between the president of the United States and the president — and Ahmadinejad. He did not say that.

OBAMA: Of course not.

MCCAIN: He said that there could be secretary-level and lower level meetings. I’ve always encouraged them. The Iranians have met with Ambassador Crocker in Baghdad.

What Senator Obama doesn’t seem to understand that if without precondition you sit down across the table from someone who has called Israel a “stinking corpse,” and wants to destroy that country and wipe it off the map, you legitimize those comments. This is dangerous. It isn’t just naive; it’s dangerous. And so we just have a fundamental difference of opinion.

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OBAMA: Look, I mean, Senator McCain keeps on using this example that suddenly the president would just meet with somebody without doing any preparation, without having low-level talks. Nobody’s been talking about that, and Senator McCain knows it. This is a mischaracterization of my position. When we talk about preconditions — and Henry Kissinger did say we should have contacts without preconditions — the idea is that we do not expect to solve every problem before we initiate talks.

[...]

MCCAIN: So let me get this right. We sit down with Ahmadinejad, and he says, “We’re going to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth,” and we say, “No, you’re not”? Oh, please.

OBAMA: No, let me tell…

MCCAIN: By the way, my friend, Dr. Kissinger, who’s been my friend for 35 years, would be interested to hear this conversation and Senator Obama’s depiction of his — of his positions on the issue. I’ve known him for 35 years.

OBAMA: We will take a look.

Stephen Hayes got an on-the-record response from Kissinger:

Senator McCain is right. I would not recommend the next President of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the Presidential level. My views on this issue are entirely compatible with the views of my friend Senator John McCain. We do not agree on everything, but we do agree that any negotiations with Iran must be geared to reality.

So, Obama is a lying liarface, right? Well, no. He’s referring to widely reported comments Kissinger made at a forum on September 20th. Here’s what Kissinger actually said:

Well, I am in favor of negotiating with Iran. And one utility of negotiation is to put before Iran our vision of a Middle East, of a stable Middle East, and our notion on nuclear proliferation at a high enough level so that they have to study it. And, therefore, I actually have preferred doing it at the secretary of state level so that we — we know we’re dealing with authentic…

[...]

And I always believed that the best way to begin a negotiation is to tell the other side exactly what you have in mind and what you are — what the outcome is that you’re trying to achieve so that they have something that they can react to.

Now, the permanent members of the Security Council, plus Japan and Germany, have all said nuclear weapons in Iran are unacceptable. They’ve never explained what they mean by this. So if we go into a negotiation, we ought to have a clear understanding of what is it we’re trying to prevent. What is it going to do if we can’t achieve what we’re talking about?

But I do not believe that we can make conditions for the opening of negotiations. We ought, however, to be very clear about the content of negotiations and work it out with other countries and with our own government.

So, what’s the difference? Kissinger is talking about negotiations at the plenipotentiary level — Secretary of State and lower — not the presidential level. Presidents simply don’t show up for talks without preconditions with hostile heads of state.

What’s happened here is simple: Obama gave an off-the-cuff answer to a hypothetical question at a debate months ago. Rather than admitting that it was less than nuanced and that he’s clarified his position since then, he’s pretending that his initial description of his position — presidential level talks “without preconditions” — accurately reflects his current, more nuanced position.

In actuality, McCain and Obama have the exact same position on the issue and both agree with Kissinger. Yet they either don’t fully understand that fact or they’re pretending that minor differences in emphasis represent cosmic differences in worldviews.