With Tunisia calming down, it is worth reflecting on what the events might mean for us here in the good ol’ US of A.

The first point is that the Obama administration struck precisely the right balance between offering encouragement to the protesters and avoiding interfering in Tunisian internal matters. It is not quite true, as Andrew Sullivan implies, that Obama said nothing about the upheaval. The President released a statement saying he applauds Tunisians’ strength and dignity in standing up to corruption, an important comment that showed that America would not block the will of the Tunisian people. Nationalism is a powerful force in the modern world, and opposing it in now Tunisia would be a disastrous decision.

But neither is it true that the administration inserted itself into the equation, the way Abe Greenwald and others wanted it to. The Obama-ites kept their profile deliberately low, wary of making American support the issue that could be blamed for fomenting the revolution in a part of the world deeply suspicious of U.S. intervention. Unlike Greenwald et al., the administration understands that Tunisians hardly need the assent of an American president before bravely taking, or continuing, action. If anything, Tunisians would be wary of interference from a U.S. president that had praised the strong relations between the nations.

Second, the fact that America let an Arab dictator it supported fall will not go unnoticed. One of Al Qaeda’s major grievances with the U.S. is that America supports autocratic, corrupt, “un-Islamic” regimes like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan. In the 1990s, senior Al Qaeda members, including Osama bin Laden, became (wrongly) convinced that it was U.S. power that was allowing these regimes to remain in power. As scholar Fawaz A. Gerges writes in his essential book The Far Enemy, bin Laden “considered Saudi Arabia an occupied country and its regime incapable of forcing the Americans out.” Gerges continues: “[H]e declared war on the United States, not on Saudi Arabia, because, as he told his cohorts, once the United States is expelled from the area, its local clients would fall like ripened fruits.” For Al Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri the country in question was Egypt, but the logic was the same. The “near enemy” was propped up by “the far enemy,” America.

It will therefore be of great interest to Arabs and Muslims—and hardly just Al-Qaeda—that in fact America does not unconditionally support local despots. Should regime opponents emerge that are not inimical to American interests, the U.S. will not eternally stand in their way.

The real question is what lesson will be taken away from this. Will it be that America is in fact not behind the region’s many woes, that the U.S. is not the far enemy? Or rather, conversely, will it be that the U.S. will support tyrants until the Arab people rise up and cast them off? The two are not mutually exclusive, of course. One can imagine both becoming internalized by Middle Easterners in the coming days.

China’s President Hu is winging his way to DC as I type, set to dine with President Obama this evening.  The summit will be an interesting mix of symbolism and substance — most summits share elements of both, of course, because the two sides are usually equally interested in the wonkery and pageantry.  This time, not so — the substance and symbolism are bifurcated. China values the image of a proper reception on the world’s stage, while the U.S. is more interested in taking a hard line, discussing military ties, North Korea, human rights, currency revaluation and the like.

PPI has churned out a fair bit of China-related material in the last several months, and if you’re trying to read up on everything China-related during the summit, here’s a good guide to set you on the right path:

1.  In December, PPI hosted a forum on US-China relations, featuring Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), Asst SecDef for Asia Chip Gregson, plus James Fallows, Joseph S. Nye Jr., and Mike Chase (see below).  We were trying to get at the question of balance in dealing with China’s rise — emphasizing cooperation where we can, being aggressive when we must, while properly understanding the limits of China’s power. As Nye put it during the panel:

There is a rise in Chinese power, but it’s a mistake to over-estimate it. The size of China’s economy and our economy may be equal in size by 2030, but they will not be equal in composition, and per capita income will only be 1/3 of our per capita income.

You can watch the CSPAN coverage here.

2.  Naval War College professor and PPI author Michael Chase has written three memos on the Chinese military, which you can read here (on China’s military budget), here (on its anti access and area denial strategy), and here (on its growing naval capacities).  Here’s his basic conclusion:

In short, the U.S. will need to strengthen its ties to key countries in East Asia and develop strategic and tactical military concepts and capabilities that would allow it to counter China’s growing military power. Meanwhile, U.S. policy makers must seek collaboration with the Chinese military in an effort to highlight the benefits of being a global stakeholder to Beijing.

3.  Finally, yours truly has penned a series of China-related posts in the last few months, on issues like North Korea, Chinese soft power (or lack thereof), and open-seas sovereignty issues.

Even though there seem to be a thousand pressing issues, here’s an overarching one that could could have grave implications in years to come:

Sino-American tensions in military relations are nothing new, but Secretary Gates’ trip continues to expose a fascinating—and potentially dangerous—rift inside the Chinese bureaucracy: the lack of communication between Beijing’s military and civilian leaders.

This week, China unveiled the J-20, its first and only stealth fighter.  China’s bizarre choice of this week—during Gates’ visit—to flex its newfound military muscles by test-flying the J-20 for the first time. When Gates signaled to President Hu that the test flight was unnecessarily provocative, Hu replied that it had “absolutely nothing to do” with Gates’ visit. Pointedly, Gates acknowledged his concern about the Chinese military acting independently of the political leadership, a problem that could in a worst-case scenario lead to unauthorized military action against, for example, Taiwan.

Getting China’s leaders to communicate with one another is well-outside the Obama administration’s powers, of course, but continuing to press Beijing’s political leadership on the issue is a good start.

While the nation’s attention focuses on Tucson, a crisis emerges in Lebanon. Hezbollah, a member of the Lebanese governing coalition since a deal brokered in 2008 by President Michel Suleiman— has pulled out of the government coalition.  The move is in anticipation of the results of the UN-backed inquiry into the death of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, which is expected to find Hezbollah members implicated in his murder. This is the first time a Lebanese coalition government has collapsed under pressure from resignations, a dangerous first in a country that was wracked by a brutal civil war in the 1980s. The ethnic-religious balance of power is precarious in Beirut, with Hezbollah representing the Shi’ite Muslims from the South.

All of this shows the problem with the Bush administration’s reckless democracy promotion in 2005 and 2006. The administration was quick to hold up the rallies in the wake of Hariri’s murder as the best example of the new post-Iraq Middle East, a future filled with democratic pluralism and rule of law. Lebanon “can serve as a great example (to other countries) of what is possible in the Middle East,” President Bush said.

But there was no follow-up, no larger strategy beyond supporting the UN tribunal.

The administration never had a plan for how to make Hezbollah disappear, save for giving Israel time to crush it in the 2006 war. The reality is that Hezbollah has a strong base in parts of the country, making the terrorist group-cum-political party impossible to excise without upending the country’s fragile balance.

Which is why promoting democracy from afar is so difficult. Local actors can always undermine the master plans of outside powers, and people living in any given country often have as much to fear from instability as they do from illiberalism. The Lebanese people seem to want justice. But not at the cost of further bloodshed.

The Obama administration is continuing on this risky path. Secretary Clinton accused Hezbollah of trying to wreck the UN probe by resigning from the government. She is surely correct, but the Iranian-sponsored group is not going to simply back down. And so there is a stand-off of sorts, with the U.S. and its allies on one side, Hezbollah and Iran on the other, and the majority of Lebanese people in the middle.

The worst outcome of all for the U.S. would be more violence. The best bet is to continue with the Syrian-Saudi attempts at mediation, which hopefully can find some solution that allows both sides to save face while preserving stability.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is in China, meeting with President Hu today in a diplomatic effort to warm military-to-military relations between the two countries. Gates’ trip is in advance of the Obama-Hu summit in Washington next week.  Military relations had frosted over this summer following $6.4 billion in U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.

Gates’ meeting with Hu followed on the heels of an encounter with Chinese defense chief Liang Guanglie, where the two agreed to begin regular strategic security talks in an effort to reduce tensions. The Pentagon believes that a structured long-term dialogue will build trust and focus on longer term issues as the United States—regardless of administration—will likely arm Taiwan for decades to come.

Top of the to-do list on military cooperation will no doubt be North Korea, and it’s hardly coincidence that Gates used this visit to highlight advances in Pyongyang’s military technology that could threaten the West Coast within five years.  Further, as Michael Chase points out in a series of PPI memos on the Chinese military, getting Chinese buy-in on North Korea may rely in part on building trust first in areas like humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and anti-piracy missions, to name a few.

Sino-American tensions in military relations are nothing new, but Secretary Gates’ trip continues to expose a fascinating—and potentially dangerous—rift inside the Chinese bureaucracy: the lack of communication between Beijing’s military and civilian leaders.

This week, China unveiled the J-20, its first and only stealth fighter.  China’s bizarre choice of this week—during Gates’ visit—to flex its newfound military muscles by test-flying the J-20 for the first time. When Gates signaled to President Hu that the test flight was unnecessarily provocative, Hu replied that it had “absolutely nothing to do” with Gates’ visit. Pointedly, Gates acknowledged his concern about the Chinese military acting independently of the political leadership, a problem that could in a worst-case scenario lead to unauthorized military action against, for example, Taiwan.

Getting China’s leaders to communicate with one another is well-outside the Obama administration’s powers, of course, but continuing to press Beijing’s political leadership on the issue is a good start.

The brutal Egyptian suicide bombing at a church on New Year’s Day has rightly outraged the world. And yet, rather than focus on those specifically responsible for this brutal attack (most likely some splinter group of Al Qaeda), some – including many right wingers – are using the opportunity to stoke anti-Islamic sentiment. Islam-hater Robert Spencer laments that “Islamic jihadists and Sharia supremacists continue, with ever increasing confidence and brutality, to prey on the Christians in their midst, while those who should be working to protect them make excuses and look the other way.” “A disproportionate share of religious persecution happens in Muslim-majority countries,” writes Gary Bauer. Marty Peretz wrote that “already in the new year there is already news of Islamist terror.”

While there certainly is a problem with jihadist violence towards minorities in the Middle East, the right’s outrage would have a lot more credibility were it not part of a broader anti-Islamic campaign. The hysterical campaign against Park51 in New York City last year was a turning point in American conservatism’s relationship to Muslims, illustrating beyond a reasonable doubt the sheer Islamophobia on the right.

“Muslim life is cheap,” Peretz infamously wrote during the Park51 non-controversy. He apologized for another line in the same article, wherein he called for Muslims to be stripped of their First Amendment rights. But about Muslim life being cheap, well, it was “a statement of fact, not value,” he said later.

The astonishing thing about Park51 was that powerful figures in the conservative movement revealed themselves as concerned with Islam, suddenly and selectively. Sarah Palin called on “peaceful Muslims” to reject the planned Islamic center, as if erecting such a building were a statement of violence. John McCain said Park51 would “harm relations, rather help.”

Here’s an idea: avoiding sweeping statements about Islam’s supposed propensity towards violence would help relations. It’s something those who claim to be so concerned with Islamist violence might want to consider.

In the new issue of Vanity Fair, journalist Peter Bergen argues that we are, in fact, winning our war against Al Qaeda. “[I]t is not the West that faces an existential threat, but al-Qaeda,” he writes. “Above all, we need to keep al-Qaeda in perspective, remembering that its assets are few, and shrinking.”

Now, Bergen is one of the few Western journalists to meet Osama Bin Laden, and among the world’s foremost experts on Al Qaeda. He also opposed the Iraq War for the same reason President Obama did, as a distraction from the hunt for Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. In other words, Bergen is not just another hawk or war cheerleader, reflexively supporting military action divorced from any realistic aim. He does not claim progress in this war because he always mistakes militarism for wisdom, as, say, Republican hack Bill Kristol does. So it’s very worth taking what Bergen has to say very seriously.

Even if he is wrong about the astuteness of continuing to fight in Afghanistan, as I think he is, Bergen points to a larger truth about the vast majority of commentary and analysis about Al Qaeda: most of it focuses not on Al Qaeda but on us. Our blunders, our costs, our misguided decisions and our weaknesses. Very little looks at developments from Al Qaeda’s point of view. And from Al Qaeda’s point of view, things don’t look so pretty.

Bin Laden imagined Muslims rising up worldwide and overthrowing their oppressors after 9/11, so inspired by the attacks would they be. That obviously hasn’t happened. Al Qaeda imagined the U.S. ceasing its support for Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and other un-Islamic regimes in the Middle East. That hasn’t happened, either.  Bin Laden’s right-hand man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, believed his organization could gain control of a state and expand its Taliban-like rule outward. Nope. In fact, all of Al Qaeda’s larger goals of restoring the caliphate and ushering in a period of worldwide ultra-Islamic rule have failed to materialize.

Nearly 10 years after the 9/11 attacks,  Al Qaeda is much further away from achieving its primary aims than it was before the attacks, when it could at least claim to have a mini-state within Afghanistan. Yes, the U.S. has expended great resources, lost thousands of soldiers, and traded away many valuable liberties and values. I think Bergen understates these costs when he writes, “During the past decade, misguided actions taken in the name of the War on Terror—notably the invasion of Iraq, the bungled war in Afghanistan, and the heavy-handed approach to the treatment of prisoners—have bought bin Laden and his allies some time.”

But for Al Qaeda, bruising America is only a means to an end. The point of hurting the United States was for it to crumble, not for it to carry on in a wounded state. After America broke apart easily, like a spider web, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and Israel would surely follow, bin Laden thought. Taking over those lands was the purpose of attacking the U.S. in the first place. What good are spectacular terrorist events against infidels if they don’t lead to the outcomes you want?

True, Al Qaeda still exists, and arguably might even still be able to execute another attack on the American homeland. But it has not done so in nearly 10 years, and not for lack of trying. The ultimate way to defeat Al Qaeda is not just to prevent it from killing Americans—though of course that is a major sub-goal of ours—but to kill or capture its current members, and convince prospective future anti-American jihadis not to join its cause. Preventing Al Qaeda from achieving its larger Islamist aims is a prime way to do that. Even the most committed ideologues can only fight for so long without making significant progress towards its goals, after all.

All of which is to say that things probably aren’t as bad as they seem. Things probably aren’t as bad as they always seem. Al Qaeda has a fundamentally unrealistic goal and a deeply unappealing ideology. As long as the U.S. and its allies refrain from making too many too mistakes, as long as we play the long game and keep Al Qaeda isolated, as long as we protect the American homeland, we will win this war. We already are.

The Obama administration released its Afghanistan review this morning, and while everyone will be digging through it for truths and obfuscations, it’s worth simply comparing the review’s conclusions to President Obama’s “Terms Sheet” he dictated at the outset of his Afghanistan surge. Obama’s six-page terms sheet, first revealed and released in Bob Woodward’s book Obama’s Wars, calls for measuring progress in Afghanistan by answering questions in related to governance, Pakistan, training of Afghan forces, and international support. Let’s look at the new review and compare it to some parts of the old one, shall we?

1. The new review concludes that “the momentum achieved by the Taliban in recent years has been arrested in much of the country and reversed in some key areas, although these gains remain fragile and reversible.”
   The initial review, however, called for “reversing the Taliban’s momentum” everywhere, not merely arresting it in some places (my italics). Small word change, big difference.
2. The new review says that “We are also supporting Afghanistan’s efforts to better improve national and sub-national governance, and to build institutions with increased transparency and accountability to reduce corruption – key steps in sustaining the Afghan government.”
   The initial review had specific benchmarks to measure governance progress: Has President Karzai made merit-based appointments in the areas most essential to our mission? Has the Afghan government begun to implement an effective reintegration/reconciliation program?  The new review is silent on these critical matters.
3. The new review holds that Afghanistan forces “have exceeded ANSF growth targets, implemented an expanded array of programs to improve the quality and institutional capacity of the ANSF, and sharply improved their training effectiveness.”
   The initial review called for “accelerated ANSF growth while improving quality.” On this score, the U.S. is doing quite well, according to what was released today.
4. The new review argues that “Emphasis must continue to be placed on the development of Afghan-led security and governance within areas that have been a focus of military operations.”
   The initial review insisted that we needed to establish “a program to transfer responsibility from ISAF to ANSF province by province.” No mention in the new document of what has been achieved, only on what must still be done.

Despite the negative balance sheet, on these and other scores, today’s review is cautiously optimistic. We are making progress, however fragile and recent. “Most important, al-Qa’ida’s senior leadership in Pakistan is weaker and under more sustained pressure than at any other point since it fled Afghanistan in 2001,” Obama’s new review argues. Reviewing the first assessment, however, reminds us that weakening al-Qaeda’s senior leadership in Pakistan was not the primary goal. Perhaps it should have been.

Photo Credit: Truthout