Over at Democracy Arsenal, Michael Cohen — with whom I spent an interesting, accidental 48 hours in Dubai trying to get to Afghanistan as election monitors — attempts to place American foreign policy in context:

Sometimes it’s worth putting American foreign policy — and the military decisions we have made and continue to make since 9/11 — in a proper and sobering context.

Eight years and two months since America was attacked on September 11th, and 3,000 Americans were killed, the United States has approximately 168,000 soldiers stationed in two Muslim counties. In neither of these countries is there any al Qaeda presence — and there has not been any such presence since 2002. Indeed, since the fall of 2001, al Qaeda has not launched a single major attack on U.S. targets or the U.S. mainland.

Yet, instead of having a national debate on how we got ourselves into such a bizarre and pointless predicament — and squandered so many lives and so many billions of dollars in the process — the current debate in Washington is focused on how many more troops we will send into harm’s way to pursue an enemy that is down to about 200 core operatives.

Do you ever get the queasy feeling sometimes that somewhere in a cave in Pakistan, Osama bin Laden is having a bit of a chuckle about this?

But Michael’s “proper…context” leaves out too much. And the irony is that I have to engage Michael on the topic he wants to debate – “how we got ourselves into such a bizarre and pointless predicament” – in order to explain why he’s missing the point.

Michael seems preoccupied with wanting to debate the past, but it’s the past – the Bush administration’s extraordinary mismanagement and poor decision-making – that compels the Obama White House to revisit discussion of strategy and resources in the first place.

Michael and I had a heated discussion about all this in a cab in Dubai, and here’s the point we’ve differed on: Al Qaeda has not attacked the U.S. since 2001 due to a variety of factors, but al Qaeda’s current weakness is, I contend, temporary, and if the Obama administration fails to choose the most effective strategy (and match it with the sufficient military and civilian resources), the group could rejuvenate itself in the Afghan hinterland.

So, when the time comes and we feel confident that the large-scale terrorist threat to the U.S. is definitively a thing of the past, then we can have the debate Michael wants. In the meantime, a debate over troops and strategy in Afghanistan seems exactly the kind of discussion we should be having.

Yesterday, I railed on Joe Lieberman for convening a witch hunt over the Ft. Hood shootings. One man’s witch hunt is another’s “responsible statesmanship,” per Jamie Kirchick over at TNR’s The Plank. He makes two points:

Given the gravity of this incident and the potential for future such attacks, it makes eminent sense that such a hearing would occur, in order to find out how such clear and visible signals of impending danger were ignored by the Army hierarchy….It’s not “Going Rogue.” It’s responsible statesmanship.

The point Jamie misses is that though the Army’s performance evaluations clearly indicated that Nidal Hasan was a very poor psychiatrist (so poor that, as NPR’s Daniel Zwerdling’s excellent reporting indicates, Hasan’s boss had at least one discussion about the possibility of discharging him) with significant other problems, Lieberman’s witch hunt will be unable to find “clear and visible signs of impending danger.”

Why? Based on the evidence, the red flags just weren’t there. Only in hindsight could you connect Hasan’s questionable, disturbed past with a propensity for extreme violence. I worked at the Navy’s internal criminal investigation agency (NCIS), which examines threats to crimes against the Navy and Marine Corps. If I had to make a decision on resource allocation to the Hasan case one month ago based on what we know, I would have recommended no additional surveillance and that his file be reviewed perhaps six months down the road.

The Pentagon’s internal reviews are better equipped than Lieberman’s hearings to comb through the Army bureaucracy and propose mechanisms to address sub-standard performers with probable mental fragility. That said, even that investigative process can hardly be a guarantee of preventing another Ft. Hood.

The Washington Independent reports that Lieberman has determined that Ft. Hood was a “terrorist” attack, and that he has called Hasan a “lone wolf.” That’s subtle code for the controversial provision in the USA Patriot Act that allows the FBI to eavesdrop on individual “terrorists” who plot without outside assistance. The provision was removed in a recent House mark up in part because the Justice Department had a hard time making the case it was actually necessary. The constant invocation of Hasan as a “lone wolf” – which the Independent’s Daphne Eviatar argues actually doesn’t fit Hasan – could well serve as a pretext for re-authorizing the provision, and suggest some clues into Lieberman’s motives.

But that’s all speculative. At the very least, Lieberman should allow the military and FBI investigations to be completed before jumping in with his own highly public process. Leaping in front of the cameras to assign blame for Ft. Hood before the formal probes have concluded seems like something a politician, not a statesman, would do.

It seems like just yesterday — to surge or not to surge?

If you’re thinking it was just yesterday, then you’ve got the wrong major American military deployment. Not Afghanistan, but Iraq. What a difference a year makes — at the heart of the presidential campaign debate on national security in 2008, Iraq has all but faded from public discussion.

So, to review: Earlier this month, the Iraqi parliament passed an election law for the January 18, 2010, parliamentary vote. The law theoretically resolved a handful of outstanding yet crucial issues that were needed to facilitate the vote, even though the U.N.’s man in Baghdad says pulling off the election by January would be a “herculean task.” Just today Iraqi President Jalad Talibani again threw the January poll in doubt by insisting, perhaps on behalf of his Sunni veep, that minority and refugee Iraqis needed greater representation in parliament.

The election is the last major hurdle to a U.S. military withdrawal at the end of 2010 (save 40,000-50,000 American troops for training and counterterrorism operations). Failure to conduct a legitimate election — and more importantly, to have the loser accept the results without resorting to more violence — could potentially re-escalate sectarian strife as Iraq’s deep political wounds along ethnic lines would be ripped open again.

Addressing and resolving the parties’ various complaints about the election law will be a major issue over the next few days. Watch this space.

If you believe Tom Ricks’ analysis (and in this case, I happen to) there’s a good chance that violence in 2010 — at least against Iraq’s civilian population if not American military forces — will be the highest it has been in several years. Anecdotal evidence suggests that one-off attacks are on the rise, with the occasional massive bombing like the August attack against the Iraqi Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Finance that killed some 155 people. Groups proclaiming themselves to be al Qaeda in Iraq — though probably composed of Saddam’s Ba’ath party loyalists — have claimed responsibility in several instances.

The good news? Even though they carry the “al Qaeda” brand, they’re not intent on or capable of an attack on the U.S. mainland.

The bad news? They could be a major destabilizing force in Iraq for years to come, because the U.S. military has pulled back from cities and towns — as stipulated in the Status of Forces Agreement — and is now in a supportive role to Baghdad’s forces, which seem none-too-hurried to ask for American help. What’s more, the cash used to flip the Sunni Sons of Iraq to cooperate with Iraqi/American forces has dried up as the task of distributing payment has fallen to the Iraqi government.

Or, to cut all this down to a nice, tidy phrase used by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction’s (SIGIR’s) quarterly report from October 2009: “The security picture in Iraq remains mixed.”

As for reconstruction itself, SIGIR points to several positive developments in oil infrastructure development, but nothing will be really resolved until a comprehensive revenue-sharing agreement among the Sunnis, Shi’ites, and Kurds for hydrocarbons is passed.

That’s a ton to chew over. Here’s what I think all this means: If the election is held come January and the Iraqi security forces are able to at least contain violence, then the U.S. will able to stick to the plan. American troops will be substantially reduced from 120,000 to 50,000 by the end of 2010. This is no small feat and there are a few major hurdles before it happens. However, if it does happen, allow me to bastardize a Churchillian phrase and say it would represent the beginning of the end.

Danger Room has a great scoop.

Salman Al-Awdah, a Saudi cleric who played an influential role in Osama Bin Laden’s early radicalism, called the Fort Hood shootings “irrational” and an “empty thought.” Al-Awdah said, “Incidents [such as the Ft. Hood shootings] have bad consequences, and undoubtedly this man might have a psychological problem; he may be a psychiatrist but he [also] might have had psychological distress.”

Though Bin Laden had once described Al-Awdah as his “ideal personality,” the cleric has somewhat moderated his stance recently, having condemned 9/11 even while subsequently signing a 2004 letter that called for jihad against U.S. forces in Iraq.

It’s a notable differentiation. In the past, Al-Awdah has distanced himself from terrorism targeting civilians, while endorsing military ones.  Even though Ft. Hood was technically not in the field of battle, many of its soldiers were headed out to Iraq or Afghanistan, or just returning home. You’d think Al-Awdah would view them as culpable as forces in a war zone.

I’ve written previously that I don’t believe Ft. Hood was terrorism. That Al-Awdah passed on an opportunity to legitimize the attack — instead emphasizing Nidal Hassan’s mental illness — only underscores my analysis.

Eugene Robinson is a wonderful writer with whom I quite often agree.

But if such a talented, astute observer of the American political landscape hasn’t deciphered why we’re in Afghanistan, and that those costs are worth bearing, then the White House better prepare for an all-out charm offensive once the strategy and troop-level decisions have been made.

In Robinson’s most recent column, he laments:

Sending more troops will mean more coffins arriving at Dover, more funerals at Arlington, more stress and hardship for military families. It would be wrong to demand such sacrifice in the absence of military goals that are clear, achievable and worthwhile.

And what goals in Afghanistan remotely satisfy those criteria?

[…]

As long as our goals in Afghanistan remain as elusive as they are now, Obama shouldn’t be sending troops. He should be bringing them out.

As I’ve argued countless times, though America has long since grown tired of the seemingly endless wars, there are — and will continue to be — compelling national security reasons to remain in Afghanistan and adopt much of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy.

However, that’s not the point of my post. Rather, it’s that I expect the White House to soon announce another deployment of some 30,000+ troops to Afghanistan. President Obama must be prepared to explain our security interests as he sends more Americans into harm’s way. Distracted, I imagine, by the endless health care debate, the president must soon do a better job of selling the public on his administration’s latest controversial decision.

Someone — possibly the White House’s man in Kabul himself — seems to be making life tough for U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry. After expressing objections about the Karzai government’s endemic corruption and reliability as a partner, Eikenberry put his thoughts into writing, which then ended up in the low-profile pages of the Washington Post and New York Times.

Yikes.

My first reaction was that Eikenberry leaked the memos himself to publicly turn the screws on Afghani President Hamid Karzai. After all, the only real leverage the Obama administration has right now is to take its football and go home. Impressing that possibility on Karzai as part of the public debate may compel el presidente to make an actual — rather than window-dressing — effort to clean up his act.

Andrew Exum at Abu Muqawama worries that the leak will undercut any sort of credibility Eikenberry had with Karzai. I don’t think that’s true — I’m sure the anti-corruption message was loud and clear, if previously made behind closed doors.

Furthermore, the administration is reportedly leaning towards a counterinsurgency strategy that aims to protect 10-12 major population centers throughout the country. In theory, this means working more with regional governments, tribal leaders, and local warlords in a plausible attempt to bypass Kabul and marginalize Karzai.

Regardless, Eikenberry’s objections underscores for President Obama that an exit strategy should be a more concrete part of the deployment plan. If the Way Out wasn’t included in the strategy thus far, then Eikenberry’s contributions should end up as a net positive.

Was the attack on Fort Hood terrorism?

Politicians like Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) are being careful not to call terrorism outright, but are beginning to raise the issue.

Addressing the issue of Nidal Hasan’s relationship with a former Virginia-based imam Anwar al-Aulaqi, Hoekstra said, “For me, the number of times that this guy tried to reach out to the imam was significant.” Hoekstra added, “Al-Qaeda and radical jihadists use the Internet to spread radical jihadism….So how much of [Hasan’s] lashing out is a result of…his access to radical messages on the Internet and the ability to interact?”

“I believe that the responses from Aulaqi were maybe pretty innocent,” Hoekstra continued. “But the very fact that he’s sent e-mail…to this guy and got responses would be quite a concern to me.”

While I was tempted to make fun of Hoekstra (“He sent an email?!?!?! You’re right, Congressman, it must be a plot!”), after reading Aulaqi’s post-incident statement praising Hasan’s actions, it’s clear that there is enough cause for concern to warrant a discussion. Aulaqi’s words are pretty chilling: “The only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the U.S. Army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal.”

However, based on what we know now, the available evidence suggests that the Fort Hood tragedy was a case of a very sick man who reacted violently to his impending deployment to Afghanistan. In other words, it was not terrorism.

Depending on if you ask the State Department, E.U., or United Nations, definitions of the term will slightly vary. However, all definitions agree that terrorism’s aim is “to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population to compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act.” (UN Security Council Resolution 1566, 2004)

On balance, Hasan’s case does not meet this standard.

While you could argue that Hasan’s attack was motivated by a 2007 speech where he recommended Muslims should be released from military service as conscientious objectors, that “policy” recommendation was more reflective of his growing objections, mental confusion, and discomfort as a Muslim in the American military. It was personal, not political.

Consider his life story: A second-generation Muslim-American, he joined the military probably more for what it offered (an education) than because of his conviction to serve. His faith grew, and he became more aware of objections to the military’s deployments, eventually hiring a lawyer and offering to repay tuition fees in return for a discharge.

As a psychiatrist, he was exposed to an endless parade of mentally and physically traumatized service members whose experiences no doubt reinforced Hasan’s objections to military service and deployment to a war zone, and placed him in a more fragile mental state.

All the while, he maintained communication with the former imam, Aulaqi (now based in Yemen), whose own (and possibly very different) motivations for hating the U.S. may have indeed influenced Hasan to “do something” about his upcoming deployment. While Congress will also surely question the FBI about what it knew about their communications, hindsight is 20/20, and the bureau’s assessment at the time – that the emails between Aulaqi and Hasan did not warrant an investigation – was appropriate given its finite resources.

But at the end of the day, Hasan acted alone, and was probably driven by being a Muslim-American in the military who was exposed to a series of encounters that degraded his emotional health. Closer to the 2007 tragedy at Virginia Tech, Hasan’s killing spree seems more the product of deep mental instability and personal anxieties that manifested themselves in the most horrific way possible.

Twenty years ago today, I was a seventh grader at the American Community School in Surrey, England. My family had lived in the U.K. for two years (we’d stay for two more) because my father was the European sales manager for an American chemical company.

Even at such a young age, I liked to think that I was seeing the Cold War from the “front lines.” I was riveted the first time our family crossed into West Germany, and I felt pride when my middle school cross-country and baseball teams would compete on British-American military bases. I was particularly fascinated at the Moscow Music Peace Festival, though I’m sure as much for the appearances by Motley Crue and Skid Row as for its rather striking implications about freedom, openness, and globalization.

In truth, I led an obnoxiously comfortable life in a quite English town. But the broader experience of living abroad during a time of such sweeping change fueled my budding consciousness with an interest in geo-politics and foreign policy, and, of course, rock and roll.

Conservatives will crow today about Ronald Reagan’s role in the entire affair, drawing a straight line between the Gipper’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” and the crumbling of 70 years of Communism. Of course, the Soviet Union’s demise was far more complex. George Packer’s column in The New Yorker sums it up far better than I could ever hope to:

The wall came down not because Ronald Reagan stood up and demanded it but because on the evening of November 9th, at a televised press conference in East Berlin, a Party hack named Günter Schabowski flubbed a question about the regime’s new, liberalized travel regulations. Asked when they took effect, Schabowski shrugged, scratched his head, checked some papers, and said, “Immediately,” sending thousands of East Berliners to the wall in a human tide that the German Democratic Republic could not control. Soldiers and Stasi agents didn’t shoot into the crowd, but things could easily have gone otherwise.

The revolutions of 1989 were made possible by a multiplicity of conditions: the courage of East Bloc dissidents and the hundreds of thousands of fellow-citizens who finally joined them; American support for the dissident movements and containment of the Soviet Union; the disastrous economies of the Communist countries; the loss of confidence among ruling-party élites; the crucial forbearance of Mikhail Gorbachev. For Europe’s Communist regimes to disappear so suddenly and bloodlessly (Romania was a different story), everything had to fall into place, above and below, within and without. Such circumstances are improbably rare, and they can’t be mechanically replicated by the laws of history or by divine design or by universal human aspiration. A false lesson drawn from 1989 involves a kind of shallow eschatology of totalitarianism: this is how it always happens—the people rise up, the regime withers and dies, peace and democracy reign. The chaos that followed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was in part a consequence of this thinking. In planning the postwar period in Iraq, George W. Bush and some of his advisers had 1989 in mind—“like Eastern Europe with Arabs,” as one official put it.