WEP08 Episode 10

We’re in double digits, folks… Episode 10 of The World’s Election 2008 Podcast is ready for Freddie.

Campaign v. reality

David Brooks has a good piece today on campaign rhetoric vs. political reality of dealing with Iran.

Chaos, killing and Iranian influence

Barack Obama is considering a trip to Iraq this summer. Yesterday, John McCain challenged Obama to visit Iraq to see “the facts on the ground.” During an appearance in Reno, McCain chastised Obama for being too naive and inexperienced in matters of war and national security to be president. McCain said Obama’s support for setting a timetable for US withdrawal would “lead to chaos, genocide and increased Iranian influence” in Iraq. That’s likely to prompt Obama to repeat his general claim that the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq has led to,… well, chaos, civil war and increased Iranian influence.

The advocacy group Vets for Freedom says it’s not supporting the candidacy or opposing the candidacy of anybody in the 2008 presidential race. Right. And Kevin Garnett isn’t supporting any particular basketball team as his Celtics battle the Pistons in the NBA playoffs. Vets for Freedom has released an adverstisement (not sure where it’s going out, other than online) that attacks Obama for not visiting Iraq in two and a half years, not meeting with Iraq combat vets from his own state, not meeting with David Petreaus, and wanting to meet with Iran’s leader or “anyone else who hates our country.” Senators Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham, both friends and supporters of John McCain, just stepped down as members of the advisory board to Vets for Freedom. They did so to comply with rules from the McCain campaign forbidding participation in 527 groups or other entities that support or oppose any presidential candidate.

Here’s 8 minutes of McCain yesterday in Reno. His attack on Obama is pretty closely in synch with the Vets for Freedom ad.

Zakaria’s post-American world

I interviewed Fareed Zakaria yesterday and asked him about ideas he lays out in his new book, The Post-American World, and about the presidential election. I’ll put a big section of the interview in this week’s podcast, but in the meantime, here’s the whole thing.

Zakaria’s the editor of Newsweek International, he writes for the Washington Post, and he’s starting up a show with CNN as well. He might be described as a reality-based foreign policy thinker.

Bi-partisanship not dead

Clinton, McCain and Obama all agree that America and the world must come together to pressure the Sudanese government and its proxies to stop the killing in Darfur.

Added 5/30/08

More on McCain’s nuke policies

The LATimes digs into some of the details of McCain’s nuclear security speech yesterday in Denver, including one apparent contradiction. McCain says he wants to exclude Russia from the G-8. But he also says he would like to work more closely with Moscow on arms control. Trying to have his cake and eat it too?

Here’s the NYTimes today on the speech. And here’s the Washington Post on McCain’s delicate dance with Bush.

Attack Iran?

Asia Times says the Bush administration plans to attack Iran’s Quds force. And soon.

The story is based on information from someone the writer says is a former US ambassador who worked for the first president Bush. Today, I did a taped interview with Mansour Farhang, the former Iranian ambassador to the United Nations who resigned over the hostage crisis. He also believes that Bush administration hawks are planning to hit Iran with military strikes of some kind, sometime before the end of the president’s term. I’ll put up audio from our conversation… tomorrow, I promise.

Update 5/28/08

As promised, here’s audio of Amb. Farhang. He told me that Washington distrusts Iran for very good reasons, especially with regard to its nuclear ambitions and support of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. However, Farhang believes that engaging Iran through negotiations on the full set of issues that divide the US and Iran is the only way to solve these problems. He says tough talk and pressure from the US only helps the hardliners in Tehran. The clip runs about 8 minutes, and starts off with Farhang’s answer to my question about McCain’s statements about his commitment to multilateral cooperation.

Ex-White House spokesman goes negative

Add a new book from Scott McClellan, White House spokesman from 2003-06, to the list of those with some harsh views of the Bush administration. Politico.com has a review with a few choice quotes. For example:

“History appears poised to confirm what most Americans today have decided: that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder. No one, including me, can know with absolute certainty how the war will be viewed decades from now when we can more fully understand its impact. What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary.”

Add 5/28/08

The Washington Post website is leading with this. It includes quote from McClellan about his motivations: “Like many Americans, I am concerned about the poisonous atmosphere in Washington. I wanted to take readers inside the White House and provide them an open and honest look at how things went off course and what can be learned from it. Hopefully in some small way it will contribute to changing Washington for the better and move us beyond the hyper-partisan environment that has permeated Washington over the past 15 years.”

Elisabeth Bumiller at the NYTimes mentions that McClellan also criticizes Condi Rice and himself.

Digitizing human rights abuse records in Guatamala

My friend Clark Boyd (who also happens to be my colleague here at The World, he’s our technology correspondent) has a TV story airing on Frontline/World tonight that sounds interesting. Here’s the gist of the story: more than 200,000 people died and went missing during Guatemala’s 36 year civil war. While the army was responsible for atrocities against indigenous people in the countryside, many have wondered about the targeted campaigns against dissidents and activists in the cities. It’s long been thought that the country’s National Police were responsible. Three years ago, the archives of the National Police were discovered by chance in a derelict police building in the middle of Guatemala City. Now, with the help of a Silicon Valley non-profit called Benetech, some 80 million documents are being cleaned, scanned, and analyzed for potential human rights abuses.

Here’s the original radio story that aired on The World. And here’s a link to find your local time/channel info for the program, Frontline/World.

Not Bush

John McCain’s speech yesterday in Albuquerque, NM included one line that was widely perceived as another attempt by McCain to distance himself from president Bush. “The American people have grown sick and tired of the war in Iraq,” McCain said. “I too have been made heartsick by the many mistakes made by civilian and military commanders — and the terrible price we have paid for them.”

Well, he did it again today with a speech in Denver today on nuclear security. I talked with Ashton Carter from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government about the ideas McCain lays out in the speech. Carter is a former Defense Department official who served during the Clinton administration. He said the speech by McCain is an interesting repudiation of president Bush’s policies on the one hand, and a continuation of those policies on the other hand. Here’s a 5 minute clip from Carter.

The biggest gulf between the foreign policy of John McCainn and George W. Bush might be on the issue of global climate change. McCain supports a mandatory “cap and trade” system to reduce greenhouse gas. Bush has acknowledged the problem. But he supports voluntary action. I had a conversation with Manik Roy about this today. He’s the Director of Congressional Affairs for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Here’s a 6 minute clip from our chat.

Here’s a link to my story that went on the air today, about how McCain and Bush differ on foreign policy.