If this isn’t sitting on a knife’s edge, then I don’t know what is.

Today, the US military says syonara to Iraq’s cities and towns, pulling back to their relatively isolated FOBs (”Forward Operating Bases”), which sit removed from the average Iraqi’s daily life.  Why is this a big deal?  It represents a return to a pre-surge military posture.  “The surge” was many things, but more than a blanket increase in the number of American troops, it was a change in mentality - one that morphed from the US military protecting its own ass to protecting Iraqis’.  Read Tom Ricks “The Gamble” and you’ll see why.  In a nutshell, the military went from hiding far away from Iraq’s cities, villages, and towns, to living - quite literally - among them.  This positioning built confidence with Iraqis, leading them to cooperate with the Americans, viewing them as a mechanism to decreaing violence, not an obstacle.

Today reverses that posture.

Interesting that Tom Ricks is a huge stinking pessimist about our prospects for success:

My worry is that I don’t see the political situation as being much different than it has in the past. Nothing much has changed from the previous rush to failures. As readers of this blog have seen me say before: the surge succeeded tactically but failed strategically. That is, as planned, it created a breathing space in which a political breakthrough might occur. But Iraqi leaders, for whatever reason, didn’t take advantage of that space, and no breakthrough occurred. All the basic issues that faced Iraq before the surge are still hanging out there: How to share oil revenue? What is the power relationship between Shia, Sunni and Kurd? Who holds power inside the Shiite community? What is the role of Iran, the biggest winner in this war so far? And will Iraq have a strong central government or be a loose confederation? And what happens when all the refugees outside the country and those displaced inside it, who I think are majority Sunni, try to go back to their old houses, now largely occupied by Shiites and protected by Shiite militias?

A secondary issue is how Iraqi forces will behave once they are operating without American forces watching them. There are a lot of “Little Saddams” in Iraq. That didn’t used to be our problem-but now these guys have been trained, equipped and empowered by us.

I hope I am wrong, and that Iraq really is embarking on a new course this week. But I don’t think so. So I think the real question now is: How fast will the unraveling occur?

Yours truly is more optimistic, but very cautiously so.  I appreciate the lack of political accommodation, and agree that without it, tensions will continue to simmer in throughout the political factions.

But one of the aspects that Ricks fails to account for is how the Iranian election has effected Tehran’s ability to maintain influence on the ground in Iraq.  Is Iran’s attention so focused on internal politics now that the phone line to its Iraq-sponsored militias has been figuratively cut?

The following is a guest-post from Michael Derham, a fellow of the Truman National Security Project:

While most of us were recovering from the after-effects of “the World’s #1 Michael Jackson Tribute band” Sunday morning, in sunny Tegucigalpa the Honduran military stepped in and told President Manuel Zelaya to beat it. He has been replaced by the recent head of the Congress, Roberto Micheletti, a political opponent despite nominally being member of the same party. Like so many Latin American coups, while the details of the event were funny (Zelaya was sent packing to Costa Rica in his pajamas), the greater implications are not so humorous.

Zelaya was elected three years ago on a center-right ticket but in his time in the office swung him to the left, aligning himself with Hugo Chávez. But while those who previously supported Zelaya might not be thrilled with the direction he’s taken politically, it’s his questionable move to go for a second term — disallowed under the Honduran constitution–that caused the military to move against him. The coup occurred the morning of a planned non-binding referendum ordered by Zelaya against the wishes of the Honduran Congress.

Zelaya called the referendum on whether to re-draw the constitution to give him another four years. While Zelaya has been downplaying the nature of the referendum - after the coup he was describing it to BBC as a poll “like Gallup would conduct” - his opponents saw that he would use any expression of public support for another term as leverage to compel Congress to call a binding referendum this fall. The Supreme Court issued an order for his arrest, which lead the army to act.

Once Zelaya was whisked off to gilded exile in Costa Rica, the Organization of American States closed ranks to condemn the coup and called for Zelaya to serve out his term, still recognizing him as legitimate president. This is opposed to the rash actions of others in the region, notably Hugo Chávez. Chávez is giving truth to the phrase “only fools rush in.” He is supposed to have sped to ally Nicaragua last night to meet with Zelaya to lend his support. In the early hours after the coup, Chávez was on his nationally televised TV show “Aló Presidente” saying he was going to invade Honduras.

Unlike Chávez and others calling for hasty action, the Obama administration has walked a fine line. Reports indicate that as the crisis was culminating, US officials were working behind the scenes to resolve the situation in a peaceful, constitutional manner. The Obama administration has rightly supported the OAS, and has called the coup for what it is. Smartly, Secretary of State Clinton has emphasized that economic aid will continue to one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere, while the Honduran military, which has a strong relationship with (’dependence on’ might be a better phrase) the US will likely be frozen out of additional aid. But Secretary Clinton has held off on moving to cut aid to give Honduran actors the opportunity to work towards a peaceful solution of the crisis.

While one can question the wisdom of Zelaya’s policies or his motivation for seeking a second term, the solution imposed by the military is worse than the problem. While during the Cold War such a coup might get the quiet backing from international supporters, today the Micheletti government is finding itself isolated internationally - even from neighbors El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua, which have cut off trade relations with Honduras.  Alone, and with Zelaya to speak at the UN today , the Micheletti government will likely be forced to back down.  A likely outcome would be a compromise, where Zelaya is allowed to return and serve out his term, with the understanding that his attempts to seek a second term are at an end. That could come as soon as Thursday, when Zelaya has planned to return to Honduras, in the company of the Secretary General of the OAS.

Derham is a writer living in New York City.  He specializes in Latin America, finance, and economics.  The views expressed here are his own.

NYU Russian politics professor Josh Tucker and I have a piece up on RealClearWorld this morning in advance of Obama’s trip to Russia on July 6.  Here’s the gist:

[T]he U.S. and Russia have mutual security and economic interests that should be advanced immediately. While the advancement of democracy and human rights in Russia should remain an American priority, this objective will require time and patience. In short, it’s this balancing of near-term cooperation and nudges toward longer-term liberalization that constitutes the essential compromise of American policy shifts toward Russia.

Seen in this light, the July meeting comes at an opportune moment: Weakened by the lower price of oil and in need of international capital, Russia may be more open to cooperation. Furthermore, President Medvedev himself is cause for guarded optimism-though he is hardly a Western liberal, he tilts more in that direction than KGB alum and current Prime Minister Putin.

President Obama should jump at the opportunity to foster cooperation with Russia-and lay the groundwork for greater freedom within it. Here’s how, in three steps:

Recognize that the U.S. and Russia have shared interests, and that those interests are increasingly urgent. Think for a moment about America’s most vital national security priorities: halting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and nuclear arms; combating Islamist terrorism; monitoring the ambitions of a rising China. These are Russia’s priorities, too, and the Obama administration should seek closer ties with Moscow on all of these crucial fronts.

But to achieve these aims, Mr. Obama needs to build trust by accommodating Russian concerns in other areas. Though the United States should never place relations with Russia ahead of its own interests, in practice, this would mean adopting a “go slow” approach to NATO expansion and missile defense in Central Europe, exploring ways to integrate Russia into the latter.

Declare an end - finally - to the Cold War. While the United States and Russia have deep and serious differences on a range of issues, the countries are no longer global rivals.

Nuclear weapons are an obvious starting point. In Prague this past April, President Obama laid out a vision of a world free of nuclear weapons. Since the U.S. would never disarm unilaterally, it needs Russian cooperation. While negotiations of the size of arsenals will come later, a good confidence-building measure is to take our nuclear weapons off “hair trigger alert,” a Cold War holdover.

In a similar spirit, President Obama can show America’s goodwill by revoking the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, designed to encourage free emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union. While laudable and necessary in its day, the measure is a constant irritation in Russian-American relations.

Don’t give up on Russian democracy. The watchword of the Moscow meetings should be cooperation, not confrontation. It’s a time for gradually building ties, not for righteous lectures to a proud nation whose own people often seem quite ambivalent about the merits of democracy.

Nonetheless, the U.S. should take measured but firm positions-coupled with deliberate, cool-headed rhetoric-that support gradual development of democratic institutions in Russia. Across Russia, brave individuals are calling for greater accountability and transparency in government. They deserve an American advocate. You never quite know what opportunities may arise, but the U.S. should be watchful to encourage greater openness and respect for human rights within Russia.

The following is a guest-post from Milton Wilkins, an intern at the Center for American Progress.  Milton was my stalwart intern last summer.

The recent bombings in Baghdad and across Iraq are tragic. But while Tom Ricks suggests that the sky is falling, I, for one, am not panicking just yet.

First, the bombings, overwhelmingly targeting Shiite communities, are not a sign that Iraqi Sunnis are returning en masse to insurgency against the government or U.S. forces, in spite of the recent attacks on U.S. troops in Fallujah by (alleged) Sunni nationalists.  Rather, the bombings are the work of Al Qaeda in Iraq (a/k/a Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a/k/a Islamic State of Iraq), a dying foreign jihadi organization whose indigenous support base eroded after the Sunni-Shiite civil war of 2006, which they were instrumental in starting.

Second, while Al Qaeda certainly intended for their new campaign to lead us to postpone our withdrawal from Iraqi cities, overtaxing Iraqis’ patience and provoking a new insurgency against our troops, that plan has obviously failed.  Furthermore, even had it succeeded, Sunni participation in the new insurgency was far from guaranteed – worsening relations between Sunnis and the Shia majority (caused by Al Qaeda’s comeback), could have seen Sunnis invite American military protection, as we saw in 2006.

This leaves us with the possibility that these attacks could provoke another ethnic civil war.  Unfortunately for AQI (AQM/ISI), a strategy like theirs – which is based on provoking a war between Iraqi Sunni and Shiite communities, allowing the jihadists to ascend to political leadership within the Sunni populace – backfires once both communities realize the extent to which they’re being manipulated by an exogenous force.  This “realization” (in an event we now call ‘the Awakening’) saw the Sunnis turn against Al Qaeda in 2006, which in turn convinced the Shiites not to perpetuate the civil war.

Thus, neither group should be duped into playing-into Al Qaeda’s endgame for the second time in three years. The question is whether or not the Shiites can actually be made to believe that the Sunni militias are somehow complicit in this Al Qaeda resurgence.

Unfortunately, nothing is guaranteed.  Events of last week and earlier this year suggest that the Shiites just might bite. The Shiite-dominated government’s round-ups of numerous Sunni Awakening Council leaders in March (on the grounds of their alleged ties to Al Qaeda) heightened tensions on both sides, as has the government’s foot-dragging on paying and rehabilitating the militiamen. Reports that some Sunni leaders have consequently turned to terror to extort from the government are also ominous, as are reported Shiite reactions to the recent bombings.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that the recent uptick in violence, however tragic, is not in itself a sign of Iraqi security unraveling. It is only a potential catalyst for such an unraveling sometime in the future, pushing Iraq towards the slippery slope into chaos, but Iraq is not on that slope, at least just yet.

The views expressed here are solely the author’s.

It has taken me a few days to hone my thinking on the rumors and innuendo of the Obama administration’s crafting of Executive Order language to preventively detain terrorists.

I’m a staunch supporter that everyone - terrorists included - deserves a right to a prompt trial.  I reject the view that we’re in a “war” that should suspend our enemies’ due process and civil liberties, and prefer to view America’s struggle with terrorism as a hybrid of a world-wide police action and diplomatic effort with - in certain theaters - necessary military intervention.

That’s why we can’t issue a blanket suspension of America’s founding values — they matter more than the infinitesimally small chance that a released prisoner could attack U.S. interests again.

I think the president’s view is relatively close to mine actually.  And that’s why the Exectutive Order drama could be a big bluff.  Just read the language in this report and I’ll explain why:

Obama administration officials, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, are crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.

Recall the fight from a few weeks ago when Congress balked at the White House’s funding request to transfer prisoners out of GTMO?  Basically, Congress - save a few stalwarts like Sen. Dick Durban (D-IL) - got irrationally and politically scared that they were about to allow  hundreds of hardened AQ members into their districts, who were bound to somehow escape from super-max prisons and harm their constituents.  So they held up $80mil that the White House needed to move them.

The White House probably just got fed up and figured that if Congress was going to be politically chicken-shit, then they’d effectively dare Congress to play ball.  The dare seems predicated on the fact that Obama is willing to issue Executive Orders on preventive detention without Congressional input - notice the bolded language above about a Congressional battle.  They want Congress to raise such a stink about not being consulted that the White House can back off and let cooler heads prevail.  Then, all sides can craft some sort of meaningful language with everyone’s contribution.

My guess is that the White House calculates that civil liberties groups are weighing down so hard on the Democratic caucus about preventive detention that Congress will seek a  compromise that allows the transfer and trial of detainees in some form.  What that form is, I’m just not sure yet.

I’m not just highlighting this piece because the author’s boss sat on our panel yesterday, but because this is solid journalism:

A senior Russian official said that despite interest from the Iranian government, his country has no current plans to help Tehran launch another satellite.

While Iran’s government has been trying to flex its military muscle by announcing an aerial exercise in the midst of a domestic crackdown, Russia apparently isn’t playing along, at least on Iran’s space ambitions. Anatoly Perminov, head of the Russian Federal Space Agency, said Russia isn’t anywhere near an agreement to help Iran launch a new satellite. …

While Iran is eager to demonstrate its indigenous launch capabilities, it has been in talks with Russia for help on launching another satellite. And Perminov, for his part, insisted the meetings were all at Iran’s request.

But, he added, “no work is being done on a second Iranian satellite.”

Perminov even seemed to mocked Tehran’s amateurish planning.

This is one of those do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do moments.  Russia isn’t exactly sippin’ sweat tea on the porch as it allows its domestic opposition to run wild in the streets, so the fact that they’d back off cooperating with Iran - as they’ve been doing in the last few months, particularly with the S-300 missile system - is a big deal.  To be clear, though Tehran and Moscow may be something of birds of a feather on the democracy front, Russia isn’t hot on the idea of Iran going nuclear, either.  This is one of the areas that Moscow and Washington could cooperate on, which is why you see Russia backing away from Iran right before Obama’s visit there on July 6th.

I can’t stop thinking that Mark Sanford is the happiest man in America right now.

If you want to watch something on TV other than the next press conference at UCLA, have a look at this Daily Show interview with erstwhile PPI collaborator Reza Aslan on Iran. He says Iran is teetering between North Korea and China. How apt.