I had the opportunity tonight to chat with PBS NewsHour Chief Anchor Jim Lehrer and former Afghanistan Interior Minister and National Defense University professor Ali Jalali about the solvency of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai given the acknowledgment that he is accepting "bags of cash" from Iran.

Interestingly, at a press conference Karzai also acknowledged that his government was getting similar bags of cash from the United States -- which White House spokesman Robert Gibbs denied.

I thought that this was a very good exchange -- and was able to surface some of the key themes from the recently released Afghanistan Study Group Report.

Here is the transcript from the exchange as well.

-- Steve Clemons

Tonight, I discussed the revelations that Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and his team were receiving "bags of cash" from Iran and what the implications of this were with Jim Lehrer on the PBS NewsHour.

The other guest was National Defense University Professor and former Afghanistan Interior Minister Ali Jalali.

Here is a good resource page with both the video clip and a transcript, which I will also post later.

-- Steve Clemons

Former US Senator Chuck Hagel -- now teaching students chosen by lottery for his classes over at Georgetown University and of course Co-Chairman of President Obama's Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board as well as Chairman of the Atlantic Council -- has written an elegant reminder of what elected public service ought to look like.

The political atmosphere of late is too toxic, too spoiled and defined by gotcha antics, than by serious and thoughtful leaders putting smart ideas for the country on the table.

Although I doubt it will happen, Hagel's US News & World Report article today, "Informed, Engaged Voters Lead to Quality Public Leadership" ought to be turned into a resolution in the House and the US Senate. It would be interesting to see if leaders in both parties -- and the new political movements aspiring to join these Chambers -- would sign on to Chuck Hagel's generic frame on the responsibilities of leaders and of the electorate.

Would be interesting. Here is a clip but I recommend the entire piece:

Elected public servants must not allow themselves to become disoriented from the business of governing. Our country depends on this. Elected officials must realize they fail their country and those they represent if they succumb to the sometimes violent currents of political opinion--which they bring on themselves when they don't lead and govern with integrity.

There is always the inherent conflict between, do you vote based on your constituents' opinions, or your own conscience? This has been a central issue of democratic political drama over the centuries. The best explanation I've ever heard or read that addresses this question--one that I subscribe to--is Edmund Burke's response two centuries ago: "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion."

Public service is the essence of a free people, an open society, and a vital democracy. It is the centerpiece of a generous and caring culture. And there are so many wonderful ways to engage oneself in the employment of humanity, including elective office. Public service defines us, and it takes many forms. It is more than anything else the privilege of helping make a better world for all mankind. What is more important in life, more fulfilling, and more compelling?

-- Steve Clemons

(click image for larger version)

-- Jonathan Guyer, who blogs at Mideast by Midwest, is the official toonist for The Washington Note.

Charlie Cook, who was the first major political commentator to note that the Republicans would come roaring back probably taking the House of Representatives, thinks that the Senate will most likely stay in Democratic hands.

Cook gives some context to the blurred conditions in the Senate races which are collectively harder to read than the onslaught coming in the House. Here is a clip from a full report in the new National Journal:

There is no clear narrative in the Senate, just bizarre ups and downs. Republicans could easily find themselves picking up as "few" as seven or as many as 10 seats. An 8-seat pickup seems about right, but that is not written with a great deal of confidence; there are way too many races separated by very few points. In some cases it is weak GOP candidates who are causing the red team to underperform, in others it is because some of these battles are in states less hospitable to the GOP.

The strong Republican tailwind that exists in much of the country is not so strong in California and Washington, and there are higher and more durable Democratic bases in states like Illinois and Pennsylvania that keep Democrats in the hunt. It is not uncommon to hear strategists say that if the environment for House Republicans is so good (or so bad for House Democrats), then the GOP gains could get truly massive and those dynamics would likely tip the closest Senate races in the same direction.

There is probably some merit to that argument. But it also seems that the problem-children candidates for Senate Republicans have been called out more than their House GOP counterparts. The GOP candidates with more exotic backgrounds and blemishes seem to be paying a greater price for it in the Senate than in the House. We will know for sure soon enough.

-- Steve Clemons

Every once in a while I'll post a political ad or tactic that I think is interesting and important. Recently, I highlighted a GOP "strategy conference call" that I thought was worth noting -- mostly because it's an interesting way to fake intimacy and connection with potentially millions of people who will neither make time for the call, nor be able to actually speak during it -- but feel that they were part of the event.

In this ad above, US Senator Russ Feingold goes after his challenger, Ron Johnson, noting that he uses a lot of whiteboards in his ads but never suggests any new ideas.

This is an important insight about what the role of policy practitioners should be. I've often told fellows and staff at the New America Foundation that their job is (1) to embarrass the bad decisions made by government, and (2) to put better ideas on the table.

The second part is the hardest -- and it's something on which Feingold is calling out his opponent.

We ought to all keep that standard in mine.

Complaining and whining about government and spending and better leadership is easy -- but actually developing sensible, workable policy frameworks and alternatives is hard. But it's what we have to do.

-- Steve Clemons

Uber-connected Democratic Party activist Steve Hildebrand has helped a group called Faith in America launch its new web presence.

On the board of Faith in America are businessman Mitchell Gold, singer Chely Wright, humorist Janis Hirsch, former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey and a number of ministers of various faiths.

I like this group because it takes on directly religion-based bigotry in the United States against gay men and women. This bigotry was rampant and used as an election tool in the 2004 presidential election when The Washington Note helped put out on the internet the anti-gay flyers the Republican National Committee had sent to thousands of folks on church pew rosters in Arkansas, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, and other states. Ed Gillespie was, of course, then head of the Republican National Committee and is not out as a gay man.

I'm a secularist and really have problems with the creeping blurriness between religion and state, but I do think that showing both the gay communities strong representation within faith communities is vital -- and also providing a home base for those who want support in knocking back bigotry from tax-advantaged institutions in this country is quite needed.

Congrats to Hildebrand, the Board and Faith in America, and Executive Director Brent Childers.

-- Steve Clemons

This week in Washington, I have worked with leading Palestinian-American entrepreneurs and political activists Hani Masri, Samia Farouki and Huda Farouki in raising awareness of the work in Nablus, Palestine of a women's and children services center, Tomorrow's Youth Organization. We have had a couple of policy discussions, a large party for young people, and a gala benefit last night featuring Quincy Jones, British barrister and former first lady and human rights activist Cherie Blair, former US President Bill Clinton, and former DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe.

One of the events was a large party at Georgetown's Cafe Milano Tuesday night -- and my friend and NBC Washington Nightside correspondent Janet Donovan put together a nice clip about women's issues, the economy, health care in the US, the state of Democratic Party politics in the country, and Middle East questions with TYO Chairman and Palestine Note publisher Hani Masri, former Democratic National Committee Chair and Virginia governor candidate Terry McAuliffe, and US House of Representatives Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA).

-- Steve Clemons

Last night, I got to talk to and briefly hang with former President of the United States Bill Clinton (along with 400 other folks) who temporarily paused his "rejuvenation tour" for beleaguered Democratic Party friends in Congress and the Senate. Clinton was at DC's Ritz Carlton to keynote along with former British first lady and Matrix Chambers legal firm legend Cherie Blair, chair and founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, a fundraising gala for a surprisingly successful NGO that works with young children and women in Palestine.

The NGO is the Tomorrow's Youth Organization -- which is incorporated in Virginia but does its most important work in Nablus, Palestine.

Clinton told me that in North Carolina yesterday, they just put out a small, short notice flyer for a rally and 10,000 people showed up -- he emphasized again, "10,000 people." He said people are eager, hungry, to hear what we can do in DC to make Washington about them.

The Washington Post this morning makes a similar point about the crowds hungry for something -- and Bill Clinton's ability to connect with them.

Bill Clinton, like usual, owned the room last night. He met anyone who would meet him, took pictures galore, but his comments -- which I hope to post later -- were the kind of thing one used to hear from President Obama but now has doubts about the new President's ability to deliver.

Clinton though is believed. Gallup has him now listed as the single most popular politician in the United States. As Terry McAuliffe, the master of ceremonies for the TYO Dinner, said -- Clinton is probably today the most popular politician globally.

One shouldn't be surprised given that the Clinton Global Initiative claims to have now raised more than $63 billion for global causes.

I'll be posting more on Bill Clinton and the themes of last night's dinner later -- but I wanted to pay quick tribute to Clinton for taking the time he did to directly address the paralyzed mess in Israel-Palestine relations and for his comments about women empowerment.

His most poignant comments came as he reflected on various of the many men who have received the Nobel Peace Prize -- noting that a couple of women had as well -- but went on to see that these men had mostly been able to rise above themselves, their own biases and world views and to reach out in more selfless ways in the hope of achieving balance, peace, and better order of things. Clinton said women all over the world did that every day to hold things together in their worlds.

I hope I can get a tape of his comments up later.

-- Steve Clemons

The New Republic's Jonathan Chait calls out Abraham Foxman and the ADL in a smart, important piece.

Read the whole thing, but this is zinger:

If you're interested in the general principle of tolerance and equality, then awarding [the ADL International Leadership Award to] Rupert Murdoch is preposterous. But if you define your values in a purely sectarian way, then a figure who advances an illiberal agenda that defines Jews as one of the "good" nationalities is right up your alley. Looks increasingly clear that Foxman has made his choice, and is defining the ADL's agenda not as the universalistic vision of the ADL's founders but as a moderate Jewish Defense League.

Make sure you read the list of Fox-connected anti-Muslim bigotry that undermines what Chait lampoons as "Foxman's call to oppose 'polarization, rage, stridency and partisanship.'"

-- Steve Clemons

Although I feel that the US government is bullying those gay and lesbian men and women who are serving in the armed services and deployed to take risks for the national security interests of the United States under the restrictions of Don't Ask Don't Tell, this is a compelling and powerful message from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the wake of several suicides by promising young gay people.

Her message refers to foreign service officers and civil servants in the Department of State who couldn't until recently serve openly. She's right -- and progress has been made.

And in my view she's giving a powerful nudge for this government to do all that it takes to finally end the legally fortified bigotry of Don't Ask Don't Tell at the Department of Defense.

There's a rumor afloat that Hillary could very well be the next Secretary of Defense (see future blog post on that in the next day or two) -- and if that happens, one can't help but imagine the different posture she'd take on this issue from that of Robert Gates and some of the military command staff.

-- Steve Clemons

Every once in a while, I find myself on Fox News and have to admit that I'm glad I'm there. Fox is sort of like Arlington or Alexandria for me -- over the river -- when I spend most of my time in DC Central. It's a good thing to hear what others are thinking and how they are framing policy challenges, and I get a feel for this when I hang out in the Fox green room where I've met Gary Bauer, talked with Bill Kristol, David Frum, and yes, Juan Williams.

I don't know Williams very well -- but remember when he worked hard with the Hitachi Foundation and other Japanese firms I had partnered with in the 1980s to reverse growing anti-black bigotry that was rising in Japan.

It would have been very easy to imagine Japanese business executives or regular Japanese expatriots who had moved to Southern California and were getting their first dose of street crime, petty theft, and gang violence to say something like:

I get worried and nervous when I see black people walking my direction, or in the supermarket or in my children's school...

This was the kind of bigotry, softly deployed, that Juan Williams went to Japan to try and reverse. In Los Angeles, he spoke for me at a major forum on race, identity and understanding sponsored by the Hitachi Foundation and Japan America Society of Southern California.

That's why his comments about Muslims are so disheartening.

-- Steve Clemons

Please join the New America Foundation, in cooperation with the Palestine Note and Tomorrow's Youth Organization for a reception and panel discussion TODAY from 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm, Beyond Platitudes: Women's Economic Empowerment in the Middle East. You can RSVP for the event here, and it will also be livestreamed at TWN.

Panelists

Fida Adely
Clovis and Hala Salaam Maksoud Chair in Arab Studies
Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University

Amjad Atallah
Co-Director, Middle East Task Force
New America Foundation
Co-founder, Women for Women International

Doa'a Taha-Brahimi
Consultant and Vice President
Grey Matter International, Ltd.

Nadereh Chamlou
Senior Advisor (Economic & Sector Work and Knowledge)
Office of the Chief Economist, Middle East and North Africa Region

Nell Derick Debevoise
Director, Tomorrow's Youth Organization

Moderator

Steve Clemons
Director, American Strategy Program, New America Foundation
Publisher, The Washington Note

-- Andrew Lebovich

It was with surprise and then relief yesterday that I saw the news that the UN's top representative in Iraq, Ad Melkert, and the chief of Najaf's police had emerged unscathed from a car bomb targeting their convoy as it left the Shi'ite holy city in Southern Iraq:

While roadside bombings occur daily in Iraq -- there were at least six reports of roadside attacks throughout the country on Tuesday -- they are far less common in Najaf, a relatively peaceful Shiite holy city where Mr. Melkert traveled to meet with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a powerful Shiite spiritual leader.

After a three-hour meeting in Ayatollah Sistani's offices, Mr. Melkert would not comment on what the men discussed. He urged Iraq's politicians to end the stalemate that has gone on since parliamentary elections last March failed to hand a majority to any political bloc. Iraqi and foreign officials worry about rising levels of violence and unrest amid the power vacuum.

Despite his widespread influence among thousands of Iraq's Shiite Muslims, Ayatollah Sistani has remained all but silent during the postelection political jockeying. He urged Iraqis to vote in the elections but refused to throw his support behind any electoral coalition.

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, whose political coalition finished narrowly behind the leading vote-getter, has gained the support of Moktada al-Sadr, an anti-American Shiite cleric, and has spent the last week traveling to Jordan and Iran to shore up support for his bloc.

Melkert is a long-time friend of TWN Publisher Steve Clemons, and he spoke eloquently at the New America Foundation last November on the challenges facing Iraq. While we here at TWN are glad to hear he is safe, this attack underscores not only the immense risk posed to Iraq stability by violent spoiler groups, but also the urgent need to form a stable Iraqi government that can withstand such pressures.

-- Andrew Lebovich

(Photo Credit: White House Photostream)

The Gaza flotilla crisis and Ankara's refusal to accede to American leadership on the Iranian nuclear issue have led Washington policymakers to ask what exactly is going on in Turkey these days and why it seems that our NATO ally is pursuing policies that run counter to American preferences. While Turkey is increasingly confident and prosperous, it is nowhere near the military, political, or economic power that the United States is. How is it, then, that Washington can't seem to get Turkey to do what it wants?

Most of the responses to this question have focused on Turkey's emerging foreign policy of "zero problems with neighbors," its religiously oriented conservative government, and its floundering European Union membership bid. But while these factors are relevant, Turkey's selective cooperation has more to do with the United States' foreign policy than with Turkey's.

Washington's ambitious foreign policy in the Middle East since September 11, 2001 has increased its dependence on Turkey. Turkey's geography, its cultural and historical ties to its neighbors, and its status as a member of NATO combine to make it a crucial American partner for ongoing military operations there. Turkey has helped stabilize Iraq's Kurdish northern region, led the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, and brokered negotiations between Israel and Syria.

This dependence means that Turkey can take a harder line against the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) terrorist group based in northern Iraq at the risk of instability there, drive a hard bargain in negotiations over NATO's missile defense plan, or weaken diplomatic ties with Israel. And because the United States is so heavily invested in the region, Washington can do little but acquiesce to Turkey's demands and try to get Ankara to support its policies.

Take the Iraq example. In 2007, President Bush was compelled to bow to Turkish demands that the United States' military share "real-time" intelligence on the PKK in Northern Iraq and to permit Turkish military incursions into Iraqi territory. American officials were hesitant to use scarce resources to counter the PKK in the relatively stable northern part of Iraq amidst widespread violence throughout the rest of the country, but could not afford to lose Turkey's support for its operations there. Washington capitulated despite its lingering disappointment with Ankara for refusing to allow American forces to use Turkish soil to open a northern front in Iraq in 2003.

Turkey's outreach to Hamas following its election in 2006, its anti-Israel rhetoric leading up to and following the flotilla incident, and this year's separate nuclear agreement with Tehran have been met with similar reactions in Washington: helpless frustration.

There are other examples as well including Turkey's opposition to NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen's nomination for that position last year and its efforts to lay the pipelines for Russian energy exports to Europe. In each of these cases it is understandable that Turkey is pursuing its national interests, but it is a matter of concern that the United States cannot seem to shape those interests to align more closely with its own.

But doesn't Turkey need the United States? Yes, but just as American banks were too big to fail, American support for Turkey is too big to be taken away. The problem is not that Turkey no longer benefits from its alliance with the United States, but that the kinds of support that Washington provides to Ankara are not easily leveraged.

First and foremost, as a NATO member Turkey enjoys American security guarantees. While a full-scale invasion by a hostile state is an unlikely scenario, NATO's invocation of its common defense clause following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks shows that it still pays to be a NATO member.

Turkey also falls under the American nuclear security umbrella and hosts approximately 100 American nuclear weapons on its soil (the exact number is a secret). Turkey's opposition to recent proposals to remove those weapons demonstrates their enduring value to Ankara.

And while Turkey may be feeling good about its economic performance at the moment, economies fluctuate, and the United States has on several occasions provided both bilateral economic support and loans through the International Monetary Fund to bail Turkey out, most recently in 2002. While Turkey values its NATO membership, its protection under the United States' nuclear umbrella, and Washington's economic support, the United States is too reliant on Turkey to credibly threaten to take any of these sources of support away.

This dynamic was on display again in August when reports surfaced that President Obama told Turkish Prime Minister Erodgan that the American-made Predator drones Turkey wants to procure to fight Kurdish insurgents might not be forthcoming if Turkey does not change its policies toward Israel and Iran. It is not surprising that both the White House and Ankara immediately refuted the report in the strongest possible terms.

The point here is not to criticize Turkey's foreign policy choices, but to show why the United States lacks the leverage to shape those choices. In the short-term, Washington must placate Ankara given its reliance on Turkey in so many areas and the risks associated with alienating its ally. But over the long-term, the United States must craft a more restrained foreign policy that leaves it less reliant on and in a stronger position vis-à-vis its regional allies. Otherwise, Washington will find that Turkey is not the only country that can cooperate just enough to keep American support forthcoming.

-- Ben Katcher

Anyone who has spent considerable time in the Arab Middle East will soon run into the fact that conspiracy theories are part of the currency of communication and social networking. During my trips to the region, I have been dumbfounded and really shocked by some of the stories that are spun about American intentions in the world, or Jewish control of media and finance, or just completely fabricated nonsense that doesn't stand up to reason.

I have been witness to efforts by some in the Middle East to twist and distort comments made by American policymakers, Israeli leaders, and others in order to reify their fantastic but unreal constructs explaining some international event or accident or decision.

The "real" positions expressed by political leaders on all sides of the Middle East mess should be good enough to trigger actual, serious, and ultimately constructive debate without fabricating false stories or assigning motives to people that are demonstrably untrue.

But what is true in the Middle East churning of lies, false stories, and conspiracies is becoming true in America.

The foreign affairs and defense budget issues blog Budget Insight has been relaunched now as The Will and the Wallet via the Stimson Center -- and for those of you in Washington this morning, I will be appearing on a panel discussing defense and national security budget issues with Gordon Adams, professor of international relations at the School of International Service at American University and a Distinguished Fellow at the Stimson Center.

Josh Rogin who writes Foreign Policy's "The Cable" will also be on the panel as will be Politico's Jen Dimascio and National Public Radio's Tom Gjelten.

The program rolls at 9 am at Stimson at 1111 19th Street NW, 12th Floor.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

Join the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program and TWN publisher Steve Clemons from 12:15 pm to 1:45 pm TODAY for a discussion of Hooman Majd's new book, The Ayatollahs' Democracy: An Iranian Challenge.

-- Andrew Lebovich

While not exactly a haven of free speech before, it looks like Egyptian authorities are cracking down on communications technology in the lead-up to parliamentary elections:

Egypt's National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) has imposed new restrictions aimed at tightening control over the SMS messaging services provided by mobile phone companies and media institutions in an apparent effort to preempt possible anti-regime activism in the run-up to next month's parliamentary elections.

On Monday, a number of private media institutions--including Al-Masry Al-Youm--were notified by SMS news providers that they must now obtain approval from the Ministry of Information and the Supreme Press Council before sending news alerts out to subscribers.

A source at the NTRA denied that the new restrictions had a political aspect, insisting that they had been put in place to regulate 30 companies currently operating in Egypt without a clear legal status.

It remains unclear whether the new regulations will stipulate the suspension or cancellation of phone subscriptions for those found disseminating anti-regime text messages. It is also unclear how the new regulations will affect private newspapers' capacity to generate profits from SMS-based news services.

While Egyptian authorities also indicated that the text shutdown was meant to reduce ethnic tensions between Copts and Muslims, both the Muslim Brotherhood and other opposition parties are expected to make use of texting in the upcoming parliamentary campaign.

On the one hand, this is a clumsy attempt, a reactive effort that could force Brotherhood and other campaign efforts a bit more underground, but is unlikely to stop their get out the vote efforts. After all, we're talking about a group that won nearly a fifth of the seats in Egypt's parliament, despite the group being officially banned in the country. And despite official recalcitrance, as the article notes, former IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaredei has been able to gather millions of signatures on his petition in favor of reform. Trying to repress such broad-based movements will only strengthen the hands of opposition forces, without much actual benefit to the government.

On another note, this attempt to limit the influence of newer technologies is part of a disturbing broader trend in the Middle East, one exemplified by recent threats to ban Blackberries in Dubai and the continued or past imprisonment of reform-oriented bloggers in Bahrain and Tunisia.

There are many in this country who would, no doubt, not object to a suppressed vote for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Yet if the U.S. does not speak out more forcefully against attempts to limit democratic processes in the region, we risk a further entrenchment of autocracy and repression that will only serve to cripple the reform so desperately needed in much of the region. While we may not always like the result, it is more important that we, as a country, side with freedom.

-- Andrew Lebovich

During the George W. Bush administration, Zalmay Khalilzad headed the National Security Council portfolio on the Islamic world and served as US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the United Nations.

Khalilzad will share his views on America's strategic challenges with regard to terrorism, Iraq, and Afghanistan at the conference, Cutting the Fuse: Beyond the War on Terrorism, that I am helping to produce along with the University of Chicago's Robert Pape.

The conference is taking place in the United States Capitol in the new Congressional Auditorium of the Congressional Visitors Center.

Here is the full schedule and a link to RSVP -- including talks by Robert Pape, Chief of Naval Operations Gary Roughead, former 9/11 Commission Chair and New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean, Congressman Brian Baird, Nobel Laureate Thomas Schelling, former CIA Acting National Intelligence Officer for terrorism Glenn Carle, among others.

-- Steve Clemons

(Outgoing National Security Advisor General Jim Jones, President Barack Obama, and newly named National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon; photo credit: Talk Radio News)

Recently I met with David Rothkopf, Foreign Policy blogger and one of Washington's premier chroniclers of American national security personalities and architecture, for lunch and discussed with him who President Obama's next National Security Advisor should be.

Our list was provocative, a bit reckless in a way because we were grasping for names as symbols of certain views or confiding to each other private understandings we had with some of the contenders. Neither of us agreed with all of the names the other threw on to the table.

I won't say who survived our own mutual, back-and-forth vetoes, but the roster included Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass, National Security Council senior staff Dennis Ross, Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, Deputy National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon, CSIS President and former Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre, CIA Director and former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, former US Senator Chuck Hagel, Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman General James Cartwright, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, CNN GPS and Time essayist Fareed Zakaria, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns, US Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder, and former New York Times foreign affairs columnist and Council on Foreign Relations President Emeritus (and Daily Beast wunderkind) Leslie Gelb.

There are obvious problems with the candidacies of a number of these people - some because of temperament, some perhaps age, political stripes, or most importantly -whether President Obama could work with the person closely and comfortably.

Extending this chatter, Les Gelb asked me at the recent Atlantic Monthly/Aspen Institute/Newseum sponsored Washington Ideas Forum if I didn't have to worry about political reality who would be my "choice" for National Security Advisor. I hedged by giving him a shorter version of the above - but told him that for various reasons, the most interesting candidates would be Haass, Holbrooke, Panetta, Donilon, and Steinberg.

Haass, Gelb and I both thought - as well as Rothkopf, would be too much of a stretch for Obama even though the President really does like to incorporate reasonable, centrist, pragmatic Republicans and their thinking on his team. Richard Haass though would make a formidable National Security Advisor -- perhaps better for a Democratic president who too frequently thinks he/she needs to do symbolic things to show toughness rather than a Republican.

Richard Holbrooke is the contemporary Machiavelli of the Democratic political establishment - and I admire him for it. Of all the leading Democratic foreign policy practitioners, Holbrooke is the most tenaciously committed to results in the often fuzzy, inchoate realm of humanitarian, global justice efforts. But the Obama-Holbrooke chemistry reportedly has high toxicity levels, even though there has been recent improvement.

Leon Panetta would have been an interesting choice - sort of the guy who can do everything. Bob Woodward's recent book on the Obama team recounts how Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell warned incoming DNI Admiral Dennis Blair not to underestimate the "knife fight" he would get into over defining the turf between CIA and DNI no matter how well he knew and liked Leon Panetta. McConnell was right and Panetta ended up clobbering Blair. But to resolve the competing, vague lines of authority in the intelligence, war fighting, diplomatic, stabilization, and development functions of government, Panetta could have been a modern day James Forrestal in getting government to work better and less dysfunctionally on these tasks.

James Steinberg and Tom Donilon are both experts in national security decision making process as well as strategy. They have both been key in moving the Obama administration's machinery as well as it could be moved given the miserable economic and foreign policy portfolios passed off to them by the George W. Bush administration. Steinberg has handled the Asia portfolio well - and Tom Donilon became something of a Wizard of Oz in the White House, orchestrating behind the scenes literally hundreds of Deputies and Principals meetings with perhaps the most inclusive structure of non-traditional voices and institutions at the table in national security questions in US history.

In fact, the whole question of what is and isn't a national security issue has undergone revolutionary broadening in the Obama administration, and Donilon's task has been to make discussions of the new roster of challenges - everything from water and climate to development and natural disasters to migration - a real part of the national security structure rather than tokens.

While the Obama administration has had some serious strategic trip-ups, particularly in Israel-Palestine deal making, the fact is that Donilon's furious, competent pace has kept the country and the White House afloat and kept the system from taking on too much water and getting bogged down.

After the announcement that Tom Donilon would succeed General Jim Jones as President Obama's National Security Adviser, Donilon went from being the busiest man in the White House to the even busier busiest man. This is good, and bad, news.

Donilon really did have to be the President's National Security Advisor. Next to Denis McDonough, who moves from NSC Chief of Staff to Donilon's former position, no one is trusted or relied upon as much by Obama than Donilon. None of the other contenders on the list above - with the sole exception of Leon Panetta - has the broad institutional grasp and political understanding of how to move the administration's many national security prima donnas forward.

Donilon's incumbency in the middle of all of the action today made him stand out more than Steinberg, Ross or other potential inside options who had more narrowly defined portfolios.

Obama's decision making system - which is huge now and an obvious corrective to the cabal-like operation that Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Richard Cheney ran during the G.W. Bush years - simply could not function without Donilon (and McDonough).

But that does not mean that the role of being the premier adviser to the President on America's global threats and challenges can be properly filled by someone who is excellent at a speedy, inclusive, decision making process but too overwhelmed to get distance to think and advise strategically.

Some of the early reactions to the Donilon appointment have focused on his political connections and savvy over his intellectual merits and standing. These critics couldn't be more wrong.

While Donilon has not taken the path to power that many others in the national security establishment have of carefully pruned and crafted exposes on American foreign policy - published in journals of record like Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, National Interest, and American Interest - he has been actively engaged for years in national security strategy groups and working meetings.

His thinking about US foreign policy is known to any who have worked with him in these groups. He's a systematic, creative, pragmatic thinker about America's foreign policy challenges - and whether he has expressed himself in roundtable discussions rather than a large volume of opeds makes no difference.

Donilon is a pragmatic, non-ideological practitioner who knows that America's greatest challenge today is restoring its stock of power and its ability to positively shape the global system. He knows that American power is doubted today and needs to be reinvented - and he thinks about this all of the time. It is what animates him and the furious pace he keeps.

Jim Jones is also being misread by many critics who seem to be cheering his departure. They scoff at his distance from the President, his alleged aloofness - though I never found him aloof in my encounters with him. I found him straightforward and a wry wit. What they are missing is that Jones demonstrated that the NSC job should not be overly reactive to moment by moment events -- and to a large degree, he was right.

Jones instinctively knew that if he allowed himself to get sucked into granular, involved-in-every-detail realities of the President's national security inbox, then the Obama administration would lose its ability to make strategic leaps and place bets on power and possibility that would position America beyond just reacting to the crisis of the day.

Vice President Joe Biden was right in saying during the 2008 campaign that Barack Obama and the United States would be severely and frequently tested by the international system - by friends, by foes, by states and non-state actors - to see where the lines of power were faked and where they were real. Former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft has called this "the age of 1000 pinpricks". Both are right - and General Jones knew that his job was to preempt a 'reactive presidency' from undermining a 'strategic presidency.'

Jones also wanted to think through how to assemble economic and traditional power voices into national security discussions and decisions - and contributed much to the blueprints for a new national security decisionmaking experiment that Tom Donilon and Denis McDonough have implemented.

Donilon is at the helm now - and needs to accomplish several things and keep some key factors in mind:

1. Figure out how to keep the elaborate interagency machinery of policy formulation, review and decision making going without Donilon's constant supervision. Delegate and train the next Donilon.

2. Step back from the freneticism of the operation now and build capacity to think strategically - create a new "Solarium Project" in which the administration tasks teams to systematically think through the costs and consequences of alternative paths to vital national security objectives. Iran comes to mind. Get your key people into a retreat. Get them to think out loud. Push restart with them.

3. Remember that the Department of Defense is not an independent stand alone body that is a rival to the White House. The Department of Defense and everyone in it - from Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen and his strategists to the various service chiefs and even David Petraeus - work for the White House. Establish protocols for reasserting control of the system. It is unhealthy and imbalanced when the Pentagon can outgun the National Security Council with its strategists, its intelligence capacity, its fleet of cars and jets, and its resources in what often looks like a competition between the White House and DoD. Obama must vest Donilon with the authority to bring the military into a position where it works for the White House - not competes with it.

4. Go back to candidate Obama's remarks about the interconnectedness of challenges and resist the silo-ing that is going on in much of the administration with regard to Afghanistan policy, China, Russia, and some other high profile concerns.

5. Create a basic primer course for the political shop on American foreign policy, national security and international economic policy challenges. The political team - from those engaged in public outreach, political strategy, and communications - need to better understand the consequences of the NSC's tasks today, and politics should trump policy only in rare times. America's power situation is eroding badly and needs to be corrected. Regrettably the political shop is keeping the President from doing not only what is bold but what is necessary to reverse the perception and reality of American decline today. Obama should give Donilon's operation greater leverage in final policy decisions.

There are probably many other items that should be added to this list - but Tom Donilon and his team are going to have a huge job ahead as no one will remember to give them credit for an improved US-Russia relationship, an on-then off-then back on restart with China (which Donilon engineered during a recent trip to Beijing), vast gains in restoring the non-proliferation commons and locking down nuclear and WMD materials, and the like. They will only see the problems and challenges ahead - Israel/Palestine and the broader Middle East, Afghanistan, Iran, transnational terrorism, the domestic and global economy, and whatever Iraq evolves into.

Donilon's job needs to be about more than process now.

He needs to work with President Obama to show him how to change the way global gravity is shifting.

Donilon thinks this way. He is a realist and a skeptic of many of the military's grand schemes in which large resources are given, big promises made, and then no accountability for the military down the road. His ascension telegraphs that President Obama feels he does need to bring the Pentagon to heel, and Donilon is the right guy to do this.

Rather than spending his time in tractionless pursuit of platitudes or remaining safely in the grooves of inertia and incrementalism, Donilon's political skills and his knowledge of the policy terrain may give us our only chance for the Obama team to finally begin making key strategic leaps that will benefit the nation and international system.

-- Steve Clemons