Dow Futures Down: Progressive Economics Feared

The DJIA will test four digits again as its hovering near 10000 again today. The Eurozone is again worried that everyone will be bankrupt soon.

Two days of little movement for U.S. stocks is likely to end Tuesday, with renewed worries over euro zone debt pushing overseas markets lower, as well as U.S. stock index futures.

The Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq all registered single-digit moves both Friday and Monday, but this morning's worries likely mean a sharply lower opening, and those worries have also sent many investors to U.S. Treasuries. The 2-year yield hit a record low in overnight trading, while the benchmark 10-year note's yield hit a 14-month low.

Let's all remember that the president attended the G20 and demanded that everyone else continue to spend.



Yet, the entire rest of the G20 rejected this idea wholesale. The only person at this point that thinks that Obama should continue to borrow and spend, besides Obama, is Paul Krugman.

We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great Depression. But the cost — to the world economy and, above all, to the millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs — will nonetheless be immense.

And this third depression will be primarily a failure of policy. Around the world — most recently at last weekend’s deeply discouraging G-20 meeting — governments are obsessing about inflation when the real threat is deflation, preaching the need for belt-tightening when the real problem is inadequate spending.

The rest of the world has realized that endless spending of money the government doesn't have is not only inefficient but leads to borrowing and/or taxation and both of those are contractionary. As such, the rest of the world gave Obamanomics a chance and now it's being rejected entirely.

Russian Spies Nabbed

This story appears straight out of a Tom Clancy novel.

The FBI has arrested 10 people for allegedly serving for years as secret agents of Russia's intelligence organ, the SVR, with the goal of penetrating U.S. government policymaking circles.

According to court papers unsealed Monday, the FBI intercepted a message from SVR headquarters, Moscow Center, to two of the defendants describing their main mission as "to search and develop ties in policymaking circles in US." Intercepted messages showed they were asked to learn about a broad swath of topics including nuclear weapons, U.S. arms control positions, Iran, White House rumors, CIA leadership turnover, the last presidential election, the Congress and political parties.

After a secret multiyear investigation, the Justice Department announced the arrests Monday in a blockbuster spy case that could rival the capture of Soviet Col. Rudolf Abel in 1957 in New York.

More coverage here.

UPDATE: This story only gets juicier.

A ring of 11 Russian moles right out of a Cold War spy novel was smashed Monday — and among those busted was a flame-haired, 007-worthy beauty who flitted from high-profile parties to top-secret meetings around Manhattan.

Russian national Anna Chapman — a 28-year-old divorcee with a masters in economics

, an online real-estate business, a fancy Financial District apartment and a Victoria’s Secret body — had been passing information to a Russian government official every Wednesday since January, authorities charged.

In one particularly slick spy exchange on St. Patrick’s Day, Chapman pulled a laptop out of a tote bag in a bookstore at Warren and Greenwich streets in the West Village while her handler lurked outside, receiving her message on his own computer, the feds said. A similar exchange occurred at a Midtown coffee shop at 47th Street and 8th Ave.

The State Department and the Russians have given statements on the state of US/Russia relations in the aftermath of this development.

"to make a public statement in the spirit of the spy novel intrigues of the Cold War era" and noted that "these kinds of incidents have occurred in the past when our relations were on the rise."

"Such actions are ungrounded and pursue improper goals," the ministry said in a statement. "In any case, it is regrettable that all this is happening against the background of the 'reset' in Russian-American relations announced by the U.S. administration."

...

Obama's Afghan Turnaround?

Former General Stanley McChrystal put President Obama into a near impossible position and President Obama may have turned that into a deciding turning point in the Afghan war.

President Barack Obama on Wednesday replaced Gen. Stanley McChrystal as commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan and nominated Gen. David Petraeus to replace him while affirming support for a counterinsurgency strategy encountering problems.

The dramatic shift came a day after McChrystal's disparaging comments about America's civilian leadership surfaced, and reignited the national debate on the war in Afghanistan -- now in its eighth year with a June death toll of coalition forces that is close to becoming the highest of the war.

Obama accepted McChrystal's resignation "with considerable regret" and named Petraeus, the head of the U.S. Central Command, to take over pending Senate confirmation.

Folks like Joe Liberman and John McCain are fond of saying...

General Petreaus literally wrote the book on counterinsurgency

That's because that is true both figuratively and literally. With the successful campaign in Iraq, Petraeus showed the world how to run a counterinsurgency manual. Meanwhile, his actual counterinsurgency manual was published in 2006, shortly before he went to Iraq. Petraeus is taking over with the Afghan theater in disarray but then again, nothing liked more dire than Iraq circa the beginning of 2007. Petraeus has an opportunity to make a case in every history book as America's greatest military person.

Afghanistan has three x factors: the rules of engagement, the timeline for withdrawal, and most importantly, Karzai. Immediately, we'll see if Petraeus will make the rules of engagement. The confirmation hearing should also be a pre qual to his battle over a timeline. Karzai remains the biggest concern. In Iraq, however, no one thought that Nuri Al Maliki could be a great leader right up until he was. Will Karzai go the way of Maliki or the South Vietnamese?

The Worst Week of the President's Term?

How many times have you heard a pundit make that proclamation about the president in the last year? I can think of at least five times in the last year when someone has made that proclamation. That doesn't say much for the president, but I also expect someone to make that proclamation again.

The nuclear bomb, pardon the pun, left by General McChrystal today has left the president with few options. If he doesn't fire McChrystal, he looks weak. Meanwhile, if he does, Afghanistan goes into even greater chaos. No matter what he does, McChrystal's words have left the impression that the Obama administration is in complete chaos.

Then, today a U.S. District judge ruled that the Obama administration's six month moratorium is illegal.

In a victory for drilling proponents, a federal judge struck down President Obama's six-month moratorium on

deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, saying the administration rashly concluded that because one rig failed, the others are in immediate danger, too.

The White House promised an immediate appeal. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president believes strongly that drilling at such depths does not make sense and puts the safety of workers "at a danger that the president does not believe we can afford."

The Interior Department had halted approval of any new permits for deepwater drilling and suspended drilling of 33 exploratory wells in the Gulf.

The policy is already unpopular and now a judge has ruled it illegal. Just think about that. General McChrystal claims that Obama knows nothing about war policy and a judge says he knows about as much about the law.

The announcement by the administration that they'll sue Arizona, which went over about as well as all their policies, was immediately followed by Jon Kyl's shocking accusation that Obama is holding the border hostage to comprehensive immigration reform which is about as popular as Obamacare.

This all happened this week. It's yet another bad week in what is quickly turning into a disastrous Presidency.

The McChrystal Bruhaha

I smell a tell all coming someday.

The top U.S. war commander in Afghanistan is being called to the White House for a meeting with President Obama after issuing an apology Tuesday for an interview in which he took shots at top administration officials and his staff described the president as unprepared for their first one-on-one encounter.

In the article in this week's issue of Rolling Stone, Gen. Stanley McChrystal also said he felt betrayed and blind-sided by his diplomatic partner, Ambassador Karl Eikenberry.

McChrystal's comments are reverberating through Washington and the Pentagon after the magazine depicted him as a lone wolf on the outs with many important figures in the Obama administration.

Some conservatives, like Laura Ingraham, have been downplaying just how unprofessional these comments were and instead holding them out as another sign of the chaos of the Obama administration. That's a mistake. Thes comments are inexcusable. Last I checked, most of the folks that were disparaged in the Rolling Stone piece are folks that McChrystal reports to.

I don't know what things are like on the ground in Afghanistan. It's very possible that things are chaotic on the ground and McChrystal may feel as though the administration isn't giving him the support necessary to win. That's no excuse for trashing most of it in public like this. The military relies on discipline and respect for the chain of command is tantamount to that discipline. McChrystal wouldn't stand for any soldier saying something like this about him to the media and no one should accept him doing it.

Minerals Found in Afghanistan

Afghanistan's greatest natural resource has always been poppy but that may soon change.

A team of U.S. geologists and Pentagon officials has discovered vast mineral wealth in Afghanistan, conceivably enough to turn the scarred and impoverished country into one of the world's most lucrative mining centers, a senior military official told Fox News on Monday.

"There is stunning potential here," Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command, told the New York Times in a report published Monday. "There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant."

Anyone that has seen Blood Diamonds knows that a vast amount of natural resources doesn't necessarily lead to wealth and prosperity. That said, Afghanistan has had nothing but poppy and it's in desperate need of natural resources that can be turned into wealth.

On a similar note, Israel recently discovered a vast amount of natural gas.

A door has been closed. But amid the roar, the creak of an opening window was faintly audible. This window, a gigantic deposit of natural gas called Leviathan, 6.5 times the size of Tel Aviv, was found, roughly 100 nautical miles from where the flotilla fiasco took place and well within Israel's extended territorial waters. This discovery may provide Israel with security in terms of its supply of electricity, turn it into an important natural gas exporter and provide a shot in the arm of some $300 billion over the life of the field - one-and-a-half times the national GDP - to the Israeli economy, already one of the most resilient in the world.

At the beginning of 2009, Israel made a major natural gas discovery that immediately made it a player in the natural gas market. This may be twice the size of that discovery. With Israel a major exporter of natural gas, the geopolitical environment in the Middle East.

Is Hungary the Next Domino

The Hungarian government is taking extraordinary steps to avoid having to file for bankruptcy.

Hungary's new government plans to take steps to improve public finances and also wants deep reforms and tax cuts to boost competitiveness after it reveals the "true" state of the 2010 budget, the prime minister's spokesman said on Friday.

Hungary's forint plunged and government bond yields soared by around 30 basis points on Thursday as investors financing Budapest's high debt worried about finances under the new center-right administration.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban's spokesman said the government will produce an economic action plan within 72 hours after releasing its report on the budget, which is expected this weekend or early next week.

If you add Hungary to the list, we are now looking at Spain, Ireland, Iceland and even Great Britain as potential countries that may go bankrupt soon. The stock market first started to drop when worries of "debt contagion" surfaced following Greece's trouble. There have been rumblings about this sort of problem for Hungary for nearly two years and now they've surfaced again.

On a similar note, Warren Buffett is predicting a municipal bond meltdown.

Add investment legend Warren Buffett to the list of those who warn of a municipal debt meltdown.

Many municipalities have promised overly generous retirement and health benefits to public workers without any viable plans to bring in the money necessary to pay for those benefits.

Muni bonds are chic investment vehicles for the uber wealthy largely because you can avoid paying taxes on income from them, especially if you buy them from municipalities in your home state. They've also been thought of as generally safe vehicles. Then again, the finances of municipalities have never been in the shape they've been in now.

IDF Video of the Confrontation on the Seas

This video shows the confrontation between Israeli commandos and the so called activists was very complicated, despite near universal condemnation. There are some lingering questions. What were the planners thinking sending these commandos into what appears to be something akin to a suicide mission. Some of these guys didn't even reach the ground before being attacked.

The opinions keep coming. Here's a scathing critique from Haaretz.

Netanyahu, Barak and Ya'alon have neither vision nor charisma, but they once seemed to have good judgment. The sole promise made by their cabinet was not to make hasty decisions like the one that led its predecessor into the Second Lebanon War. It was supposed to handle Israel's strategic interests with utmost seriousness and responsibility. On the night of May 30th the cabinet broke its promise, demonstrating extreme, unforgivable lack of judgment in the face of the Palestinian flotilla.

There's word that another set of ships is ready to confront the IDF today.

Pro-Palestinian activists sent another boat to challenge Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday and Egypt declared it was temporarily opening a crossing into the Palestinian territory after a raid on an aid flotilla that ended with Israeli soldiers killing nine activists.

The raid provoked ferocious international condemnation of Israel, raised questions at home, and appeared likely to increase pressure to end the blockade that has deepened the poverty of the 1.5 million Palestinians in the strip.

Here's one more video of the incident.

Violence on the Seas

There was a deadly incident on the high seas involving members of the Israeli military and members of a Palestinian group of protesters.

Israeli commandos on Monday stormed six ships carrying hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists on an aid mission to the blockaded Gaza Strip, killing at least 10 people and wounding dozens after encountering unexpected resistance as the forces boarded the vessels.

The operation in international waters off the Gaza coast was a nightmare scenario for Israel that looked certain to further damage its international standing, strain already tense relations with Turkey -- the unofficial sponsor of the mission -- and draw unwanted attention to Gaza's plight.

The tough Israeli response drew condemnations from Turkey, France and the U.N.'s Mideast envoy, while Greece suspended a military exercise with Israel and postponed a visit by Israel's air force chief.

This incident occurred hours ago. It's unclear how bad this will be but it looks bad. More coverage here.

Officials estimated that passengers will show slight resistance, and possibly minor violence; for that reason, the operation’s commander decided to bring the helicopter directly above the top deck. The first rope that soldiers used in order to descend down to the ship was wrested away by activists, most of them Turks, and tied to an antenna with the hopes of bringing the chopper down. However, Flotilla 13 fighters decided to carry on.

Navy commandoes slid down to the vessel one by one, yet then the unexpected occurred: The passengers that awaited them on the deck pulled out bats, clubs, and slingshots with glass marbles, assaulting each soldier as he disembarked. The fighters were nabbed one by one and were beaten up badly, yet they attempted to fight back.

However, to their misfortune, they were only equipped with paintball rifles used to disperse minor protests, such as the ones held in Bilin. The paintballs obviously made no impression on the activists, who kept on beating the troops up and even attempted to wrest away their weapons.

And here.

And here.

Word Games in the GWOT

Presidential adviser John Brennan added to the confusion from the administration about exactly who the enemy is in the GWOT with this statement.

He repeated the administration argument that the enemy is not "terrorism," because terrorism is a "tactic," and not terror, because terror is a "state of mind" -- though Brennan's title, deputy national security adviser for counterterrorism and homeland security, includes the word "terrorism" in it. But then Brennan said that the word "jihad" should not be applied either.

"Nor do we describe our enemy as 'jihadists' or 'Islamists' because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one's community, and there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children," Brennan said.

The technical, broadest definition of jihad is a "struggle" in the name of Islam and the term does not connote "holy war" for all Muslims. However, jihad frequently connotes images of military combat or warfare, and some of the world's most wanted terrorists including Usama bin Laden commonly use the word to call for war against the West.

If these folks aren't Islamists, why do most scream Allah Akbar right before executing their deed? Why do they speak of a Jihad and praise Allah at every turn? The administration can't seem to wrap their arms around a basic fact. They are certainly twisting Islam. They aren't the first to twist a religion. They aren't the first to start holy wars by twisting a religion. In fact, Islam isn't the first religion to be twisted and turned into a war.

If Brennan was around during the Crusades, I could imagine him struggling to tell the world that the enemy wasn't Christian. Of course, they were and in much the same way, Christianity was twisted. Are we supposed to ignore that it was Christianity as opposed to all other religions that was twisted during the Crusades.

Religion has been the centerpiece for many struggles and all sorts of deaths. Hitler targeted Jews because they were inferior. Are we supposed to ignore this as well? The center piece of Hamas/Hezbollah's long term war against Israel is that they view Judaism as a wholly inferior religion and all those that practice deserve death. Is that not a holy war?

It's time to call a spade a spade. When a terrorists proclaims they are killing civilians in the name of Allah, Islam, and Jihad, that makes them radical Islamists, radical Jihadists, and it also means this war has a significant religious component. In fact, that's no reflection on Islam itself. The fact that someone twists a religion for evil is a reflection on the person himself and not on the religion. That the administration can't bring itself to recognize all this is troubling to say the least.

The Corrosive Power of Entitlements

I was at a diner yesterday morning for breakfast when the subject of Greece came up among the staff. One of the staff suggested that the way to have averted the crisis was to have benefits to many of their public employees benefits packages long ago. After all, the employee reasoned, the budget deficit that is causing the country to be on the verge of collapse is due in large part on sweetheart deals to public employees.

It's a simple solution and it would also solve many of our own "unfunded liability" issues in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. They are taking in less and less in revenues and paying out more and more in benefits. So, we must raise the age of benefits, cut the amount of benefits, and/or raise the taxes on benefits.

I listened as the employee presented a perfectly reasonable idea and I couldn't listen any more. This idea, while perfectly reasonable on a policy level, has no political viability. That's because whenever any politician proposes any cuts to benefits, there is another politician ready to demagogue the issue and claim you're going to take what is rightfully someone's right. Those politicians will proclaim that said entitlements are perfectly solvent and under their plans everyone will get their benefits. That's exactly what happened during the Social Security debate in 2005. Any proposed change to Social Security by Bush was met with attacks by Democrats that he "was taking away your social security".

Furthermore, you can bet your opponents will find some $2000 campaign contribution from some donor that they will then claim will benefit from your cuts. Now, suddenly, you're no longer proposing a fiscal solution but a corrupt politician.

The idea proposed assumed that voters are logical. Voters can see when a program has no long term fiscal viability. Of course, if that were true President Obama would never have been president. He promised everything to everyone: free health care, student loans, to pay your mortgage, and only the really rich would pay. That's not viable and yet he won overwhelmingly.

That's what happens as soon as you give out an entitlement. People feel entitled and anyone that dares to take it away gets eliminated.

Watered Down Iran Sanctions

The sanctions against Iran have been watered down to satisfy Russia and China.

The U.S. has backed away from pursuing a number of tough measures against Iran in order to win support from Russia and China for a new United Nations Security Council resolution on sanctions, according to people familiar with the matter.

Among provisions removed from the original draft resolution the U.S. sent to key allies last month were sanctions aimed at choking off Tehran's access to international banking services and capital markets, and closing international airspace and waters to Iran's national air cargo and shipping lines, according to the people.

If we learned anything from the Bush administration it's that going to the UN and kow towing to Russia and China doesn't work. These sorts of sanctions were seeked and received throughout the Bush administration and we got nowhere.

Netanyahu Won't Slow Down Settlement Construction

The facedown continues.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he would not restrict construction in east Jerusalem, a step requested by the U.S., but would upgrade upcoming indirect talks with the Palestinians to include the main issues dividing them.

Netanyahu originally had wanted to put off a discussion of issues like the status of contested east Jerusalem, final borders and the fate of Palestinian refugees until direct talks are launched.

It was not clear what Netanyahu's declared refusal to budge on east Jerusalem -- the territory that lies at the crux of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- would mean for future relations with Washington and the rest of the international community.

Netanyahu's moves go nowhere near the U.S. demand to cancel a major new housing project at the heart of the row, but apparently he has offered enough to prompt U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to call them "useful and productive" and dispatch an envoy back to the region this week.

For more coverage check out Jeff Jacoby and Charles Krauthammer.

Who Will Pay Greece's Bills?

It appears there's a power struggle forming for who will NOT help Greece pay off its debts.

After weeks of backing a European rescue for the financially troubled Greece, Germany shifted course on Thursday, signaling that help should come from the International Monetary Fund rather than Greece’s neighbors.

Meanwhile, France would like to see the EU help to bailout Greece. Greece is hoping to get a break on the rate their bonds are currently paying. Their bonds currently have a premium of 6.25%, almost three percentage points higher than Britain and the U.S. A lot of this comes down to geopolitical ego. Greece doesn't want to approach the International Monetary Fund because that's generally reserved for the developing world and Greece wants to maintain the appearance that it's already developed.

So, no one wants to step. The whole affair has shown just how flawed and vulnerable the EU is. A few years back, some were claiming this would challenge the U.S. in terms of economic might. With Greece's problems, the Euro has simply gotten crushed. Thus, a massive weakness has been exposed. The EU is driven as much by its weakest link as by its strongest.

An Interesting Admission By Secretary Napolitano

It was a Fox News push by the Obama administration. While the president was sitting down with Brett Baier, the Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was sitting down with Bill O'Reilly.


The subject turned to KSM about 4:40 in. O'Reilly asked Napolitano where she has adviced the president KSM should be tried. Napolitano replied

I have not advised the president on this.

That's rather remarkable. KSM is the most high level Al Qaeda we've ever captured and certainly the most high profile to ever be charged with anything. Yet, the Homeland Security Director has had absolutely no input as to where KSM should be tried.

If he's tried domestically, that's a Homeland Security issue. Yet, the president and the Homeland Security dept. don't appear to be having any dialogue about where he should be tried. That simply doesn't instill confidence that the administration will make a good decision on this matter.

Israel and U.S. in "Crisis"

The dispute that started when Israel approved zoning in a controversial area of Jerusalem during Joe Biden's visit to the region has turned into crisis.

U.S.-Israeli relations have hit a 35-year low over a contentious east Jerusalem building project that threatens to derail peacemaking efforts with the Palestinians, Israel's envoy to Washington was quoted as saying Monday.

Ambassador Michael Oren's remarks clashed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's assurances that the political turmoil resulting from the settlement
announcement, which the Obama administration slammed as "an insult," was under
control.

"Israel's ties with the United States are in their worst crisis since 1975 ... a crisis of historic proportions," the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper quoted Oren as saying to Israeli diplomats in a phone briefing over the weekend.

This spat has showed just how far relationships have deteriorated. Without taking sides, it's remarkable that such a disagreement would be characterized as a crisis.

Joe Biden was in the region when some yet unnamed bureaucrat in the interior department announced the approval for zoning of new construction of apartment buildings in a contentious part of Jerusalem.

That lead to a public rebuke by Biden. It then lead to a screaming match by phone by Hillary Clinton and her counterpart which was then leaked to the press and hyperanalyzed.

Now, the entire relationship appears on the brink. Yet, unconfirmed reports have the U.S. demanding this of Israel.

They also reported that the U.S. wants Israel to make a significant confidence-building gesture toward the Palestinians. Suggestions included releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails; turning over additional areas of the West Bank to Palestinian control; removing some of the roadblocks hampering the movement of Palestinians and goods in the West Bank; and easing the blockade on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, media reported.

That's a request that Israel is unlikely to accept. Relations between the two nations have been contentious since the U.S. made a pet project out of ending their (Israel's) expansion of settlements. Obama's approval was once down in the single digits in Israel. The Israeli Ambassador is calling this " Worst crisis with US since '75"

Israel’s ambassador to Washington Michael Oren convened Foreign Ministry consuls for an emergency briefing, and told them the crisis between Israel and the US is the worst since 1975, Army Radio reported.

Oren was referring to a crisis that evolved when Israel refused to sign a treaty to withdraw forces from Sinai in 1975.

In an unusual move, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) made a public call on the White House to tone down the rhetoric. The lobby said statements made by senior officials in US President Barack Obama’s administration were “very worrying.”

The comparison in crises is interesting. The last included a war and this includes a zoning approval. That's how far we've come.

Amid Violence the Iraqis

It's been just a bit less than seven years since then President George Bush ordered a surprise bombing on the palace of Saddam Hussein. In the interim, Iraq has gone through a remarkable transformation. Only four short years, the violence was so intense that most everyone thought loss was assured and it would soon disintegrate into a failed state or worse. Since, the country has roared back from the brink of uncontrolled chaos and is quickly becoming a model of Democracy and representative government for the Middle East. So, that is the backdrop for the vote in parliamentary elections in Iraq tomorrow. Those elections are nothing like the elections here. Already a car bomb has exploded and Al Qaeda promises to kill anyone that leaves their home to vote.

A car bomb exploded near a bus for pilgrims in the Shiite holy city of Najaf on Saturday, killing at least three people, including two Iranians, on the eve of key national elections, officials said.

Blasts in other Iraqi cities have killed dozens this week, underscoring warnings that insurgents would attempt to disrupt the vote with violence. An Al Qaeda front group issued a statement on Friday saying those who leave their homes on election day risk attack.

We've been here before. For each election, Al Qaeda sets off bombs and threatens anyone that dares to vote. They are successful in taking lives but entirely unsuccessful in scaring anyone from their new found rights.

In fact, as remarkable as the elections themselves will be, the run up to the elections have proven just how far Iraq has come. Their were a series of debates. These debates weren't only broadcast throughout Iraq, but through satellite, broadcast throughout the Middle East. The debates were so provocative that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was moved to call in himself to one of the aftershows and comment on one of the topics being debated.

The station said that they cut seven minutes from its running time to make more
room for advertisements from various campaigns.

And the ads don’t come cheap: 15 minutes of airtime cost $100,000, according to station officials.

The shows are also being seen outside Iraq. Ms. Qaysei said she was pleasantly surprised when Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, called the station and praised the debate program.

President Bush firmly believed that liberty was a universal concept. His critics mocked him. They said that the Middle East wasn't ready for that kind of freedom. Yet, Iraqis vote in much larger percentages than we do, even though they face the threat of death when they do. These debates are among the most popular television in Iraq. They're our American Idol.

The critics also claimed that Iraq would quickly become nothing more than a puppet of Iran. Those critics were again wrong. They underestimated the sophistication of Iraqi society and politics.

In fact, Iraq's parliamentary system is far too sophisticated for that. While Shia are by far the most dominant sect, it's far too splintered politically to ever cause Iraq to merely be Iran's puppet. There are those Shia that merely want to be Iran's puppet and there are others that are Secular. Both the Sunni and Kurds have no use for Iran. In a parliamentary system, one party can't rule alone and so the interests of Iran must be balanced with the interests of smaller players in order to build a coalition.

That's the most remarkable thing of all. In seven short years, Iraq has gone from a dictatorship ruled by a strong man to a representative government GOVERNED by a sophisticated parliamentary system. The ruling government lead by Nuri Al Maliki is made up of a coalition of six different parties. This election features about six thousand candidates and they are all vying for votes by giving their platforms on issues like the future of Kirkuk.

General Petreaus often said that in counter insurgency there is no one moment where victory is made. Instead, the people reject the insurgents and embrace democracy. We have victory. The election, the debates, and the manner in which the Iraqi people have embraced their new found liberty is victory. No bombs, explosions, or fear will ever make them waver from what they have.

KSM Back to GITMO?

More than a year after promising to close GITMO and nearly six months after announcing that KSM would be tried in New York, we're coming full circle.

Top advisers to President Obama are close to a decision recommending that the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks be prosecuted in a military tribunal, The Washington Post reported Friday, citing unnamed administration officials.

According to the report, the president's advisers have grown increasingly wary of bipartisan opposition to the planned civilian federal trial in New York City, mere blocks from where nearly 3,000 Americans were killed in the spectacular attack on the World Trade Center.

Worse yet, from both a political and policy level, this is the best outcome for the White House. We are back where we started and that's the best that could have happened.

Iran, Russia, and Garry Kasparov

Garry Kasparov has a theory about Vladimir Putin that I have repeated on numerous occasions. I will repeat it again. Putin does everything with an eye toward artificially making oil prices as high as possible. At the same time, he also makes sure that he creates a situation he can control.

That would explain Russia's insistence on protecting Iran from sanctions as they build up their nuclear capabilities. The threat of a nuclear Iran increases the price of oil. At the same time, if Iran were nuclear, that would also be a situation that Russia could no longer control. That might explain Russia's more aggressive tone.

Iran should improve its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's spokeswoman says.

"On the subject of sanctions, Russia's position remains unchanged. Russia still believes that Iran should more actively and broadly cooperate with the IAEA and other countries," spokeswoman Natalia Timakova told reporters on Tuesday.

"If these obligations are not fulfilled, no one can exclude the application of sanctions," AFP quoted Timakova as saying.

Russia has made such threats before. They've never followed through when push came to shove. Still, no one understands Vladimir Putin better than Garry Kasparov. If Kasparov is right, a nuclear Iran is not in Russia's interest. As such, if you follow Kasparov's theory, they will stop Iran from getting a nuke before it is too late. Such a move would serve all their purposes and be very shrewd as it would also mean they'd have that much more geopolitical leverage as well.

Niger Coup

The situation in Niger continues to disintegrate.

Niger's military plans to run the uranium-exporting country until politicians agree on a new constitution and are ready for fresh elections, West Africa's regional mediator said after meeting the junta on Sunday.

No timeframe has been set for the transition back to civilian rule but a spokesman for the junta said on Sunday that elections would be held "as soon as possible" and the situation was similar to a coup in 1999 that led to transparent elections.

This follows the military's ouster of Mamadou Tandja the Prime Minister last week. That followed months of wrangling between Tandja and the opposition. The military says they will run the government until a political settlement is reached.