Slow Down the Obama Bandwagon



Yes, the Illinois senator would make a great Democratic candidate in 2008. As long as he loses.

Let me state my allegiances at the start. I don't consider myself a liberal, or even a Democrat. But I'm on board the Barack Obama bandwagon. I'm drinking the Kool-Aid and going back for refills. As far as I'm concerned, Obama's declaration last Sunday that he's not not running for President was just about the most exciting development in American politics since the birth of the party system. Like many Americans, I want Obama to run in 2008. And though two years is an eternity, I fully expect that if he runs, he would win.

I just hope he doesn't.

It's nothing against Obama. The notes of caution that have been raised about his quasi-candidacy — his youth, his lack of legislative experience, his excruciating even-handedness — still strike me as his chief selling points as a politician. His mere presence in the 2008 campaign would have the potential to elevate the political discourse, transcend America's red-blue divide and maybe even make the country a better place. The trouble is what happens the morning after. Whoever prevails in November 2008 will inherit a welter of foreign-policy challenges, courtesy of the Bush Administration, that could well dominate much of the new President's first term — and consume so much political capital that it will be impossible to win a second.

Iraq is the most obvious headache. Though the Bush Administration appears to be laying the groundwork for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, there's every reason to believe that Americans will still be fighting and dying there on Inauguration Day, 2009. But whatever public support that still exists for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq will have vanished by then. And so, barring a miraculous compromise between Iraq's feuding factions, President Obama may well be the man who withdraws the last Americans from Iraq and sends the country descending into all-out civil war. Try running for reelection on that.

And that's just the start. Unless Iran's ruling clerics have a change of heart or its pro-Western middle class rises in revolt, Tehran will likely declare itself a nuclear power sometime during the next presidency, knowing that the U.S. military is too stretched and exhausted to stop it. As North Korea's isolation deepens, Pyongyang Gmay start peddling its nuclear possessions to all manner of interested buyers. Meanwhile, as Richard Haas argues in the current Foreign Affairs, the greater Arab world is likely to grow more radical, more unstable and less amenable to U.S. influence. And that's not to mention the prosepct of future Darfurs, which the next President will find even tougher to stop, given the American public's growing aversion to foreign adventures and the military's inevitable, post-Iraq conflict fatigue.

The argument could be made that Obama's deliberative intelligence is precisely what the world needs to deal with threats like these. But I worry that Obama could be the next Jimmy Carter, another first-rate intellect who took over after the country's last national nightmare, Watergate, pursued a sensible foreign policy and was still undone by events — such as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iranian revolution — that had their roots in his predecessors' failures. Carter's misfortunes, of course, allowed Ronald Reagan to come along and tap into the country's yearning to bury the ghosts of Vietnam and become great again. It helped that the Reagan Presidency coincided with the emergence of Mikhail Gorbachev. Either way, it is Reagan, not Carter, who gets credit for helping to end the Cold War and now occupies a place in history's Presidential pantheon.

Will Obama get there too? I hope so. But he has a far better chance of achieving greatness if he avoids the poisoned chalice that Bush will hand to his successor. At some point, Americans will be ready to shake the trauma of the Iraq disaster and embrace a new President's vision of a better future — and give him the full eight years to pull it off. A Barack run in 2008 wouldn't be a bad thing — even if he loses, a Presidential bid would provide him a national platform and give him time and space to articulate his views. It would also be good for America. So go ahead and root for Obama to run in 2008. Just save your vote for 2012.

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Criticism Mounts of U.S. Generals in Iraq



Top warmakers like Gen. John Abizaid have thus far escaped blame for the failures in Iraq. But that's starting to change.

The Bush administration's recent shift in strategy on the Iraq War — ending talk about "staying the course" and replacing it with a new emphasis on flexibility in response to changing conditions on the ground — may be a smart political tactic. But the implication of Bush's newfound candor, and his insistence that his decisions are being directed by advice from his generals on the ground, raises an unspoken question. If the generals are running the war and it is going so badly, shouldn't they share some of the blame?

Gen. Tommy Franks, who led the successful Iraq invasion in 2003, has come in for his share of criticism, for failing to plan sufficiently for the postwar phase. But the generals who replaced Franks in the summer of 2003 have largely escaped criticism. That, however, is starting to change. Chief among the targets is Gen. John Abizaid, who succeeded Franks as head of Central Command, the military region that covers most of the Middle East and includes Afghanistan and Iraq.

Senior and mid-level officers — all of whom either fought in Iraq or were involved in operations there, and none of whom were willing to be identified by name — are beginning to assert privately that Abizaid and other top generals must inevitably share responsibility for the setbacks in Iraq. Many of those officers have lost men on the battlefield in Iraq and saw their requests for more troops go unheeded. Others worked in positions where they saw the planning for Iraq or the execution of the war go wrong. "Iraq will go down as the greatest military and strategic blunder since Vietnam," says a former officer who dealt with Iraq planning. "And no one has ever been held accountable — including senior military leaders."

In a culture that values accountability and leadership, the military has been slow to look inward on Iraq. The fact that no senior officer has admitted to any serious mistakes, or been reprimanded or sidelined for tactical, operational or strategic errors, is troubling to many officers. In contrast, they point to the example of Israel, which had barely withdrawn all its troops from southern Lebanon before it launched investigations into the conduct of the war against Hizballah.

There have been previous suggestions of military missteps. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice touched a nerve in April when she said the U.S. had made "thousands of tactical errors" in Iraq. But many officers dismissed her comments as coming from a civilian politician. Others have criticized the military leaders for failing to dispute the flawed war plan set in motion by the President and his top advisers. "Flaws in our civilians are one thing; the failure of the Pentagon's military leaders is quite another," former Marine Lt. Gen. Greg Newbold wrote in TIME last spring. "Those are men who know the hard consequences of war but, with few exceptions, acted timidly when their voices urgently needed to be heard."

But in the past few months, a growing number of officers have expanded their criticism to the way the generals have conducted the war. Gen. George Casey, who has been in command in Iraq for more than two years, has been the target of some of these complaints. But he came to Iraq when the situation had already degenerated into a complex insurgent fight. More criticism is being directed at Abizaid, who was a key military planner for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon before becoming Director of the Joint Staff, and then No. 2 at CENTCOM to Gen. Franks.

On paper, Abizaid was the right officer at the right moment. An Arab-American graduate of West Point, Abizaid studied in the Middle East, speaks some Arabic (though he is far from fluent) and commanded troops with distinction in Grenada and Gulf War I. Even today, many senior and retired officers speak of Abizaid with reverence; Sen. John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has praised him as an "outstanding officer"; and not even his harshest critics question his commitment to service.

It is his military judgment that has raised questions. As Franks' second in command, some officers say, Abizaid shares the blame for the failure to plan for what would happen after the initial rush to Baghdad. But his more serious missteps, in the view of his critics, began when Abizaid took over from Franks in July 2003, two months after the infamous "end of major combat operations" speech by President George Bush. Among those mistakes: failing to keep enough troops in Iraq in the fall of 2003 to establish basic security; allowing the disbanding of the Iraq Army and de-Baathificaition; missing the first signs of a growing insurgency; and failing to replace commanders who couldn't adapt to fight the insurgency, including Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the former top ground commander in Iraq who was allowed to quietly retire this year.

Abizaid is also accused of mismanaging the campaign in Fallujah in April 2004. Following the gruesome killing of four contractors, he pressured the Marines — over their objections — to attack the town. Then he compounded the mistake, in the view of these officers, when, faced with complaints from the Iraqis and Arab media about high civilian casualties, he abruptly halted the attack, violating the usual practice of allowing commanders on the ground to control the tactical fight. Many analysts see it as a turning point that allowed the insurgency to expand and become more dangerous.

Abizaid is also drawing criticism for never asking, so far as anyone knows, for a significant increase in troops to impose security. Abizaid, says a former officer privy to details of miiltary operations, "never wanted to commit more troops to Iraq." Early on he said the U.S. was an "antibody" in the Iraqi body politic and supported early "off-ramps" from Iraq for our forces. Officers who served in Iraq say they asked for more forces several times, but those requests did not make it to the top. At least twice in meetings with President Bush in 2004 — once before the April 2004 Fallujah attack and again before another operation there in November — the President asked Abizaid if he had everything he needed and Abizaid said, "Yes sir."

Abizaid, says one critic, also failed to develop a successful strategy of clearing an area, then holding it with troops, and then rebuilding its social and economic institutions. He believed that the rebuilding ought to be left to the Iraqis, but he never ensured that the foundation of that strategy — the Iraqi Security Forces — were up to the job, this critic contends.

Even today, some officers say, Abizaid continues to speak in terms that don't match the fight on the ground in Iraq. "U.S. forces have never been defeated in a fight at platoon level or above and we never will," he told a military group last month. He's still missing the point, says one frustrated officer: "It's an irrelevant comparison because those types of encounters are rare or nonexistent in Iraq." Says another officer: "We're not fighting the Big Red Soviet Army here, we're dealing with hit-and-run guerrilla warfare."

Abizaid did not reply when asked by TIME to comment on the criticism.

Abizaid does get credit, in the view of his critics, for being more honest about the facts on the ground, in many cases, than his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In the summer of 2003, after Rumsfeld had denied Iraq was facing an insurgency, Abizaid made his first appearance in the Pentagon press briefing room and boldly countered that in fact the U.S. was facing a guerrilla war. And last August, before Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, it was Abizaid who said Iraq was "as bad as I've ever seen it," and that it may be on the verge of civil war.

But Abizaid has also been a smart politician. He has never challenged the assertion by senior civilian leaders that the war was being won. The Abu Ghraib scandal did not scar him. The fact that Osama Bin Laden is still at large in the middle of his region of responsibility never really lands on his shoulders.

He also has carefully escaped responsibility for the failures in Iraq. One retired senior army officer shook his head and said, "John has been unacceptably distant from the issue of Iraq." Abizaid has allowed Gen. George Casey, the Iraq commander, to take the heat as questions about strategy — over which he has the ultimate responsibility — are raised in Washington. As the Iraq war grinds on, senior officers who have served in Iraq are reaching their own conclusions about Abizaid's role. Said one Iraq veteran: "I don't think history will treat John Abizaid well."

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U.S.-led Gulf War Game Aims a Message at Tehran



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With sanctions unlikely to deter Iran's nuclear program, Washington draws Arab allies into a dress rehearsal for intercepting suspect ships.

Frigates, patrol boats and intelligence and law enforcement officers from 23 nations are massing in Bahrain over the weekend, poised to stalk and intercept a British-flagged ship as it steams across the Persian Gulf with a cargo purported to be parts for a nuclear weapons program. If all goes as planned the vessel will be intercepted Monday before it reaches a destination that a senior U.S. official would identify only as a "country of proliferation concern." But he added, "I understand the exercise has gotten the attention of the Iranian government."

Which is just the way the U.S. and its allies want it. While the international diplomatic effort to stop Iran from acquiring the capability to build nuclear weapons appears stymied, Plan B is the Proliferation Security Initiative, an anti-smuggling project launched by the U.S. and ten partners in 2003 and now boasting 80 participating nations. Next week's multinational training exercise, codenamed "Leading Edge," represents the first such counter-proliferation war game to be staged in the Gulf, and the first to include the participation of the Gulf states — Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

The timing of the complicated naval exercise, which may be partly visible from Iran's coastline, is not an accident. It is clearly meant as a signal to Tehran that its neighbors are prepared to move aggressively to prevent it from obtaining the parts and materials necessary to advance its uranium enrichment process — a process the U.S. and many of its allies believe, but Iran denies, is ultimately intended to develop nuclear weapons.

It also carries also a message for North Korea. On Oct. 14, after the country tested a nuclear device, the U.N. Security Council unanimously voted trade and travel sanctions on Pyongyang. But the success of the sanctions depends on vigilance by authorities in the neighboring countries. Two of those key neighbors, Russia and South Korea, have declined to sign on to the PSI as full-fledged participants, but are sending observers to Bahrain for the exercise.

Notably absent, however, will be North Korea's most important economic ally, China. Still, a top U.S. official says in meetings in Beijing last week, Secretary Condoleezza Rice received some encouragement when she pressed for tighter controls along China's thinly-patrolled 880-mile border with North Korea to enforce U.N. Security Council-mandated sanctions barring commerce that would advance that nation's nuclear and missile programs. "The Chinese reaffirmed that they support the principles and the objectives of the [Proliferation Security] Initiative but they're not at a point�where they're able to formally endorse the initiative," says the U.S. official.

To thwart the possibility of North Korea-Iran exchanges of technology and know-how on long-range missiles — U.S. intelligence believes some of Iran's missiles are based on North Korean designs — and nuclear devices, the Bush administration has assiduously courted the Sunni-dominated Gulf states that serve as key banking and shipping centers for Iran. Next week's exercises are being heralded by Bush Administration officials as a sign that the political leaders in the Gulf accept the U.S. view on the Iranian threat. But some U.S. officials acknowledge it's too soon to tell whether the Gulf states will actually move aggressively to root out Iranian front companies and bank accounts used to acquire materials for the nuclear program, and to pay Hizballah, Hamas and other terrorist groups.

The U.S. is also paying special attention to the Central Asian states where flights between Iran and North Korea might seek to land for refueling. Earlier this month, Undersecretary of State Robert Joseph went to Central Asia and obtained endorsements from Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan for the PSI. Uzbekistan was already cooperating and, according to U.S. officials, Kyrgyzstan promised to consider joining the initiative

The Bush administration is counting heavily on the Proliferation Security Initiative to delay Iran's nuclear progress. Washington knows that even if the U.N. Security Council passes some mild sanctions — a travel ban and a ban on trade in nuclear and missile program components — now being debated by the U.S., Europe, Russia and China, Tehran will almost certainly ignore these measures. And even if stiffer economic sanctions were to be adopted, Western diplomats acknowledge that Iran's windfall oil profits would cushion the impact.

And besides, says a senior European diplomat, Iranian politicians are using the nuclear issue "as a sort of litmus test of the revolutionary spirit." Privately, he says, key Western officials have concluded grimly that, for the present, "sanctions are not a strategy" because as long as compromise means appeasement, no aspiring Iranian leader is likely to embrace it. No surprise, then, that Iran's government news agency, ISNA, reported Friday that nuclear scientists have begun feeding uranium gas into a second 164-machine cascade of centrifuges.

Pyongyang is considered even less vulnerable to outside pressure than Tehran because Kim Jong-il and his inner circle are thought to be utterly insensitive to the suffering of the populace. "They're closer to Al Capone than a state," says a top European diplomat involved in the multinational negotiations.

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Mexico's Fox Gambles on a Crackdown




The Federal government sends in troops to quell the turmoil in Oaxaca. But with tensions at an all-time high following summer's contested election, that's a risky move.

Mexico's months-long political crisis took a precarious turn Saturday when President Vicente Fox sent special federal forces into the impoverished and violence-torn southern state of Oaxaca, after an American journalist and a local teacher were killed there on Friday.

As Federal paramilitary police were flown into Oaxaca City, the state's capital, Mexicans worried over whether Fox's action would restore calm or simply fuel the social polarization exacerbated by last summer's hotly contested presidential election. "We've been held hostage here by radical groups," Freddy Alcantar, a Oaxaca hotelier told TIME by phone Saturday morning. "Finally the President is imposing the rule of law." But a protester who called himself only Florentino, representing the leftist Popular Assemby of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), told TIME that until Governor Ulises Ruiz resigns, he and other militants — who are believed by many to have the backing of a small-scale Oaxaca guerrilla force from the 1990s that reappeared in the summer — would "reinforce our barricades and call in help from the mountains, valleys and coasts."

The American, Brad Will, 36, a journalist with the New York-based Indymedia, was shot in the abdomen in a rough neighborhood of Oaxaca City. Will had been filming an armed clash between protesters and pro-government men tearing down street barricades. In a statement, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza said, "Mr. Will's senseless death, of course, underscores the critical need for a return to lawfulness and order in Oaxaca." But he also warned both sides in the Oaxaca violence that "an attack on one journalist is an attack on all who believe that freedom of the press lies at the heart of any civilized society."

Fox, who leaves office on December 1, had hoped to avoid intervening in Oaxaca, in line with his preference for restraining the central government's traditionally heavy-handed control of Mexico's states. He was also mindful of the fact that ever since the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre in Mexico City — when federal troops killed hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators — sending in the troops touches a raw nerve in Mexico.

Ruiz — of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) ousted by Fox six years ago, although both allied with Fox's party against the challenge of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) — gave no indication Saturday whether he would stay put in office now that Fox has exerted control in the state. Ruiz's troubles began when Oaxaca's poorly paid teachers went on strike last June, accusing Ruiz of authoritarian rule and neglect of the poor and indigenous citizens. Their walkout became more strident and violent as more radical forces — including the APPO — joined in to call attention to Mexico's sharp and growing social divide between haves and have-nots. (Mexico has a dozen billionaires, but about half of its population lives in poverty.) By summer's end, after almost 10 people had been killed, Oaxaca's celebrated colonial downtown was a graffiti-smeared grid of smoldering barricades.

The Oaxaca conflict was also fueled by the crisis over the July presidential election, in which conservative Felipe Calderon of Fox's National Action Party (PAN) defeated the PRD's Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador by less than 1% of the vote. Lopez Obrador cried fraud, and tens of thousands of his backers occupied Mexico City's main plaza and thoroughfare for months in protest. But in recent weeks the Mexico City demonstrations had died down, and last week even the Oaxaca teachers seemed ready to go back to work.

But groups such as the APPO stuck to their insistence that Ruiz resign and call new elections, which could see a PRD candidate elected. Their continued defiance, according to witnesses, brought pro-Ruiz thugs into the streets on Friday and resulted in the shootouts that killed Will and a Oaxaca teacher and injured four other people.

Civic leaders like Alcantar hope that the Federal forces can tamp down the violence and restore peaceful dialogue. "We have to get our institutions working together again for real economic development and real jobs," Alcantar conceded, reflecting on the root causes of the conflict. As Calderon gets set to take office December 1, that's the challenge not only for Oaxaca, but for all of Mexico.

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U.S. returns to standard time on Sunday

Autumn's chill is in the air, and little ghosts and goblins are preparing to play trick-or-treat. It must be time to set the clocks back. Officially we will fall back to standard time at 2 a.m. Sunday, though most folks will change their clocks Saturday night.

This is the last time the change will come in October. Thanks to a law passed last year, daylight-saving time will start earlier and end later beginning in 2007. It will last from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November.

Some states and territories don't observe daylight-saving time and won't have to worry about changing their clocks. Those are Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Marianas.

Daylight-saving time returns next March 11.

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Today in history - Oct. 28


The Associated Press

Today is Saturday, Oct. 28, the 301st day of 2006. There are 64 days left in the year. A reminder: Daylight-saving Time ends Sunday at 2 a.m. locally. Clocks move back one hour.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Oct. 28, 1886, the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France, was dedicated in New York Harbor by President Cleveland.

On this date:

In 1776, the Battle of White Plains was fought during the Revolutionary War, resulting in a limited British victory.

In 1893, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky conducted the first public performance of his Symphony No. 6 in B minor ("Pathetique") in St. Petersburg, Russia, just nine days before his death.

In 1919, Congress enacted the Volstead Act, which provided for enforcement of Prohibition, over President Wilson's veto.

In 1922, fascism came to Italy as Benito Mussolini took control of the government.

In 1936, President Roosevelt rededicated the Statue of Liberty on its 50th anniversary.

In 1940, Italy invaded Greece during World War II.

In 1958, the Roman Catholic patriarch of Venice, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, was elected Pope; he took the name John XXIII.

In 1962, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev informed the United States that he had ordered the dismantling of Soviet missile bases in Cuba.

In 1965, Pope Paul VI issued a decree absolving Jews of collective guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

In 1986, the true centennial of the Statue of Liberty was celebrated in New York with ceremonies that were modest compared with the hoopla of "Liberty Weekend" the previous July.

Ten years ago: Richard Jewell, cleared of committing the Olympic park bombing, held a news conference in Atlanta in which he thanked his mother for standing by him and lashed out at reporters and investigators who had depicted him as the bomber. Comedian Morey Amsterdam died in Los Angeles at age 81.

Five years ago: The families of people killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack gathered in New York for a memorial service filled with prayer and song. Gunmen killed 16 people in a church in Behawalpur, Pakistan. United Airlines replaced embattled chairman and chief executive James Goodwin with board member John Creighton. The Arizona Diamondbacks gained a 2-0 lead in the World Series, defeating the New York Yankees 4-0.

One year ago: Vice President Dick Cheney's top adviser, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, resigned after he was indicted on charges of obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements in the CIA leak investigation. More than a million demonstrators flooded the streets of Tehran and other major cities in Iran to back President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call for the destruction of Israel.

Today's Birthdays: Former baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn is 80. Jazz singer Cleo Laine is 79. Actress Joan Plowright is 77. Musician-songwriter Charlie Daniels is 70. Actress Jane Alexander is 67. Singer Curtis Lee is 65. Actor Dennis Franz is 62. Pop singer Wayne Fontana is 61. Actress Telma Hopkins is 58. Olympic track and field gold medalist Bruce Jenner is 57. Actress Annie Potts is 54. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates is 51. Rock musician Stephen Morris (New Order) is 49. Country singer-musician Ron Hemby (The Buffalo Club) is 48. Rock singer-musician William Reid (The Jesus & Mary Chain) is 48. Actor Mark Derwin is 46. Actress Daphne Zuniga is 44. Actress Lauren Holly is 43. Olympic silver medal figure skater Paul Wylie is 42. Actress Jami Gertz is 41. Actor-comedian Andy Richter is 40. Actress Julia Roberts is 39. Country singer-musician Caitlin Cary is 38. Actor Jeremy Davies is 37. Singer Ben Harper is 37. Country singer Brad Paisley is 34. Actor Joaquin Phoenix is 32. Singer Justin Guarini ("American Idol") is 28.

Thought for Today: "Don't forget to love yourself." — Soren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher (1813-1855).

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