Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the declared winner of the Iranian election last week, has told Obama to stop interfering with Iran’s affairs. According to Ahmadinejad:

We don’t expect much from British government and other European governments whose records and background are known for everybody and have no dignity but I wonder why Mr. Obama who has come with the slogan of change has fallen into the trap and taken the same route that Bush took and experienced its consequences.

After the jump is a video of Ahmadinejad asking Obama to stop “interfering” and express “regret.”

This comes after President Obama “strongly condemned” the violence that Iranian authorities were using against demonstrators in the streets.

Obama’s response?

Many have been critical of Obama’s neutrality saying that he needs to be stronger with his rhetoric and speak up against the injustice in Iran. Paul Wolfowitz’s Washington Post article, “‘No Comment’ Is Not an Option,” argued that Obama should not “dig in to a neutral posture” and that it was time to “change course.” His argument draws upon a case when Ronald Reagan chose a neutral position but later switched to take a stronger stance.

Wolfowitz argues that it was Reagan’s rhetoric that, in condemning Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos for rigging the election, caused Marcos to step down out of power and leave the country. The problem with comparing the Philippines to Iran, however, is that the U.S. does not have the same relationship with Iran as it did with the Philippines in 1986 and there for cannot assume the same influential role with Iran.

He also argues that George H. W. Bush’s rhetorical support for Yeltsin was the determining factor that dissolved the 1991 Soviet coup, (the actual reason was that the White House was sharing NSA information with Yeltsin that informed him which military officials were a liability).

Wolfowitz is not the only one who believes in the power of words. Many believe now that the rhetorical expression of virtue by the American President is enough to halt armies, tear down walls, and strike fear in our enemies. However, this is an incomplete and completely unrealistic revision of history. The world is too complex to reduce history to mere presidential rhetoric.

Furthermore, its a complete misunderstanding of human behavior, and state behavior for that matter. Tough talk does not bend our opponents to our will but only further exacerbates hostilities. Flexing your muscles doesn’t cause other to cower, rather they flex back. Were we expecting Ahmadinejad to bend simply because Obama said so? Instead, Ahmadinejad has fired back with a demand for an apology.  This is not the way to normalizing relations.

I am not suggesting that America should retain a permanently neutral posture, but we do have to show care for how we posture ourselves.  Our words and actions do have an impact on others, and its not always the impact that we anticipate.

This past Saturday in Tampa, the man hailed as the savior of the Iraq war, Gen. David Petraeus, as part of being honored by Toastmasters International, was to have given a speech, However, Washington business took precedent, and speaking in the Central Command leader’s stead was Rear Admiral Mike Franken, U.S. Navy Deputy Director of Strategy Plans & Policy for Central Command.

Appearing at the Marriott Westshore Hotel, Franken said he was up for taking questions from the hundred conventioneers in attendance at the end of his slide filled presentation. Unfortunately, Toastmasters provided limited time for the military official to speak (the world champion of public speaking from 2005 was giving a seminar in the same room), and thus he was able only to respond to a couple of audience queries before being summoned from the dais.

(Petraeus, by the way, was in Washington to meet up with officials regarding the status of the fragility of the Pakistani government, and both Pakistani President Asif Ali Zandari and Afghan leader Hamid Karzai are both scheduled to visit the White House this week.)

Franken said flatly that Pakistan is the number one foreign policy issue of the U.S. right now, adding, “It’s an avowed nuclear capable nation that has large stretches of ungoverned areas, and it’s teetering.” Petraeus has apparently been saying the same thing behind closed doors.

The Pakistan/Afghanistan region (or AfPak, as its been newly branded) has become, to borrow a favorite phrase from the last administration, the new central front on the war in terror in the eyes of Team Obama. Or to some, the latest war of choice.

After listening to the CentCom official, it seemed the central question should be posed to him: Is putting all of our resources in that area about making America safer, or just another diversion?

The U.S. originally bombed Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 as a way of hitting Osama Bin Laden and the other members of Al Queda who were responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

As we all now know, the effort then shifted away from Afghanistan in 2002, and all our marbles went into attacking Iraq.

Democrats such as Barack Obama, Joe Biden & Hillary Clinton campaigned hard in 2007 and 2008 that the Bush Administration had erred in shifting the emphasis from Afghanistan to Iraq. And while that is no doubt true, particularly in 2002/2003, the question needs to be asked: Is the safety of Americans in peril in 2009 because of the instability of the Zandari government right now?

I asked that question directly to Rear Admiral Franken in the few moments I had alone with him last Saturday. He appeared less forthcoming one on one than he did before the Toastmasters audience, unfortunately,

“What were doing will make us safer in America, safer in the world. I think that’s right…..”

It was not exactly a ringing endorsement of the current strategy.

When asked the question that invariably is said about Afghanistan (and even alluded to by Franken in his speech), that it’s the “Graveyard of Empires” (see Britain, Russia), the Admiral replied, “We have the shortcomings of others have made to reflect upon…we are looking at the structures of government to do a better job to doing the COIN strategy…Clearing an area of negative elements and bringing a level of security necessary, so we can build from the bottom up for that area to grow…it is not going to be easy…But the President outlined a strategy that deserves our best effort to go forward.”

And what about the Taliban, whom, unlike Al Queda, has not set designs on killing Americans, per se?

As foreign policy maven Fareed Zakaria wrote in Newsweek, in February:

To be clear, where there are Qaeda cells and fighters, force is the only answer. But most estimates of the number of Qaeda fighters in Pakistan range well under a few thousand. Are those the only people we are bombing? Is bombing—by Americans—the best solution? The Predator strikes have convinced much of the local population that it’s under attack from America and produced a nationalist backlash. A few Qaeda operatives die, but public support for the battle against extremism drops in the vital Pashtun areas of Pakistan. Is this a good exchange?

Franken said on Saturday “there’s good Taliban and bad Taliban”. That seems to jibe with reports that the U.S. is interested in working with some of those Taliban elements who can be brought to support the U.S. aims, a la the Sunni Awakening. That’s where, we were able to persuade (some would say bribe) members of those groups to support the U.S. side, and worked hand in hand with the surge to bring about a level of stability in Iraq that seemed an impossibility in 2006.

Franken also spoke on several occasions of trying to bring a “‘whole of government’ approach to Afghanistan…to allow it an opportunity to better present itself in all aspects of caring and good governance, and to spread its governance throughout the country, which has been lacking, for a millennium, frankly.”

Again, more Zakaria in Newsweek:

Would a strategy like this work in Afghanistan? David Kilcullen, a counterinsurgency expert who has advised Petraeus, says, “I’ve had tribal leaders and Afghan government officials at the province and district level tell me that 90 percent of the people we call the Taliban are actually tribal fighters or Pashtun nationalists or people pursuing their own agendas. Less than 10 percent are ideologically aligned with the Quetta Shura [Mullah Omar's leadership group] or Al Qaeda.” These people are, in his view, “almost certainly reconcilable under some circumstances.” Kilcullen adds, “That’s very much what we did in Iraq. We negotiated with 90 percent of the people we were fighting.”

Clearly, it’s in the interests of the U.S. and NATO to rid AfPak of the negative Taliban influences. But at what cost? The Christian Science Monitor reports the government is pouring over a hundred million dollars into Afghanistan, “But it’s running the risk of repeating some of the same mistakes it made in Iraq where government auditors have said it wasted billions of dollars.”

All in all, it seems that though AfPak doesn’t’ seem to animate Americans concerns as Iraq has (in part because the loss of human life hasn’t been as severe), attention needs to be paid.

President Barack Obama announced on Friday his new Afghanistan/Pakistan strategy, which he says has a clear goal:

To disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future. That is the goal that must be achieved. That is the cause that could not be more just. And to the terrorists who oppose us, my message is the same – we will defeat you.

Listen to his speech below:

To achieve this, Obama is sending an additional 4.000 U.S. troops to the 17,000 scheduled to be deployed to the region in the next couple of months. He is also sending a civilian “surge” which would include mostly diplomats and specialists.

Is this a good idea?

I wrote a piece last week concerning Obama expressing his interest to focus more of our efforts in Afghanistan. I was critical of pursuing Afghanistan because there was a lack of clarity as to what the plan would be. However on Friday, Obama narrowed the main objective to defeating terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which should have been the main objective all along. This is a smart goal because it doesn’t allow any room for democratization, nation building or any other careless crusade. Now that we have our goal, we can get in and get the hell out, right?

Not so fast. There still isn’t a defined exit strategy or exit date, which is the reason why so many are willing to call this strategy “Obama’s Vietnam.” Peace Action, which is an anti-war network, petitioned both democrat and republican members of congress to dissuade President Obama from sending more troops to the region. The executive director of Peace Action, Kevin Martin, invoked the analogy of Vietnam to describe the Obama’s Af/Pak strategy.

While President Obama has made some good statements on increasing diplomacy and economic aid to Afghanistan and Pakistan, the emphasis is clearly on military operations. John F. Kennedy was in a comparable situation when he was elected. He chose to escalate then as well. And the consequence of his decision left our country mired in an unwinnable war

While I am displeased with the idea that Obama does not have an exit plan as of yet, I don’t think that we can compare his Af/Pak strategy to Vietnam. First, there is a valid argument for an Af/Pak plan simply because these are the breeding grounds for the terrorists that attacked us and one could argue that it’s prudent to prevent another 9/11. Compare this to Vietnam, and let’s throw Iraq in there also, where there was less of a necessity to invade these countries.

Second, and probably more important, is that this plan carries a legitimacy that Vietnam and Iraq didn’t have. Obama called Afghan President Karzai and Pakistan President Zardari on Thursday which both of them expressed a willingness to work with the U.S. In fact President Zardari said that this plan would “further cement these ties.” Furthermore, only hours before Obama announced his strategy, Russia hosted a conference of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization where members agreed on playing a larger role in the stabilization of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Iran attended the meeting and its Deputy Foreign Minister Ahundzadeh urged for new ideas to help stabilize the region. He said “people are fed up – the killing of the innocents.”

There is an increasing sense of the legitimacy for intervention. Both Pakistan and Afghanistan are allowing U.S. efforts, while others, such as Russia and Iran, are also suggesting playing a more active role in the stability of the region.

Things may be coming together for Obama’s strategy but the consent of America and of the rest of the world will dry up quickly if there is no end in sight, especially with America’s war-fatigue after seven years of Iraq. Obama has set benchmarks to guide the strategy and maintain forward momentum, which is a good start. However, if he wants to maintain support for his intervention then he is going to have to provide a date to withdraw. This is especially important if he is looking to get more support at the NATO summit next week.

I thought that my first post on here should be an introduction to me: who I am, where I came from and why you should give a damn….!

I was born in Cleveland, Ohio. First generation Greek-American, both of my parents immigrated to the United States individually: my father came here after completing medical school in Greece and my mother came here when she was still in elementary school when her parents came here to start a new life.

I stayed in Ohio only for four years before my parents loaded up the Toyota and drove down to Florida where all the other relatives had moved to. Greek families tend to move in herds…like wildebeests…and when one of them finds a new spot to “graze” the rest of the herd follows. We ended up in Orlando, in a community which was all cow pasture and roads going nowhere: Hunter’s Creek. In the past 6 years or so the area has boomed into a huge Westchase-eque type area.

Besides growing up in a highly pre-packaged, tourist-industry based city I also spent a large majority of my time growing up in Arkasa, Karpathos, Greece. And although their industry is also heavily dependent on tourism I was exposed to quite a different way of living and to the people who would visit there from around the world and their point of views. So although when I was in the United States I was typing on my Casio Dear Diary, sending letters to President Clinton about animal testing and pretending I was Rogue while playing make believe X-men games with my friends- I also was running through the streets at all hours of the day, raising goats, sheep and kittens in a tiny village where literally EVERYBODY knows your name…your family…your entire genealogical history….so let’s just say you had to be VERY careful about what you did and where you went and with whom you made friends with OR you just completely rebelled against all of it and didn’t give a crap because either way it got back to your parents….villages are a great way to practice personal politics and to learn about how to handle your own public relations dilemma’s. Try doing damage control when the six old women who hang out on the balcony and gossip just found out a juicy tidbit about you….it ain’t easy.

Besides that I moved away from home to Tampa for college, where I took a bunch of environmental policy, international relations, philosophy and psychology courses and have been living here going on seven years. I have interned for the Sierra Club, working under Darden Rice, and for the gubernatorial campaign for Jim Davis. I also interned for the Pelagos Cetacean Research Institute in Athens, which is the only nonprofit organization in Greece that keeps track of the dwindling cetacean populations there. I have worked for Bank of America, WUSF 89.7 FM, Side Splitters Comedy Club and two real-estate law firms.

I pride myself on trying to keep as up-to-date on international events as on national/state/local. I am of the belief that no event occurs without immediate global affects whether you see it right away or eventually. And it is from this that I  feel that although tensions rise as the population of the globe increases and habitable places to live dwindle- ultimately the decisions that will be made by the world’s great deciders will tend to be more towards peace than towards violence. We will constantly walk on the precipice between destroying ourselves and creating a (relatively) peaceful world. But-as was stated by Agent Smith in the Matrix-we would probably “reject the programming” if the world was perfect and utopian. Oh and did I mention I’m a gamer? That’s a major hobby of mine, in addition to the politics. I think that massive multiplayer online gaming is really going to change the “Z” generation and how they feel more part of a global community rather than a national one. When you spend more time talking to a person living in Ireland than your next door neighbor, it can change the way you look at things. But I digress…thank you for tuning in. kkthxbai! ^^

According to the White House press office, Obama put telephone calls in to the leaders of Israel, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority this morning. Along with some pleasantries, the afternoon is being devoted to dealing with Iraq and the economy, the WH schedule shows:

1:15PM-2:15PM President Obama Addresses Staff and Cabinet Secretaries

POOL PRESS

2:30 PM President Obama Attends White House Open House

Base of stair case on the ground level by State Room.

POOL PRESS

3:15PM-3:45PM President Obama Meets with Economic Advisors

Roosevelt Room

CLOSED PRESS

4:15PM-5:15PM President Obama Meets with Iraq Military Commanders

CLOSED PRESS