U.S. Foreign Policy

By Jamie Fly 

In 1947, after George Kennan, writing under the pseudonym "X," published his famous article on "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" in Foreign Affairs, he quickly found that his concept of "containment" was distorted in the public discussion about his article that ensued. In his new book, The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War, Nicholas Thompson writes that Kennan went so far as to draft a letter to columnist Walter Lippman arguing that "containment meant propaganda and aid, not pistols and tanks." He ended up not sending the letter because Secretary of State Marshall requested his silence.

The Obama administration now appears to be faced with a dilemma similar to that confronting George Kennan in 1947. Containment is a nice term to throw around, but what does it actually mean in practice? In this case, the country to be contained is North Korea.

North Korea was supposed to be one issue where the Obama administration promised to be tougher than their predecessors. After the North disrupted the president's April 5 disarmament speech by firing a Taepodong-2 missile and followed that with a nuclear test on May 25, David Sanger of The New York Times wrote an article quoting a senior Obama advisor who said that the administration intended to "break the cycle" of provocative actions by Pyongyang, leading to payoffs and an agreement that later falls apart, only to lead to more crises and more payoffs.

Sanger described the new policy as "containment," although he noted that many in the administration were reluctant to use the term. As Stephen Hayes points out on The Weekly Standard's blog, the administration's rhetoric after North Korea's provocations in the first half of the year were much stronger than the follow-through.

This Obama version of containment was to rely on the newly passed United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1874, and supposed U.S. efforts to interdict illicit North Korean shipments. They indicated their seriousness about this task through a series of leaks to the press about the U.S. Navy's following of one specific ship headed to Burma, which supposedly turned around and returned to North Korea. The administration also followed up the new UNSCR with several designations of additional North Korean entities involved in proliferation, but they stopped short of implementing more extensive Section 311 actions against Asian financial institutions doing business with the North, the very measure that brought North Korea to the negotiating table in the past after the U.S. Treasury Department froze the assets of Banco Delta Asia.

Unfortunately, this tough talk and new sanctions have now given way to the traditional focus on negotiations which have repeatedly failed to bear fruit.  President Obama announced on Wednesday that he is sending U.S. Special Representative Stephen Bosworth to Pyongyang next month in an attempt to lure the North back to the Six Party framework.

While U.S. efforts behind the scenes to interdict illicit North Korean shipments undoubtedly continue, the president's announcement about Bosworth's trip effectively means that any effort to contain the proliferation problem posed by North Korea is now going to be put on the back burner because of concerns that provocative U.S. actions will destroy any chance that the North Koreans will be willing to talk.

Despite the White House listing North Korea as one of the key issues to be discussed at just about every stop of Obama's Asian trip, he seems to have  made little progress. We should not expect much assistance from China -- they are happy to maintain the status quo as long as Kim Jong Il does not act out too frequently. The president's stops in Japan and South Korea, however, appear to have been lost opportunities, as he could have used his discussions in both countries to strengthen defense cooperation between the United States and Japan and South Korea and to discuss increased cooperation on missile defense and nuclear planning. Such an effort would make clear to the Chinese the cost of their inaction on the issue.

Some may argue that the reason the Obama administration can return to the failed policies of its predecessors on North Korea is that while troubling, we have bigger challenges to face in the region and the world.  North Korea is a problem to be managed, not resolved.  Such an argument overlooks North Korea's role in the construction of Syria's secret nuclear reactor at Al Kibar, built while the North was supposedly negotiating in good faith with the successive U.S. administrations, as well as its ongoing assistance to the missile programs of rogue regimes such as Iran and Burma. North Korea may appear to be manageable only until the next case of nuclear technology transfer from the North is discovered, but the next time it may be too late.

As George Kennan found out, talking about "containment" is easy, but defining and implementing it is the difficult part. 

Photo: KNS/AFP/Getty Images

By Phil Levy

In Tokyo, President Obama spoke out in favor of trade. It was not exactly the much-heralded Trade Speech, in which he would lay out a detailed agenda and soothe U.S. public fears that he himself had helped to arouse. Instead, this talk was addressed to an Asian audience, but it offered some tantalizing new details and a near embrace of some free trade agreements. The President said:

Continued integration of the economies of this region will benefit workers, consumers, and businesses in all of our nations. Together, with our South Korean friends, we will work through the issues necessary to move forward on a trade agreement with them. The United States will also be engaging with the Trans Pacific partnership countries with the goal of shaping a regional agreement that will have broad-based membership and the high standards worthy of a 21st century trade agreement.

Rather than drawing inspiration from the president's oratory, as U.S. and European audiences often had, Asian leaders greeted the president's trade stance with skepticism. As the Financial Times reported:

Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's first prime minister and a regional elder statesman, said the US risked economic exclusion from Asia unless it reversed its protectionist stance. ...

Najib Razak, Malaysia's prime minister, ... told the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Singapore that progress on trade liberalisation was "imperative" for global recovery. "The thing I liked about President Bush's foreign policy is that he was very pro-free trade. I hope the same message will be repeated."

- some evidence that the Bush administration did not entirely neglect Asia for eight years.

One might have expected Obama's vague statements in favor of the Doha trade talks, moving forward with South Korea, and engaging with the mysterious Trans Pacific Partnership to have at least created a warm glow about U.S. sentiments. After all, similarly vague statements about avoiding protectionism and supporting the WTO garnered kudos at G-20 summits in London and Pittsburgh earlier this year.

Whether the APEC leaders were more discriminating than other audiences, cared more about trade, were more astute in their reading of American trade politics, or had just learned from past experience, they seemed unsatisfied. Perhaps with recent disputes fresh in their minds, they seemed to ask, "where's the beef?" And they were right to worry.

The global trading system has not been lacking in kindly thoughts and well wishes. It's been lacking in strong leadership and specific proposals. Fingers have been pointing at the Obama administration. The Doha global trade talks that were declared essential in the G-20 sessions have been foundering. Last month, the European Union and Brazil criticized the United States for failing to put forward specific demands. This month, WTO Director General Pascal Lamy commented that "the U.S. is proving to be slow in reaching a clear and articulated negotiating position." If it were translated from the excessively cordial language of international diplomacy, that remark would likely be unprintable in a family publication.

Ostensibly, the Korean FTA is unacceptable to President Obama and Congressional Democrats because the Koreans have had the audacity to intervene in their auto market. Korea, as a major trading nation, has not been as pliable as other U.S. FTA partners and has made clear in the past that they are not interested in renegotiating the agreement with the United States. Instead, Korea has just concluded a similar agreement with the European Union that will put American exporters at a disadvantage in the Korean market.

The novelty in the president's announcement concerned the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and was sufficiently obscure to leave many people scratching their heads. In fact, the United States had already joined TPP talks with Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, and Singapore late in 2008 under President Bush's direction. Obama's announcement in Tokyo seemed to indicate a lifting of his administration's suspension decision from earlier this year: small wonder that it received a tepid response. Even had the President wholeheartedly embraced a TPP deal, that would not have meant much on its own, since the United States already has FTAs with Chile and Singapore. Brunei's entire annual GDP is roughly $20 billion, which is less than the U.S. government has poured into Citigroup.

The reason to care about the TPP was its potential to serve as a platform for serious integration throughout Asia. For a region that places a high value on trade, the Asia-Pacific has had a great deal of difficulty finding the right path toward liberalization. APEC has made trade pledges in the past, but the group has a very diverse membership and likely cannot serve as the vehicle for a high-standards regional FTA. More promising was the idea that if Australia and Japan were coaxed into joining a sophisticated TPP, the resulting FTA might then have opened its doors to any other Pacific nation willing to accept its terms. Unfortunately, the Obama administration has given no indication that it's willing to lead such an ambitious undertaking

A prerequisite for a serious U.S. trade policy would be new trade negotiating authority for the president, which the Obama administration has not even requested from the Congress. For any of these trade initiatives to advance would require persistent and detailed effort of a sort we have yet to see. Obama may be a Pacific president, but he has not been a very specific president. Asian leaders last week were asking for more than platitudes.

MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images

By Daniel Blumenthal

Before President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao released their joint statement, Obama's Asia trip was underwhelming. But after the statement, Obama's foray into Asia went from empty to harmful.

Before Obama arrived in China, the trip's policy successes were minimal at best. He showed up to a major trade forum, APEC, with no trade policy. If, as Evan Feigenbaum has said, the "business of Asia is business," without a trade policy Obama is putting America out of business in the world's most economically dynamic region. And then he was stiffed by Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama's outright rejection of the American proposal for a high-level dialogue to resolve basing issues on Okinawa. Not exactly a sterling performance by the new team.

But then came the joint statement after talks with President Hu. Two items in the statement struck me: one about Taiwan, the other in regard to India.

On Taiwan, the statement says:

The two countries reiterated that the fundamental principle of respect for each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity is at the core of the three U.S.-China joint communiqués which guide U.S.-China relations. Neither side supports any attempts by any force to undermine this principle. The two sides agreed that respecting each other's core interests is extremely important to ensure steady progress in U.S.-China relations.

The three communiqués do indeed mention respect for territorial integrity. But it is highly arguable that "respect for ... sovereignty and territorial integrity" represent the "core" of the understandings that led to Sino-American rapprochement. The Taiwan issue was treated more delicately by earlier American statesmen. Their basic idea was that we would acknowledge, without accepting, the position that Taiwan is part of China. We would continue strong, unofficial diplomatic ties with the island and we would provide for its security through the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA). We thus found a way to normalize relations with China without letting China have its way with Taiwan. Both sides of the Strait have prospered since the U.S. rapprochement with China and the signing into law of the TRA and relations have been more or less peaceful.

Now consider the situation across the Strait today. China has built a military capable of destroying the island if America does not assist Taiwan. Though obligated by law, the Obama administration has not sold a single weapon system to Taiwan. There is in fact no U.S.-Taiwan agenda under the Obama administration. It is even more dangerous, then, to stress the parts of the Sino-American normalization documents that most appeal to China. Of course China wants us to reiterate that our respect for "territorial integrity" and "sovereignty" is at the core of the three communiqués. Beijing wants us to accept its argument that Taiwan is part of China and that we should respect their sovereignty over the island. Obama has thus far done so through deed. With the joint statement he comes closer to officially accepting the Chinese claim of sovereignty.

On India, the joint statement says: 

The two sides welcomed all efforts conducive to peace, stability and development in South Asia. They support the efforts of Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight terrorism, maintain domestic stability and achieve sustainable economic and social development, and support the improvement and growth of relations between India and Pakistan. The two sides are ready to strengthen communication, dialogue and cooperation on issues related to South Asia and work together to promote peace, stability and development in that region.

Here, President Obama broke new ground in ways harmful to both American and Indian interests. India and Japan are the two countries within Asia that can check China's desired dominance. For now, China has less to worry about with Japan as the Hatayoma government sorts through its foreign policies. But India is a different matter. It stood firm against China's pressure when the Dalai Lama visited Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian territory claimed by China. Delhi was sending two messages. First, do not interfere in India's internal affairs; the Dalai Lama is free to visit anywhere in India. Second, Arunachal Pradesh is India's territory. China had been putting military pressure on the border region but the Indians did not back down. Delhi is also standing firm in its maritime competition with China in the Indian Ocean. The Indian Navy will not allow China to build a sphere of influence in that maritime region.

Beijing's India strategy is to tie it down in South Asia to stop it from breaking out as a major power. The strategy has three basic pillars. First, Beijing has supported Pakistan's nuclear and conventional military programs. Second, China wants an acknowledged sphere of influence in South Asia. And third, Beijing wants to resurrect the so called "hyphenated" approach to India. It thus needs the United States to again think of India as part of an India-Pakistan problem, rather than as an emerging great power.

During the Bush and Clinton administrations, Delhi and Washington negotiated an arrangement that acknowledged Delhi's global role and increasing influence. This arrangement is of mutual benefit. Pakistan matters less to India as Delhi expands its strategic horizons. As Pakistan's importance to India lessons, so will Indian-Pakistani tensions. But as India frees itself from the weight of its Pakistan problem it has greater maneuverability to increase its influence in East Asia. China is threatened by that.

Thus, China won a diplomatic victory by getting Washington to agree to "cooperate" on issues of peace and development in South Asia. If China and America work together on South Asian issues, such as peace between India and Pakistan, then China is the great power while India is simply another South Asian country that needs help from others to solve its problems. With the joint statement, Obama officially accorded India junior status in Asia.

We should not be surprised by China's positions. What is surprising -- and extremely problematic -- is that on these key issues Obama is acquiescing in them.

FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images

By José R. Cárdenas

The debate over U.S. policy towards Cuba heats up this week as the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) holds a hearing Thursday on whether to lift the U.S. travel ban against Fidel Castro's island-prison. Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Chairman of the HFAC, respectively, fired the first salvo with an op-ed in the Miami Herald calling for the unilateral lifting of the "anachronistic" ban, arguing that ordinary Americans can "serve as ambassadors for the democratic values we hold dear," thereby eroding the impediments to change in Cuba.

It is indeed a quaint conceit on the part of many in this country that Americans, just by being Americans, can demonstrate the errors in others' ways and infuse on the recalcitrant and autocratic a sudden appreciation for the commonweal, sparking a dawn of democratic reform and respect for human rights. Sadly, the world doesn't work quite that way and thugs like Castro will not be impressed by the earnestness of American tourists to engender a better Cuba.

Besides, if we are to take our cues from Canadian and European tourists, one wonders whether political agitation can compete with sun, sex, and cigars as the primary motivations for visiting the walled tourist compounds on the Island of Dr. Castro. This doesn't even countenance the motivations of U.S. businessmen, for whom political agitation would be the very last item on their agendas, given that their interests are served by a perceived vision of stability and cozy relations with the incumbent government.

This is not to recognize the moribund state of affairs in Cuba. Senator Lugar and Rep. Berman can hardly be blamed for being frustrated. Anyone who cares about Cuba is frustrated at Fidel Castro's pathological obstinacy and nominal leader and brother Raúl's craven inability to deviate from his brother's uncompromising ideological line.

But bad proposals are worse than none at all. The short of it is the Castro regime simply is more determined to maintain absolute power than the United States is in mercifully terminating its fifty years of misrule. Given that, opening the floodgates to U.S. tourists and businessmen will result in a desperately needed financial windfall and credibility boost that will only strengthen the regime, not undermine it.

Moreover, the debate over the U.S. travel ban and, more broadly, the U.S. economic embargo of Cuba clouds the real issues at hand. Namely, that the real conflict in Cuba is not between the United States and the Castro regime, but between the regime and the Cuban people. This is made abundantly clear in a searing new report by the International Republican Institute on the results of a recent survey conducted discretely among the Cuban people on the island

Conducted this past summer among a total of 432 Cuban adults from across the island, the survey found that Cubans do not need American tourists to tell them that things are rotten in their own country and that change is desperately needed.  Specifically, more than four in five citizens on the island (82 percent) do not believe things are going well, while a vast majority of Cubans would vote for fundamental political change (75 percent) and economic change (86 percent) if given the opportunity.

The survey also found that only 8.8 percent believed the U.S. embargo and "isolation" was the biggest problem in Cuba and only 7.9 percent said they thought ending the embargo would most help improve the economy.  What do Cubans overwhelmingly want? Multi-party elections, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and economic freedoms, including opportunities to own property and run businesses.

Imagine, Cuban citizens came to those conclusions all on their own.

It remains to be seen whether Congress can mobilize the votes to overturn the travel ban (the restrictions were codified under the 1996 Helms-Burton Law), but the prospects seem unlikely. To its credit, the Obama administration has shown no inclination to support such an effort at this time. At the Inter-American Summit last April, the president's words on Cuba were cautious -- and sober. "The Cuban people are not free. And that's our lodestone, our North Star, when it comes to our policy in Cuba," he said. 

He also said his policy would be guided by reciprocity:

What we're looking for is some signal that there are going to be changes in how Cuba operates that assures that political prisoners are released, that people can speak their minds freely, that they can travel, that they can write and attend church and do the things that people throughout the hemisphere can do and take for granted ... And if there is some sense of movement on those fronts in Cuba, then I think we can see a further thawing of relations and further changes.

It is not U.S. policy to be stagnant and unimaginative on Cuba, as critics would have it. President Obama appears intent on continuing the Bush policy of trying to empower Cuban civil society through strategic engagement to operate more independently of the regime's control, although he obviously intends to go much further in opening new avenues to reach the Cuban people. The strategic goal behind such an offensive would be to expand pockets of independence within Cuban civil society and fortify networks among those pockets, putting Cubans who want a different future for their country in touch with other Cubans fed up with the same old struggle and deprivation the regime is only capable of offering.

That Castro's decrepit regime continues to limp along fifty years on understandably confounds many. But that is less an argument for relaxing pressure on the regime than it is an argument to persevere in a cause that is just and right.

Jorge Rey/Getty Images

By Peter Feaver

For nearly a week, I have been thinking about a comment my friend and fellow civil-military relations specialist Eliot Cohen made in a Washington Post story about President Obama struggling to come to terms with his role as "commander-in-chief." I am quoted in the story, too, but the part that really gripped me was this quote from Cohen:

With this decision, he's really going to own this war, and he's going to be sending young men and women to their deaths. And when that realization sets in, it's a very grim thing. He may have known it intellectually before, but what I think is happening is he's learning it viscerally."

Cohen's larger point, and the general thrust of the article, is spot-on. Throughout the painfully long and awkward Afghan Strategy Review 2.0 -- with all of the back-stabbing leaks and blame-throwing -- it is increasingly clear that the president is visibly wrestling with his commander-in-chief duties, and doing so at a gut level (vice an abstract intellectual level) for the first time.

I also think that Cohen captures accurately the president's own thinking about the gravity of the choice before him: with his decision, Obama will acknowledge that he "owns this war." I have probably said something similar myself in commentary about the strategy review process.

But the more I think about it, the more I think that this insight is misleading in a fundamental way. Obama may well think that he does not yet own the Afghan war and will only own it once he finally decides this issue. But in truth he has "owned" the war for many months now, and it is a dangerous conceit for the president or his team to think otherwise.

Of course, Obama legally "owned" the Afghan war on Inauguration Day. One could also say that Obama has politically "owned" the Afghan war ever since he decided to base his presidential campaign foreign policy platform on the premise that the Bush team had taken its eye off of the ball of the "necessary" war in Afghanistan.  

But in policy terms, President Obama took ownership of the war when he announced the results of his Afghan Strategy Review 1.0 back in March. That decision, announced with great fanfare and some too-clever-by-half spin, was an ownership moment. At that moment, Obama was "sending young men and women to their deaths," to use Cohen's evocative language.

When it became Obama's war in policy terms, he took responsibility for the success or failure of the war. Regardless of what the president decides in the coming weeks, if America ultimately prevails in Afghanistan, Obama will deserve credit and if we do not, Obama will deserve blame. Historians will endlessly debate how much, but inescapably some credit or blame must belong to the current president.

I think the president is more likely to make a wise decision if he confronts the Afghan situation with eyes unclouded by wishful thinking. One such wishful thought would be if the president convinced himself that he only "owns" the Afghan war once he renders his decision on the current review -- or even more wishfully, only if he authorizes McChrystal's escalation. The truth is Obama owns this war right now, and the sooner he accepts that, the more effectively he will be able to lead the country.  

The world is waiting for America's commander-in-chief, but unlike Godot, he is already here.

MASSOUD HOSSAINI/AFP/Getty Images

By Thomas G. Mahnken

One topic that is likely to arise during President Obama's trip to Asia, if not in his meetings in Beijing, is the continuing modernization of the Chinese military. Asian leaders are privately, and increasingly publicly, concerned about China's growing military might and what they see as a failure of the United States to respond. This year's Australian defense white paper, for example, portrays a future in which China contests American primacy in Asia and beyond. When one of the United States' closest allies expresses such concerns, Washington should listen.

According to at least one high-ranking official, the United States has systematically underestimated the pace and scope of Chinese military modernization for years. On Oct. 21 in an interview with the Voice of America, the incoming Commander of U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM), Admiral Robert F. Willard, USN, told reporters that, "In the past decade or so, China has exceeded most of our intelligence estimates of their military capability and capacity, every year. ... They've grown at an unprecedented rate in those capabilities. And, they've developed some asymmetric capabilities that are concerning to the region, some anti-access capabilities and so on." Willard should know. Prior to becoming the USPACOM commander, he was in command of all U.S. naval forces in the Pacific; before that, he was Vice Chief of Naval Operations.

Willard's observation should be cause for concern, but is not a surprise. Intelligence organizations have a tendency to underestimate rising powers. As I discuss in my book, Uncovering Ways of War, U.S. Army and Navy intelligence in the period between the two world wars underestimated the growth of the Japanese military power not because of racial bias or ethnocentrism, but rather because of the very real tendency to look back on Japan's modest military capabilities and project them into the future. As a result, American intelligence organizations overlooked a number of areas where the Japanese military innovated, failures that cost the United States and its allies dearly in World War II.

I suspect that the same pathologies may be at work today regarding China. The People's Liberation Army of the 1980s and 1990s was hardly first-rate. In recent years, however, China has made real strides, including the testing of an anti-satellite weapon in July 2007 and the development of an anti-ship ballistic missile designed to attack U.S. carrier strike groups. Outside a small circle of cognoscenti, however, perceptions of Chinese military power have failed to keep pace with this reality.

If we are in danger of underestimating Chinese military power, China's leaders are in danger of overestimating it. Some portions of the Chinese military have not seen action since China's 1979 war with Vietnam; others have not seen combat since the Korean War. Although China is in the process of fielding increasingly capable weapons, the military effectiveness of the PLA is very much an open question.

The United States needs to do more to understand the Chinese military. The PLA intently studies the U.S. military; the U.S. military lacks a similar curiosity about them. That needs to change. It would be worthwhile, for example, to translate and make available to scholars a broader array of Chinese writings about military affairs. In addition, the U.S. military needs to devote greater attention to understanding the Chinese military, as well as the strategic and operational challenges it poses. Doing so will not, as some assert, preordain conflict with China. To the contrary, a better understanding of the Chinese military should help us avoid misperception and bolster deterrence. Such an effort should include our allies and friends in the region, who have their own perspectives and their own concerns with China's military expansion.

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By John Hannah

Are the Saudis prepared to constrain oil prices to weaken Iran? It's an intriguing possibility that, if implemented, could have major implications for U.S.-led efforts to curb the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.

In no small part because of a weakening dollar, oil prices have risen for most of the past year from a low of close to $30 per barrel to around $82 per barrel last week. But since then, prices have been slowly sliding back, dipping below $77 yesterday. Most media attributed Thursday's decline to a report that U.S. oil inventories had increased higher than expected, and that U.S. consumers continued to reduce energy use in a still sluggish economy. No doubt true. But other factors have been at play as well.

Specifically, the near-record stockpiles of oil that currently exist not only in the United States, but across the developed world, have been made possible by the fact that OPEC has been increasing output at the fastest pace in two years. Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that the cartel has boosted production more than a million barrels a day since March -- despite the worst global recession since World War II. OPEC's largest producer, the Saudis, have helped lead the way, increasing exports four out of the past six months. Saudi output has increased almost 300,000 barrels per day since earlier this year. Overall OPEC production reached its highest level in 10 months in October.

The Saudis have said that $75 per barrel is an appropriate target price. This week, a Saudi government advisor told the press that, at over $80 per barrel, prices had reached "the high end of our range" and any further rise could prompt the Kingdom to further tap its unused capacity -- which currently stands at approximately 4 million barrels a day.

The Saudis have publicly explained their effort to moderate prices as a function of their desire to protect a fragile global economy. But it's hard not to notice that the Saudi strategy also has the side benefit of pinching Iran. Specifically, while the Saudis in 2009 require an average oil price of about $51 a barrel to cover their budget, Iran needs an average price in excess of $90. If the price holds steady at the Saudi-designated range of $70-$80 for the rest of this year, the Saudi treasury could come in with a slight surplus. The Iranians, by contrast, have reportedly been forced to consider phasing out food and energy subsidies in an attempt to battle their looming fiscal problems.

Of course, reducing subsidies on essential commodities is almost always political dynamite -- especially in a place like Iran, where the economy is already in a shambles, and where millions of Iranians have taken to the streets since the fraudulent June 12 elections to make known their hatred of the current regime. The fact is that the Islamic Republic is desperate for increased cash flow that could be used to buy off as many of its disaffected citizens as possible and cover up its gross economic mismanagement. Saudi determination to limit any price spike -- for whatever reason -- is clearly an impediment.

With daily exports in the range of 2.5 million barrels per day, Iran stands to lose about $900 million annually from every one dollar drop in the price of oil. With excess capacity of 4 million barrels per day, the Saudis are clearly in position to go much farther than they have to date in squeezing Iran if they so choose. An aggressive Saudi effort to depress oil prices well below the current $75 target could prove extremely harmful to Iran's already reeling economy and tumultuous political situation. Almost certainly, such an effort could inflict as much pain on the Iranian regime as many of the sanctions currently being discussed by the United States and its international partners -- and, given Russian and Chinese reluctance to get tough with Iran, would almost certainly be quicker and easier to implement.

Would the Saudis really be prepared to play hardball with Iran in this way? In the past, the answer has usually been no. Taking big risks to offend more powerful neighbors has generally not been the Saudi way. A transparent effort to inflict major damage on the Iranian economy would certainly incur the Islamic Republic's wrath. The Saudis no doubt recall that a similar charge about depressing oil prices led Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait in 1990. Even if an Iranian military attack is not likely in the cards, the Saudis have good reason to fear the kind of mischief Iran could cause within the Kingdom -- especially among the large, potentially restive Shiite population that is concentrated in its oil-rich Eastern Province.

That said, there's no doubt that Saudi King Abdullah views Iran -- and the near-term prospect of its acquiring nuclear weapons -- as nothing short of an existential threat to the House of Saud and its preeminent position in the Islamic world. There's at least some chance that he may be prepared to consider doing things now that in the past would have been unthinkable in order to prevent his worst nightmare from coming to pass -- especially if he's provided sufficient support, encouragement and guarantees from the United States and our major European allies.

In this regard, the current crisis in Yemen, in which Saudi forces have been drawn into combat on their southern border against Iranian-backed Shiite rebels, has only upped the ante. As with almost everything Iran does, Abdullah no doubt perceives the Islamic Republic's involvement in Yemen as the latest maneuver in a grand strategy whose ultimate target is the Kingdom itself and control of the Islamic holy sites of Mecca and Medina.

The big question is how far the Saudis are willing to go in drawing on their oil power to really do something about it -- something, that is, that actually stands a chance of either 1) compelling the Iranian regime to fundamentally re-calculate its nuclear ambitions, or 2) speeding the regime's unraveling at the hands of its already seething population. Of course, encouraging the Saudis to use oil as a political weapon is not without its downside risks; after all, the United States was on the receiving end of just such a Saudi gambit during the oil embargo that followed the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. But given the enormity of the stakes now at play vis a vis Iran -- both for the Kingdom and for the United States -- it's clearly an option that at least deserves serious consideration. One hopes that it's already the subject of intense consultations between Washington and Riyadh, preferably at the highest levels. Should the United States conclude that the potential benefits outweigh the risks, it will need to muster every instrument at its disposal to steel the Saudi king to take unprecedented measures to face down Iran's unprecedented challenge.               

Scott Nelson/KAUST via Getty Images

By Will Inboden

The leaked cables from U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry this week add a new wrinkle to President Obama's protracted decision-making over his Afghanistan strategy. Eikenberry's cables apparently urge against increasing the US troop posture because of his concerns about Afghan President Karzai's corruption, competence, and legitimacy. Eikenberry and Karzai have long had a poor relationship, so while Eikenberry's concerns are no surprise, the public airing of them at this juncture is. The timing of the cables as well as their leak this late in the process is curious, given that Gen. McChrystal's request for more troops has been known since August, the senior Obama team's deliberations have been going on for a couple of months, and by many accounts the Administration plans to announce its decision within weeks. The cables and the leaks might represent some new front in the administration's internal battles, although there are hints that they might also reflect Obama's own search for an exit strategy. 

This is a further negative side effect of Obama's prolonged and increasingly public indecision on Afghanistan: it exacerbates internal administration divisions as they become more visible and thus less easy to gloss over or repair. It is also fraying relations with allies, especially America's most important NATO partner in the mission, as British leaders experience growing frustration with Obama's delays while facing declining public support for their own troop deployment.    

But the greatest damage may be in Kabul where the Obama administration has taken their Karzai challenge -- the difficulty of working with an erratic and corrupt leader -- and turned it into their Karzai crisis, as the Afghan president becomes increasingly uncooperative and increasingly vocal in his criticisms of American intentions. Criticisms which, as Jackson Diehl notes, may just be reflecting some of Obama's own words. Which is why the White House needs to remember that Obama's rhetoric on Afghanistan has at least four important yet different audiences: the American public; leaders in allied nations; American troops deployed to Afghanistan; and the Afghan people and government. His rhetorical efforts to assuage American domestic anxieties about the Afghan mission might inadvertently also signal lack of resolve to allied leaders and U.S. troops, and needlessly alienate Karzai even further.     

If there is one overriding lesson from Iraq, it is that security precedes political progress. As Peter Feaver observed, the Bush administration faced similar acute concerns about Prime Minister Maliki in Iraq. But then (as now in Afghanistan) it was neither right nor feasible for the United States to forcibly install another leader. And as important, the Bush administration realized that the first step needed in Iraq was to restore basic security with a new counterinsurgency strategy and troop surge. This eventually created the space for political progress and substantially improved performance by Maliki. The parallels with Afghanistan are hardly exact, but the principle remains the same: The first step towards a more honest and effective Afghan government will be protecting the Afghan population and defeating the Taliban.

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