Foreign Policy in the Second Bush Administration

November 9, 2004

Unedited transcript prepared from a tape recording

Proceedings:
MS. PLETKA:  [In progress] -- panel.  I feel like the Mom in "Cheaper by the Dozen."

I'm Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute.  We're very happy to be back with you at the end of a political season, a lively political season, and the beginning of the second Bush administration.

I think there were a lot of people who during the last year speculated about a change in course for a second Bush administration.  One of the things we heard most often was that there might be a reversion back to the foreign policy style and substance of President Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, or perhaps a recalibration, a rethinking about Iraq, rethinking about approaches to Iran and to other challenges.  And there are a lot of lessons for us about the direction that a second Bush administration will take in the presidential campaign.

There were people who, I imagine, advised the President that he should run away from Iraq, that he should recalibrate his message on terrorism.  And President Bush, for better or for worse--and I guess since he won, for better--ran on his record.  He did not run away from--he did not run away from the decision to depose Saddam Hussein, the decision to go into Iraq.  He did not run away from what is going on in Afghanistan or the conduct of the war on terrorism.  And I think what that tells us is that this is a second administration that is very closely going to follow the first, that we're not going to see a lot of radical changes; rather, we are going to meet up to some of the challenges that face us without a greatly different style than the one that characterized the first administration.

The challenges unfortunately in some ways are in many ways the same.  Al Qaeda does remain a challenge, although threats and speculation about an attack prior to the election did not end up coming to pass.  Notwithstanding, Osama bin Laden remains at large and the network is still clearly capable of operating, and potentially operating on American soil.

North Korea remains out there as intransigent and difficult as ever, with the six-party talks on track, off track, and resolution of the nuclear problem there, again, something that does not seem to be in the immediate offing.

Notwithstanding a very happy agreement between the European Union--three countries of the European Union and the country of Iran, one has to suspect that there will be a challenge facing us with Iran's nuclear program.

Democracy in the Middle East will be a theme, I think, for the next administration.  They were reporting this morning--I don't want to pull a presidential press conference, but they were reporting this morning that Yasser Arafat is either dead or about to pass on, so the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may be something that comes to the front burner again.  Relations with the European Union and with Russia, these are the things that in many ways we have talked about over the last few years, and we will continue to talk about them.

Today we have a number of AEI scholars with us, and a number who could not be with us either for reasons of space or schedule, but just to mention a couple of them.  Our own Michael Ledeen continues to work on Iran issues and will be writing on that for the foreseeable.  Josh Muravchik has a forthcoming study of the United Nations.  We'll be doing some events on that, but I know that that will be of great interest to our audience.

We will be soon joined by a new Asia scholar, Dan Blumenthal.  He'll be coming to us from the Department of Defense to look at Asian strategic issues and work with Ambassador Jim Lilly.  And, of course, Richard Perle is not here with us today.  He is in France and I'm tempted to say he's having a really good time in France.  But he is attending some meetings and a conference and so couldn't be with us.

And so we have with us today Leon Aron, who is a resident scholar at AEI.  He is--I'm not going to talk about--I'm going to try and keep this short.  Leon is going to talk about policy issues towards Russia.

Tom Donnelly, who is a resident fellow at AEI, is going to address two different issues:  some of the military questions that face us in Iraq in the coming months and, Tom, the question, yes, of transformation, commitment to transformation, is it really happening.  So he has a dual mission.

Nick Eberstadt, resident scholar at AEI, who works on pretty much everything, but today is going to favor us on Korea, the Koreas, the six-party talks, and North Korea.

Radek Sikorski, the Executive Director of our New Atlantic Initiative--and, by the way, after this event, Radek will be hosting an event on Turkey in the European Union for those that are interested.  But Radek is going to be talking about our relationship, our newborn friendly and warm relationship with the European Union.

Michael Rubin, who is not on your schedule, has joined us.  He just returned from Iraq, and so he's going to favor us with a short talk about what he saw there.

And last, but not least, my colleague Reuel Gerecht, who is going to talk about both Iraq and Iran, and just one more housekeeping note about Reuel.  He also has a forthcoming book, "The Islamic Paradox," and you should have a flyer about that in your folders.  It has a subtitle, but it's too long for me to remember.

We're going to be hard at work in the coming months and year thinking about the underpinnings of American leadership in the world, talking a lot to you and working, writing a great deal on national security and on the tools necessary to keep America, our allies, and our ideals--something we talk about a lot here, and our ideals strong.

I hope this election was a triumph for some of the ideals that we believe in, and without further ado, let me turn to--are we doing this alphabetically?  We'll go to you, Leon.  Thank you very much.

MR. ARON:  Thanks very much, Dani.

In the next four years, the Bush administration will have to watch Russia much more carefully and with a far greater concern than in the past four years.  The concern, indeed alarm, should be there because both the policies that Vladimir Putin appears to be determined to implement in the past few months and in the longer run the kind of regime that the Kremlin seems to be attempting to forge are very likely to lead to destabilization, put the systems, both economic, political, and social system, and a federal system, which is very important, under tremendous stresses and lead to destabilization and eventually major crises.  These are not just possibilities.  I think they're probabilities.

Such scenarios matter greatly to us because a Russian progress or at least Russian stability are vital to the triad of America's critical interests:  the global war on Islamic terrorism, the nuclear nonproliferation, and the flow of energy to the world markets.

What are those dangers on the horizon?  Well, first, the Kremlin appears to be hell-bent on turning its huge, enormously diverse, and ethnically intermixed country into a unitary centralized state.  The plan to abolish elections for governors apparently now is only the first step.  Moscow is rife with rumors about how the next step on the agenda would be the reduction in the number of regions in Russia from the current 89 to 60 or even as few as 40.  This is playing with very serious fire because the local elites are opposed; most people, according to the public opinion polls, are opposed.  Suddenly, as in 1991, on a very recent trip that I took to Russia there's a talk of some provinces actually exiting Russia or declaring independence from the center.

Most dangerously, the elimination of the ethnic republics and ethnic regions may spark resistance, popular and elite resistance alike, first nonviolent and then very possibly armed resistance.  And there's a truly nightmarish scenario of the Muslim majority of 3.7 million strong Tatarstan, which until now has been extremely successfully integrated in the Russian Federation, turning into another Chechnya.

Secondly, and I think in the long run, an even graver danger comes from the regime that Kremlin appears to be wanting to build.

To the best that I can distinguish or determine, it's a kind of plebiscitarian authoritarianism in which virtually all non-state stabilizing factors, bearing walls, as it were, are constrained or atrophied, and the regime is sustained or derived most of its legitimacy exclusively from the leader's personal popularity.  Such regimes are inherently unstable anywhere.  In today's Russia, it is a prescription for disaster.  There's no other way to put it.

There's a plethora of very probable scenarios, not possible but probable, in which the President's ratings are steadily eroded or suddenly melt down:  an economic downturn or even stagnation, after a period of very rapidly rising expectations due to steady improvement in the standard of living; the steady accumulation of popular revulsion at what the Russian consensus very openly holds to be an unprecedented corruption and bureaucratic arbitrariness flourishing now; and most of all, virtually certain another large-scale terrorist attack.  The Russians are convinced that it will be coming.  About 70 percent of the population think that not only it will be coming, but the state will not be able to protect them.

And mind you, it's very possible that the next attack not only will include the horrific massacre, as happened in Beslan with the seizure of a public place, it may very well include--and it's being talked about--the seizure or the sabotage of a chemical plant, electric plant, nuclear plant.  And the incompetence and corruption which the Russian media very openly raised in the aftermath of Beslan persuades most people today that such attacks will succeed, and they will, given the structure of the regime that is appearing, directly lead to a breakdown or at least a severe crisis in a regime that has been weakened by the policies that I have just described.

So what can we do?  Very little at this point.  I think our best tool, most effective tool is the reportedly very high esteem in which President Putin holds President Bush.  And from very early on, very privately but very persistently and firmly, President Bush ought to alert President Putin to the dangers that are inherent in the current policy and point out to him that our vital interests are at stake.

Apart from that, I think we will have to wait and see, and while we're waiting and seeing, prepare very carefully to the extent that we can in ways that would minimize the damage to our vital interests that I've just outlined that will inevitably follow from what I consider a very probable Russian crisis in the near future.

Thank you.

MS. PLETKA:  Tom?

MR. DONNELLY:  I have eight minutes to talk about three separate issues, so let me begin very quickly with Iraq and try to restrict my remarks to the military and strategic situation in Iraq.

Obviously, there's been a lot of coverage about the offensive in Fallujah, so-called, and initial reports of the preparations for the attack and the initial attack have just been in the papers the last couple days.  I would suggest that there's a large agenda afoot than simply Fallujah.  There was an offensive just before it in Samarra.  Perhaps we should really think about this as kind of the campaign for Al Anbar province or the campaign to finally suppress the Sunni uprising.

When we first invaded Iraq, it was reasonable to presume or to hope that the Sunni power structure both in Iraq and in the region would acquiesce in regime change and the removal of the Baathists and Saddam from power.  I think that, for a variety of reasons, has not come to pass or is still uncertain.

So what's happening now is not simply an attempt to clean out the nest of resistance in Fallujah, nor simply to create secure conditions for the elections early next year and then the writing of a constitution afterwards, but perhaps a larger campaign to finally crush the Sunni resistance, both in Iraq and one hopes cut it off from any further outside assistance from a variety of regimes and non-state actors who don't want to see the Sunni minority pass from power in Iraq.  And I'm sure we'll return to this question later in the panel.

If I can claim one thing for interpreting the election, it would be that Americans decided that Iraq and Afghanistan were part of one single war, the global war on terror, so-called, the war to transform the Middle East.  You pick your term of art.  But if you look at the exit polling, for whatever that data is worth, it's pretty clear that those Americans who thought that these were two separate wars voted for John Kerry and those who thought that it was part of one larger war voted for the President.

To me, this suggests that Americans have come to accept, for better or for worse, the role that we play in the post-Cold War world.  This is really a 15-year process since the fall of the Berlin Wall that we have been sucked into or dragged into, kicking and screaming, but I think with the election of George Bush we have accepted that we have certain responsibilities in the world, and that the goals set forth in the Bush doctrine--and I stress that they are goals, strategic goals, rather than a how-to strategy per se--essentially define what most Americans want their government to do in the world.

So the question for a second Bush administration is to try to put some meat on these bones, to translate this expression of goals and beliefs into an actual strategy, again, kind of a how-to approach to the world, clearly centered on the greater Middle East--another term of art that we've adapted to our vocabulary--but global in scope.  And I would suggest that one of the biggest challenges for the Bush administration is to try to integrate its China policy into its larger--into the Bush doctrine, not simply to eliminate the China exception in East Asia, but as we see most clearly in the case of Sudan, China has become a global actor and particularly a Middle East actor.  So the possibility not simply of confronting rogue regional regimes or terrorists based in the Middle East, but actually a great power confrontation it seems to me is rising pretty substantially.

That said, we have questions of regional strategy that we have to answer.  Are we going to continue to pursue a strategy centered on the Arab heartland, on the Arabian peninsula?  Or are we going to pursue a more peripheral approach?  And in that case, how do we think about Africa, and particularly East Africa, in that regard?  And, of course, we have unfinished business in Iraq.

Very quickly, we also need to, as I say, not only integrate a global approach to China but a regional East Asia strategy into some sort of coherent approach.  If we were meeting four years ago after the 2000 election, we'd have been talking a lot about East Asia and the Taiwan Strait.  That agenda has kind of slipped onto the back burner, but it nonetheless is compelling.  And, of course, Nick will talk about North Korea quite a bit, I'm sure.

And, finally, we have to figure out what the peace of Europe really means for the United States and for American strategy making.  It's a great thing that Europe is basically at peace, but it has been marked by, one has to say, the general strategic irrelevance of the past European great powers, with, of course, the exception of Great Britain.  France and Germany have protested mightily against American policy for the past three years, but really not with very great effect in material terms.  And it will be interesting to hear from Radek--I feel like I'm setting everybody else up--to answer the question of what Western Europeans and the European great powers believe they're going to do now that they have to live with George Bush rather than John Kerry.

Finally, to me the largest question is trying to match our strategic and military means to the goals and ends set forth in the Bush doctrine.  This is a huge dichotomy, one that goes back not simply to before President Bush's term, but I think through the Cold War years.  We have had a plethora of defense reviews.  We're about to be on our third nominally Quadrennial Defense Review, our forth if you count the 1993 bottom-up review, and probably our tenth if you count all the non-governmental or semi-governmental defense reviews.  And you would think that we wouldn't have to do it again if we'd got it right one of the previous times.

But there are a lot of questions that need to be answered.  Our global force posture is completely out of whack with where our forces are operating.  Again, this is something that's been evolving over a decade or more.  There is actually a pretty decent force posture review that the administration has essentially completed but has been reticent to trot out in a political season and now has wrapped it up with a base realignment and closure process that's coming next year, following Secretary Rumsfeld's dictum, if you have a problem, make it larger.

And we have some pretty significant questions about the structure of our forces, and as Dani suggested, whether the process of transformation, so-called, in the first Bush administration has really been directed by any larger strategic intelligence or just been an attempt to put some more electronic whizbangs on top of forces that already exist.  And really, to me, the key question for the defense review is what we're going to do about the size of our land forces.

We have had a reserve mobilization that's running 150,000 plus now for 18 months or more.  It's remarkable that that has been sustained without major problems, but that's good luck and not really a plan or a strategy.  And there is still a great deal of reluctance in the Defense Department to admit that the kinds of missions that we're going to be conducting not only Iraq and in Afghanistan but likely in the future in the Middle East are not going to require a whole lot of fire power, but they will require a greater dollop of manpower.  And whether we can continue to get away with having such a small active army and, to a lesser degree, Marine Corps is to me the central question of this defense review.

And, finally, to conclude, there's the question of money, of budgets.  We've been spending hundreds of billions of dollars, so-called, in emergency supplementals every year.  It's, I think, a reflection of the willingness of the American people and the Congress to vote those funds without a whole lot of debate.  In time of war, Americans don't like shortchanging troops in the field.  But, again, emergency supplemental funding is not something around which you can base a defense plan.  You can't buy weapons, recruit and train a larger force, hoping that the money will come five years from now.  You have to actually, you know, go through the usual planning, programming, and budgeting process if you're going to do this in any kind of efficient way and with any hope that there's a long-term commitment to this sort of thing.  And given the President's domestic agenda, I think in some ways we're kind of back where we were at the beginning of the first Bush administration, and we shall see whether the President chooses--you know, what his priorities turn out to be.  But anybody who believes that creating a defense establishment capable of executing the strategy or any strategy related to the goals of the Bush doctrine on essentially Clinton-era budgets I think is due for a crash.

So I'll conclude there.

MS. PLETKA:  Thank you, Tom.

Thank you very much, Nick.

MR. EBERSTADT:  I'll try to be brief about the North Korean crisis and the Bush administration.

Over the past four years, there's been widespread criticism of the Bush administration's approach to North Korea, to the North Korean nuclear crisis, the North Korean drama.  And I'd like to say that I think that some of that criticism has been indeed justified.

If we look back on it and try to be a little bit clinical about it, we can see that the Bush administration has had a very clear attitude towards North Korea, an unfavorable attitude.  But it has lacked a policy to translate those attitudes into coherent and consistent action.  The Bush administration's approach towards the North Korean drama has been reactive at times; it has been passive-aggressive at times; but it has not been coherent and consistent and strategic.  And in the next administration, the Bush administration quite frankly is going to have to do better.

What would be some precepts to guide clearer thinking about North Korea?  I would suggest two.

Precept number one, we are exceedingly unlikely to be able to talk North Korea out of its nuclear program.  We are exceedingly unlikely to be able to bribe North Korea out of its nuclear program.  Talk and bribery have been tried for 15 years.  If North Korea could have been talked and bribed out of its nuclear program, probably during the midst of the famine we would have had a better chance than we have today.

Point two, the North Korean nuclear problem is the North Korean Government.  It's as clear as that.  And until we get a better brand of dictators in North Korea, we are going to be left with the North Korean nuclear crisis.

So in looking towards a more effective North Korean policy over the next four years, I'd like to offer five suggestions.

First, we might start with regime change--but regime change at the State Department.  I think if any argument for regime change is to be made, it's to be seen in the Secretary's hapless trip to East Asia last month, an embarrassment, a surprise, a slap in the face from our putative negotiating partners in both Seoul and Beijing.  It speaks not only to a problem at the top, but a problem of preparation and briefing all the way down the line.  Things like that don't happen to a Secretary of State unless there's a failure of process.  They're good men and women all, no question about that.  But I think without a new set of personnel at the top and in the East Asia branch, we simply can't expect a more effective Bush administration policy.

Secondly, as we approach our next round or rounds of six-party talks with North Korea, we need to define the parameters for success and the parameters for failure.  And we must not be shy about declaring success or declaring failure in this process.

Third, and related to this, I think it is incumbent upon the Bush administration to help China take a little bit more ownership of the problem and of the process.  Thus far, China has been able to hunt with the hounds and run with the hares.  That's a very unnatural situation in this sort of diplomacy, and it need not continue.

Fourth, in the spirit of transatlantic partnership, I would advise that we invite our European friends in to help us with the North Korean problem, and I think there's a perfectly fine division of labor in front of us.  Our European friends can help push on the human rights problem in North Korea, and this I think will make things easier, not more difficult, in the ultimate resolution of the problem.

We have the strange and paradoxical anomaly, unfortunately, of two successive South Korean Presidents, both of whom were avowed human rights champions, who suddenly seem to lose their voice when the subject of North Korean human rights arises.  If they are mute, we might ask our European friends to speak up a bit because that will help, not hurt.

And, finally, we have to prepare, we have to think clearly about what some of the non-diplomatic instruments at our disposal may be if diplomacy fails.  Thinking about that clearly will actually increase the probability of a diplomatic success rather than limit it.

To conclude, I would have to say that I believe that Senator Kerry was right when he criticized the Bush administration in saying that the North Korean problem is worse now than it was four years ago.  I do not subscribe to his particular prescription, but I think that diagnosis was correct.  Many in the Bush administration today look back on the Clinton era and see that as a time in which the problem of terrorism got worse, and they see that as part of the Clinton administration's legacy.  If four years from now the North Korean problem is worse than it is today, this, too, will be part of the Bush administration's legacy.

Thank you.

MS. PLETKA:  Thank you, Nick.

Radek?

MR. SIKORSKI:  Let's enjoy our victory panel, but let's also spare a thought for those who don't rejoice, perhaps in Europe more than anywhere else.

I have here a photocopy of a headline in the Daily Mirror newspaper in Britain:  "Doh! 4 More Years of Dubya.  How can 59,054,07 people be so DUMB?  U.S. Election Disaster, pages 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 11."

[Laughter.]

MR. SIKORSKI:  In the Guardian, Corinne Redgrade (ph), actor and activist:  "I feel quite depressed.  On the whole I take comfort from the fact that there are rather a lot of us feeling it.  I think it is far worse than any of us realize yet."

Tracy Ammen (ph), artist:  "I'm in Los Angeles at the moment, and I don't understand it.  I was out last night and I was with some friends I knew, including Val Kilmer, and they looked as if they were going to start crying."

Harold Pinter, playwright and anti-war campaigner:  "It's a black day for the world."

And then more considerate, if that's the word, reactions.  Jonathan Steel, an article in the Guardian:  "NATO is a threat to Europe and must be disbanded."

The German press has not been far behind.  Die Zeit headline:  "Why him again?"

Tageszeitung:  "Oops! They Did It Again."

And an article in Tageszeitung:  "This election is a unilateral action.  The entire world hoped for a John F. Kerry victory, but the rednecks, the Bible thumpers, and other riffraff from white America weren't terribly interested in that."  And an editorial in the same paper:  "Bush belongs in front of the War Crimes Tribunal, not in the White House."

But I personally come from a country which, along with Poland, which, along with Israel and Nigeria, would have elected George Bush if he stood there.  So I feel entitled to say what Europe should do in reaction to the Bush victory.  And first and most importantly, I think we should get over the Iraq business.  Even those Europeans who think it was a mistake, and perhaps particularly those people, should say, well, if Americans want to get themselves bogged down in the Middle East, perhaps good luck to them, but we should attend as Europeans to other business.  And I think we should work with the Americans on strengthening the success that we have achieved in Afghanistan.  It really is an amazing success, Afghans having the first directly elected President in their history, and despite all the gloom and doom, the election went off well.  And we should as NATO and as Europe fulfill our obligations to Afghanistan.  We cannot expect to be treated seriously when we don't do what we say we would do.

And then we should also take charge of our own backyard, where we can count on U.S. cooperation and indeed encouragement, the Balkans, of course, and Eastern Europe, Belarus with its dictatorship, and Ukraine where one election has already been skewed and the decisive second round might be stolen.  And, of course, Russia, and Leon has already said it much better than I could.

Now, what should the United States do?  The major issue over the next four years in relations with Europe I think is going to be the issue of Europe's constitution, Europe's integration.  And the early comments from President Chirac, for example, who has said that because of the Bush victory Europe needs its constitution, is putting it exactly back to front.  If the European constitution is going to be an instrument of anti-American European policy, then I think most Europeans will say no to it, and I think Europe would be harmed.

I think the U.S. should pursue a dual strategy with regard to Europe.  Number one, it should forge security relationships with those allies who have proven to be friends in need, and for two reasons:  First, because it would be cost-effective.  As my colleagues have said, there are shortages of troops.  Those countries can provide the troops.  And, secondly, as a sort of strategic ultimate insurance policy against Europe becoming--trying to become an anti-American power.

But, secondly, the United States should be more open about supporting European integration.  I think we should allay the fears of some Europeans that the U.S. might try to disaggregate the European Union back into its nation states.  And I think next year we have an excellent opportunity, the first anniversary of enlargement, and an anniversary of admission of Germany into NATO.  We could have an EU--a joint EU-NATO Summit, 32 countries, in May 2004 at which the newly elected U.S. President could sketch a new agenda for the transatlantic relationship, a common strategic agenda, and perhaps even an institutionalized agenda, a transatlantic treaty between the European Union and the United States.  This would be stealing Senator Kerry's idea of a summit, and I think a good thing, too.

Finally, I think I would as a European warn against hubris because, as we know from Greek tragedy, after hubris comes nemesis.  As Tom was saying, the U.S. is pushing the limits of its power, both in troops and in economic sustainability of the current commitments.  I think Europe and America should work together.  We don't have to do everything together, but between us we should see to it that everything that needs to be done does get done.

Thank you.

MS. PLETKA:  Thank you, Radek.

If anybody wants to come and listen to the morning newspaper reading by Radek tomorrow, you should let us know as well.  It's just as entertaining.

Michael?

MR. RUBIN:  One of the major issues and events of the Bush strategy has been going from a totalitarian dictatorship in Iraq to the verge of elections.  Elections are set for the last week in January 2005, and so what I'm going to do at the risk of spending my time in the weeds, rather than in the trees or even the forest, is just give a couple observations about what could become the first major hurdle or watershed of the second Bush term with regard to success or failure in Iraq.

Having just come back from Iraq yesterday, I can say that Iraqis are incredibly enthusiastic about the prospect of voting.  Now, I won't get into the whole issue of whether they want to vote by lists or by districts.  I've done that many times before, and at this point everyone has accepted the fact that, whether or not it's the best system, the voting is going to be conducted by lists.  And there's a lot of jockeying in that regard.

A couple observations.  One of the interesting issues which goes in the face of many of the doomsayers about Iraq is how the Shia are politicking and uniting on a common list, divvying up the positions.  People like Muqtada al-Sadr who just a couple of months ago were--commentators were talking about fighting to the death, even though I've never seen a fat martyr in my life, are now playing it at least both ways--sorry, that's Reuel's line.  The advantage of going first.

[Laughter.]

MR. RUBIN:  People are talking about Muqtada al-Sadr putting 10 to 15 percent of his people on the list, perhaps hedging his bets with violence if things don't go his way.  That's part of the learning process.  But the fact of the matter is Daiwa (?), SCIRI, Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, any number of other groups are talking about joining together and coalescing along with other non-Shia groups who want to attach themselves to that power bloc, for example, the Kurdistan Democratic Party, perhaps the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, perhaps Ayad Allawi.

Now, there is a healthy debate going on.  One of the interesting things, the center of gossip in Iraq last week was Razi al-Awar's (?) comments to a Kuwaiti newspaper that he'd consider running against Ayad Allawi, and that sets up an interesting dynamic.  Ayad Allawi is not the most popular person in Iraq.  It's kind of ironic that in some ways the United States' reputation tends to take a hit from being too closely associated with Ayad Allawi rather than the other way around.  Many people are a little bit distrustful of Allawi.  He has a reputation for having his hand in the till.  And while people recognize the need for the emergency powers, they will not tolerate the emergency powers going on indefinitely, because what is clear is whatever list Ayad Allawi goes on, he probably won't remain as Prime Minister once elections happen.  So from his point of view, a delay in elections might not be a bad thing.  From an Iraqi point of view, a more general point of view, that would not be tolerable.

Now, with regard to how these lists would end up, you might not have an American style democracy.  No one ever said we needed an American style democracy.  Iraqis tend to be quite good at, given the parameters, working and compromising within them.  So you might end up having a situation such as that which dominated Mexico with the PRI for so long or that which dominated Japan with the Liberal Democratic Party for so long, where you have a lot of people coalescing on a common group or a common party even, but with lots of factions and jockeying and some sort of democracy in between as they increase.

Now, what's been going on with the Kurds is very interesting and also is a positive legacy of what's been going on.  It hasn't gotten much coverage in the news, but there's been sort of the equivalent of, for lack of a better word, a military coup d'etat in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan last month, where many figures who have long been active in the party have made it clear to Jalan Talabani that he cannot continue to exercise unlimited power, that he cannot continue to govern without transparency, and that's a good thing for the future and a healthy thing for Iraq because it shows that accountability is starting to become a factor.

What this means in the short term is that, on the one hand, you might not have the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the two main Kurdish parties, cooperating as much.  But on the negative side, you might have them both competing by upping their nationalist rhetoric, especially with regard to Kirkuk.

Now, herein lies one of the challenges to the Bush administration.  When I left Iraq, I went through Turkey, and I've never seen the border so tense.  I've been traveling that road between Diyarbakir and the Iraqi border for several years now, and I've never been stopped at so many gendarme checkpoints.  The PKK is active again, and I really do have the sense that while the Turks have been prodding the U.S. Government and the Bush administration on the PKK problem from well before the war started, their patience is running out.  It is a serious problem.  One or two Turks are being killed every single day as a result of PKK terrorism, and a lot of that is coming from--some of that is coming from inside Iraq.

Now, on this, they will blame Massoud Barzani more than they will blame Jalal Talabani for a number of reasons.  But it will remain a challenge.

One of the greatest other challenges we have with regard to the elections in Iraq is just a general confidence about the United States.  Unfortunately, because the campaign rhetoric centered on our commitment to stay, on our willingness and commitment to democracy, on the wisdom of the Iraq war itself, many people--unfortunately, what often is played for inside-the-Beltway purposes in Washington has a profound impact abroad.  Frankly, I think Kerry was a little bit irresponsible with some of his rhetoric, as were some of the operatives.  It's always easier to be pessimistic about Iraq when you've never had to bother going there or talking to an actual living Iraqi.

But that said, Iraqis are waiting to see that our commitment is sincere.  I think we are showing them that.

Now, people may complain about Fallujah, but, frankly, the BBC or CNN or anyone else can always find someone to complain about something, especially in a place like Iraq.  By and large, people are happy to see it done.  I mean, they may complain about us bombarding Fallujah now, but, on the other hand, they blame us for not having done it in April.

With that, I'm going to stick to my allotted time and wind things down, and I'll be happy to answer questions later, but I'll turn it over to Reuel.

MR. GERECHT:  I just want to say how happy I am that Michael made it back from Iraq, that his head didn't end up on a stick, even though many of us at AEI were looking forward to dividing his book at his wake.

MS. PLETKA:  Reuel asked him before he left whether he could have his book, just so you know that he is utterly sincere about this.

MR. GERECHT:  Yeah, we've got a plan.  Planning ahead is important.

Let's just go quickly to Fallujah.  I think we're in the process of a test for the Bush administration.  It's the same test, by the way, that the Kerry administration would be having if they had won the election, and that is, is the Iraqification of the Sunni military forces inside the Sunni Triangle going to work?  And Samarra, Fallujah, and the following battle of Ramadi are going to test that.  If, in fact, we discover that the Iraqification of Sunni military forces inside the Triangle does not work, then the administration's approach is going to collapse and they're going to have to rethink how they're going to deal with the Sunni Triangle.  Among other things, it will also mean that Prime Minister Allawi is a dead duck.  He may be a dead duck anyway.  And I must say it is one of the great ironies of this, that for those of you out there who were horrified by Ahmad Chalabi's presence, Ahmad Chalabi is not finished, and it's not at all likely that he will become the most prominent secular Shi'ite in Iraq, and we can all thank Ambassador Bremer and Ambassador Bob Blackwill for attempting to destroy him and thereby in so doing actually resurrecting him.

But what we are going to, I think, see, among other things, following Fallujah, again, even if it works, I strongly suspect that the dominant force in the elections is going to be this new Shi'ite conglomeration, the Shi'ite Council.  It is, I think, an unstoppable force inside of Iraq, and it's not going to be a force that I think the Americans right now are prepared to deal with.  It's going to be interesting to watch the embassy in Baghdad and the State Department attempt to handle them and adjust because these are not people that they have had a lot of dealings with.

I believe it is correct to say that since the departure of Hume Harran (ph) from Baghdad last November that the State Department still does not have in place senior individuals who are fluent in Arabic who have a daily liaison with senior clergy.  I see some State Department officials out there.  If that statement is incorrect, it would be great to have them correct me.  And this I think is going to be probably the great challenge for the Bush administration.  I think the Bush administration is not going to back away from elections, and they are going to stick to that, and that dynamic is actually going to be the dynamic.  If anything is going to help aid and abet them, solve the Sunni problem, it is going to be elections.  I still believe that the two communities will not break and that so go the Shia, so go the Sunni inside of Iraq.  But we'll have to see.

On the one other issue I want to talk about, which is Iran, there is right now the--it appears to be some type of deal between the troika, European troika--Great Britain, France, and Germany--with the Iranians.  I suggest to you this is going to be a brief intermezzo and we are going to be back again at the great debate which has not yet begun inside the Bush administration but which is in the process of beginning, and that is, if diplomacy fails--and I think Nick used the best definition of diplomacy--for the Iranians, that is, talking and bribing, I would suggest to you that is not going to work, that the Iranians are dead-set on obtaining nuclear weapons, that we are going to have to have the great debate:  Are we going to accept Rafsanjani and Khamenei with nuclear weapons in Iran and we're going to learn to live with it?  Or are those weapons, as President Bush said, unacceptable?  Which means a preemptive military strike.

That is the debate that is ready to occur, and I think it will probably consume a great deal of energy of the Bush administration and it will be wonderful to see how it comes out.  [Tape ends.]

MS. PLETKA:  -- Radek called this a victory panel, and I'm willing to bet that for those political people inside the Bush administration, they're asking themselves if this is victory, Death, where is thy sting?

You've heard a consistent theme, and it's one that I hear as a manager at AEI quite frequently, and that is that you can't beat something with nothing.  Our European friends have a policy on Iran.  We don't like it.  But we don't have a policy on Iran.  Others seem to have ideas about North Korea.  We don't really like them.  But we do have a policy on North Korea.  In a whole variety of areas, whether we're talking about Russia or we're talking about China, we're talking about Europe, there's a necessity not just of clear-eyed leadership but of actual ideas and policies to back them up.  And one of our most frequent complaints throughout the last few years has been a "go along to get along" attitude in a variety of areas that will not suffer that attitude for long.  Those things are going to come back and bite us, and as you hear from our panel, I think many of them are going to be biting us sooner rather than later.

With that comment, I'd like to turn it over to you for questions.  I haven't hosted a panel in a while so I've missed saying this:  Please wait for the microphone, please identify yourself, and please put your statement in the form of a question.

We have two microphones, one on either side, and as I can see, one there and a hand really close to you with a pen in the air, why don't you go for it.

MR. POMPER:  Hi, Miles Pomper from Arms Control Today.  Tom, I have a question for you on China, which actually has got surprisingly little mention on this panel.  As Nick and other people alluded to, China is obviously an important player in the North Korea issue.  They're becoming an increasingly important player on the Iran issue.  How does the administration balance that versus the question of Taiwan?  Do they basically give in somewhat on the Taiwan issue to get concessions from China on Iran and North Korea?

MR. DONNELLY:  I don't know how the administration will react.  Reading the administration in the first four years, you can play it either way.  Again, this is an administration that came to offer with a view of China as a potential strategic competitor.  Lately, their attitude has been, after pushing through an arms package for Taiwan, to sit on that.

So I honestly don't know the answer to that.  I would not recommend that we--you know, President Bush says he doesn't like negotiating with himself, so negotiating with ourselves over China is even dumber than negotiating with Democrats over Social Security or tax reform.  So I would--I honestly don't know what they will do.  It's a question that they must face, and the danger is that they will make concessions or be pushed to make concessions.

What we've seen is the return of the sort of Panda-hugger crowd that's endemic to both parties, is now a more dominant force in the Bush administration than it was in the first few years for a variety of complex reasons.  The Bush administration needs to think through a coherent global strategy for China.  And I have no idea how they will do that.

MS. PLETKA:  Nick, did you want to add something at all?  Okay.  Well, we'll leave that with the Panda hugger out there for you.

MR. BACKFISCH:  Michael Backfisch, German Business Daily Handelsblatt.  Could you give us a glimpse in the post-Arafat era and also in the light of Tony Blair's visit this coming Thursday and Friday in Washington?  Do you expect any new initiatives on the part of the administration?  Tony Blair said that the Middle East problem is the number one issue.  Do you expect any new actions, conferences, a new role for the quartet, or increased pressure?

MS. PLETKA:  That one falls to me since I'm the only one who mentioned Arafat, although Radek may want to add a word about the upcoming Blair visit.

I said something about meeting something with nothing, and the same applies for the Palestinians.  There seems to be a feeling that an event, in other words, the death of Arafat, will usher in a new era without us having any sense of what exactly it's going to usher in.  It is not only the height of irresponsibility for Europeans to suggest that we should leap into a negotiation with an unknown quantity.  Frankly, it is a huge disservice to the Palestinians.  Would they also not like to have a leadership with a mandate?  Would they also not like to have a process by which they actually can have confidence in the leaders that are going forth to negotiate on their future?

These are real questions that perhaps deserve a little more attention than the headline of Arafat's death.  Yes, in fact, he has personified the problems that we face in the Palestinian Authority, but those problems are far deeper than Mr. Arafat.  And I know that our European allies recognize that.

I think that it is very important to avoid, as indeed the first Bush administration did, the appearance of process over actual substance.  We're running the risk of going that way on Iran.  Process is not an achievement.  It is merely a process.  If we're going to achieve something with the Palestinians, we need to have a far better sense of who is coming next.  And it will be incumbent upon all of us to help the Palestinians ensure that whoever they have is, in fact, a viable partner for the Israelis and a respectable leader for the Palestinians.  This is a theme that everybody has hit on repeatedly.  There is no reason why it should change without Arafat's passing.

Radek, did you want to quickly add something about Blair?

MR. SIKORKSKI:  Sure.  The last time Prime Minister Blair persuaded President Bush to do something, which was to go to the UN, it was a huge disaster, to my mind, because it focused the argument about Iraq on the WMD question and distracted from other arguments for the operations such as humanitarian intervention on behalf of the Iraqi people to liberate them from Saddam, which is the argument that could have persuaded more Europeans of the need for the operation.

I think it's something of a European vanity to pretend that we have influence in the Middle East and to pretend that we are the big players with the United States in the Middle East.  And it's not as if when we Europeans did the region 50 years ago we did so brilliantly.  So I think Europe should concentrate on those areas where it does make a difference--Balkans, Eastern Europe.  Fifty-five million Europeans in Belarus and Ukraine risk slipping back into a geostrategic area where  (?)-ocracies and kleptocracies reign and we have a new division of Europe from the Bering Sea to the Black Sea.

This is something that we can prevent, and this is something where I think we would have American help and encouragement on.

MR.           :  I would just mention one other thing.  I think the President of the United States has made it fairly clear that he sees the wall as a good thing, and it would be shocking to see the United States take a position against the wall separating--that is growing on the West Bank, and that is probably the most dynamic important force changing the dialogue between the Israelis and Palestinians.

MR. TANIGUCHI:  Thank you.  Tomohiko Taniguchi with the Brookings Institution.  My question goes either to Tom Donnelly or Nick Eberstadt, and that's again about U.S.-China policy or, rather, the lack thereof.  Secretary of State Colin Powell mentioned in his latest trip that the reunification between Taiwan and China would be desirable.  Is this a new policy or was he just footloose and free-lancing on this?

MR.           :  I wish I could give you more insight to what was going on in Secretary Powell's mind on that most recent trip, but I can't.

As a general observation, I think most observers would agree that the United States does better with its China policy when it tries to separate the Taiwan issue from the other issues that engage U.S. and China in the world.  And I don't think that the Secretary would have gotten very good marks on his most recent trip in that regard.

MS.           :  My question is to Michael Rubin.  My name is  (?)   , and I am the Bureau Chief for Turkish Television.  You said you haven't seen the Turkish-Iraqi border so tense.  What do you think the second Bush administration response to the Turkish concerns, not only concerning PKK and Turkey but as a whole in the future of Iraq?  Thank you.

MR. RUBIN:  I'll answer this briefly, but while from the Turkish side, it appears the concerns about the PKK are first and foremost, the Turkish-American relations have improved significantly over the past year or so, and I could see that they would continue to improve.  Frankly, within the Turkish domestic discourse, much of the discourse happens to focus right now on the European Union, and what criteria or how negotiations will work starting in December, what additional conditions are put on.  I think the biggest risk and I think the major actions have to come from Turkey in this regard, that if Turkey looks at the European Union or if Europe looks at Turkey as just let's string them along and have them buy a few more Airbuses, that's not necessarily a good thing.  And if Turkey--if the AKP doesn't realize that they can have good relations with multiple parties, that it's not a zero-sum game, I think it will be useful.  I do think that Abdullah Gul's comments about two weeks ago with regard to London and Washington and Iraq were quite unhelpful, and it seemed to be somewhat shameless pandering towards Paris and Berlin.  But we'll see.  I think the partnership is growing stronger.  It's always remained.  And we'll see where it goes.

MS. PLETKA:  I am developing increasingly bad eyesight, so I don't want to discriminate against the back.  It's not that bad.  If you can take the gentleman back there with the hand in the air.  You.

MR. GOLDBERG:  Thank you.  My name is Mark Goldberg.  I'm with the American Prospect, and my question is for Mr. Gerecht or Mr. Rubin.  I was wondering to what extent a military strike or military action in Iran might fuel instability in Iraq and whether we can expect Iran to retaliate by fueling a Shia insurgency in Iraq or launch terror strikes against U.S. forces there.

MR.           :  Generally it would be a mistake to consider that the Iraqi Shia and the Iranian Shia are one and the same and necessarily linked to the extent which most people believe they're linked.  If you remember, back in the late 1980s--I forget the exact year; maybe it was 1986--we hit Iranian oil terminals in response to the minings in the Persian Gulf, and it didn't create the doomsday scenario which most people believed it would create.  But at this point, active diplomacy is trying to avert any possibility, but I'm absolutely shocked--shocked--to hear that someone from the American Prospect believed that the Iranians would have such malevolent intent as to sponsor insurgency or conduct violence in Iraq.  I mean, it's been a real problem, and it's been something that Hazim al-Shalan, the Iraqi Defense Minister, and others have been talking about for months, even while others have had their heads in the sand.

MR.           :  Dani, could I just very quickly--I want to pour some ice water on anybody who thinks that there's likely to be a military operation against Iran anytime soon.  It is a very unappetizing prospect, pretty much any way you look at it.  Even if you think you can have some sort of surgical or, you know, targeted set of attacks on the Iranian nuclear infrastructure, that's just militarily a very difficult prospect.  And as the questioner suggests, the difference between a limited strike and what develops into an all-out war and containment a la keeping Saddam in his box in the 1990s is a lot thinner than the public discourse generally recognizes.

MS.           :  Natalia Yureskovska (ph) with the Ukraine-U.S. Foundation.  The U.S. has been threatening to cut ties with Ukraine because of their unfair elections, and despite the fact that Ukraine has been one of the largest--the biggest supporters of the U.S. in the Iraqi war.  Do you think that this will happen?  And do you think the U.S. will allow Ukraine to solidify its strategic alliance with Russia, which we're seeing right now?

Thank you.

MR. SIKORSKI:  I've just been to Ukraine and watched the first round of the Ukrainian election, and I certainly think there's everything still to play for in the second round.  The two challengers, Prime Minister Yanukovych and the former Prime Minister Yushchenko, even by the official yet not fully released results, have tied.  They've gone into the second round.  And I think the U.S. is doing what the EU is doing and everybody else should be doing, which is to be warning the Ukrainian Government against falsifying the election.  I think we need the stick of warning what we will do if the election is falsified.  But the main carrots are NATO and EU membership, and here I think Europe has a much bigger role to play, particularly, obviously, on the EU.

Now, the stick mustn't be the threat of isolation because Ukraine is simply too important to be isolated.  It's not Belarus.  It's 47 million people, and whoever--not wins, but whoever is the President, we need to have relations with.  And I just think that it's a mistake to not make it plain to President Putin that we are watching him carefully.  And we know what Russia is up to in Ukraine.  Russia is--Russian media are blatantly in favor of Prime Minister Yanukovych.  The idea--Russian TV, state TV idea of a debate about the Ukrainian election was to have a Yanukovych supporter from Ukraine and a Yanukovych supporter from Russia debate each other.  Thousands and thousands of Ukrainians have received a so-called letter from Russia which warns them that a vote for the pro-Western Mr. Yushchenko will mean that Ukraine becomes a cesspool of the West.  Thousands of anti-American leaflets have been printed portraying the United States as bloodsuckers of Ukraine.

The parade in Kiev to mark the city's liberation from the Nazis was brought forward a week to allow Mr. Putin to spend three days in Kiev to help the presidential campaign of Prime Minister Yanukovych.  Russian money is involved.  Obviously, Russia is putting all its eggs in one basket, and in favor of a man who is not very appealing.  I mean, this is a fellow, Prime Minister Yanukovych, who is a creature of the Donetsk Mafia, who has actually spent several years in prison for assault and robbery, and who is the guarantor of the oligarchic kleptocratic system in Ukraine.

I think Russia may be making a mistake.  I think the political dynamics in Ukraine are not what they were five or ten years ago, and such blatant interference, even Ukrainian communists that I spoke to are appalled and say that they will vote for Mr. Yushchenko.

MR.           :  A brief rejoinder.  I think Radek is absolutely right.  We need to make Ukraine part of that strategic dialogue at the very summit of--at the very top of U.S.-Russian relations.  But we have to distinguish between two things.  When it is said that Ukraine should be--on the operational level should be, as some say, taken out of the Russian sphere of influence, whatever that implies, that is not realistic.  You could see how--it's sort of saying let's take Mexico out of U.S. sphere of influence.  It does not mean that things could not be cleaned up.  It does not mean that blatant interference that Radek described should not be curtailed.  But we have to be very realistic.  Russia supplies Ukraine with oil and gas.  I think as of today the debt is about $4 to $5 billion if not $6 billion.  It's the largest, although least heralded bilateral program, bilateral program aid program in the world.  Almost all of it is on credit.  If the European Union is prepared to move aggressively and [inaudible] Ukraine, it has to figure out how it's going to support Ukraine in terms of energy.

The division in the vote, first round of votes, was very interesting.  North and East largely went for Yanukovych; South and West largely went for Yushchenko.  No surprises there.  Thirty million Russian-speaking Ukrainians on one side of the border, the Ukrainian side of the border, 10 to 15 million Russian citizens of Ukrainian origin on the other side of the border.  Unrealistic to say that either Yanukovych or Yushchenko, who actually was very careful about this, is going to declare an exit from the Russian sphere of influence.  Too many human ties.  Too many very, very important economic ties.

So it has to be played very carefully on both sides.  It has to become part of the U.S.-Russian strategic dialogue.

MS. PLETKA:  The gentleman back here.

MR.           :  My name is Yoshi  (?)  and I'm with the Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun, and I have a question to Mr. Eberstadt.  Of the five-point recommendation you articulated on how the United States should deal with North Korea, you listed what you referred to as the preparation for non-diplomatic instruments.  Could you elaborate on what those instruments should be or could be and also how you think the United States should proceed preparing for those instruments?

MR. EBERSTADT:  I thought you'd have been impressed by the fact that I had mainly talked about diplomatic methods.  Non-diplomatic approaches, of course, the most immediate non-diplomatic instrument for pursuing the North Korean nuclear problem is economic pressure.  Over the past century, coercive economic diplomacy has had quite a miserable record, as you know.  It's usually been quite unsuccessful.  But North Korea isn't your average bear when it comes to its economy.  It's an extremely vulnerable, aid-seeking economy, and more than many others in the modern world, it can be expected to be susceptible to pressure.

What sorts of pressure?  Well, of course, police work.  I guess that's called the Proliferation Strategy Initiative, the PSI, to reduce or eliminate illicit revenues from military technology sales and drugs and all of the other good products that North Korea exports.  Also reducing foreign aid.  North Korea's lifeline in foreign aid at this moment runs via Seoul and Beijing.  There's obviously a diplomatic element there in trying to convince the South Korean and Chinese Government to see their own interests a little bit more clearly.  It probably is not a very good thing for China to have an economic crisis sparked by a North Korean nuclear crisis.  And if we think this through clearly, perhaps China will see where its interest lies.

Apart from economic pressures, there is, of course, the possibility of bringing the North Korean nuclear drama to the United Nations, to the UN Security Council.  If one thinks that through, it would probably be ideal to have China be--to lodge this before the Security Council.  That would also involve diplomacy, as you'll appreciate.

At the end of a long list of other options is to think the unthinkable at military questions.  I've written about the possibility of unilateral preemptive military action by the United States.  Is that unthinkable?  No, it is not unthinkable.  But it is only thinkable in a very limited range of parameters which I think we all would hope never to arrive at.

MR.           :   (?)   from Embassy of Jordan.  My question goes to Mr. Mike Rubin and Mr. Thomas.  Given the military actions taking place in Fallujah, do you think that the Sunni Triangle will be excluded from the next elections?  And if yes, what are the consequences on Iraq's political future?

MR. RUBIN:  Well, first of all, the answer is no, so I don't need to answer the second part of that question.  From what I get, leadership, the self-appointed leadership of some of the more radical groups in the Sunni Triangle, specifically in Fallujah, don't generally speak for many of the people in Fallujah or elsewhere in Al Anbar.  Frankly, most of the victims of the terrorism that spreads from Fallujah are Iraqis themselves.  Take the case of the 48 people that were executed near Mandali about two weeks ago.  I don't think any of their families, any of their extended families or any other Iraqi had any love lost for the insurgents.  The reason why the insurgents are conducting their operations through violence is because they realize they do not have the popularity to win a single vote in the free and fair elections.  But I think Iraqis are much too resilient to let that stop them, so we'll see what happens.  But the answer is no.

MR. DONNELLY:  I would agree entirely with Michael.  Look, even if the military operation is reasonably successful, it is a very short time line between now and January.  And even if the military operation is successful, you can organize boycotts of the vote, which people are clearly going to do.  But I think Michael's right.  The future train of Iraq is about the leave the station, and I think, you know, most of the Sunni population wants to get on board in some way or other lest they be--you know, the alternative is far worse, and it will be interesting to see what the other governments in the region, you know, after this military action is over, whether their attitudes shift as well and they sort of get on board the train as well.

MS. PLETKA:  May I ask a follow-up to your question to either Michael or Tom?  One of the articulated reasons that we did not go into Fallujah earlier this year and that we actually pulled out in April was because of the theory that all Iraqi eyes are on Fallujah and that if too many civilians are killed or if it's a particularly messy operation, then all Iraqis will be alienated from the American presence and from the political process that's meant to flow and that it will, in fact, be an advertising strategy for the bad guys.  How do you see that?

MR. RUBIN:  I think we were hurt by our actions in Fallujah, not by the siege but by lifting it.  If you look at the figures and if you look back at the news, throughout all of April when Fallujah was under siege, there were five car bombs throughout the entire country.  In the month that followed it, there were about 40 car bombings that results in the deaths of around 2,000 people and the wounding of several others.  Iraqis questioned us.  It's one thing for al-Jazeera to focus attention on Fallujah, but in a much broader context, Iraqis question that given this fact, how could we have let up on the insurgents and been seen to reward violence?  On the other hand, is a lesson for why de-Baathification was not a mistake, because by empowering former Baathists and former Baathist generals in Fallujah, we saw that their loyalties lie not in improving the lot of life for everyday ordinary Iraqis and not in stopping violence, but in turning a blind eye to it.

MR. DONNELLY:  Very quickly, again, I agree with Michael.  We have given the Sunni community in Iraq many opportunities thus far to join in the building of a future Iraq, and many Sunnis have taken that opportunity, some at the cost of their own lives.  But there is still a resistance that fears the future more than death at the hands of either Iraqi soldiers or American soldiers, you know, so this may take some time to play out.  The initial move into Samarra was successful, but the events of the last ten days or so there have suggested that, you know, the job was unfinished again.  There were people killed yesterday in Baqubah.  So, I mean, this is not going to be over.  You know, again, Fallujah is a big part of the problem, no question, but I think it's a broader problem than simply Fallujah.

MR.           :  Just one very quick thing.  I think what is striking about what happened in April of last year is actually the extent to which the Iraqi Shia community didn't object to what was going on.  It was a complete misreading of--what primarily happened for the Americans was that they thought they were going to lose the Sunni members of the Governing Council.  I personally think they should have let them walk.  But what isn't in doubt is that the Shia community, with the exception of  (?)   , actually wasn't--didn't voice much moral disgust at all, and by that, certainly amongst the senior clergy, it was the reverse.

MS. PLETKA:  I think with that I'm going to close us up.  At 12:30 today, the New Atlantic Initiative is, with the Heinrich Boll Foundation, hosting an event on Turkey and the European Union.

Thank you all very much.