Biggest items on next Prez’s plate

Here’s a good question: Why would anyone want to become president of the United States at a time of such huge and multifaceted crises?
Well, I guess two years ago, when these men decided to throw their hats into the ring, things didn’t look this bad.
But now, on the eve of this year’s election, I’m relatively reassured that in Barack Obama we have a person with the kind of breadth of vision and decision-making skills that will be needed to help our country chart a course through the next four (eight?) years that is as humane, inclusive, and compassionate as possible.
(Though I repeat: No, I don’t expect that, absent continued grassroots pressure, Obama will be anywhere near as humane, inclusive, and compassionate as I would like. So we’ll need to keep up the pressure on him. But he certainly looks closer to my ideal of wise leadership than John McCain does at this time.)
In today’s WaPo, David Ignatius has a column that looks at what’s going to be “on the new president’s plate” come January. It is uncharacteristically disappointing. For starters, it has a glaring internal inconsistency that makes it impossible to figure out what it is that David judges will be “the hardest” or “the worst” problem facing the new Prez. (I’m assuming those two superlatives are supposed to relate to the same item?)
David writes, “Let’s start with the hardest problem, which is Iraq…” And then, a few paras lower, he writes, “And now comes the worst problem of all, the economy…”
So which is the worst/hardest, David? This matters, because resources, attention, and priority should surely be accorded to the problem/challenge that “the worst”.
For my part, I think the “worst” one right now is the economy– with, of course, the grossly over-extended and actually unsustainable nature of our country’s military deployments being a major factor in the country’s indebtedness and general, continuing financial/economic malaise.
But Ignatius, who usually seems pretty savvy on matters Iranian, also makes what I consider to be a gross error of judgment regarding Tehran’s current interests inside Iraq.
About the US war/occupation of Iraq, he writes,

    Obama may have opposed the war in 2002, but if he’s elected, it will become his war on Jan. 21. Iran is waging an all-out campaign to push America out as soon as possible — to inflict a visible, painful defeat on the United States. How can the next president extricate America from this war without further empowering Iran?

I think his judgment about Iran there is flat-out wrong. As I noted have noted for a while, most recently here and here, and as others like Rob Malley and Hossein Agha have argued before, right now Iran has a strong (though necessarily somewhat concelaed) interest in keeping a broad deployment of US troops spread out inside Iraq. It’s one of their best guarantees against any US or US-enabled military attack against their country.
Most of the US troops in Afghanistan are deployed much further away from Iran’s borders and would be significantly harder to retaliate against than those in Iraq. Plus, the US troops in Afghanistan have a noticeably stronger “shield” of support/legitimacy from the international community than those in Iraq.
Tehran’s interest in keeping US troops deployed widely inside Iraq for some time to come– and at least until the Supreme Leader can feel reassured that a US (or US-enabled) military attack against his country is finally “off the table”– makes the US’s interactions and choices inside Iraq very different from what Ignatius posits.
And actually, I’d have to say that the US deployment inside Iraq is now not at the top of my list of “most urgent challenges” for the next Prez for these reasons:

    1. Bush and Petraeus– and, crucially, the pressure of events on the ground, the needs of global US force-planning and the US budget– have already pushed the US military project in Iraq into a “drawdown toward the end-game” phase. Yes, there will still be some very important decisions to be made. (Indeed, some of the most important of these will still need to be made by Bush and other current world leaders: Before December 31, they will be the ones deciding the terms on which the UN mandate to “the coalition” inside Iraq gets renewed.) But all the inside-Washington talk about “conditionality”, “benchmarks”, etc, relating to a continuing US troop presence in Iraq has been nonsense for a long time already… Honestly, there are no serious remaining issues to be decided in that regard. The Iraqis– or perhaps the Iranians– have “won” in Iraq. What’s clear already is that, at the political level, the US has “lost.” Deal with it.
    2. In a very important way, the “how” of the US getting out of Iraq, is a subset of of the “how” of how the US will deal with Iran, for the reasons explicated above. That means that the Iranian question– which also has several other very important dimensions– is more important for the new Prez to deal with than the Iraq question.

I don’t have time to write much more here. I just want to note that, regarding the economic crisis, my biggest hope is that the new Prez will think very broadly about what kind of America he wants to see emerging from the present cascade of challenges. I have a bunch of things to write about that. I started to do that a little bit, back in September, in my post on “Re-imagining America”. But now, I want to refine/revise those thoughts quite a bit.
Now is definitely the time to do that!
(Off to Quaker meeting…. Ommmm.)

8 thoughts on “Biggest items on next Prez’s plate”

  1. The biggest challenge for the incoming administration is to face the implicit widespread assumption that Washington can do anything. Now more than ever it’s obvious that there are limits to what Washington can tackle. Prioritization will be key.
    The central question: can the country afford spiraling national defense budgets and national deficits? How can the country continue to spend enormous amounts abroad while neglecting the domestic economy?
    If there was ever a time to make the case for living within the country’s means, this is it. The Occupation of Iraq will never end without the case being made for belt tightening and refocusing on America’s domestic needs. Holding the line against more military adventurism will never be made without a narrative that emphasizes the trade off between domestic well being and the need for a “right-sized” military.
    As for the inherent contradictions, the new administration can reconcile belt tightening with more domestic spending, if it increases taxes on Wall Street and the wealthy while tightening military budgets.
    A tall order, to be sure, but one that can be accomplished if the new President knows how to communicate, which Obama surely does.

  2. One way to frame the narrative is to say that Americans have had to tighten their belts. Now it’s time for government and the health care industry to do the same: America spends more by far than any other country in the world in both these areas. Not only have the results been poor, but it should be obvious that there is enormous waste. By rationalizing the health care delivery and prioritizing defense budgets, we should be able to provide as much national security and deliver better universal health care for substantially less money.
    But first we need to start out by framing the issue in a way that makes the sollution obvious.

  3. Helena
    About the US war/occupation of Iraq,
    David Ignatius…seems pretty savvy
    Helena: Tehran’s interest in keeping US troops deployed widely inside Iraq for some time to come– and at least until the Supreme Leader can feel reassured that a US (or US-enabled) military attack against his country is finally “off the table”– makes the US’s interactions and choices inside Iraq very different from what Ignatius posits.
    What more “seems pretty savvy … to be a gross error of judgment” by Helena.
    Helena, the Supreme Leader of Iran himself said (Btw, the Supreme Leader in Iran do not speak to press like US president he speak in his Friday sermons so that low noise can be heard what they say)
    Iran helped US in the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. Are there clearer that this words by the Supreme Leader of Iran?
    After three US / Iran meeting with what called the “Surge” things changed in Iraq and somehow the Surge worked well in Iraq, this most of you believing.
    US allied Iraqi government in the power are
    1- Al-Da’awa Party-Iran midwife Party
    2- Al-Hakim Party with Bader Brigades-Iran midwife and supporting Party.
    These two bullied guys some how in US media and Helena are nationalist Iraqi as Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon but they differing Hassan Nasrallah against US / Israel and those Iraqi creatures in Iraq friendly with US but both Iran Creations and supportive just is a matter of “though necessarily somewhat concealed” Mullah play in the region with US.
    After UN resolution regarding Iran Nuclear open with UN resolutions, GWB warned Iranians he will wait weeks for not months to comply with the resolutions!! Now one year passed. GWB did not wait with Iraq although UN said UN teams there were no WMD and all Iraqi facilities under surveillances!
    US after three high level meeting/talk with Iranians, US staring blaming Iranians of Iraqi “insurgency”, militias, weaponry , training (inside Iran or by Hezbollah in Lebanon) all sort of these fanny or ” “seems pretty savvy” talk by US come lauders and louder. More talk about scenarios of very close hit to Iran by US so times by Israelis all that we ended two hit for Syria!
    So Helena who is “seems pretty savvy” here you or David Ignatius?
    Nevertheless, both of you pull in different directions most important is who cover the best all the matter and make it more pretty savvy this the goal end…..of US game in Iraqi and the region..
    Helena and others US a like who talking about US president as if they lead US on their own with their minds and words should taken seriously.
    I just like to reminds you specially with regard of US foreign polices with my example how US successive governments from both parties Republicans & Democrats for past 60 till now dealt with Cuba, what were the changes those US presidents brought to a small country have nothing to fear from….

  4. Being the next US president is obviously a once in a generation opportunity to make institutional changes that will prevail for most of this century. Surely the Shock Doctrine works both ways. Has Wall Street ever this shocked, wounded and weak? Will it be able to defend itself from new regulation?

  5. And actually, I’d have to say that the US deployment inside Iraq is now not at the top of my list of “most urgent challenges” for the next Prez
    I would have thought that Iraq was likely to impose itself as one of the most urgent challenges, if the security agreement is not signed before the end of the year. It will not be a matter of the new president having a choice. A major crisis could very easily occur, because Maliki doesn’t really have any room for manoeuvre. He is being forced by the Iraqi public (and Sistani) not to sign on any conditions which would leave a possibility for the US to stay after 2011. Although M. has said that he would be willing to write a letter to the UN for a temporary extension of the UN mandate – the alternative to a security agreement – I have my doubts whether he really would. For, writing that letter to the UN, necessary for such an extension, is very close to signing the security agreement – he is likely to be attacked in Iraq if he puts pen to paper.
    So I would say there’s a good chance we will be in for a crisis on the 1st January. I have no idea how it will be resolved, but it will be a major crisis; people haven’t been keeping an eye on how important it will be.

  6. H, yes compassion is what we do best…as a nation…studies have shown North Americans in general to be highly oriented toward justice, compassion and humanitarianism…alas, how can we get our legislators to be like Senator Leahy?? THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY, COMPASSIONATE individual who may have ever graced our political scene…tell me…or anyone…what US Senator HAS a WAR VICTIMS FUND?
    Yes, Senator Leahy is the CONSCIENCE OF OUR NATION…and WHERE IS EVERYONE THANKING HIM?
    🙂
    Sorry to shout…I need to emphasize this…
    KDJ

  7. As many of us indentured enlisted types used to put it back during America’s ruinously stupid War on Southeast Asia three-plus decades ago:
    “We lost the day we started. We win the day we stop.”
    Ditto for America’s recrudescent re-iterations of credulous crusading quagmire in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both brain-dead bureaucratic bungles need to simply stop. Then, Americans can start “winning” peace and prosperity at home once more.

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