THE BEAR'S LAIR
Level 3 storm about to
hit Wall Street
We are about to get a new tool with which to gauge how much toxic waste - subprime paper and a host of other valueless "assets" - the American investment banks are holding. All will be revealed under new "Level 3" accounting regulations, and many of Wall Street's biggest names are likely to sink into the sludge. - Martin Hutchinson

Pakistan Emergency - Wall Street Journal editorial
Musharraf's Latest Coup - Washington Times editorial
Crackdown in Pakistan Leaves U.S. in Quandary - USA Today editorial
Pakistan in Peril – London Times editorial
Terror in Pakistan – The Australian editorial
Pakistan: Desperate Act of Weak and Rattled President – The Independent editorial
A Second Coup in Pakistan - Ahmed Rashid, Washington Post
Pakistan: When an Anti-Terror Ally Fails – Christian Science Monitor editorial
Pakistan, The Heart of a Global Crisis – William Ress-Mogg, London Times
Musharraf’s Mini-Martial Law – Ali Eteraz, Guardian
Pakistan: A Plea for Moderation - Noreen Ahmed-Ullah, Chicago Tribune
Musharraf Has Lost His Marbles - Asma Jahangir, The Independent
Legal Loopholes in Iraq - New York Times editorial
This Won’t be the Iraq Election – Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek Magazine
Is Maliki's Corruption Worth American Lives? - Henry Waxman, Los Angeles Times
Turkey Under Fire - Washington Times editorial
Turkish Threat - Boston Globe editorial
Turks and Kurds – David Warren, Real Clear Politics
Kurdistan's Hope for Talks - Nechirvan Barzani, Washington Post
Turk-Kurd Turmoil Tripwires - Kenneth Timmerman, Washington Times
The Future of U.S.-Turkey Relationship – Bilal Cetin, Turkish Press
Lessons From Turkey’s Strife – Nicole Abadee, Canberra Times
Crisis in Turkey Only About PKK? – Khaled Salih, Daily Star
All Still Quiet on the Syria Bombing - Jackson Diehl, Washington Post
An Arab Initiative to Avoid a Failed Conference – James Zogby, Daily Star
Middle East: Enough of ‘Enough’ – Barry Rubin, Jerusalem Post
Nukes on the Nile – San Francisco Chronicle editorial
Iran: Nuclear Meltdown - Kurt Anderson, New York Magazine
The Don Quixote of Darfur – Romesh Ratnesar, Time Magzine
Balfour at 90 – Jerusalem Post editorial
Bolivia: No Crime, No Punishment - Roger Noriega, Miami Herald
Uncle Sam on the Line - John Ashcroft, New York Times
Confirm Mukasey -- and Stop Torture - Los Angeles Times editorial
Mukasey Should Espouse American Principles - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial
Mukasey's America - Nat Hentoff, Washington Times
When Does Coercion Become Torture? - Richard Saccone, Baltimore Sun
Torture Moral Preening - Mona Charen, Washington Times
Interrogation Abuses Undercut Moral Authority - Cynthia Tucker, Baltimore Sun
U.N. Should Clean its Own House - Claudia Rosett, Philadelphia Inquirer
Strategic Airlift on Artificial Life Support - Jim Saxton, Washington Times

Foreign Policy News and Commentary Update November 5, 2007

COMBATING MUSLIM EXTREMISM JUAN COLE (MIDDLE EAST ONLINE, NOVEMBER 5): A wise American policy toward the small networks of Muslim extremists would reduce their recruitment pool by the quick establishment of a Palestinian state and by a large-scale military drawdown from Iraq, thus removing widespread and major grievances. An increase in visible humanitarian and development aid to Muslim countries has a demonstrable effect on improving the US image. The reconstitution of the United States Information Service as an independent body would allow better public diplomacy.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/opinion/?id=22957
AT WAR BUT NOT WAR-READY - HANS BINNENDIJK (WASHINGTON POST, NOVEMBER 3): http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0201725_pf.html

KAREN HUGHES' TWO-YEAR HALLOWEEN - RAMI G. KHOURI (DAILY STAR, LEBANON, NOVEMBER 3): http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?ed...rticle_id=86476

AN UGLY IMAGE THAT REQUIRES A MAMOTH TASK TO REPAIR - M. TAQI (URUKNET.INFO,IRAQIRABITA, NOVEMBER 4): http://uruknet.info/?p=m37881&s1=h1

KAREN HUGHES, "PR," AND PERVERTED SCIENCE - SHERWOOD ROSS (OPEDNEWS, NOVEMBER 3): http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_sh...22pr_2c_22_.htm

SELLING AMERICA EDITORIAL (NEW YORK TIMES, NOVEMBER 4): http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/opinion/...agewanted=print

AMERICA'S DAYS OF INFAMY DRAG ON AS WAR CONSUMES COUNTRY - BILL GALLAGHER (NIAGARA FALLS REPORTER, NOVEMBER 5): http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/gallagher339.html

AMERICA, OPEN FOR BUSINESS, CLOSED TO FREEDOM - BOBHIGGINS (EPLURIBUS MEDIA, NOVEMBER 2): Karen Hughes was tapped for her office for the same reasons as all Bush appointees are chosen, not for expertise or experience, not for performance or integrity in public service but for loyalty, for unwavering belief in the Messianic delusions of neo conservatism, and a willingness to march in lockstep, nah, goose step, against all who might disagree or dissent.
http://scoop.epluribusmedia.org/story/2007/11/2/83752/5278
ANOTHER BUSH FINE MESS: KAREN HUGHES ? (LADYBROADOAK: VISIONARY PLANETARY HEALING TUTORIAL, NOVEMBER 4): http://ladybroadoak.blogspot.com/2007/11/a...ren-hughes.html

THE VERDICT ON THE HUGHES ERA IN AMERICAN PUBLIC DIPLOMACY BUCKAROOSKIDOO (MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! THE RAMBLINGS OF A DANGEROUS MIND, NOVEMBER 5): http://somehistoricalperspective.blogspot....n-american.html

TERRORISM: DISTANT JETLINER, PRESENT THREAT - SHAUN MULLEN (KIKO'S HOUSE: WELL, WATSON, WE SEEM TO HAVE FALLEN UPON EVIL DAYS -- SHERLOCK HOLMES, NOVEMBER 3): http://kikoshouse.blogspot.com/2007/11/ter...er-present.html

LINKING PUBLIC DIPLOMACY TO POLICY: KAREN HUGHES DID SOME GOOD AS PUBLIC DIPLOMACY CHIEF, BUT THE U.S. NEEDS TO INCORPORATE IMAGE-MAKING WITH POLICYMAKING ? EDITORIAL (LOS ANGELES TIMES, NOVEMBER 3)
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/a...1,6955244.story
EXIT KAREN HUGHES GRAIG HAYDEN (PUBLIC DIPLOMACY BLOG, USC CENTER ON PUBLIC DIPLOMACY, NOVEMBER 4): http://uscpublicdiplomacy.com/index.php/ne...t_karen_hughes/

THANK YOU, KAREN HUGHES.... (SWAC GIRL: S.W.A.C. - STAUNTON, WAYNESBORO, AND AUGUSTA COUNTY REPUBLICANS WORKING TO ELECT CONSERVATIVE PUBLIC OFFICIALS IN THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY ... WITH OCCASIONAL MUSINGS ABOUT LIFE HAPPENINGS, NOVEMBER 5): http://swacgirl.blogspot.com/2007/11/thank...ren-hughes.html

LOSING THE BATTLE AGAINST ANTI-AMERICANISM - DAVID FRUM (NATIONAL POST, CANADA, NOVEMBER 5): .
http://communities.canada.com/nationalpost...mericanism.aspx
TIPTOE THROUGH THE TULIPS WITH KAREN HUGHES ? (TIMOTHY BIRDNOW, NOVEMBER 5): http://www.timothybirdnow.com/?p=131

SENDING COMEDY TO THE MUSLIM WORLD: THE KAREN HUGHES QUIZ - PAUL SLANSKY (YAHOO! NEWS, NOVEMBER 3)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20071103/...f4smTBqCBEe6sgF
MORPHING INDIA'S AFGHANISTAN POLICY - SWAPNA KONA (MAINSTREAM, NOVEMBER 3): http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article400.html

GOODBYE TO ALL THAT - BY ANDREW SULLIVAN (ATLANTIC, DECEMBER): If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama's face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200712/obam...vIGegpprOsyA%3D
IS (HIS) BIOGRAPHY (OUR) DESTINY? - JAMES TRAUB (NEW YORK TIMES, NOVEMBER 4): Obama speaks with special passion about the need to change America?s image in the world -- and not only by proving that it can elect a 46-year-old black man with roots in the Muslim world. He returns again and again to the question of what America means to the rest of the world.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/magazine...agewanted=print
U.S. CLIMATE OF FEAR TURNING AWAY FOREIGN BUSINESS, VISITORS - (MALAYSIA SUN, NOVEMBER 3): http://story.malaysiasun.com/index.php/ct/...id/296972/cs/1/

RICE REAFFIRMS PLAN TO FORCE DIPLOMATS TO FILL IRAQ POSTS - GLENN KESSLER (WASHINGTON POST, NOVEMBER 3): Calling Iraq "the most essential foreign policy and national security priority for our nation," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told U.S. diplomats yesterday that she will proceed with plans to order Foreign Service officers to Iraq if vacancies cannot be filled voluntarily. Rice's decision has spawned angst in the State Department, where more than 1,500 personnel have served in Iraq. There are 11,500 Foreign Service employees, one of whom declared at a State Department town hall meeting this week that being sent to Iraq was a "potential death sentence."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0202053_pf.html
SCAPEGOATING US DIPLOMATS FOR FAILURES IN IRAQ? - WILLIAM FISHER (WORLD ACCORDING TO BILL FISHER, NOVEMBER 3)
http://billfisher.blogspot.com/2007/11/sca...r-failures.html
THE FRAYING OF STATE (MOUNTAINRUNNER, NOVEMBER 2): http://mountainrunner.us/2007/11/the_fraying_of_state.html

SERVE OR LEAVE - ALAN L. STRZEMIECZNY (LETTER TO THE EDITOR, LOS ANGELES TIMES, NOVEMBER 2): Re "Compelled Iraq duty angers U.S. envoys," Nov. 1: So some State Department employees do not want to serve in Iraq because it is dangerous. Poor babies! They need to suck it up as our military has. These envoys signed up for government service, and that service requires that they be where they are needed. They have two choices: Do the service or leave.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/a...3329,full.story
LEGAL LOOPHOLES IN IRAQ - EDITORIAL (NEW YORK TIMES, NOVEMBER 5): The administration should withdraw all of private armies from Iraq, and while it does that, Congress must act swiftly to ensure that American justice applies to all those who remain.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/05/opinion/...agewanted=print
IS MALIKI'S CORRUPTION WORTH AMERICAN LIVES? THE IRAQI PRIME MINISTER IS PRESIDING OVER A GOVERNMENT THAT IS STEALING US BLIND - HENRY A. WAXMAN (LOS ANGELES TIMES, NOVEMBER 5): The secretary of State seemed completely unaware of the extent to which her own department's anticorruption efforts are in disarray when she testified before the oversight committee on Oct. 25. (Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) is the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.)
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commen...omment-opinions
STORM CLOUDS OVER NORTHERN IRAQ - NORMAN STONE (WALL STREET JOURNAL, NOVEMBER 5): Despite assurances from Ms. Rice that Turkey and the U.S. share a "common enemy" in Kurdish militants, the situation boils down to something of a conundrum: What for America is a solution -- the Kurds -- is for Turkey a terrible problem.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1194231762...in_commentaries
TURKEY UNDER FIRE EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON TIMES, NOVEMBER 5): Washington must make it clear to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan that, in the long run, he could be putting his own nation in danger by enlisting Iranian and Syrian "help" in fighting the PKK. Whatever their current differences with the PKK, these rogue regimes have the potential to do far more damage to Turkey in the long run than the PKK ever could.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/200.../1013/editorial
BORDER TURMOIL TRIPWIRES - KENNETH R. TIMMERMAN (WASHINGTON TIMES, NOVEMBER 5): A Turkish invasion of northern Iraq will destabilize a peaceful, prosperous, and pro-American region of Iraq. Even worse: A Turkish invasion of northern Iraq will directly benefit another key regional player, the Islamic Republic of Iran.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.d...mplate=printart
NOUN + VERB + 9/11 + IRAN = DEMOCRATS' DEFEAT? - FRANK RICH (NEW YORK TIMES, NOVEMBER 4): Whatever happens in or to Iran, the American public will be carpet-bombed by apocalyptic propaganda for the 12 months to come. Mr. Bush has nothing to lose by once again using the specter of war to pillory the Democrats as soft on national security. The question for the Democrats is whether they?ll walk once more into this trap.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/opinion/...agewanted=print
MIDEAST: TALKING THE TALK - ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE (WASHINGTON TIMES, NOVEMBER 4): Unless bombing of Iran's suspected nuke sites is ordered by Mr. Bush before he leaves office, Vice President Cheny and his neoconservative friends think the next occupant of the White House, probably a Democrat, will "wimp out." Therefore, they conclude, the time to bomb Iran is now, and hang the consequences. But shouldn't Mr. Hill, or an equally capable diplomat, be dispatched to Tehran to at least explore the possibility of a geopolitical quid pro quo?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.d...mplate=printart
HAT PROMISED PEACE CONFERENCE EDITORIAL (NEW YORK TIMES, NOVEMBER 3): One month before President Bush?s Mideast peace conference -- the administration?s first serious effort in six years -- it?s still not clear what will be on the agenda or who, beyond the Americans, Israelis and Palestinians, will show up. Even the date is still up in the air.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/03/opinion/...agewanted=print
A SECOND COUP IN PAKISTAN - AHMED RASHID (WASHINGTON POST, NOVEMBER 5): The world cannot afford to let Musharraf's second coup go unchecked. So far, the response from Washington and European capitals has been tepid. Unless the international community acts decisively, Musharraf's emergency will plunge Pakistan even more deeply into chaos.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0401224_pf.html
MUSHARRAF'S LATEST COUP EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON TIMES, NOVEMBER 5): American diplomats and others must now walk Gen. Musharraf back from the ledge where he stands so precariously. The non-Musharraf path is simply too uncertain in this nuclear-armed, terrorist-infested nation. For now cautious diplomacy with an undemocratic strongman is the only realistic option.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.d...mplate=printart
PAKISTAN EMERGENCY REVIEW & OUTLOOK (WALL STREET JOURNAL, NOVEMBER 5): The Bush Administration will have to speak clearly to Pakistanis that its support for its government is not limited to Mr. Musharraf, and to loudly and publicly urge the General to honor his pledge to relinquish his military commission and hold elections as soon as possible. After this weekend, it is clearer than ever that U.S. policy has to prepare for the post-Musharraf era.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1194224989...ew_and_outlooks PAID SUBSCRIPTION

UNBOWED IN BURMA: THE RESISTANCE CONTINUES, BUT IT NEEDS HELP EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON POST, NOVEMBER 3): The Bush administration led the way with sanctions against Burma; Australia stoutly followed. The question -- and it could be dispositive -- is whether Europe has the spine to join in.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0201862_pf.html
WATERBOARDING USED TO BE A CRIME - EVAN WALLACH (WASHINGTON POST, NOVEMBER 4): We know that US military tribunals and US judges have examined certain types of water-based interrogation and found that they constituted torture. That's a lesson worth learning.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0201170_pf.html
CONFIRM MUKASEY -- AND STOP TORTURE: THE TWO POSITIONS CAN BE RECONCILED IF CONGRESS MAKES THE CIA STICK TO MILITARY INTERROGATION STANDARDS THAT PROHIBIT WATERBOARDING ? EDITORIAL (LOS ANGELES TIMES, NOVEMBER 5)
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editor...ment-editorials
MORAL PREENING - MONA CHAREN (WASHINGTON TIMES, NOVEMBER 5): In a war not against massed armies or nations but against small cells of terrorists, interrogation is a key weapon.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.d...mplate=printart
TORTURED JUSTICE - LINDA CHAVEZ (WASHINGTON TIMES, NOVEMBER 4): ?If waterboarding would mean preventing another September 11-style attack, I think most Americans ? including most Democratic senators ? wouldn't hesitate to allow it.?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.d...mplate=printart
THE FUTURE WAR ON TERROR - OLIVER NORTH (WASHINGTON TIMES, NOVEMBER 4): Even critics of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan agree the campaign in the southern Philippines could become the model for how to win the war against Islamic terror.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.d...mplate=printart
WHY HER DREAMS CRASHED: RICE'S WORLDVIEW FLIPPED, AND HER POLICIES FLOPPED - FRED KAPLAN (WASHINGTON POST, NOVEMBER 4): As Condoleezza Rice jets around the world, she must sometimes wonder where she's going. Over her three years as secretary of state, she has squandered great opportunities by putting faith and loyalty above her old worldview. The problem isn't just that she has swerved from the realism that propelled her to prominence; it's that the result has been a shambles.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...id=opinionsbox1
WHY ORWELL MATTERS: FOUR WRITERS ON THE RELEVANCE OF ORWELL'S 'POLITICS AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE' IN A POST-9/11 WORLD ? (LOS ANGELES TIMES, NOVEMBER 5): More than 60 years after it was written, George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" remains the classic essay on the relationship between words, truth, propaganda and politics -- one with renewed meaning, many writers believe, in the post-9/11 world.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-...-opinion-center

From Esquire.com, dated October 18, 2007

<h1 style="margin: auto 0in;">The Secret History of the Impending War with Iran That the White House Doesn't Want You to Know </h1> Two former high-ranking policy experts from the Bush administration say the U.S. has been gearing up for a war with Iran for years, despite claiming otherwise. It'll be Iraq all over again.

In the years after 9/11, Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann worked at the highest levels of the Bush administration as Middle East policy experts for the National Security Council. Mann conducted secret negotiations with Iran. Leverett traveled with Colin Powell and advised Condoleezza Rice. They each played crucial roles in formulating policy for the region leading up to the war in Iraq. But when they left the White House, they left with a growing sense of alarm -- not only was the Bush administration headed straight for war with Iran, it had been set on this course for years. That was what people didn't realize. It was just like Iraq, when the White House was so eager for war it couldn't wait for the UN inspectors to leave. The steps have been many and steady and all in the same direction. And now things are getting much worse. We are getting closer and closer to the tripline, they say.
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"The hard-liners are upping the pressure on the State Department," says Leverett. "They're basically saying, 'You've been trying to engage Iran for more than a year now and what do you have to show for it? They keep building more centrifuges, they're sending this IED stuff over into Iraq that's killing American soldiers, the human-rights internal political situation has gotten more repressive -- what the hell do you have to show for this engagement strategy?'"

But the engagement strategy was never serious and was designed to fail, they say. Over the last year, Rice has begun saying she would talk to "anybody, anywhere, anytime," but not to the Iranians unless they stopped enriching uranium first. That's not a serious approach to diplomacy, Mann says. Diplomacy is about talking to your enemies. That's how wars are averted. You work up to the big things. And when U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker had his much-publicized meeting with his Iranian counterpart in Baghdad this spring, he didn't even have permission from the White House to schedule a second meeting.

The most ominous new development is the Bush administration's push to name the Iranian Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization.

"The U.S. has designated any number of states over the years as state sponsors of terrorism," says Leverett. "But here for the first time the U.S. is saying that part of a government is itself a terrorist organization."

This is what Leverett and Mann fear will happen: The diplomatic effort in the United Nations will fail when it becomes clear that Russia's and China's geopolitical ambitions will not accommodate the inconvenience of energy sanctions against Iran . Without any meaningful incentive from the U.S. to be friendly, Iran will keep meddling in Iraq and installing nuclear centrifuges. This will trigger a response from the hard-liners in the White House, who feel that it is their moral duty to deal with Iran before the Democrats take over American foreign policy. "If you get all those elements coming together, say in the first half of '08," says Leverett, "what is this president going to do? I think there is a serious risk he would decide to order an attack on the Iranian nuclear installations and probably a wider target zone."

This would result in a dramatic increase in attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, attacks by proxy forces like Hezbollah, and an unknown reaction from the wobbly states of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where millions admire Iran's resistance to the Great Satan. "As disastrous as Iraq has been," says Mann, "an attack on Iran could engulf America in a war with the entire Muslim world."

Mann and Leverett believe that none of this had to be.
Flynt Lawrence Leverett grew up in Fort Worth and went to Texas Christian University . He spent the first nine years of his government career as a CIA analyst specializing in the Middle East. He voted for George Bush in 2000. On the day the assassins of Al Qaeda flew two hijacked airplanes into the World Trade Center, Colin Powell summoned him to help plan the response. Five months later, Leverett landed a plum post on the National Security Council. When Condoleezza Rice discussed the Middle East with President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld, Leverett was the man standing behind her taking notes and whispering in her ear.

Today, he sits on the back deck of a house tucked into the curve of a leafy suburban street in McLean, Virginia, a forty-nine-year-old white American man wearing khakis and a white dress shirt and wire-rimmed glasses. Mann sits next to him, also wearing khakis. She's thirty-nine but looks much younger, with straight brown hair and a tomboy's open face. The polish on her toenails is pink. If you saw her around McLean, you wouldn't hesitate:

Soccer mom. Classic soccer mom.

But with degrees from Brandeis and Harvard Law and stints at Tel Aviv University and the powerful Israeli lobby known as AIPAC, she has even better right-wing credentials than her husband.

As they talk, eating grapes out of a bowl, lawn mowers hum and birds chirp. The floor is littered with toy trucks and rubber animals left behind by the youngest of their four children. But the tranquillity is misleading. When Mann and Leverett went public with the inside story behind the impending disaster with Iran, the White House dismissed them. Then it imposed prior restraint on them, an extraordinary episode of government censorship. Finally, it threatened them.

Now they are afraid of the White House, and watching what they say. But still, they feel they have to speak out.
Like so many things these days, this story began on the morning of September 11, 2001. On Forty-fifth Street in Manhattan, Mann had just been evacuated from the offices of the U.S. mission to the United Nations and was walking home to her apartment on Thirty-eighth Street -- walking south, toward the giant plume of smoke. When her cell phone rang, she picked it up immediately because her sister worked at the World Trade Center and she was frantic for word. But it wasn't her sister, it was a senior Iranian diplomat. To protect him from reprisals from the Iranian government, she doesn't want to name him, but she describes him as a cultured man in his fifties with salt-and-pepper hair. Since early spring, they had been meeting secretly in a small conference room at the UN.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

Yes, she said, she was fine.

The attack was a terrible tragedy, he said, doubtless the work of Al Qaeda.

"I hope that we can still work together," he said.

That same day, in Washington, on the seventh floor of the State Department building, a security guard opened the door of Leverett's office and told him they were evacuating the building. Leverett was Powell's specialist on terrorist states like Syria and Libya, so he knew the world was about to go through a dramatic change. As he joined the people milling on the sidewalk, his mind was already racing.

Then he got a call summoning him back to Foggy Bottom. At the entrance to a specially fortified office, he showed his badge to the guards and passed into a windowless conference room. There were about a dozen people there, Powell's top foreign-policy planners. Powell told them that their first job was to make plans to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. The second job was to rally allies. That meant detailed strategies for approaching other nations -- in some cases, Powell could make the approach, in others the president would have to make the call. Then Powell left them to work through the night.

At 5:30 a.m. on September 12, they walked the list to the office of the deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage. Powell took it straight to the White House.

Mann and Leverett didn't know each other then, but they were already traveling down parallel tracks. Months before September 11, Mann had been negotiating with the Iranian diplomat at the UN. After the attacks, the meetings continued, sometimes alone and sometimes with their Russian counterpart sitting in. Soon they traded the conference room for the Delegates' Lounge, an airy two-story bar with ashtrays for all the foreigners who were used to smoking indoors. One day, up on the second floor where the windows overlooked the East River, the diplomat told her that Iran was ready to cooperate unconditionally, a phrase that had seismic diplomatic implications.

Unconditional talks are what the U.S. had been demanding as a precondition to any official diplomatic contact between the U.S. and Iran. And it would be the first chance since the Islamic revolution for any kind of rapprochement. "It was revolutionary," Mann says. "It could have changed the world."

A few weeks later, after signing on to Condoleezza Rice's staff as the new Iran expert in the National Security Council, Mann flew to Europe with Ryan Crocker -- then a deputy assistant secretary of state -- to hold talks with a team of Iranian diplomats. Meeting in a light-filled conference room at the old UN building in Geneva, they hammered out plans for Iranian help in the war against the Taliban. The Iranians agreed to provide assistance if any American was shot down near their territory, agreed to let the U.S. send food in through their border, and even agreed to restrain some "really bad Afghanis," like a rabidly anti-American warlord named Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, quietly putting him under house arrest in Tehran. These were significant concessions. At the same time, special envoy James Dobbins was having very public and warm discussions in Bonn with the Iranian deputy foreign minister as they worked together to set up a new government for Afghanistan. And the Iranians seemed eager to help in more tactical ways as well. They had intimate knowledge of Taliban strategic capabilities and they wanted to share it with the Americans.

One day during the U.S. bombing campaign, Mann and her Iranian counterparts were sitting around the wooden conference table speculating about the future Afghani constitution. Suddenly the Iranian who knew so much about intelligence matters started pounding on the table. "Enough of that!" he shouted, unfurling a map of Afghanistan. Here was a place the Americans needed to bomb. And here, and here, he angrily jabbed his finger at the map.

Leverett spent those days in his office at the State Department building, watching the revolution in the Middle East and coming up with plans on how to capture the lightning. Suddenly countries like Syria and Libya and Sudan and Iran were coming forward with offers of help, which raised a vital question -- should they stay on the same enemies list as North Korea and Iraq, or could there be a new slot for "friendly" sponsors of terror?

As a CIA analyst, Leverett had come to the view that Middle Eastern terrorism was more tactical than religious. Syria wanted the Golan Heights back and didn't have the military strength to put up a serious fight against Israel, so it relied on "asymmetrical methods." Accepting this idea meant that nations like Syria weren't locked in a fanatic mind-set, that they could evolve to use new methods, so Leverett told Powell to seize the moment and draw up a "road map" to peace for the problem countries of the Middle East -- expel your terrorist groups and stop trying to develop weapons of mass destruction, and we will take you off the sponsors-of-terrorism list and start a new era of cooperation.

That December, just after the triumph over Afghanistan, Powell took the idea to the White House. The occasion was the regular "deputies meeting" at the Situation Room. Gathered around the table were the deputy secretary of state, the deputy secretary of defense, the deputy director of the CIA, a representative from Vice-President Cheney's office, and also the deputy national security advisor, Stephen Hadley.

Hadley hated the idea. So did the representatives from Rumsfeld and Cheney. They thought that it was a reward for bad behavior, that the sponsors of terrorism should stop just because it's the right thing to do.

After the meeting, Hadley wrote up a brief memo that came to be known as Hadley's Rules:
If a state like Syria or Iran offers specific assistance, we will take it without offering anything in return. We will accept it without strings or promises. We won't try to build on it.

Leverett thought that was simply nutty. To strike postures of moral purity, they were throwing away a chance for real progress. But just a few days later, Condoleezza Rice called him into her office, warming him up with talk of how classical music shaped their childhoods. As he told her about the year he spent studying classical piano at the Liszt Academy in Budapest, Leverett felt a real connection. Then she said she was looking for someone to take the job of senior director of Mideast affairs at the National Security Council, someone who would take a real leadership role on the Palestinian issue. Big changes were coming in 2002.
He repeated his firm belief that the White House had to draw up a road map with real solutions to the division of Jerusalem and the problem of refugees, something with final borders. That was the only remedy to the crisis in the Middle East.

Just after the New Year, Rice called and offered him the job.

The bowl of grapes is empty and the plate of cheese moves to the center of the table. Leverett's teenage son comes in with questions about a teacher. Periodically, Mann interrupts herself. "This is off the record," she says. "This is going to have to be on background."

She's not allowed to talk about confidential documents or intelligence matters, but the topic of her negotiations with the Iranians is especially touchy.

"As far as they're concerned, the whole idea that there were talks is something I shouldn't even be talking about," she says.

All ranks and ranking are out. "They don't want there to be anything about the level of the talks or who was involved."
"They won't even let us say something like 'senior' or 'important,' 'high-ranking,' or 'high-level,'" Leverett says.
But the important thing is that the Iranians agreed to talk unconditionally, Mann says. "They specifically told me time and again that they were doing this because they understood the impact of this attack on the U.S., and they thought that if they helped us unconditionally, that would be the way to change the dynamic for the first time in twenty-five years."

She believed them.

But while Leverett was still moving into the Old Executive Office Building next to the White House, Mann was wrapped up in the crisis over a ship called the Karin A that left Iran loaded with fifty tons of weapons. According to the Israeli navy, which intercepted the Karin A in the Red Sea, it was headed for the PLO. In staff meetings at the White House, Mann argued for caution. The Iranian government probably didn't even know about the arms shipments. It was issuing official denials in the most passionate way, even sending its deputy foreign minister onto Fox News to say "categorically" that "all segments of the Iranian government" had nothing to do with the arms shipment, which meant the "total government, not simply President Khatami's administration."

Bush waited. Three weeks later, it was time for his 2002 State of the Union address. Mann spent the morning in a meeting with Condoleezza Rice and the new president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, who kept asking Rice for an expanded international peacekeeping force. Rice kept saying that the Afghans would have to solve their own problems. Then they went off to join the president's motorcade and Mann headed back to her office to watch the speech on TV.

That was the speech in which Bush linked Iran to Iraq and North Korea with a memorable phrase:
"States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world."

The Iranians had been engaging in high-level diplomacy with the American government for more than a year, so the phrase was shocking and profound.

After that, the Iranian diplomats skipped the monthly meeting in Geneva. But they came again in March. And so did Mann. "They said they had put their necks out to talk to us and they were taking big risks with their careers and their families and their lives," Mann says.

The secret negotiations with Iran continued, every month for another year.

Leverett plunged right into a dramatic new peace proposal floated by Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Calling for "full normalization" in exchange for "full withdrawal" from the occupied territories, Abdullah promised to rally all the Arab nations to a final settlement with Israel. In his brand-new third-floor office at the Old Executive Office Building, a tiny room with a very high ceiling, Leverett began hammering out the details with Abdullah's foreign-policy advisor, Adel Al-Jubeir. When Ariel Sharon said that a return to the '67 borders was unacceptable, Al-Jubeir said the Saudis didn't want to be in the "real estate business" -- if the Palestinians agreed to border modifications, the Saudis could hardly refuse them. Al-Jubeir believed he had something that might actually work.

But the White House wasn't interested. Sharon already rejected it, Rice told Leverett.

At the Arab League meeting, Abdullah got every Arab state to sign his proposal in a unanimous vote.

The White House still wasn't interested.

Then violence in the Palestinian territories began to increase, climaxing in an Israeli siege of Arafat's compound. In April, Leverett accompanied Colin Powell on a tour that took them from Morocco to Egypt and Jordan and Lebanon and finally Israel. Twice they crossed the Israeli-army lines to visit Arafat under siege. Powell seemed to think he had authorization from the White House to explore what everyone was calling "political horizons," the safely vague shorthand for a peaceful future, so on the final day Leverett holed up in a suite at the David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem with a group of senior American officials -- the U. . ambassador to Israel, the U. S. consul general to Jerusalem, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs Bill Burns -- trying to hammer out Powell's last speech.

Then the phone rang. It was Stephen Hadley on the phone from the White House. "Tell Powell he is not authorized to talk about a political horizon," he said. "Those are formal instructions."

"This is a bad idea," Leverett remembers saying. "It's bad policy and it's also humiliating for Powell, who has been talking to heads of state about this very issue for the last ten days."

"It doesn't matter," Hadley said. "There's too much resistance from Rumsfeld and the VP. Those are the instructions."

So Leverett went back into the suite and asked Powell to step aside.

Powell was furious, Leverett remembers. "What is it they're afraid of?" he demanded. "Who the hell are they afraid of?"

"I don't know sir," Leverett said.

In the spring, Crown Prince Abdullah flew to Texas to meet Bush at his ranch. The way Leverett remembers the story, Abdullah sat down and told Bush he was going to ask a direct question and wanted a direct answer. Are you going to do anything about the Palestinian issue? If you tell me no, if it's too difficult, if you're not going to give it that kind of priority, just tell me. I will understand and I will never say anything critical of you or your leadership in public, but I'm going to need to make my own judgments and my own decisions about Saudi interests.

Bush tried to stall, saying he understood his concerns and would see what he could do.

Abdullah stood up. "That's it. This meeting is over."

No Arab leader had ever spoken to Bush like that before, Leverett says. But Saudi Arabia was a key ally in the war on terror, vital to the continued U.S. oil supply, so Bush and Rice and Powell excused themselves into another room for a quick huddle.

When he came back, Bush gave Abdullah his word that he would deal seriously with the Palestinian issue.

"Okay," Abdullah said. "The president of the United States has given me his word."

So the meeting continued, ending with a famous series of photographs of Bush and Abdullah riding around the ranch in Bush's pickup.

In a meeting at the White House a few days later, Leverett saw Powell shaking his head over Abdullah's threat. He called it "the near-death experience."

Bush rolled his eyes. "We sure don't want to go through anything like that again."

Then the king of Jordan came to Washington to see Bush. There had to be a road map for peace in Palestine , the king said. Despite the previous experience with Abdullah in Crawford, Bush seemed taken by surprise, Leverett remembers, but he listened and said that the idea of a road map seemed pretty reasonable.

So suddenly they were working on a road map. For moderate Arab states, the hope of a two-state solution would offer some political cover before Washington embarked on any invasion of Iraq. In a meeting with the king of Jordan, Leverett made a personal promise that it would be out by the end of 2002.

But nothing happened. In Cheney's and Rumsfeld's offices, opposition came from men like John Hannah, Doug Feith, and Scooter Libby. In Rice's office, there was Elliott Abrams. Again they said that negotiation was just a reward for bad behavior. First the Palestinians had to reject terrorism and practice democracy.

Finally, it was a bitter-cold day just after Thanksgiving and Leverett was on a family trip to the Washington Zoo, standing in front of the giraffe enclosure. The White House patched through a call from the foreign minister of Jordan, Marwan Muasher, who said that Rice had just told him the road map was off. "Do you have any idea how this has pulled the rug out from under us, from under me?" Muasher said. "I'm the one that has to go into Arab League meetings and get beat up and say, 'No, there's going to be a plan out by the end of the year.' How can we ever trust you again?"

On Monday, Leverett went straight to Rice's office for an explanation. She told him that Ariel Sharon had called early elections in Israel and asked Bush to shelve any Palestinian plan. This time Leverett couldn't hide his exasperation. "You told the whole world you were going to put this out before Christmas," he said. "Because one Israeli politician told you it's going to make things politically difficult for him, you don't put it out? Do you realize how hard that makes things for all our Arab partners?"

Rice sat impassively behind her broad desk. "If we put the road map out," she said, "it will interfere with Israeli elections."

"You are interfering with Israeli elections, just in another way."

"Flynt, the decision has already been made," Rice said.

There was also an awkward scene with the secretary of defense. They were in the Situation Room and Leverett was sitting behind Rice taking notes when suddenly Rumsfeld addressed him directly. "Why are you laughing? Did I say something funny?"

The room went silent, and Rumsfeld asked it again.

"Why are you laughing? Did I say something funny?"

"I'm sorry Mr. Secretary, I don't think I know what you're talking about."

"It looks to me like you were laughing," Rumsfeld said.

"No sir. I'm sorry if I gave that impression. I was just listening to the meeting and taking notes. Didn't mean to disturb you."

The meeting continued, message received.

By that time, Leverett and Mann had met and fallen in love. They got married in February 2003, went to Florida on their honeymoon, and got back just in time for the Shock and Awe bombing campaign. Leverett quit his NSC job in disgust.

Mann rotated back to the State Department.
Then came the moment that would lead to an extraordinary battle with the Bush administration. It was an average morning in April, about four weeks into the war. Mann picked up her daily folder and sat down at her desk, glancing at a fax cover page. The fax was from the Swiss ambassador to Iran, which wasn't unusual -- since the U.S. had no formal relationship with Iran, the Swiss ambassador represented American interests there and often faxed over updates on what he was doing. This time he'd met with Sadeq Kharrazi, a well-connected Iranian who was the nephew of the foreign minister and son-in-law to the supreme leader. Amazingly, Kharrazi had presented the ambassador with a detailed proposal for peace in the Middle East, approved at the highest levels in Tehran.

A two-page summary was attached. Scanning it, Mann was startled by one dramatic concession after another -- "decisive action" against all terrorists in Iran, an end of support for Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, a promise to cease its nuclear program, and also an agreement to recognize Israel.

This was huge. Mann sat down and drafted a quick memo to her boss, Richard Haass. It was important to send a swift and positive response.

Then she heard that the White House had already made up its mind -- it was going to ignore the offer. Its only response was to lodge a formal complaint with the Swiss government about their ambassador's meddling.
A few days after that, a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia killed thirty-four people, including eight Americans, and an intelligence report said the bombers had been in phone contact with Al Qaeda members in Iran. Although it was unknown whether Tehran had anything to do with the bombing or if the terrorists were hiding out in the lawless areas near the border, Rumsfeld set the tone for the administration's response at his next press conference. "There's no question but that there have been and are today senior Al Qaeda leaders in Iran, and they are busy."

Colin Powell saw Mann's memo. A couple weeks later he approached her at a State Department reception and said, "It was a very good memo. I couldn't sell it at the White House."

In response to questions from Esquire, Colin Powell called Leverett "very able" and confirms much of what he says. Leverett's account of the clash between Bush and Crown Prince Abdullah was accurate, he said. "It was a very serious moment and no one wanted to see if the Saudis were bluffing." The same goes for the story about his speech in Israel in 2002. "I had major problems with the White House on what I wanted to say."

On the subject of the peace offer, though, Powell was defensive. "I talked to all of my key assistants since Flynt started talking about an Iranian grand bargain, but none of us recall seeing this initiative as a grand bargain."

On the general subject of negotiations with Iran, he responded with pointed politesse. "We talked to the Iranians quietly up until 2003. The president chose not to continue that channel."

That is putting it mildly. In May of 2003, when the U.S. was still in the triumphant "mission accomplished" phase of the Iraq war, word started filtering out of the White House about an aggressive new Iran policy that would include efforts to destabilize the Iranian government and even to promote a popular uprising. In his first public statement on Iran policy since leaving the NSC, Leverett told The Washington Post he thought the White House was making a dangerous mistake. "What it means is we will end up with an Iran that has nuclear weapons and no dialogue with the United States."

In the years that followed, he spoke out in dozens of newspaper editorials and a book, all making variations on the same argument -- America's approach to rogue nations was all sticks and no carrots, all economic sanctions and threats of war without any dialogue. "To bring about real change," he argued, "we must also offer concrete benefits." Of course states like Iran and Syria messed around in Iraq, he said. Iran was supporting the Iraqi opposition when the U.S. was still supporting Saddam Hussein. It was insane to expect them to stop when the goal of a Shiite Iraq was finally in reach. The only way to solve the underlying issues was to offer Iran a "grand bargain" that would recognize the legitimacy of Iran's government and its right to a role in the region.

But that was an unthinkable thought. The White House ignored him. Democrats ignored him. The Brookings Institution declined to renew his contract.

Then he started talking about the peace offer. By then it was 2006 and the war wasn't going well and suddenly people started to respond: You mean Iran isn't evil? They helped fight the Taliban? They wanted to make peace? He summed it all up in a long paper for a Washington think tank that happened to be scheduled for publication last November, a vulnerable time for the White House, just after the Democrats swept the midterm elections and the Iraq Study Group released its report calling for negotiations with Syria and Iran. When he submitted the paper to the CIA for a routine review, they told him the CIA had no problem with it but someone from the NSC called to complain. "You shouldn't have cleared this without letting the White House take a look at it," the official said.

[color="#000000"]Leverett told them he wasn't going to let White House operatives judge his criticisms of White House operatives and distilled his argument into an op-ed piece for The New York Times. This time he shared a byline with his wife, who had experienced the peace offer up close. They submitted their first draft to the CIA and the State Department on a Sunday in early December, expecting to hear back the next day.

The next morning, Leverett gave a blistering talk on Bush's Iran policy to the influential conservatives at the Cato Institute. The speech was carried live on C-SPAN. Later that day, he flew to New York and made the same arguments at a private dinner with the UN ambassadors of Russia and Britain. He was starting to have an impact.
By Tuesday, he still hadn't heard from the CIA review board.

They called on Wednesday and told him that there was nothing classified in the piece as far as the agency was concerned, but someone in the West Wing wasn't happy with it and would be redacting large sections.

"You're the clearing agency," Leverett said. "You're the people named in my agreement."

They said their hands were tied.

After consulting a lawyer, Leverett and Mann and a researcher worked through the night to assemble a list of public sources where the blacked-out material had already been published. They also took out one line that might have been based on a classified document.

But the White House wouldn't budge. It was a First Amendment showdown.

On Thursday, Leverett and Mann decided to publish the piece with large sections of type blacked out, 168 words in all. Since the piece had been rendered pretty much incomprehensible, they included a list of public sources. "To make sense of our op-ed article, readers will have to look up the citations themselves."

As they tell their story, Mann rushes off to pick up one of their sons from a play date and Leverett takes over, telling what happened over the following months:

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For Immediate Release: November 6, 2007
Contact: Alan Barber, (202) 293-5380 x115

Washington DC- The number of good jobs --jobs that pay at least $17 an hour, and provide health insurance and a pension -- declined by 3.5 million between 2000 and 2006, according to a new report by the Washington, DC-based Center for Economic and Policy Research.

The report, "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly: Job Quality in the United States over the Three Most Recent Business Cycles," found that the economy has created fewer good jobs in the 2000s than was the case over comparable periods in the 1980s and 1990s.

The research defined a good job as one that pays $17 an hour, or $34,000 annually, has employer-provided health care and offers a pension. The $17 per hour figure is equal to the inflation-adjusted earnings of the typical male worker in 1979, the first year of data analyzed in the report.

Using this definition, the share of good jobs fell 2.6 percentage points, or about 3.5 million jobs, between 2000 and 2006. This decline was much sharper than what the economy experienced over comparable periods in the two preceding business cycles. Between 1979 and 1985, for example, the share of good jobs fell 0.5 percentage points. Between 1989 and 1995, the drop was just 0.l percentage points.

"Economists have a lot of explaining to do," said John Schmitt, an economist and the author of the report. "We generally expect that as the economy grows, job quality will increase. Over the last thirty years, however, the economy has grown by about 70 percent, yet the share of good jobs has been stagnant. The current business cycle has been particularly disappointing."

While the current business cycle has seen an increase in the share of jobs that pay at least $17 an hour, this gain has been more than offset by a decrease in the share of jobs that offer employer-provided health insurance (down 3.1 percent points) and pension coverage (down 4.9 percentage points).

Over the 2000s, the share of women in good jobs declined 0.2 percentage points, undermining small gains made in the 1980s and 1990s. For men, the picture was worse, with a 4.4 percentage-point decline in the share of good jobs, compared to a 1.9 percentage-point decline in the 1990s and a 3.4 percentage-point drop in the 1980s.

"The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly: Job Quality in the United States over the Three Most Recent Business Cycles" analyzed annual data from the March Current Population Survey for the years 1979 through 2006. The report also analyzed trends in bad jobs over the same period.

Read the full report here.

The Center for Economic and Policy Research is an independent, nonpartisan think tank that was established to promote democratic debate on the most important economic and social issues that affect people's lives. CEPR's Advisory Board of Economists includes Nobel Laureate economists Robert Solow and Joseph Stiglitz; Richard Freeman, Professor of Economics at Harvard University; and Eileen Appelbaum, Professor and Director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University.

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