Today American Defence Secretary Robert Gates recommended that General David Petraeus be appointed head of US Central Command. Until Admiral William Fallon was sacked earlier in the year, the idea had been for General Petraeus to replace General John Craddock as Supreme Allied Commander and help fix the failing mission in Afghanistan, especially after Paddy Ashdown was nixed as UN chief by the Afghan government.
But with Fallon gone and things not altogether stable in Iraq, Afghanistan will have to wait. In Petraeus’ place will be Lt. General Ray Odierno, a mountain-like soldier who served as Petraeus’ no. 2 in Iraq until he was made Deputy Chief of the Army. The top military slot in Iraq had been rumoured to be reserved for Pete Chiarelli, Robert Gates’ Military Adviser, who was described to me as “possessing Petraeus’ intellect but none of his ego.”
In many ways, Petraeus’ move is an obvious one. Nobody knows the Iraq campaign better than Petraeus and the relationship with Odierno has worked before. Paradoxically, it may help restore the formal chain of command, which sees the Iraq commander reporting to the Centcom commander and then to the President (through the SecDef). This chain was famously disrupted because of the close link between President Bush and General Petraeus, which probably caused much of Fallon’s frustration. But will Odierno be given the freedom Petraeus himself had?
What of the persistent rumours that Petraeus will one day enter the political arena? Well, in Flordia he is closer to Washington (and the TV networks). If John McCain wins in November, he’d be a shoe-in for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. But perhaps the sheen will come off him when he is no longer the sand-covered field commander and everyone will be pilgrimaging to Baghdad to see Odierno.The real loser would seem to be NATO’s Afghan campaign, which would have benefitted from Petraeus’ skills. As Centcom commander he will still oversee the U.S-led, CT-focused Operation Enduring Freedom mission. But the military centre of gravity in Afghanistan is the NATO mission as it’s hard to see how Petraeus can now work his magic from Tampa, Florida.
Yes, fresh from bringing peace to Northern Ireland and dodging snipers in Bosnia, Hillary Clinton is planning an amazing feat – she’s going to make the US energy independent, switch to renewables, and make energy prices cheaper for working class Americans.
“I told you I wanted to have a conversation so I asked you to send me your questions and concerns,” she tells us in her latest ad, before reading a letter from Tammy Bright of Cherryville, North Carolina. Tammie makes truck parts for a living and is a Republican (seemingly).
“We in NC are feeling the crunch of rising gas prices,” writes Tammie. “It’s harder for working families even to afford to drive to work. What are your plans on reducing the rising price of gas?”
“Well Tammie, I hear this everywhere,” replies the Senator. “People like you, and everyone else, are paying way too much at the pump. We need to reach energy independence and the only way we’ll do that is to stop buying oil from over there and start creating alternative renewable energy over here.”
Thank god for Hillary. And for the fact that she’s somehow still going to be President, despite losing the primaries. Or something. Next up, at NCAskMe.com, you can have your cake, and eat it too.
Last month, Sixpoint Craft Ales – with which I share a Brooklyn zip code – launched “Hop Obama”, an electoral ale. It’ll be around until the Pennsylvania primaries and sounds nice:
In keeping with the Illinois senator’s unifying theme, the “Hop Obama” is an indefinable ale that doesn’t adhere to traditional style guidelines. The 5.2% ABV creation contains five different kinds of European crystal malt and three different kinds of Pacific Northwest Hops. Combined with a Scottish yeast strain for fermentation, the result is a highly drinkable beer with a big malt background and an “Obama” of hops that imparts floral and citrus notes with just a hint of spiciness.
“The Hop Obama is our unique Sixpoint creation brewed in honor of the inspirational surgency (sic) of Senator Barack Obama,” said Sixpoint brewmaster Shane Welch. “Although we do not intend this beer to be a direct Sixpoint endorsement of Obama, we believe the delicious and refreshing quality it represents reminds us of the Senator’s successful grassroots campaign that positively blossoms each and every day.”
All mildly amusing, although the funniest part may be the earnest Real Ale enthusiasts’ reviews of the beer (including that quoted in my title) all of which resolutely refuse to get the joke and go on and on and on about malt… And yet not one of them has the gumption to refer to the “Audacity of Hops”, a sad oversight.
Unlike the ubiquitous candidate, the ale is rather hard to spot, but as a service to New Yorkers, I am pleased to note that it will be available at The Gate in Park Slope on the evening of Wednesday 9 April. Indeed, one can imagine no better evening in NYC than attending a thoughtful public lecture by Hans Blix hosted by the Center on International Cooperation, before heading off for a political pint.
(Okay, maybe you can think of a better evening in NYC, but that is why we leave comments firmly off on this blog – we don’t need you to tell us we’re wonks).
As Charlie noted earlier this week, the World Food Programme has again called for half a billion extra dollars to cope with higher food and transport costs. (The FT just doesn’t seem to tire of running this story: it first appeared on July 16 last year, and made the front page then as well.)
While no-one’s disputing the figure at this stage, it’s interesting that various voices in the aid system are wondering just where the $500 million figure comes from, and how it breaks down. How much of this would be spent on direct food aid, how much on the food vouchers that WFP says it wants to move to, and how much on cash transfers to poor people? And in which countries? (Apparently WFP will be setting out a fuller breakdown in April.)
WFP haven’t always taken care to make many friends in the aid system. Being the big boy on the block (and the US’s favourite humanitarian agency), they’ve always been at liberty to tell other agencies where to shove it when the delicate question of harmonised approaches to humanitarian aid arise. This was especially true during the process of the UN High Level Panel on System-wide Coherence, when WFP ruthlessly opposed calls for a greater leadership role for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance at global level, more co-ordination by Humanitarian Co-ordinators at country level, and more pooled funding through instruments like the CERF.
Now, though, there’s a window of opportunity for WFP’s funders to extract more cooperation from the agency – not least as the relatively importance of US funding to WFP looks set to decline. Clearly it’s essential that people receiving WFP food aid shouldn’t lose out because of rising costs, and WFP’s funders will need to move quickly to make sure that this doesn’t happen. But it might also be a good moment to renew the push for a more co-ordinated approach to UN humanitarian relief…
I’d dropped my plan to do weekly scorecards on events in Kosovo, not least because bigger and better-informed Balkan-watchers like ICG are on the case. But the recent violence in Mitrovica brings me back to an argument I made in the first days after sort-of-independence was declared: that the best plan for the Kosovo Serbs is to use limited violence that keeps to the international community off balance. (Before I’m accused of anything: I’m not advocating this plan, or even on the side of the Serbs, I’m just saying that it makes sense analytically).
Events in Mitrovica have followed this logic. A group of Kosovo Serbs seized the courthouse; the UN police had to retreat, with eighty injured and one killed; NATO moved in to push the Serbs out. Mitrovica has calmed down now, but the full impact of this mini-crisis is yet to be seen: it’s recrimination time. The Serbs claim that NATO didn’t need to move in because they had already negotiated a deal with the UN. The Russians are saying that NATO used excessive force. And now Gerry Galluci, the top UN official in Mitrovica (who, oddly, is on holiday) has tried to resign over how the situation was handled. Somehow or other, his report leaked to Kosovo Serb leaders who duly handed it to the press. Extracts:
The report says that the raid was a “badly planned operation to restore law and order in the north, which has led to the disappearance of law and order”.
“Our credibility and relations necessary for our peacekeeping role in the north have been seriously, perhaps irreversibly jeopardized. Now we can all see that Serbs have a clear goal, that they are well organized and well armed. All in all, it must be clear that the use of force (by the international community) to achieve political goals related to (Kosovo’s) status will not work.”
Galluci also suggested that UNMIK must “admit its mistakes and repent for what has been done” in order to continue communicating with the Serbs in the north.
“Not only have we no moral or legal basis to use force, but it yields no results,” Galluci concludes.
Now Galuci has a long-standing reputation as a “cowboy”, and I think I’m on safe ground if I say that the bulk of senior UN, EU and NATO people in Kosovo aren’t exactly fans. But given the nervousness of many Western governments about what they’ve created in Kosovo, there’ll be quite a few officials looking at this report and finding a lot to agree with. Next time the Serbs seize something or other, there’ll be a lot of voices arguing for longer negotiations and less force. NATO and the UN won’t necessarily agree on what to do – and if the internationals start to lose coherence, things will start to go bad in Kosovo. Fast.
