This week on TPMCafe's America Abroad, the bloggers are talking about...

McCain's Prohibiton On Torture: Negotiations Continue Across The Line In The Sand

Talks continued this week between Senator John McCain and the Bush Administration about the progress of the legislation proposed by the Senator to cruel and inhuman treatment of detainees in U.S. custody.  Juliette Kayyem asked why the Administration was so fearful of legislation that has no reporting requirements, no cause of action, no avenues for legal remedy, and no political authorization for the use of extreme tactics.  In short, Kayyem wrote, "The proposal is not very specific, not very exacting, and not very demanding."  The legislation's real power is that it draws a line in the sand, with the President arguing that Congress must stay out of his way in the War on Terror.  Kayyem summed up her support for McCain's proposal this way:  "I've grown to love this proposal (and my guess is most Democrats and activists do to) because the Administration opposes it.  It's a line in the sand, and we have to pick sides."  Responding to statements by the Secretary of State and the State Department spokesman that U.S. policy prohibits torture, Ivo Daalder offered his view that a prohibition on torture needs to be enshrined in law, not just policy.  "Policy can change by presidential whim. So that's why McCain needs to stick to his guns, and make this a matter of law rather than policy."  

 

Update From Iraq: Convincing The Public and What Comes After

Pointing to the recently released "National Strategy for Victory" and President Bush's splashy speeches on Iraq of late, Bruce Jentleson drew readers' attention to the Administration's new strategy, which embraces the theory of Duke professor and National Security Council staff member Peter Feaver, of encouraging public support of the war in Iraq by convincing Americans the current strategy will succeed if we stay the course.  Jentleson argues that this strategy can not work:  "The public fundamentally has deep and inherent doubts about the viability of military force for political objectives like building democracy in Iraq."  In response, Feaver's co-author Chris Gelpi offered his comments on what's behind Bush's recent bump in the polls.  While Jentleson was exploring President Bush's current strategy to win over the public, his fellow bloggers were wondering what happens next.  Ivo Daalder mused on the future of Donald Rumsfeld, and John Ikenberry wondered when the U.S. would return to the "serious post-9/11 debate about national security threats" that was cut off by the Bush Administration's "Great Conflation" of terrorism and Iraq. "Bush's "war on terrorism" has now lasted longer than America's involvement in World War II - from Pearl Harbor to VJ day," Ikenberry wrote, "It is probably too late for the president to rethink his grand strategy - but it is never too late for the country to finally have a great conversation about its global strategy."

In Other News On America Abroad

• Anne-Marie Slaughter shared the reflections of a friend in China on the Chinese Communist Party's reactions to the challenges of a rapidly developing country with limited resources and prevalent corruption and incompetence on the local level.  If reforms are instituted the "CCP has little to fear from China's environmental problems.  But if spills, collapses, and land disputes continue to incite social unrest, the government may find itself forced down the path of political openness."
  
• Spurred by Matthew Yglesias' discussion, Bruce Jentleson outlined his concerns about the prospect of a nuclear Iran and the reason to be hopeful that outcome may not come.
  
• Ivo Daalder responded to Condoleezza Rice's op/ed in the Washington Post, pointing out the contradictions in the Secretary of State's defense of democratic idealism.
  
• With the U.S. poised to go into debt to the United Nations once again, Lee Feinstein discussed the impacts of the U.S. becoming a deadbeat, from reduced funding for peace keeping in Darfur to international disapproval.