Bush to Send Meghan O'Sullivan to Iraq

Jesus H Christ on Extacy. It appears Bush is actually tapping someone who's competent.

President Bush will be sending one of his top aides to Iraq to assist the Iraqis "meet the benchmarks that the Congress and the President expect to get passed," he announced in a press conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

Per David Corn:

She is a protégé of Richard Haass, who left the State Department as policy director in July 2003 and became president of the Council on Foreign Relations, and she is neither a neocon nor an ideologue. She has even earned the suspicion of conservatives for having proposed engaging with Iran and for suggesting--before 9/11--that it is unproductive to brand a state a "rogue regime."

How in hell does someone with brains get posted?

Oops! Maybe not such a brain.

The expert explained that many factors shape the difficult Pakistani-Afghan relationship. He pointed to the decades-long conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan and mentioned the Durand Line, the supposed border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The 1,600-mile-long line, imposed on Afghanistan by the British in 1893, divides Pashtun and Baluch regions and separates Afghanistan from territory it has claimed as its own. Afghanistan has never officially recognized the Durand Line, which has been a great source of strife between the two countries.

By referring to the Durand Line, the expert was noting that US efforts in the region are complicated by pre-9/11 history. O'Sullivan, according to this expert (who wishes not to be named), didn't know what the Durand Line was. The expert was stunned. O'Sullivan is the most senior Bush Administration official handling Afghanistan policy. If she wasn't familiar with this basic point, US policy-making on Afghanistan was in trouble.

My mistake. I got my hopes up unnecessarily. I should known better by now.

(read more)