North Korea’s atomic-tipped missile threat against the American homeland is at a critical stage.  But President Barack Obama’s North Korea policy is lackluster—more talk while feeding the rogue’s population—which may help Communist China but could cripple America’s security.

The North Korean threat is reaching a tipping point with two new reports.  One comes from Raymond Colston, the national intelligence manager for Korea at the National Intelligence Director’s Office.  Last week Colston testified on Capitol Hill that North Korea will eventually “be capable of targeting the U.S., and these missiles will be capable of having nuclear weapons.”

The second report is a leaked United Nations account by a panel of experts monitoring the arms embargo against North Korea.  The 81-page document given to the Security Council last week establishes that North Korea continues to proliferate weapons of mass destruction (WMD) technologies “to numerous customers in the Middle East [primarily Iran] and South Asia.”

This breaking news comes on the cusp of other regimes’ WMD developments.  Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast, according to Fars News Agency, disputes the UN report, arguing that Tehran’s missile capabilities are so advanced it does not need outside help.  But that statement is contradicted by a report in the May 16 edition of the Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun that contends North Korea recently sent more than 200 people to Iran to transfer military technology for developing Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.

At home,  North Korea just finished constructing its second missile-launch complex that is five times larger, and better shielded from potential attack, than its Musudan-ri facility, according to the Korea Herald.  The new Dongchang-ri complex is strategically closer to China, has an underground missile-fueling center to escape U.S. satellite monitoring, and is just 43 miles from the Yongbyon nuclear complex where North Korea develops atomic weapons.  

The regime is also making substantial progress in the production of enriched uranium, which is fuel for nuclear weapons.  Last November, American nuclear experts viewed approximately 2,000 uranium-enrichment centrifuges at a previously secret North Korean facility.  Those experts asserted that “it is highly likely” there are other unrevealed uranium-enrichment plants in North Korea , according to the Associated Press.  The regime is believed to hold enough plutonium, also a type of nuclear fuel, for six atomic weapons, and now uranium enrichment provides a second route for preparing weapons material.

These developments and two underground nuclear tests set the stage for President Obama’s effort to restart six-party talks involving the two Koreas, Japan, China, Russia and the U.S. intended to wean the regime of its nuclear programs.  Those talks broke down in 2008 and stalled especially because of two deadly attacks on a South Korean warship and border island last year.

Today, the Hermit Kingdom appears ready to rejoin the talks because it needs Western food aid and more time to put in place a weapons program that will guarantee regime survival.  Besides, this is a perilous time for the regime because its leader, Kim Jong-il, thought to be dying, is preparing the country for the third-generation power transition to his youngest son, Kim Jong-un. 

The U.S. will likely provide aid to incentivize new talks.  This week U.S envoy Robert King is in North Korea to assess the food situation.  Pyongyang appealed to the U.S. for 430,000 tons of food to feed 6 million people allegedly stricken by floods and severe winter weather.

South Korea is skeptical about Pyongyang’s food request, however.  Seoul officials say the North exaggerated its shortages to hoard food in preparation for the 100th anniversary of the birth of its late leader, Kim Il-sung, according to Yonhap, South Korea’s largest news agency.

Eventually, with or without food aid,  Pyongyang is expected to rejoin the six-party talks because it knows that forum provides an opportunity to extract aid for more false promises to denuclearize.   But just as important, North Korea wants to buy time to field survivable mobile atomic-tipped ballistic missile systems that will be hidden deep in caverns, beyond the effective reach of U.S. earth-penetrating munitions.

The Communist regime knows its continued existence depends on those survivable mobile nuclear weapons.  That view was confirmed by A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear weapon, and a WMD proliferator, who wrote last week in Newsweek, “Don’t overlook the fact that no nuclear-capable country has been subjected to aggression or occupied, or had its borders redrawn.  Had Iraq and Libya been nuclear powers, they wouldn’t have been destroyed in the way we have seen recently.”  That line of thought most certainly influences Kim Jong-il’s WMD decisions.

China plays an interesting role regarding North Korea.  It protects the regime by winking at violations of UN sanctions that it promises to back.  But then it walks a self-serving line between helping Pyongyang and protecting its interests by blocking the release of the new UN report.

Beijing fears the UN report, which shows fresh North Korean arms proliferation violations, will lead to more at-sea interdictions by foreign vessels along its periphery.  More foreign vessels such as U.S. warships in the East and South China Seas threaten Beijing’s sovereign claim to that region.

But China paradoxically benefits from Pyongyang’s ongoing proliferation activities, which explains why it helps the rogue.  Allegedly China was the “neighboring third country” cited in the UN report that allowed “trans-shipment” of illicit weapons technology between Iran and North Korea.  Beijing favors this activity because it creates a distraction in the Mideast that keeps the U.S. tied down and out of Asia .

What should be President Obama’s North Korea policy?  Perhaps he should take the advice of his ambassador to South Korea as reported by Yonhap.  Last week Ambassador Kathleen Stephens told the Kwanhun Club, a fraternity of senior Korean journalists, “Without denuclearization, North Korea is on a dead-end road.”

At this time all evidence points to Pyongyang speeding down that “dead-end road.”  It does not appear the regime is willing to abandon its WMD programs, and in fact it is expanding its activities to include proliferating WMDs to virtually anyone with money.

Obama’s policy must be resolute—Pyongyang will stop proliferating and abandon WMD programs, and then we’ll talk.  There will be incentives for compliance, but failing to change course invites what happened to Iraq and Libya.   The U.S. will not tolerate Pyongyang’s developing mobile atomic-tipped ballistic missiles hidden in deep bunkers that would then put the rogue in a position to blackmail the world.

President Obama will deliver a speech on Thursday announcing his new Middle East policy.  It must avoid certain topics and set a clear course on four critical issues.

History-changing Middle East events have unfolded in rapid succession during the last few months.  Uprisings have toppled dictators in Tunisia and Egypt, ignited an ongoing civil war in Libya, and sparked harsh government crackdowns in Syria, Bahrain and Yemen.  The Palestinian Authority’s Fatah organization and its terror partner Hamas have embraced a reconciliation agreement that could lead to statehood, which might seed a new Mideast war.  And two weeks ago, the world’s most wanted terrorist, al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden, was shot dead by American commandos in a raid at a Pakistani compound.

These events are piled atop the winding-down war in Iraq and ongoing fighting in Afghanistan.  At the same time, the atomic weapon-seeking Iran fuels regional tension, using its Revolutionary Guards and terrorist proxy Hezbollah.

No wonder President Obama has decided to revise his Mideast policy, which for two years myopically focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the expense of other boiling issues.  Let’s hope after two tough years, the President appreciates the region’s complexities and the need for a comprehensive, clear-headed new Mideast policy.

In June 2009, Obama traveled to Cairo, Egypt, to pitch his current Mideast policy, which was interpreted by many in the West at the time as pandering to the Muslim world.  This time Obama will introduce his new policy in Washington, and the President should avoid the references to Allah, Islamic theology, and how well Muslims are doing in America that he made in his Cairo speech.

Rather, this speech should focus like a laser on American policies and how they collide or complement our Mideast partners’ views on at least four security issues: the ongoing war against transnational terrorists, the Arab uprisings, Israeli-Palestinian peace, and Iran.

First, President Obama will likely mention the death of bin Laden, linking that killing to his “necessary” war in Afghanistan.  But he should then explain that the terrorist’s death won’t stop transnational threats by illustrating the ongoing terrorist problem with a fresh example.

Last Friday, Taliban fighters attacked a police training center in Charsadda, Pakistan, taking 80 lives.   The attackers claimed to be taking revenge for America’s killing bin Laden, but as the President should say, revenge is an excuse for an operation that was likely already planned.  The terrorists’ real motive is seizing state power, a danger for all peace-loving nations.

America’s policy, Obama should explain, is to partner with all cooperative countries in the long war against Islamic extremists.

Second, the President should praise the populist movements sweeping across the Arab world and commit his support to those leading to more representative governments.  However, he should warn insurgents against encouraging radical Islamist elements such as the Muslim Brotherhood, and he should clarify his inconsistent policy regarding Libya and Syria.

Obama should also warn the Egyptians about treading on dangerous ground by normalizing relations with the terrorist group Hamas and the Islamic Republic of Iran.  Then he should praise them for promising to hold elections this September, but encourage Egyptians to elect only representatives who will promote stability.

Obama must understand that Amr Moussa, probably Egypt’s next president, is a threat to stability.  Moussa told the Wall Street Journal that Egypt obtained nothing from peace with Israel, and then he “described a political landscape in which the Muslim Brotherhood … is dominant.  It is inevitable, he said, that parliamentary elections in September will usher in a legislature led by a bloc of Islamists, with the Brotherhood at the forefront.”

Juxtapose that comment with a report in London’s Financial Times that quotes Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie.  He said that once the Brotherhood is the largest bloc in Egypt’s parliament, it will propose “an end to normalization [with Israel], which has given our enemy stability, an end to [Egyptian] efforts to secure from infiltrators the borders of the Zionists, the abolition of all [joint] economic interests, such as the Qualified Industrial Zones Agreement and the [end to the] export of Egyptian gas to Israel.”

Obama should also outline his policy regarding the crises in Libya and Syria.  He will likely repeat an earlier statement reported by Reuters:  The U.S. “supports protesters’ democratic aspirations, but will take military action only in concert with allies.”

Last week, James Steinberg, deputy secretary of state, testified, “We would not stand by as [Libya’s Muammar] Gaddafi brutalized his own people.”  That’s why the U.S. led a coalition against Gaddafi, Steinberg said.  The President should then explain why America attacked Libya but watched from the sidelines as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad killed 800 and wounded thousands of protesting citizens.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave the administration’s only explanation for the policy inconsistency.  “Nobody believed Gaddafi would do that [reform],” Clinton said.  She then said, “People do believe there is a possible path forward with Syria.”  Thus, Obama’s policy is based on his perception that Assad can kill hundreds because we believe he will reform, and we will kill Gaddafi’s troops via air strikes because we don’t believe he will reform.

Third, last year Obama pushed Israel and the Palestinian Authority into direct peace talks that went nowhere.  Last month, Clinton promised new talks, but then pressure increased for action after the announcement of a reconciliation deal between the mainstream Palestinian Fatah faction and its rival, the Islamist Hamas movement.

The Fatah-Hamas agreement is a front to earn international recognition as a state without first making peace with Israel.  The agreement allows the Palestinian Authority to claim to be the legitimate representative of all Palestinians, because it now rules both the West Bank and Gaza Strip.  That forces Obama to launch new peace talks or face the real prospect of the Palestinians earning the United Nations’ blessing for a Palestinian state in September without recognizing Israel.

The confluence of the Fatah-Hamas agreement, the growing radicalization of Egypt, and Obama’s new Mideast policy prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to request an opportunity to address the U.S. Congress.  He speaks on Capitol Hill next week.

Netanyahu is expected to call on the U.S. to cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority because of its association with Hamas, a State Department-identified terrorist organization.  That association makes it illegal for the U.S. government to continue its association with the Palestinian Authority, and this should torpedo new U.S.-sponsored peace talks.

Obama may call for new peace talks anyway, but the Israelis understand that with Hamas at the table, real peace is not possible.  However, the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation may earn international recognition for Palestinian statehood, which might then spark a new intifada, the latest in an ongoing string of Palestinian uprisings.

Finally, Obama needs to outline a new Iran policy.  Tehran continues to enrich uranium in spite of three rounds of international sanctions.  Its leaders spew deadly threats against the U.S., Israel and others.  It violently oppresses its people, sponsors terrorists and interferes in the internal security of neighbors including Iraq and Afghanistan to target American armed services members.

Clearly Obama’s Iran policy of talk and sanctions has failed.  Tehran is growing stronger every day, which has spurred a Mideast arms race and regional consternation.  What does Obama intend to do to stop the mad mullahs?

President Obama’s speech must present an unambiguous Mideast policy that addresses the aforementioned issues in order to encourage friends such as Israel, put enemies such as Iran on notice, and secure American interests in the region.

The incoming secretary of defense’s mission is to preside over a Pentagon build-down that will be driven by financial, not national security interests.  That view, according to a powerful member of the U.S. House of Representatives, puts the country on “the fast track for decline.”

Last week, Rep. Buck McKeon (R.-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, spoke at The Heritage Foundation to set the stage for a significant budget showdown with Leon Panetta, President Barack Obama’s choice to replace outgoing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

Previously Obama said we can make cuts in national security “while still keeping ourselves safe,” and then proposed a $400 billion defense build-down over 10 years.

But McKeon rejected the President’s proposed cuts, accusing him of flinching “from positions of responsibility as the global order tremors.”  The congressman accepts the need to do some “housekeeping.”  For example, he would end funding for the troubled Medium Extended Air Defense System and instead direct that money toward the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system.

Panetta, 72, the outgoing CIA director, comes to the defense budget showdown fully armed for battle.  Previously he served as director of the White House budget office for President Clinton and on the House budget committee.  His connections on both sides of Capitol Hill (he served in Congress from California for eight terms), remain strong.

Gordon Adams, a professor at American University who once worked for Panetta, told the New York Times that Panetta “knows how to draw a line, he knows how to hang tough, he knows when to concede, and he knows when to close a deal.”  He will need those skills to convince the service chiefs and Republican hawks such as McKeon to accept Obama’s defense cuts.

Panetta takes the Pentagon’s helm after most of the easy cuts were made, however.  Secretary Gates already cut 30 weapons programs and forced the armed services to find $78 billion in efficiencies.  But Obama’s new round of cuts, warns Gates, will lead to real reductions in “force structure and military capability.”

That makes Panetta’s task a tightrope walk between a boss looking for deep cuts and a skeptical and hawkish Republican House during a time of war.  That is why it would be understandable if Panetta tried to take the easy political path—slash service budgets a fixed percent or mandate reduced force structures, and gut recapitalization no matter the consequences.

Fortunately, Obama gave Panetta time to review the cutting options, and let’s hope he uses it wisely.  “We need to not only eliminate waste and improve efficiency and effectiveness,” Obama said, “but conduct a fundamental review of America’s missions, capabilities, and our role in a changing world.”  The President promised to make specific decisions after the review is complete.

Panetta’s review should include suggestions this column identified two weeks ago, along with radical adjustments to critical processes and a realignment of the tooth-to-tail imbalance in order to “eliminate waste and improve efficiency and effectiveness.”  These suggestions promise significant and long-term savings.

First, two weeks ago this column called for a 21st century military transformation act targeting service efficiencies by collapsing functional capabilities.  It recommended a parallel—Pentagon and congressional—review process for defense roles and missions in order to balance military capabilities and the defense budget.  And it called for a new base realignment and closure round focused on reducing excess capacity without up-front costs.  These goals remain valid but don’t go far enough.

Second, Pentagon budget, accounting, and acquisition processes need reform.

Secretary Gates outlined the Pentagon’s budget problem.  “Budgets are divvied up and doled out every year as a straight-line projection of what was spent the year before,” Gates told an audience at the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kan., in 2010.  He  went on to explain that “very rarely is the activity funded in these areas ever fundamentally reexamined.  That needs to change.”

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld targeted the Pentagon budgeting process for reform as well.  The Pentagon’s 40-year-old planning, programming, and budgeting system, or PPBS, is “a relic of the Cold War” and “one of the last vestiges of central planning on Earth,” Rumsfeld told a Pentagon audience in 2001.  He called for a streamlined process that is quicker, cheaper, and more flexible, but only limited reform has taken place over the past decade.

The Pentagon’s budgeting process is complicated by broken bookkeeping and financial management processes.  The Government Accountability Office (GAO) testified that the Pentagon’s accounting and financial management systems are problem-plagued and have never been completely audited.  This costs the taxpayers many billions each year due to waste, fraud, and abuse, according to a 2009 GAO report.  Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.) said, “We owe it to our men and women in uniform and the American taxpayer to fix the Pentagon’s broken bookkeeping without further delay.”

Secretary Gates called for major acquisition reform too.  “Major weapons programs devolve into pursuing the limits of what technology will bear without regard to cost or what a real-world enemy can do,” Gates said.  He said the process leads to $20 million howitzers and $2 billion bombers, which means we can afford far fewer weapons than we need due to the scores of billions spent for research and development that will never, ever reach production.

Finally, the Pentagon needs to rebalance its tooth-to-tail ratio by retooling its bloated bureaucracy through eliminating redundancies and roles and missions that contribute little to real defense.

The military bureaucracy begs for scrutiny.  Gates said that by comparison, the private sector has flattened and streamlined its middle and upper echelons.  But the Pentagon continues to maintain a top-heavy multilayered hierarchy that eschews 21st century realities.  For example, Gates said that the gap between him and a line officer may be as high as 30 layers.

Rumsfeld indicated that successful modern businesses are leaner and less hierarchical, and therefore more nimble in the face of change.  “Business enterprises die if they fail to adapt, and the fact that they can fail and die is what provides the incentive to survive,” Rumsfeld said.  President Ronald Reagan quipped that government programs are the closest thing to eternal life on this Earth.

One way to curb the bloated bureaucracy in the Defense Department is to reduce the number of generals, admirals, civilians, and political appointees who drive up operating costs because of extra staff and amenities. 

The top-rank-heavy services have unnecessary staff duplications too.  The services use separate but parallel staffs for their civilian and uniformed chiefs.  These staffs work with the same issues and perform the same functions.

Redundant staffs and functions are common across the department.  There are dozens of offices of general counsel, public affairs, and legislative affairs.  Each service has a surgeon general, and there are three exchange systems and a separate commissary system.

The tooth-to-tail problem is also evident in combat organizations.  The Army is structured around brigade combat teams, which begs the question of why the service needs so many division and corps headquarters.   

The 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Reorganization Act created joint forces commands to bring all service components under one oversight roof.  Last year Gates announced his intention to close the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., and distribute half its capabilities to other commands.  Additional closures and consolidations are warranted.

Panetta comes to the Pentagon to build down national security, but let’s hope not by putting it on the “fast track for decline,” as McKeon fears.  The nation cannot continue to spend close to $160 billion a year for wars, however it seems that most of the cuts must be crafted out of the baseline budget while ignoring the fact that the Bush-Obama buildup in defense was unlike any that came before.  If political expediency rules and the same budget cuts of the past become reality—it could be disastrous for the nation.

The takedown of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani military town near that nation’s capital illustrates just how far U.S.-Pakistani relations have deteriorated.  It is time for America to recalibrate its relationship with Pakistan, which has significant implications for our success in Afghanistan.

Sunday, a U.S. Navy SEAL team acted on confirmed intelligence to covertly move on a fortress-like mansion in Abbottabad, Pakistan, to end an almost 10-year effort to capture or kill the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks on America.  It took so long to bring bin Laden to justice because our so-called ally Pakistan hasn’t been sufficiently cooperative due to divergent interests in the strategically important Afghanistan War.

Pakistan wants to be the dominant player in a future Afghanistan to avoid having to defend both its eastern and western borders if India and Afghanistan become too close.  That explains Islamabad’s efforts to shape the Afghanistan endgame by pushing back—not cooperating—with Obama’s war strategy, such as by helping bring bin Laden to justice.

Last year Obama announced a strategy that surged 30,000 fresh troops into population centers to force out insurgents, establish governance, and train Afghan security forces.  The President promised to begin withdrawing troops this summer and turn over all security to a fully ready Kabul by 2014.

On top of his self-imposed time line, the President is also under pre-election pressure to show strategic success in the war—which has flagging support.  A recent Washington Post-ABC News survey found for the first time more Americans disapprove (49%) of Obama’s management of the war than approve (44%).

Obama admits, “Pakistan is central to our efforts to defeat al-Qaeda,” but that relationship has soured, undermining his strategy—the lack of cooperation regarding bin Laden illustrates the point.

That is why in part Obama recruited Army Gen. David Petraeus, commander in Afghanistan , to become director of the Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ), the government’s primary agent engaging Pakistan.  Obama expects Petraeus, who rescued the war in Iraq and is reversing the trends in Afghanistan, to perform the same magic with the Pakistanis.  But Petraeus must first solve four daunting problems to win Pakistan’s cooperation if Obama’s strategy is to be salvaged.

First, Pakistan must stop supporting our enemy.  It is unbelievable Pakistani intelligence officials didn’t know about the location of bin Laden.  Likely, they played us for fools all these years to milk us for aid money.  Interestingly, that lack of cooperation was coming to a head even before the bin Laden operation.

Last week, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said while in Islamabad that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI) shelters fighters from the Haqqani network, a Taliban ally that has served as a Pakistani proxy.

Mullen said the ISI-Haqqani relationship was “at the core” of difficulties between the governments.  “It is the Haqqani network which is killing Americans across the border,” Mullen said.

The ISI’s substantial ties to the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and other right-wing Islamic extremists are common knowledge.  Last week, U.S. military documents obtained by WikiLeaks and reported by the New York Times identified the ISI along with numerous militant groups as allies of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Second, Pakistan must aggressively pursue al-Qaeda and the Taliban within its borders and deny them sanctuary.  Bin Laden left Afghanistan from his Tora Bora mountain hideout in late 2001 and has been hiding in that country.  It is hard to believe the ISI, which has enjoyed a long-term relationship with al-Qaeda, didn’t know his whereabouts.  But then again, Pakistan’s lack of aggressiveness against these enemies is an ongoing problem.

Last month the Obama administration reported to Congress that Pakistan lacks a “clear path toward defeating” the Islamic insurgency inside the country’s tribal region.  It noted Pakistani security forces repeatedly failed to keep militants from returning to areas cleared of the al-Qaeda-linked fighters.

Pakistan’s army has conducted several campaigns to suppress Taliban groups since 2001.  However, according to the administration’s quarterly report to Congress, the Pakistani army launched a major operation this January but “was failing for the third time in two years” to clear militants from Mohmand, one of the seven autonomous agencies comprising Pakistan’s tribal region, which borders Afghanistan.  The report states this is “a clear indicator of the inability of the Pakistani military and government to render cleared areas resistant to insurgent return.”

Third, Pakistan must support a full range of American covert actions.  U.S. counterterrorism strategy in Afghanistan relies on covert operations in Pakistan:  Agents monitor extremist groups planning actions in Afghanistan and American drones attack Taliban safe havens in northwest Pakistan.

Details regarding the bin Laden takedown will demonstrate whether Pakistan cooperated.  But the ongoing bitter dispute over covert CIA activities and drone attacks inside Pakistan is not in doubt and may explain why it took almost 10 years to get bin Laden.

Tensions over CIA activities peaked earlier this year when Pakistan arrested a CIA contractor after a shooting incident involving ISI agents.  That affair followed the withdrawal last December of the CIA station chief in Pakistan after his name was published by local media.

London’s Guardian reported in April that Pakistan has moved to expel hundreds of U.S. personnel, many believed to work for the CIA , by not renewing their visas.

Pakistani officials are also incensed by CIA drone attacks.  They complain the U.S. has stopped sharing intelligence on how it selects targets, according to the New York Times.  Islamabad claims it needs the information to eliminate collateral damage, but U.S. officials suspect the ISI is warning would-be targets.

Gen. Petraeus will have a difficult task repairing the ISI-CIA relationship.  “In its current form, the relationship is almost unworkable,” Dennis Blair, a former American director of national intelligence, told the New York Times.  “There has to be a major restructuring.  The ISI jams the CIA all it wants and pays no penalties.”

Finally, Pakistani officials must stop undermining America by pressuring Afghan officials.  The Wall Street Journal reported that Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani urged Afghan President Hamid Karzai to look to Pakistan and China for help instead of partnering with the U.S.

The Journal reported that Gillani made the statement during an April 16 meeting in Kabul with Karzai.  Gillani allegedly told Karzai the U.S. had failed Afghanistan and Pakistan, and that Karzai should not allow a long-term U.S. military presence in the country.  An Afghan official told the Journal, “There was a mention of China in the meeting, China as a country, as an emerging economic power, and that maybe we should reach out to a new global economic power.”

Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, a onetime Afghan presidential candidate and former foreign minister, told the Journal he had some knowledge of what was discussed at the Gillani-Karzai meeting.  “They said that the goals of the United States are confusing and uncertain, the American force is not reliable, and their power is not a reliable power,” Abdullah said.

Abdullah said Pakistan’s perspective on the U.S. is increasingly negative.  He opined, “One of the schools of thought in the Pakistani establishment is that the U.S. presence in Afghanistan is not for the stabilization of Afghanistan, but is for seizing Pakistan’s nuclear assets in due time.”

Solving these problems will be complicated for Gen. Petraeus, especially because Pakistani military leaders—the real power brokers in Islamabad—do not regard Petraeus as a friend.  Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Pakistan’s army chief of staff, called Petraeus a political general, and has made little secret of his distaste for the man, according to the New York Times.

Petraeus’ chances of solving these problems are limited given Obama’s time line for withdrawal, America’s growing impatience with the war, and Islamabad’s compelling strategic interests to dominate Afghanistan’s end state.  Even a surge in aid on top of $18 billion already shoveled at Islamabad is unlikely to “force” Pakistan to reverse course.

America’s long-delayed operation to kill bin Laden illustrates the consequences of an uncooperative Pakistan.  Islamabad ’s same lack of cooperation is glaringly evident in the Afghanistan war.  Clearly, it is time America recalibrated its relationship with Pakistan and rethinks its Afghan strategy.

For three months, the Arab world has been awash in protests and demonstrations. It’s being called an Arab Spring, harking back to the Prague Spring of 1968.

But comparison to the short-lived flowering of protests 40 years ago in Czechoslovakia is turning out to be apt in another way. For all the attention the Mideast protests have received, their most notable impact on the region thus far hasn’t been an upswell of democracy. It has been a dramatic spike in tensions between two geopolitical titans, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

This new Middle East cold war comes complete with its own spy-versus-spy intrigues, disinformation campaigns, shadowy proxy forces, supercharged state rhetoric—and very high stakes.

“The cold war is a reality,” says one senior Saudi official. “Iran is looking to expand its influence. This instability over the last few months means that we don’t have the luxury of sitting back and watching events unfold.”

On March 14, the Saudis rolled tanks and troops across a causeway into the island kingdom of Bahrain. The ruling family there, long a close Saudi ally, appealed for assistance in dealing with increasingly large protests.

Iran soon rattled its own sabers. Iranian parliamentarian Ruhollah Hosseinian urged the Islamic Republic to put its military forces on high alert, reported the website for Press TV, the state-run English-language news agency. “I believe that the Iranian government should not be reluctant to prepare the country’s military forces at a time that Saudi Arabia has dispatched its troops to Bahrain,” he was quoted as saying.

The intensified wrangling across the Persian—or, as the Saudis insist, the Arabian—Gulf has strained relations between the U.S. and important Arab allies, helped to push oil prices into triple digits and tempered U.S. support for some of the popular democracy movements in the Arab world. Indeed, the first casualty of the Gulf showdown has been two of the liveliest democracy movements in countries right on the fault line, Bahrain and the turbulent frontier state of Yemen.

But many worry that the toll could wind up much worse if tensions continue to ratchet upward. They see a heightened possibility of actual military conflict in the Gulf, where one-fifth of the world’s oil supplies traverse the shipping lanes between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Growing hostility between the two countries could make it more difficult for the U.S. to exit smoothly from Iraq this year, as planned. And, perhaps most dire, it could exacerbate what many fear is a looming nuclear arms race in the region.

Iran has long pursued a nuclear program that it insists is solely for the peaceful purpose of generating power, but which the U.S. and Saudi Arabia believe is really aimed at producing a nuclear weapon. At a recent security conference, Prince Turki al Faisal, a former head of the Saudi intelligence service and ambassador to the U.K. and the U.S., pointedly suggested that if Iran were to develop a weapon, Saudi Arabia might well feel pressure to develop one of its own.

The Saudis currently rely on the U.S. nuclear umbrella and on antimissile defense systems deployed throughout the Persian Gulf region. The defense systems are intended to intercept Iranian ballistic missiles that could be used to deliver nuclear warheads. Yet even Saudis who virulently hate Iran have a hard time believing that the Islamic Republic would launch a nuclear attack against the birthplace of their prophet and their religion. The Iranian leadership says it has renounced the use of nuclear weapons.

How a string of hopeful popular protests has brought about a showdown of regional superpowers is a tale as convoluted as the alliances and history of the region. It shows how easily the old Middle East, marked by sectarian divides and ingrained rivalries, can re-emerge and stop change in its tracks.

There has long been bad blood between the Saudis and Iran. Saudi Arabia is a Sunni Muslim kingdom of ethnic Arabs, Iran a Shiite Islamic republic populated by ethnic Persians. Shiites first broke with Sunnis over the line of succession after the death of the Prophet Mohammed in the year 632; Sunnis have regarded them as a heretical sect ever since. Arabs and Persians, along with many others, have vied for the land and resources of the Middle East for almost as long.

These days, geopolitics also plays a role. The two sides have assembled loosely allied camps. Iran holds in its sway Syria and the militant Arab groups Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories; in the Saudi sphere are the Sunni Muslim-led Gulf monarchies, Egypt, Morocco and the other main Palestinian faction, Fatah. The Saudi camp is pro-Western and leans toward tolerating the state of Israel. The Iranian grouping thrives on its reputation in the region as a scrappy “resistance” camp, defiantly opposed to the West and Israel.

For decades, the two sides have carried out a complicated game of moves and countermoves. With few exceptions, both prefer to work through proxy politicians and covertly funded militias, as they famously did during the long Lebanese civil war in the late 1970s and 1980s, when Iran helped to hatch Hezbollah among the Shiites while the Saudis backed Sunni militias.

But the maneuvering extends far beyond the well-worn battleground of Lebanon. Two years ago, the Saudis discovered Iranian efforts to spread Shiite doctrine in Morocco and to use some mosques in the country as a base for similar efforts in sub-Saharan Africa. After Saudi emissaries delivered this information to King Mohammed VI, Morocco angrily severed diplomatic relations with Iran, according to Saudi officials and cables obtained by the organization WikiLeaks.

As far away as Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, the Saudis have watched warily as Iranian clerics have expanded their activities—and they have responded with large-scale religious programs of their own there.

The 1979 Iranian revolution was a major eruption that still looms large in the psyches of both nations. It explicitly married Shiite religious zeal with historic Persian ambitions and also played on sharply anti-Western sentiments in the region.

Iran’s clerical regime worked to spread the revolution across the Middle East; Saudi Arabia and its allies worried that it would succeed. For a time it looked like it might. There were large demonstrations and purported antigovernment plots in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, which has a large population of Shiite Muslim Arabs, and in Bahrain, where Shiites are a distinct majority and Iran had claimed sovereignty as recently as 1970.

The protests that began this past January in Tunisia had nothing to do with any of this. They started when a struggling street vendor in that country’s desolate heartland publicly set himself on fire after a local officer cited his cart for a municipal violation. His frustration, multiplied hundreds of thousands times, boiled over in a month of demonstrations against Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. To the amazement of the Arab world, Mr. Ben Ali fled the country when the military declined to back him by brutally putting down the demonstrations.

Spurred on by televised images and YouTube videos from Tunisia, protests broke out across much of the rest of the Arab world. Within weeks, millions were on the streets in Egypt and Hosni Mubarak was gone, shown the door in part by his longtime backer, the U.S. government. The Obama administration was captivated by this spontaneous outbreak of democratic demands and at first welcomed it with few reservations.

In Riyadh, Saudi officials watched with alarm. They became furious when the Obama administration betrayed, to Saudi thinking, a longtime ally in Mr. Mubarak and urged him to step down in the face of the street demonstrations.

The Egyptian leader represented a key bulwark in what Riyadh perceives as a great Sunni wall standing against an expansionist Iran. One part of that barrier had already crumbled in 2003 when the U.S. invasion of Iraq toppled Saddam Hussein. Losing Mr. Mubarak means that the Saudis now see themselves as the last Sunni giant left in the region.

The Saudis were further agitated when the protests crept closer to their own borders. In Yemen, on their southern flank, young protesters were suddenly rallying thousands, and then tens of thousands, of their fellow citizens to demand the ouster of the regime, led by President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his family for 43 years.

Meanwhile, across a narrow expanse of water on Saudi Arabia’s northeast border, protesters in Bahrain rallied in the hundreds of thousands around a central roundabout in Manama. Most Bahraini demonstrators were Shiites with a long list of grievances over widespread economic and political discrimination. But some Sunnis also participated, demanding more say in a government dominated by the Al-Khalifa family since the 18th century.

Protesters deny that their goals had anything to do with gaining sectarian advantage. Independent observers, including the U.S. government, saw no sign that the protests were anything but homegrown movements arising from local problems. During a visit to Bahrain, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates urged the government to adopt genuine political and social reform.

But to the Saudis, the rising disorder on their borders fit a pattern of Iranian meddling. A year earlier, they were convinced that Iran was stoking a rebellion in Yemen’s north among a Shiite-dominated rebel group known as the Houthis. Few outside observers saw extensive ties between Iran and the Houthis. But the Saudis nonetheless viewed the nationwide Yemeni protests in that context.

In Bahrain, where many Shiites openly nurture cultural and religious ties to Iran, the Saudis saw the case as even more open-and-shut. To their ears, these suspicions were confirmed when many Bahraini protesters moved beyond demands for greater political and economic participation and began demanding a constitutional monarchy or even the outright ouster of the Al-Khalifa family. Many protesters saw these as reasonable responses to years of empty promises to give the majority Shiites a real share of power—and to the vicious government crackdown that had killed seven demonstrators to that point.

But to the Saudis, not to mention Bahrain’s ruling family, even the occasional appearance of posters of Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah amid crowds of Shiite protesters pumping their fists and chanting demands for regime change was too much. They saw how Iran’s influence has grown in Shiite-majority Iraq, along their northern border, and they were not prepared to let that happen again.

As for the U.S., the Saudis saw calls for reform as another in a string of disappointments and outright betrayals. Back in 2002, the U.S. had declined to get behind an offer from King Abdullah (then Crown Prince) to rally widespread Arab recognition for Israel in exchange for Israel’s acceptance of borders that existed before the 1967 Six Day War—a potentially historic deal, as far as the Saudis were concerned. And earlier this year, President Obama declined a personal appeal from the king to withhold the U.S. veto at the United Nations from a resolution condemning continued Israeli settlement building in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The Saudis believe that solving the issue of Palestinian statehood will deny Iran a key pillar in its regional expansionist strategy—and thus bring a win for the forces of Sunni moderation that Riyadh wants to lead.

Iran, too, was starting to see a compelling case for action as one Western-backed regime after another appeared to be on the ropes. It ramped up its rhetoric and began using state media and the regional Arab-language satellite channels it supports to depict the pro-democracy uprisings as latter-day manifestations of its own revolution in 1979. “Today the events in the North of Africa, Egypt, Tunisia and certain other countries have another sense for the Iranian nation.… This is the same as ‘Islamic Awakening,’ which is the result of the victory of the big revolution of the Iranian nation,” said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran also broadcast speeches by Hezbollah’s leader into Bahrain, cheering the protesters on. Bahraini officials say that Iran went further, providing money and even some weapons to some of the more extreme opposition members. Protest leaders vehemently deny any operational or political links to Iran, and foreign diplomats in Bahrain say that they have seen little evidence of it.

March 14 was the critical turning point. At the invitation of Bahrain, Saudi armed vehicles and tanks poured across the causeway that separates the two countries. They came representing a special contingent under the aegis of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a league of Sunni-led Gulf states, but the Saudis were the major driver. The Saudis publicly announced that 1,000 troops had entered Bahrain, but privately they concede that the actual number is considerably higher.

If both Iran and Saudi Arabia see themselves responding to external threats and opportunities, some analysts, diplomats and democracy advocates see a more complicated picture. They say that the ramping up of regional tensions has another source: fear of democracy itself.

Long before protests ousted rulers in the Arab world, Iran battled massive street protests of its own for more than two years. It managed to control them, and their calls for more representative government or outright regime change, with massive, often deadly, force. Yet even as the government spun the Arab protests as Iranian inspired, Iran’s Green Revolution opposition movement managed to use them to boost their own fortunes, staging several of their best-attended rallies in more than a year.

Saudi Arabia has kept a wary eye on its own population of Shiites, who live in the oil-rich Eastern Province directly across the water from Bahrain. Despite a small but energetic activist community, Saudi Arabia has largely avoided protests during the Arab Spring, something that the leadership credits to the popularity and conciliatory efforts of King Abdullah. But there were a smattering of small protests and a few clashes with security services in the Eastern Province.

The regional troubles have come at a tricky moment domestically for Saudi Arabia. King Abdullah, thought to be 86 years old, was hospitalized in New York, receiving treatment for a back injury, when the Arab protests began. The Crown Prince, Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, is only slightly younger and is already thought to be too infirm to become king. Third in line, Prince Nayaf bin Abdul Aziz, is around 76 years old.

Viewing any move toward more democracy at home—at least on anyone’s terms but their own—as a threat to their regimes, the regional superpowers have changed the discussion, observers say. The same goes, they say, for the Bahraini government. “The problem is a political one, but sectarianism is a winning card for them,” says Jasim Husain, a senior member of the Wefaq Shiite opposition party in Bahrain.

Since March 14, the regional cold war has escalated. Kuwait expelled several Iranian diplomats after it discovered and dismantled, it says, an Iranian spy cell that was casing critical infrastructure and U.S. military installations. Iran and Saudi Arabia are, uncharacteristically and to some observers alarmingly, tossing direct threats at each other across the Gulf. The Saudis, who recently negotiated a $60 billion arms deal with the U.S. (the largest in American history), say that later this year they will increase the size of their armed forces and National Guard.

And recently the U.S. has joined in warning Iran after a trip to the region by Defense Secretary Gates to patch up strained relations with Arab monarchies, especially Saudi Arabia. Minutes after meeting with King Abdullah, Mr. Gates told reporters that he had seen “evidence” of Iranian interference in Bahrain. That was followed by reports from U.S. officials that Iranian leaders were exploring ways to support Bahraini and Yemeni opposition parties, based on communications intercepted by U.S. spy agencies.

Saudi officials say that despite the current friction in the U.S.-Saudi relationship, they won’t break out of the traditional security arrangement with Washington, which is based on the understanding that the kingdom works to stabilize global oil prices while the White House protects the ruling family’s dynasty. Washington has pulled back from blanket support for democracy efforts in the region. That has bruised America’s credibility on democracy and reform, but it has helped to shore up the relationship with Riyadh.

The deployment into Bahrain was also the beginning of what Saudi officials describe as their efforts to directly parry Iran. While Saudi troops guard critical oil and security facilities in their neighbor’s land, the Bahraini government has launched a sweeping and often brutal crackdown on demonstrators.

It forced out the editor of the country’s only independent newspaper. More than 400 demonstrators have been arrested without charges, many in violent night raids on Shiite villages. Four have died in custody, according to human-rights groups. Three members of the national soccer team, all Shiites, have also been arrested. As many as 1,000 demonstrators who missed work during the protests have been fired from state companies.

In Shiite villages such as Saar, where a 14-year-old boy was killed by police and a 56-year-old man disappeared overnight and showed up dead the next morning, protests have continued sporadically. But in the financial district and areas where Sunni Muslims predominate, the demonstrations have ended.

In Yemen, the Saudis, also working under a Gulf Cooperation Council umbrella, have taken control of the political negotiations to transfer power out of the hands of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, according to two Saudi officials.

“We stayed out of the process for a while, but now we have to intervene,” said one official. “It’s that, or watch our southern flank disintegrate into chaos.”

Corrections & Amplifications

King Mohammed VI is the ruler of Morocco. An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the ruler was Hassan II.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) performance in Libya provides yet another reason why America should quit the 61-year-old collective defense alliance.

Two weeks ago, America relinquished the lead role in Operation Odyssey Dawn to NATO.  The U.S., which led the operation’s initial decapitation phase to protect the Libyan people against systematic attacks, has more pressing priorities in East Asia and the Middle East.  Besides, Libya is a European concern, not an American problem.

NATO’s performance hasn’t been impressive.  The alliance’s mission conduct is marked by incompatible goals and political and operational infighting, and most members are too stingy with their militaries.  The unintended consequence is to encourage Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who is playing NATO’s fecklessness for a stalemate.

U.S. Adm. James Stavridis, the senior NATO military commander, said the alliance needs to increase its arsenal of sophisticated aircraft capable of launching precise attacks.  Only 14 of the alliance’s 28 members are actively participating in the operation, and just six of those are striking targets on the ground in Libya.  Meanwhile, the U.S. supports the operation with 46 aircraft for command-and-control, electronic warfare, and refueling missions, which accounts for half of the operation’s overall costs.

NATO’s lackluster performance in Libya demonstrates that the alliance has outlived its usefulness.  Consider five more reasons America should quit the alliance.

First, America pays disproportionately for Europe’s security, while the Europeans are on a defense-spending holiday.  The U.S. contributes 25% of NATO’s operating budget and spends more than twice the percentage of its gross domestic product on defense [4.7%], compared with all but one of its NATO partners [Greece at 4%].  Economic powers France and Germany do not reach NATO’s 2% threshold for security spending.

The majority of NATO-related expenses are incurred by members from the deployment of their armed forces.  Not surprisingly, the U.S. leads NATO deployment expenditures because it has the largest and only expeditionary force.

NATO also relies on America’s strategic umbrella—its nuclear arsenal with help from Great Britain and France.  But NATO partners such as Germany pay nothing for this strategic umbrella.  In fact, Berlin doesn’t even intend to invest in new aircraft that have the capability to deliver atomic weapons, a change from the Cold War era.

Second, the lack of defense investment results in ill-prepared NATO militaries.  Most NATO forces lack sufficient helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles for operations in Afghanistan, and few European troops are equipped and trained for modern warfare.  Only a couple European partners have an expeditionary capability to deploy even 30% of their forces, and only Great Britain approaches true combat interoperability with U.S. forces.   Interoperability is critical to coalition operations.

Third, NATO is irrelevant when dealing with modern security threats.  The alliance lacks fundamental technologies for fighting terrorism, rebuilding failed states, and fighting counterinsurgencies.  These deficiencies are significant given that Europe’s backyard is becoming a less predictable and a more perilous place conducive to asymmetric threats, rogue states with weapons of mass destruction such as Iran, threats to global supply lines, and cyber attacks on critical infrastructure.

Fourth, NATO is not a promising global partner.  NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen doesn’t intend for the alliance to become a tool of America’s global role, which raises the question of its relevance for America’s long-term security interests.

Afghanistan has become a crucible for the alliance’s global partnering, and this isn’t working out.  America had to drag NATO into the Afghanistan war, which exposed the alliance’s “two-tiered” nature, according to U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates.  The secretary said, “You have some allies willing to fight and die to protect people’s security, and others who are not.  It puts a cloud over the future of the alliance if this is to endure and perhaps get even worse.”

Specifically, Gates is frustrated with NATO’s reluctance to put forces in harm’s way in Afghanistan.  Most of the NATO nations contributing troops impose caveats that dictate strict rules of engagement, which severely limits their usefulness.  That puts a heavy burden on the few nations such as the U.S. willing to fight.

Finally, Europe is no longer key to American security because the Soviet Union, our Cold War nemesis, is gone, and in its place is the Russian Federation, which poses far less of a strategic threat.  That is why the U.S. is shifting its resources from Europe to the Middle East and Asia.  Therefore a European-based alliance with no interest in other regions has a diminishing interest for Washington .

Last week, Gates warned that the U.S. military would have to scale back its overseas commitments and shrink to meet President Barack Obama’s proposed defense cuts.  That is why America’s remaining European-based forces and investments in NATO’s budget and operations should be high on Gates’ list of potential defense cuts.

These issues justify Washington’s reconsideration of our NATO membership.  If NATO does not transform into a multilateral security alliance that addresses 21st century challenges with a global expeditionary capability, the U.S. should quit.

Elizabeth Sherwood Randall, director for European affairs at the U.S. National Security Council, suggests NATO needs to reform to be remain relevant.  She said, “While allied leaders haggle over commitments to the fight in Afghanistan [and elsewhere], NATO needs to keep its eyes on the strategic prize: an alliance that can thrive in an increasingly messy world.”

The best way for NATO to thrive in this “messy world” is to become a multilateral alliance with a portfolio that includes missile defense against Iran, cyber security, nation-building in failed states, and much more.  Alternatively, the U.S. should invest in partners willing to play a global role, and develop these partnerships with countries such as India, Brazil, and Australia, and the few Europeans with credible military capabilities and global willingness.

NATO either develops a credible 21st century global capability and the willingness to fight for mutual security interests, or the U.S. should prioritize Europe below other regions by quitting NATO and investing our dwindling defense dollars in willing partners.

America must keep some forces in Iraq past the December 2011 deadline or face potentially serious consequences.

Last week, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates visited Baghdad to offer the Iraqis the option of extending the deadline for withdrawing the remaining 47,000 American troops.  Not accepting that offer has serious implications for Iraq and the region.

A continued, albeit smaller, American presence in Iraq is needed past the deadline to complete Iraq’s security preparedness, deter Iran’s hegemonic activities, and provide a stabilizing influence to the wobbly oil-rich region.  

But there are reasons our troops may withdraw on schedule in spite of the aforementioned challenges. 

Iraq is a sovereign nation that may decide it no longer wants American troops because of public pressure and politics. 

Last Friday, thousands of Iraqis called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops in an anti-American rally in Baghdad.  That demonstration and others across the country marked the eighth anniversary of Saddam Hussein’s fall, and more protests are expected as the deadline nears.

The political debate over whether to delay the U.S. troop withdrawal is as lively as the street protests.  Ali al-Dabbagh, an Iraqi government spokesman, told Xinhau News that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki informed Gates during their meeting last week that Iraq does not want U.S. troops past the 2011 deadline. 

Maliki may really want American troops to extend their stay, but he is hemmed in by a bloc of politicians loyal to the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who helped the prime minister secure a second term.  Ali al-Musawi, the prime minister’s media adviser, told Al Hayat online, “The security agreement cannot be extended without the acceptance of all the Iraqi political forces.”  

Some political blocs support an extension, while others, such as al-Sadr and the al-Ahrar Party bloc, oppose it.  Abd-al-Hadi al-Hassani, a member of the State of Law coalition, told AKnews, “The Iraqi government is likely to submit a request to the administration [that] the U.S. Army keep part of its forces in Iraq for training purposes. …”

The bottom line is that no one knows whether Maliki will muster support to ask for an extension, but it may not matter anyway.

President Barack Obama may withdraw the offer before the Iraqis make up their minds.  An extension is politically risky for Obama, who promised to bring an end to America’s involvement in Iraq.  That promise, coupled with dwindling popular support for our troops in Iraq and budgetary pressures in Washington, make any extension politically problematic for Obama, who just launched his uphill reelection campaign.

But before either leader decides this issue, he should consider two reasons to extend America’s armed presence in Iraq .

First, American forces are needed to guarantee Iraq’s security during a politically volatile period, to fill remaining security voids, and to complete security training. 

Iraq continues to face serious security challenges, in part because of the unsettled political situation.  Specifically, Baghdad still does not have defense or interior ministers more than a year after parliamentary elections and four months after the government formed. 

These ministries link daily operational information to the nation’s security strategy.   Critical decisions and long-term plans are waiting for the new leaders.  But in the meantime, American forces are the “glue holding Iraq together through a rocky period,” according to U.S. Ambassador Jim Jeffrey.

In addition, Gen. Lloyd Austin, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq , said Iraq has serious military shortfalls, such as an inability to defend its skies, and will lose radar and intelligence capabilities when America leaves. 

Iraqi army chief of staff Gen. Babakir Zebari agrees with Austin’s assessment.  Zebari said on Radio Nawa on March 27 that his forces are prepared “to deal with any emergency in the cities,” but “the biggest weakness in the makeup of the Iraqi army lies in the air force.”  Prime Minister Maliki tried to address Iraq’s air force shortfall with the purchase of 18 American F-16 fighters, but public protests put that deal on hold. 

Gen. Austin agrees that the Iraqi ground forces are well-trained, but he thinks Iraq needs a U.S. military presence to continue training those forces on modern equipment past 2011.  Iraq is purchasing sophisticated American tanks and howitzers, Austin explained, and its soldiers need tutored training or they will have to learn to use these complicated systems without American assistance.

Second, American forces are needed to deter Iran’s meddling in Iraq, and especially throughout the Persian Gulf.  Specifically, our forces must back up Iraqi forces against Iranian interference, and the presence of our troops is needed to reassure our jittery Arab allies against Iran’s Islamist influence.

Iran enjoys a significant covert presence inside Iraq.  Its Shiite militia have infiltrated the Iraqi security forces and it has armed extremist groups that attack both American and Iraqi forces.  It is also politically influential with Baghdad’s government through proxies such as Iranian-educated cleric al-Sadr.

Tehran ignores Iraq’s territorial sovereignty and will become more assertive once the U.S. leaves.  Last week, Iran shelled the Free Life for Kurdistan, a rebel group, inside northern Iraq.  Iranian forces have violated Iraq’s territorial sovereignty untold times during the past decade.      

Just as Iran takes advantage of Iraq’s security and political instability, it is taking advantage of the regional uprisings to destabilize its Sunni Arab rivals.  Secretary Gates noted Iran’s region-wide meddling during his recent visit.  The U.S. has “evidence that the Iranians are trying to exploit the situation in Bahrain,” Gates told the Wall Street Journal.  He continued, “We also have evidence that they are talking about what they can do to try and create problems elsewhere as well.”  Iran ’s meddling is predictable.

Exporting the Islamic revolution is “the primary goal” of the Islamic Republic, according to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the revolution’s founder.  Meddling is really what Iranian former President Mohammad Khatami says the regime must do to persuade other Muslim nations to take the path of Islamic revolution.  Otherwise, Tehran faces the ideological danger posed by the emergence of Western-style democracies, such as in Iraq.

Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, accused Iran of meddling—“‘conspiring to destabilize the Gulf States by smuggling guns and saboteurs,” according to the New York Post.  He is especially concerned about reports of Iranian proxies such as Hezbollah entering Bahrain via Iran in order to attack security forces.  Saudi Arabia, which came to Bahrain’s defense, accuses Tehran of hegemonic ambitions—seeking to create a “Shiite crescent” spanning from Iran to the Mediterranean Sea and encompassing Iraq, Bahrain, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Gaza, and eastern Saudi Arabia.  Iran’s actions will not be easily contained.

Extending our troop commitment to Baghdad, even with a smaller force, ensures Iraq has every chance to succeed.  And those troops will provide the added benefit of reassuring nervous oil-rich Gulf allies who must quickly resolve their domestic unrest while the region works together on a long-term solution to Tehran’s hegemonic interference.

By: -Col. Bob Maginnis

Red Alert: China is sending misleading messages about its massive military buildup.

Last week China’s Communist regime published the every-second-year edition of its defense white paper, “China’s National Defense in 2010,” which claims to promote transparency in its defense planning and deepen international trust, and asserts that its security policy is defensive in nature. But the paper’s messages are not supported by the facts.

Consider five of the many misleading messages embedded in the 30-page defense white paper.

First, “China attaches great importance to military transparency,” the paper claims. The Pentagon takes issue with that view in a report, stating, “The limited transparency in China’s military and security affairs enhances uncertainty and increases the potential for misunderstanding and miscalculation.”

China fails the transparency test by understating its defense spending. The Pentagon’s 2010 report on China’s military estimates Beijing’s total military-related spending for 2009 was more than $150 billion, but the white paper claims it spent about half that amount, $75.56 billion (495.11 billion RMB). The difference, according to the Pentagon, is due to the fact that China’s defense budget “does not include major categories of expenditure,” but the report fails to identify those categories.

China’s defense spending increased annually for more than two decades, but the white paper states, “The growth rate of defense expenditure has decreased.” That statement is refuted by China’s official 2011 defense budget, which is $92 billion, up 12.7% from 2010, which grew from 7.5% during the previous year.

The Pentagon report also states China isn’t transparent regarding its growing force-projection capabilities. For example, the so-called transparent white paper does not mention Beijing’s plan to deploy an aircraft carrier known to be under construction. A question about the carrier was posed at the press conference announcing the white paper, but was never answered.

Second, “The Chinese government has advocated from the outset the peaceful use of outer space, and opposes any weaponization of outer space,” according to the white paper.

China’s anti-space weaponization view hasn’t stopped it from developing its own space weapon, however. The white paper makes no mention of China’s 2007 successful direct-ascent anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons test, which destroyed its own satellite in space. “The test raised questions about China’s capability and intention to attack U.S. satellites,” according to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report.

The Pentagon’s report states, “China continues to develop and refine this [ASAT] system, which is one component of a multidimensional program to limit or prevent the use of space-based assets by potential adversaries during times of crisis or conflict.” The report also indicates China is developing kinetic and directed-energy weapons for ASAT missions.

Gen. Xu Qiliang, commander of China’s air force, appears to confirm the Pentagon’s analysis. He said in 2009 that military competition extending to space is “inevitable” and emphasized the transformation of China’s air force into one that “integrates air and space” with both “offensive [read ASAT] and defensive” capabilities, according to the Pentagon’s report.

Third, “China firmly opposes the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction [WMD] and their means of delivery.” The paper also states “nonproliferation issues should be resolved through political and diplomatic means” and then cites as examples the nuclear crises with North Korea and Iran.

Even though China is a signatory to various nonproliferation treaties, it is arguably the world’s biggest WMD supplier. A March 2011 CRS report states, “China has been a ‘key supplier’ of technology … providing nuclear and missile-related technology to Pakistan and missile-related technology to Iran.”

CRS documents China’s proliferation activities beginning in 1982. It transferred sensitive material and tools for making atomic bombs to Pakistan such as uranium hexafluoride gas, ring magnets, and “high-tech diagnostic equipment.” Pakistan then sold that technology to Iran, North Korea, and Libya, according to then- CIA Director George Tenet.

Fourth, “China pursues a national defense policy which is defensive in nature.” The white paper also claims, “China unswervingly takes the road of peaceful development.” But China’s weapons-building spree confirms it seeks a significant offensive capacity, and its military action identifies it as a regional hegemon, not a peaceful neighbor.

Three weapons platforms strongly suggest China seeks a robust offensive capacity. In January, while Secretary of Defense Robert Gates visited Beijing, the Chinese military tested a J-20 fifth-generation stealth fighter. That sophisticated platform is primarily for undetected, long-range offensive operations and shares state-of-the-art technology with the F-22 Raptor, America’s best fighter.

In December, Adm. Robert Willard, the commander of U.S. Pacific Command, told the Asahi Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper, China is developing an anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) known as an “aircraft carrier killer.” The 1,500-mile range DF-21 ASBM is an offensive platform that uses a space-based maritime surveillance and targeting system that permits it to strike moving warships at sea.

China also plans to build a fleet of aircraft carriers this decade, according to the Pentagon report. It already has the ex-Varyag—a former soviet Kuznetsovclass aircraft carrier in the Dalian shipyard—and a program to train pilots operating fixed-wing aircraft from a carrier.

China is using its sophisticated blue-water navy, which numbers 260 vessels, including 75 major warships and more than 60 submarines, to expand its sphere of influence through intimidation, especially in the South China Sea, which some Chinese officials label a “core interest.” Last year, the New York Times reported Chinese officials told Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg that China would not tolerate “foreign interference” in the South China Sea, and its actions back up that view.

China’s navy aggressively seizes fishing boats near contested South China Sea islands hundreds of miles from the mainland and harasses Japanese aircraft and ships in the East China Sea near Japanese islands. That aggression is not limited to regional players, however.

Starting in 2000, China became provocative toward American naval forces. In 2001, a Chinese fighter collided with a U.S. Navy aircraft, forcing the American crew to land at China’s Hainan Island.

Harassment on the sea is more common. From 2001 to 2009, Chinese warships and aircraft harassed and threatened the USNSBowditch, USNS Sumner, USNS Impeccable, and the USNS Victorious. In 2006, a Chinese Song-class submarine surfaced dangerously near the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk. In each case, China violated international law.

Finally, “China maintains that the global missile defense program will be detrimental to international strategic balance and stability [and] no state should deploy overseas missile defense systems [ballistic missile defense] …” This hypocritical comment is targeted at the U.S., which has both land- and sea-based systems. America’s sea-based Aegis ballistic missile defense (BMD) systems often sail near North Korea’s coast, protecting our allies from China’s rogue partner.

Apparently China wants to limit America’s BMD capability until it can acquire one of its own. Currently China has a limited capability against tactical ballistic missiles with ranges up to 300 miles. But the Pentagon report states China is “proceeding with the research and development of a missile defense ‘umbrella’ consisting of kinetic energy intercept at exo-atmospheric altitudes, as well as intercepts of ballistic missiles and other aerospace vehicles within the upper atmosphere.”

China’s 2010 white paper is chock-full of misleading messages that deny transparency, promote distrust, and demonstrate the regime’s hegemonic ambitions. Unless China changes its actions, America has no choice but to conclude Beijing’s intent is to become the world’s dominant military power.

Last week Secretary of Defense Robert Gates rushed to the Mideast to discourage Israel from retaliating for a surge in Islamic violence.  But the best policy for Israel, America, and the region is the overthrow of the Hamas terrorist regime.

Hamas, meaning “Islamic Resistance Movement,” is the Palestinian Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip.  It is based on principles of Islamic fundamentalism and is an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.  Hamas’ Gaza government is a Taliban-like regime that is brutally repressive, seeks Israel’s destruction, and sponsors terrorism and an Iranian client regime.

Gates understands Hamas is supported by outside forces that want to bait Israel into launching a massive operation.  He must also understand an Israeli offensive at this time would further inflame tensions in the troubled Arab world and become a rallying point for protest movements across the Middle East.

Provoking an Israeli offensive into Gaza appears to be the Islamists’ bizarre objective, however.  Last week rockets from Gaza struck deeper into Israel than at any time since the January 2009 three-week Israeli Operation Cast Lead.  Besides rockets, there was mortar fire into Israeli towns near Gaza, a bus stop bombing in Jerusalem, and two weeks ago, the brutal murder of a Jewish family—including three children—by Palestinian Islamists at a West Bank settlement.

The uptick in attacks comes amid a stalemate in peace talks that has left Palestinian statehood uncertain.  Gates came to Israel hoping to restart those talks, which he hopes will then dampen Palestinian violence.

But Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu is doubtful about the peace talks-reduced violence nexus.  He said Israel’s security challenges are “legion,” referring not just to the renewed Palestinian attacks but also to other threatening actors who want to leverage the Palestinian violence for nefarious reasons.

Hamas wants to provoke an Israeli attack because it is confident in its ability to shape the future.  Specifically, it wants to create a situation that severs Israel’s 32-year alliance with Egypt to give Hamas freedom to expand its Islamist extremism.  For now the peace agreement secures Israel’s southern coastal approaches to Tel Aviv, and Egypt helps enforce sanctions against extremist groups such as Hamas.

But Hamas intends to bait the Israelis into a military action, expecting that operation will inflame Muslim passions in Egypt.  It hopes those passions will force Egypt’s military council to abrogate the treaty with Israel.  If that doesn’t work, Hamas anticipates Egypt’s future government will include the Muslim Brotherhood, which views Hamas as its closest ally, and that once in power it will cast aside the treaty.

The Brotherhood’s rise to political prominence became a certainty as a result of Egypt’s just-completed constitutional referendum.  Egyptian voters resoundingly (77%) approved changes that favor established political organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which favors the imposition of an Islamic government in the overwhelmingly Muslim country.

Iran, which supplies Hamas with arms and training, hopes to benefit from an Israeli attack on Gaza.  It is in a regional tug-of-war for influence with Sunni-majority leader Saudi Arabia and would like nothing better than to upstage Riyadh as the primary sponsor of Palestinian rights, which would highlight the failed Arab foreign policy toward Israel.

Tehran also hopes to bloody Israel in a war of attrition using its proxies.  It created the terrorist group Hezbollah in the early 1980s as a proxy against Israel and the West.  That group survived a war with Israel in 2006 and is now larger and better-equipped, and has an official government role in Lebanon.  An operation launched by Israel into Gaza would likely invite Hezbollah to open a second front to threaten Israel’s northern frontier.  Syria could benefit from an Israeli assault on Gaza because it needs a distraction from its current unrest.  It is struggling to clamp down on protests in Daraa near the Jordanian border and is wary of the precedent set in Libya, where Western forces are intervening on the side of the protesters under the auspices of protecting civilians.

Damascus has already aided Hamas by providing safe haven to its leadership.  It also works closely with Hezbollah to arm and train Hamas.  Recall that earlier this month, the Liberian-flagged ship Victoria loaded weapons in Latakia, Syria, and departed for Gaza, but was fortunately intercepted by Israeli commandos.

Jordan is not a military threat to Israel at this point, but the country’s Palestinian majority would use an Israeli assault on Gaza to galvanize its protesters.  Palestinian demonstrators set up a tent camp in the center of Amman, in conscious imitation of Tahrir Square in Cairo.

The protesters, who named themselves the March 24 Movement after the date they began camping out, want economic equality and an end to corruption and autocracy.  But their protests, which could become violent, might force King Abdullah to give more power to Palestinian Islamists.  That might ultimately end the long peace pro-western Jordan has provided Israel, thus jeopardizing Israel’s eastern border.

So what should the U.S. do to help its ally Israel?

President Barack Obama should call for and support the overthrow of Hamas.  Overthrowing the terrorist regime at this time might be risky for the reasons cited.  But such a policy change, which is unlikely from Obama, would have several important long-term benefits.

It would remove a revolutionary Islamist regime that keeps the area unstable and serves as a trigger for an eventual regional war.  It would also blunt Iran’s hegemonic actions in the region, which are already expansive, and send a message to rogues such Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and Egypt’s future Islamist-leaning government that Israel has a dependable partner in America.  It might also kick-start the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which is off-track due in part to Palestinian extremism centered in Gaza.

Last week Gates called for “bold action” to address the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.  That bold action should be an American policy change that supports the overthrow of Hamas so that meaningful negotiations can restart and outsider influence from the likes of Iran and Syria is nipped in the bud.

President Barack Obama’s pre-war comments about the Libyan crisis convinced Muammar al-Gaddafi that he can survive.

Obama’s March 18 White House remarks came fewer than 24 hours after the United Nations Security Council voted to authorize military action—including a no-fly zone over Libya—to prevent the killing of civilians by Gaddafi’s forces.

Then on Saturday, coalition forces launched Operation Odyssey Dawn by raining more than 110 mostly American Tomahawk missiles on Libya’s critical nodes.  That opening salvo followed Gaddafi’s declaration of a unilateral cease-fire that proved to be a tactical feign.  The dictator called for a cease-fire to buy time to reposition his forces for the assault on Benghazi, the rebel-held eastern city.

But Gaddafi’s announcement was also meant to confuse the war-weary British and French publics that are skeptical about their governments’ campaign for U.N.-authorized military action against Libya .

Although the war is in its early stages, it is clear Gaddafi may be out-gunned but not necessarily outwitted.   He quickly turned on the propaganda machine to rally support against the “crusaders” and to claim innocent civilians were killed by coalition bombs.  But more important than the psychological war now raging, Gaddafi is banking his survival on four limitations outlined in Obama’s pre-war remarks.

First, Obama has limited interest in the crisis.  He acknowledged that if left “unchecked,” Gaddafi will “commit atrocities against his people.  Many thousands could die.”  So he “checked” the regime’s actions by starting another war, which, like those in Iraq and Afghanistan, could easily morph into a long-term insurgency.

But America’s interests, claimed Obama, are keeping the region stable, which he admits “will not and cannot be imposed by the United States.”  He rightly places that responsibility on the Arab world, which at this point appears unwilling to pay the price of meaningful intervention.

Besides putting the onus on the Arabs, Obama also distanced himself from what former Secretary of State and Gen. Colin Powell said before our Iraq invasion:  “You break it, you own it.”  He wiggled out of that obligation on Friday when he said, “More nations [not just America ] bear the responsibility and the cost of enforcing international law.”  Translation:  The U.S. will have a limited role.

The commander-in-chief punctuated America’s limited role by leaving Washington just before the attack.  Further, he diminished the importance of that attack by traveling to Brazil, one of five nations that failed to endorse the U.N. military action against Libya.  That’s a slap in the face of every armed services member now fighting Libya .

Also, Obama puts fighting this war somewhere in importance below the health care debate.  Last year, Obama cancelled an overseas trip to focus on the health care debate.  Obviously, the commander-in-chief doesn’t believe starting another Mideast war rises to the same level of importance.

Second, America’s military role will be very limited.  The U.S. “is prepared to act as part of an international coalition,” Obama said.  Then he said, “We are coordinating closely with them [the coalition] and our role is primarily to help shape the conditions for the international community to act together.”

Shaping means the U.S. will play a behind-the-scenes role.  For example, Obama said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates would help “coordinate planning.”  On March 10, Gates met his counterparts at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, to begin planning the operation, which includes the always-complicated rules of engagement to limit harm to civilians.

Over the weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with European and Arab partners to discuss enforcement of the U.N. resolution, which is a way of saying the details regarding which nations will do what are still in the works.  Once the negotiations with the foreign ministers are completed, their military forces will mass for the air campaign against Libya in earnest.

America’s shaping role, according to Obama, also includes the provision of “the unique capabilities that we can bring to bear … enabling our … partners to effectively enforce a no-fly zone.”  That means providing our allies targeting information from our sophisticated platforms, air refueling for partner fighters, conducting sea-launched missile attacks, and participating in enforcement of the arms embargo.

But any way you slice it, America just declared war on Libya and was the first to launch an actual attack.  What is the strategy that limits America’s role?

Third, the no-fly zone will have limited impact.  The threat is no longer from Gaddafi’s 374 aircraft but from those ground forces closing in on Benghazi.  That’s why Gaddafi declared a unilateral cease-fire in response to the U.N.’s use of force.  He needed time to consolidate gains ahead of coalition air strikes.

We saw a similar situation in the 1990s in Bosnia and Croatia.  While NATO dithered with a no-fly zone, the former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic allegedly massacred tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats, including the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica.

What the coalition must now do is declare a no-drive zone between Ajdabiya and Benghazi, the military’s main supply route.  But the challenge for the coalition is sorting out military from civilian traffic.  That’s where ground forces would be especially helpful and the political damage is potentially greatest for the coalition.

Fourth, Obama limited America’s role by putting ground troops off the table.  He said “We are not going to use force to go beyond a well-defined goal—specifically, the protection of civilians in Libya [via a no-fly zone].”  But without ground operations it is highly unlikely Gaddafi can be stopped and just as unlikely the dictator will ever be held “accountable,” which Obama promised.

Yes, the European-led coalition has ground troops, but not enough to conquer Libya, which is a giant country—larger than Alaska, with 1,100 miles of coastline and a population of 6.5 million living mostly near that coast.  Our allies have insufficient forces to sustain widespread operations unless limited to Benghazi—the rebel-held city of 700,000.  Of course, Obama has already said no to American ground troops.

Alternatively, allied special operations forces such as the British Special Air Service will play the primary ground role.  They will advise and equip the rebels, call in fighter strikes on Libyan forces, and target Libyan leaders.  Capturing or killing Gaddafi and his key military subordinates could be a mission subject to international law and rules of engagement.

The multi-phased operation is gaining clarity.  What is unclear is just how far the European-led coalition is willing to go and whether Gaddafi can consolidate his gains in Benghazi before the coalition becomes fully operational—the Schwerpunkt of this operation.

Gaddafi understands the implications of a limited American role.  He knows the coalition will severely damage his arsenal and impose a no-fly zone, but without a sizable invasion and occupation, which is doubtful at this point, the regime will survive and thanks primarily to President Obama.