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Dana Milbank points out the real reason Hagel was asked to step down- the reverses in Syria and Iraq. This was not even mentioned in the gathering of officials where the president announced his departure and praised Hagel. Hagel looked weary of the event throughout and must have been relieved to get though it, says Milbank. As even former president Carter says the U.S. acted too slowly, and even Rand Paul calls for aggressive action against the Islamic State, president Obama now has to engage in military action from which he wanted to exit. President Obama looks for a new defense secretary to provide better guidance for the new situation he faces.

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Defense Secretary Gates does not see Russia as the threat it was in the Cold War, first because Russia's conventional forces are a "shadow" of what they were during the Cold War, and Russia has adverse demographic trends that will diminish Russia's ability in conventional forces. He sees the Georgian war in the context of Russia's seeking to exorcize, as he puts it, past humiliations. And Gates sees opportunities in the relationship with Russia. Such things as Russia's willingness to work with the US on Afghanistan. Evidence of this is Russia supporting the renwal of the UN resolution on Afghanistan. Another indication is that Russia he says is very worried about the drugs coming out of Afghanistan, and has been supportive to provide alternative routes for Europeans to get equipment and supplies into Afghanistan. These views come across in an interview on December 17, with Charlie Rose, a five time elected Congressman, for the PBS Charlie Rose show. They are also reflected in an article in Foreign Affairs journal's current issue. Gates was a CIA analyst and has some insightful observations. Gates told Charlie Rose that he does not see the Islamic radicals and violent Islamic extremists as a threat in the same way as the threat in the Cold War years. This threat is not as big as the threat to freedom during the Cold War. He says the failure in strategic communications was huge as agencies of the US government engaged in activities in other countries, like the Agency for International Development and the US Information Agency, were neglected starting in the in the 1990's. Communications in other countries of what the US represented and stands for was left to the Pentagon, a role the Pentagon was ill-suited for. He sees the Islamic terrorism as more of an ideological conflict. Speaking at a town hall meeting at the Balad Air Force base in Iraq, in December, Gates pointed to these communications failures as a real challenge for the new administration. But he now sees a huge opportunity in this past failure, and ways of addressing it creatively, in addition to commiting resources and people to this effort. Walter Pincus wrote this article, and its part of the fineprint analysis effort at the Washington Post in which speeches, reports, and other documents are examined by people like Pincus, to catch the really important things, uncovering the fine print that really makes the headlines. Another aspect of this fineprint effort is that there are a huge number of reports, and speeches and documents that had a tone reminiscent of the Cold War during the Georgia war and yet they do not correctly reflect the real situation about Russia, as Gates sees it from his analysis of what is actually happening. Gates has used Foreign Affairs, the Dec 17 Charlie Rose Show on PBS in which he was interviewed, and the speech at the Balad Air Force base in Iraq, to communicate his views and analysis. They are important to underline and emphasize precisely because they show that all that cold war hysteria reporting and speeches may be misleading and lead to improper conclusions and mistakes in policy, wasted effort, wasted resources, and lost lives. And just as the US strategic communications was starved of resources and effort, so also this necessary work to retrieve and give emphasis to the important things is neglected. One additional link to this is the speech, discussion, and QA session in Washington DC at the time of the G20 summit in which President Medvedev and the new administration's elder statesman and diplomat Marilyn Albright, former secretary of state, expressed their hopes and plans for a new era in Russian-American relations. ...

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Reited Gen Gantz appears to be the likely head of a new government after winning the most seats in parliament. Policy towards Iran is not likely to change. But a Gantz led government is likely to reduce the divisiveness in the country, and provide a more unifying effort in Israeli society. The role of religious groups in daily life would also be held back. Better relations with Jewish people in America would result and peace negotiations with Palestinians would be encouraged. The prime minister would concentrate less power in his hands. By temperament Gantz is a quiet leader who preferred not to engage in the back and forth attacks in the election campaign even when Mr. Netanyahu  did not hesitate to do so. As the head of the military from 2011 to 2015 he also has the confidence of people in Israel looking for a new start after a long period of Netanyahu rule. The current prime minister could be indicted soon after a hearing next month on charges of bribery and fraud. Mr. Trump has said that U.S. relationship is not with any leader but with the country Israel. Gantz makes it clear after Netanyahu's style of politics has rocked Israel for many years- "We will bring about a real change in priorities, and heal Israeli society in all its parts." Mr. Gantz has said that he think the Obama administration could have done more in securing a better nuclear deal with Iran. Yet at an event in 2015 when the deal was being set, Mr Gantz said he also saw "the half full part of the glass." That the deal would keep Iran 10 or 15 years from making a nuclear weapon "with the right price." At this juncture in world affairs this is important because Mr. Trump has shown flexibility in dealing with Iran following the firing of National Security Adviser Bolton. Trump held back on a response at several points during the attacks in the Straits of Hormuz and the taking of ships hostage by Iran and the UK. The attacks on Saudi oil facilities and the difficulty of protecting oil installations in the region, Iran's increasingly difficult position under tight U.S. sanctions and pressure on Asian buyers of Iranian oil to cut back purchases, the efforts of Japan and India dependent on Saudi and Iranian oil to reduce tensions, all point to a new policy in the region with a new Israeli government playing a useful role to keep policy control in the hands of Asian countries dependent on oil supplies for their economies, and in the hands of a U.S. president better informed about a policy course that is in U.S. interests of avoiding unnecessary engagements overseas when there are other pressing priorities. ...

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Fred Hiatt of The Washington Post describes U.S. president Obama's mishandling of Syria during his second term as president leading to the situation today.

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Folk singer Pete Seeger is the most popular folk singer in the U.S. since the 50's, and continues a tradition of folk songs started by Woody Guthrie in the 30's. He was able to bond with the public by having them sing along with him popular folk songs, including such tunes as "This Land is Your Land," "Michael Row the Boat Ashore," "So Long, It's Been Good to Know Yuh," "On Top of Old Smoky," "Turn, Turn, Turn," "If I Had a Hammer." The tradition of music and dissent ran in his family with his father being a music scholar who taught the first musicology course in the U.S. and a conscientious objector in World War I, his mother a professional composer and violinist. He attended Harvard but lost interest during the Depression years and dropped out.

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Attacks by Houthi rebels in Yemen on Sauid Arabia's Aramco oil company installations are adding to geopolitical tensions. Houthi rebels in Yemen are supported by Iran and are in a war with a Saudi Arabia led coalition. This report says that the three year conflict has reached a point where instead of targeting Riyadh with missiles the Yemeni rebels in Sanaa are now targeting oil installations of Saudi Arabia. The rebels ousted a Said supported government in Sanaa and the the Saudis have failed to oust them from Sanaa, yet the conflict continues. The increase in geopolitical tensions between Iran and Saudis is pushing up oil prices along with the collapse of Venezuela's oil industry and production. Prices reached $75 a barrel in April 2018. Damage from a Yemeni missile hit a Saudi tanker in the Red Sea, a latest sign that the conflict could disrupt oil tanker traffic going towards the Suez Canal.  Trump administration plans to scuttle the Iran nuclear deal or renegotiate it are also increasing tensions. France's Macron favors renegotiating it compared to scuttling the whole deal, a point he made at the U.S. Congress this week, saying also that France will respect the nuclear deal with Iran. Tensions throughout the Middle East are now part of the rival powers Iran and Saudi Arabia and their proxy allies in the region seeking more influence. ...

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Age ol trading patterns between UAE and Iran separated only by 70 miles of ocean and the US sanctions on exports of sensitive items to Iran.

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The NYT's Thomas Erdbrink makes a road trip from Mashad in the west to Tehran, just before elections in 2017. He sees abandoned factories and other signs of the impact of sanctions particularly on small businesses. Iran's economy has not rebounded from the sanctions period in the way it was expected. Lower oil prices have had an impact. Signs of decay and the effect of sanctions on people's lives can be seen, including the isolation from the outside world. It reminds one of a road trip across Cuba following the lifting of sanctions recently.

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The comparison by Goldsmith and Moyn has picked the wrong Roosevelt. Only Washington in the war of independence, Lincoln in the Civil War over slavery, and FDR Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the Great Depression and economic collapse, fall in that category and there is no one and nothing to compare with both the struggles they fought and the challenge to the survival of the US. On the next scale comes TR Teddy Roosevelt, and this is the Roosevelt to compare DJT with. TR was unconventional, TR spoke a different language and could be frank and outspoken. TR actions matched his words, as his days on the Indian frontier and with the Rough Riders. TR also had one term plus completing McKinley's term after his assasination. And TR like DJT did not like his successor and did everything to make the comeback denouncing the policies of his successor William Howard Taft in the 1912 election, which TR lost to Democrat Woodrow Wilson. All this is true for DJT in 2026. TR denounced the shift away from his "progressive policies" and the shift to corporate interests of Republican Taft. In this sense also DJT is similar as he denounced the shift to corporate interests of the Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama years. TR was no country club Republican and was willing to confront opponents in the politics to fight for the benefit of the working man, splitting the Republican party in the process. This is true of DJT. TR launched the rebuilding of the Navy, and announced he would reassert the Monroe Doctrine. DJT is doing the same and is reasserting the Monroe Doctrine. One could say that DJT feels the hidden TR in him and like Teddy Roosevelt is putting America in the place it once was. For TR the industrial revolution had distorted a country founded on the backs of settlers owning the land independent and rugged, as industry turned the country into corporate interests and workers in factories with few rights, and poor working conditions and wages. This TR even as a Republican fought to reverse. In DJT there is the Republican also of a different mould who fights to reverse the situation created by Bush/Clinton/Bush/ Obama over three decades since the 1990's when America has fallen to new lows when drug trafficking gangs in Mexico and Venezuela are able to run rampant over the western hemisphere, when elites in Canada and the US act impotent in the face of this, or living in their own world away from the streets and neighborhoods of America devastated by drug trafficking, towns and neighborhoods from Janesville to Flint economically deprived as elites shifted manufacturing overseas to China in complete indifference to the American worker and his family, and carried out wars in remote parts of the world such as hills of Afghanistan and deserts of Iraq no worker or farmer in America had even heard of or cared about since the American continent was settled in 1600. If there is a Woodrow Wilson around the corner who won in 1912, for the 2028 election, then it is someone who like Wilson will take policies to benefit the American worker and farmer and his family, and America as a Nation to a better place over the next decade. A passage from Teddy Roosevelt from his Autobiography about who TR was struggling against illustrates this point- "They favored Civil Service Reform; they favored copyright laws, and the removal of tariffs on works of art; they favored all the proper (and even more strongly the improper ) movements for international peace and arbitration; in short, they favored all good and many goody-goody, measures so long as they did not cut deep into social wrong or make demands on National and individual virility. They opposed, or were lukewarm, about efforts to build up the army and the navy, for they were not sensitive regarding National honor, and above all they opposed every non-milk-and-water effort, however sane to change our social and economic system in such a fashion as to substitute the ideal of justice towards all for the ideal of kindly charity from the favored few to the possibly grateful many." (Theodore Roosevelt, Autobiography, Chapter 5 title: Applied Idealism, 1913) ...

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An attempt to keep Iraq together as one nation even as it splinters into 3 with the Kurdish north and the Shiite south containing all the oil fields, by having a oil council at the central government which work with oil governmental organizations in the Kurdish north and one similiar to be setup in the Shiite south. Does it give Sunnis some hope for a share in the revenues and incentive to work within a national framework which increasingly is agoal only of the US and Britain only and possibly only given lip service by the elected government as the mostly Shiite government also prepares in the background to US presence for an eventual partitioning of the country. Remember many of the Arab states were creations of he British and French empires in the 20th century, and not necessarily natural divisions. Culturally and by religious beliefs parts of Iraq that are Shiite are brethren to western Afghanistan round kandahar and to the Shiite centres of religion ad culture in Iran, and have been so for centuries before Europeans had a presence here in the 19th and 20th centuries, and this won't simply go away especially when the post war modernization that occurred in Iraq whatever its appearance was of the worst type that exacerbated religious tension and did not bring communities together....

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How the reconstruction effort in Iraq never had the clear policy goals and objectives, the technical capacity, and the organization structure, to deliver the basic services like electricity, clean water, phone connections and other infrastructure services which crumbled by 70% or broke down totally after the war. And still does not have these elements, as well as one agency or authority responsible and accountable for delivery and results. This are some of the findings of a detailed audit and investigation in a 513 page history of the American reconstruction effort in Iraq, prepared by the Office of Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction , led by Stuart Bowen, Jr. The reconstruction effort has already cost by mid 2008 $117 billion with $50 billion in US taxpayer money, but the results show that all they have achieved is at best a restoration of services to what they were before the war, when Iraq was under severe sanctions and had an outdated infrastructure. One of the biggest problems was that the war effort was not prepared for such a total breakdown of the infrastructure, and never grasped the critical role the continued delivery of basic services would have in winning or losing the support of the people of Iraq, who would blame whoever was in power if things were worse than under the previous regime which is exactly what happened. The whole reconstruction effort was botched because the will was not there, the direction was not there, and no clear policy on how to go about doing this, and lacking the organization structure for its execution. Bowen concludes that the US government was not adequately prepared to take on the reconstruction mission it took on in mid 2003. When Jay Garner presented plans on rebuilding to Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of Defense, before the invasion, the conversation shows Rumsfeld asking Garner how much they would cost. Upon being told that it would cost billions of dollars Rumsfeld responded saying, my friend if you think we're going to spend a billion dollars of our money over there you are sadly mistaken. All this becomes important in the light of another reconstruction effort underway in Afghanistan which aslo has struggled with severe problems and poor results. And as the struggle with militants in Afghanistan is growing the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan and its ability to win the support of ordinary people will be critical to winning support of the Afghan people. ...

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Hamas moves closer to the Sunni alliance of Turkey-Egypt-Quatar as it accepts a ceasefire with Israel. Other Arab nations including Tunisia move closer to this alliance. A fall of the Assad regime in Syria is increasingly likely and would lead to Syria joining this group of Sunni nations that stand apart from Shiite Iran.

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Irin Carmon, author of "Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg," says Ginsburg and Scalia showed that working together at the U.S. Supreme Court was possible, even with very different opinions in interpreting the law. Ginsburg and Scalia were friends, and shared similiar background, coming from boroughs of New York, both law professors, and both judges at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Both loved Opera performances. On issues such as women's rights, rights of minorities, gay rights, Scalia and Ginsburg were on opposite sides. Yet both enjoyed a long friendship. Scalia went so far as to say that if one disagreed with a colleague on interpretation of the law but could not be a friend, one should get another job. This kind of spirit of working together is now missing in Congress, says Ginsburg, and hopes someday that will happen. At the nation's highest court Ginsburg says Scalia was nice enough to provide her with his dissenting opinion, so that Ginsburg would have more time in preparing her rebuttal....