Hard as it may be to recall now, when the Afghan presidential election originally came off, the US State Department praised it as well-run and closely scrutinized , even as President Karzai's political supporters organized 800 completely fictitious polling places to garner phoney votes. Now, thanks primarily to public pressure brought to bear by Peter Galbraith (resulting in UN election observer Kal Eide finally admitting that Karzai's election was fraudulent) , the US has reluctantly joined those agreeing that a run-off will be necessary after first suggesting that we would not allow one . In fact, this has no opened up something of a breach between the Obama administration and Senator John Kerry (who was, if you recall, one of the other finalists to become Secretary of State, and who might well be Hillary Clinton's replacement if she decides to quit and run for Governor of New York). Kerry says no decision about US troop levels should be made until there is a legitimatel...

... but is getting a complete pass from the MSM for not changing Bush Administration policy toward Iran. From FPJ : U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden last Saturday outlined the Obama administration’s continuation of the Bush administration’s foreign policy towards Iran. Reiterating the Bush policy of loosely defined “preventive” warfare outlined in Bush’s National Security Strategy, he said that the “U.S. will strive to act preventively to avoid having to choose between the risks of war and the dangers of inaction.” Echoing the previous administration’s policy, Biden offered an ultimatum, saying the U.S. would be “willing to talk to Iran” but only if Iran acquiesces to the Obama administration’s demands to abandon its nuclear program. Translated into meaningful terms, this effectively means the U.S. will continue to refuse to talk to Iran, since its nuclear program would be one of the major points Iran would like to negotiate. The U.S. has accused Iran of having a nuclear weapons progr...

Admittedly, it's a fundraising pre-screen, but the content makes interesting reading: Obama's Cheney on the Warpath In spite of the alleged advent of "change" in Washington, it looks like one Bush administration tradition is being preserved: the War Party has taken up residence in the office of the vice president. Joe Biden has quickly taken on the role of Obama's Cheney, a hard-liner with a special antipathy toward Russia. In stationing sophisticated anti-missile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, the U.S. basically abandoned the INF arms-control treaty concluded by President Reagan. These provocative policies are not slated to end with Cheney's exit, but are finding new adherents in the incoming administration – including Biden, who announced the U.S. would pursue the missile shield plan. Biden's belligerent remarks on Russian-Georgian relations – "We will not recognize any nation having a sphere of influence"! – indicate little change ...

Is this the carrot or the stick? I can never remember. It probably would have mattered more had the Iranian Parliament's Speaker still been in the room when Biden was talking. Anyway: the good news for the defense industry is that we're apparently going to continue building missile defense systems to protect Israel. (Must be Israel, since even on a good day Iran could not lob one of its outmoded rockets further than the general direction of Europe.) Here's the story : Vice President Joe Biden delivered a clear message to Iran, saying Saturday the U.S. was willing to talk but will act to isolate and pressure Tehran if it does not abandon its nuclear ambitions and support for terrorism. In a wideranging speech to international leaders and security experts, Biden said the U.S. will strive to act preventively and avoid having to choose between the risks of war and the dangers of inaction. But Biden held out the option that the U.S. could take pre-emptive action against Iran ...

I keep seeing so many pundits and commenters trying to grapple with Senator John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his VP, and the dichotomous nature of their speeches at the GOP convention, that I thought I'd explain what is going on. Here's what you need to know: 1) John McCain intends to win the Presidency; all decisions are subordinated to that end. 2) He realizes that no conventional strategy stands a good chance at overcoming Senator Barack Obama's momentum, and that he first has to throw the Obama campaign off its game before he can play his own. 3) As Obama rejected the Clinton 50% plus one strategy early on for the Howard Dean 50-state strategy, McCain has rejected the typically Karl Rove strategy of staking his bid on cultural war and the war on terro in the battleground states. Instead, McCain plans a major departure from previous strategies. Here's some background. Traditionally, both major candidates run to their base in the primaries and back to the ce...