Hot Docs: Advice for a Wartime President, Petraeus on Taking Over at CentCom

Advice for a Wartime President: The new U.S. president must be prepared to be a wartime leader, a report warns, since he "will face unprecedented challenges and dangers in the Middle East, with few good options and precious little time to waste." In a paper for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Michael Eisenstadt says that the new administration will have no time for a gradual foreign policy transition, as the president will have to act quickly to manage continuing and emerging threats like instability in Iraq, a possibly nuclear Iran, and the "near certainty" of Arab-Israeli war. He should be ready to "manage one or more wars" in the Middle East, while working to "engage the region to an unprecedented extent in order to avert or deter those wars that are avoidable, and prevail (or ensure the success of its allies) in those that prove inescapable."

Petraeus on Taking Over at CentCom: Late last week, Gen. David Petraeus officially took command of the U.S. Central Command, saying that "the way ahead will be difficult" but that "there can be no higher privilege for any soldier than being allowed to serve once more with such wonderful Americans and to work hard at work worth doing." While praising CentCom's operations, headed until recently by his West Point classmate Martin Dempsey, he notes that the nation will continue to face threats, including "transnational extremist organizations and industrial strength insurgencies to weapons proliferation, a rise in piracy and persistent ethno-sectarian conflict." Defense Secretary Robert Gates laid out Petraeus's new charge in his introduction: "Under his leadership, our troops have dealt our enemies in Iraq a tremendous blow. Now he will take aim at our adversaries in Afghanistan and lead security capacity efforts throughout the Middle East, the Gulf, and Central Asia, while working with our partners to counter a range of national and transnational threats."

Considering a League of Democracies: The notion of a league or alliance of democratic nations may seem appealing, says Ted Piccone, but "the idea will not fly in the current geopolitical environment and will have to await the day when the world is composed of many more likeminded democracies than currently exist." Some neoconservatives and liberals have floated this idea recently, possibly as a replacement for the United Nations. Piccone draws from his experiences dealing with a similar group, the Community of Democracies, which was started in 2000. That body has faced inherent problems, from basic questions such as who decides who may join to tension with European nations that have reservations about U.S. leadership of the group in light of the war in Iraq. Piccone concludes that the league approach "is likely to fail" and says that the next president might "take a more realistic approach by first repairing our badly damaged reputation around the world, particularly in the area of democracy and human rights, and investing in the long-term to help consolidate democracies and democratize their foreign policies."