At least it seems to have in official Pentagon communications:

Reports that the phrase was being retired have been circulating for some time amongst senior administration officials, and this morning speechwriters and other staff were notified via this e-mail to use "Overseas Contingency Operation" instead.

"Recently, in a LtGen [John] Bergman, USMC, statement for the 25 March [congressional] hearing, OMB required that the following change be made before going to the Hill," Dave Riedel, of the Office of Security Review, wrote in an e-mail.

"OMB says: 'This Administration prefers to avoid using the term "Long War" or "Global War on Terror" [GWOT]. Please use "Overseas Contingency Operation.'"

Remember that the Bush administration previously tried to replace GWOT with GSAVE -- Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism -- without a whole lot of luck.

I don't really anticipate Obama's new nomenclature having much more success, mainly because no editor in his right mind is going to leave the phrase "overseas contingency operation" in an article lead.

Sorry guys. You're stuck with GWOT.

In case you missed it, Laura Rozen has updated her already blockbuster Cable post from yesterday on Christopher Hill's delayed appointment as Iraq ambassador with a devastating on-the-record quote from Defense Secretary Robert Gates' chief spokesman. Here's what Geoffrey Morrell had to say about the senators holding up Hill's confirmation:

“Generals Odierno and Petraeus have come out very publicly and very forcefully in support of Amb. Hill’s nomination. I know they support it. They know him from previous assignments, they like him, they believe he is well suited to the job and are anxiously awaiting his confirmation because they do need help, frankly. ...It’s what’s in the best interest of the Iraqi people and the American people.
 
“With regards to [Senate] members who have issues with him, I would say this," Morrell added. “We appreciate their steadfast support of the Iraq mission. But you can’t be bullish in support of that mission and not send an ambassador in a timely fashion.”

In a press release, Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice announce the withdrawal of the "enemy combatant" definition of Gitmo detainees. The memo says that, under President Obama's orders, the department is reviewing detention policy:

In a filing today with the federal District Court for the District of Columbia, the Department of Justice submitted a new standard for the government’s authority to hold detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility. The definition does not rely on the President’s authority as Commander-in-Chief independent of Congress’s specific authorization. It draws on the international laws of war to inform the statutory authority conferred by Congress. It provides that individuals who supported al Qaeda or the Taliban are detainable only if the support was substantial. And it does not employ the phrase "enemy combatant."

The Department also submitted a declaration by Attorney General Eric Holder stating that, under executive orders issued by President Obama, the government is undertaking an interagency review of detention policy for individuals captured in armed conflicts or counterterrorism operations as well as a review of the status of each detainee held at Guantanamo. The outcome of those reviews may lead to further refinements of the government’s position as it develops a comprehensive policy.

The memo states that the government will no longer detain combatants who provided "insignificant or insubstantial" support to al Qaeda or the Taliban. (The Bush administration came under fierce criticism for holding persons with little or no connection to the terrorist organizations.) More than 200 remain incarcerated at Camp Delta; it's unclear if any -- or how many -- will be released under the new legal standards. 

Photo: Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images

Don Kraus at the Global Solutions Blog and Mark Leon Goldberg at U.N. Dispatch report that Rep. Nita Lowey and Sen. Patrick Leahy managed to cut the Nethercutt Amendment out of the omnibus appropriations bill that Congress passed this week.

The Nethercutt Amendment -- named for former Rep. George Nethercutt and bundled in a 2004 appropriations bill -- cut economic support funds to nations that ratified the International Criminal Court without signing a Bilateral Immunity Agreement with the Bush administration.

Global Solutions says the law affected funding to more than 20 countries, including:

Latin American allies in the war on drugs, including Peru, Ecuador, Paraguay, Brazil, Venezuela, Costa Rica, and Uruguay.

The Balkan countries of Croatia and Serbia and Montenegro, which rely on U.S. military assistance to maintain stability and reform their armies.

Caribbean countries, whose hurricane disaster assistance is tied to the affected programs: Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

African allies with which the U.S. partners to help maintain regional security, including South Africa, Kenya, Mali and Tanzania.

Photo: Paul Vreeker/AFP/Getty Images

Is Barack Obama downgrading the importance of promoting democracy in the Middle East? A group of activists and scholars led by my former boss, Egyptian dissident Saad Eddin Ibrahim, sure seems to think so. Or at least, they're going to hold the U.S. president's feet to the fire. This just in:

Washington, DC - March 6, 2009 - More than 80 scholars and experts-including Egyptian democracy activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim and former deputy prime minister of Malaysia Anwar Ibrahim -are urging President Obama to adopt a consistent and credible policy that supports democracy in the Arab and Muslim world. The group will formally issue an open letter to the president at a news conference Tuesday, March 10, at 2:30 p.m. at the National Press Club in Washington.

"For decades, the United States and Europe have been coddling and supporting dictators in the Arab world, and this has been disastrous for the region and for U.S.-Islamic relations," said Radwan Masmoudi, president of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy and a co-convener of the letter.  The letter states that for decades the United States has "supported repressive regimes that routinely violate human rights, and that torture and imprison those who dare criticize them."

The signatories call on the administration to make supporting democracy and its proponents in the Middle East a top foreign policy priority, even in countries that are U.S. allies such as Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. The authors call on the United States to "use its considerable economic and diplomatic leverage to put pressure on its allies in the region when they fail to meet basic standards of human rights."

"Because of its association with the Bush administration, there is a temptation to move away from any discussion of democracy promotion in the Middle East.  That would be a mistake," said Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Project on Middle East Democracy and a letter co-convener. The letter lauds the President's initial efforts to reach out to the Arab and Muslim world, but cautions that the U.S. must demonstrate its commitment to democratic reform through actual policy changes.

The letter demonstrates strong support across the ideological spectrum for a renewed commitment to supporting democratic reform in the region, and for supporting the political inclusion of moderate Islamist groups. Among the more than 80 signatories are: Francis Fukuyama of Johns Hopkins University; Morton Halperin, former director of policy planning at the State Department; Jennifer Windsor, executive director of Freedom House; Peter Beinart, contributing editor at The New Republic; Georgetown Professor John L. Esposito, and democracy expert Larry Diamond of Stanford University; author and blogger Matt Yglesias, and Robert Kagan of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Several of the co-signers will be available during the news conference to answer questions from the media about the policy recommendations included in the open letter, including Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Radwan Masmoudi, Jennifer Windsor, Larry Diamond, Geneive Abdo, and others.

The truth is that, for all its rhetoric, the Bush administration did a terrible job promoting democracy in the region. The policy failures are largely self-evident, but the basic problem is an unwillingness to accept that it's not possible right now to have governments in the Middle East that are all of the following:

• democratically elected
• supportive of U.S. policies in the region
• friendly or at least not hostile to Israel
• economically liberal

One can, for instance, have governments that are friendly to Israel, but they will be toppled. One can have democratically elected governments, but they will be anti-American and anti-Israel. But you can't have your cake and eat it too.

So far, the vast weight of evidence suggests that the United States, when faced with an implicit choice, will always choose to support regimes that are largely cooperative with U.S. security interests in the region. Perhaps the Obama administration is simply acknowledging this reality.

As it turns out, Gordon Brown's White House visit was even lamer than previously thought. The Daily Mail is reporting that while the enthusiastic British PM clearly put some thought into his diplomatic gifts for Obama, "an ornamental pen holder made from the timbers of the Victorian anti-slave ship HMS Gannet," a "first edition of the seven-volume biography of Winston Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert," and clothing and books for Obama's daughters, the president's gift for Brown was rather less personal: a set of 25 DVDs of classic American movies. 

As he headed back home from Washington, Gordon Brown must have rummaged through his party bag with disappointment. 

Mr Brown is not thought to be a film buff, and his reaction to the box set is unknown. But it didn't really compare to the thoughtful presents he had brought along with him.

The film collection, including such classics as Citizen Kane, Lawrence of Arabia, and Star Wars, was apparently specially assembled by the American Film Institute, but as Ed Morrissey notes, it's the kind of thing you can buy at a steep discount on Amazon. At least with a gift certificate, Brown could have picked out his own movies.

I wrote on Wednesday that I can understand why Obama might not have wanted to give Brown the full state dinner and Camp David treatment, but surely the White House could have put a little more thought into this.

For what it's worth, the DVDs would have been the perfect gift for a meeting with Kim Jong-il.

Barack Obama made the first tentative steps toward opening lines of communication with the Syrian regime in the past week. In Sharm el-Sheikh, Hillary Clinton exchanged a handshake with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem. Contacts were also reestablished in Washington, as Jeffrey Feltman, the acting assistant secretary for the Near East, held a two-hour meeting with Syrian Amb. Imad Moustapha. Today, Clinton tapped Feltman and National Security Council aide Daniel Shapiro as envoys to Damascus.
 
While the Obama administration has proven its willingness to engage with Syria, it is also signaling that negotiations do not mean that the United States is surrendering to Syrian demands. Clinton downplayed the possibility of a speedy improvement of U.S.-Syrian ties at a press conference in Jerusalem, saying that "we have no way to predict what the future with our relations concerning Syria might be." 

In his discussions with Moustapha, Feltman raised the issue of Syrian support for terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas, its pursuit of nuclear weapons, the regime's meddling in Lebanon, and its worsening domestic human rights situation -- not issues that top Damascus's preferred agenda for U.S.-Syrian negotiations.

The very presence of Feltman (shown above being burned in effigy by Hezbollah supporters) in U.S.-Syrian negotiations is also a message. Feltman is a former U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, and was consequently the point man for George W. Bush's hawkish Lebanon policy. In Beirut, he has a reputation as a strong and energetic supporter of Lebanon's pro-Western, anti-Syrian political coalition. He was a bête noir of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who took to calling Lebanon's anti-Syrian government "Feltman's government," rather than the government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora. This antipathy no doubt extends to the Syrian regime.

Nevertheless, Obama's decision to establish Feltman as a primary U.S. interlocutor with Syria is a welcome sign that he is approaching a possible rapprochement with few illusions. Syria will try to leverage a decrease in tensions with the United States to attract business to the country, and gradually break down the economic sanctions regime erected against it. Feltman has the reputation to dissuade the Syrian regime that it can get something for nothing. Syria has to realize that it must take tangible steps for reconciliation to take place, not just engage in the process of negotiations. For Obama's first foray into the Arab world, this is a good start.

HAITHAM MUSSAWI/AFP/Getty Images

I don't have much to add to the commentary, here and elsewhere, about Barack Obama's speech on Iraq Friday. It's probably impossible to know for sure whether his withdrawal plan will work; any number of things could go wrong between now and 2011.

Still, I'll hazard some predictions. Over the next few years, I doubt most Americans will pay much attention to Iraq -- most of the U.S. media has already packed up and left for Afghanistan or other big stories. Meanwhile, Iraq will look better from the outside than it does from within. I expect a growing authoritarian trend as oil prices recover and the central government in Baghdad consolidates its power. There will probably be a lot of ugly, anti-democratic stuff going on behind the scenes that won't get covered in U.S. newspapers, and definitely won't be seen on television.

Iraq, unfortunately, will continue to suffer from the ethnosectarian cleavages and resource curses that have plagued it since its birth. It will probably not be a successful, modern democracy within our lifetimes. Hopefully, life will become more tolerable for its citizens nonetheless.

All of this, of course, is just speculation on my part. Iraq's future remains deeply uncertain.

One thing, however, is clear: Obama appears to have gotten the U.S. domestic politics of withdrawing from Iraq just about right. When else are you going to find Douglas Feith and Jessica Mathews agreeing on something?

In President Obama's speech on Tuesday, he pledged to "reform our defense budget so that we're not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don't use." Could this have been a reference to the planned missile defense system in Eastern Europe, on which Obama's views are not exactly clear?

Congressional Democrats, at least, do seem to be taking aim at the system. California Rep. Ellen Tauscher, chairwoman of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee is a critic of long-range missile defense, calling for a focus on short- and medium-range defense which have been more rigorously tested:

"Given the need to fund other high priority defense programs, reductions to the missile defense programs may be required."  

Tauscher's subcomittee held a hearing yesterday in which Lt. Gen. Patrick O'Reilly, who heads the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, explained that his agency was conducting a review of existing missile defense systems in order to "identify limitations." 

The decision may be out of his hands. With Obama looking to contain costs, the Pentagon has drawn up a list of expensive weapons programs for possible cuts. MDA is on the list along with the Air force's massively expensive F-22 fighter and new destroyers for the Navy. Details on which programs will be cut won't be released until March or April but it's rumored that missile defense will be cut by around $2 billion. 

Some defense analysts see the end of an era:

"There are clear signs that US defense spending peaked in 2008 and that it will be gradually declining over the next four years as the United States reduces its presence in Iraq," Thompson told AFP.

Joseph Cirincione made a persuasive case for cutting missile defense in the May/June 2008 issue of FP.

Last night, the U.S. president said, during an aside about saving the U.S. auto industry, "I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it."

Huh?

Well, here's a fun fact from none other than the United States' own Library of Congress:

Question: Who invented the automobile?

Answer: Karl (Carl) Benz

Benz was a German whose three-wheeled vehicle, pictured below, boasted an internal combustion engine. He received Germany's Patent DRP No. 37435 in 1885/1886 for something that looked roughly like this beauty:

Now, there was an American fellow named George Selden who filed for a U.S. patent for a similar horseless carriage in 1879 and received it in 1895. He never built his invention, though he did collect royalties -- in today's parlance, he would likely be dubbed a "patent troll."

We are now carefully reviewing our policies in both wars, and I will soon announce a way forward in Iraq that leaves Iraq to its people and responsibly ends this war.

And with our friends and allies, we will forge a new and comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan to defeat al Qaeda and combat extremism. Because I will not allow terrorists to plot against the American people from safe havens half a world away.

As we meet here tonight, our men and women in uniform stand watch abroad and more are readying to deploy. To each and every one of them, and to the families who bear the quiet burden of their absence, Americans are united in sending one message: we honor your service, we are inspired by your sacrifice, and you have our unyielding support. To relieve the strain on our forces, my budget increases the number of our soldiers and Marines. And to keep our sacred trust with those who serve, we will raise their pay, and give our veterans the expanded health care and benefits that they have earned. 

To overcome extremism, we must also be vigilant in upholding the values our troops defend – because there is no force in the world more powerful than the example of America. That is why I have ordered the closing of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, and will seek swift and certain justice for captured terrorists – because living our values doesn’t make us weaker, it makes us safer and it makes us stronger. And that is why I can stand here tonight and say without exception or equivocation that the United States of America does not torture.

In words and deeds, we are showing the world that a new era of engagement has begun. For we know that America cannot meet the threats of this century alone, but the world cannot meet them without America. We cannot shun the negotiating table, nor ignore the foes or forces that could do us harm. We are instead called to move forward with the sense of confidence and candor that serious times demand.

To seek progress toward a secure and lasting peace between Israel and her neighbors, we have appointed an envoy to sustain our effort. To meet the challenges of the 21st century – from terrorism to nuclear proliferation; from pandemic disease to cyber threats to crushing poverty – we will strengthen old alliances, forge new ones, and use all elements of our national power.

And to respond to an economic crisis that is global in scope, we are working with the nations of the G-20 to restore confidence in our financial system, avoid the possibility of escalating protectionism, and spur demand for American goods in markets across the globe. For the world depends on us to have a strong economy, just as our economy depends on the strength of the world’s.

NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

With Kyrgyzstan taking another step toward shuttering the Manas air base, there's increasing speculation that the Obama administration is considering resuming military cooperation with Uzbekistan, which expelled the U.S. in 2005 in the midst of a diplomatic feud over the country's human rights record. Christopher Flavelle writes in Slate:

The shifting landscape around Afghanistan is closing off options for Obama, who must now begin to think about unsavory compromises if he wants to make progress in the Afghan campaign. [...]

President George W. Bush, though largely indifferent to public opinion, could afford to do the honorable thing in 2005 by walking away from an ugly regime in Uzbekistan, when Afghanistan was looking better and the base in Kyrgyzstan was still available. Obama, whose inauguration speech promised that the ideals of rule of law and rights of man "still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake," may have to let his image suffer because he lacks the options of his predecessor.

Obama may still be spared this unpleasant choice. Analysts tell Eurasianet the Kyrgyz move is likely a ploy to get Washington to pony up more cash for the base, though some recent statements from the U.S. military indicate that Kyrgyzstan may have overplayed its hand.

Hopefully the Uzbekistan option is being floated by the Obamans as a bargaining chip with Kyrgyzstan and won't actually come to pass. Kyrgyzstan's not exactly Canada but Uzbekistan is in a class of its own as a human rights abuser and Fred Kaplan's 2005 arguments for why the U.S. should steer well clear of the place still hold.

Given all his encouraging human rights rhetoric, it would be nice if Obama could just minimize his dealings with post-Soviet dictatorships. Besides, his campaign manager and his secretary of state's husband have them well covered.

VYACHESLAV OSELEDKO/AFP/Getty Images

Over at her other home, War and Piece, The Cable's Laura Rozen has a pool report and the full transcript of Biden's speech today in Munich. The bottom line:

The speech was not interrupted by applause while the VP was speaking but got a warm response when it was over.

The NYT's Helene Cooper was there, and she thought the vice president took a hard line:

Mr. Biden’s speech was the highlight of a high-powered security conference that attracted a host of global leaders and diplomats, most of whom seemed primed to hear how the United States and its new leadership viewed the world. They erupted into spontaneous applause when Mr. Biden walked onto the stage.

But for all the talk of a new era in relations between the United States and the world, old sores remained, and with no sign of healing soon.

UPDATE: Craig Whitlock of WaPo saw the speech somewhat differently:

Vice President Joe Biden held out an olive branch Saturday to Iran and Russia, and reassured European allies that the Obama administration would treat them as equals but emphasized that "America will ask its partners to do more as well."

UPDATE II: Cooper's piece has been rewritten with a new focus. What seemed at first to be a hard line was actually well received in Moscow:

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said Saturday that the United States will pursue a missile defense plan that has angered the Kremlin, but he also left open the possibility of compromise on the issue and struck a more conciliatory tone than the Bush administration on relations with Russia. 

Dan Drezner quips on Biden's line about not recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia, "This is Biden's example of a tough line? Well, whoa, blow me down!!"

 Photo: AFP/Getty Images

Reading David Rothkopf's brutal takedown of the U.S. Commerce Department, where he once worked, I was immediately reminded of a question that has been nagging at me for months: Why is the National Aquarium in the basement of the Commerce Building?

Rothkopf's answer:

There is an aquarium in the Commerce Building for the same reason there is anything else in the Commerce Building. There was room for it. (Until construction of the Pentagon, the Commerce Department was the biggest building in the DC area.) Beyond that, I do not know. What's in it? Fish. Not many. Nothing too impressive. More impressive array of fish at Barney Greengrass' delicatessen on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. (Which is why Barney Greengrass is known as "The Sturgeon King." More info than you needed, probably.)

Ouch.

Turns out there has been a long-running battle to save the historic aquarium, which was established way back in the 19th century and is the oldest in the United States. This from a 1983 New York Times story:

The National Aquarium began life at Woods Hole, Mass., in 1873, and was brought to Washington in the 1878, where it was set up in viewing ponds near the Washington Monument.

The Fisheries Commission, a part of Commerce at the time, ran the aquarium, moving it in 1932 into the new Commerce building at 14th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. But after a 1945 reorganization, management was transfered to the Interior Department's new Fish and Wildlife Service.

For convenience and economy, the aquarium remained in the Commerce basement. In 1982 Interior Secretary James G. Watt, looking for things to cut in the Reagan budget, cut the fish.

But the aquarium lives on. According to marketing manager Celia Laurens, the aquarium attracted 175,000 visitors in 2008, for an average of roughly 479 people each day.

That's down from 300,000-400,000 visitors each year during the 1980s, but according to the Washington Post the 2 p.m. animal feedings are not to be missed, and the $1.6 million renovation completed last year has made for a big improvement in the presentation.

PHOTO: KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images