ROBERT ATANASOVSKI/AFP/Getty Images

The 2008 campaign has already served one foreign-policy purpose: It has changed how America's Western allies see the country. Under the Bush presidency, anti-Americanism has reached new—and absurd—heights, and in too many countries the United States became pigeon-holed as the country of Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, and global warming. The Bush administration's public diplomacy in Europe has been nothing short of shocking. It is all too appropriate that the position of assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy is currently vacant (though nominee James K. Glassman will likely be confirmed soon).

The 2008 campaign has reminded the public overseas, and especially in allied countries, of the diversity and vibrancy of American democracy. It is hard for even the most hardened anti-American not to be impressed by the fact that the Democrats will nominate either an African-American or a women as their candidate, while watching this twisting and turning campaign play out gives the lie to the view that United States is some kind of corporate oligarchy.

Another piece of good news is that all three candidates with a realistic chance of being the next president play well abroad in a way that George W. Bush does not. Indeed, with a more pro-American leadership in Europe and the sting being drawn from Iraq by the success of the surge, the next president will have a real window of opportunity to chalk up some quick wins in 2009. The rest of the democratic world will be keen to show America that cooperating is worth its while.

The next president should seize this opportunity to get America's NATO allies to step up in Afghanistan. As Mike noted earlier today, there is a real danger that the progress of recent years is slipping away; a surge in European forces would be a powerful statement to the Afghans that they will not be abandoned again and that the Taliban will ultimately be defeated. A new president who shuts down Gitmo and works on climate change will amass a lot of diplomatic capital. He or she should plan to expend a large amount of it on Afghanistan as the trans-Atlantic honeymoon will wear off sooner rather than later. Many of the complaints about Bush are actually deeper complaints about core U.S. foreign policies that the next president will not change. No occupant of the Oval Office is ever going to accept U.N. primacy or other countries having a veto over U.S. policy making, for instance. But the next president will have a chance to make progress before the rest of the world realizes this.

James Forsyth is a former assistant editor at FP and an ongoing contributor to Passport. He now writes for The Spectator and The Business in London, and he has been covering the 2008 campaign from the ground.

MIGUEL RIOPA/AFP

LONDON — You have to take off your hat (or should that be baseball cap?) to David Beckham.

His career in Europe was in danger of coming to an undignified end. Dropped from the England squad, languishing on the sidelines at Real Madrid with none of the big English clubs interested in bringing him home, he crosses the pond to become the highest paid sportsman in the New World.

The brutal truth, which even his new and improved wage packet can't hide, is that Beckham is just too slow to succeed at the very top level now. During the World Cup, every England move slowed to a snail's pace once Beckham got involved. But his dead ball skills are still world class, good enough to allow England to grind out some results they barely deserved.

Beckham's L.A. mission is two-fold: To establish football as a major U.S. sport, and to put Posh n' Becks on the list of A-list celebrity couples. I'd wager that he'll have more success with the former than the latter. There's a large untapped market for "soccer" in the U.S., as the interest in the World Cup and the sellouts that accompany the visits of major European teams to the States demonstrate. MLS has gotten better since I sat through my first dreadful game in 2001, but it's still neither good enough nor sexy enough.

Beckham's star power should change all that. He excels in the areas of the game that are easiest for new fans to appreciate. MLS now must carry on importing good young players from the rest of the Americas, as these older star players can't carry a team on their own and will need someone to do their running for them.

Celeb-wise, I fear that Beckham is just too dull to make it big in LA (anyone who has heard him being interviewed will know where I coming from). The hold of the Beckhams over the UK media was very much a product of the times: The most iconic sportsman in the country matched up with a member of the zeitgeist-defining pop group. And Becks—with his sarongs, grooming products and conspicuous love for his children—seemed to sum up the new man phenomenon. I don't see what gives him a unique selling point in the American market today. Indeed, his return to the front pages of the British tabloids this week, giving Kate Middleton a deserved break, had the distinct whiff of nostalgia about it. As for Victoria (Posh), skinny, fashionable women who did something once are two-a-penny in Hollywood.

Thinking about Beckham's lucrative American swansong, one can't help but wonder if another Englishman coming towards the end of his career isn't contemplating doing something similar?

AFP

LONDON — Last night's speech was at 2 am U.K. time, and thus too late for the British papers to give it the full treatment. Bizarrely, though, there seems to be less general interest in Bush's last heave than there was in either the Iraq Study Group report or the U.S. midterm elections.

The government's response has been to welcome Bush's new plan, but stress that it doesn't change anything for the British, as Basra is different from Baghdad. Indeed, the Daily Telegraph reports today that 3,000 British troops—almost half the current deployment—will be withdrawn by May.

The British position is about U.K. politics, not Iraq. The long-awaited handover from Tony Blair to the Chancellor Gordon Brown is expected to be announced in May and take effect in June. Both men would like British withdrawal from Iraq to be clearly underway by then—Blair doesn't want to leave with Iraq unresolved and Brown doesn't want the war it to tarnish the beginning of his premiership. An opinion poll earlier this week illustrates just how unpopular the mission now is; 60 percent want British troops withdrawn as soon as possible, and more people hold Bush responsible for the continuing violence in Iraq than al Qaeda, Iran, Syria and Saddam combined.

Developments in Iraq are unlikely to stick to the Blair-Brown timetable, however. First, if the U.S. push in Baghdad is successful, the Shiite militias are likely to step up their activities in Basra to demonstrate their enduring strength. Second, if it isn't just rhetoric when Bush says that the United States "will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria" and "seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq," then the Brits—who patrol the southern border with Iran—will find themselves on the front lines of this effort and the receiving end of the Iranian response.

Winners

Conspiracy theorists: With partisan rancor at a new high and fears of chaos on election day, expect any surprising results to be met with angry shouts of "FRAUD."

Chinese diplomacy: Gets North Korea back to the table and charms African leaders at a lavish summit in Beijing.  

Sacha Baron Cohen: Borat opens to rave reviews. He can name the price for his next movie, I like!

Green taxes: British politicians fall over themselves to welcome the aptly named Stern Review. Maybe green is the new Brown?

Losers

Tennessee couch potatoes: Between Aug. 1 and Oct. 15, local TV ran 12,007 ads by Senate candidates Bob Corker and 7,239 by Harold Ford.

John Kerry: Just in case anyone needed reminding of why he lost.

Georgian pensioners: Gazprom plans to double gas prices next year.

Utube: Universal Tube & Rollform website, utube.com, keeps crashing. And it's not being overloaded by people trying to buy actual tubes.

The President today declared a major disaster exists in the State of Missouri and ordered Federal aid to supplement State and local recovery efforts in the area struck by severe storms during the period of July 19-21, 2006.”

As The Note notes its, "Interesting timing to declare federal aid on its way to the Show-Me State just as the President plans a day of campaigning there." Don't rule out federal assistance for the New Madrid earthquake before Tuesday. That happened in 1812, but, hey, better late than never.

This bad:

If the Democrats take control of Congress in November, do you think the threat of terrorism against the United States would increase, decrease, or stay about the same?

Increase	Decrease	Same	DK/NA
22	18	57	2

If the Republicans keep control of Congress in November, do you think the threat of terrorism against the United States would increase, decrease, or stay about the same?

Increase	Decrease	Same	DK/NA
27	14	57	2

If the Rove and Mehlman machine can make the Republicans survive this election, it really does deserve its status as Washington's favorite caveat.  

Support for a sovereign, democratic, and prosperous Lebanon is a key element of U.S. policy in the Middle East. We are therefore increasingly concerned by mounting evidence that the Syrian and Iranian governments, Hizballah, and their Lebanese allies are preparing plans to topple Lebanon's democratically-elected government led by Prime Minister Siniora."

The WH statement follows the anti-Syrian, Lebanese politician Walid Jumblatt's meetings with Cheney and Rice earlier this week. There are concerns that Hezbollah is planning a series of rallies in the coming days to put pressure on the government to increase its representation in the cabinet. On a related note, there are also fears about the pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud's attempt to block the formation of an international tribunal to try those involved in the assassination of Rafik Hariri. The tribunal is seen as the best way to undercut Syrian influence in Lebanon.

That noise you just heard is Karl Rove's reaction to John Kerry saying:

You know education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don't you get stuck in Iraq."

It is the kind of quote that the Republican machine feeds on. Personally, I buy Kerry's explanation that he was trying to insult Bush's intellect - not that of the troops. Any politician knows that bashing the men and women who serve is the dumbest thing a politician can do and Kerry himself is a veteran. Kerry also seems slightly obsessed with the question of whether he or Bush is smarter. Indeed, one can't help but wonder if he didn't release his Navy records during the campaign because they revealed that he actually got slightly worse grades at Yale than Bush did.

Nevertheless, the Republicans are going to run with this: note McCain's demand for an apology. Today there must be even fewer Democrats keen on Kerry '08.

The World Bank's report on the state of African development is being hailed as good news. That sub-Saharan African growth was 4 percent between 2000 and 2004, compared to 2.4 percent in the 1990s, is certainly a fact to be welcomed. It would, though, take a growth rate of 7+ percent to make a substantial dent in the poverty figures.

Digging around in the numbers is a rather depressing experience. Only nine countries in sub-Saharan Africa have a real GDP of more than $1,000 per capita and just one country breaks the $5,000 mark. By contrast, 32 have a GDP of less than $500 per capita. Only two sub-Saharan African countries have a life expectancy of more than 65 and five have one of less than 40.

The most interesting stats are on AIDS and trade. In all but two sub-Saharan African countries, the HIV/AIDS prevalence rate among women aged 15 to 24 is at least twice that of their male peers. In South Africa, the numbers are 14.8 percent for women, compared to 4.5 for men. The bank calculates that comprehensive trade reform would benefit Africa to the tune of $4.8 billion, with 78 percent of the gains coming from agricultural liberalization. (How do defenders of agricultural tariffs and subsidies sleep at night?) But what really struck me about the trade numbers was how little Africa trades with itself. 

Image courtesy of the World Bank

This illustrates the case for a pan-African free trade area. One way to help bring this out would be for developed nations to offer to unilaterally cut tariffs for all African nations prepared to sign up to such a scheme. Can someone please call Bono?

Just in case there isn't enough Obama chatter to keep you occupied, Fox News has released a poll that pits the flavor of the month against John McCain. The good news for Obama is that he halves the lead McCain has over Hillary. The bad news is that he still trails 38-41. The Republican all-star ticket, McCain-Giuliani, beats the Democratic all-star combo, Clinton-Obama, 48-40. And yes, we know polls this far out are pretty worthless, but they're fun - and it's Friday. 

Hat Tip: The Hotline 

Nuclear news

Iran widens its nuclear program as Russia blocks a European proposal that the Americans think is too soft. Graham Allison explains how the United States deters a nuclear North Korea. Meanwhile, Chinese trade with North Korea is carrying on as before. And chalk another one up to the intelligence community: They predicted in 1997 that the North Korean regime would collapse within five years.

News from the front

The fallout continues from Nato strikes that killed somewhere between 12 and 85 civilians. Karzai orders an inquiry, while Nato desperately tries to hold the Afghan mission together. In Iraq, insurgents kill 24 Iraqi police officers while the U.S. death toll mounts. In Washington, Rumsfeld tells his critics to "back off." Gerry Baker argues that whatever happens Iraq won't be the end of American greatness. 

U.S. Elections

Bush signs border fence bill, much to Mexico's annoyance. Republicans hope that concern over gay marriage can give them a last minute boost as a new Pew poll shows the Democrats with a double digit lead in swing districts. Eugene Robinson examines the GOP's Tennessee ads that offended the Canadians, among others. Weisberg, Krauthammer, and the Guardian look ahead to Obama '08.

And finally

Vietnam completes its WTO negotiations. Tom Friedman says that going green can reunite the West. France nervously marks an anniversary. The Archbishop of Canterbury has some Chinese lessons for the veil debate and Australia's top Muslim cleric is suspended. 

The several St. Louisans in the office are distressed by the news that the World Series is set to be delayed by rain - again. But the weather could be changing political history as well as baseball history.

In Missouri, there's a proposition on the ballot about stem cell research, and it is spilling over into the fiercely contested and crucial Senate contest there. Democratic candidate Claire McCaskill had Michael J. Fox cut an ad in support of stem cell research for her. The anti-proposition forces are now going head to head with McCaskill with an ad involving Cardinals pitcher Jeff Suppan, the actor who played Jesus in the Passion of the Christ, and various other celebs. The ad was meant to air last night, but didn't because the game was rained out.

I have a hunch that this delay is benefiting the anti-proposition side as the ad is getting a ton of free media. It got some play on the Today show this morning. More rain tonight might allow the "no" side to steal another base.

For a more substantial take on the stem cell question, read this Robert Paarlberg piece.  

The absurd view of Australia's most senior Muslim cleric that women who don't cover up in the Islamic fashion are inviting sexual assault has reignited the whole veil debate. His rather revealing parallel was, "If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden, or in the park, or in the backyard without cover, and the cats come to eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats' or the uncovered meat?"

With public condemnation—rightly—raining down on him, he has felt obliged to backtrack. (Though his apology is a classic example of that weasely genre of 'I'm sorry if anyone took offense' apologies.) But there is no doubt that his remarks are going to further polarize a debate that is already in danger of spinning out of control. We've raced from the reasonable suggestion that wearing the full veil isn't conducive to integration, to claiming that "wearing the nikab in this country at this time is an expression of affinity with the enemy."

Stephen Colbert interviews 2003 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Peter Agre:

Colbert: You said 'anyone who grew up on a farm knows that evolution exists'. Ok, are you saying a monkey can milk a cow? 

Agre: Well, if I can milk a cow I suspect a monkey as smart as I am can milk a cow.

Colbert: Are there monkeys as smart as you?

Agre: I'm sure there are quite a few, quite a few.

Colbert: Oh really? mmhum. Do they give a Nobel prize for thowing your own feces?

Agre: ........That's the Economics prize, I think.

Hat Tip: Greg Mankiw

Washington is in full election countdown mode. Every new set of polls is anticipated with the same eagerness reserved for JK Rowling's latest offering. On that front, today is a comparatively good day for the Republicans. New polls show them up in two of the three crucial Senate races. (The fact that these contests are in Tennessee, Missouri, and Virginia demonstrates that this isn't the best of times for the GOP.)

Members of the party hierarchy are doing all they can to gin up the base with events like yesterday's talk radio bonanza at the White House and Bush's presser this morning. They're also hoping that the New Jersey Supreme Court might just lend them a hand.

It is clear that a major plank of the Republican get-out-the-vote strategy is to tap into irritation at the idea that the results are a foregone conclusion - hence Bush's oft-repeated line today about "people dancing in the end zone in DC, measuring their drapes." Meanwhile, Karl Rove is happily telling reporters that their polls are wrong and that his personal ones show the Republicans holding the House and the Senate. It's an illustration of the hex Rove has over the media that no one is entirely sure if he's bluffing or not.

If the Republicans do hold both chambers, which I think is highly unlikely, the power of the Rove mystique will reach new heights. And through all this, 2008 looms ever larger. The first debate of the cycle on the Republican side has already been scheduled: May 15, 2007 at the University of South Carolina and broadcast on Fox News. On the Democratic side, the buzz about a Hillary-Obama contest just gets louder. You can say many things about U.S. politics right now, but one thing is certain: It isn't dull.

Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton's Iraq Study Group has yet to report. But that hasn't stopped every conversation about Iraq from referencing it, and nearly always in a positive light.

The sentiment is: Here come the graybeards to save the day. All of which rather worries me, not because of what I think the commission will suggest but because we're rapidly running toward a position where its proposals will be accepted in an unthinking manner. Remember how John Kerry and George W. Bush raced each other for the privilege of being the first to endorse the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission? The vast majority of those recommendations may well have been wise, but they were accepted before there had been a chance to properly study and debate them.  

The danger is that the same will happen with the Baker-Hamilton report, especially as there are clearly no easy or pleasant solutions to the current situation in Iraq. It will also be politically safe to line up behind this bipartisan panel of elders and, as most Democrats are afraid of their own shadow on national security, they find this political protection appealing. For their part, the majority of Republicans will be grateful for any suggestion that allows them to put this war behind them. 

The Baker-Hamilton Commission might come up with the least worst option for Iraq. But we should not rush to judgment. Age is no guarantor of wisdom. Nor is bipartisan consensus.  

Barack Obama skillfully opened the door to running for president on Meet the Press this Sunday. Although Tim Russert was nowhere near as aggressive about Obama retracting his previous statements as I thought he would be. Everyone and their mother is now weighing in with their take on whether he should run this time round or wait. On the Chris Matthews Show, Joe Klein argued that because of his family’s reservations Obama wouldn’t end up running. Others think that this is his moment and that it’s now or never. In the acres of Obama coverage, this snippet from The New York Times stands out to me:

One Democratic strategist close to Mr. Obama who spoke on the condition of anonymity suggested that the senator would probably look to the results in Tennessee, where Representative Harold E. Ford Jr. is trying to become the state’s first black senator, to measure the obstacles Mr. Obama might face in a national election.”

If Ford scores considerably fewer votes than the opinion polls suggest he will, it'll suggest that there are still reservations among white voters about supporting a black candidate. But if he pulls in the votes that the polls show that he should, it will demonstrate that Obama’s race will not be a significant handicap for him even in a heavily white Southern state. To understand how Ford is running neck and neck in a state that plumped for Bush over native son Al Gore in 2000 and that the president won by a massive 14 points in 2004, watch this interview Ford did with the Christian Broadcasting Network. 

 A new Harris poll for the Financial Times of the British, French, German, Italian and Spanish publics suggests that Tom Tancredo should move to Europe.

83 per cent of people believed their governments did not have immigration under control, while only 8 per cent agreed that the politicians had a grip on their borders.”

In Britain, long thought of as an immigrant-friendly country, more than three-quarters of people think there are too many immigrants and nearly 4 out of 5 argue that it is too easy to migrate to the country legally. In Italy, a staggering 96 percent of people regard illegal immigration as a problem. The level of hostility to immigration in Europe is demonstrated by the fact that France is the most pro-immigration of the countries surveyed.   

“No good options,” used to be Washington’s favorite cliché about Iran policy. It is in danger of becoming the buzz phrase for Iraq too. The whispers that the Bush administration will accept partition or a coup in Iraq are getting ever louder. Either option would be disastrous. As one of my smartest friends likes to say, partitioning Iraq would be like the partition of India—in which more than half a million people died—but with added AK-47s. As Anthony Cordesman pointed out when Joe Biden and Les Gelb floated this idea earlier this year, "Iraq is heavily urbanized, with nearly 40 percent of the population in the multiethnic greater Baghdad and Mosul areas. We have seen in Northern Ireland and the Balkans how difficult it is to split cities." For difficult, read bloody.

A coup also seems superficially appealing: Get a strong man in, restore order. But a coup is a lot like a stroke, once you’ve had one you’re much more likely to have another. The idea that a coup in Iraq would be a one time event is as naïve as the idea that a democratic society would emerge fully formed from the chrysalis of authoritarianism.

Thankfully,a U.S.-sanctioned coup or partition appears unlikely. Bush doesn’t sound like a man about to embrace either option. “It is [surrender], if you pull the troops out before the job is done,” he told George Stephanopoulos. If it weren't for that pesky cease and desist letter, Bush would be breaking out the Tom Petty again: “I won't back down, no I won't back down, You can stand me up at the gates of hell, But I won't back down.”

 By 11:30 on Sunday morning we should have a much better idea if Barack Obama is going to run for President this time round. Obama will be on Meet the Press this Sunday and Tim Russert will pound him about his ’08 ambitions. In a January appearance on Russert’s show, Obama ruled out running. Now he isn’t quite so sure. First, he told Joe Klein that after the mid-terms and the book tour he’ll “think about how I can be most useful to the country.” Now the Chicago Tribune—in a must-read—reports that Obama is regularly calling the Democratic consultant who managed Al Gore’s presidential campaign, Donna Brazile. She tells the paper that Obama “has gotten the presidential bug bite.”

The challenge for Obama this weekend will be to walk back his January comments without going too far. After all, the fact he isn’t a candidate is part of what's creating the buzz around him. If Obama does decide to run and Hillary Clinton also jumps in, the Democratic primaries could be the most enjoyable since 1960.