Maybe it's not such a bad idea after all that the next Secretary of State is an old Kremlinoligist. November has been an active month for Russia-watching, some good news, some not so good news.

Main areas of interest in this clippings collection:

1. A second term for President Bush -- views from Moscow
2. Black Gold - Russia has more... and then some
3. The evolving structure of Russia's political economy, and the dilemma of low growth and investment outside the energy sector
4. The CIS and the Near-Abroad -- Russia's posture in its sphere of influence, and the West's responses
5. NATO -- areas of collaboration and friction
6. Nuclear weapons and treaties
7. Chechnya

   more »

Just in case anyone was wondering, "Bush will still pursue 'agressive foreign policy'" according to Colin Powell in an interview with the FT. (State Dept transcript here.)

“The president is not going to trim his sails or pull back,” Mr Powell told the Financial Times on Monday. “It's a continuation of his principles, his policies, his beliefs.” In his first interview since the presidential election last Tuesday, Mr Powell stressed Mr Bush had won a mandate to pursue a foreign policy that was in the US national interest.

That policy would also be in the interest of friends and alliances, and while it would be “multilateral in nature”, the US would act alone where necessary.   more »

After reading this very creative James Fallows piece (subscriber only) detailing a mock wargaming exercise concerning Iran's nuclear weapons program, I can understand why some folks might be attracted to the idea of a velvet revolution as a solution to America's Iran problem.

The Atlantic assembled a group consisting of some usual suspects: retired USAF Colonel Sam Gardiner (who penned a typo-laden expose of the Pentagon's GWII psy-ops), Reuel Marc Gerecht (everyone's favorite former spy--sorry, Robert Baer fans), David Kay (of "We were almost all wrong" fame), Kenneth Pollack (author of the new book, Oops I screwed up on Iraq, howsabout Iran?), and a few other guys I'd never heard of.

Playing the role of CENTCOM (and sometimes the CIA), Gardiner gave an extensive PowerPoint presentation (one that would certainly give Edward Tufte fits of apoplexy) to kick off the game.

The article itself is tough to summarize, so I've taken the, ahem, liberty, of excerpting some of the slides for the benefit of our loyal readers here. (The slides, by the way, are also riddled with typos).    more »

So the tete a tete between the EU3 and Iran isn't going to have any US fingerprints on it. Is it remotely possible that someone connected with the Bush Admin is engaged in subtle and nuanced diplomacy? In an election year? Or do they wanting to underline the difference in their approach from Kerry's (and the Europeans') multilateralist "appeasement" instincts. It will be interesting to see whether Iran moves to the front burner in the campaign, and by how much Kerry's engagement ideas differ from what the Europeans are proposing. Wonder how much they're briefing the Kerry people about what's really going on. Sure would like to be a fly on several walls around Washington.

From the Jerusalem Post:

The IAEA's ruling last week, says Michael Ledeen, a Freedom Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a strong advocate of regime change in Teheran, "means we've given Iran another pass until the end of the November."

Asked if last week's deliberations were a setback for US policy, which for over a year has been focused on getting Iran's nuclear program referred to the Security Council, Ledeen said, "This is more of the same, however you want to define it. We're not making any progress. The UN and the Europeans keep saying the same thing every three months. You wait every three months and eventually Iran has an atomic bomb. Then you don't need to worry about this failed policy."

Ledeen also believes that even if the Iranian program were to be referred to the Security Council, it is unlikely that sanctions on oil or natural gas – the only ones that might have an impact on the regime in Teheran – would be imposed. And even if they were, he says, "oil is fungible. Saddam proved oil sanctions don't really work. So who are we kidding?"

Don't worry, Michael.

U2 has the answer.