I took another extended weekend off from this blog, which would ordinarily lead me to apologize for so doing to all my expectant and disappointed readers. But since virtually no one is reading this blog, for reasons explained earlier, I don't have to do that.  It doesn't mean, however, that I haven't been thinking about Obamanation and the Newest Deal while I was sleeping, reading, playing music, getting my brains beat out at bridge, walking in the woods, baking rye bread and making an eggplant parmesan that truly kicked culinary ass. I have indeed been thinking, and I'll come to that in a bit. But first a little public service notice, or better, some backstory to a public service notice.

In Sunday's Washington Post, front page on the right above the fold--in other words, the Post's Sunday lead--there appeared an article by Karen DeYoung (one of Colin Powell's biographers, as it happens) entitled "Obama's NSC Will Get New Power." You can read what General Jim Jones has in store, evidently with the President's approval, for yourself. What you can't read in the Washington Post is about where these ideas came from. They came, in the main, from a two-year Congressionally-funded commission called the Project on National Security Reform (PNSR). 

PNSR was conceived and led by James Locher, the man who also conceived the Goldwater-Nichols reform back in 1986, the one that revamped for the better the structure of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Not only was General Jones one of about two dozen commissioners who have been with the PNSR effort pretty much from the start, so was the new DNI Admiral Dennis Blair. You can go to the PNSR website for a list of the other members; if you're more or less attentive to the American national security/foreign policy scene, you'll recognize plenty of the names. 

If you want really to understand the analysis behind what Gen. Jones is thinking and has said and plans, you have two choices. One is that you can read the PNSR Commission study, which will be available to the general public pretty soon, but that's about 650 pages--a small hernia, in other words. Or you can read the executive summary to the study, of some 5,000 words, published in James Locher's name in the January/February issue of The American Interest. The American Interest is, of course, the magazine of which I am the founding editor, and it so happens that I helped the PNSR commission, in the latter weeks and months of its effort, to craft that executive summary upon Mr. Locher's request. Translation: I wrote it, and that's largely how I managed to snag this important piece of work for my magazine. 

That doesn't mean that I'm on an intimate basis, politically speaking, with General Jones. Never met the man (yet). I did go to one PNSR Commission meeting toward the end of the effort, in case anyone in attendance wanted to ask questions about my draft executive summary, and I did see Admiral Blair there--and we spoke a bit. We've since exchanged a few emails and I sent him the intell material from the March/April issue of the magazine (essays by Gordon Lederman and John McLaughlin). 

We'll see how this new NSC works out. I am optimistic that General Jones understands the system and its flaws, and has a good line to how to make things work better. But one thing is already clear, however: The transition to a stronger, more authoritative NSC is not likely to be a smooth one. The system in transition has already scored one doozy of a boner. 

Jones apparently offered General Tony Zinni the post of U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, replacing Ambassador Crocker who is leaving real soon. Possibly seeing this as a power grab, Secretary Hillary scotched the idea, apparently arguing that it wasn't a good idea to have military guys in both Baghdad and Kabul (General Eikenberry, a 3-star, is headed there). So Chris Hill got that job instead--Chris Hill of the Six-Power Talks negotiations, Chris Hill who I met and worked with on Air Force II (and on the ground) when I travelled to India, Pakistan, Korea, China and Japan with Secretary Rice almost exactly four years ago. But that's not important.

Anyway, this was pretty embarrassing, obviously. Jones then reportedly apologized to Zinni for the mix-up and asked him if he'd wanted to be our man in Riyadh instead.  Zinni, again reportedly (heck, I certainly wasn't there), general to general, Marine to Marine, told Jones where he could shove that job. 

Boy, isn't gossip fun, especially when it has that strong, musky odor of verisimilitude about it? 

You can see why Hillary felt as she did, assuming she did and this was not just an innocent start-of-administration communications mix-up. The Arab-Israeli portfolio has been rented out to George Mitchell, the Afghan-Pak portfolio to Richard Holbrooke. Vice-President Biden has staked a claim to policy on Russia and NATO. What does she get to do? Stare down Hugo Chavez? 

But maybe she's lucky. Look what these folks have drummed up for Afghanistan alone. You've got a 4-star in Washington at Centcom, General Patreaus, with overall authority on the security side. You've got another 4-star in the field there, Gen. McKiernan. You've got a 3-star soon in the Embassy, Gen. Eikenberry. You've got Holbrooke as special representative of the President. You've got the lurking Biden, who has taken a special interest in Afghanistan for some time, and one of his longtime aides, Tony Blinken, in a hot seat with a joy stick at the NSC. Someone down there is the Assistant Secretary of State for Central Asia, too, presently Richard Boucher but probably not for long. And so the question: Who the hell is in charge?!  Beats me. Hillary is wise to stay out of the way until this gets sorted out.....if it ever does get sorted out.

Anyway, I have had lots of other thoughts this weekend, mainly about cycles, bicycles and tricycles. And I want to tell you all about my failed Presidential campaign as well--not the rubber chicken I never ate but the ideas I developed. But later for this......later. I have other things I need to do.