Andrew Cuomo makes his move with precision and rising zest, and all eyes on the potential 2015-16 showdown between the Governor of New York and the Governor of the GOP (Christie, Kasich, Walker, Snyder, Bush, none of the above). Albany is the gold standard of lanching pads for a Democratic nomination, and though it has not been used since Nelson Rockefeller fell short in 1964 (Mario Cuomo ducked in 1984), it is as magical as ever. Andrew Cuomo has survived a childhood in politics, a marriage and fatherhood with the happy arachnid Kennedy clan, and a bout of Clintonista when serving as the Housing Is Fun cabinet secretary for the second term.  I saw Cuomo on the floor of the LA convention in 2000 and was impressed by his imperiousness and energy.  In sum, Andrew Cuomo has trained for the Albany job his whole adult life, and the step to the White House is a short hop from the governor's mansion, in the ghostly company of Cleveland, TR, FDR.  The first Italian president will make a neat package on the campaign trail.  There is nothing lightweight about AC; indeed, his slight weakness may be that he is self-invented as grave and driven.  There is an Oedipal plot here, though it is subdued because it requires Andrew to rise up and win the crown from the Kennedy clan by divorcing the daughter and clinging to the TV celebrity cook damsel.  Very twisted, but I like it.  The Kennedys finally get a hard bank shot at the White House, and it is on the coattails of the brother-in-law who broke free.   Andrew Cuomo has the full tool kit for Washington -- brains, brawn, connections, attitude, motive, a beauty for the beast in him, and that magical Albany roost.  It is early, and AC must survive the traps and snares along the Hudson (Sheldon Silver of Manhattan, below, Speaker of the Assembly for four hundred years, is a Living Snare); and AC must demonstrate that he can renovate New York's loony system of tax and whine; however, for now, AC looks lik a man with a plan, which is more than POTUS O, who bounces from cushion to cushion while playing the Brookings/New Foundation policy snooker game.

 

POTUS speaks of the Libya operation as an accomplishment. POTUS speaks of the US position as in a "transition" -- "so that the risk and cost of this operation -- to our military, and to the American taxpayers -- will be reduced significantly." The Obama administration appeals to the American people to approve of the Libyan episode with our so-called allies of NATO, because it is cheaper and easier than doing it ourselves.  Odd logic.  Even cheaper would have been not to do it, but POTUS does not entertain this scenario.  POTUS says the US has saved "countless lives."  POTUS says that regime change in Libya would wreck the NATO alliance.  POTUS also says that Qadaffi must go.  Magically go.  No solving the paradox that Qaddafi must go but that the regime must not change . . .   Spoke Farah Stockman, Boston Globe, to learn that the rebel council, called the TNC, at Benghazi, is a longtime pal of the brainy American Monitor Group out of Cambridge, Massachusetts.  Much to learn of the Monitor Group taking $250,000 per month for years and the apparent PR rehabilitation of the Qadaffis.  Much more to discover of the intertwined business deals between Tripoli and Europe these last years, since the so-called rehabilitation of 2004.  My information is that nothing about the Libyan war is going well.  The TNC has little credibility in Washington, since it is made up of 31 men with closets of skeletons.  Mention also that the Obama administration is said to have gamed Russia at the UNSC so as not to use its veto.  Russia now telling Libya that the US claimed falsely it was imposing a no-fly zone and not a ground-attack no-drive zone.  Russia claiming it was deliberately misled, the same way it was misled in Bosnia.   Note that Russian FM Lavrov, not attending the London confab of allies on Libya, asserts that the allies in the Libya action must submit a report to the UNSC, not to any other intervening organization (such as NATO).  Nice, neat Kremlin logic, as the UNSC is where Russia and China sit with their vetos.  WIll Qaddafi save the allies and take an extended vacation in Caracas?  What's in it for him?

Sudden darkening news from Fukushima includes a Reuters flash, now backed by a BBC report, that the water at Unit #2 is up to 10 million times normal, and that the workers must be evacuated. This is not a positive development after anecdote for the last days of workers' being damaged by radiation from stepping in contaminated water. The Japanese government has aleady estimated the quake and tsunami and reactor disaster to cost over $300 billion. The puzzle remains of whether or not it can be contained. The reports for several days have pointed to Unit #3 as the problem. Unit #2 (below, #2 control room as they restored lights) was not featured for several days and was presumed solved.  The evacuation zone outside of Fukushima continues to grow, with a quarter of a million already evacuated and the red line spreading into Fukushima Prefecture.  The challenge is how to measure the TEPCO failure at Fukushima (the reminder is that this is said to be a 60% man-made crisis caused by TEPCO's denial, arrogance, delay and deception in the first critical hours).  A strange victim, out of many more to come, is Angela Merkel, who is now slated to lose a bi-election in Baden-Wurtemberg because she reversed course on nukes in Germany.  The Germans have only seventeen reactors, and for the short-term they have closed the seven most like Fukushima.  The Greens are rallying voters to the no-nuke cause.  It is coming the US way, and we have 104 reactors, with four on fault zones and more than twenty like the light-water reactors at Fukushima.  The ongoing crisis at Fukushima will weaken the nuke forces in all hemispheres.  Worse, TEPCO is now baldly revealed as untrustworthy, and this case will spoil all trust of nuke operators.

 

The bombing in Libya is said to be a response to the civil war in Libya. There are no happy endings in a civil war. This video illustrates an outrage, but the facts of bombing on a civilian city are equally iffy, and we know it. Spoke Joe Brusuelas, Bloomberg, to learn that the gasoline prices you are paying reflect the markets pricing in the Libyan bombing, the Bahraini crackdown, the Japanese demand. The markets prove resilient over these last two months of surprises from foreign correspondence. The Arab Spring continues to engage strangely unpredictable populations, such as the risings in Yemen and Syria. Spoke Dan Henninger, WSJ, re how the Arab Spring is a world historical moment, that the turmoil creates a race for a new governance across the ummah, and the race is between modernism with its celebration of the experimental and capitalist modes, and Islamism, which promotes the certainty of shariah law and a negation of democracy and tolerance as we understand them. Also spoke Michael Vlahos, re the historical analogy of the Peloponnesian Wars. The small states of the ummah, and the small states of Europe, shift alliances and enmities depending upon the whims of the potentates and the contest of the major leagues -- which roughly describes the one-hundred-year contest of Sparta and Athens and their confederates. Michael Vlahos names the US as the Persia of the matrix, that is, the giant empire that lost domination of the Asia Minor shore and access to the Athenian and Spartan leagues. Persia aimed to interfere in the Peloponnesian struggles to its favor. Sometimes cunning, sometimes inept, Persia chose winners, discarded allies, and reviewed its options for nearly two centuries until the Macedonian tyro Alexander emerged from the scrambling city states and turned up to crack the empire open. We entertained the notion that the US is interfering clumsily, and that out of the serial revolutions there will be a single winner. Iran? Egypt? Our choice tonight was Turkey, the successful Islamist state that also uses democracy, cash, partisanship and a savvy piety.

Speaking Del Quentin Wilbur, author, Rawhide, re the assassination attack on Ronald Reagan in March 1981 by the sad-eyed Hinckley, and how lucky it was that Secret Agent Jerry Parr not only shoved POTUS Reagan into the car but also made the judgment call to divert to George Washington Hospital rather than return to the White House.  Without that decision, done instinctively by Parr even absent certain evidence that the president had been wounded, the result would have been catastrophe.  The book is a moment-by-moment recounting of the details from many points of view, including that of the sorrowful Hinckley.  It is surprising to learn how near Reagan was to death.  What a dark difference the death of Ronald Reagan would have made to the history of the Cold War and to the success of the United States in the 20th century. The alternative universe is where the Russians win the first round, Red Dawn.

Spoke Larry Johnson, No Quarter, to hear the scuttlebutt from Army circles around Ft. Bragg that the NATO meeting some 24 hours ago did not proceed to harmony. The NATO chief Rasmussen made remarks about some states being difficult - and quickly, it is reported, the German and the French representatives left the meeting in annoyance. Soon thereafter, the Italian representative demanded that either NATO support the coalition war-making or else the offer of the Italian airfields is withdrawn. Today, Turkey repeated this formula in its own fashion, declaring that NATO must take over the operation. Turkey also offered to mediate between Tripoli and Benghazi. The confusion deepens, as the Benghazi crowd of law professors and their yuppie coffee shop pals claim they represent a democratic alternative that will develop a constitution and seek the support of the people as soon as they get to Tripoli. The Obama administration is stuck with a coalition that is unled, with a rebel opposition that is unorganized, with a war plan that is unclear.  The usefulness of Libya is that it illustrates the non-policy of the Obama administration with regard the Arab Spring.  The usefulness also extends to providing the much-missed Keith Olbermann, late of MSNBC and fresh of FOK TV, a chance to pontificate with his customary merry band of ironies and metaphors.  There is also the small pleasure of watching Russian parliamentarians demanding POTUS give back his Nobel Peace Prize.  Delicious.

Tim Pawlenty launches his exploratory committee on Facebook, a cozy turn for the presidential season opener. Spoke John Avlon, CNN, who regards T-Paw as the perfect No. 2 choice. It is early, and there is the puzzle of why Pawlenty chose this crowded-hour news cycle to step into the arena. Speculation that it provides advantage for fundraising and traveling to events. Pawlenty is correct to focus on jobs and job security in his video. POTUS Obama remains vulnerable on domestic security, not foreign security.  There is little to dislike and nothing at all to get excited about.  Mention that at the Chicago 1860 convention, the agreed-upon No. 2 choice after all the strong regional leaders was A. Lincoln, an unknown from the Northwest frontier.  No. 2s have a secret: no one objects.

Qaddafi uses his stooge-in-arms Hugo Chavez to communicate the essential agitprop line that the Crusaders are attacking Libya for its oil, and that this is "naked aggression" by the infidels. Can't argue with the formula: it works for a thousand years, and will for the next ten thousand. POTUS says the US portion will last "a few days," whatever that means; and there is no reason to believe that POTUS NSC has a timeline that can be written down.  This is not war-war.  This is jaw-jaw with war theatricals in the background.  The 112 US Tomahwak strikes used GPS targeting on fixed and dull positions.  Am told the US does not know where Q good stuff (air, missiles, ammo, cash, trinkets, Russian comm, WMD, nuke dual-use) is hiding.  Likely in the deep, deep desert, as Q has known for years to bury deep what he cares about.  Am told that Sarkozy is pressing the attack in some sort of death wish dive into his presidential contest (he is badly behind in the polls), while Berlusconi is hiding from the "Crusader" rhetoric.  Obama is just hiding in Brazil.  This is Jeanne d'Arc's little war, and what a splendid demonstration of bombast and consequences.  Am told that the choice witticism of the eve is that the first casualties for the initiation of the no-fly zone were four old-style Soviet T-72 tanks.  The No Clank-Clank Zone.

In the matter of eight and a half weeks, the Obama administration is on a perfect run to lose Egypt, lose the Gulf, lose the Maghreb, lose the UNSC.  Obama mentions the "coalition," and the "international community."  What head count?  Cameron and Harper are somewhere clubby, but that looks like Sarko upfront, and Berlusconi is out for a cigarette; and Merkel is facing a March 27 bi-election in Baden-Wurtemberg that will determine Merkel's ruling coalition for the next years to the election (2012) - and the Greens are already on the attack.  Merkel is out of this.  Putin and Medvedev wait to pick up the Libyan oil field deals along with China and Brazil.  Moscow may be laughing too hard to think.  I am told to watch the fact that Kuwait just signed a refinery deal with China, following the Saudi deal with China in the Red Sea.  Q has now secured the attention of the ummah.  American Tomahawks land on the sacred land of the Caliphate.  Is this Bush Continued?  The optics are so dumbfoundingly ironic that it is not worth the whole listing, just the start: Ultimatum, piety about "the potential for war crimes," coalition of the willing, European palaver at the UN, Russia and China no-shows, Arab stooges MIA, and an evil dictator at the target center (Saddam 2).  Yes?  Like the twist that there will be no ground troops.  Oh?  What is the rebel force at Benghazi, dust bunnies?  From the POV of the Libyan and Maghrebi tribals, the Benghazi crew is the same as Crusader stooges, that is, betrayers of the Faith.  And those infidel-lovers are fully cooperating with the Crusader air, yes?  

Q knows that to defeat him, coalition must land troops.  Q is preparing the faithful for a ground war in Cyrenaica, from Benghazi to the Egyptian border.  If it comes, Q is ready; if it does not come, Q has rallied the faithful regardless.  The Q accusation against Al Q is entirely for European consumption.  Mention that Q was running a very minor conflict before the UNSC showed up.  Now am told that Q has put out the word to cut throats of the opposition from Tripolitania to Cyrenaica.  HRC wants war crimes; Q obliges.  Might as well commit the crimes you are being bombed for.  Night of the long knives right now.

 

 

Spoke Dan Henninger, WSJ, re the collapse of internationalism as evidenced by the helter-skelter decision to presume a 10-0 vote for a resolution to intervene in some fashion in the Libyan civil war  -- Dan follows his colleague Matt Kaminski in regarding this as the New Tower of Babel.   Max Boot, CFR, oberves that the resolution is as broad as possible so the member states can interpret at will. It is not insignificant that five major states declined: Brazil, India, China, Russia and Germany. My information indicates that the tribals will side with Q if and when the air strikes arrive. Much of the Q arsenal, especially the air assets, are in the deep desert, where the tribals rule. Am told that David Cameron is trying to back out as quickly as HRC is trying to step in. HRC sees this as "humanitarian interventionism." Sarkozy says that he does not want NATO involved. Am told that the Arab League did not approve air strikes, or any force -- that was just a one-off statement by Amr Musa, who is running for president of Egypt. Tunisia drops out. Malta drops out. Russia is smart to stay on the sidelines. Am told that Q has promised his oil fields to China, Russia and Brazil, which would explain their walking away from the UNSC vote.  The New Tower of Babel moves the story to the old moral that arrogance makes the world tumble into collective self-congratulation.  Late report from Benghazi suggests that any intervention will have to target urban fighting in a city of 700,000: this all must be regarded as disinformation; however, it will intimidate the Paris rescuers.

 

The news from Manama, the capital of the small island state of Bahrain, is that the Fifth Fleet HQ has gone on maneuvers to Oman for an indefinite time frame. In sum, bug-out from the proxy war in Bahrain between Riyadh and Tehran.  Am told that the IRGC has staffed and funded the so-called protesters.  The social media messaging that now floods the web, #bahrain, is suspect of being an IRGC disinformation campaign.  Of most significance, am told the Bahrain confrontation marks the breakdown of the 65-year-long alliance between Washington and Riyadh.   The Kingdom has now turned away.  China through the Pakistan connection looks like the choice to replace the US.  Spoke Barry Rubin, GLORIA, to learn that Egypt is also tumbling away from the US.  Pat Lang, Sic Semper Tyrannis, said that Cairo is looking for another sponsor.  What has caused this break between Washington and its allies in the Middle East?  Am told that the White House is deaf to experienced diplomats in the region.  That the White House is piously ideological in supporting so-called democratic-leaning youth protesters despite the evidence that the "yuppie bloggers" are either naive ideologues themselves, without experience in governance or diplomacy, or else they are tools of the anarchists, Islamists and Twelvers. Asked Barry Rubin if the US is on the brink of losing Egypt.  Answer: over the brink.  Asked Pat Lang if there was any repairing break with Riyadh.  Answer: no. 

From YouTube, and reported @AJELive #Bahrain, police shooting in Sitra this morning: what looks to be a handful of militia in a rough part of town, with graffiti on the walls, few cars, certainly not uniformed police authority, moving backward from unseen shouting. Two or more shots ring out, unclear from where, and then one of the militia fires a round.  Spoke Pat Lang and Larry Johnson, Tuesday 15, who tell me that Riyadh has broken off communication with Washington re Bahrain.  David Sanger, NYT, tells me that the first time the White House knew of the Saudi troops rolling over the causeway to Bahrain was when it saw it on the news.  Pat Lang says this is a major turn in the road, an unprecedented breakdown.  Pat Lang and Larry Johnson and I speculated whom the Saudis will task for military cover in the Gulf if they are shedding the US.  China is the guess.  The Saudis have quit the Obama administration as an ally.  The deterioration started with the Mubarak fiasco of late January and now continues through the Q fiasco of March.  The Bahrain event, the imminent brutality, the distrust and disdain by Riyadh for Washington, all signs point to bloodymindedness in the Gulf.  There is a proxy war between Riyadh and Tehran, and the US is out of the fight.  

Am reporting now that the Bahrain riot police backed up by tanks and the Saudi troops are moving now on the protesters camped out in the open in Manama, using tear gas and brute force. Widely reported that it is in fact a more-damaging nerve gas.

    

Spoke Mark Schroder, Stratfor.com, re the disintegration of Côte d'Ivoire and its major city, Abidjan, these last weeks since the wrecked presidential election in early December. Laurent Gbagbo refuses to leave his palace, almost all the major military and police figures remain loyal to him, and the genuine winner of the presidential vote, Alassane Ouattara, remains encamped at the Golf Hotel on the other side of Abidjan, surrounded by UN peacekeepers. There is no peace. Gbagbo marauders open fire on Ouattara neighborhoods. The French and American diplomats are ordered from the country. Civil war is extant. I see this collapse as a sinister model for the other dictators who refuse to leave the lair, such as Qaddafi at Tripoli, Saleh at Sa'ana and the al-Khalifa family at Manama, Bahrain. The UN is helpless; the African Union is feckless; the EU and the UN will do nothing forceful. Just refuse to go, and the might of the US and its allies is vanquished.  Abidjan has a long way to fall.  The civil wars of Africa continue without much cost to the predators and tyrants.

"...radiation leaked from the plant when a blast blew the roof off..."  

Several reactors at Fukushima are said to be in various stages of overheating. The emergency procedure includes flooding the cores with sea water to control the temperature and to keep the cores from being exposed to air. The engineering intricacies predominate, and the reported decisions seem logical and practical while at the same time forced by events. There is a smell of doubt in the air.  The radiation released into the water and air can be broken into layers of risk. Reading William J. Broad, NYT, I learn that radiation release from a core accident can be talked about in levels of risk. The release of radioactive Nitrogen 16, with a half life of seconds, and tritium, with a half-life of twelve years, are mostly threats to humans in the immediate vicinity of the cores, such as nuke plant workers and emergency crews. The fearful news is radioactive Iodine and caesium. Particles of radioactive iodine-131, with a half-life of eight days, get into our thyroid when we eat food from a contaminated food chain.  Significantly, iodine-131 can be blocked by taking potassium iodine tablets, which is what the Japanese are handing out now around Fukushima. The worst threat is caesium-137, Cs-137, which has a half-life of thirty years and is very bad news, mon amour. It is water-soluble. It mimics potassium and therefore gets into our metabolism through our food, including milk. There is a lot of it in our soil and food and bodies now, from the nuke tests of the 1950s and 60s by the US and Russia. It is especially harmful to children.  It travels with the wind and water currents. The posioned land around Chernobyl, the so-called zone of alienation in Ukraine, is soaked with Cs-137.

It is surely not a positive development that the Tokyo Electric Company informs the government that radiation levels around the reactors are now about the safety limit and there is an "emergency situation."  Time to "kitchensink," a term of art meaning to prepare for the worst time the worst, throw everything into the estimates, and see what remains.   (For example, it is not yet near as bad as Chernobyl, which permanently poisoned the politics of 1986.)  Truly grim is that fact that the Japanese news now includes wind and weather conditions around Fukushima.  The wind is from the south, blowing away from Tokyo (and toward Alaska), and the temperatures around 15 degrees Celsius, no rain, clear skies.

 

Al Jazeera's plush lineup of mannered British correspondents and presenters manages softly the hollowed-out news of the Arab League meeting in Cairo endorsing a no-fly zone -- and then running away from the decision by forbidding "foreign military intervention."   The obvious modifier for this cognitive dissonace, avoided politely by Al Jazeera, is  "illogical," or the more summary rude remark, "brainless."  The closest James Bays gets to confronting the geniuses of the Arab League is "somewhat contradictory," as in,  "...that seem somewhat contradictory....and at the same time no foreign military intervention...the first thing you have to do is to degrade the Libyan military defenses...then you get into an air combat situation...they kept all the countries on board by having these two companion resolutions, but in some ways one seems to contradict the other...it all moves now to New York, to give the legality for a no-fly zone ..."  Note that the luminary Amr Musa of the Arab League (left) is the leading candidate for the Egyptian presidential election when and if the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces gets out of the way and turns the nation over to the Ikhwan.  Now Musa is associated with bold indecision with the Arab League.  Need scorecard to follow the doublethink.

The probability of the UNSC endorsing and leading a no-fly zone is about the same as the NFL avoiding a strike.  This will be rich next week, watching the UNSC hotshots posture and obfuscate (diplomatic falsifying) while Q presses his mercenary army to roll up to the gates of Benghazi.  My information is that any military action by the US, regardless of how many other stooges cooperate, will result in the tribes now on the concertina wire fence going over to Q.  The Arab League knows this, and so it did the least it could without actually changing the status quo ante whereby Q is winning the civil war, and is winning it ugly. 

Am told that Libyan Air Force/Army has about 90 rotary-winged aircraft, both Soviet/Russian and British/French, all beefed up, and with plent of ammo.  They are flying well, and are most effective.  As of two days ago, the report was two helicopters shot down so far by the rebels, one of Q forces, one of their own.  Suppressing helicopters is much more difficult than suppressing fixed-wing aircraft.  Note that many of the bases for the Libyan Air Force are in the deep desert, in the Fezzan Province, and would require attacking the tribals, which would also bring the tribals in on the side of revenge.

Tsunami in the Pacific illustrates the geophysics of what is happening in a non visible fashion in the Gulf.  Libya remains a sideshow that is a European problem, the soft power geniuses tripping around waiting for Uncle Sugar, who is not listening this time. POTUS Obama is pure soft power; and that means that he will equivocate until Q is restored and Libya is once again in the international community, subset of rogues that we must deal with because of energy needs. The major threat remains the Gulf.   The first so-called Day of Rage in East Arabia did not come to a clash on video, likely because the Ministry of Interior flooded the streets with goons and police. This is a pattern that has worked so far in Algriers as well.   Pat Lang, Larry Johnson and other sources are clear that the Al Quds force of the IRGC is on the scene and looking for advantage.  Bahrain remains unsolved and brittle.  Oman is an open question.  Yemen is not stable.  The next flash point is unknown and unpredictable.  The tsunami of the street seller in Tunis in December 2010 spreads hapharzardly with the speed of Facebook and Twitter, no change; and with the sinister intervention of the devils, such as Q and Ahmadinejad and Mugabe. Bashir, Gbagbo and more.  American power remains standing down as the Magreb collapses and the oil fields burn.

The sitrep at the Japanese nuke plant at Fukushina Daiichi complex, where two of the reactors are in various levels of jeopardy, is unusually unpredictable.  The word "meltdown" is used by the reporters in Japan when they qualify the story.  And there is a report that a fire engine is pumping water directly onto the reactor core to keep it cool.  None of this makes the story less alarming.

Tokyo Electric, which owns the Fukushima Daiichi complex, said later that it was also having trouble controlling three of the four reactors it owns at its nearby Fukushima Daina plant.  

Meantime, report from the West Bank is that five members of an Israeli family are dead of stabbing wounds by a suspected terror attacker(s).  The dead include an eleven year-old and a three year-old, stabbed in sleep.  Meltdowns in many directions.

Spoke Bill Whalen, Hoover, re the wandering Mitt Romney candidacy, as Romney spends much time in California (when not in chilly New Hampshire, below) with his wife and because one of his sons lives there. The puzzle is why Romney wants to be president?  Bill Whalen observes that Romney is bedeviled by his healthcare program from Massachusetts and by his lack of clarity.  No one much has confidence in his voluble and sophisticated politics.  Romney is whatever he says he is at the moment he says it.  The healthcare is dull policy.  The conservatism is forced, a mix of libertarianism and pacifism.  Inside Romney is a Treasury secretary screaming to be understood.  I find no reason to speak for or against him.  Whalen does not believe Romney's Mormonism is an issue; and I agree.  What weakens Romney is that he has no purpose, neither called to duty nor pushed into the spotlight.  Romney's electioneering is do-nothing and wait-for-the-nomination.  Spoke Tod Lindberg, Hoover, re how POTUS risks becoming a the do-nothing president.  Lindberg pointed to the success of Harry Truman in 1948 to campaign against the "do-nothing" Republican Congress.  Now the reverse, with a frisky Republican House, a savvy Republican Minority in the Senate, and a White House that remains passive, quiet, hesitant, shy, hence a do-nothing POTUS.  It is just a slogan; however, it is oddly resonant.  Ruth Marcus of WaPo, Lindberg notes, mocks POTUS Obama with the column, "Where's Waldo?"

 

Report from Libya.  The civil war continues piecemeal.  Spoke Charles Levinson, WSJ, at Benghazi, to learn that the so-called "rebel forces" are disorganized and unlikely to cohere.  The speakers at Benghazi are human rights lawyers and local attorneys, and they are reluctant to speak with one voice.  Negotiations with the EU and other Europeans states are in the hands of diplomats who have broken with Q but are not speaking for one faction.  Generalities.  There is no fighting at Benghazi.  The battlefront continues several hundred kilometers to the west of Benghazi.  The tribals are the root of the dispute.  The policy debate about the no-fly zone is futile, no use.  Q forces are most effective with rotary-winged aircraft, and no bombing of airfields will stop that advantage.  Q forces use Soviet/Russian and British/French helicopters, able to hop from battlefront to village.  Also, the tribals in the interior of the country, the deep desert, have not chosen sides.  A no-fly policy will force the tribals to back Q against the infidel.   Mention that there is talk of petrol shortage at Benghazi, and it is not idle.  Q special forces cut the main pipeline at Tobruk.  And Q-favoring jihadists at Darnah (a/k/a Derna) on the Egyptian border road have cut the main supply route from the East.  Petrol supply in doubt.  No gas, no rebellion.

John Kerry Goes to War.   

Late comment from the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the US ought consider a no-fly zone and consider bombing Libyan airfields and airports.  Earlier in the day, the White House Chief of Staff, Bill Daley, remarked that those who called for a NFZ "don't know what they're talking about."  The war of posturing in the Obama administration will likely include POTUS as the GOP turns to calling for action in Libya.  The price of oil, and the corresponding gasoline spike in the US, drives the political ops to distraction -- and complaining about a NFZ is a way to appear to be acting in a forthright fashion.  The options for POTUS are to use the Strategic Oil Reserve (a taboo); to cut Federal taxes on gasoline; to jaw jaw about off-shore drilling; to jaw jaw about green.  Guess?  POTUS may duck all questions. POTUS does not like the media since he got burned in 2010.  Does John Kerry speak for POTUS?  Who can tell, but my guess is yes.  SecDef Gates pushed NFZ off the table last Wednesday 2; POTUS returned on Thursday 3 to say it was back on -- and David Sanger pushed me to say that it was back on the table.  How to explain Daley saying, "no," and then Kerry saying, "yes"?  The Obama team is undisciplined, fickle, competitive, inert; and Kerry's remarks were designed to balance out the GOP hawk voices with a Democratic hawk.  The sitrep in Libya is one-sided.  The so-called rebels cannot last; the so-called rebels are a scattering of overheated goofs (below) and their fair-weather friends; and the Qaddafi forces are inevitable.  Look to the video below and consider these amateurs are as effective as paint-ballers.  Libya is a mess of tribal conflicts; it always was a mess; and it is not soon welcome to become an American mess.

 " 

Egypt remains the center of the collapse of the status quo ante. Repeat what I learned the first days, after a roundtable meal of VIPS and intelligence analysts in London on January 27: there is nothing that can be said negative of the NSC and Obama administration that has not already been said in Arabic. Best information as of this last week is that the Egyptian military remains deeply spooked, that the Ikhwan is highly confident, that the so-called protesters are disorganized, spontaneous, willful, powerless except to make noise, and readily available for manipulation. Fresh rumor is that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is looking to stage parliamentary elections as early as June. This alarms everyone with common sense, since there are only two significant organized parties, the NDP and the heretofore-banned Brothers. Also mention that the senior military believes the junior officer cadre is shot through with Ikhwan influence. The result looks to be a Puritan caliphate in time.  Price of gasoline is how we will keep score.  Pat Lang, Sic Semper Tyrannis, reminds of T. E. Lawrence about how the Arabs move in waves, and that this wave will continue for some time, long after POTUS and his successor have left the shore:

Spoke David Sanger, NYT, re POTUS remark that no-fly zone over Libya remains an option. "Still on the table" is the jargon. This is direct contradiction of SecDef Gates 24 hours earlier, when Gates ruled out Zone as impractical, because it is the same as going to war. Total destruction of air defense, aircraft, airfields, depots. Spoke Malcolm Hoenlein re Arab League meeting this news cycle, in which the Arab potentates voted to oppose intervention in Libya. The scoundrels (geniuses) have decided to hang together lest they hang separately.  Am told that Qaddafi forces control 599 of the 600 miles from Tripoli to the so-called "rebel forces."  The Egyptian military, under the watchful eye of the fussbudget Ikwan, controls the supply route into Benghazi for food, fuel, rearmament; and the Egyptian military is not going to choose a winner that is contrary to the Ikhwan.  The "rebel" forces are ill-led, undergunned, chaotic pirates who are already disorganized except as plunderers.  To the West, Qaddafi forces control the exit from Brega (the main oil depot) to the highway around the Gulf of Sidra.  The bulk of the country is pro-regime and waiting for a winner (strongest horse).  The "rebels" are asking for air transport to the battle zone around Tripoli.  Spoke Jonathan Schanzer, FDD (frmr Treasury); also Mike Singh, Washington Institute (frmr NSC) and they acknowledged that this is more like Somalia than not, and that pirates and other gangsters are more likely to result than is an organized governance.  Qaddafi lost the rebellion and yet is winning the civil war.  Saif Qaddafi (below) is masterful in blaming the West and the inept media.  The interview genius seems surprised that Saif Q is certain.  Interviewing Saif Q on Al J in English aggrandizes the regime.  POTUS remarks that Qaddafi must go are a measure of passivity rivaled only by Europe.  Old proverb: you'd better use that carrier battle group within about six days after you unholster the weapon, or you're risking losing it to mockery.  Mention that a no-fly zone is unworkable, impractical, and too late.  War looks over but for the mass executions and the climb down by EU leadership.  

"Nobody will allow the militia to control Brega, it's like you allowing somebody to control Rotterdam harbour."  

 #Gaddaf

Spoke John Bolton, AEI; Mark Landler and Alan Cowell, NYT, re the Tripoli stand-off and the increasingly anarchic Libya from the Benghazi free town in the east to the fortress of Tripoli to the west.  Bolton asserts that if and when Qaddafi is brought to justice, it is best done by Libyans rather than by the Obama administration's  choice -- expecting the ICC in the Hague to clean up the mess with distant courtroom ceremonies.  Mark Landler noted that the White House is moving slowly and hesitantly, because it is concerned that the Libyan rebellion will come to be seen as an American puppet.  The US Navy is moving assets closer to Libya, but not perhaps as a platform for intervention, rather to be prepared to deal with large-scale evacuation.   There is talk of a no-fly zone, but it is sluggish talk, as the Russians have rejected it at the UNSC (the Chinese are silent).  Egypt rejects any armed intervention.  This points to continued anarchy -- Somalia with oil on the Med, years of civil war and refugees and UN blue helmets.  Am told that the Obama administration hesitates to speak against Qaddafi because of the long-established connection between Tripoli and radical elements in Chicago.   Am told that POTUS is unsure how hard he can press Qaddafi without alienating POTUS's own Chicago radical supporters.