jim jones

President Obama will host this morning what’s expected to be his final meeting with his national security team on Afghanistan strategy ahead of a revision of/re-commitment to what the strategy will be and how to resource it. Attendees will include the chairmen of the military services, which means that this meeting will focus on how [...]

I’m at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, where at 1 p.m., retired Gen. Jim Jones, President Obama’s national security adviser, will deliver a keynote speech on the administration’s approach to peacemaking in the Middle East to the first annual conference assembled by J Street, the year-old pro-Israel, pro-peace lobby. He’ll be part of a panel [...]

Ben Smith has the news about the liberal Jewish group’s big event, which he suggests will “reassure skittish Democrats about the conference” after Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) made a high-profile bail-out.

Here’s the guest list for today’s White House meeting to discuss Afghanistan and Pakistan strategy. New additions to the discussion: Amb. Susan Rice, a close Obama adviser turned ambassador to the U.N.; and Lt. Gen. Doug Lute, the “war czar” who will oversee interagency policy coordination. Wait, isn’t that Richard Holbrooke’s job…?

If it’s true, as reported, that the question of the CIA’s drone strikes against al-Qaeda in Pakistan is bolstering support for the so-called counterterrorism option in the Obama administration’s Afghanistan/Pakistan strategy, then tomorrow’s meeting at the White House looks, from the attendance sheet, like it’ll debate precisely that issue. Here’s the just-released list of scheduled [...]

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, yesterday clarified that he accepts the call from Defense Secretary Robert Gates and national security adviser Jim Jones to keep his advice to the president on Afghanistan strategy private. And his aides further specified to me that he doesn’t have any additional public speaking [...]

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the House speaker, waded into the media-manufactured controversy Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s London speech on “Charlie Rose” last night, according to Greg Sargent, who’s got the transcript:
“Let me say this about about General McChrystal, with all due respect,” Pelosi said, according to a transcript sent my way by a Pelosi aide. “His [...]

Consider this pseudo-controversy ended. Now that Defense Secretary Bob Gates has joined in with national security adviser Jim Jones to remind Gen. Stanley McChrystal of the virtues of restraining public advice ahead of the Afghanistan strategy review, the McChrystal camp endorses the message.
From Lt. Col Tadd Sholtis, McChrystal’s spokesman in Kabul: “General McChrystal concurs with [...]

The national security adviser, upset by Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s recent speech, told CNN that it’s “better for military advice to come up through the chain of command.” As criticism goes, that’s substantively mild and theatrically loud. And that’s probably how Jim Jones, a retired four-star Marine general and NATO commander, wanted it. It’s also worth [...]

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) may have made quite the bureaucratic gambit today by calling for an acceleration of the schedule to train Afghan security forces ahead of any new U.S. troop deployment. That position attracted the support (with caveats) of respected counterinsurgency theorist-practitioners like John Nagl of the Center for a New American Security. Accordingly, [...]