But what did the Panetta-Jones trip reap from the Pakistanis? “Both parties acknowledged the extreme challenge of thwarting each and every plot and terrorist action, both sides pledged to intensify efforts, increase cooperation, and do everything possible to protect our citizens,” the statement reads. Here it is in full:

The productive discussions covered U.S.-Pakistan relations, the security situation in the region, the shared terrorist threat and fight against extremists, and the U.S.-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue. General Jones reiterated the United States’ long-term commitment to the strategic partnership with Pakistan, including support for creating economic opportunity for the Pakistani people. The talks provided an opportunity to review progress on the many areas addressed in the recent strategic dialogue held in Washington. Both sides expressed their commitment to strengthening ties across the broad spectrum of issues between our countries, including trade, economic growth, and development. The parties agreed to continue frequent government-to-government contacts and further senior-level engagement in order to advance our common interests and provide a better, more secure future for our people.

President Asif Ali Zardari said that militancy and terrorism was the common enemy and that the existing robust cooperation between the two countries must continue to fight the menace. General Jones and Director Panetta provided an update on the ongoing investigation into the Times Square terrorist incident. General Jones expressed appreciation for the excellent cooperation the United States is receiving from Pakistan as well as the tremendous sacrifice of the Pakistani military, law enforcement and people in their efforts to combat extremists. The talks covered measures that both countries are, and will be, taking to confront the common threat we face from extremists and prevent such potential attacks from occurring again and both parties acknowledged the extreme challenge of thwarting each and every plot and terrorist action, both sides pledged to intensify efforts, increase cooperation, and do everything possible to protect our citizens. President Zardari noted that Pakistan desires a long-term, multifaceted, and durable relationship with the United States which no incident should be able to adversely impact.

Watch if U.S. intelligence officials still tell reporters that Pakistan is withholding crucial terrorism intelligence after Jones and Panetta fly home.

The United States government delivered two Bell 412 EP helicopters to the Government of Pakistan today to assist the Pakistan military in its counterinsurgency efforts.

U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Michael Nagata handed over the helicopters to Brig. Gen. Tippu Karim, 101 Army Aviation commander, during a signing ceremony at Qasim Army Air Base near Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

By sheer coincidence, Karen DeYoung of The Washington Post reports that CIA Director Leon Panetta and Jim Jones, President Obama’s national security adviser, are headed to Pakistan to urge Pakistan’s civilian, military and intelligence leadership to take greater action against extremists in the tribal areas in the wake of the failed Times Square car bomb attempt. National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer explains to DeYoung, “It is time to redouble our efforts with our allies in Pakistan to close this safe haven and create an environment where we and the Pakistani people can lead safe and productive lives.”

So do with those helicopters as you will…

In the coming weeks, we’ll be releasing a new National Security Strategy that formalizes the President’s approach—an approach that is rooted in and guided by our national security interests. These interests are clear and enduring.

· Security—we have an enduring interest in the security of the United States, our citizens and U.S. allies and partners;

· Prosperity—we have an enduring interest in a strong, innovative and growing U.S. economy in an open international economic system that promotes opportunity and prosperity;

· Values— we have an enduring interest is upholding universal values, at home and around the world; and,

· International Order—we have an enduring interest in an international order advanced by U.S. leadership that promotes peace, security and opportunity through stronger cooperation to meet global challenges.

Security, prosperity, universal values, and an international order advanced by American leadership—these are the interests that the President and his Administration are working to advance around the world every day, including in the Middle East.

“An international order advanced by American leadership” is a term you can expect to hear a lot. Contrast all this with the 2002 National Security Strategy from President Bush. That one was about how the terms of the international system — particularly the stuff about not invading other countries unless attacked — don’t necessarily apply to America.

The Pentagon’s 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review also nodded in the direction of the National Security Strategy, and the broad contours of what the QDR contained on the subject align pretty closely with what Jones detailed yesterday.

While the entire Mideast-centric wing of the foreign-policy community waits to see if the Obama administration will actually offer its own plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with an independent Palestinian state — to say nothing of the bated breath in Mideast capitals — Jim Jones, President Obama’s national security adviser, sounded warm, soothing tones last night about the U.S.-Israel relationship to a leading pro-Israel group, the center-right Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“There has been a lot of distortion and misrepresentation of our policy recently,” Jones said, getting that out of the way. “We will never forget that since the first minutes of Israeli independence, the United States has had a special relationship with Israel. And that will not change.” And he continued on in that vein. It even got subtle: As Israel tries to rebrand itself as a tech-centric “start-up nation,” Jones said the U.S.-Israel bonds were “the bonds of pioneers in science, technology and so many fields where we cooperate every day.”

Bona fides affirmed, Jones’ speech attempted to thread several needles: convincing Israel and its American advocates that taking risks for a two-state solution right now is in both the Israeli and American interest; that the U.S. is about to take action on Israel’s enemy, Iran, and so Israel needs to reciprocate on the peace process; and that the Obama administration’s broader national security strategy — ensuring nations fulfill their international obligations and uphold the rights of their citizens as the key to global security, prosperity and dignity — is inextricably tied to Mideast peace. “We recognize that peace must be made by the parties and cannot be imposed from the outside,” Jones said, echoing a recent formulation of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. “At the same time, we understand that the status quo is not sustainable.” He called for the resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations — pointedly eliding the indirect talks the administration has for weeks tried to use as a bridge to direct talks:

So it is time to begin those negotiations and to put an end to excuses. It is time for all leaders in the region—Israeli, Palestinian, and Arab—to support efforts for peace. It is time for today’s leader to demonstrate the courage and leadership of Anwar Sadat, King Hussein, and Yitzhak Rabin.

That looks like the Fierce Urgency of Now again. Jones left hanging in the air the prospect of an Obama peace plan — he didn’t touch on the idea at all — but the thrust of his speech was about the need for concerted and immediate action on peace. The vectors point in the direction of such an Obama peace plan if those talks don’t get underway, and Jones closed by emphasizing that the Obama administration isn’t going to relent on Mideast peace: “This is the work we will continue to pursue in the months and years ahead… not only for the sake of America’s security, but for the world’s.”

GENERAL JONES: We believe that we are on a encouraging glide path in Afghanistan, and Pakistan I might add. We have a number of significant events coming up: President Karzai’s visit to the U.S., the Kabul conference later on, the –

Q The Karzai visit is on definitely?

MR. McDONOUGH: Absolutely.

GENERAL JONES: There’s no modification to that whatsoever.

We have been in contact, as you all know. President Karzai and Secretary Clinton had a clarifying conversation. We have consistently said since the elections that President Karzai is our strategic partner. We have a huge amount of work to do in terms of bringing all these pieces of our strategy together so they function in a cohesive way. We see indications on the ground that they are, in fact, moving in that direction. We have I think a successful operation in Marja. We have strategic objectives to achieve by the end of this year to solidify the gains that we think we’re making now.

And I believe that the rhetoric on perhaps both sides ought to — we ought to calm the rhetoric and engage as strategic partners intent on bringing about peace and security in not only Afghanistan and Pakistan, but in the region as well. And that’s what we’re doing.

That’s from the transcript of a press briefing earlier this morning. Jones revealed that President Obama sent Karzai a letter yesterday “basically recommitting ourselves to the success of our operation and our partnership and looks forward to greeting him in Washington to continue that progress.” McDonough clarified that it was a “thank you letter, because the President was very grateful for the fact that on such short notice that President Karzai and his government did receive him and the delegation at the palace, had the dinner that the General spoke about.”

Last evening, the Vice President and General Jones had a working dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Barak at the Vice President’s residence at the Naval Observatory, together with their delegations. They had a productive, candid discussion on the full range of issues in the bilateral relationship, in preparation for the meeting later today between the President and the Prime Minister.

I suppose the timeline is such that after dinner, Netanyahu went to AIPAC and gave his rather defiant speech.

Pakistan’s decision to go after the Afghan Taliban leadership reflects a quiet shift underway since last fall, said officials from both countries, who cited a November letter from President Obama to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari as a turning point.

The letter, which was hand-delivered by U.S. national security adviser James L. Jones, offered additional military and economic assistance and help easing tensions with India, a bitter enemy of Pakistan. With U.S. facilitation, the Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers have agreed to meet next week, the first high-level talks between the two countries since terrorist attacks in Mumbai in late 2008.

The letter also included an unusually blunt warning that Pakistan’s use of insurgent groups to pursue its policy goals would no longer be tolerated.

That Barack Obama sure doesn’t know how to deal with terrorism, does he?

Update: Although maybe that Baradar capture wasn’t quite so thoroughly planned…

The Vice President

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates

Ambassador Susan Rice, Permanent U.S. Representative to the United Nations

Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg

Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (via videoconference)

Karl Eikenberry, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan (via videoconference)

Anne Patterson, U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan (via videoconference)

Under Secretary of Defense Michele Flournoy

Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

General James E. Cartwright, USMC, Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff

General David Petraeus, U.S. Central Command

General Stanley McChrystal, U.S. Commander in Afghanistan (via videoconference)
Lieutenant General Dave Rodriguez (via videoconference)

Lietenant General William Caldwell (via videoconference)

Vice Admiral Michael LaFever (via videoconference)

Admiral Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence

CIA Director Leon Panetta

Deputy Secretary of Treasury Neal Wolin

General James Jones, National Security Advisor

Tom Donilon, Deputy National Security Advisor

John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security

Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, Special Assistant to the President for Afghanistan and Pakistan

Robert Nabors, OMB Deputy Director

Adm. LaFever, if you didn’t recognize the name, is the Pentagon’s man in Pakistan.

William Lietzau (Defense Department photo)

A key behind-the-scenes architect of the Bush administration’s first version of the military commissions for terrorism suspects — which the Supreme Court found to unconstitutionally restrict the legal rights of detainees — will take a central Pentagon position dealing with detainee policy for the Obama administration.

William Lietzau, a Marine colonel who currently serves as deputy legal counsel to the National Security Council, is poised to become the Pentagon’s new deputy assistant secretary for detainee affairs in the next several weeks. Lietzau, an international law expert described even by his critics as a brilliant and energetic attorney, previously served as a special adviser to Jim Haynes, the top Pentagon lawyer during Donald H. Rumsfeld’s tenure, when Rumsfeld and Haynes codified torture and indefinite detention as hallmarks of Bush-era terrorism policy. The position, which is not subject to Senate confirmation, came open late last year, after Phil Carter, the previous deputy assistant secretary for detainee affairs and a favorite of civil libertarians, abruptly resigned.

[Security1]As the next deputy assistant secretary, Lietzau will be at the center of the Obama administration’s decisions about trying the remaining Guantanamo detainees in reformed military commissions or in federal courts. He will also be central to the construction of a post-Guantanamo terrorism-detention policy in an administration that claims to be more committed to the rule of law than its predecessor. Lietzau is said to have gained the confidence of senior administration officials over the past year, particularly as he helped revise the military commissions to include greater process protections for defendants — even though civil libertarian groups still consider those rules to be unfair.

Two senior military lawyers who fought with Haynes over military commissions and interrogations in the Bush administration said they were surprised to hear of Lietzau’s impending appointment to the Obama Pentagon. Retired Rear Adm. Don Guter, who served as the Navy’s Judge Advocate General from 2000 to 2002, described Lietzau as a close Haynes confidante but not an outspokenly opinionated figure. “If he disagreed with Jim Haynes you’d never know about it,” Guter said. “Because of his close association with Haynes I’d be more comfortable if I saw something public [indicating] he’d made a break with those policies.”

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Thomas J. Romig also described Lietzau as closely tied to Haynes, whose role in instituting extreme interrogations at Guantanamo Bay against the wishes of military lawyers cost him Senate confirmation for a federal judgeship. Romig, the Army’s Judge Advocate General during Bush’s first term, said that although he did not know specifically what positions Lietzau took on detainee interrogations or if Haynes even consulted him on the issue, “at that time, he was certainly in the bosom of the administration that was running interrogation programs that at the very least were quite troubling, and in many minds were a violation of the laws of war and the Geneva Conventions.” Lietzau’s expertise in international law — he was part of the Clinton administration’s delegation to the 1998 Rome conference that wrote the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court — should have allowed him to know “what was right and wrong with [Bush's] interrogation policies,” Romig said.

While Lietzau was close to Haynes, he also became close to retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones, now Obama’s national security adviser. The two officers met in Europe a few years after Lietzau had left the commissions, when Jones commanded U.S. military forces on the continent and Lietzau was his staff judge advocate. Lietzau joined the National Security Council last spring at Jones’ request.

Lietzau has many advocates in the legal and policy communities. John Bellinger, the former National Security Council and State Department legal adviser during the Bush administration, sparred frequently over detainee treatment with Haynes and David Addington, Dick Cheney’s attorney, who took far more extreme positions. But Bellinger, now a partner with the law firm of Arnold & Porter, considered Lietzau a first-rate appointee. “I think Lietzau is an excellent choice who knows the issues and is pragmatic and non-ideological,” he said. “I have never seen him to approach terrorism issues or international justice issues in an ideological way.

Similarly, Eugene Fidell, a Yale Law professor and president of the National Institute of Military Justice, called Lietzau’s appointment “creative,” despite any substantive policy disagreements they had. “The last thing I want is someone to come into the job without the respect of the military bench and bar, which he would have,” Fidell said, “and having to start from scratch in understanding the legal environment.”

Rosa Brooks, a Pentagon policy official who criticized the military commissions during the Bush years, added that while she couldn’t confirm Lietzau’s appointment, “I am a fan of Bill Lietzau’s. He’s smart, an honest broker, and has both intellectual and moral integrity.”

Lietzau was the first prosecutor for the military commissions established in 2001 — an official Pentagon release called him “instrumental” to the military commissions’ “preparations” — and served in that role until 2003. Yet during that time, the commissions did not bring charges against a single detainee, a fact that raised eyebrows among his colleagues. “I have to believe in his position Lietzau was being used by Jim Haynes as a sounding board or adviser on all international law issues,” Romig said, “because he was not doing much as chief prosecutor.

In a valedictory May 2003 press briefing, Lietzau described his role as “really the process portion of setting up military commissions.” That process, established by Rumsfeld, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz and Haynes, departed significantly from the military’s courts-martial system, restricting a defendant’s right to a public trial and allowing for hearsay to be admissible, although Lietzau pushed for defendants to retain the presumption of innocence. At the briefing, a reporter asked Lietzau if the commissions provided a defendant with a defense comparable to the normal military justice system, and he replied that the commission’s rules “were drafted to accommodate that kind of flexibility that would be needed.” But five years after their creation, a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court ruled that the commissions were unconstitutional, improperly established by the administration and providing defendants with insufficient due process rights. In 2006, Congress passed a law authorizing a new version of the commissions although the Supreme Court in 2008 found problems with the process rights of the new commissions as well.

One senator who voted against the 2006 Military Commissions Act was Barack Obama. Last May at the National Archives, in one of Obama’s most important national security speeches as president, Obama criticized “the flawed commissions of the last seven years” and said his embrace of a reformed version of the commissions would bring them “in line with the rule of law.” Some in the administration believe Lietzau is, however ironically, the man for the job. A senior administration official who would not speak on the record because Lietzau’s appointment has not been announced said that the colonel “believes the rule of law is a fundamental part of our effort in the fight against al-Qaeda” and that Lietzau’s long experience with both the military commissions and international law provides the administration with “value added as we work with Congress” on a “durable” legal infrastructure for terrorism detainees.

At times Lietzau has expressed surprise about the Bush administration’s terrorism decisions. During a talk he gave at Harvard shortly after 9/11, he said he doubted that the administration would seek to try anyone in a military commission; months later he was helping design them. And in an article for a book on terrorism and international law published in 2002, Lietzau averred that President Bush’s assurance that the military treat detainees in the “spirit” of Geneva Conventions ensured that detainees “will continue to be treated humanely.” Over the next several years, dozens and perhaps hundreds of people detained by the U.S. in Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere were tortured — activities President Obama expressly forbid during his first week in office by issuing an executive order restricting interrogation techniques to those listed in the Army’s field manual.

Lietzau was a deputy to Haynes during the winter of 2002 and spring of 2003, when Haynes presided over an internal Pentagon debate resulting in the modified adoption for Guantanamo of “enhanced interrogation” techniques authorized for the CIA to use on senior-level al-Qaeda detainees. A Senate Armed Services Committee investigation from 2008 determined that Haynes was a powerful bureaucratic force pressing for harsher detainee treatment. A former colleague in Haynes’ office, Richard Shiffrin, told the committee that Lietzau was present at a key 2002 meeting in which participants expressed “some frustration with the quantity and quality of information being obtained” at Guantanamo, although Shiffrin did not attribute any substantive position to Lietzau. And no source for this piece had knowledge of Lietzau having anything to do with torture.

It is unclear what exactly Lietzau’s appointment signifies in terms of concrete policy decisions or shifts. An email to Defense Secretary Gates’ spokesman, Geoff Morrell, went unreturned. But Bellinger predicted Lietzau would “adopt a balanced approach between the security needs of the country and military and the need to address worldwide concerns that we do not have an appropriate legal framework or legal policies.” The senior administration official said Lietzau was “bound and determined to make sure, whether it’s in three years or seven, when he walks away from this job, there is a durable legal infrastructure” to handle terrorism detainees justly.

Both Guter and Romig, the former senior military JAGs who clashed with Lietzau’s old boss, Haynes, independently described Lietzau as intellectually “flexible” and willing to faithfully implement the policies of his bosses. “The guy is smart, so he can figure out what the Supreme Court has said” about the due process rights to which detainees are entitled, but “it troubles me the guy can go from one end of spectrum to the other, arguably,” Romig said. “It’s very curious they would take somebody to run [policy on] detainees who was in the position he was in seven or eight years ago.”

Recall that in 2002, President George W. Bush’s National Security Strategy centered around a declared right of the United States to “if necessary, act preemptively” against “rogue states and terrorists.” But the international legitimacy of preemption depends on the imminence of a threat — a foreign force coming to attack you. Bush considered that archaic, and sought to “adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today’s adversaries.” To many international-relations scholars, that collapsed the distinction between preemption and aggression, and its direct result was the invasion of Iraq, which turned out not to have the weapons of mass destruction Bush claimed as the justification for invading. The point is: these documents have real-world consequences.

So what will Obama’s National Security Strategy say? The document is still a work in progress, and it’s not clear if there’s a rollout date in mind. (Bush’s came out in September of his second year in office.) But the draft QDR is written as if it knows what the 2010 National Security Strategy will say. The relevant part of the leak concerns the definition of U.S. interests.

As outlined in the President’s 2010 National Security Strategy, America’s enduring interests are:

? The security and resiliency of the United States, its citizens and their way of life, and of U.S. allies and partners;

? A strong and competitive U.S. economy with a leading role in a vibrant and open international economic system that promotes opportunity and prosperity

? Respect for values such as civil liberties, democracy, equality, dignity, justice, and the rule of law at home and around the world; and

? An international order underpinned by U.S. leadership and engagement that promotes peace, security, responsibility, and stronger cooperation to meet global challenges, including transnational threats.

Leveraging and strengthening multilateral institutions for positive-sum action. Human rights and human dignity. Prosperity in an open global economy. All of this used to promote and protect American security. None of this is really new. In fact, you can read a piece from me during the 2008 campaign that, if I say so myself, discusses a whole lot of it. Or you can listen to Jim Jones, the president’s national security adviser, say earlier this week that “the challenge of restoring the reputation of the United States as a nation willing to commit to leadership, willing to commit to a new era of engagement based on mutual interests and mutual respect is probably the defining feature of our foreign policy.” That’s pretty much what the QDR draft claims the National Security Strategy says.