SATURDAY, MAY 28 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE AT
he June 21 D.C. Democratic primary ballot sets out a
buffet of choices.
There are hot races for mayor, six council seats
and attorney general in the primary, which is the
election that counts in this heavily Democratic city. And cold
offerings of unfamiliar faces. What voters serve themselves
is all a matter of taste and appetite.
Let’s look at a few on the plate.
The array of mayoral candidates includes a two-term,
battle-tested incumbent, two D.C. Council members and a
former advisory neighborhood commissioner, who,
The Post reports, is a former attorney who was disbarred in
2009 over allegations of fraud and neglect — and whose
reinstatement application was denied in 2017.
The candidates are distinguished by their differences.
Mayor Muriel E. Bowser has a pragmatic approach to
problems, accompanied by a “my way or the highway”
governing style. Both have marked her seven-plus years of
service with successes, stumbles and some low-grade tumult.
Bowser earns well-deserved high marks for firm, steady
leadership during the covid-19 pandemic, and her stellar
representation of the city on the national scene. Bowser is
also the face of public education and public safety in the city,
because she has chosen to make it so. Key deputies often
come across as stagehands. That has understandably made
her accountable for the academic achievement gap and an
increase in violent crimes. But she hasn’t earned failing
grades.
As covid has receded, schools are being stabilized and
enrollment is growing. Resources are being directed at
academic shortfalls. The police chief, thanks to the mayor’s
push, is getting more officers that he claims to need.
The difficulty with judging Bowser’s administration over-
all is in measuring actual performance against promises
and press releases. Production of affordable housing, deliv-
ery of community-based social services, crime-reduction
programs? There are all well-laid-out plans on paper. But
positive results — independently and expertly verified — are
hard to come by. Meanwhile, election-year contracts and
grants are flowing out of the D.C. treasury to meet every
human, commercial and economic need imagined by Bows-
er’s politically minded economic development team.
Which gets us to Bower’s two elected competitors: Trayon
White Sr., Ward 8 D.C. Council member since 2017, and
Robert C. White Jr., at-large D.C. Council member since
2016.
There is no plausible reason to predict Trayon White’s
election as D.C. mayor, this year or any year soon. There is no
credible case for his candidacy other than perhaps vanity or
a desire to help Bowser by drawing anti-Bowser voters away
from Robert White. Trayon White must know it, too, judging
from the effectiveness of his campaign.
Robert White, on the other hand, has now had years of
public service in which to demonstrate a capacity to manage
an $18.4 billion D.C. government budget. He has been better
at tackling the job of criticizing Bowser for her handling of
housing, gun violence, schools and other issues.
Aiming higher, Robert White has made himself the top
bidder for the mayor’s office. He has said that if elected
mayor, he will guarantee a job for any D.C. resident who
wants one. Estimates are his program will add about 10,
positions to the city payroll and cost an estimated $1.5 bil-
lion a year. A “significant expansion,” White acknowledges,
but it would produce community services across the city.
White doesn’t stop there. Claiming the city has a “school-
to-prison pipeline,” White is proposing a dramatic expan-
sion of vocational education and a network of public
boarding schools for children with “a 24-hour academic
support environment.”
Not so fast: White is right about young people being
disconnected from school. He’s right about children strug-
gling with family instability, neighborhood violence and no
one to help with homework or, as he puts it, “social
emotional needs.” But boarding schools? That plan needs
work. Still, White has put his finger on a problem that has
been skirted for far too long.
Bowser as mayor is a known quantity. Robert White is a
gamble. Worth taking?
That calculus doesn’t apply to the nomination for council
chairman.
Phil Mendelson, chairman since 2012, is like an old shoe:
familiar, agreeably unpretentious and occasionally irritat-
ing when he won’t bend when he should.
His strength is council stewardship, which is akin to
herding feral cats. But Mendelson chairs a current council
with more showhorses than workhorses. Oversight isn’t as
vigorous as it should be.
Still, Mendelson’s opponent, first-time council-seeker
Erin Palmer, has an uphill battle. She has citywide territory
to cover and not much time in which to do it. An even larger
challenge will be making a case for herself based upon her
knowledge of the city and the job.
At-large D.C. Council member Anita Bonds finds herself
in a familiar, and desirable, position: a crowded field. It’s an
open question whether the nine-plus-year council veteran
can pull off the “elder mentor” status that has served her so
well in past elections. Her work as chair of the housing
committee has opened her up to criticism that oversight of
housing agencies has gotten away from her. Three challeng-
ers — Nate Fleming, Lisa Gore and Dexter Williams — are
campaigning with energy and determination seemingly
unmatched by Bonds.
But with almost a month to go, there’s still time.COLBERT I. KINGWhat are D.C. votershungry for as primaryday approaches?
BY JOHN R. BOLTONBefore Russia invaded Ukraine in February, the Biden
administration released substantial intelligence analyses
about Russia’s capabilities and intentions, purportedly to
deter the attack by making public the extent of U.S.
knowledge about Vladimir Putin’s planning. Similar unprec-
edented revelations continued after hostilities commenced.
Neither President Biden’s intelligence releases nor his other
deterrence efforts stopped the invasion. Nonetheless, his advisers
and media acolytes, piling speculation upon speculation without
concrete evidence, claimed that publicizing the information —
rather than simply sharing it privately with allies — bought time
and helped unite NATO. The media did precious little reporting of
the costs involved or other possible motivations.
Publicly revealing sensitive intelligence makes sense when a
president has clear objectives and a coherent strategy and,
ultimately, when the revelations advance U.S. interests. That can
be an aspect of intelligence statecraft: the use of data, analysis
and advocacy to advance U.S. national security objectives. But
intelligence is a valuable commodity, often acquired at great cost
and risk. Publicizing it promiscuously can endanger sources and
methods. It can also prove counterproductive and embarrassing
when inaccurate, and encourage the bureaucratic propensity to
leak.
Does the Biden administration have a strategy, or did these
scattershot efforts reflect larger failures in information state-
craft?
Divergent bureaucratic, political and policy cultures disagree
on publicizing intelligence. The State Department suffers from
institutional logorrhea, whereas career intelligence personnel
generally make “Silent Cal” Coolidge seem chatty. Some policy-
makers in the current executive branch, with roots in liberal
academia, think tanks or politics, suffer from “mirror imaging” —
the idea that “adversaries” are typically reasonable people just
like us, ready to find common solutions to common problems. If
only they had the same information we had, this view holds, they,
too, would behave responsibly.
That doesn’t describe the worlds of Putin and Chinese leader
Xi Jinping. As Putin told me on more than one occasion: “You
have your logic, we have ours; let’s see who prevails.” And even if
Russia or China have superior information-warfare capabilities,
releasing classified information shouldn’t be our knee-jerk
response.
In this matter, Biden seems to be largely refighting his last war.
The catastrophic strategic and operational failure of the United
States’ humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan unnerved his
administration — and made Biden look clueless. Contrary to
Biden’s repeated assertions that Afghanistan’s government and
military could withstand Taliban attacks, they swiftly collapsed.
The White House response was contradictory and confused,
utterly ineffective in stemming the flood of public criticism.
Seemingly determined to prevent renewed perceptions of
incompetence, Biden’s team tried to show that, with Ukraine,
unlike in Afghanistan, they were on top of events and knew what
Russia was about. Nonetheless, its performance has been spotty
and sometimes incautious, including revealing less-than-certain
intelligence during the war. Biden had to contradict his advisers’
release of information indicating Putin was poorly briefed by
timid subordinates. The administration’s hunger to disclose
extended to foreshadowing, inaccurately, North Korean ICBM or
nuclear tests before or during Biden’s now-completed Asia trip.
Even after Biden tried reining in “leaks” about the war in
Ukraine, which amounted to bureaucratic boasts about agency
successes, the deluge continued.
Most damaging were articles on U.S. information-sharing with
Ukraine, which, by explaining what was impermissible, told
Russia exactly what we were sharing with Kyiv. Providing “kill
chain” intelligence (information that directly facilitates attacking
enemy forces) to a foreign military can place the United States in
or very near combatant status. Publicly discussing it is risky
business, especially considering Putin’s repeated threats, and
Biden’s evident fear of doing anything possibly deemed “escalato-
ry,” such as supplying Ukraine with Polish MiGs. Some “leaks”
about such intelligence-sharing indeed looked “defensive,” au-
thorized anonymous conversations intended to protect the
United States, but which were accidentally quite revealing.
What was inexplicably underreported and under-analyzed by
the pro-Biden media is why the United States was so mistaken in
its pre-invasion intelligence assessment that Russia would gain
swift victory in Ukraine, with Kyiv falling in days and the entire
country in weeks. Fearing sudden Russian successes, the admin-
istration leaked that it would support guerrilla operations
afterward, presumably to deter Moscow from invading. A U.S.
offer to provide Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky safe
passage from Kyiv showed little confidence in his government’s
survivability. You can be sure that China noted these intelligence
failures carefully.
It is not just a coincidence that the intelligence and communi-
cations strategy mistakes in Ukraine echoed errors in Afghani-
stan. Now recognizing these failures, two major blunders hardly
six months apart, members of the U.S. intelligence community
are, quite rightly, reviewing their performance. They have much
to do.
These patterns must change. Revitalizing the now-dilapidated
Cold War legacy of effective U.S. international communications
has supposedly been a national priority for decades. If Congress is
looking for bipartisan reform projects, this one should be top of
mind. Repeated congressional battles over organization charts
and personnel — all self-inflicted wounds — have to stop. We
knew how to do this once; try doing what worked 50 years ago.John R. Bolton served as national security adviser under President
Donald Tr ump and is the author of “The Room Where It Happened: A
White House Memoir.”Biden must stopthe publicizing ofU.S. intelligenceBY KHALID ALJABRII
am a victim of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed
bin Salman’s ruthless regime. Two of my siblings
are being held hostage in Saudi Arabia, and my
family is tormented by a brutal intimidation
campaign. Yet I remain a proponent of a healthy
U.S.-Saudi partnership. President Biden could and
should salvage the relationship — but not at all costs.
Biden came into office planning to recalibrate U.S.
relations with Saudi Arabia. But despite snubbing
the crown prince (widely known as MBS) and
releasing an intelligence report that found him
culpable for the murder of Post contributing colum-
nist Jamal Khashoggi, the Biden administration’s
policy toward the kingdom remained incomprehen-
sible. The recent meeting between CIA Director
William J. Burns and MBS, followed by Saudi Deputy
Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman’s visit to Wash-
ington last week, hints at a brewing rapprochement.
Any reconciliation that includes a Biden-MBS
interaction and renewed U.S. security guarantees,
however, must be conditioned on Saudi compliance
with American interests and values, beginning with
raising oil production and committing to account-
ability for Khashoggi’s gruesome murder.
For a start, instead of siding with Moscow, Riyadhneeds to fulfill its obligations to Washington stem-
ming from the tacit, decades-long security-for-oil
arrangement. It should increase its crude output to
support U.S. interests in Ukraine and to lower
energy prices, which have soared in recent months.
Even before raising oil production, the kingdom
should help European countries wean off Russian oil
by diverting crude exports to Europe at discounted
prices. Moreover, Saudi Arabia, as a de facto leader of
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
(OPEC), should exclude Russia from any future
OPEC oil production agreement after the current
“OPEC+” deal between petroleum-producing na-
tions expires in several months.
Khashoggi began writing for The Post a week after
MBS arrested a group of his intellectual friends.
Khashoggi warned of an increasingly oppressive
Saudi regime long before he became its most notable
victim. Without direct sanctions on the Saudi crown
prince, there will never be explicit accountability
and a scripted apology from MBS will be meaning-
less. The nearest thing to accountability for the
murder is for MBS to release the detainees Khashog-
gi advocated for and halt his targeting of dissidents
abroad. If Khashoggi were alive, this is what he
would have demanded; this is what Biden should be
asking for now.Additionally, Biden should use positive induce-
ments to alter the crown prince’s repressive behav-
ior. MBS, driven by self-interest, would accommo-
date U.S. requests on human rights if accompanied
with incentives and devoid of humiliation. Craving
American reembracement, MBS should be made to
understand that allowing American hostages in
Saudi Arabia to return home is a prerequisite for him
to visit the United States again.
If Saudi Arabia agrees to U.S. rapprochement
conditions, Biden should reset the relationship by
hosting King Salman and other Gulf leaders in
another U.S.-Gulf Cooperation Council summit at
Camp David. In such a meeting, the United States
can pacify its Gulf partners ahead of a potential
return to the Iran deal, revive the importance of the
GCC’s collective responsibility in regional security
and pitch a rebalanced institutional partnership
that is based on synced security, energy, diplomatic,
economic and trade cooperation.
Alternatively, Biden could make the same pitch to
Gulf leaders at the GCC headquarters in Riyadh i f he
visits the region, as expected, in June. However, a
presidential stop in Saudi Arabia that is not preced-
ed by increased oil production or visible human
rights concessions would be unpalatable.
Following a reset, for any U.S.-Saudi reconcilia-tion to be durable, Biden must restore the institu-
tional nature of the relationship, which has spanned
seven Saudi monarchs. An expedited confirmation
of Michael Ratney as Washington’s ambassador to
Riyadh would serve that purpose. The highly person-
alized ties between the Trump administration and
MBS were destructive, but Biden would occasionally
benefit from dispatching a designated emissary,
someone with competence and gravitas who the
Saudis believe has the ear of the president — an
anti-Jared Kushner.
As Biden attempts to recalibrate the U.S.-Saudi
partnership, he should not capitulate to Riyadh’s
exploitation of the Ukrainian crisis and high energy
prices by making one-way American concessions.
Nor should Biden give in to the demands of a
concerted Saudi public relations offensive that
blames him for the souring relationship, burdens his
administration with the onus of reconciliation and
recasts the murderous MBS as an innocent victim.
Regardless of what the anticipated reconciliation
entails, Washington should be making as many asks
as Riyadh. Ultimately, both sides know that, whatev-
er time-limited oil leverage Saudi Arabia is using, the
United States will always have the upper hand.The writer is a health-tech entrepreneur and a cardiologist.I know Saudi repression. The U.S. should rebuild ties — with conditions.DRAWING BOARDBY MICHAEL RAMIREZ FOR THE LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNALBY PIA GUERRABY ANN TELNAESBY DREW SHENEMAN