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INTERNATIONAL EDITION
MONDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2011 108TH YEAR I ©2011 THE MIAMI HERALD
War in Iraq shaped Obama’s foreign policy up the timetable for getting out of Afghanistan. It has also shifted the balance of power in Washington, from the military commanders, who were desperate to leave a residual force of soldiers in Iraq, toward Obama’s civilian advisors, who are busy calculating how getting them all home by Christmas might help their boss’ reelection bid. “There used to be a hot debate over even setting a timetable,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, a deputy national security advisor. While he cautioned that Iraq is not a perfect precedent for Afghanistan, “there should be no doubt about our commitment to follow through on the timelines we set in Afghanistan,” he said. Rhodes, who wrote Obama’s foreign policy speeches during his 2008 campaign, said Iraq was a “dramatically underrepresented element of the way in which people look at Obama’s foreign policy.” As a candidate whose opposition to the war helped define him, Rhodes said,
BY MARK LANDLER New York Times Service
OZIER MUHAMMAD/NEW YORK TIMES SERVICE
Vaclav Havel was the Czech Republic’s first democratically elected president.
Vaclav Havel, Czech playwright and president, dies BY WILLIAM J. KOLE AND KAREL JANICEK Associated Press
PRAGUE — Vaclav Havel, the dissident playwright who wove theater into politics to peacefully bring down communism in Czechoslovakia and become a hero of the epic struggle that ended the Cold War, has died. He was 75. Havel died Sunday morning at his weekend house in the northern Czech Republic, his assistant Sabina Dancecova said. Havel was his country’s first democratically elected president after the nonviolent “Velvet Revolution” that ended four decades of repression by a regime he ridiculed as “Absurdistan.” As president, he oversaw the country’s bumpy transition to democracy and a free-market economy, as well its peaceful 1993 breakup into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Even out of office, the diminutive Czech remained a world figure. He was part of the “new Europe” — in the coinage of then-U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld — of ex-communist countries that stood up for the U.S. when the democra-
Washington Post Service
Medvedev urges reform of political system BY ELLEN BARRY New York Times Service
SEAN GALLUP/GETTY IMAGES
A portrait of Havel lies among candles and flowers left by mourners in Prague. cies of “old Europe” opposed the 2003 Iraq invasion. A former chain-smoker, Havel had a history of chronic respiratory problems dating back to his years in communist jails. He was hospitalized in Prague on Jan. 12, 2009, with an unspecified inflammation, and had developed breathing difficulties after undergoing minor throat surgery.
As Occupy D.C. movement grows, so does tension BY ANNIE GOWEN
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Barack Obama has made good on his campaign pledge to end the Iraq War, portraying the departure of the last troops as a chance to turn to nation-building at home. But from Afghanistan to the Arab Spring, from China to counterterrorism, the lessons of that war still hang over the administration’s foreign policy — shaping, and sometimes limiting, how the president projects U.S. power in the world. The war that Obama never wanted to fight has weighed on internal debates, dictated priorities and often narrowed options for the United States, according to current and former administration officials. Most tangibly, the swift U.S. drawdown in Iraq will influence how the United States handles the endgame in Afghanistan, where NATO forces have agreed to hand over security and pull out by 2014. The fact that the troops are leaving Iraq without a wholesale breakdown in security, some analysts said, may embolden a war-weary administration to move • TURN TO OBAMA, 2A
land illegally. Counter-protesters emerged, one toting a sign that said “We want R park back.” Even the city’s mayor, Vincent Gray, who was arrested in an unrelated act of civil disobedience in April, cited increasing frustrations in a television interview Thursday, saying he would ask the federal government to reimburse the city for an estimated $1.6 million in maintenance and policing costs. “It was a novelty initially, then it became a nuisance and now it’s a concern,” said Jim Dinegar, president and chief executive of the Greater Washington Board of Trade, who has accused the Occupiers of turning McPherson Square into a “toxic waste dump.” “We’ve become the Occupy of last resort. We’ve seen it grow until it’s packed to the gills. You couldn’t get another tent in there.” Now, with the shift in the city’s attitude, winter approaching, the possibility of congressional
WASHINGTON — Occupy Wall Street went down last month. Then came Philadelphia and Baltimore. As officials shut down Occupy encampments across the United States, protesters streamed into the District of Columbia, eager to join the movement in the nation’s capital, which has so far enjoyed protection from supportive local and national police. The protesters who took over two downtown D.C. parks in October have mostly existed peaceably, setting up elaborate kitchen tents, trucking in portable toilets and even getting police escorts for their marches. But the goodwill has begun to evaporate as protests have become more contentious and some local leaders have begun turning on them. Last week, pressure intensified when a congressional oversight committee launched an investigation into whether the National Park Service was allowing the Occupiers to camp on federal park- • TURN TO OCCUPY D.C., 2A
Havel left office in 2003, 10 years after Czechoslovakia broke up and just months before both nations joined the European Union. He was credited with laying the groundwork that brought his Czech Republic into the 27-nation bloc, and was president when it joined NATO in 1999. • TURN TO HAVEL, 6A
MOSCOW — Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev said over the weekend that the country’s political system had “exhausted itself” and must be changed, and that the Russian authorities should accept that street protests reflected “the mood of our people.” The remarks, Medvedev’s first lengthy commentary on an unprecedented series of anti-Kremlin protests in Russia’s large cities, came two days after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin went out of his way to insult the protesters during his annual televised question-and-answer session, saying that the white ribbon they have adopted as a symbol of reform looked like a condom. Upward of 50,000 people gathered in Moscow a week ago to express anger over parliamentary elections that many rejected as fraudulent and slanted in favor of the ruling party, United Russia. It remains unclear whether the authorities intend to seriously engage with the middle-class urbanites who are
MAXIM SHIPENKOV/AP
Dmitry Medvedev’s importance in the government has seemed to recede as Russia prepares for Vladimir Putin, left, to return to the presidency. demanding a more competitive political system. Medvedev, who was addressing the party on Saturday, • TURN TO RUSSIA, 2A
How Gingrich saved his primary campaign BY KATHARINE Q. SEELYE New York Times Service
Early in October, Newt Gingrich was completing a busy three-day swing through South Carolina. He had met with Tea Party members and others, and despite bad poll numbers — fallout from a disastrous summer after his top aides quit en masse — he was beginning to sense a change in his fortunes. “I’ve got a crazy idea,” Gingrich said to Adam Waldeck, a 26-yearold aide who was driving him in a rental car to the Charleston airport. “What do you think of moving down here full time? I think we can win South Carolina.” It did seem crazy. Gingrich was heavily in debt, had no campaign infrastructure and had been left for dead as the race for the Republican nomination for president moved on without him. But his instincts were right. Things were changing, and soon they would change dramatically. His debate performances, which showcased his range of knowledge, combativeness against U.S. President Barack Obama and the media, and mastery at generating free publicity, earned him another look
MONICA ALMEIDA/NEW YORK TIMES SERVICE
Callista Gingrich has been playing an active behind-the-scenes role in her husband’s campaign. from voters. More people were showing up to see him. Money started trickling in, and he was able to make strategic moves, like staking a claim in South Carolina. Amid an antiWashington mood, he reveled in
the bare-bones nature of his campaign, denouncing the influence of consultants he could no longer afford; his wife, Callista, whom many of his aides had blamed for the • TURN TO GINGRICH, 2A
INDEX BRADLEY MANNING’S STATUS AS GAY SOLDIER IS KEY TO DEFENSE, 3A
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NATO ENDS IRAQ MISSION AS DRAMA UNFOLDS IN GREEN ZONE, 6A
U.K., FRANCE IN WAR OF WORDS OVER EURO PACT, BUSINESS FRONT
PACKERS’ UNBEATEN RUN COMES TO AN END, SPORTS FRONT
THE AMERICAS ..........4A U.S. NEWS.....................5A OPINION........................7A COMICS & PUZZLES ...6B
12/19/2011 5:21:34 AM