Roger Cohen: Coalition of the Reluctant

A senior Pentagon official has spent this month on a magical mystery tour of little-known European and Eurasian capitals trying to deliver a dribble of troops for Iraq and Afghanistan.

The low-profile trip reads more like a geography test than a geostrategic foray. It has whisked Debra Cagan, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for coalition affairs, from Tirana to Skopje, and on to Chisinau and Astana, among other luminous world metropolises.

In Chisinau — you guessed it; that’s the capital of Moldova — Cagan asked for more sappers in Iraq. Moldova currently has 11 bomb-disposal experts there. Yes, 11.

In downtown Tirana, hub of a 20th-century exercise in Communist folly and now a place in need of American money, Cagan pressed the Albanians to go beyond their 120-strong contingent in Iraq. Albania is considering an additional 125 to 150 troops.

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Against this fraying backdrop, the strange idea of Pentagon brass spending two weeks hop-scotching continents to cajole countries — many economically hard-pressed — into sending a platoon or two looks less outlandish. That’s where we are seven years into the Bush administration: stretched to the limit.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/opinion/15cohen.html?hp

Read the article for what a non-diplomat Cagan is by what we already know from her I hate Iranians comment. They call her "John Bolton on steroids".