The Northern Sector

This hasn't been reported much. If handled in an overly heavy-handed manner--it could create difficulties for the coalition in the Kurdish sector.

And if this is partly meant to facilitate a Turkish parliamentary decision to send troops into Iraq--I continue to believe that's a poor idea. We shouldn't allow any neighboring countries to supply troops. For one, look for Iran to enhance its Iraq related activities if Turkey sends in a force. And look for increasing Kurdish discontent if Turkish forces have extensive communications and supply lines cutting through predominately Kurdish areas.

Give New York Its Due

This report is worrisome. While on the topic of NYC, take a look at this interesting report.

The Iraqi Constitution

Somebody should show this report to Dominique de Villepin. Message: you just can't do this stuff overnight.

One Middle East Policy

The U.S. needs to make its policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more coherent and cohesive. Such stories depress me as they indicate the lack of a systemic, disciplined approach to Middle East policymaking.

The President must direct, from the top down, the specific policy direction on issues of significant import like the Israeli security fence. This type of story, if true, is unnacceptable:

"According to the sources, Israel reached an agreement on the fence with the White House, not the State Department, during a recent visit to Washington by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's
chief of staff, Dov Weisglass, and the director-general of the Defense Ministry, Amos Yaron.

"The route that is to be built in the coming six months is not disputed by the Americans, and was spoken of in talks held between Weisglass, Yaron and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice," the sources said.

"Once these six months are over, there will be further talks between Israel and the Americans on the continued construction.

"On the one hand, therefore, Powell's stand is not surprising as he has always objected to the fence. On the other hand, he is probably unaware of the details of the agreement reached between Israel and the White House." [my emphasis]

This almost sounds like Henry Kissinger running roughshod over William Rogers.

Here's another depressing view of the state of U.S. peace processing efforts.

The Israeli Strike on Syria

It's perhaps a bit early to get too worked up about this strike. For one, the target in question appears to have been pretty much deserted.

Put differently, the IDF didn't intend to inflict human casualties on Syrian soil with this strike. It was meant as a carefully calibrated action meant as a signal to Syria to reduce cooperation with the likes of Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

Still, what appears carefully calibrated to one side can appear a reckless provocation to another. This was the first attack this deep in Syria for three decades.

Bashar Asad knows that he has no satisfactory military option. The Israelis have overwheming military superiority. Still, he might allow Hezbollah to pursue rocket attacks and the like from southern Lebanon (a front that has been relatively quiet recently despite the continuing violence in Israel and the Occupied Territories). It's not hard to see how, pursuant to robust Israeli responses to such attacks, a more significant escalation could occur in the coming weeks.

I'm also worried about whether Tel Aviv is signaling a change of strategy going forward. Over the weekend, both Dore Gold and another Israeli spokesman made mention of an "axis of terror" involving Syria, Iran and Gaza.

The undertone of the message is pretty obvious. If the U.S. has its "axis of evil"--and feels it can pursue its national security interests vigorously vis-a-vis the axis countries--so can Israel with its "axis of terror."

But as Arik Sharon contemplates further moves he should recall that, to date, the U.S. hasn't pursued military action in two of the charter "axis of evil" countries--Iran and NoKo--preferring to employ diplomatic pressure. And the Administration, while not explicity condemning the Israeli action--has pretty much made it clear that further attacks on Syria would be counterproductive.

Indeed, the Administration has sought to distance itself from the attack a bit by stating that it had no foreknowledge of the planned Israeli strike. Still, the Administration's reaction has been perceived as something of a blinking green light extended to the Israelis--especially in the Arab world--where conspiracy theories run rife and few think Sharon would have attacked Syria without prior approval from Washington.

We have no way of knowing what Bush has communicated privately to Sharon. But I would suspect that he has indicated that further military action by Israel in Syria would negatively impact U.S. interests in the region. For one, it would make it more difficult to ask Bashar Asad to seal his border with Iraq if he needs to be concerned about a possible conflagration on the Israeli border. For another, there will be a perception that the U.S. occupation of Iraq has emboldened the Israelis to violate Syrian sovereignty for the first time in decades. This would further antagonize Arab public opinion.

For such reasons, it would be a mistake if the Israelis feel they have a green light from the U.S. to pursue more significant strikes on Syria. If that were to occur, Asad would be compelled to respond in a manner more forceful than callling a UNSC special session and perhaps turning on the spigot of Hezbollah activity in southern Lebanon.

The risk of a regional war would thereby be significantly enhanced. If history is any guide, there's been one about every decade (1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982). All parties should do their best to help prevent another one. Avoiding further attacks on Syrian territory would be a good start from the Israeli side. And Syria making more stolid moves on closure of Jihad Islami and Hamas offices in Syria would be another.

Beeb Watch

An excellent FT magazine cover story on the Beeb:

A key graf:

"Relations between the British government and the BBC have often been fractious. The broadcaster has been infuriating governments almost since its founding in 1922, from the 1926 General Strike, to the second world war, Suez, the Falklands and Northern Ireland. And a national broadcaster's ability to criticise its government is an important test of a democracy's strength. Even so, it is hard to think of another time in recent history when these two British institutions have displayed such outright contempt for each other. And after talking with politicians of different parties, aides, BBC executives and industry insiders during the past month, it has become clear to me that something far more corrosive lies behind this latest conflict: the political class now believes that the BBC, the world's biggest and most respected public broadcaster, has been infected with the cynical, tabloid newspaper values that dominate much of the British media. As the aide who was talking about political reporters put it: "We don't see the BBC as a medium any more. It's a barrier."

Pfaff on Terror

Take a look at William Pfaff's IHT op-ed contending that terrorist violence often results from excesses of devotion.

I'm not sure I agree with his concluding graf. But it's worth thinking about:

"What the leaders of the Bush administration are intellectually unprepared to acknowledge is that they are at war with the dominant phenomenon of man's history, as identified by Koestler: the pitiless violence that comes from an excess of devotion."

Profile of a Suicide Bomber

The Haifa suicide bomber: not only a woman-- but an attorney as well.

Clarification: She was to qualify as a fully-fledged laywer next week after consummation of her trainee peroid.

Meanwhile, check out this story on young secular Israelis leaving Israel and heading to Williamsburg.

Keller Watch

"DOES anyone remember Sept. 11? No, not that one, the Sept. 11 of less than a month ago. If you channel-surfed on that day, you caught some of the children reading their lost parents' names at ground zero. Then, in all likelihood, you moved on, just as the networks did.

Or you made my mistake and, in an effort to retrieve some meaning from our new memorial day, visited a couple of the theaters that observed the second anniversary of the terrorists' attacks by staging plays about 9/11. The American theater has a history of rising to the occasion of national crises, from Clifford Odets's Depression-era "Waiting for Lefty" to Larry Kramer's enraged call to arms in the AIDS crisis, "The Normal Heart." But the two 9/11 shows I caught, "Omnium Gatherum" and "Recent Tragic Events," are, as Dick Gephardt is fond of saying about George W. Bush, miserable failures. They are tiny but pungent examples of the cultural bankruptcy of a moment when the most cunning dramatist in the country is its wartime president." [my emphasis]

Frank Rich, writing in the New York Times today.

Le Monde's Incredibly Shrinking President



"Don't talk about poll numbers" whispers Colin to Condi.

What a wearily predictable paper Le Monde is, no?

Oh, and see here what happens when you dare to cross those mighty editorialists of Le Monde--so woefully infected by Schandenfreude over the Seine group think.

"Mr Schneidermann says that instead of countering the accusations openly, Le Monde "reacted like a Sicilian clan insulted by the provocation of a rival clan."

Germany Rising

So France is in decline. Tony Blair is sorta busy shoring up his domestic support.

And the estimable German Chancellor? Holding court with Dubya, reasserting an Atlanticist foreign policy, significantly involved in Afghanistan, and looking to replace Blair as umpire between the U.S. and Europe on Iraq.

Who would have thought? Sure his electoral position is weak, but he's not done too poorly for himself all told.

So don't be surprised that middle power Germany is eager to start suggesting that it's ready to start punching a little bit more above its weight:

"Chancellor Gerhard Schröder said Friday that Germany had been right to oppose the American-led war in Iraq, driving home his defiant message by repeatedly using the German word for power, which leaders here have long eschewed because of its associations with the Nazi era.

In a speech marking the 13th anniversary of German reunification, Mr. Schröder described the country as a "civil power" and an "economic power," responsible for fueling the growth of the European Union.

The word macht, or power, has been laden with meaning since Hitler used it to describe a Germany bent on dominating its neighbors. But Mr. Schröder talked about Germany's "civil power," which he said manifested itself in a peaceful foreign policy that could be spread throughout the world.

"German peace polices are policies for Europe and beyond," he said in a nationally televised speech in Magdeburg."

I don't know about you, but I get a bit spooked when German leaders start talking about spreading their policies "for Europe and beyond"--whether "peace" policies or other. And, believe me, veteran diplomats in places like Paris and London likely don't like the rhetorical muscle-flexing emitting from Berlin too much either.

Have you read John Mearsheimer's "The Tragedy of Great Power Politics" lately?

If you haven't, here's a little teaser. The U.S. pace Mearsheimer, plays the "American pacifier " role in Europe. Were the U.S to pull out all its troops from Europe--"Europe would go from benign bipolarity to unbalanced multipolarity, the most dangerous kind of power structure. The U.K., France, Italy and Germany would have to build up their own military forces and provide for their own security. In effect, they would all become great powers [ed. note: ie, within Europe], making Europe multipolar. And...Germany would probably become a potential hegemon and thus the main source of trouble in the new Europe."

Don't buy the (very transient) Franco-German love-in born of jealousy (and some shock) that the U.S. decided to, from a European view, show that it is willing to seek "conquest" outside the Western Hemisphere (among other factors). Nascent talk of a Euro-defense corps remains more farsical than serieux (see the inclusion of Luxembourg and Belgium). Deep in the bowels of the Quai D'Orsay (far from de Villepin's fanciful notions and dreamy neo-Napoleonic musings) and Whitehall the professional diplos are still keeping Mearsheimeresque realities well in mind. And they're wise to.

The Wall

John Burns, easily the best correspondent currently at the NYT, sends in a dispatch from the environs of Israel's so called security wall. Here are some excerpts, but do go read the whole thing.

"To a visitor who last saw the West Bank a few days before the current uprising began in September 2000, the length of barrier already completed and the wider changes in the territory brought about by the intifada are a shock. Three years ago, an air of hope and growing normality prevailed. Mostly, Israelis and Jewish settlers moved safely through Palestinian areas, visiting casinos and shopping at roadside bazaars.

Now, the West Bank has the appearance of a wasteland. Life is mostly at a standstill, with big cities, as well as the towns and villages, cut off from one another by a maze of Israeli-built "bypass roads" — open to settlers but closed to most Palestinians — Israeli Army checkpoints and new concrete-slab walls and fencing and piles of bulldozed rubble blocking roads everywhere.

To a Westerner with a permit to travel the territory, it seems like an archipelago of brooding ghettos, of weary men, women and children crossing a patchwork quilt of checkpoints and barriers. East of Jerusalem, where only limited sections of the fence have been completed, it cuts across the hills near Bethlehem. North of Tel Aviv, at Palestinian cities like Qalqilya, which has been surrounded by the fence, farmers heading for their lands and children heading for school must reach gates operated by Israeli soldiers at the set opening hours, especially at dusk, or face camping out overnight.

The deep divide between Palestinians and Israelis is captured by the mood here and in Ariel. Ariel projects modernity and middle-class prosperity, with its blossom-lined avenues, attractive stone houses and apartment blocks, arts and sports centers, well-equipped hospitals and schools, and its own Japanese-financed mini-golf center. It is the citadel of settlements, a vision that the 230,000 Jewish settlers across the West Bank and Gaza, many still in trailers, see as their future.

Haris, barely two miles away, is deeply dispirited. Here, only two of the men, among a dozen who stopped to talk about the fence, had work of any kind. The men focused part of their recriminations on President Bush, dismissing as "theater" American pressure on the Israeli government over the fence. Mostly, they spoke of their fears."

Let's be clear. This wall isn't going to bring Israel long-term security. That's a chimera.

The only thing that will provide Israelis with real long term security is a general peace deal--with the U.S. (and others in the Quartet) acting as guarantor of the settlement.

At the risk of sounding like a Shimon Peres (his critics view him as too much a dreamer re: a new Middle East, too effete, too Euro and so on) let's be clear: walls separating populations are supposed to be a thing of the past. Who can forget the euphoria of the Berlin Wall coming down? Who has forgotten one of Radovan Karadzic's more noxious plans for Sarajevo (erecting walls dividing Serbian and Muslim sections)?

Is this where the Zionist project currently stands? If so, it's a tragedy.

And no, I'm not equating Bosnian Serb genocidal thugishness with Arik Sharon's government. Sharon is reacting to very real security concerns. The campaign of suicide bombings is a grotesque outrage. All effective efforts must be made to stamp out such terror activity. But trust me, the wall won't do it. Instead, it will create more willing to die to inflict brutally haphazard harm on Israeli targets. They will find ways to reach Israeli targets no matter how high and wide the wall.

Back to the Burns' piece

"When they take your land, kill your sons, deny you food for your family, demolish your houses, and deny you any freedom of movement, what do they expect you to do?" said 52-year-old Najeh Souf, who returned to Haris from more than 20 years working as a hospital clerk in Kuwait and invested his savings in olive groves near the bypass road. "All this I will write in my diary, all they have done, all we have suffered, so it will be read and remembered by my children, and my children's children. We will never give up. Write that down. We will never give up."

Mustafa Salami, 24 and never employed, belongs to the under-30 generation of Palestinians that Israeli security officials regard as most threatening. Most days now, he said, he stands by the road, selling artificial sunflowers to passing motorists.

Early on Wednesday, before the cabinet decision, he watched as Israeli troops with a bulldozer demolished his uncle's corrugated shed beside the road for continuing his plant business without an Israeli permit that had been regularly denied.

"I am very angry, very angry," he said. "I can't work, I can't marry, I can't build a house. "Life is not worth living. I want to die. Many of us do not care if we live or die." [my emphasis]

As long as such conditions exist--more innocent Israeli civilians will die in the Holy Land. That's the brutal reality--wall or no wall.

UPDATE: Powell weighs in.

ANOTHER UDPATE: Well, here's another horror today-- this time in Haifa.

Vidal Award

Yes, I know, I haven't handed one of these out in a long time. But this Arthur Schlesinger piece really got to me:

"Looking back over the forty years of the cold war, we can be everlastingly grateful that the loonies on both sides were powerless. In 2003, however, they run the Pentagon, and preventive war—the Bush Doctrine—is now official policy. Sixty years ago the Japanese anticipated the Bush Doctrine in their attack on the US Navy at Pearl Harbor. This was, FDR observed, an exploit that would live in infamy—except now, evidently, when employed by the United States."

We can quibble about whether the Iraq campaign constituted a preventive war as opposed to preemptive (contra Schlesinger, I'd argue the latter, albeit based on faulty intelligence and in a climate characterized by post 9/11 "better safe than sorry" reasoning).

But to simply call Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz "loonies" is not befitting an eminent historian.

And, most galling, note the gross relativism Schlesinger employs comparing Axis Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor with the Bush Administration's attack on Iraq.

Did Imperial Japan consult international bodies before sending suicide planes into our Navy ships? Was there a rough equivalent of Dubya's September 12th speech to the U.N. followed up by a unanimous UNSC resolution emitting from the Emperor's chambers in Tokyo? Most assuredely not--and not just because the League of Nations was no longer extant.

And then there is this gem:

"I think the press and television are also to be blamed for the absence of opposition. Comments by Cheney and Rumsfeld were given top billing in most American papers, even The New York Times, while thoughtful and reasoned speeches by Edward Kennedy and Robert Byrd opposing the rush to preventive war were consigned to a paragraph on the back pages or wholly ignored." [my emphasis]

Yeah, the NYT is supposed to provide neo-Kennedy court hagiography style slant on all matters Iraq, didn't you know? How dare they not give front page billing to the Iraq strategy musings of Ted Kennedy?

But there's more:

"There were no such apologies in Mr. Bush's inaugural address. He acted as if he had won in a landslide and had earned an electoral mandate—and he got away with it.

"For all his buffoonish side, the President is secure in himself, disciplined, decisive and crafty, and capable of concentrating on a few priorities. He has maintained control of a rag-tag Republican coalition, well described by Kevin Phillips (author of The Emerging Republican Majority, 1969) as consisting of "Wall Street, Big Energy, multinational corporations, the Military-Industrial Complex, the Religious Right, the Market Extremist think-tanks, and the Rush Limbaugh Axis." All these groups agree in their strong support of their president, though they sharply disagree among themselves."

Oh yes, Simian George, the bufoonish cretin widely derided in Central Park West pads. The moron even thought he had an electoral mandate after winning the electoral college. Imagine that!

Oh, and what's the "Rush Limbaugh axis"? Pill-popping fellas who don't think African-American QBs can cut it?

This is all pretty inflammatory fare. I think Schlesinger can and should do better than this. This reads too much like a hoary screed hastily written up contra the Crawford redneck. Doubtless it will get a few guffaws of appreciation among the oh-so multilateralist folk pining for Dominique de Villepin in selected (and soi disant) sophisticate Manhattan parlors. But all that aside, it's simply not a judicious appraisal of the Bush Presidency worthy of a major American historian.

Some Perspective

From Charles Krauthammer. Meanwhile, check out David Ignatius writing in the WaPo too.

Money grafs:

"American soldiers have been attacked again here the day I visit this smoldering core of revolt in Iraq's Sunni Triangle. But what is worrying Sheik Khamis Hassnawi, the leader of one of the region's largest tribes, isn't the possibility that the U.S. occupiers might stay, but that they might leave.

"It would be a disaster," says Hassnawi of a quick American pullout. "If coalition forces withdraw now, the strong will eat the weak and people will start killing each other in the streets."

Fallujah is the last place I thought I would hear Iraqis plead for the United States to stay the course. But the tribal leader's comments are an illustration that things in postwar Iraq aren't always what they appear from a distance. What angers most Iraqis isn't the U.S. invasion -- which nearly everyone I met still describes as liberation from a hated regime -- but America's surprisingly poor performance in delivering services and security."

Home News

September was a pretty good month for us over here at the Belgravia Dispatch. The site averaged about 500 unique visitors daily. Of course, this isn't significant traffic by many bigger blog standards--but this humble site feels pretty good about it (particularly given time constraints on blogging activity resulting from long work days, frequent travel and an alarming tendency to want to pop out for drinks in London town now and then [best Martini found to date, if you're curious, at Duke's Hotel in St. James])

We hope you will keep visiting and thank you for reading. And please write in with any comments/criticisms/suggestions at belgraviadispatch@hotmail.com.

Iraq Report

Newsweek has a pretty gloomy Iraq story up. There isn't much new ground covered in the report. I'm blogging about it because of this interesting snippet from Ehud Barak:

"Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak recently passed a message to Rumsfeld. It ran roughly: “There’s a 5 percent chance you get Saddam tomorrow, the energy goes out of the resistance and things get dramatically better. There’s a 5 percent chance a car bomb takes out the entire Governing Council, and things go to hell. In between those, it will get better over time, or worse over time. Right now, I say it’s twice as likely that it gets worse.” It’s not known how Rumsfeld responded."

Of course, none of us really know what the coming months will bring. But this struck me, coming as it does from someone who knows the region like the back of his hand, as an appraisal worth mulling over.

And I get back to thinking we need, in greater number, highly trained constabulatory forces out there. Yeah, I know that's not a panacea. But I think it will help. I'm not sure moving quickly to "Iraqify" various police will do the trick--until they have been trained by, say, the Germans and such.

No to an Independent Counsel

Say two law school profs. Viet Dinh, my old Corporations prof in law school, is a Republican--but Neal Ketyal served under Clinton. They make some very cogent points:

"The problem was with the law itself. The independent counsel was a constitutional orphan, with no base in any branch of government. The person in the job had nothing to do but investigate a single entity for some kind of wrongdoing. Independent counsels were almost entirely insulated from budget constraints, investigation deadlines and Justice Department policy and practice. And because they were judged by the indictments and convictions they obtained, they had an incentive to investigate, accuse and pursue relentlessly. To paraphrase a saying made famous by Mark Twain: to a man with a hammer, a lot of things look like nails.

Such incentives are particularly problematic in a case involving leaks. Leak investigations often drag on endlessly and rarely culminate in indictments. They can demoralize government staff members, who often must take several polygraph tests. They also have a chilling effect on reporters and columnists, who face tremendous pressure from the government to reveal their sources.

In a case like this one, where national security concerns may be pitted against the First Amendment freedom of the press, it is important that the investigation proceed carefully and methodically and with accountability. So far, there is absolutely no reason to think that the Justice Department is incapable of handling it."

Indeed.

In Other News

Meanwhile, if you can pull yourself away from hunting down photos of Valerie Plame or observing the carnivalesque going-ons of the gubernatorial race in the great state of California, we bring you the following developments:

NoKO. Israel. Iran.

You know, just to take stock of in between Ah-nuld, Kobe, and Val (ed. note: insert obligatory proviso that blowing the cover of an undercover agent is a really big, big deal).

It is, or course. And we love the mono-maniacal coverage we can expect from a Mickey Kaus on CA or a TPM on Plame-Gate.

But given the immense importance of counter-proliferation efforts (see, for instance, Dubya's recent speech to the U.N.)--we might just keep abreast of Iran and NoKo here and there too.

And, for the record, I think the decision to proceed with the wall makes, even more than before, a continued mockery of the current state of the road-map. Though, in all fairness, U.S. pressure has resulted in some Israeli concessions re: the fence.

Nevertheless, continued building out of the separation fence represents the kind of action that is seen by many (with some justification) as pre-judging final status negotiations.

As the so-called "honest broker," we're supposed to ensure that we don't allow that to take place. So why aren't we?

UPDATE: See Tom Friedman on this too:

"I know a vast majority of Israelis want a decent, normal society, but their ideologically driven leaders are lost in space, squandering their people's great strength rather than channeling it into creative options. And the Bush team, which should be acting as a reality check, has fallen so deep into the pocket of Ariel Sharon you can't even find it anymore."

Clark in the NYRB

Is it something in the Arkansas water? Check out this Clark piece in the NY Review.

Some fair points. But isn't the last graf kind of Clintonian in a wishy-washy, amorphous, fence-sitting kind of way?

I'm throwing in the towel. I still don't really know if Wes Clark wanted this Iraq war or not. Readers, help!

The Biggest Headache So Far

Is that, for some reason, the press is still stressing a possible Rove role in the whole Plame affair. We'd expect that from the Guardian--who continue to go full throttle on a possible Rove role.

But, more worrisomely (as we are dealing with a serious newspaper rather than the Guardian), take a look at this NYT piece. It concentrates on Ashcroft's potential conflicts of interest given his ties to Rove.

Sure, it's predictable fare coming from the gang over at W. 43rd St. But they're running copy that is still hanging out a good-sized shingle that Rove might still have been involved in all of this. They wouldn't do that lightly, I'd wager, at least post-Raines.

So why would this still be a story given White House press spokesman Scott McClellan's denial of Roves' involvement in this whole mess?

Well, for one thing, Bush's enemies (amidst the political and media classes) are smelling blood. And yeah, you've kinda got the "perfect storm" conditions brewing.

An election is approaching. All know that Bush, especially sans active Karen involvement, needs Rove big time.

And then, there's something about Scott McClellan's initial handling of what might be called the "it ain't Rove" angle that wasn't totally convincing:

Here's the key exchange:

"QUESTION: Ambassador Wilson has said that he has information that Karl Rove condoned this leaking, and I've seen your comment that that's absolutely false -- [my emphasis]

McCLELLAN: It is ridiculous. It's ridiculous.

QUESTION: What do you --

McCLELLAN: And keep in mind, I imagine that only a limited number of people would even have access to classified information of this nature.

QUESTION: So he doesn't have information?

QUESTION: Can I follow up?

McCLELLAN: Yes, go ahead. And, Helen, you may always follow up. Go ahead.

QUESTION: What, then, do you think the -- given that you say Rove condoning this is ridiculous, what do you think Ambassador Wilson's motivation is for leveling such a scurrilous charge?

McCLELLAN: I can't speculate about why he would say such a thing. I mean, I saw some comments this morning, where he said he had no knowledge to that effect. But I can't speculate why he would say that.

QUESTION: Did Rove say, "ridiculous"?

McCLELLAN: I did, for him.

QUESTION: Did you speak with him about it?

McCLELLAN: Yes, I've spoken to him.

QUESTION: But he told you, "ridiculous"?

McCLELLAN: No, I said -- I told some of your colleagues that it was ridiculous. And, remember, I said this back -- what, July and September this issue came up, and said essentially what I've said now.

QUESTION: Can you characterize your conversation with him about this?

McCLELLAN: I talk to him all the time, so --

QUESTION: About this?

McCLELLAN: No, about a lot of issues.

QUESTION: But can you characterize your conversation about this subject with him?

McCLELLAN: I don't think there's anything to characterize. I mean, I think that what I said speaks clearly, that the accusations just simply are not true."

Note that McClellan is calling Rove's condoning of the leak ridiculous--not the allegation that Rove himself was the leaker. A pretty strong denial.

And yet. I didn't like the part where McClellan is getting into a debate about whether he or Rove used the word "ridiculous."

I mean, so what did Rove have to say about it? Well, nothing, at least on the record, it appears.

Which smells a lot like a laywer told him to clam up. Sage advice, doubtless, but gets you curious, doesn't it?

Back to McClellan. The back and forth at the press conferences was a bit awkward. You might chalk this up to a relatively new press spokesman handling his first full-blown Beltway scandal.

At least I hope that's what explains it. And that there isn't some murkiness that's being papered over in terms of Rove blessing a lower-level staffer's decision to out Plame--that may have been corroborated by a stray E-mail or handwritten annotation somewhere. And so on. You get the drift...

Well, as they say, this one sure's developing.

And Why?

Call it the Andrew Sullivan question.

The WaPo leaps on the bandwagon musing as to possible rationales as well:

"Here's today's question, chattering class: If the White House wanted to discredit and/or shut up Joseph "Yellowcake" Wilson, who was embarrassing the administration over Saddam Hussein's alleged quest for nuclear weapons, why would aides try to accomplish this by dragging his wife into it?"

Oh, and TPM merits a mention in the piece as well.

Bearish Buttonwood

I don't normally blog about matters related to international economic issues. For one, a bunch of people in the blogosphere are likely better positioned to pontificate on such matters. For another, I deal with a lot of international finance related issues as part of my day job.

Blogging is meant as a bit of a break from all that. A chance to scratch my foreign policy (defined as traditional "high politics") itch--not discourse on Doha rounds and the like.

So I haven't blogged about the balooning deficits in the U.S. Yeah I'm aware, that in a recessionary environment, some deficit spending isn't all bad. But the deficit is spiraling out of control in worrisome fashion--as most judicious observers realize.

But there is something else that's been bugging me lately. Perhaps predictably, it's the weakening dollar. But not just because it hurts my pocketbook, I swear!

Rather, and especially if there is a precipitous decline in the dollar, for these reasons.

Bob Rubin, where art thou?

UPDATE: See too Jim Hoagland who see a bit of wider disarray these days emanating from the Administration:

"As the U.S. campaign approaches, the Bush team already shows a disturbing tendency to merge political and other agendas with foreign-policy and economic decisions. The recent effort by Treasury Secretary John Snow to jawbone China and Japan into steps that would devalue the dollar against their currencies is an especially transparent example.

China predictably rebuffed Snow's calls to adopt flexible exchange rates. Beijing correctly assessed that Snow was really speaking to American manufacturers and workers disturbed by inexpensive Chinese imports and that China would pay no price for politely brushing off the demand."

Joe Wilson: Having A Grand Old Time Amidst the Maelstrom?

Hardly a man deeply troubled that his wife's career has inexorably been scuttled because of thug-like leaking over at 1600 Pennsylvania, huh?

"As the world now knows, Wilson is married to Valerie Wilson, nee Plame. She is his third wife. She is 40, slim, blonde and the mother of their 3-year-old twins. In the photos in his office, she has the looks of a film star.

"She is really quite amazing," Wilson said. "We were just discussing today who would play her in the movie," he cracked."

O.K., so now expect a lot of of such searches [ed. note: Don't waste your time, no results].

But, more seriously, should Wilson really be cracking barbs about future film roles for his wife? Of course, he's free to play the showman and, to be sure, the charges remain dead serious. If she was a full-blown undercover agent, and the leaker(s) knew this and nevertheless had the intent to out her, send him/them to the docks I say.

But Wilson isn't doing himself too many favors appearing on myriad news shows and looking a tad too showboaty. Don't you think?

Guardian Watch

Here's the Guardian on L'Affaire Plame.

Some key grafs:

"President George Bush's closest political adviser, Karl Rove, was yesterday at the centre of a criminal investigation into allegations that he leaked the name of a CIA agent in an attempt to suppress criticism of the administration's Iraq policy, in what is fast becoming the administration's worst scandal since coming to office." [my emphasis]

And more:

"If Mr Rove was implicated, it would seriously damage the president's standing at the start of his re-election campaign and rob him of an electoral mastermind who orchestrated his rise to the Texas governorship and then the presidency.

One veteran of the Clinton administration compared it to the Hutton inquiry. "In the Kelly case there's a body but no crime. Here there's no body but there is a crime," he said."

Whoah there. The White House press spokesman is on the record saying Rove wasn't the "outer".

From the WaPo Q&A to the Plame going-ons:

Q: Why was White House political adviser Karl Rove initially thought to be the leaker as opposed to someone in Vice President Cheney's office or the National Security Council?

A: Wilson initially said he thought Rove had told Novak about his wife's undercover work, although he has since backed off that assertion. He now says that he believes Rove "condoned" the leak. Asked about the accusation, a White House spokesman responded on Rove's behalf by saying, "It is a ridiculous suggestion, and it is simply not true." [my emphasis]

So either the Bush White House has f*&$*d up big time and not taken the old adage to heart--about the cover up being worse than the crime (a close call with this scandal given how egregious the charges)--or the Guardian is out to lunch again.

I think I know where the smart money is on this one. I mean, is it responsible journalism to describe Rove as being at the "centre of a criminal investigation" when the White House is already on the record having expressly denied that's the case?

And geez, even Josh Marshall thinks, given what has been said from the White House podium, that Rove isn't the guy.

But bad news for Dubya is too tempting for the Guardian to run away with, in hyperbolic Fleet Street fashion, facts be damned. They've got a major Howell Raines problem--and badly need some adult supervision.

More Cartoon Fun From Le Monde



Osama is saying: "It wasn't me?" The book's title, with Dubya's face interposed between the Towers, reads "The Real Culprit."

Note this cartoon is linked to a story that states that 19% of Germans think the U.S. was responsible for 9/11.

Classic hypocrisy. Put the revolting cartoon up in your nation's main paper but make it appear it's describing the German world-view (for more on that angle go here).

Oh, and doesn't the timing and prominent placement of this cartoon reveal, as well, the French elite's increasing discomfort with the burgeoning U.S.-German rapprochment?

Cockburn's Scriveners

You knew it was coming.

What? A polemic titled "Does a Felon Rove the White House"?

Cute, isn't it?

Scandal Watch

One of the fascinating aspects of unfolding scandals in the Beltway is surveying the breathtaking hypocrisy of the politicians carving out their partisan positions. The winner today, for me at least, has got to be Tom Daschle:

"Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the minority leader, said an outside counsel was vital. "The conflicts that would exist in the Justice Department are obvious," Mr. Daschle said. "John Ashcroft won't even go after Ken Lay. How will he possibly go after someone appointed, who appointed him as attorney general?"

Kenneth Lay, who was once friendly with President Bush, is the former chairman of the Enron Corporation, which collapsed amid allegations of corporate wrongdoing.

When a questioner noted that Democrats had opposed several calls for independent prosecutors during the Clinton administration, Mr. Daschle said, "We don't have confidence in John Ashcroft. I had confidence in Janet Reno." ."

Um, ok. But wait, the Enron Task Force is pretty busy. Ken Lay isn't sleeping easy just yet.

And more confidence in Janet Reno? Oh my.

Oh, and there is this too:

"One Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, said on Monday that the situation was reason enough to revive the independent counsel law, which Congress allowed to die in 1999 after widespread concern over Kenneth W. Starr's Whitewater investigation".

Here's what Lieberman was saying back in '99:

"I see the Starr investigation and some of what I would call its excesses as a reason, a basis for us to amend the law when, as I believe we should, we reenact it. For instance, I think we ought to narrow the number of high officials of our government who are subject to this investigation. We ought to -- independent counsel. We ought to raise the threshold a bit for when the counsel gets appointed." [my emphasis]

Put on your seatbelts. There' s a lot more of this on the way...

White House Counsel's Email

Here's the text:

"PLEASE READ: Important Message From Counsel's Office

We were informed last evening by the Department of Justice that it has opened an investigation into possible unauthorized disclosures concerning the identity of an undercover CIA employee. The department advised us that it will be sending a letter today instructing us to preserve all materials that might be relevant to its investigation. Its letter will provide more specific instructions on the materials in which it is interested, and we will communicate those instructions directly to you. In the meantime, you must preserve all materials that might in any way be related to the department's investigation. Any questions concerning this request should be directed to Associate Counsels Ted Ullyot or Raul Yanes in the counsel to the president's office. The president has directed full cooperation with this investigation." [my emphasis]

OK, so this debate (see "What Is Her Job") is moot--she was undercover--or Gonzalez is a really, really careless lawyer. I'm betting on the former (very obviously).

Meanwhile, Howard Kurtz has an interesting media roundup.

UPDATE: David Corn started the whole thing so his current take is worth checking out. This part stuck out at me (I'll explain why in a second):

"Scott," one reporter said, "the statement you gave about why there shouldn't be a special prosecutor was almost word for word what the Clinton people said in 1994 about why there shouldn't be a special prosecutor in Whitewater. Why should it stand now if it didn't stand then?" McClellan answered: "I just reject that comparison." The reporters laughed."

I was just watching CNN Int'l and saw footage of Dubya discoursing on the Plame affair. He said, and I think I've got the quote right, "If that person violated the law that person will be taken care of..."

It all sounds a bit like "no controlling legal authority" (Gore) or the myriad Clintonian tortured legalistic parsings.

C'mon Mr. President--you can do better. How 'bout "if anyone in my Administration revealed the identity of one of our undercover CIA agents they will immediately be relieved of their duties and I will urge that they are prosecuted to the maximum extent allowed by the law..."

Or something like that.

Blair Watch

He's still in the driver's seat.

"Acknowledging he felt battered after 6 1/2 years in office and seeing growing dissent over his policies, Blair told the party's annual conference: ``So what do we do -- give up on it, or get on with it?''

Delegates gave him the response he wanted -- ``Get on with it!''

Constitution Drafting

Can someone show this to the French?

And, even if you want to argue that sovereignty can be handed over before the Constitution is finalized, note this peril:

"Noureddine and other council members said a longer timetable to write the constitution should not result in a longer occupation. They rejected the Bush administration's view that a constitution and elections must precede a transfer of sovereignty, insisting that the issues should be separate.

Bush administration officials contend that if they transfer sovereignty before a constitution is drafted and a democratically elected government is seated, the interim political authority could prolong or subvert the process. "If a constitution has to be drafted before there can be a government, you bet we'll get a constitution," one U.S. official said."

It's smart to pressure the Iraqis to get the Constitution drafted before sovereignty is handed over. That way, we can at least ensure the Constitution contains "principles [of] federalism, democracy, nonviolence, a respect for diversity and a role for women."

Bremer takes pains to stress the document will be drafted by Iraqis. That's, of course, critical. But it's fair to at least monitor that the resulting document contain the above key principles/rights.

So the Constitution-writing process is likely going to prove messy, protracted and complex.

But the larger point is simply to pause and witness how such important debates, ideas, horse-trading etc. are playing out in the nascent Iraqi polity.

Delegates to a constitutional convention to be chosen by popular vote? Or the selection of "wise men" to ward off the dangers of crude Shi'a majoritarianism?

No, wait. How about:

"A compromise approach that appears to be gaining support is to hold caucuses in provinces where religious, political and tribal leaders could assemble and select a few delegates to represent them at the convention. The 250 or so delegates could be augmented with a few appointed members, particularly legal scholars and other academics, supporters of that approach said."

Caucuses? In Iraq? Who would have thought?

From the ashes of Saddam's totalilatarian regime, democracy is stirring. Fitfully, yes. In the midst of a dismal security situation in (one part) of the country, yes.

But progress is being made. Let all the Iraq nay-sayers continue to castigate Dubya for his foolhardy and reckless adventure.

But History's verdict is still very much at play. And I'm betting Dubya's big bet is yet going to pay off. He may yet create a functioning democracy in Mesopotamia. It's just going to take a while. And cost a lot in terms of blood and treasure. But the potential rewards are immense. So keep the faith. This was never going to be easy.

UPDATE: Go check out how Pat Tyler writes up the same story in the NYT. Might there be a "coalition efforts are floundering" kind of agenda at play here? Just asking.

Pull a Clinton

Joe Klein has got some advice for Dubya. On a policy basis, given balooning deficits, Klein's ideas make sense. But the last thing Dubya wants is to risk another "read my lips" pledge-breaking imbroglio. So don't expect anything like this to happen.

Valerie Plame

The WaPo provides the latest on this worrisome affair. BTW, my view on all this, at least at this stage, is pretty similar to this take.

UPDATE: So, it's not Karl Rove, right? (Or Scott McClellan is smoking lots of crack). Aside from Rove being the person Joe Wilson had fingered as the key culprit--it's interesting to see the Administration come out swinging defending Rove first. At this stage, I'd wager, Dubya needs Rove around more than, say, Cheney. It's getting rough out there....

ANOTHER UPDATE: Via Instapundit, this is a must-read.

Prolific Priest

Much output from Dana Priest in the WaPo today. First, you have got this piece on intelligence shortcomings related to Iraqi WMD. Next, along with Mike Allen, Priest writes about the developing scandal related to the "outing" of Joe Wilson's wife.

On the latter, go see Tom Maguire and Josh Marshall. For what it's worth, my thoughts at this stage are to wait and see if the story is accurate. Next, discipline whatever individuals were involved--to the maximum extent allowed by the law--if the story ends up proving true.

But I think it's a tad early to speculate about whether it was Andy Card, Ari Fleischer (on the day of his departure), Karl Rove or Dan Bartlett who "outed" Mrs. Yellowcake. And let's certainly not start hyperventilating about impeachment of Dubya and the like. We're so far from that stage it's risible to even write about it in serious fashion.

And for the record, don't you find it pretty rich that some like Josh Marshall and Atrios are suggesting that the White House (rather than merely refer to matter to the Department of Justice) should just reveal the alleged leakers right off?

Josh Marshall must surely be thinking of the approach the Clinton White House took re: such matters, doubtless (and no, I'm not just talking of the Monica peccadillo, but several other scandals besides). Wait, I seem to recall that the Clinton White House was not, uh, exactly forthcoming about turning over the goods...

That said, Bush's White House should not be striving to approximate the ethical moorings of the Clinton White House. They must do better. And to "out" the professionally-employed CIA agent spouse of a retired government official who is making public information inconvenient to the Administration is gang-land style politics. It's reprehensible. But this story has many moving parts and nothing definitively damning is yet evidenced. Referring this over to DOJ is the right way to go at this stage. Patience.

On the first Priest story regarding intelligence shortcomings, I'm going to put aside the alleged shortcomings related to the links to al-Qaeda and the nuclear program. On the former, that wasn't one of the reasons that I favored going to war against Iraq. I felt the links between Baghdad and al-Qaeda were pretty de minimis (given the very differing world views of Saddam and Osama). So I'm not surprised to see that the intelligence was pretty weak in that area.

Likewise, on the nuclear angle, I never viewed Saddam's nuclear program as necessarily constituting an imminent threat and suspected a judicious reading of intelligence on Iraqi nukes would render people, if not sanguine, at least not pushing a preemptive war on that basis alone.

That's leaves the intelligence related to the chemical and biological weapons. Saddam's potential possession of chemical and biological WMD is always what concerned me--particularly post 9/11. We've all heard it before, but it's worth stressing yet again. Post 9/11, the possible nexus among transnational terror groups, rogue regimes and WMD forced a reappraisal of U.S. strategic policy.

If Saddam wasn't a madman, irrational demon, etc etc--he was at least a strategic blunderer. To allow such a leader, who has used chemical weapons against people in his own country (and who was commonly considered to still possess chemical and biological weapons capability by myriad intelligence services) to retain such a capability post 9/11 would have constituted (at least) negligence in terms of a government's national security obligations.

Now back to the Priest story. The money graf (in terms of the chem/bio angle at least):

"The absence of proof that chemical and biological weapons and their related development programs had been destroyed was considered proof that they continued to exist," the two committee members said in a letter Thursday to CIA Director George J. Tenet. The Washington Post obtained a copy this weekend.

Now, let me say right off that I have tremendous respect for Porter Goss. And so I don't take his comment on this lightly at all.

But let's analyze that sentence from the letter. Even if you end up agreeing with Goss' conclusions--they aren't that damning.

We all know Saddam possesed WMD at some stage (see Halabja, for instance). We didn't have conclusive proof that he had dismantled the program or destroyed his WMD weapons stockpiles. We knew how he had made a speciality of evading U.N. inspection schemes. Faced with these realities, given the post 9/11 strategic framework, the lack of compelling proof that the chem/bio capability had actually been dismantled didn't leave us with any easy policy options.

In other words, the burden of proof had shifted to those rogue states accused of possessing WMD. And Saddam failed to meet that burden.

Meanwhile, it's worth keeping in mind that collecting and appraising intelligence information is a highly imperfect science. And so to conclude that a threat existed, from a composite picture (no proof of destruction of the WMD and fragmentary indications of renewed activity, ie. possible mobile bioweapon labs) that a chem/bio capability existed doesn't strike me highly irresponsible. Indeed, it strikes me as just the opposite.

Moral Bankruptcy Watch

An interesting read on the terrorist money trail.

Here's an insight into the amoral nature of terrorists fund-raisers we are dealing with:

"In one bizarre money-raising scheme, investigators discovered that Hezbollah financial leaders talked about taking out life insurance policies for operatives in Lebanon who would eventually carry out suicide bombings. The idea was to have family members tell the insurance company that the suicide bomber "had disappeared without a trace," an investigator said, and then try to collect on the policy."

Oh, and here's another reason to quit smoking:

"In Charlotte, N.C., last year, members of a Hezbollah cell were convicted of racketeering in a cigarette smuggling scam. Cigarettes purchased without paying state tax in North Carolina were trucked to Detroit, where they were resold, for cash. The cash was then sent to Lebanon, by courier or by mail. A photo introduced as evidence at the criminal trial showed several cell members sitting at a table overflowing with $20 and $100 bills."

This is Actually Good News

Pat Tyler paints this as a pretty bad story, ie. the troop shortage (contra the Danielle Pletka's of the world) continues. But this is actually good news. Any of Indian (magnets for terror attacks), Turkish (dumb policy to allow troops of any neighboring countries in, too big a tempation for mischief) or Pakistani (more domestic strains on Musharraf, ISI troublemakers in the lot etc.) troops in Iraq would have likely proved detrimental rather than helpful to the U.S. in the middle to long term.

Euro roundup

Lots of good Europe-related material around over the past few days--mostly specifically on the state of Euro-U.S. relations.

First, U.S.-Russian relations. I, like David Adesnik, had spotted the "deuling" NYT vs. WaPo headlines re: the results of Bush's summitry with Putin. But, reading the actual WaPo piece, one would see they were pretty much in agreement with the NYT's take. Regardless, the WaPo has updated their headline and story today with a Dana Milbank analysis of the summit. [Does Milbank get a bit carried away with the analysis of Putin's black turtleneck? Yeah, I think so]

As I suspected a few days back--Putin appears to still be getting a bit of a free pass on Russian assistance to Iran's nuclear reactor.

Second, a clarification from an earlier post (go to "Eurodefense Force Issue" section) where I might have downplayed, if to a small extent, the degree of U.S. discomfort regarding the establishment of an independent Euro-defense force. The key issue I neglected to analyze was that there is much sensitivity, at least in some quarters, that painstaking steps be taken so that such a Euro force not overlap, in any material way, with NATO's functions. This article describes the situation pretty well.

Finally, Elaine Sciolino says U.S.-French relations aren't that bad after all. She must have been smitten after all that time with Chirac. Richard Holbrooke, quoted in her article, agrees that the Franco-U.S. spat has been overblown. Take a look too at this piece that uses gender role analysis explain why we appear to have a differing approach to France versus Germany.

Oh, and just in case you missed it, check this out too. Pretty sobering fare.

Not Neo-Cons or Neo-Straussiansm, But Neo-Hobbesians

In an interview (French language) in Le Figaro, Peter Sloterdijk opines that neo-conservatives seek to return world politics to a "state of nature." He therefore labels them neo-Hobbesians.

Sloterdijk's "Critique of Cynical Reason" remains a wonderful text. Who can forget his treatment of the haunting picture of the entry sign at Auschwitz that read "Arbeit Macht Frei" or "Labor is Liberating"? Little surprise, in his narrative, such events help an "enlightened false consciousness" take root after such grotesquely cynical treatment of the most evil barbarism.

But, as do many Euro-intellectuals these days, Sloterdijk goes off the deep end a bit when it comes to the USA. Not only are brutish neo-Hobbesians populating the Beltway--but Europe has become the idlyic America of the 18th Century:

"Nous sommes devenus des Américains du XVIIIe siècle, proclamant notre droit à vivre dans des espaces où l'histoire ne peut plus nous atteindre."

Translation: "We [the Europeans] have become the Americans of the 18th Century, proclaiming our right to live in the spaces where history can not reach us." [ed. note: yes Sloterdijk does credit Robert Kagan for having made related arguments recently]

But is that what America's founders were seeking? To live in a blissful nation unscarred by History's march?

No, I'd wager. The Founding Fathers were boldly staking out a new polity--not with the goal of creating a paradise outside of history--but with the hope of creating a freer society than that which they had come from. But the key point is that they were surely conscious that threats would gather and need to be confronted to retain the fruits of liberty achieved in the new polity. They had not embarked on a frivolous mission with the chimerical goals of "escaping" history.

Ultimately, Sloterdijk is too tempted to analyze the state of world politics through overly ironic lens thus reaching too cute conclusions:

"Les Etats-Unis se sont construits justement pour échapper à la réalité européenne décrite de façon exemplaire par Hobbes. Car l'auteur du Léviathan justifiait philosophiquement l'absolutisme étatique. Les premiers Américains sont les ennemis de cet absolutisme et ils n'ont qu'un rêve : fuir une Europe où Hobbes a raison. Or aujourd'hui, que voit-on ? On voit les Américains faire leur le pessimisme ontologique de Hobbes et se convertir à l'idéologie même dont le rejet constitua la raison d'être de leur nation!"

Translation: "The U.S. built itself precisely to escape the European reality described in exemplary fashion by Hobbes. Because the author of Leviathan justified philosphically state absolutism. The first Americans were the enemies of this absolutism and had but one dream: to flee a Europe where Hobbes was right. And today, what do we see? We see Americans make Hobbes' ontological pessimism their own and convert themselves to this same ideology whose very rejection constituted the reason for their nation's creation!"

Doubts about Kyoto, the International Criminal Court, de-mining protocols, and the like do not, even collectively, evince a desire among key policymakers in Washington to return to the "state of nature." Nor does sober analysis evidence attempts by the Administration, acting pursuant to Presidential direction or imperatives, to purposefully make irrelevant any of the varied post-WWII international security/economic architecture. And note only two post-WWII conflicts (Korea and Gulf War I) enjoyed explicit UNSC approval.

So what is it about this latest war in Iraq that causes this intense distrust of U.S. policymakers among so many in Europe, these hyperbolic arguments bandied about by intellectuals about a reversion to the "state of nature"?

I think we need to conclude that it's the presence of a sole hyperpower that's really to blame--the resentment of a behemoth like hegemon without any counterweight(s) on the international stage. It was all tolerable in the '90s when the actions undertaken were either in response to direct aggression against a neighbor (Kuwait) or to tidy up Euro-messes (Bosnia, Kosovo). But its seemingly gotten a bit too burdensome now. And many need to lash out because of it--often in irrational manner.

There's more to this, of course, and we share a bit of the blame. But the lion's share of the lashing out against the U.S. on this side of the Atlantic, I'd wager, stems from the simple fact that the hyperpower appears so omnipotent.

The international system is off-kilter and unmoored from traditional balance of power politics. This has upset many in Europe who, particularly post 9/11, fear that American policy is taking a militaristic turn without any nation (or group of nations) able to restrain such perceived tendencies. All this helps expain some of the happiness (barely concealed) at the perceived comeuppance of the U.S. in Iraq during the post-war slog.

Escalation Watch

Is the IDF heading into Gaza come October?

Old Media Lion Watch

Eminence grise Walter Cronkite lets loose in the august pages of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Money grafs:

"In his two and a half years in office, Attorney General John Ashcroft has earned himself a remarkable distinction as the Torquemada of American law. Tomás de Torquemada, you might recall, was the 15th-century Dominican friar who became the grand inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition. He was largely responsible for its methods, including torture and the burning of heretics - Muslims in particular.

Now, of course, I am not accusing the attorney general of pulling out anyone's fingernails or burning people at the stake (at least I don't know of any such cases). But one does get the sense these days that the old Spaniard's spirit is comfortably at home in Ashcroft's Department of Justice."

Condi Watch

Lexington on the National Security Advisor.

But is Lex right when he writes:

"And what about Ms Rice's own prospects? Uniquely among Mr Bush's foreign-policy team, she has the potential for a separate political career." [my emphasis]

Powell still does, doesn't he? You never know...

Conspiracy Theories

Guess how someone landed at this humble blog.

Keller Watch

I couldn't find the link but a trusted source at the NYT forwarded the below via E-mail to me (contents of E-mail italicized):

September 25, 2003, Thursday Late Edition - Final
Section A Page 2 Column 3 Desk: Metropolitan Desk Length: 125 words
Type: Correction

Corrections

An article on Monday about Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz's comments at a forum on Iraq misstated President Bush's position on whether there were contacts between Al Qaeda and the government of Saddam Hussein. Mr. Bush has said there were such contacts; he has not said they were unsubstantiated.

So they came clean re: this catch. Hats off to Mr. Keller. It appears there is hope for the Times in the post-Raines era!

UPDATE: Here's the link.

Iran Nuclear Program Watch

More on Iran's nuke program. Keep a close eye on what Bush and Putin have to say on the issue after the weekend at Camp David.

This is one of the few areas where Democrats can say that Republicans have taken their eye off the ball on a national security issue, ie. giving Putin a bit of a passe-partout in his dealings with Iran.

W. 43rd St. Watch

Is the Times going soft and fuzzy? Will it get boring (heaven forbid) under Keller? A look at the post-Raines vibe in the Observer.

Sample graf:

"If Mr. Keller lacks the booming Rainesian charisma that could suck the oxygen out of a room, all the better. But Mr. Keller does have something of his own to offer. Attracted like old ladies to the sensitive new young vicar at a country church, the Times is singing a more modern hymn of inclusiveness, humaneness and general good-feeling. The era of fire and brimstone is over; pass the crumpets, please, it’s time for a heart-to-heart!"

How 'bout a "heart-to-heart" about their corrections policy? Still none re: this story a couple days out....

Reader Feedback

Not surprisingly, I'm catching a bit of flak on my somewhat negative take re: Dubya's address to the UN yesterday. Reader DG's missive was pretty typical of some of the feedback I've gotten:

"I generally agree with your comments and value the time you spend making your views known on your website, but I strongly disagree with your modest criticism of Bush’s speech. Listening to him made me proud to be an American. He stated clearly and concisely his positions on Iraq and other world issues. The world does not respect not [ed note. "nor"?] follow humility, but strength and Bush exuded strength. Anything less would have energized France and Germany, if not others, with renewed vigor to oppose a resolution to gain UN support in whatever form it might take. They now know Bush will not back down and attempts to sidetrack or veto a new resolution will be futile and will force them into a corner as obstructionist, particularly France. Bush showed that he has resolve and will not be deterred by domestic political considerations...."

This was one of the aspects of my criticism that I was a bit concerned about, ie. expressions of humility can also have negative ramifications. Sadly, humility often leads others to trample on you and/or lose respect in your outlook. Such is, unfortunately, often the state of human nature.

I generally agree that it's very important to project strength in the implementation and enunciation of foreign policy goals. But I wasn't arguing that Bush needed to kowtow to Berlin and Paris. I was just arguing for a bit more of a realistic appraisal of where things stand in Iraq today and little doses of humility sprinkled through the speech. I don't think such an approach would have necessarily led to "renewed vigor" from Franco-German quarters to oppose the U.S. in its attempt to secure a new Iraq resolution. Regardless, nowhere did I mean to intimate Dubya needed to go in on bended knee.

Anyway, thanks to readers who wrote in. I appreciate the level headed feedback. And let the debate continue.

What's Katrina Smoking?

Katrina vanden Heuvel asks what Bill Kristol has been smoking over at the Nation. Kristol was basically arguing that all the Iraq doom and gloom is getting overblown. Yes, his contention that the U.S. has done an "amazing job" in Iraq is a bit rich--but he made some pretty sober and cogent points about the relative dearth of U.S. casualties and how much of the country outside of the Sunni triangle has remained pretty stable.

Let's turn the tables and ask Ms. vanden Heuvel what's she's been smoking given recent posts such as this one or this one.

Call it the Eminemization (or Madonnaization) of foreign policy analysis. The resulting apercus aren't exactly breath-taking, it must be said.

Baghdad Poll

A Pat Tyler piece from Baghdad that isn't overly negative! Check it out.

Money graf:

"After five months of foreign military occupation and the ouster of Saddam Hussein, nearly two-thirds of Baghdad residents believe that the removal of the Iraqi dictator has been worth the hardships they have been forced to endure, a new Gallup poll shows."

Remember that if you've been sitting on your couch from locales like Berkeley and Cambridge cursing Dubya's brutish unilateralist tendencies.

Bush's U.N. Speech

As regular readers of this blog know, I'm a pretty strong Bush supporter. But I found his speech to the U.N. today somewhat mixed. The speech was basically divided into three sections (or "challenges"): 1) Afghanistan/Iraq, 2) WMD proliferation, and 3) humanitarian crises ranging from AIDS to famine to the sex trade. I'm not going to discuss 2 and 3 here--despite their obvious importance--but will rather concentrate on Iraq.

My basic beef with that part of the speech was that it didn't show enough humility (the projection of a humble America that Bush campaigned about back in 2000) and there was nothing really new in it, ie. Dubya sounded like a broken record here and there. In a way, both of these issues can sometimes go hand in hand.

For instance, even the most die-hard Bush supporters would admit that the post-war in Iraq hasn't gone too swimmingly. So maybe Bush might have mentioned that the going had been a bit rough and that was one of the reasons he needed more international support.

This would have also served to inject a bit of new language into his speech (over and above the Iraq is the "central front in the war on terror" mantra) while simultaneously showing we can eat a little humble pie now and then.

Nah. Instead he just says as follows:

"Our international coalition in Iraq is meeting its responsibilities. We are conducting precision raids against terrorists and holdouts of the former regime. These killers are at war with the Iraqi people, they have made Iraq the central front in the war on terror, and they will be defeated."

Great, but such language doesn't smell like a fully honest reckoning.

For example, how precise are the "precision raids"?

And are we really meeting our responsibilities? If those responsibilities include provision of security and basic services to the Iraqi people--we simply haven't to date.

We can't just blame it on terrorists and assorted dead-enders. Iraq's our baby now. We've got to make it work--no matter the legions of saboteurs that are rearing their heads to scuttle our efforts.

Sure it's early days. But we should be confident enough to get in front of the podium at the U.N. and talk about the difficulties we are facing in Iraq--rather than sound a bit too pollyannaish.

Another snippet:

'Our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq were supported by many governments and America is grateful to each one.

I also recognize that some of the sovereign nations of this assembly disagreed with our actions. Yet there was and there remains unity among us on the fundamental principles and objectives of the United Nations. So let us move forward." [my emphasis]

Why the need for the word "sovereign" here? Was that ever in question, as if the U.S. holds sway over the national security decision-making processes of other states? And great to stress common ground--but the "so let us move forward" sounds a tad breezy--and perhaps to some ears a bit like a diktat of sorts.

All this said, there were some good parts of the speech. Bush made specific mention of the "vital" work the U.N. carries out in Iraq every day--with an eye towards signaling to the French that the U.S. is happy to see the U.N. play a major role in Iraq.

That said re: warming up to the French demands a bit, I also liked the swipe at Chirac and de Villepin's highly unrealistic timetable for transfer of key governing responsibilities to Iraq (that the self-government process would be "neither hurried nor delayed").

Still, it might have been better if that sentence wasn't placed directly before Bush turned to the prospects of a new U.N. resolution on Iraq. Not the most diplomatic juxtaposition.

There were also eloquent parts of the speech that reminded us of why we are engaged in this war on terror: "24 months ago--and yesterday in the memory of America--the center of New York City became a battlefield and a graveyard and the symbol of an unfinished war."

It was also positive to see Bush, in such an international forum (and with many Euro leaders prancing about), state that the U.S., in Iraq, had undertaken "the greatest financial commitment of its kind since the Marshall Plan." A powerful reminder of the scope of the current task as well as the work undertaken after WWII to help create a peaceful and prosperous Europe.

No doubt, Bush has definitely put his (well, our...) money where his mouth is. He's really striving to make a success out of Iraq (more than say, his efforts with the roadmap or NoKo). It's probably still all going to work out pretty well--and the doom-sayers will be proved wrong again. But it wouldn't hurt to project a bit more humility and adjust some of the themes to the changing situations we are confronted with now and then.

Chirac's NYT Interview

Yeah I know this is a day late but I'm on the road. Anyway, the interview is pretty long but worth reading.

Funny to think, but the piece is actually Chirac's counterpoint to Gerard Schroder's somewhat conciliatory NYT oped from a few days back. It's actually an attempt at rapprochment with those jingoistic Anglo-Saxons--but a la Parisienne--meaning with some verbal epingles thrown in, the requisite haughtiness, an annoying didactic tone sprinkled about, and a good dollop of Gallic disingenuousness.

Why is it a rapprochment interview? Because ultimately he says he won't veto a new resolution unless the resolution is "provocative" (translation: as long as you don't really rub our noses in it, make us feel grossly irrelevant, or don't even attempt to negotiate what might get us to a yes vote).

He then provides somewhat of a roadmap re: what would get a yes vote-- "a precise deadline for the transfer of sovereignty, and second, a timetable for transferring responsibility, and a key role for the U.N."

A "key role" is suitably vague language where middle ground can be easily broached by the diplomats negotiating the resolution. The sovereignty deadline and reponsibility transfer timetable are tricker issues. That said, we could probably push the French on the symbolic sovereignty handover to 3-6 months hence with the transfer of the lion's share of responsibility to about 18 months (double the 6-9 month time frame Chirac mentioned, that's an initial negotiating position, and one he said would happen "little by little").

All this to say--I think we can get a yes--and that would be a pretty good outcome in terms of helping heal the ill feelings over all the spilt milk at Turtle Bay earlier this year. Still, if the French don't agree to more realistic sovereignty handover time frames--we will likely see an abstention. But they are telegraphing that before the negotiations get down and dirty--thus reducing their veto leverage mightily. So, especially viewed in that context, it's all pretty conciliatory fare that Chirac laid out in the interview. Put simply, and critical, the veto cloud has been lifted.

Other key take-aways: 1) no French troops in Iraq (at least in the short to mid-term, ie. he doesn't definitively take the possibility off the table but comes very close to doing so) but the French will likely be happy to help train an Iraqi police force (with some of the training perhaps taking place in Iraq), 2) a view of the world as moving towards multipolarity but with the U.S. and Europe acting with "solidarity for each other, vis à vis the others, which have a different culture", and 3) Chirac stressing an effective Euro defense capability is in the offing so that Europe could act outside NATO when it deems it in its interest.

Eurodefense Force Issue

Related to #3 above, Chirac said as follows in the interview:

"We have seen this recently in Macedonia. Our American friends have told us that we should take responsibility for the Balkans from now on. We can do this, but how? With a flute? We have seen it in Africa; we need a system, a European defense policy." [my emphasis]

The Gaul's gall! First, it's worth noting that we bailed the Euros out of the Balkan imbroglio at Dayton. When in 1991, a Eurodiplomat enthused that the "hour of Europe" had arrived (ie., Europe would solve the Balkan mess), Bush 41 was happy to let the Europeans take the lead. Of course it didn't quite turn out that way, did it?

Second, who in Washington DC is leading the call to oppose the creation of a Eurodefense force? Not many people, as far as I know. In fact, the whole Bob Kagan thesis that had post-Kantian Euros keeping defense spending low and enjoying a U.S. paid security umbrella (in somewhat ingrate-like fashion) likely has some in the Beltway cheerleading increased European defense expenditures (as long as they don't get too robust, bien sur).

So why Chirac's sarcastic reference to the "flute"? By all means, get a Euro defense force up and running. And then use it to patrol "your" neighborhood--Macedonia, Kosovo and Bosnia.

But don't disingenuously argue that the U.S. is keeping Europe from assuming its perceived security obligations and/or ambitions. Its been more a story of European abdication than the U.S. restraining possible Euro military groupings.

The System is Broken, Dude

Note as well that the French still haven't dropped the de Villepinian (and hyper Cartesian) analysis of the "logic of occupation" (Chirac calls it the "system").

"On the contrary, I’m simply giving my view of how things are. One, it is a complicated business, two it is a dangerous business, and is becoming more dangerous by the day. Three, we must try and get out of it. It is my conviction that the current system-- let’s be clear, I mean a system of occupation-- will not allow us to find a solution to this situation. It will generate more and more reaction against this system, which will grow even more complicated, as you say, due to the difficulties that already exist among the Shiites, Kurds, Sunnis and so on. All of this is true, but I do not see any other way out. I only see the probablity of the situation getting worse." [my emphases]

This is all pretty bogus stuff. As Dan Drezner points out:

"In what way will the transfer of de jure sovereignty without de facto responsibility accelerate statebuilding in Iraq? Is sovereignty without responsibility merely an example of organized hypocrisy, or is there normative content to this concept?"

Indeed.

A Couple Final Thoughts

Isn't it sad that a French President even has to say something like this in an interview with America's leading newspaper?

"This is all the more necessary since we are watching with sorrow and distress the attacks that have been taking place, often against American soldiers. And frankly, it hurts us whenever. It hurts us to hear about the attacks against American soldiers or to see images on television; the attacks against others as well, of course, but particularly American soldiers. It hurts us."

I'm still left just a tad muddied as to whether Chirac chokes up more when a Ba'athist loyalist dies or an American G.I.--but let's take him on his word--why does this even need to be said? Ca va sans dire, non?

And don't look to the French to come up with major innovations to replace the near-dead roadmap:

"Q: And what can be done about the Israel-Palestinian crisis?

A: It fills me with sadness. But I’m afraid I must go since I have a plane to catch …"

The NYT and Wolfy

So a courageous (or mad) Paul Wolfowitz gave a talk to the crowd at NYC's New School University. Eric Schmitt writes it up in the Times.

We are treated to this vignette:

"Mr. Wolfowitz has had a lot of practice in the last two years as the administration's lightning rod for Iraq policy. He barely flinched when a burly, bearded protester rushed the stage, yelling, "Nazi war criminal!" Security guards tackled and removed the man, the first of six people ejected."

And then:

"The United States waged war for three reasons, he said: the concern over Iraq's drive to obtain chemical, biological and nuclear weapons; Iraq's connections to terrorism; and Mr. Hussein's reign of terror that Mr. Wolfowitz said was responsible for perhaps a million Iraqi deaths.

"It was a human rights nightmare," he said, emphasizing a reason that was not a principal one the administration articulated before the war, but has become so since.

When pressed by Mr. Goldberg and audience members, some of these justifications seemed less certain. "Iraq did have contacts with Al Qaeda," Mr. Wolfowitz insisted, momentarily silencing the audience with an accusation even President Bush now says is unsubstantiated. He added, "We don't know how clear they were." [my emphasis].

Wait a second. Dubya merely said that Saddam (or Iraq) didn't have links to 9/11--not al-Qaeda writ large. It's a bit Guardian-esque of the Times to suggest otherwise.

Even this Beeb story makes that clear:

"US President George Bush has said there is no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 11 September attacks.

The comments - among his most explicit so far on the issue - come after a recent opinion poll found that nearly 70% of Americans believed the Iraqi leader was personally involved in the attacks.

Mr Bush did however repeat his belief that the former Iraqi president had ties to al-Qaeda - the group widely regarded as responsible for the attacks on New York and Washington." [my emphasis]

Will the Times now issue a correction? Don't hold your breath.

9/11 Plot

It could have been even worse.

Clinton at Srebrenica

Anyone else a bit offended that Clinton is in Srebrenica spouting off about "genocidal madness"--genocidal madness he did so very little about for three long years (after campaigning against Bush pere saying he would)?

I tend to agree with the woman quoted in this article who lost her only two sons (and still dreams they will come home) in the massacre that, as Dick Holbrooke has written, has "become part of the language of the horrors of modern war, alongside Lidice, Oradour, Babi Yar, and the Katyn Forest."

"Clinton could have helped this not to happen," she said. "Now it's embarrassing because he has to come here and justify himself."

But he's always been pretty shameless, hasn't he?

The 20 Billion Dollar Man

Jim Hoagland on some of the problems facing Jerry Bremer. Nothing earth-shatteringly interesting in his op-ed.

Except for this interesting nugget:

"The diplomats on Bremer's staff in Baghdad report directly to him, not to Washington. Secretary of State Colin Powell has told friends that he has to rely on newspapers and the diplomatic reporting of other nations that is shared with State to follow developments in Iraq.

Powell no doubt has a point: The lack of communication within the Pentagon itself is a well-known problem, and the fierce rivalries between the two departments rule out what might be described as meaningful contact. This has become a severe problem for Bush, who has tolerated an unacknowledged but visible war between Powell and Rumsfeld."

Hoagland goes on to say he doesn't think this is a big issue. Having Bremer and his staff report up through to State too (and perhaps the U.N.) would just muddy the waters and make the Iraq reconstruction task harder (or so the argument goes).

Hurry up with it all through a clean and simple reporting chain of command from Bremer to Rummy and Dubya. Let Bremer expeditiously pursue "working himself out of a job as soon as he can."

I beg to differ. If true, this is FUBAR, pure and simple.

Listen, perhaps Powell needs to be a bit more careful not to be perceived as overly removed (running out the clock a bit) before moving on to new challenges after Bush's first term (if you believe press rumors, he likely won't serve in a prospective Bush II administration).

Instead, like any good Secretary of State, he's got to fight to protect his turf and thus the interests of Foggy Bottom. I bet he isn't too removed and that he is acting as an effective advocate for State. Still though, to be an effective advocate you need to be well informed.

Surely the Secretary of State of the United States can access information on developments in the "central front" of the war on terror from the American proconsul on the ground. Surely he doesn't need to "rely on newspapers" and the "diplomatic reporting of other nations"? (France?)

You know, Powell might actually have some decent ideas about what to do out in Iraq here and there. Especially if he's getting real time briefings from the guys on the ground rather than reading about it in the WaPo or NYT. Don't you think?

Syria Dispatch

Charles Glass has an interesting piece up on Syria over at the LRB. Some in the Beltway get a bit carried away about mega-democratization processes unfurling with ease from Riyadh to Damascus; Algiers to Teheran. Iraq, to date, shows us what a hard slog democracy-building in the region will be. So does this extract from Glass' piece:

"In September 2000, 99 members of Syria's intelligentsia - writers, teachers, lawyers, engineers, film-makers - published a letter in the London-based Arabic daily al-Hayat declaring a kind of war on the Government. Called Charter 99, it demanded an end to the 1963 state of emergency, the release of political prisoners, the return of political exiles, freedom of the press and the right to hold public meetings. Two months later, Assad freed about six hundred political prisoners and closed Damascus's notorious Mezzeh prison, where political dissidents have been mistreated ever since it was built by the French. (The much harsher Tadmor prison in the eastern desert is still in use.) A month later, the Government issued a licence for al-Domari (the 'Lamplighter'), the country's only privately owned newspaper. Meanwhile, more civil society networks were forming, and more declarations were being issued. Although the government press in Syria ignored them, Lebanese newspapers reported their activities and published their statements. Some of their pamphlets circulated as samizdat in universities and schools. On 3 June this year, 287 'Syrian citizens' published an appeal to Bashar in the Lebanese daily as-Safir. The petition warned that Syria faced two enemies, Israel and the United States, and was too weak to defend itself against either. While making the usual demand for an end to martial law and the release of political prisoners, it also argued for something more fundamental. 'The authorities have no remedy for our ills,' the petition stated. 'There is a real cure, which is national reform.' Rather than appeal to America to deliver democracy in Syria, the signatories appealed directly to Bashar.

What is happening in Iraq and in Palestine is just the beginning of what America calls the new era. The characteristic of this era is the use of force by America and Israel. We should stop them from achieving their goals by repairing our society and making our country strong. The way to do this is to have a free people. The masses have been ignored and excluded from public life. You should let them come back and use their power to protect the country.

One of the signatories was Sadek al-Azm, a recently retired professor of philosophy. A participant in civil society groups that include both Marxists and Islamists, he spoke to me about the message of the American war in Iraq for Syria. 'In meetings, we asked ourselves: suppose this happened here? Who would go out and fight for the regime? No one said: "I would." The strength of civil society is to tell the regime to be legitimate. There is a difference between defending the regime and defending the country.' He said the Syrian dissidents who drew up the al-Hayat petition have studied the political process in Turkey. 'When Erdogan said: "I have to submit to Parliament," the Americans could not tell him to go to hell. What Arab leader could say that without the Americans laughing him off the stage?' Syrian democrats are not waiting for democracy as a care package from the American Armed Forces so much as wanting to seize it themselves as a weapon with which to confront the American empire."

Put differently: yes there is a hunger for democracy in the Arab world. Groups like Charter 99 are eager for more freedom in the environs of Damascus. But there is, as well, great distrust of the U.S. as the democracy-bearer, as the vehicle for democracy dispensation.

There are doubtless many reasons for this. National pride and fear of neo-colonialism. Or suspicions of U.S. intentions given what Richard Haas has called the "democracy exception", ie. our many decades old policy of dealing with various Arab autocratic regimes without pushing the democratization agenda with as much alacrity as we did in Europe, Latin America, Asia. The strategic U.S.-Israeli relationship. Other reasons besides.

Policymakers need to better keep this complex rubric in mind as the next policy steps in the region are undertaken and implemented. In the short to middle term--much hinges on making Iraq a success and getting power, in time, handed over to an Iraqi authority. This would go a long way towards allaying Arab fears. So would a more comprehensive effort at peacemaking between the Israelis and Palestinians. But even if both of these efforts were to go pretty well (which is so very far from assured) we still have much catch-up work to do in terms of our reputation in the Arab world--and not just with Wahabist types in Saudi Arabia--given the sentiments of intellectuals making up groups like Force 99.

UPDATE: Jackson Diehl has got an op-ed that touches on the above over at the WaPo:

"Arab governments "are not concerned about the success or failure of the U.S. in Iraq," Egypt's veteran national security adviser, Osama Baz, bluntly told me and several other visiting journalists over dinner in Cairo. "They are worried about the consequences for themselves." Don't expect Egypt, Baz said, to supply troops or police to help its nominal American ally. On the other hand, he added, "we can help with the drafting of a constitution. We can help strengthen the governing council and the bureaucracy."

Egypt is betting, in other words, that ultimately it will be easier for Arab states than the United States to reshape Iraq. "You can't export the American system of democracy all over the world," Baz said pointedly."

Krugman Watch

You gotta read it to believe it (via Romenesko).

Money grafs:

"In it, Krugman describes how, just as he was about to send his manuscript to the publishers, he chanced upon a passage in an old history book from the 1950s, about 19th-century diplomacy, that seemed to pinpoint, with eerie accuracy, what is happening in the US now. Eerie, but also perhaps a little embarrassing, really, given the identity of the author. Because it's Henry Kissinger.

"The first three pages of Kissinger's book sent chills down my spine," Krugman writes of A World Restored, the 1957 tome by the man who would later become the unacceptable face of cynical realpolitik. Kissinger, using Napoleon as a case study - but also, Krugman believes, implicitly addressing the rise of fascism in the 1930s - describes what happens when a stable political system is confronted with a "revolutionary power": a radical group that rejects the legitimacy of the system itself.

This, Krugman believes, is precisely the situation in the US today (though he is at pains to point out that he isn't comparing Bush to Hitler in moral terms). [ed. note. Gee, great!] The "revolutionary power", in Kissinger's theory, rejects fundamental elements of the system it seeks to control, arguing that they are wrong in principle. For the Bush administration, according to Krugman, that includes social security; the idea of pursuing foreign policy through international institutions; and perhaps even the basic notion that political legitimacy comes from democratic elections - as opposed to, say, from God."

Folks, Krugman is a very talented economist. As he himself admits, the NYT likely hired him at the height of the 90's boom to cover the seemingly ever-expanding economy. Krugman would have been concentrating on issues like supposed labor productivity booms and so on. Instead the bubble economy crashed and 9/11 happened. Krugman is out of his depth commenting on matters foreign policy. I mean, this is the guy who thought Enron would have a greater effect on the course of U.S. history than 9/11.

And how can Krugman seriously contend that a "revolutionary power" in Washington has completely set aside the idea of multilateral cooperation and the "basic notion that political legitimacy comes from democratic elections"? This is absurd fare from the wacky extreme left. You don't expect it from a columnist who has been granted a lofty perch over at the NYT.

French Jews

Are voting with their feet and leaving France in significant numbers. Why? Incidents like these . Elsewhere, the Jewish community in France is described as being in a "post-traumatic" state. [All links to French language media]

Sample quote: "L'inquiétude est indéniable. C'est même le malaise le plus profond depuis la seconde guerre mondiale. Les juifs français savent que l'option Israël existe pour eux."

Translation: "The worry is undeniable. It's even the most profound malaise since WWII. French Jews know that the option of Israel exists for them."

Think the above is one of the reasons Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy is threatening to expel some radical Islamic groups out of France?

There are upwards of 5 million Muslims in France and about 500,000 Jews. Given the presence of these two significant communities--I think Sarkozy has real concerns about outbreaks of inter-communitarian violence. Note that, in April of 2002 for instance, there were 110 separate anti-semitic incidents (that averages out to more than three incidents a day).

It's no coincidence, of course, that such attacks gained in number and intensity during a time when the IDF was pursuing muscular military action in the Occupied Territories. But, of course, there can be no excuses or valid rationales for inflicting harm on random Jews in France because of anger at the policies of the Israeli government.

On a related topic, note that there has been some talk in Europe of the phenomenon that some call the "new" anti-semitism. This latest manifestation of anti-semitism is couched in the rhetoric of progressivism (ie. opposition to racism, injustice, "colonial" policies and the like). A more subtle approach to anti-semitism than, say, these old libels. But the results can be just as poisonous.

I've lost track of how many in Europe have told me they view Israel as a racist, pariah state. As bad as the Nazis and so on. When the rhetoric is so hyperbolic, one can see how the movement from disagreement with Israel's policies towards anti-semitic thought and violence can occur pretty easily. And I think that's part of the reason that French Jews are so worried--to the extent that they consider moving to North America or Israel--despite living in a secure (at least to most), secular, European democracy.

UPDATE: Check out this interesting lecture too.

More on the Beeb

Don't privatize the Beeb--argues Peter Hitchens. Oh, and are we being too tough on ace reporter Gilligan? Nah.

The Situation in Iraq

Mark Danner has a pretty gloomy piece up at the NYRB. But he's a talented writer, pretty judicious, and so well worth reading. This part describing the Iraqi resistance is what gets me worried:

"This is the dynamic that various opponents of the occupation must try to sustain. By whatever means, they aim to produce in Iraq growing political anger and discontent and to focus that anger and discontent on the occupiers, thus alienating more and more Iraqis, who might join the anti-occupation forces, actively support them, or at least count themselves sympathetic to the cause. Since the numbers of the armed opposition, as Paul Bremer noted, are far too small to defeat the Americans militarily, their strategy relies on provoking the Americans to take actions that will create among Iraqis the broader support needed to sustain a guerrilla war."

We can quash the Ba'athist resistance, Saddam Fedayeen and assorted foreign infiltrators over time if their numbers remain relatively constant and trend downwards as we kill and/or capture them. The problem is that heavy-handed counter-guerrilla operations might well increase their ranks.

I think that's the key concern policymakers and the military leadership should be wrestling with right now. Basically, how to catch the bad guys without creating more of them.

Bring on the Gendarmarie

To help with this task, as I've argued before, I think we need to have many more constabulatory-type forces in the theater. Professionally trained military police might help us handle local sensitivities better per some of Danner's concerns.

In this vein, I'm beginning to think, more and more, that this whole effort to get large U.N. peacekeeping contingents into Iraq is somewhat misguided. Especially given the actual countries that are often bandied about as most likely to send troops.

Indians are loathed by many jihadist type Muslims and will therefore also constitute a prime terrorist target. We shouldn't involve neighboring countries (like Turkey) as they will very probably pursue their national interests in a manner that may well conflict with American objectives. Bangladeshi forces are not of particularly high caliber (I remember visiting the Bangladeshi UN battalion in Bosnia in the mid-90s. It wasn't pretty).

What we likely need instead are highly trained European military police types.

On this, remember Joe Wilson, Mr. Yellowcake?

Over at TPM, Josh Marshall has an interesting interview with him. I disagree with much of what Wilson says, (including his opening contention that we are "fucked" in Iraq), but he makes a good point here:

"We don't do national policing. We do state policing, we have a national investigatory agency, the FBI, but we don't do national policing and we particularly don't do it in the way that it probably needed to be done in the aftermath of the Second Gulf War. The Europeans do. The French have a national Gendarmerie, the Italians have the Carabinieri, the Spanish have the Guardia Civil. They do national policing; they train to military standards; they follow a military-style doctrine; they have military-style discipline. It is an organization that is for all intents and purposes paramilitary, but it has policing functions. They would have been perfect for that. When I was political adviser to CINCEUR [Commander in Chief, United States European Command], we did the Bosnia intervention. One of the things we did early on from our European command headquarters was go around and talk to these countries about how they could use their national policing force as an adjunct to our own military presence--understanding that it was the role of the military to win the battle, put in the interposition force, in the case of Iraq fight the insurgency--but you probably had better type forces, in terms of what their training was, in terms of what their understanding of their mission was, in terms of what their resources and capabilities and armaments were, for a policing-style operation."

This rings pretty true. We need more professional constabulatory types to ensure we don't lose too many hearts and minds as we clamp down on the Ba'athist remnants etc. This is where the Euros can perhaps give a real hand. (Note that speaks of Germany helping train MPs rather than contributing any German nationals). Getting those types of forces into Iraq is likely where we should focus once we get the U.N. resolution.

Black Thursday at Le Monde

So it was a bad day for the coalition over in Iraq yesterday. But a "Black Thursday" ("Jeudi Noir")?

Gee, normally Le Monde is pretty strait-laced and sober. No Fleet Street tendencies for the cerebral gaggle that run a paper of such reknown and repute. But apparently the schadenfreude gets a bit overwhelming sometimes, doesn't it?

Note: Le Monde speaks of eleven dead G.I.s. Note these figures haven't yet been confirmed by the Pentagon. Compare Le Monde's story with this one.

But let's not let facts get in the way of a good headline that might well boost Friday sales...

Keller Watch

Felicity Barringer has an op-ed (sorry, an article) about the future of the U.N. over at the NYT. We are treated to the following series of (italicized) apercus--often simply written up as wholly non-controversial, generally accepted facts and realities.

"A mood of skittish uncertainty has descended on the leaders of the United Nations. They are eager to overhaul their institution, but worry whether any change can give it the freedom it needs to survive without being seen as either a lackey of the United States or an easily swattable gadfly."

Very vivid imagery. And the U.N. felt very lackeyish, didn't it, during the Res 1441 imbroglio?

And this:

"The fundamental assumption of its neutrality has been supplanted, at the fringes of the Muslim world, with the assumption that the United Nations is simply a stalking horse for the imperial ambitions of the United States."

We are left to ponder what is meant by the "fringes of the Muslim world"? Is that code for al-Q and those who bomb UN headquarters, Jordanian embassies, and Shi'a shrines--or, more ominously, is Ms. Barringer alluding to public opinion over at the omnipresent "Arab street"?

It gets better:

"Europeans today view the United Nations as the embodiment of international law and world order. The United States seems to view it as a tool to be used when handy."

Oh yeah, says who? Ms. Barringer as she was dashing this piece off on the laptop?

And more still:

"The Bush administration is facing a lot of international skepticism. Despite the recent decision to turn back to the United Nations for its imprimatur on the forced remaking of Iraq, many here fear that the United States may step back yet further from the creed of multinationalism hewn to by presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton and treat the organization merely as a necessary evil."

Translation: We (over at the NYT) think you (Dubya) have taken the wrecking ball to varied international fora and we're not happy about it. FDR got it. Your daddy did. So did Bill Clinton. So what's your problem you brutish, unilateralist cowboy?

Not quite yet done, Barringer opines some more:

"The French dislike the degree of American power being exercised today around the world, and the American tendency to skirt, isolate or ignore multilateral institutions."

Remember, this is ostensibly a NYT article--not opinion piece.

Is Bill Keller on holiday or something? I mean, this is embarrassing....

UPDATE: Take a look at today's masthead too.

Soundbite: Bush is misleading the American public about a Saddam/September 11 connection (though he never actually said Saddam was implicated in 9/11) and hasn't learned the lessons of the "poison of Vietnam", ie. misleading the American public about overseas developments.

It's shabbily written and so nakedly partisan. Can't the newspaper of record do better?

Root and Branch Review

"The BBC is to be subjected to the most wide-ranging review of its role in its 80-year history, amid a growing clamour for the abolition of the licence fee and a curb in the powers of the corporation's governors."

Yay.

Kill Arafat?

Israel, per this article, indicates that it is "a matter of how, not if" that the IDF will act to kill or expel Arafat.

Arafat is certainly taking it seriously--thus the children and women being employed as human shields.

I'm still betting Bush will rein Sharon in on this one. It would just be too dumb an operation with widespread negative ramifications.

Let me add a couple points to Marshall's post. TPM assumes Arafat is expelled, not killed, so that he would be able to retain operational control of the PA's security apparatus from, say, Tunis. And I'm worried an increasing number of Israeli elites are thinking that too--thus bolstering the case to assassinate rather than expel Arafat.

Killing Arafat would be even dumber. I'll touch on some of the reasons why a bit later.

First, a few words on Arafat. Yes he has blood on his hands. Yes he didn't submit a counter-proposal to Barak at Camp David II when he very much should have gone the extra mile to try to get a deal. Yes he still says stupid stuff like this way too often. Yes, he's stuck in a time warp where he romanticizes himself as a 60's style national liberation guerrilla while appearing increasingly incoherent and incapable of comprehending the realities unfolding about him.

Put simply, an Abu Ala or Abu Mazen operating without Arafat hovering about them would be a major improvement in terms of providing a real negotiating partner with unfettered authority to strike a deal some day.

But, despite all this, it would be folly to kill him. Call it the humiliation factor. Arafat, or at least the iconic kaffiyeh-clad figure the world sees poking about his Ramallah compound, is the repository and symbol of Palestinian national aspirations, whether you like it or not.

To kill him would most assuredly not be viewed by Palestinians, as it is in some quarters of Tel Aviv and perhaps Washington, as a means by which to benefit the prospects of forward movement on peace process negotiations by getting rid of a "problem" leader.

Instead, such an action would be viewed as a de facto decapitation of Palestinian national aspirations. It would cause widespread fury, humiliation, and cries for retribution through the Occupied Territories (and, indeed, through large swaths of the Arab and Islamic world).

But put all that aside for a moment. Ultimately, like any leader, Sharon must ask himself whether killing Arafat would enhance the security outlook for his people. Would Israelis be safer with Arafat gone? Would there be fewer terror attacks? No and no, I wager.

Commentators might wonder if Sharon's strategy was to create a quasi-anarchic situation in the West Bank and Gaza with Fatah remnants battling it out with Islamic Jihad and Hamas. Let them devour themselves, he might calculate, while we wait a few years for the storm to cool and hope a more responsible Palestinian government is in the offing.

I think the reality would be quite different. Yes, there would be some internecine violence. But, more significantly, a wave of increased anti-Israeli radicalization would sweep the Territories. You couldn't devise a better Hamas and Islamic Jihad recruitment drive if you tried. Legions of Palestinians (yes, more so than today) would try to blow up any Israeli they could. No fence, no matter how wide or long, would be able to stop all such attacks.

Meanwhile, the regional situation would escalate. The Israelis would be making our life more difficult in Iraq--where an Arafat assassination would play into the hands of the Iraqi resistance--at least as a propaganda tool. The Egyptians might, I think, go beyond a mere downgrade or suspension of diplomatic relations with more substantive anti-Israeli actions. Important Israeli bilateral relationships--like the Israeli-Turkish and Israeli-Indian ones--would suffer. Syria would allow the spigot in southern Lebanon to be turned on (more) to allow for Hezbollah to intensify attacks into N. Israel. More strain would be put on Jordan's stability given its restless Palestinian population. And so on.

Oh, and Israel would be roundly condemned by, well, just about everyone for taking such an action. More than the routine anti-Israeli diatribes over at Turtle Bay--strong messages of disapproval would flow into Israel's Foreign Ministry from pretty much every government around the globe. Israel would rarely have been so isolated on the global stage.

There's more. But I think readers can tell by now that I think killing Arafat is a supremely poor idea. Here's hoping, ultimately, Sharon will too.

Franco-American Relations Watch

Its come to this. France is described as "becoming our enemy" by a leading American columnist writing in the op-ed pages of the NYT.

Bravo, Dominique.

Also, check out this highly interesting Thierry de Montbrial (French language) piece on the phenomenon of France's decline.

Mea Culpa Department

The Beeb (well, at least Gilligan) starts coming clean.

UPDATE: More from the FT.

AND MORE: The Guardian has a U.K. press round up on Gilligan.

And as the Beeb, more or less, leaves Gilligan out in the cold--the Daily Telegraph draws the obvious conclusions and asks the right follow on questions:

"It was not only Gilligan who was forced on to the defensive. Richard Sambrook, the head of BBC news and current affairs, was pressed for an account of the editorial process under which Gilligan was supervised. Why had no legal advice been sought? And no further corroboration of the story?

BBC executives were clearly convinced that - in broad terms - they were on to a genuine story, but they chose unwisely (and unprofessionally) to defend the Gilligan rendition of it in implacable detail. The corporation and its governors will have to answer for that misjudgment."

Indeed.

But instead of addressing these matters, the Beeb headlines this Hutton inquiry related story today.

Or, they shamelessly continue to pass the buck. This last link contains this gem from the Beeb's news director Richard Sambrook commenting on Gilligan:

He said Mr Gilligan was "extremely good at finding out information, but there are sometimes questions of nuances and subtlety in how he presents it which are not all they should be".

They aren't quite ready for a reckoning yet, are they? But it very much needs to happen.

Developing.

Keller Watch

I'm starting to look at the Lelyveld interregnum with increasing nostalgia. Appears the denizens of W. 43rd St. are beginning to view themselves as a new samizdat or such--with the Pentagon playing the censorious Politburo meanies.

How else to explain this hyperbolic claptrap from a Douglas Jehl article in today's NYT?

"The defense officials spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were concerned about retribution for straying from the official line." [my emphasis]

Since when are routine leaks accompanied by such melodramatic verbiage?

I mean, if they are caught, does Rummy personally behead such leakers on the Pentagon grounds or something?

But...

All this said, I agree with the thrust of the article that, given the myriad U.S. raids conducted daily, the generally poor security situation, and difficulties with getting services back on tap--the U.S. presence is creating significant resentment among the local populace--particularly in the so-called Sunni Triangle (though the article claims such sentiments are growing in Shi'a areas too).

Resentment that merits better responses from the National Security Advisor than this quote:

"But there is, even in that part of the country, progress," she said in an interview. "People finished their university exams, the Iraqi symphony orchestra performed and took a tour up to the north. Kids went to school."

The Mozart recitals can come later folks--let's get the electricity up and running first.

Listen, this might still prove to have been a long, hot summer of Iraqi transition pangs and discontent--with the situation improving in the coming months. Jim Hoagland, for one, suggests that might be the case.

But only Panglossian naifs would breathessly cheerlead how the post-war scene has gone to date--and much remedial action is obviously still necessitated.

Bush spoke openly of the "great harm" done to the reconstruction efforts by Iraqi resistance and foreign elements operating in the theater in his recent speech to the nation. His advisors should take a page from his book and more often own up that all is not rosy over in Mesopotamia as well.

Their credibility would be enhanced by stressing the bad news along with the good. The American public is sophisticated enough to handle the mixed news coming out from Iraq.

Anyone expecting a Hollywood blockbuster ending has already sobered up. The Iraq denouement will be lengthy (despite absurdly speedy French sovereignty hand-over proposals). So let's get the straight scoop as often as possible from our leaders during this protracted process--we're all adults and can handle it.

MaDo Encroachments?

A final note. Isn't Jehl's Condi "symphony" quote perhaps suspiciously truncated or otherwise not put in full context? I don't know if a full transcript is available--but might we have a Dowd Award nominee in the works?

Folie de Grandeur Watch

Delusions aplenty over at Le Figaro.

Sample graf: "...le problème pour Jacques Chirac, aujourd'hui, est de transformer sa popularité dans le monde en influence sur le cours de l'Histoire. Quelle capacité a- t-il d'imprimer sa marque sur le destin de l'Irak ?....Il a moralement gagné la guerre. Reste, concrètement, à ne pas perdre la paix."

Translation: "The problem for Jacques Chirac, today, is to transform his popularity in the world into influencing the course of History. What capacity does he have to make his mark on the destiny of Iraq?...He morally won the war. What's left...is to not lose the peace."

Oh my.

Book Corner

Ron Rosenbaum has a very interesting book review of BHL's "Who Killed Daniel Pearl" in the NY Observer. Go check it out.

Is Islam the Enemy?

Internet surfers traipsing through large swaths of the post-9/11 American blogsophere would be forgiven for thinking that Islam has become the main enemy of the United States and "civilized" world since the attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and the Pentagon--the next "ism" to be confronted after fascism, communism and so on.

In a must-read survey, the Economist helps put the Islamic world into less hyperbolic context. Most of the articles require subscription but this one doesn't and is well worth reading.

The article is particularly interesting as it describes the worldview and thinking of one Sayyid Qutb--a literary critic and key activist of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood about a half century back (note UBL and Zawahiri are both former members of the Brotherhood):

"In the late 1940s, Qutb spent two years living in America, an experience he hated and which appears to have turned him against what most people in the West would call modernity but which he saw as something much worse. On returning to Egypt, Qutb wrote a series of books, many from prison, denouncing jahiliyya (ignorance), a state of affairs he categorised as the domination of man over man, or rather subservience to man rather than to Allah."

Note that Qutb was deeply hateful of modernity itself. Living in post-WWII America for a couple years (doubtless pretty happy times for American society writ large) nevertheless left him embittered, fearful and disconsolate with the mores of a secular, modern society.

Such Qutb-types were (and are) seeking the consolations of reactionary "purity" born of isolation and withdrawal from the modern world. They fear the cacaphonous noises emitting from the boisterous West. They fear the dismantling of theocracies, the values of the Renaissance, Englightenment, modern and postmodern thought. They fear man governing man rather than an omnipotent God (whose teachings would, of course, be interpreted by the Qutbs of the world) ruling over the earthly Kingdom.

In a word, they fear progess, forward-movement, societal transition. They seek to resign themselves to a dystopia of sorts--something of a Hobbesian universe where life might be nasty, brutish and short--but, more important to them, proceeds within the confines of an isolated Islamic caliphate modeled on their aspirational vision of a "pure" Islam.

The battle underway isn't necessarily between the forces of the civilized world's "good" against theocratic barbarism's "evil"--though terrorist tactics are obviously evil in their total lack of concern for the slaughter of innocents.

The deeper battle, ultimately, revolves around whether one believes in the very notion of progress or not. To capitulate to the Osamas of the world would be to forsake, at the very least, the firmaments of post-Rennaisance and Enlightenment Western thought. The very notion of an individual pursuing his or her dreams under a society governed by men and the rule of law--without fear of arbitrary death, enslavement, detention. High stakes indeed.

But here's the good news. Of the 1.5 Billion Muslims in the world today, extrememly few share these grotesquely reactionary worldviews.

Per the Economist:

"How representative are such views? Around one in four of the people in the world are Muslims. Only a small fraction of these 1.5 billion Muslims will have heard of, let alone subscribe to, the ideas of theorists such as Qutb. No more than a few thousand people are involved in the violent activities of al-Qaeda and like-minded jihadi organisations. After September 11th, moreover, Muslim clerics and intellectuals joined ordinary Muslims throughout the world in denouncing the atrocity al-Qaeda had perpetrated in their name. By no means all of these were “moderates”. One was Sheikh Fadlallah, the Beirut-based ayatollah often described as the spiritual guide of Hizbullah, the Iranian-inspired “party of God”. He issued a fatwa condemning the attack. Another condemnation came from Yusuf Qaradawi, a Qatar-based Egyptian television cleric with some fiery views and a following of millions."

I happen to think the numbers are a bit more than a "few thousand people." Hard-core jihadis and the like probably number more in the tens of thousands. But either way--we are certainly not at war with 1.5 billion individuals. And occasionally, given the present, often inflammatory mood, that's worth keeping in mind.

Euro-Cohesion Watch

Alan Cowell espies three Euro "castes."

And see too this informative Economist piece:

Money graf:

"The “heart” of Europe this last week was the Italian lakeside town of Stresa, where some of the euro’s smaller members berated France for violating the unpopular stability and growth pact, which sets a limit of 3% of GDP for budget deficits. Both Germany and France are in breach of the pact. But it is the defiance in France’s public attitude as much as the deficit in its public accounts which draws the ire of countries, such as the Netherlands and Austria, which tend to respect the EU treaties they sign. If the Stresa get-together is any indication, the fate of the euro area’s smaller members is to keep up the appearance of solidarity and equality among euro members, while the big economies, such as France and Germany, bend the rules to suit themselves. If this is the “centre” of Europe, no wonder Sweden prefers to remain out on the edge."

Oh, and shouldn't Romani Prodi be staying awake during these troubled times at European Commission meetings? (subscription required)

Guardian Watch

So what does this mean? That, unfortunately, even more folks saw their galling error about Wolfowitz's supposed admission that we went to war in Iraq for oil?

Best part of the interview:

OJR: How does the Web site reflect The Guardian philosophy -- which I understand as independent, irreverent and left wing?

EB: I think we're all of those things in measure. Like the paper, we're very cautious that our news must be news, and our comment is comment. This issue of having a trusting relationship with your readership translates online as well as offline. We try to be as objective as we can in our reporting, and we try to be as forceful as we can in the edginess of the comment that we carry alongside it. [my emphasis]

Yeah, whatever.

UPDATE: I guess from "edginess of the comment" Ms. Bell means offering up a quasi-respectable forum (the Guardian op-ed pages) to offensive conspiracy theories like this one?

And then, viola, it metamorphosizes into news (rather than "comment") too!

The Kurdish Hiroshima

Samantha Power's descriptive phrase describing Saddam's horrors at Halabja. Kudos to Colin Powell for visiting the site and memorializing the atrocity.

I've been hearing a lot about Salvador Allende and Chile over on this side of the pond recently. Let's remember the innocent victims of Halabja too during such moments of sudden fellow-feeling.

Most Bogus Headline of the Week

Check it. "Committed"? Like a serial philanderer to his wife, perhaps.

Flypaper Agonists Unite

More anti-flypaper commentary from the blogosphere (via Backword).

Oh, and the fact that Colin Powell said there might be up to 1,000 foreign jihadi/terrorist-types active in Iraq (and as little as several hundred) shouldn't be used by flypaper adherents to buttress their arguments. Unless, of course, they think that out of the approximately 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide the hard-core jihadists only number about a K or so.

Powell was really dumping coldwater all over the flypaper argument (ie., Rummy) through his public statements. The not so subtle message was--the main resistance here in Iraq consists of Baathist resistance, Saddam Fedayeen, criminal elements, and likely, parts of the population who are being alienated (mostly in the Sunni Triangle) by frequent U.S. military activity in their regions and towns.

That's not to say high-profile incidents like the bombing of the Jordanian Embassy or the U.N. HQ might not be the work of foreign terrorists--but the day in, day out guerrilla tactics that kill roughly a G.I. a day aren't.

Nor are tens of thousands of jihadis flocking to the flytrap. At least that's what Powell appears to be telling us.

UPDATE: All this said, one terrorist in Iraq is too many. In that vein, check out Powell's warnings to Damascus to make their border less porous. C'mon Bashar, you can do it. Rumor has it your dad didn't let anyone across that border that he didn't expressly authorize to do so.

Keller Watch

How many times can Adam Nagourney of the NYT use the "V" word (Vietnam, that is) in a single article about Iraq? No fewer than ten times!

It's one of those classic NYT "pulse of the nation" pieces that masquerades as objective news analysis but so often reveal the Gray Lady's political agenda--still well alive in the post-Raines era.

Note: In case you didn't get the message full on--the word "quagmire" is thrown in twice for good measure as well. Thus is a 10 odd year engagement with 58,000 plus American fatalities glibly compared to a military effort that has to date resulted in approximately 300 combat deaths and not lasted half a year.

Clarifications Department

A couple bloggers have taken me to task about one aspect of my attempted rebuttal of Andrew Sullivan's flypaper argument.

Through clumsy drafting, my post made it appear that I believed that Bill Clinton pulled out of Lebanon after the Marine barracks bombing in 1983. Of course, this happened during Ronald Reagan's administration. I was actually making two separate points and, in no way, meant to suggest Clinton pulled us out of Lebanon. Here's what I wrote:

"To be sure, the fact that al-Qaeda is opening up a front in Iraq is worrisome and we certainly need to soundly defeat them there. But note, it's just one front, among many others. Sure, al-Qaeda knows that killing over 200 U.S. GIs in a massive bombing in Iraq would have a major impact on the American psyche akin to the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut in the '80's. They think (but are wrong, because someone like Dubya rather than Clinton is in office) that such an attack might push the U.S. out of Iraq. They would doubtless love to pull such an operation off."

My point on speculating that al-Qaeda would love to pull off an attack (like that which occurred in Beirut in 1983) in Baghdad today was that, despite my attempted debunking of the flypaper argument, I nevertheless believe al-Qaeda views Iraq as a key front. And that we therefore need to be very cautious re: terrorist dangers, similar in nature to what took place in Lebanon, occurring there.

My point on Clinton was meant as a veiled reference to Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo and the like where Clinton displayed a hyper-reticence to U.S. casualties. In short, I didn't mean to suggest that Clinton pulled us out of Lebanon but my wording made it appear so.

I apologize for the confusion.

The State of Rummy

The WaPo provides a roundup on the state of Rummy's stock in the Beltway today.

Meanwhile, let's not get too cocksure about the ease by which we will train Iraqi police that will assist the U.S. in providing security. Read this to get a sense of some of the complexities at play.

UPDATE: And this too.

Does Social Class Have a Bearing on Political Leadership Abilities?

David Brooks wrote an op-ed in the NYT a couple days back that, more or less, extolled the virtues of a bygone class--the WASP establishment. For Brooks, noblesse oblige appears to have been rendered extinct, with unfortunate ramifications for America's political leadership class.

In brief, Brooks was arguing that politicians of a certain class, often educated at elite prep schools, were blessed by what the French call being bien dans leur peau (literally "comfortable in their own skin").

As Brooks put it:

"And for both, those decades of WASP breeding were not in vain. If you look at Bush and Dean...you detect certain common traits. The first is self-assurance. Both Bush and Dean have amazing faith in their gut instincts. Both have self-esteem that is impregnable because it derives not from what they are accomplishing but from who they ineffably are. Both appear unplagued by the sensation, which destroyed Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, that there is some group in society higher than themselves."

Brooks sketches out how young men inculcated in the crucible of prep schools (an "early introduction to human cruelty", per Alan Clark's memorable phrase) were toughened up and thus "leadership" ready. Sadly, for Brooks, while none of us mourn the passing of the WASP establishment--we do miss the leaders produced during that era.

Hogwash says former Rhodes Scholar Dave Adesnik. Dave writes:

"As a product of "today's top schools", let me just say that Brooks has no idea what the #@$%& he is talking about. At both Yale and Oxford, I met countless young Americans with a fierce and principled commitment to making America a better nation, both at home and in its behavior abroad. These students spanned the political spectrum, left, right and center.

Moreover, America's top schools produce so many potential leaders precisely because they abandoned the cruel and unusual methods that Brooks seems to cherish. While still athletic and sociable, abandoning excessive competition in those fields has given today's students more time to focus on A) their studies and B) happy, fulfilling friendships and relationships."

I think both Brooks and Adesnik exaggerate their arguments. Brooks places too direct a causal link re: the notion that a certain form of education and social class background leads to noble (or "conviction") leaders. And Adesnik discounts this line in toto and ignores that there might well be some truth in what Brooks is arguing.

For me, the death of the WASP Establishment dates sometime around the events David Halberstam chronicled in the "Best and the Brightest." Super bright, super-WASP guys like National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy steered LBJ down paths that led to the President's resignation. Meanwhile, less hawkish WASP types were castigated by a (decidely non-WASP) Henry Kissinger for displaying "cowardice" (see this bio for more) that Dr. K associated with the Eastern Establishment (the very virtue David Brooks extols re: this class). In a word, the old Establishment, those "Present at the Creation" of the post-war system had, this time, failed the country, and badly.

What replaced the Old Establishment was a heavily meritocratic post-Vietnam generation. Gone were the days when, at least reputedly, Andover and Exeter grads would circle their top three Ivy League college picks and, barring truly horrific grades or mammoth disciplinary infractions, gain entrance at at least one of them. Instead, the likes of Harvard and Yale were granting admission to legions of public school grads who continue to make up the healthy majority of those schools.

Fine, right? In a society that prides itself on egalitarianism, this should certainly be applauded. Opening the doors of elite institutions to a more representative pool of society is a definitive plus. And who wants to go to school solely with a bunch of white guys called Skip, Burke and Sumner anyway? Being around a diverse group of students provides its own form of education in its own right.

But What of Brooks' "Resume-Gods"?

But Brooks is getting at something a bit more amorphous when he takes a jab at "Resume Gods" while extolling old-line products of elite prep schools. Call it the Clinton-factor. These are the hyper-achievers who made it solely on their drive, will and smarts--and didn't come from an ensconced and privileged social class (or its secondary schools).

These "resume gods", particularly today as college admission competion becomes even more ferocious, often strive to "check all the boxes," hyper-pragmatically plotting their Harvard admission by ensuring the right mix of high school grades, SAT scores, athletic activity, community service and internships (one sometimes wonders how much they really care about the actual activities they pursue).

Clinton, from a decidely non-elite background (Hope, Arkansas), later made his way to the Georgetown School of Foreign Service and then to what might well represent the pinnacle of the American meritocracy--Yale Law School.

Clinton was nothing if not ambitious. But the ambition, in my view at least, often seemed unmoored from a real political vision or conviction. There was too much Dick Morris "triangulation", polling (even where to vacation, remember?) and, generally, easy recourse to heading wherever the political winds were blowing.

Let's put it a bit differently. Wasn't his Presidency infected by a kind of relativism? A relativism encapsulated and immortalized by his smirkish testimony in response to Ken Starr's staff: "it depends on what the meaning of "is" is."

Leave aside the tiresome sex scandal. Take a look instead at Clinton's Bosnia policy in the context of his alleged relativism and dearth of innate self-confidence born (for Brooks) of social class. There, the stakes were higher than Paula Jones' civil rights and whether the POTUS was screwing the help (A digression: "don't screw the crew", I overheard a smart Briton recently advise his staff here in London).

In Bosnia, over two hundred thousand people were killed and millions displaced. The stake, existentially-speaking, were about as high as it gets. In 1992, Candidate Clinton attacked George Herbert Walker Bush as having an impotent foreign policy. A dictator coddler and so on. Clinton stated that, were he elected, he would lift the arms embargo on the Bosnian Muslims and use NATO to strike Bosnian Serb canon fortifications wreaking havoc on cities like Sarajevo, Gorazde, Bihac and so on.

All this talk artificially raised expectations in Sarajevo that the Yankee cavalry was coming to the rescue. But it wasn't to be, at least until Dick Holbrooke helped save the day at Dayton three long years later. In the meantime, the Bosniaks were, basically, left on their own to stave off genocidal policies.

Brooks' point is that a Howard Brush Dean III or George Bush wouldn't say that he was going to bring a Slobodan Milosevic (or Radovan Karadzic or Ratko Mladic or Saddam Hussein) to task and then do nothing. And I think he's got a point.

Dean and Bush strike me as men with a strong internal compass, conviction, and innate comfort with themselves that leads them to do what they say they are going to do. Put differently, they have perhaps been insulated (at least somewhat because of their high school educations and social class) by the more gross forms of relativism that have swept post-60s America--allowing them rule with more conviction.

The question is: to what extent, if any, is this a function of their social class? Dave would probably say very little if at all. I want to argue, perhaps quite a bit, but not as much as Brooks makes out. (see Ronald Reagan as a prime example of a leader with the qualities Brooks extols that doesn't come from the Eastern elite and didn't attend a Groton or St. Pauls).

UPDATE: Innocents Abroad weigh in on all this too.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Dan Drezner weighs in.

What of Boarding Schools Today?

A couple final points for those curious enough to read on. The first somewhat playful, the second serious. Brooks mentions that St. George's (Dean's alma mater) is slightly more socially prestigious than Andover (Bush's alma mater and, incidentally, mine). Many readers may have been puzzled about that as Andover is commonly considered the Harvard (or Yale) of secondary schools.

But Brooks is absolutely right. St. Georges was (and still, in some quarters at least, is) considered more socially prestigious among old-line WASP elites that don't really care (or, indeed, actively don't want) their children to go to schools like Harvard or Yale. Said schools are viewed as too intellectual, overly academic, perhaps institutions that will provoke too much philosophical questioning among the progeny (so, isn't the estate tax just in modern American society? should I forgo the family business and join the ACLU? and so on...).

The serious point. I had earlier argued that Vietnam played a pivotal role in reducing the impact of the old eastern Establishment elites. But it is also worth mentioning the state of the American boarding school--of which Brooks makes much--in the context of training of future elites. As David Hicks, the former rector of St. Pauls, pointed out in an excellent article in the American Scholar's Autumn '96 edition, the state of boarding schools in the U.S. today is rather dire.

He starts by reminding us that those schools were formed ("in their own minds at least") "to serve public, not private, interests. They were for America's 'artificial', not her 'natural,' aristocrats, to use Jefferson's terms; yet true to Jefferson's intent, they wished to make virtuous and brave those who, through the accident of birth, would someday exercise great power and influence."

Or, as Hicks' puts it, this was the "beau ideal." And, as he points out, said schools churned out FDR, Dean Acheson, John Kennedy, Archibald Cox, Henry Stimson, among many, many other notable leaders.

Today, whether you love 'em or hate 'em, note that both Dubya and Jerry Bremmer are Andover grads.

Regardless, today, the situation is more complex and the "beau ideal" potentially in steep decline.

Why? Mostly because of the below factors that Hicks enunciates in his excellent article.

1) the sprawling of suburbia and expansion of the highway system post WWII made these schools less isolated, as did the telecommunications encroachments of TV, cable, Internet and so on (in other words, the schools became more like your typical suburban high school, less Clark's Etonian "early introduction to human cruelty");
2) mounting class insecurity (old money running low), so the schools are seen more as meritocratic launch pads aimed at maintainence of social status rather than, per the old vision, those comfortable with their station in life serving the public good (noblesse oblige);
3) the "adolescent as consumer", or come get our collective "foods, movies, fashions, videos, CDs, drugs, alcohol, pornography, cigarettes, sports and pop heroes." Put differently, teenagers often have forced upon them the full plethora of offerings of the "moronic inferno" (to use a Martin Amis phrase);
4) the boarding school being no more successful than society at large at "finding a way to sustain a coherent and unified culture while affirming individualism and cultural diversity;"
5) the "fragmenting effect of descriptive developmental theories" that replace the "prescriptive moral aims of an earlier time." Or, put differently, "modern pedagogy is rooted in a precise understanding of who the adolescent is rather than an idealized vision of the adult who the adolescent me be or is meant to become"; and, most fundamentally,
6) the question of whether the 19th century's "utopian impulse to form authentically human and morally sensitive communities is..possible in an era when few are willing to give up their putative rights to privacy and self-expression for the accomplishment of such a goal."

If David Brooks wants to dig around more on the death of the eastern Establishment--he'd do well to read this piece--if he hasn't already.

Most Nauseating Book Title Award

According to the IHT, Jayson Blair's book is to be called "Burning Down My Master's House: My Life at the New York Times".

Puke.

Schadenfreude Watch

Andrew Gimson reports from Berlin. Sure, much of the anti-americanism ("Too Much of a Good Thing?" query imbecilic commentators over at Alexander's Cockburn's Counterpunch) in Germany stems from Mearsheimeresque themes of the end of the Cold War reducing America's strategic import for Europe etc etc. In addition, throw into the mix traditional resentments of any hegemon that so dominates the international system.

But leaders bear responsibility for the quality of a state's national discourse regarding how best to pursue its geopolitical interests as well. To be sure, Chancellor Schroder's desperate use of anti-american rhetoric to wriggle into another term played into latent anti-U.S. feelings that were already present in the German polity.

But he fanned those emotions with such alacrity that they became much more widespread than before. Also, Schroder's reckless anti-americanism allowed such a worldview to occupy a more respected and generally accepted position in the firmament of the national discourse (to such an extent that even his Green Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, had to warn against the perils of "primitive" anti-Americanism).

There will doubtless be some patching up between Berlin and Washington in the coming days. But the damage is real and can likely only be surmounted by real statesmanship going forward. Don't hold your breath while Gerard is still around.

UPDATE: Check out the obnoxious conspiracy theories respected German press outlets will air in the current climate.

Dominique's Inscrutable Gaze

French Foreign Mininister Dominique de Villepin has something of an exegesis in Le Monde discussing France's policy proposals for Iraq. Meanwhile, Steve Weisman has a rather poor NYT article on the state of Franco-American diplomacy:

"Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, reopening the trans-Atlantic rift over Iraq — this time about expanding the authority of the United Nations there — said today that a French proposal to cut back the role of the American-led occupation was unacceptable." [my emphasis]

Note the implication that the blame for re-opening transatlantic rows falls squarely with the U.S. Might not France's unrealistic musings about how quickly sovereignty might be turned over to the Iraqis play a role in all of this? Perhaps worth a brief mention in the context of which party is souring the diplomatic mood, no? Evidently not.

De Villepin's piece, even for a fluent French reader, was somewhat exhausting to get through. It made me wonder if Dominique had been reading Roland Barthes' essay "Writing Degree Zero" recently, which I think is worth quoting here at some length, despite being as exhausting as de Villepin's piece (an affliction that appears to often strike French (real or pseudo) intellectuals) :

"What makes writing the opposite of speech is that the former always appears symbolical, introverted, ostensibly turned toward an occult side of language, whereas the second is nothing but a flow of empty signs, the movement of which alone is not significant. The whole of speech is epitomized in this expendability of words, in this froth ceaselessy swept onward, and speech is found only where language self-evidently functions a devouring process which swallows only the moving crest of the words. Writing, on the contrary, is always rooted in something beyond language, it develops like a seed, it manifests an essence and holds the threat of a secret, it is an anti-communcation, it is intimidating. All writing will therefore contain the ambiguity of an object which is both language and coercion: there exists fundamentally in writing a "circumstance" foreign to language, there is, as it were, the weight of a gaze conveying an intention which is no longer linguistic. This gaze may well express a passion for language, as in literary modes of writing; it may also express the threat of retribution, as in political ones ..." [my bolded emphasis]

Put aside, for a moment, the booming poseur detector alarms going off in your head. For here is poor Colin Powell's conundrum in a Barthesian nutshell! What Dominique is he meeting in Geneva? The bonhomie-laden visage of the so very talented, dashing, and prolific poet? Or the steely gaze of the realpolitiking diplo running Quai D'Orsay with iron will?

Put differently, is Dominique's long Le Monde screed simply a joyous expression of "passion for language," or is there instead, lurking amidst the inscrutable Gallic prose, a "threat of retribution", a "political" threat (a veto even)?

Methinks Mr. Powell is getting tired of hearing such convoluted language such as asides about the "logic of occupation." Sure, racy neo-Marxist lexicon swap about the "logic of dialectics" and such would doubtless be fun to bat about Les Deux Magots over copious cafes au lait and Gauloises some sunny afternoon on the Left Bank.

But time is short and U.S. soldiers are dying almost daily. To the tiresome French recitations about the "logic of occupation" Powell might respond, delicately of course, with a Bronx-like "logic of we are the $%%^% there already--and in large number." You know, just to put the negotiations in context.

Still, Can There Be a UNSC Deal?

All this said, a compromise is in sight. A close read of de Villepin's piece reveals that the French will accept that coalition troops serve under the command of the "principal contributor of troops" (he evidently couldn't bring himself to say they would serve under an American commander). Note: de Villepin's piece only mentions "coalition" forces serving under said U.S. commander--he never expressly (but does implicitly) avers that U.N. forces would be deemed to be "coalition" in nature. Nevertheless, and tortuously arrived at perhaps, it appears the French would vote for a resolution that has blue helmets serving under overall U.S. command.

Next, de Villepin calls for, per the Afghan model, the training and equipping of an Iraqi army. Fine, no objections there. At the same time, he also wants the de-mobilized former Iraqi army to be reconstituted. He's likely right on that score. Only top level Ba'athist commanders were complicit with Saddam. The vast majority of the Iraq army should likely not have been disbanded, but paid to stay on and help with local police work while helping guard Iraq's borders with Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria.

So what's the potential deal breaker? This part:

"Les actuelles institutions irakiennes, c'est-à-dire le Conseil de gouvernement et les ministres récemment nommés, seraient considérées par le Conseil de sécurité des Nations unies comme le dépositaire de la souveraineté irakienne pour la période de transition. Dans un délai très court, par exemple d'un mois, un gouvernement provisoire irakien pourrait être constitué à partir de ces instances, et se verrait transférer de manière progressive le pouvoir exécutif, y compris l'activité économique et budgétaire."

Put simply, de Villepin wants the Iraqi interim authority to become the repository of Iraqi sovereignty within a month. But note that de Villepin makes mention of a gradual "transfer" of executive, as well as budgetary powers, from that point on. In other words, the clock starts ticking in a month but a full handover of key powers to the Iraqis could be structured so as to occur well later.

De Villepin's proposal would also give a personal representative of the U.N. Secretary General authority that sounds like it would usurp Jerry Bremer's. But a close read indicates that the representative would be tasked with liasing with "coalition authorities" (read: Bremer) and would only make recommendations and proposals to the U.N. regarding the timing of a full return to Iraqi sovereignty.

Later, per the French, an international conference would be convened after return to Iraqi sovereignty had been achieved to plan international troop contributions and the like. But nothing de Villepin writes indicates the French would definitively be opposed to allowing for international troops before such a conference.

Bottom Line

What does all this mean? I think it means that Powell will have to devote most of his efforts to pushing back the French on their grossly unrealistic timetable for Iraqi sovereignty. And he can point to de Villepin's own piece to support his contention that such a timetable is way too optimistic:

"Aujourd'hui, l'urgence est de transférer la souveraineté au peuple irakien lui-même afin de lui permettre d'assumer pleinement ses responsabilités. Alors les différentes communautés trouveront, je l'espère, la force de travailler ensemble." [my emphasis]

Translation: "Today, it is urgent to transfer sovereignty to the Iraqi people themselves so as to allow them to fully assume their responsibilities. Then the different communities, I hope, will find the strength to work together."

Even for de Villepin the notion of the Shi'a, Sunni, Turkomen, Kurds (not to mention internal rivalries amidst said groups) beginning to work together as a sovereign, effective government within a month is but a "hope." Powell should remind him of that as he tries to hash out the next UNSC compromise resolution.

UPDATE: The NYT has an updated Weisman article up:

"Mr. Powell met briefly one-on-one with his principal adversary in these talks, the French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin. But American officials could not say what had been accomplished or whether the meeting had been friendly.

American officials are openly irritated with Mr. de Villepin, who wrote up his proposals in a sweeping article published in Le Monde on Friday, a move that was not considered diplomatically adroit as a prelude for meetings that were supposed to be low key and confidential."

Indeed.

9/14/01

In my view, Bush's Presidency effectively started on the 14th of September, 2001. I was living in NYC at the time just beginning to come to grips with what had occurred in lower Manhattan three days back.

I was at my gym in Union Square working out--trying to resume some form of normal routine. Bush had just touched down at Ground Zero for his first visit to the site since the attacks.

Gone were the lame MTV videos and moronic gossip programs I'd often spot people watching on the monitors above the exercise machines. All eyes were on the President.

We all remember the moment when Bush, in an almost disapointingly routine fashion, began speaking to the firemen amidst the rubble of Ground Zero.

Most audiences, even in times of crisis, listen dutifully to the Commander in Chief--even when they can't quite make out what a President is saying.

But not this crowd. A fireman, with typical NYC insouciance and chutzpah, shouted to the President: "George, we can't hear you".

The off the cuff words that Bush next uttered, indelibly encrusted in so many of our minds, signaled to me that we were moving on from a muddied pastiche of varied emotions--profound grief, incredulity, and rumblings for revenge.

"I can hear you, the rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon."

Gosh, I thought, thank you Mr. President. I physically and mentally felt rejuvenated, back on even keel, more stolid.

And then the firemen began to chant: "USA. USA. USA." And I thought--more than visiting the Pentagon, more than the ceremony at the National Cathedral the day before, Bush is getting it now.

He realizes the massive scale of carnage at Ground Zero. The unadulterated barbarism of the perpetrators. The need for strong, focused, remedial action. The fact that the nation is at war--and for a long time.

As a passionate fan of NYC, I think back to that moment. How NYC, its firemen in particular, helped Bush realize just how enormous the events of 9/11 were. Indeed, world-historical in scope.

Immediately, Bush understood that we were now operating in an extra-judicial realm. The likely debates that would have occupied a Gore Administration--UN authority for punitive strikes? hale UBL to court? dare we enter Afghanistan?--were swept aside.

But Bush went further. He understood then that the key was not merely rooting out terror groups but states that would harbor them. It was by no means sure that any President in power on 9/11 would have so instinctually and rapidly adopted a similar policy.

Why did Bush get it? Because he innately understood the epoch-making nature of the event. He realized that terrorists would love nothing more than to devise ways to kill 30,000; 300,000; 3 million.

Therefore, given the risks of WMD proliferation, states with track records of harboring or otherwise supporting terror activities needed to be put on warning that they would be considered enemies of the United States post 9/11. There was no other sane policy option to pursue if one takes seriously the duty of a government to protect its citizenry.

Two years later, we see the limits of parts of Dubya's policy (or the manner by which it is sometimes implemented). We see how terror may have sometimes been defined too broadly, how a hyperpower (even one so wounded just two years back) is so easily widely feared, resented, often hated.

We pause too and reflect on how defeating terror is not only a question of military prowess, intelligence cooperation, financial detective work--but also of conflict resolution, of addressing issues of national pride and struggle, of poverty and an enduring sense of injustice that afflicts too many around the globe (yes, even if Mohamed Atta was a son of the middle class and probably didn't really give two damns about the Palestinians).

We will need to adjust, refine, occasionally temper our strategies. But the key reason Bush is still the man to beat in '04 is that, unlike many other prospective Presidents that could have been at the helm on 9/11, he understood immediately how the strategic world order had changed.

Sure, he has overeached here and there (more on that another day). But his initial policy instincts, pressed on and emboldened by New York City's bravest on 9/14, were cogent and sound.

In the naked face of cruel barbarism, Bush sought to protect the "better angels" of human nature during a great crisis. History will, at least, remember him kindly for that.

UPDATE: This blog adds some relevant detail.

Don Rumsfeld

At some point I was going to blog about Rummy's somewhat glib treatment of Iraqi reconstruction tasks per this article (for instance, his reference to developing Iraq's tourist infrastructure sounding quite absurdist and inappropriate at this juncture).

And then I saw some footage on CNN that I had never seen before. Of Rummy, right after the Pentagon was hit on 9/11, rushing about the grounds of the Pentagon helping to carry an injured (or dead?) man on a stretcher. And somehow it didn't feel right to criticize Don Rumsfeld. At least not today.

In-House Matters

Regular readers will see a few more links added in various categories to the right of the screen (some Middle East news sources, a couple new blogs, the excellent International Crisis Group [not really a think-tank but placed in that grouping] etc.). Also, I finally got around to putting up the near obligatory "about me" section. Just click on my name above to see a short bio (mostly slothfully pulled from elsewhere but I hope it does give some relevant info about my background).

I hope to have some thoughts on the conduct of Bush's foreign policy since 9/11 later tonight UK time.

Keller Watch

The NYT in a "news analysis" piece on the Patriot Act:

"President Bush, seeking still greater powers to fight terrorism, appears to have calculated that the renewed memories of the Sept. 11 attacks evoked by their second anniversary will be enough to outweigh rising concerns over civil liberties." [my emphasis]

Readers are left to imagine how Dubya has linked "renewed memories" [ed. note: they didn't need any renewing for me, and I trust many others) of 9/11 to a scheme to trample on civil liberties with increased abandon.

Here's how the WaPo handles the same story more judiciously.

The Guardian's 9/11 Anniversary

The Guardian goes into overdrive about the increasingly prevalent theme of the "other" 9/11 (likely popularized by a recent movie).

As for the 2001 9/11--their leader piece blatantly showcases the significant biases of editorialists at the Guardian--while grossly downplaying U.S. successes against al-Qaeda to date.

The concluding graf:

"Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Condoleezza Rice, whose judgments have repeatedly proved unsound, should be dismissed. And if matters have not greatly improved by this day next year, Mr Bush should decline to seek a second term. As a more eminent republican, Cicero, might have told this discredited, distrusted crew: "Among us you can dwell no longer."

Presidential Politiking

A Dean-Clark alliance?

Logjam Watch

The good news is that the Euros seem to have accepted the principle of a multinational, U.N. authorized force run by an American commander. The bad news is that Franco-German amendments (with the Russians likely positioning themselves to bridge gaps between Paris and Washington) are seeking to have a U.N. representative set the timetable for handing authority back to Iraqis.

That's probably a non-starter in Washington. Some constructive ambiguity and creative diplomacy might yet allow for a compromise. But even if a resolution is passed the benefits may well prove quite modest. Sure, an added imprimatur of international legitimacy would result, some more donor funding might come in, and, perhaps, 20,000 odd international troops might make their way to the theater in half a year or so.

Couple points. Ba'athist resistance and assorted terror groups will just as happily kill Indian or Bangledeshi peacekeepers (or indeed Egyptian or Moroccan ones) as they would U.S. forces. Indeed, they might view them as easier targets. Second, and at the risk of sounding like a broken record, 20,000 more troops on the ground might not do the job.

The U.S. responsibility to effectively reconstruct Iraq and allow for a democratic, viable polity is too great to skimp on ground troops. Security is paramount. Again, who doesn't get this in Washington?

Shi'a Watch

The CPA's latest moves in Najaf. And the ICG comes out with a report on the Shi'a worth reading.

Much Ado About Nothing

I'm typically a Bill Safire fan, but his op-ed centered on the Arab League's decision to allow the Iraqi Governing Council's FM to represent Iraq before the Arab League strikes me per the subject tag above.

In addition, his suggestion that Turkish troops be invited into Iraq, even if well removed from the Kurdish zone, is a poor one. Ankara will doubtless use supply chains and troop movements to establish a presence in Kurdish and/or Turkomen areas inflaming tensions in the one main sector of Iraq that has been blessed with relative calm to date.

Bottom line: No neighboring countries should be allowed to contribute troops to the Iraq reconstruction effort. The possibilities for mischief are just too great.

Flypaper at Work

Carnage in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

The situation in the Middle East is detiorating very seriously. The roadmap has flopped again--like Tenet, Zinni and Oslo before. Adult supervision is needed urgently.

Where is the President? He needs to convene a summit with a high-ranking Palestinian delegation (including PM-designee Qurei) and Sharon in Washington as soon as feasible. The message to Queri should be that, if PA security forces are not consolidated asap so as to begin to effectively crackdown on Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the U.S. will give a green light to Sharon to expel Arafat from the Occupied Territories. And the message to Sharon should be to halt all assassinations of Hamas leaders (except for so-called ticking bombs) while the PA attempts to consolidate its security forces.

What's unsaid in all this is the danger that a real PA crackdown on Hamas could lead to a Palestinian civil war. To help avoid that, Bush must extract immediate and material concessions from Sharon if the PA finally moves to really disarm the military wing of Hamas. That means evacuation of settlement outposts, a freeze on settlement construction, reduction of curfews/roadblocks and the like--actions that would need to occur concomitantly with a PA crackdown on Hamas.

At the same time, the President needs to very seriously consider dramatic peace proposals that jettison the incremental, confidence building approach. Other long-time observers of the region agree. Time to take a look at Martin Indyk's trusteeship ideas again too--with simultaneously executed concessions made by the parties as international forces phase in to oversee assuring Israeli security as '67 land is gradually handed over to the Palestinians.

Dubya's bet big in Iraq--he now needs to do the same in the Holy Land.

Meanwhile, John McCain reportedely couldn't get Undersecretary of State Mark Grossman to provide an answer as to when we could expect international troops in Iraq according to a NBC report today. In other words, our diplomatic efforts at the U.N. aimed at securing a multinational contingent under an American commander are still very nascent.

But troops (whether international, reconstituted Iraqi forces, or U.S.) are needed now. The (increasingly chimeric) Indian contingent and such that pundits have been scribbling about for months, even if a U.N. resolution were passed tomorrow, wouldn't be there for many months.

All kinds of contingencies could occur during that time frame necessitating greater force presence. Who in Washington doesn't get this?

Iran Watch

Ze'ev Schiff continues to monitor developments related to Iran's nuclear program. He's not impressed by International Atomic Energy Agency director general
Mohamed ElBaradei's approach to the Iranians.

Strauss Watch

Bill Kristol on Leo Strauss.

Sullivan and Flypaper

Andrew Sullivan's weblog is likely the best in the entire blogosphere. I, like thousands of other folks, turn to it daily for an intelligent precis and analysis of the key events of the day. Most of the time I'm reading his blog I think he's pretty much spot on regarding myriad issues. But on the entire flypaper issue--he's way off base (see too an earlier, related post I had up on this topic).

Sullivan has a piece up on the whole flypaper meme in the latest Sunday Times (UK). He gets it wrong right off the get go in the title of his piece: ""Flypaper: A Strategy Unfolds."

Let's stop kidding ourselves and spinning like a Paul Begala. We went into Iraq to forcibly disarm Saddam of his WMD and unseat his regime. Not to have foreign jihadis and al-Qaeda open up fronts in Iraq so we could (allegedly) mop them up outside of Tel Aviv, London and NYC. There was no such strategy. There still isn't. And it wasn't (and isn't) unfolding. To so intimate is to be lapping up Pentagon propaganda without rational antenna up and about.

Sullivan then goes on and trots out Bush's "bring 'em on" quote. For Sullivan, this was a purposeful White House declaration meant to egg on the bad guys to mount terror operations in Iraq so as to keep Grand Central and Big Ben safe and sound. More plausibly, it was a braggodocio-infused Texism meant to warn Baathists die-hards, Saddam Fedayeen, assorted foreign fighters and criminal gangs that the U.S. would ultimately prevail over them.

I had no problem with the Presidential locution then or now--we all like flavorful, tough rhetoric emanating from the White House now and then in these perilous times. But for Sullivan to argue that this passing phrase uttered by Dubya was meant as a formal enunciation of a "flypaper strategy" is laughable.

Next, Sullivan quotes Rummy and Wolfy to the effect that Iraq now constitutes the central battlefield in the war on terror, ie. the flytrap is scooping up the bad guys in the Sunni Triangle and, if we win there--we will have ostensibly dealt near mortal blows to al-Qaeda and other assorted terror groups.

Instead, as observers of international terrorist organizations realize, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, PFLP-GC, DFLP, Abu Sayyaf, Jemaah Islamiyah, Chechen separatists (and other groups besides) are not rushing their forces into Iraq to fight the American Satan near Paul Bremer's offices. They, of course, have got their own battles to wage in Indonesia, Israel, Chechnya, and points beyond.

That's not to say that Iraq has not become a key front in the war on terror. (BTW, be careful how you define terrorism. Bombing the Jordanian Embassy or the UN HQ in Baghdad constitutes terrorism. Killing combat-ready U.S. troops in Iraq doesn't. You wouldn't readily have picked up on that distinction listening to Dubya's speech last night). But we won't solve the problems of global terror simply because we prevail in Iraq. The phenomenon is much broader and involves territorial disputes and national liberation struggles from Aceh to Kashmir, from Chechyna to Palestine.

To be sure, the fact that al-Qaeda is opening up a front in Iraq is worrisome and we certainly need to soundly defeat them there. But note, it's just one front, among many others. Sure, al-Qaeda knows that killing over 200 U.S. GIs in a massive bombing in Iraq would have a major impact on the American psyche akin to the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut in the '80's. They think (but are wrong, because someone like Dubya rather than Clinton is in office) that such an attack might push the U.S. out of Iraq. They would doubtless love to pull such an operation off.

But UBL and his henchmen know too that a mega-terror attack on the scale of 9/11 in a London, New York or Chicago would have a hugely larger impact. You can place the flytrap from Casablanca to Jakarta and al-Qaeda operatives will still be trying to hit major Western metropolises. And, as Tom Ridge would likely tell you, it's a matter of time before the homeland is struck again--no matter what is going on in Iraq.

Sullivan goes on (regarding recent U.S. moves to attempt to internationalize the force component in Iraq): "It was a move designed to liberate the U.S. military machine from peace-keeping in order to concentrate on war-making - against the terror network they had come to destroy."

Come again? The reason we're asking for more troops is because we don't have enough on the ground, period, whether for hunting down various resistance forces (terrorist or other) or for more traditional peacekeeping duties. And the terror network we came to destroy was the Ace of Spades and a few other key figures specified in the deck of cards occupying the pinnacle of the neo-Stalinist, brutish Baathist ruling class--most of whom have been disposed of already--not fictititious personages born of some catch-all bogus flytrap chimera that has foreign fighters swarming into Iraq from around the globe.

Sullivan: "The extra beauty of this strategy is that it creates a target for Islamist terrorists that is not Israel. A key objective of the current U.S. strategy is to show that Israel is not the fundamental cause of instability and mayhem in the Middle East - but a victim of the same kind of pathological religious extremism that has destroyed Iran, brutalized Afghanistan and blackmailed Saudi Arabia. Before the Iraq war, the U.S. could do little to counter these maniacs directly. Now they have a theater of war - and it isn't the West Bank."

Folks, Islamists terrorists have already found myriad targets that aren't Israel. They've found them in Riyadh, Moscow, Bali, Casablanca, NYC, Paris, Tunisia, the Pentagon and airliners criss-crossing the world for decades.

And since when has it become a "key objective of the current U.S. strategy to show that Israel is not the fundamental cause of instability and mayhem in the Middle East"? Maybe Doug Feith has given this some thought--but a Presidential policy priority it ain't.

And does anyone really think this inscrutable flytrap is going to lessen terror attacks on Israel in the coming days--especially if Sheikh Yassin is killed and Gaza become embroiled in anarchic, self-destructive rage for many weeks--with the attendant (and predictable) vicious rash of suicide bombings such an action will set off in large number?

Again, Sullivan: "One possibility is that better and more aggressive policing in urban areas (by Iraqis and foreign troops) will enable U.S. soldiers to leave the cities and fight a guerrilla war against al Qaeda and Hezbollah in the Iraqi hinterland, putting extra pressure on Iran and Syria at the same time. That would be an elegant solution. But at the moment it's a somewhat optimistic one."

Hezbollah in the Iraqi hinterland? But wait, I thought these guys were based in Lebanon, no? That's not to say an immaterial amount (perhaps a few score or hundred) Hezbollah fighters haven't crossed the Syrian border with Iraq (that Bashar Assad could, and should, make less porous) but to argue that Iraq is now a "flytrap" for Hezbollah is absurd. We'd need to march into Syria, Lebanon and Iran to deracinate Hezbollah. Any takers right now?

Sullivan concludes:

"At some point, I'd argue, the president therefore has to make this strategy more formal. He has to tell the American people that more violence in Iraq may not in some circumstances be a bad thing. It may be a sign that we are flushing out terror and confronting it, rather than passively waiting for it to attack again. He has to remind people that this war is far from over, that the mission is still very much unaccomplished, and that this is not Vietnam. Right now he looks defensive, reactive and not in full control. That must end. And articulating the flypaper strategy might just help end it."

With all due respect to Andrew Sullivan, the vast majority of judicious observers realize that more violence in Iraq is most assuredly not a good thing--even, frankly, if you bought into this entire flytrap argument--as the nation-building effort would be imperiled spawning failed state conditions that would produce more terrorists to replace those we caught up in the supposed flytrap.

Here's hoping Bush doesn't make flypaper his strategy. I know that George Kennan isn't manning the helm at Policy Planning at the State Department anymore. But surely the collective intellectual might of the American foreign policy elite will come up with a better strategy than something called flypaper. Or so one hopes.

Bush's Speech and Bremer's Op-Ed

I was at an aiport lounge about to fly Washington DC-London when Dubya's speech came on. Most of the (white, male, conservative-looking) business travellers around me appeared quite skeptical as they listened to the President. And there was an audible sense of sticker shock when the $87BB figure was trotted out ("if you say it fast enough no one will catch it", someone muttered at the airport)

But that is precisely the portion of the President's speech that needs to be applauded. The strongest parts of the speech reflected his intimations that we had embarked on a generational committment, that there would be no Somalia-style retreat, and, putting his money where his mouth is, pushing to get the funds needed for such a mammoth effort.

Also refreshing was his blunt honesty about the "great harm" that had been done to coalition efforts in Iraq. He wasn't suger-coating his message to the American people.

Weaker, in my view, was the portion of the speech that dealt with potentially further internationalizing the Iraq effort. Bush:

"Some countries have requested an explicit authorization of the United Nations Security Council before committing troops to Iraq. I have directed Secretary of State Colin Powell to introduce a new Security Council resolution, which would authorize the creation of a multinational force in Iraq, to be led by America.

I recognize that not all of our friends agreed with our decision to enforce the Security Council resolutions and remove Saddam Hussein from power. Yet we cannot let past differences interfere with present duties. Terrorists in Iraq have attacked representatives of the civilized world, and opposing them must be the cause of the civilized world. Members of the United Nations now have an opportunity -- and the responsibility -- to assume a broader role in assuring that Iraq becomes a free and democratic nation." [my emphasis]

I quibble with Bush's use of the word "responsibility" in this context. Certainly, countries like Germany and France have an "opportunity" to assist the U.S. in Iraq. And, as I've argued before, I believe it is in both countries national interests to help the U.S. by contributing troops. This will allow Berlin and Paris to have a greater voice in developments going forward in the Middle East--while also helping, even if modestly, foster the creation of a successful Iraqi polity which has a significant impact on European stability as well.

But inclusion of the word responsiblity struck me as unnecessary. Too much rancor surrounded the decision to go to war in Iraq with France and Germany obviously having staked out very anti-war positions. Their governing elites, largely against the war, are therefore assuredly not feeling a "responsibility" to rush boots to the ground under a U.S. commander. That's a simple reality we need to keep in mind. Maybe France and Germany should feel a responsibility--but they simply don't at this juncture.

Another key aspect of our approach to the Europeans revolves around the (flippant) French complaint that we are not returning sovereignty to the Iraqis expeditiously enough. Bush addressed this (not in enough detail) thus:

"Iraq is ready to take the next steps toward self-government. The Security Council resolution we introduce will encourage Iraq's Governing Council to submit a plan and a timetable for the drafting of a constitution and for free elections. From the outset, I have expressed confidence in the ability of the Iraqi people to govern themselves. Now they must rise to the responsibilities of a free people and secure the blessings of their own liberty." [my emphasis]

Again, an erroneous use of the R-word. Bush might better have allowed this language to stay in the speech if Iraq was a secured environment with services back on tap. But it's a bit much to asks Iraqis to rise to the responsibility of freedom when many are living in highly chaotic conditions with no water or electricity. And it's language that is not likely to give much comfort to Europeans re: their concerns about Iraqi sovereignty.

That said, Bremer's op-ed in today's WaPo picks off where the President left off regarding how we plan to return sovereignty to the Iraqi people. It's clearly an effort to respond to (mostly) French gripes about needing more detail on how sovereignty will be returned to Iraqis. Powell will be pushing the same message with his counterparts to try to get the key countries on board to bless a U.N. resolution allowing for a multinational force under U.S. command.

But there's one big problem with all of this. Even if a U.N. resolution comes to pass--Powell is only expecting another 15,000 troops to be contributed from other countries. I fear we need at least another 50,000-100,000 U.S. GI's in theater to fully quash resistance, protect infrastructure, get services on tap, and ensure a secured environment is in place to prepare for an eventual handover to the Iraqis.

We can debate whether such forces should be heavily constabulatory or traditional military forces--but passage of a U.N. resolution--allowing for, say, an assortment of 15,000 Indian, Bangladeshi, Turkish, Egyptian and token French forces isn't going to cut it unless we are really lucky.

I prefer a Powell doctrine approach. Make sure you have the requisite forces to win the battle. Ditto the requsite number of constabulatory forces to win the peace. In the Sunni Triangle we are still basically at war. In the Shi'a zones we will likely have to engage in peacemaking if intra-sectrarian violence picks up. In the Kurdish north, luckily so far, we are more in peacekeeping mode. But in none of these areas, with their varied conditions, do we have the requisite number and best force mixture in place now to deal with all the contingencies that may arise.

Bush's speech showed us he is quite serious about the American committment to Iraq--but this Administration still hasn't gotten us to where we need to be if we want to really help assure that historians describe Iraq as a major post 9/11 success story.