Right Wing Nut House

But if we are not willing to do what is necessary to win, then the only sane, moral course of action is to bring the troops home as fast as humanly possible. Such a humiliation should not result in a single additional death or injury to the men and women who have performed so bravely and selflessly in the face of blunder after blunder by their superiors.

When I wrote those words in August of 2006, I hoped that the Bush Administration would react to the dire situation that had developed the previous six months in the country as a result of the bombing of the sacred Shia shrine in Samarra. (Note: There is considerable disagreement about whether or not the bombing of the shrine was a catalyst for the increased violence or whether it was coincidental to the march of the Iraqis toward civil war.) As it happened, the Administration decided to sit tight until after the Mid Term elections, hoping that a Republican majority could be maintained and they could go on their merry way, blundering toward disaster all the while telling us how swimmingly things were going.

Rudely awakened on election day, the Bushies realized the jig was up and that they would have to finally admit that mistakes were made and that a change of course was necessary. Firing Rumsfeld and initiating a “surge” with about 30,000 additional troops was the correct prescription. But like a doctor who prescribes a drug to kill an infection only after the patient is at deaths door, the medicine was administered too late to have much effect.

Not, I hasten to add, that the “surge” itself is a failure. Three months is hardly enough time to judge the overall effectiveness of a strategy that is still being implemented. The idea that our troops (who still have not been fully deployed) could rein in the death squads, tackle the militias, initiate their neighborhood policing, confiscate weapons, crack down on the criminal gangs, and bring order out of chaos in Baghdad in just 90 days is pure idiocy, something only the New York Times and partisan Democrats (or scaredy cat Republicans) would believe. A more realistic yardstick to judge success or failure would have been the end of the year. And I have little doubt that the professionalism and abilities of our troops would have seen to it that success would have been ours.

And yes, there has been remarkable progress in Anbar province in getting the tribes to fight al-Qaeda and even initiate political changes that have the potential of significantly affecting the Sunni insurgency. That part of the surge too, is being carried out with great dedication and skill.

But all of this is taking place in a vacuum. That’s because here at home, it should be apparent to even the bitter ender Bushies that there is no sustaining political will to fight on, that spilling American blood to give the Iraqis the necessary breathing room to implement the political changes that would make their country whole again has disappeared. And not just in the hinterlands but most especially on Capitol Hill. Republicans are jumping ship or, at the very least, adjusting their life preservers. Being practical politicians with their ears to the ground, GOP lawmakers are not going to put their political survival into the hands of a lame duck President whose stubbornness and inability to grasp either the political realities at home or in Baghdad could lead the Republican party into a massacre on election day in 2008.

The last 48 hours have seen one of the more remarkable political transformations that I can remember. The dam apparently began to break on Tuesday following a meeting between Bush and GOP moderates in the House. The lawmakers were desperately trying to get through to the President that their support for the war would be unsustainable past September given the Democratic party surge in their districts that is being driven by anti-war feeling among their constituents. Couple that with the fact that the Democrats have placed great big bulls eyes on these Republicans and are busy recruiting serious contenders to face them in 2008, and the political survival instincts of these fellows kicked in with a vengeance.

Karl Rove is furious that the tenor and tone of the meeting was leaked to the press:

White House political adviser Karl Rove, furious that Republican moderates had divulged a confrontational meeting they had on Tuesday with Bush on the war, started yesterday with an angry conversation with the meeting’s organizer, Rep. Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.), according to several GOP lawmakers. Dan Meyer, the White House’s chief lobbyist, called the other participants to express the administration’s unhappiness.

But Bush struck a more conciliatory tone, pledging to include benchmarks of success for the Iraqi government in a final compromise on war funding legislation.

And it isn’t just the “moderates” who just want Iraq to go away. Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.), a meeting participant, said that it “was reflective of where the whole [Republican] conference is.”

The heated meeting between the GOP moderates and Bush continued to reverberate through Capitol Hill yesterday, after several Republican conservatives told reporters that they shared the moderates’ fears that the war is wrecking the party. “There is no liberal-conservative divide on Iraq,” said one House GOP conservative, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of angering the White House further.

With his own party in full blown revolt and Bush giving in on including benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet in order to continue funding the war - benchmarks there isn’t a chance in hell Prime Minister Maliki could achieve even if he showed the slightest interest in doing so - all that remained for total collapse of the Bush policy was a sign that it’s only going to get worse.

And the Democrats helpfully supplied that sign yesterday with their draconian “cut and run” bill - an up or down vote on funding the entire war, not just the surge. An astonishing 177 Democrats voted for it (and two Republicans). To say that this bill was the most irresponsible piece of legislation yet proposed by the Democrats doesn’t really matter. At this point, doing the responsible thing is not in the forefront of what passes for thinking by either party. Republicans want out. Democrats want to start sharpening their knives for the inevitable hearings on the Hill that will fix blame for this debacle squarely where it belongs - on the President and his subordinates.

I might add that even though the bill was irresponsible, it was about time that the Democrats put their money where their mouths have been for 4 years. It took some political courage to bring that measure up for a vote and Pelosi should be commended for doing so.

So, the Democrats want us out. The Republicans desperately want to disentangle themselves from the Iraq Tar Baby. The Iraqi Parliament voted to end the occupation (albeit with a sensible timeline that would keep enough troops to train the Iraqi army). And the American people most definitely want our mission in Iraq to end.

And if, as seems likely now, the Iraqi government fails to meet the benchmarks set for July or September (whichever date is decided upon doesn’t matter) and Congress cuts off money for at least the surge and possibly more, what’s a Commander in Chief to do?

Clearly, this is not going to be Saigon circa 1975 with desperate Iraqis clinging to the last helicopter leaving the American embassy (even though many liberals would dearly love to see that scenario play out). And it is just as clear that not all of our troops will be coming home. We will stay and train the Iraqi army while keeping up the pressure on al-Qaeda in Iraq who will find themselves more and more facing off against the Iraqis anyway. And I suspect we will have some kind of “tripwire” force in place to prevent mischief by Iraq’s neighbors in case they get a hankerin’ for military adventures against the very weak government there.

But it is just as clear that our days of nation building and democracy promoting are over - at least as far as our military can be of service in those areas. What is very unclear at the moment is how best to disengage. For that, the President will be forced into negotiations with the Democrats (something I was skewered for suggesting by my righty friends just a couple of weeks ago.) There’s no getting there from here while avoiding the worst of the consequences flowing from our withdrawal unless the two sides can sit down and try and do what’s in the best interests of the United States. I have no clue what the answer might be as to how best to leave Iraq. But the Commander in Chief in consultation with his generals along with the political leadership of opposition (who, after all, control the Congress) must come to some kind of an agreement on this vital question if we are to salvage anything at all from this misguided adventure.

Even if the bulk of our combat troops are out of Iraq by next summer, that may not be enough to save the Republicans from an historic defeat the following November. Most political experts smell political realignment in the air. Certainly the war has something to do with that possibility. But such an electoral outcome would occur more as a result of Republican disarray and a lack of new ideas to deal with the challenges of today than what has happened in Iraq. The war has been a catalyst that has altered the political landscape. But the incoherence of the GOP who will enter the political season with no recognizable agenda, no initiatives worth talking about, and for all intents and purposes leaderless is what should chill the bones of conservatives and give them cause for nightmares of a filibuster-proof Senate and veto-proof majority in the House.

For now however, our concentration should be on getting the troops redeployed with a minimum of casualties. They have earned far more than our respect and thanks in these difficult years. They have earned our fierce admiration. They have done all that has been asked of them with a dedication and professionalism that has been awe inspiring. And the sacrifices they and their families have been forced to make have been born with a singular fidelity to the highest traditions of military service.

And in order to validate their service and sacrifice, we must examine every action taken by our military and political leaders that has led us to this point and make sure that history holds those accountable who failed both them and the United States in this conflict. There will be other battles in this war. Learning the lessons from this fiasco will make sure that we will win through to ultimate victory in this war against Islamic extremism.

The votes are in from this week’s Watchers Council and the winner in the Council category is “Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi” by Bookworm Room. Finishing second was “After Iraq” by Done With Mirrors.

Finishing on top in the non Council category was “COIN: The Gravity Well” by Blackfive.

If you’d like to participate in the weekly Watchers vote, go here and follow instructions.

Via the excellent Lebanese-Syrian blog Across The Bay comes Syrian President Bashar Assad’s formal response to Speaker Pelosi’s visit as well as Condi Rice’s sit down with the Syrian Foreign Minister in Egypt last week:

The latest news came today, when dissident Kamal Labwani, who was arrested in 2005 for meeting with State Department and White House officials to call for democratic and human rights reforms in Syria, was sentenced to life in prison, commuted to 12 years with labor. (And the NYT never questioned the Syrians’ bull when they said they sentenced a suspected al-Qaeda member for 3 years!)

This is what you get when you engage Syria: intransigence in foreign policy (a euphemism for the regime’s policy of sponsoring terror and destabilizing its neighbors), and wanton brutality domestically, against brave civic and human rights activists.

I’ll end with the words of the Post’s editorial: “The danger of offering ‘friendship’ and ‘hope’ to a ruler such as Mr. Assad is that it will be interpreted as acquiescence by the United States to the policies of dictatorship.”

In addition to the verdict against Mr. Labwani, two other human rights activists in Syria have been punished for daring to speak against the murderous Assad regime. The WaPo editorial Anton references above from two weeks ago highlights the plight of Anwar al-Bunni, democracy advocate and someone mentioned specifically in Pelosi’s statement on her meeting with Assad:

In a statement, her delegation reported that it had talked to Mr. Assad about stopping the flow of foreign terrorists to Iraq and about obtaining the release of kidnapped Israeli soldiers. It also said it had “conveyed our strong interest in the cases of [Syrian] democracy activists,” such as imprisoned human rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni.

Three weeks have passed, so it’s fair to ask: Has there been any positive change in Syrian behavior — any return gesture of goodwill, however slight?

Mr. al-Bunni might offer the best answer — if he could. On Tuesday, one of Mr. Assad’s judges sentenced him to five years in prison. His “crimes” were to speak out about the torture and persecution of regime opponents, to found the Syrian Human Rights Association and to sign the “Damascus Declaration,” a pro-democracy manifesto.

I’m sure Mr. al-Bunni is thanking the Speaker profusely for her “intervention.”

And that’s not all. One prominent opposition figure, a former Syrian MP turned human rights activist who spent 5 years in jail and has since fled the country, begged Pelosi not to visit Syria:

Another source explains that Syrian activists believe Pelosi’s trip gave the Asad regime much needed breathing room. “Whether there is a real connection or not, political dissidents note that Anwar al-Bunni was sentenced to five years in prison in the wake of Pelosi’s visit.”

Another opposition figure, Muhammad Ma’moun Homsi, a former Syrian MP who was imprisoned for five years beginning in 2001, and who has now fled Syria, revealed that he had sent a letter to Pelosi asking her not to come to Damascus. In an interview on an Arabic-language website, Homsi added that the idea of engaging such regimes is “a very dangerous proposition cause next will be a call to engage terrorist organizations.”

And now some regional observers believe that Ibrahim Suleiman is a signal to the Democrats that they have an eager partner in Damascus. Walid Choucair, a columnist for the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat, writes that Suleiman is part of a Syrian “wager on the changed position of a future administration (and) the Democrats coming to power in 2008.”

It’s hardly surprising that the Asad regime is trying to wait out a highly unfriendly White House and see what fate throws them next. But what has the Democrats so excited about a government that is helping to kill U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians, targeting American allies and interests in Israel, the PA, and Jordan, all while trying to reassert its presence in Lebanon?

Since that Weekly Standard article by Lee Smith came out on May 2, Anton reports:

[T]he regime seized Homsi’s assets, stripping his family of its home ownership, in order to pressure him and his family. That happened the same day Rice met with Syria’s FM at the Iraq conference in Egypt.

The level of cynicism it takes to engage Syria in any kind of “dialogue” while they round up and persecute those who expose themselves to extreme danger in order to affect democratic changes in their country is beyond me.

In a few weeks, after the UN invokes Chapter 7 to seat the International Tribunal that will try the murderers of the ex-Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and other Syrian opponents in Lebanon, solid evidence will be presented of complicity in those murders by the highest levels - the absolute highest - of the Syrian government. And then where will the proponents of engaging the Syrians be? On the outs looking in as the world recoils in horror and Syria becomes a pariah nation with a real effort in the Security Council to impose draconian sanctions on her.

Anyone could have told Pelosi and Rice this if they didn’t know it. But of course, they both knew. And they were probably aware that any discussion with Assad about going easy on human rights and democracy advocates was also doomed to failure.

That foreknowledge exposes their rank cynicism for the despicable attribute it clearly is. There are other ways to stop foreign fighters from coming into Iraq via Syria. And if Assad doesn’t know what they are, he should be informed in no uncertain terms of the options open to the United States military to deal with the problem.

Even though it has been a given for more than a year that Tony Blair would step down as Prime Minister of Great Britain before his term ended in 2009, his announcement today confirming that he will resign as party leader (maintaining his position as Prime Minister until a new Labour head is named) still should elicit much sadness here in the United States.

Blair forged one of the unique personal relationships of our times with George Bush that, much to his detriment and own personal political standing in Great Britain, has sustained the war effort in Iraq. The two made something of an odd couple although they complemented each other beautifully. Bush as the blunt, outspoken and emotional leader while Blair played counterpoint as the suave, sophisticated and often eloquent partner. Where Bush’s defense of his policies sometimes fell flat, Blair’s ringing endorsement of the war and the necessity for it made it seem at times that he was the senior member of the partnership.

And this is where the Bush-Blair relationship differed markedly from the FDR-Churchill and Reagan-Thatcher partnerships of the past. Blair was much more Bush’s equal in the “special relationship” that has endured between the United Kingdom and America for more than a century. It was Blair who convinced Bush at the beginning of the war to try and get the United Nations on board - a futile effort given the amount of Oil For Food bribery Saddam had spread around the Security Council membership as well as the general anti-American feelings in that body. But by taking his case to the Security Council, Bush gained some much needed legitimacy for the war with the American people - at least for a time.

And it was also Blair who outshone the President in defending the decision to go to war in Iraq as well as advocating a united western response to the threat of Islamic radicals - a threat that to this day is not acknowledged by much of the western left.

To win, we have to win the battle of values, as much as arms. We have to show these are not western still less American or Anglo-Saxon values but values in the common ownership of humanity, universal values that should be the right of the global citizen.

This is the challenge. Ranged against us are the people who hate us; but beyond them are many more who don’t hate us but question our motives, our good faith, our even-handedness, who could support our values but believe we support them selectively.

These are the people we have to persuade. They have to know this is about justice and fairness as well as security and prosperity. And in truth there is no prosperity without security; and no security without justice. That is the consequence of an inter-connected world.

But perhaps most strikingly, Blair is one of the few European leaders who acknowledged the “madness” of anti-Americanism and how destructive and dangerous this virulent hatred of all things American had become in the west:

And I want to speak plainly here. I do not always agree with the US. Sometimes they can be difficult friends to have. But the strain of, frankly, anti-American feeling in parts of European politics is madness when set against the long-term interests of the world we believe in.

The danger with America today is not that they are too much involved. The danger is they decide to pull up the drawbridge and disengage. We need them involved. We want them engaged. The reality is that none of the problems that press in on us, can be resolved or even contemplated without them.

Our task is to ensure that with them, we do not limit the agenda to security. If our security lies in our values and our values are about justice and fairness as well as freedom from fear, then the agenda must be more than security and the alliance include more than America.

Those are words that have needed to be said for more than a generation as much of Europe has gloried in tweaking America’s tail every chance it gets. Now, with new leadership in Germany and France and a new Prime Minister ready in the wings in Great Britain, Europe may be turning the corner in its relations with the United States. Chancellor Merkel of Germany and President-elect Sarkozy of France cannot be considered “pro-American” by a long shot. But they represent a qualitative improvement over the nakedly anti-American attitudes of their predecessors. This bodes well for the United States as we ourselves prepare to elect a new President. Whoever takes possession of the oval office in January, 2009 will have an historic opportunity to forge new and stronger links to Europe which can only help the United States face the challenges in the Middle East and beyond.

Much will depend on the new US President’s attitude toward global warming and whether or not the US will join the rest of the industrialized world in making a serious effort to combat it. Even more than the Iraq War, the biggest stumbling block to better relations between Europe’s “Big Three” of France, Germany, and Great Britain and America is the perception that America is ignoring what the Europeans see as the real dangers of climate change.

But at the same time, Europe fails to acknowledge that by far the biggest economic burdens to be born in the fight against global warming will be carried by the US economy and industries. Even modest efforts to cut emissions here in the US will mean tens of billions of dollars in lost economic activity and probably increased unemployment. And as long as China and India - the two biggest polluters on the planet - are exempt from any climate treaties, the US will probably refuse to take any meaningful steps to reduce their carbon footprint.

Clearly, the new US President and his counterparts in Europe will have their work cut out for them.

For Great Britain, it is almost a certainty that Blair’s deputy Gordon Brown will succeed him as Labour Party leader and Prime Minister. What kind of man is he? What is his attitude toward America and the “special relationship” enjoyed by the two countries?

I gave some background on Chancellor Brown last year when it first became apparent that Blair would leave before his term expired:

Asked during the General Election of 2005 what Britain would look like under a Brown Premiership, the Chancellor replied ‘more like America’. Brown is a passionate Americanist, having studied economics at MIT and regularly vacationing on the East Coast. American business practice is held in reverence by him. A consistent theme has emerged in Brown’s key economic speeches; he wants the British and European economy to become more like the United States. More competitive, entrepreneurial and dynamic, but combining free-market capitalism with social justice. The Chancellor’s first foray into foreign policy, last autumn, with a EU/G8 trip to Palestine, gives us an insight of Brown’s approach to international policy. Brown intends to bring his economic expertise to the aid of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, by attempting to reduce the poverty and unemployment experienced by Palestinians, which makes them ripe for transforming into Jihadists.

Mr. Brown has been a staunch supporter of the Iraq War and has praised America’s ‘courageous leadership’ in the fight against Islamist terrorism. There has never been a hint from his camp that he would have done things differently, and on several tense occasions when Mr. Blair has been under fire over Iraq, Mr. Brown has intervened to offer his backing.

Clearly, Brown is a man we can do business with. But it remains to be seen whether the new British Prime Minister will be able to create the same kind of productive partnership that his predecessor forged with George Bush. And there may be a feeling among some of Mr. Brown’s supporters that perhaps being so close to America is not such a good idea, that pulling away from the extraordinary and unique Anglo-American alliance that has dominated the world for a century may be politically smart and in the national interest as well.

I believe this would be a huge mistake. The US and Great Britain have steadfastly supported each other through some of the most turbulent times in world history. The alliance has benefited each country enormously both economically and strategically. We’ve had each other’s backs for more than 100 years - World Wars, the Cold War, Viet Nam, the Falklands, and now Iraq. We’ve assisted in peace efforts in Northern Ireland as well as using Britain’s good offices on more than one occasion when our diplomacy has been stuck in a rut. There is a symbiosis, a melding of interests between the two countries that would not be easily pried apart. And any effort to do so would not only affect our two countries, but also Europe and points beyond as well.

For these reasons, I feel confident Mr. Brown will resist calls to redefine our relationship and instead, try and establish that special bond with the American President - whoever it ends up being - that has been the hallmark of this, the most remarkable partnership the modern world knows. It has benefited both nations in the past. And I see no reason why it can’t be a plus in the future.

UPDATE: IT”S OFFICIAL

Blair announced he’s stepping down as party leader on June 27:

Tony Blair has announced he will stand down as prime minister on 27 June.
He made the announcement in a speech to party activists in his Sedgefield constituency, after earlier briefing the Cabinet on his plans.

He will stay on in Downing Street until the Labour Party elects a new leader - widely expected to be Gordon Brown.

(HT: Fausta)

UPDATE II

Michelle Malkin rounds up react from the MSM as well as some interesting comments from British bloggers.

She also has an extended excerpt from one of Blair’s most eloquent speeches on the war.

Congratulations to the netnuts! They have achieved their goal of capturing a large segment of Congressional Democrats and turning them into a quivering mass of genuflecting cretins, unable to buck the will of their most passionate (and off balance) supporters because they’re too frightened of the consequences.

Apparently, House Democrats are prepared to limit funding for the war to two months, answering the call of their online masters to toe the line or risk the disapprobation of the Krazed Kossacks and the rest of the internet ruffians who make up the far left of the party.

For the last couple of weeks, the drumbeat from the netroots regarding the Iraq Supplemental has been about initiating a strategy known as “the short leash.” That is, limit the appropriation to two months and load it up with impossible demands on the Iraqi government to get moving on reform (reforms that won’t be initiated for two years much less two months) and then when the inevitable failure occurs, try the same gambit again with cutting off funding for the extra troops hoping that panicking Republican lawmakers will desert the President and join the Democrats in an attempt to save their political hides.

The strategy has the disadvantage of being transparently ridiculous - especially after Democratic lawmakers swore that they would forgo the limited appropriation path and stick with funding the troops through September. But that was before the netnuts began to ratchet up the pressure on their cowering minions in the House.

Here’s the #2 Democrat in the House just two weeks ago:

Many senators, as well as House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), say they’re not inclined to support a two-month supplemental.

“There are a lot of ideas being discussed, and Mr. Hoyer personally feels that at this time he doesn’t see that particular option moving forward,” said Hoyer spokeswoman Stacey Farnen Bernards.

(HT: Ed Morrissey)

The issue is apparently dead in the Senate with even Harry Reid seeing the stupidity of a two month appropriation.

Even if House Democrats seek to pass a short-term bill, the Senate isn’t yet on board.

“I don’t think that’s the best approach,” Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich) said Friday. “I think it’s too close to the end of the fiscal year for that.”

Senate Democratic aides also downplayed the chances that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would agree to try to pass short-term funding bills for the war, noting that it likely would tie the Senate floor in knots and prevent Reid from bringing up other Democratic legislative priorities…

And the problem isn’t just Democratic “legislative priorities.” How about a severe disruption in the Department of Defense?

[Secretary of Defense] Gates told the panel that proposals for a short-term funding bill would be very disruptive and “have a huge impact” on contracts to repair and replace equipment. And if Congress votes in July to pull the plug on war funding, “I would have to shut down significant elements of the Department of Defense in August and September because I wouldn’t have the money to pay salaries.”

The fact that House Democrats have apparently become beholden to their most extreme supporters does not bode well for the party heading into 2008. One way or another, the war is going to be winding down by next spring as the Presidential primary season gets underway. And then what? Are Democrats on the Hill simply going to pat the netnuts on the head, thanking them for a job well done, and then expect them to go back to posting cat pictures on their blogs and trading recipes for meatloaf? Not hardly. Kos & Co. have real power now. They can taste it. And they are eager to exercise it.

What that means for the party’s agenda going into the 2008 campaign is unknown. But a lurch to the left, away from the carefully crafted positions of both Hillary and Obama to appeal to the center would almost certainly cause problems for the eventual candidate, giving the Republican ticket the opportunity to fall back on the time honored and very effective strategy of painting their Democratic opponent as an extreme liberal.

It’s proved a winning strategy in the past. And even in a Democratic year as 2008 is shaping up to be, it could prove the difference again.

LIBERAL BLOGGERS DISCUSS THE THREAT OF TERRORISM IN THE UNITED STATES

I would like to take this opportunity occasioned by the arrest of the 6 obviously deranged, laughably incompetent dufuses who planned to shoot up Fort Dix (and who just happen on the off chance and by no special happenstance to be Muslims) to publicly and fervently thank lefty bloggers for their reality based approach to fighting terrorism in America.

What would we do without you guys? Keeping America safe from hysterical righties who see terrorists around every corner and terrorism in every “dog bites man” story must be taxing as well as boring work. Hardly a challenge for people of your intellectual acumen and discernment. After all, there’s a difference between being observant and alert to the danger of terrorism and being paranoid.

Just ask the airline security workers who let 3 of the 5 9/11 hijackers through their checkpoint at Dulles International airport even after they set off the metal detector.

“Frickin’ box cutters? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? These durn machines are a waste of time, dontchya think?” (Chuckling) “Move along, sir. And thank you for flying American Airlines.”

And making jokes about promoting the idea that an army of “John Does” can do more to stop terrorism here at home than the police, the FBI, and Karl Rove’s Super Secret Domestic Spying Machine and Pasta Maker put together is just your way of making sure that innocent pizza makers, convenience store clerks, and roofers (who just happen on the off chance and by no special happenstance to be Muslims) aren’t caught up in “terrorist fever” and unfairly branded as “radical jihadists hell bent on killing Americans.”

I’m sure that will come as a relief to Mohamed Atta’s flight instructor.

“Okay, lemme get this straight. You want to use the simulator to learn how to take off and fly a commercial jet but you have no interest in learning how to land? Well, that will save some time, won’t it? Here. Let me get you started.”

I think we should follow the example of FDL’s TRex who BRAVELY informs us that even without reading right wing blogs, he knows exactly what they’re saying:

You know that Debbie Schlussel is turning clumsy-ass cartwheels of joy that there’s finally some Hot Islamic Jihadi Action for her to write about. And of course, their semi-questionable citizenship status has Michelle Malkin melting through her Victoria’s Secret white cotton lady briefs. You can go look at their blogs if you want. I don’t have the stomach for it. They’ll be dining out on these six losers and their woodland paintball games all the way to the 2008 elections and beyond. The Muslim Fanatics are, like, totally among us right now!! Time to start rounding them all up, eh, Internment Girl?

Never mind that we’ve done this song and dance before with those seven losers in a warehouse in Miami that got arrested last year. Never mind that this is all suspiciously well-timed for the Bush Assministration, whose poll numbers are tanking and whose pet idiot will be making his second (and undoubtedly awe-inspiringly bad) testimony before Congress the day after tomorrow.

No, this time it’s different! This time it’s important! This time the threat was REAL!

(”Wolf!” cried the boy, “Wolf! Wolf!”)

So, expect this to be in heavy rotation in the media cycle over the next couple of weeks. They’re going to milk it for every last possible fear-mongering, freedom-squelching, race-baiting drop that they can squeeze out. You’re actually going to miss the Anna Nicole frenzy. You think I’m kidding, don’t you?

How could I have missed it? IT’S THE TIMING! IT’S THE TIMING! Jeez am I dense. Gonna have to recalibrate my Bush Headlong Rush To Dictatorship Meter or I may miss out on all the fun next time.

And TRex has this thing nailed. Why get our panties in a bunch over these fanatics? First of all, did you notice where 4 of them were from?

ALBANIA FER CRISSAKES! Albania? Quick - name something dangerous that ever came out of Albania. No, not Dracula. Close, but he was from Transylvania. Jesus, the most dangerous beasts in Albania are the goats - vicious animals who’ve been known to attack unarmed civilian carts without warning.

And after all, let’s face facts. It’s not like these guys wanted to shoot up innocent civilians. So what if they wanted to kill a few soldiers, right TRex? They probably would have died anyway once they were sent to Iraq, right? I’m sure you’ll agree that this way, we would have saved money having to ship the bodies back home.

But even more telling is that these guys evidently ran around the woods in New Jersey, whooping it up, shouting jihadi slogans and shooting paintball pellets at infidel trees. Give ‘em a pickup truck with a Confederate battle flag, fill ‘em full of white lightening, stick a chaw of tobacky in their teeth and they could be any group of fun lovin’, gun totin’, goober chewin’, bible thumpin’, cousin screwin’ militia men. Right, Dave?

The right-wing blogosphere needs to take a shower or something. They’ve been positively creaming their jeans over the arrest of five suspected Islamist terrorists who are charged with plotting to attack soldiers at Fort Dix. Malkin, of course, is leading the pack, but it’s seen as Vindication Day throughout the whole “John Doe”/Jihad Watch right, including Little Green Footballs and Der Perfesser.

Funny how little attention any of them have paid to the mirror-image case down in Alabama involving the militiamen who were reportedly plotting to bomb and gun down Mexicans in a nearby town. In fact, the only place I could find mention of it was at Outside the Beltway, and that was a post questioning the need for the arrests.

Dunno. Sounds serious. Planning between gulps of Mountain Dew to “bomb and gun down Mexicans” is a crime in most of these here parts. Alas, it doesn’t appear to have been quite what our Davey is getting his panties in a bunch about:

The sergeant major turned out to be a government informant.

And the informant reported to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that the Free Militia was making and stockpiling grenades.

The indictment lists numerous other charges, including possession of a machine gun, a homemade silencer, a short-barreled shotgun, 68 homemade explosive projectiles and about 100 marijuana plants.

… The informant reported that Dillard tried to sell him some of the homemade hand grenades. He also reported that he and Dillard went to a military surplus store in Bynum to buy 12 grenade hulls and later packed them with powder and hid them under rocks by a dead tree in the woods.

The informant’s affidavit does not mention plans to attack Hispanic groups.

But at a bail hearing Tuesday, ATF agent Adam Nesmith introduced the idea that the Free Militia was planning to gun down Mexicans in the small town of Remlap northeast of Birmingham.

I QUESTION THE TIMING!

Um, no that’s not really right. But I’d ask Dave why he believes one branch of the government in one case (the ATF saying that the homegrown swag swilling yip yips planned on taking out a few of our darker skinned brethren) regarding a planned terrorist attack while another branch of government (the FBI saying that the Dix Six or the guys in Miami, or any other recent possible jihadi plans that have been thwarted) is to be considered suspect.

I guess I just don’t have that level of “discernment” necessary to be a true liberal. Not like the folks at Wonkette:

Ok. So, the plot was: six dudes from New Jersey buy some guns and storm Fort Dix. The Fort Dix that is full of lots and lots of Army reservists with way, way more guns. And, like, extensive military training and s**t. Yes, thank god these terrorists have been caught and locked up before they could be killed within minutes of deciding to carry out the dumbest f***ing terrorist plot we’ve ever heard of.

I heartily agree. No doubt that the dufuses would have been cut down in “minutes” - say, for the sake of argument, 5 minutes - which would have only resulted in a few needless deaths of soldiers who, after all, would probably have ended up in Iraq anyway and fallen victim to an IED or an insurgent bullet. Better they get murdered en masse here at the hands of fanatics (who just happen on the off chance and by no special happenstance to be Muslims) then killed over there at the hands of…fanatics?

Yep. “Dumbest f**king terrorist plot” I’ve ever heard of…

UPDATE

Hugh Hewitt also notes that the left is downplaying (as usual) this particular terrorist plan and links to Andrew McCarthy’s excellent piece in today’s NRO:

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it[.] … This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, “and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,” and “fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God.”

The direction is to everyone. And he is not ordering that it be done because Osama says so, like the mafia does something because the don says so, or the army does something because the commanding officer says so. In bin Laden’s mind, he is merely the medium; the direction, he insists, comes from Allah. In fact, bin Laden plainly knows he is not enough of an authority figure to command terrorist attacks. He needs to cite scripture to convince Muslims that it is the ideology itself which announces these commands. Commands which this ideology compels every Muslim, not just every al Qaeda operative, to perform.

Until this singular fact sinks in on the left and among our elites, we will be fighting the War on Terror with one hand tied behind our backs. I’ve written extensively about the absolute need to get the western left fully engaged in this fight. But as long as they continue to use the War on Terror as a purely political issue or their own stupidity blinds them to the danger, we cannot and will not win.

A NOTE TO MY LOYAL AND FAITHFUL READERS OF THESE RECAPS:

I would once again like to apologize for the tardiness of this update. Sometimes, real life intrudes on blogging and there’s not much you can do. I humbly beg your forgiveness and hope that you can stick with me these last couple of weeks as we experience the pulse pounding action and drama that we all hope will unfold.

Ed.

At last! After several weeks of somnolence and even boredom at times, the show finally switched gears - with a vengeance. High octane action coupled with the re-emergence of the compelling early threads featuring Jack’s family has the show now coming full circle and geared up for the final 3 episodes. Couple this with Jack’s naked ambition to take revenge on Cheng - out in the open now after Jack admitted to Nadia that “of course I want revenge” for what Cheng did to both him and Audrey - and you have the ingredients for the kind of action and drama that the show has rightly become famous for.

I’ve written before about Jack’s highly evolved sense of honor and how Bauer making a promise is not quite the same as when you or I do so. For Jack, a promise is a blood oath. And he will die willingly rather than break it. For that reason, when Jack informs Nadia that he promised President Palmer that he wouldn’t let the circuit board fall into the hands of the Chinese, your typical CTU commanding officer would have handed Jack a gun and simply pointed him toward the Chinese, trusting that Jack will do whatever is necessary to make good on his word. Instead, Nadia, still unsure of herself as the head of CTU, refused Jack’s request to go with Doyle to where they thought Cheng was hiding out. Of course, as it turned out, this was a necessary part of the plot. Jack had to be stuck at CTU when the Chinese assault took place.

And that assault reminded us all why we watch the show. I’m sort of a student of film and what’s known in the biz as “production values” - lighting, lens filters, editing, set design, etc. - reaches its zenith on television in 24. It’s obvious that great care was taken in bringing that sequence to life. And the way everything came together, it gave the viewer the eerie feeling of being right there in the midst of a terrifying attack. No show spends more time and effort on these production values and it shows.

I know you’re as glad as I am that the show is showing signs of life and heading for a big finish. After several disappointing weeks, it’s good to know that 24’s ability to entertain and shock us hasn’t been completely lost. Speculation in the comments here (or by email from my FSM readers) is more than welcome. I plan on doing a post next Sunday featuring the best of this speculation so why not throw your two cents in? You may end up being featured in the article.

SUMMARY

After Audrey leaves CTU with her father’s admonition not to to see her ever again still ringing in his ears, Nadia pays Jack a visit. He certainly has been a busy lad, hasn’t he? Cold cocking a couple of CTU’s worthless security guards after escaping from custody - arrested as we recall for stealing the Russian circuit board that was the key to their national defense. All in all, Jack has probably violated a good dozen CTU protocols not to mention breaking 2 dozen more federal, state, and local laws.

But that’s just par for the course. We now have to watch Jack as he tries to talk Nadia into letting him tag along with Little Ricky so that he can get his hands on Cheng. This ultimately, is Jack’s objective. Yes there is honor in keeping his promise to the President not to let the board fall into enemy hands. But to watch Jack beg - literally beg Nadia for a chance to redeem himself is a little out of character for our Jack. That is, until you remember how much he truly wants to get back at the Chinese for what they did to both he and Audrey.

Nadia’s not biting. Indecisive as she is, in the end she plays it safe and tells Jack that if he wants to help at tactical, she’ll take it up with the new head of CTU who is on his way over from division. For just a moment, Jack thinks about taking out the guards and making a break for it. But these fellows actually look like they might be paying attention so Jack sits back down, stuck in the holding room, frustrated and angry.

Back on the floor, Milo can see that Chloe is upset. Helpfully, Morris tells him about their breakup, announcing it much to the embarrassment of Chloe who we thought could never be embarrassed about anything. Milo agrees to say no more about it.

After giving the TAC team a pep talk on their way to the copper plant to apprehend Cheng, Little Ricky and Nadia have a casual conversation about the mission that Milo sees and interprets as more proof that his main squeeze may have more than professional feelings for Ricky. One wonders if Milo has ever had a girlfriend before. He looks like one of those geeks in high school that everyone picked on and that no girl would ever give a second look. He is so paranoid about Nadia and Ricky that if I were Nadia, I’d drop the guy before he goes postal.

Meanwhile, Cheng has assembled a gaggle of what appears to be a cross between an Asian version of the Mexican boy band Menudo and the worst of the Triads. They’re armed to the teeth and loaded for bear but we don’t know where they’re going, do we? How many of you guessed CTU headquarters? That many, huh. I will say that I thought for sure the target was Chloe .

Back at CTU, we finally are re-acquainted with the dearly departed brother Graem’s wife Marilyn and her son Josh (who the forums and boards are still furiously speculating is Jack’s son). Josh looks about a year older from the last time we saw him and still can’t get used to the idea that his daddy was a traitorous wretch who deserved a helluva lot worse than he got. Marilyn suggests they try and get some sleep when Chloe shows up. Informing Marilyn that 1) Jack is in custody, and 2) that Audrey is alive, the only woman who has loved Jack who has not died, become catatonic, or betrayed him wants to see Bauer.

At the White House, Lennox and Daniels hatch their plan to fool the Russians into thinking that they’ve recovered the chip using the slut Lisa in a disinformation campaign against her lover Bishop. Laying out the scenario, Lisa starts to get cold feet, saying that she doesn’t think she can lie to Bishop convincingly. Daniels, in one of the best lines of the entire season whispers savagely into her ear, “Why not? You’ve spent the last year lying to me no problem.”

Indeed.

At CTU, Chloe charms her way past the guards with Marilyn so that she can see Jack. For those of you who do not believe this is possible, I would call your attention to last year when Chloe almost charmed the pants off of a traveling salesman in order to help Jack. She has her womanly ways and can display them when the job demands it.

Anyway, Marilyn apologizes profusely for telling Jack Audrey was dead, when she really wasn’t dead only for all intents and purposes she probably should be considered dead since it highly unlikely we will see old Needle Nose anytime soon. Jack doesn’t feel much like talking about it but promises Marilyn he will see Josh before they go. You just get the feeling that Graem was not the boy’s real father and that it might be, could be, Jack’s long lost son. I have a feeling we’ll find out the truth next week.

Still not revealing the target, Cheng tells the Thug-in-Chief Zhou that their entry point will put them in perfect position to grab “the package.” The Menudo Boys get moving.

Doyle and CTU TAC enter the copper factory but find it empty. What they do find is chilling; boxes and boxes all empty of heavy weapons, ammunition, grenades - everything a bunch of thugs would need to assault a fortress. Wonder what the target is…

Zhou and his men close in, using the sewers. I must say those are the cleanest sewers I’ve ever seen - you could almost have a picnic down there. I’m sure Los Angeles residents are proud of the way the city maintains them.

More angst from Chloe and Morris with Mr. Snark confessing that he really wasn’t mad at Chloe for chiding him about arming the bomb but rather it was his own humiliation for doing it that caused their break up. When Chloe says, “You’re wrong” Morris shoots back “You know me very well, right? When am I ever wrong?” No comeback from Chloe to that one.

Back with Lennox and his Disinformation Squad, they’ve arrived at Bishop’s apartment with Lisa still a bundle of nerves. Lennox gives her a stark alternative; succeed or be tried for treason. The writer of the first English language dictionary Samuel Johnson said it best: “The prospect of hanging tends to concentrate the mind wonderfully.” Lisa pulls herself together and goes inside.

But it is apparent from the get go that Lisa is not only a traitorous slut but a poor actress as well. Bishop knows something is wrong and Lisa can’t seem to get into the swing of things - even when the Russian spy keeps her from leaving the room (thus giving Bishop access to her PDA and the false info that we’d recovered the board). He throws her on the bed and (deleted due to the family nature of this site).

Nadia finally gives the starving Milo some attention, telling him that she just doesn’t know how she feels because the day’s events have been so trying. Bravely, Milo says that if she wants to play slap and tickle with Little Ricky, he won’t stand in the way.

What a dork.

Cheng’s own super geek accesses CTU’s entire computer network using a security code that we don’t know how in the world he got a hold of. He begins to deactivate CTU security section by section.

First to go are the phones. Nadia can’t reach Little Ricky and all outside lines are dead. A glitch in the server? Morris says no, that in fact he can’t access the servers because all the permissions have been changed. Just then, Chloe finds the vehicles the Chinese escaped in from the copper plant. She begins tracking them using the satellite.

We finally learn that CTU is the target. And just below their super duper, impenetrable fortress of an office, Zhou and the Menudo Boys blow a sewer grate and climb into the building.

Chloe tracks the Chinese to an intersection only six blocks from CTU. Just then, Milo gets a call from security informing him that all the surveillance cameras are down. Finally putting two and two together, Nadia tells Chloe to initiate a “Code Red Lock Down.” But too late. Menudo is already on stage and performing.

Three CTU expendables go down in a hail of bullets from the well armed thugs. Desperate, Jack convinces his guard to let him out. Obligingly the guard opens the door only to get shot for his trouble. While the Chinese thug checks another room, Jack grabs the guards gun and kills two intruders immediately.

And that’s just the beginning. Jack goes on a rampage, making his way through the CTU complex, an Angel of Death to terrorists and all boy bands alike. He will take out four more bad guys making this his bloodiest episode in memory. Armed now with an assault rifle, Jack moves toward the main floor.

And it is there that the main drama of the evening plays itself out. The terrorists easily make it into the nerve center of CTU with Zhou demanding everyone get on the floor. When he calls out for the commanding officer, Nadia hesitates ever so slightly giving Milo a chance to be a hero. Without so much as a by your leave and thanks for the memories, Zhou cuts Milo down with a single shot to the forehead.

In the lounge, Marilyn and Josh hear all the gunshots and see a pair of Chinese heading their way. Not able to block the door, the Chinese take them into custody, one of them notifying Zhou that they have the boy Josh - obviously the “package” they were looking for. But their triumph is short lived. Jack shows up and blows the two enemies away.

Taking Marilyn and the boy, the trio traverses the labyrinthine maze that is the innards of CTU with its corridors and store rooms. Finding a room with a fan leading to the ventilation system, Jack uses the assault gun to stop the spinning fan and sends the boy into the ductwork. But the Chinese have been hot on his trail and they burst into the room as Jack runs out of ammunition. Josh is free but his mother and Jack are now prisoners.

Back on the floor, one of Zhou’s thugs is monitoring communications and notices that Little Ricky has been trying to get in touch with headquarters. Calling out Nadia who he now realizes is the true commanding officer, he orders her to talk to Doyle and tell him everything is fine. Nadia plays it straight but either gives what CTU calls a “duress code” or else Little Ricky figures things out for himself. He knows that things are not quite right at headquarters.

Brought to the main floor where he sees another old friend dead on the floor, Jack demands to know what they want with Josh but is given a rifle butt into the solar plexus for his trouble. Zhou gets on the intercom and tells Josh that if he doesn’t show himself by the time he counts to ten, he can kiss his mom goodbye. Making the right choice, the kid makes his way back to the ventilation room just as Zhou gets to 9. Informed that Josh is in custody, Zhou calls Cheng.

Cheng is pleased. He then calls another old friend we haven’t seen in ages. Philip Bauer, having supplied the Chinese with CTU access codes, is busy repairing the damaged circuit board for Cheng. It is he who wants Josh. For what purpose, we aren’t told yet. All we know is that Philip wants to talk to Josh as soon as he can and that Cheng and the elder Bauer will rendezvous in 20 minutes to make the exchange.

BODY COUNT

Pretty tough night for CTU. They lost 3 expendables and Milo. Jack took out so many of the Menudo Boys they’re going to have to hold nationwide auditions again just to fill the ranks.

TOTALS:

JACK: 31

SHOW: 417

The electrician and his infernal meddling have left the broadcast studio/bedroom/cat perch so I am pleased to announce that The Rick Moran Show will be broadcast live as scheduled.

Join me at 3:00 PM Central time when I interview Thomas Lifson, Editor in Chief of The American Thinker. We’ll discuss presidential politics, the conservative movement, and other vital issues. Tom will also enlighten us about the fascinating story of Airbus and their gigantic gamble in building the A-380. The behind the scenes “inside business” information that Tom has on the story I guarantee will pique your interest.

You can access the stream here. And if you’d like to call in during the show and ask a question, you can dial 718-664-9764.

A podcast will be available shortly after the show is over.

UPDATE

Success! At least this week, Tom and I were both able to access the stream and talk for a good 50 minutes.

For the podcast, go here. Enjoy.

My humble apologies, but this time, it is not my fault.

We have a serious electrical problem with our old house. The fuse that controls all of the outlets in the kitchen keeps going off and on (that’s right; the house is that old where we still have the old fashioned fuses in a fuse box). The electricity will go off for a few minutes or hours and then come back on without warning. Yesterday, it was off for about 5 hours before suddenly coming back on. In the meantime, I moved the entire contents of our fridge to the one we have in the garage.

New fuses don’t help. The electrician believes there is a short - in the wall. I don’t have to tell you what kind of fire danger that poses. So the electrician will be here any minute and will have to turn the electricity off for at least a couple of hours. Obviously, I won’t be able to post my recap of 24 - probably not until noon.

I appreciate your patientce and apologize for the delay in posting - especially after the series seemed to get back on track last night. I’ll have all the details later.

UPDATE

Back up and running at 10:15. Should be around 1:00 PM for post time.

Electrician says that if we’d let it go a few more days, the chances were excellent that the house would have been on fire and we would have been the last to know it. Fires that start in walls don’t generally trip the smoke alarm until they’re out of control. He’s going to recommend to the owner a major rewiring of the house, replacing the fuse box with circuit breakers.

Great. More downtime coming, I guess.

UPDATE: BAD NEWS

The electrician is back and needs to turn the power off again!

AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHH!

He says it may be a couple of hours which is double bad news since it bumps into my radio show that starts at 3:00 PM. He assures me that he will have the power back up by 2:30 PM at the latest so keep your fingers crossed.

As for the post? God knows. A this point it will be late afternoon or early evening before it’s blogged. For that, I can only humbly beg your pardon and plead with you to understand that circumstances beyond my control has left me with no options.

Forget the surge. Forget the Democrats and their idiotic timetables and benchmarks. Forget that the President is once again mishandling the delicate political situation in Iraq. This news from the Iraqi Vice President about the Sunnis simply up and leaving the government is the crisis of the war:

Iraq’s top Sunni official has set a deadline of next week for pulling his entire bloc out of the government — a potentially devastating blow to reconciliation efforts within Iraq. He also said he turned down an offer by President Bush to visit Washington until he can count more fully on U.S. help.

Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi made his comments in an interview with CNN. He said if key amendments to the Iraq Constitution are not made by May 15, he will step down and pull his 44 Sunni politicians out of the 275-member Iraqi parliament.

“If the constitution is not subject to major changes, definitely, I will tell my constituency frankly that I have made the mistake of my life when I put my endorsement to that national accord,” he said. (Watch al-Hashimi express anger over lack of power-sharing )

Specifically, he wants guarantees in the constitution that the country won’t be split into Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish federal states that he says will disadvantage Sunnis.

Al-Hashimi’s cooperation with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government is widely seen as essential if there is to be a realistic chance of bridging the Shiite-Sunni divide in Iraq — one of the key goals of the Bush administration.

Al-Hashimi is no fool. He can see as well as I or anyone else who has bothered to pay attention that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is not making a sincere effort to address the issues that would facilitate reconciliation between Sunni and Shia and start the process of making Iraq a whole country again. The oil revenue sharing bill has been languishing for months in the Iraqi Parliament with no sign that the objections of the Kurds or Sunnis are being addressed much less that the Shias are anxious for the bill to become law in the first place.

Some of the other vital issues that Maliki is either avoiding or approaching in a half hearted manner guaranteeing failure include the proposed de-Baathification board that would allow those Sunnis who worked for Saddam but did not participate in the atrocities to work for the government - an important economic measure for the Sunni community where unemployment is rampant and where many thousands are prevented from police and army duty by their past affiliation with the regime. And Maliki’s reconciliation plan - submitted to Parliament with great fanfare last June - seems to have slipped through the cracks with nary a word heard about it in months. A Reconciliation Conference held last spring was a spectacular failure as most of the Sunni invitees refused to attend. And why should they? Until amnesty for insurgents is put on the table, what’s the point?

There are other issues that al-Hashimi and the Sunnis are concerned about including the above mentioned changes in the constitution. Outnumbered, outgunned, and nearly out of time, the Sunnis need those constitutional changes to salvage what’s left of their community. With nearly 2.5 million refugees outside the country and 750,000 internally displaced citizens (the vast majority of them Sunnis) the Sunni population has declined by an estimated 15% and is only getting smaller. They must have hope that there is a place for them in the new Iraq. And Maliki and the Shias are spitting in their face by not addressing any of their concerns.

To be sure Maliki finds opposition to these plans at every turn. Some of it almost certainly inspired by an irrational desire on the part of some Shias and Kurds for revenge. That, after all, is why Iraq is in a civil war. But there also appears to be some calculation involved on the part of both Maliki’s Dawa party and the largest political party in Iraq, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Dragging their feet in Parliament and in the Cabinet council can be seen as a deliberate attempt to effect exactly the outcome al-Hashimi is threatening; a Sunni withdrawal from government which would give these Shia elements the excuse to either “ghettoize” the Sunnis by confining them to central and western Iraq or worse, it would give some of their more radical members a pretext to begin slaughtering the Sunnis wholesale in order to bring about a “Sunni-free” Iraq.

But if al-Hashimi and the Sunnis leave the government, it begs the question: Just who or what is Maliki in charge of in Iraq? The answer is not too damn much. Hence, a Sunni withdrawal would make the Maliki government nothing more than an empty shell, not even in charge of many Shias especially in the south where rival militias are already clashing in earnest in an attempt to gain control of towns and villages.

Maliki seems paralyzed, unable to face the facts regarding what must be done to save his country. Here’s al-Hashimi on the consequences of a Sunni withdrawal from government:

The withdrawal of the Sunni bloc would unravel months of efforts to foster political participation by Sunnis in Iraq’s government. It also would further weaken al-Maliki just weeks after Shiite Cabinet ministers allied with Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr bolted from the government.

Al-Hashimi’s Iraqi Islamic Party was key in getting Sunnis out to vote in the December 2005 election. Sunnis had been reluctant to take part in the political process, and many were only convinced to do so with the promise of changes to the Iraqi Constitution. Al-Hashimi said the United States co-signed those changes, and now a year and a half later nothing has been done.

Without a change to the constitution, he said, “The situation would be a disaster for Iraq.”

He added, “I would like to see the identity of my country, in fact, restored back.”

Meanwhile, the President has been ineffective in his jawboning the Iraqi Prime Minister, failing to get Maliki to face up to his responsibilities:

On Monday, the president held a 25-minute videoconference with al-Maliki, the White House and the prime minister’s office announced. In Washington, White House spokesman Tony Snow said political reconciliation efforts were “the focal point of those conversations.”

Al-Maliki talked about getting leaders of Iraq’s major factions together “to sit down in a very practical way and say, ‘Let’s get this stuff fixed,’ ” Snow said.

“What you got was a very clear sense from the prime minister that it was important to be making progress,” he said.

It may be “important to be making progress” but one wonders to who; Bush or Maliki?

Al-Maliki’s office said Bush will dispatch a senior administration official to Iraq to rally support for the government, while the prime minister “reaffirmed the importance of continuing cooperation and coordination” between U.S. and Iraqi troops now trying to pacify the capital.

The importance to Maliki that the Capitol be pacified is that if the Americans leave, he’s very like to find himself on the short end of a very long rope. So he will try to keep the Americans pacified by saying all the right words about reconciliation and power sharing while doing nothing to affect the former and actually try and sabotage the latter.

What to do? The Administration efforts in the political sphere have failed miserably to this point. Might it be time for Bush to bite the bullet and give Maliki the heave-ho, replacing him with some kind of government that would do what everyone agrees is necessary but that no one seems willing to work for?

It would be like taking all of those purple fingers raised in triumph following the election and cutting them off at the knuckle. But it may be the only way to save the country. This would be a last resort, the last arrow in Bush’s quiver and he may not use it anyway. Perhaps he’d rather see Iraq disintegrate than give up on his personal dream of promoting democracy in the Middle East.

There will be efforts to entice the Sunnis back into government if they leave. But I am absolutely convinced that Maliki, as with every other promise he has made to us, will do only the minimum necessary to bring that about. Al-Hashimi probably senses the same thing which is why he is willing to walk out in the first place.

This is without a doubt the crisis of the war. How the Administration handles the delicate matter of trying to keep the Sunnis in the government while putting pressure on Maliki to get busy with reforms will tell the tale of whether or not Iraq can be put back together again or whether it will fly apart at the seams.

UPDATE

Allah is back at Hot Air blogging about Iraq. He has the story of Sadrists guarding a Shia shrine - at our request. Trenchantly, he fleshes out the pros and cons.

He also comments briefly on al-Hashimi’s threat:

I’ll leave you with a report from CNN about Iraq’s Sunni Vice President, Tariq al-Hashimi, threatening to pull his MPs out of the government unless the constitution is amended to prohibit partition. He’s worried about Anbar being shunted off into its own country where it won’t get any of the oil revenue from the Shiite areas, but a report from Iraqslogger last month says he might have something even bolder in mind:

What is more interesting in Az-Zaman’s lead story is the fact that the Iraqi Vice-President, Tariq al-Hashimi, is attempting to construct a new coalition, similar to [Iyad] ‘Allawi’s in several ways and carrying a comparable “anti-sectarian” agenda. Az-Zaman said that al-Hashimi has also entered talks with the Fadhila party and that he is engaged in a race with ‘Allawi to gather allies for a bid for the Prime Ministership.

A Sunni prime minister? When the current president and speaker of parliament are also Sunnis? Not anytime soon, pal.

With both Allawi and al-Hashimi waiting in the wings for a call from the Americans, one would think that Maliki would get the message and get moving on reform. But Maliki has his own card to play; a Shia uprising if we toss Maliki and his Shia brethren.

And that, my friends, would be game, set, match.

UPDATE II

It doesn’t necessarily worry me when lefties agree with me. But re-reading my post, I was a little uneasy that I had perhaps taken too dark a view of Hashimi’s threat.

Kevin Drum, a reasonable liberal, echoes my sentiments:

The October 2005 deal has served its purpose admirably: it got the constitution passed and it gave everyone some breathing room. But eventually the Shiites and Kurds were going to have to come through with some changes, and no real progress has ever been made on that. Just stalling.

So what happens next? Prime Minister Maliki might be able to buy himself some more time, but probably not much. Eventually it’s going to become clear that the Sunni amendments aren’t going to be proposed, or if they are proposed, that they aren’t going to pass. That day is looking ever closer, and all the battalions in the world aren’t going to help Iraq if the Sunnis irrevocably pull out of the government. Stay tuned.

Reasonable people can disagree about the extent of this crisis. But I have to make an effort to come up with something worse.