Right Wing Nut House

The idea is seductive to the left. Bring the troops home from Iraq in dignified retreat, patting ourselves on the back that we did the best we could while that country explodes in sectarian conflict. Bravely, we take the blame before the world, say three our fathers, three hail Mary’s, and go about the business of turning America into a bastion of democratic socialism.

The only problem is, it isn’t even remotely possible:

These are unpleasant realities for a nation that prefers all of its solutions to be simple and short. The reality is, however, that even if the US does withdraw from Iraq, it cannot disengage from it. The US will have to be deeply involved in trying to influence events in Iraq indefinitely into the future, regardless of whether it does so from the inside or the outside. It will face major risks and military problems regardless of the approach it takes, and it will face continuing strategic, political, and moral challenges.

Anthony Cordesman went to Iraq recently. His travelling companions were none other than Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack - the Brookings Boys whose Op-Ed in the New York Times entitled “We Maybe Could Be, Just Might Possibly, Conceivably, Perchance Win This Thing (Depending On The Breaks)” was touted as “proof” that not only was the surge working (a fact confirmed by even some of the most jaundiced observers of Iraq who have come back from there recently) but that its success could lead to “sustainable stability” in Iraq and a sort of “victory.”

Now there’s a rallying cry for you; “Remember Sustainable Stability!” Or perhaps “Onward to Sustainable Stability!”

At any rate, Cordesman is one of those hard eyed military men who works for think tanks as kind of the “Warmonger in Residence.” He doesn’t have quite the take on the Iraqi situation that O’Hanlon and Pollack brought back. In fact, it is quite a bit more pessimistic (which is bringing huge sighs of relief to some on the left this morning)

From my perspective, the US now has only uncertain, high risk options in Iraq. It cannot dictate Iraq’s future, only influence it, and this presents serious problems at a time when the Iraqi political process has failed to move forward in reaching either a new consensus or some form of peaceful coexistence. It is Iraqis that will shape Iraq’s ability or inability to rise above its current sectarian and ethnic conflicts, to redefine Iraq’s politics and methods of governance, establish some level of stability and security, and move towards a path of economic recovery and development. So far, Iraq’s national government has failed to act at the rate necessary to move the country forward or give American military action political meaning.

Gee…where have I heard that before?

If I were an anti-war lefty, I’d hold off on embracing this report too vigorously. Yes, it may offer some counterpoints to the O’Hanlon-Pollack piece. But you’re not going to like this:

The US has some 160,000 military personnel in Iraq and a matching or greater number of civilians and contractors. It has between 140,000 and 200,000 metric tons of valuable equipment and supplies, and some 15,000-20,000 military vehicles and major weapons. It is dispersed in many of Iraqi’s cities and now in many forward operating bases.

This does not mean that the US cannot leave quickly. It can rush out quickly by destroying or abandoning much of its supplies and equipment, and simply removing its personnel and contractors (and some unknown amount of Iraqis who bet their lives and families on a continued US effort). The more equipment and facilities (and Iraqis) it destroys or abandons, the quicker it can move. Under these conditions, the US could rush out in as little as a few weeks and no more than a few months.

A secure withdrawal that removed all US stocks and equipment and phased out US bases, however, would take some 9-12 months or longer [estimates of this vary but if it was 10,000 military plus 10,000 civilians and all equipment each month in Kuwait, that would likely take 16 months minimum; 2 years is what many military experts think would be a rapid, but deliberate pace].

So if, as many of you propose, we leave Iraq in 90 days, it would be Saigon, 1975 times ten. Not only military stocks but what becomes of the $20 billion in aid projects? Or the new US embassy being built there?

And for many of the rest of you liberals, what does this information do to your carefully thought out and “practical” redeployment of troops under the Democratic plan in Congress? You know, the one where we’re out by March, 2008?

And for all my conservative friends who talk blithely of “victory” as if there is any strategy or tactics we can employ that will change the perception out there in the world that Iraq is nothing short of a defeat for the US, Cordesman has this:

It is important to note in this regard that while Americans are still concerned with finding ways to define “victory” in Iraq, virtually the entire world already perceives the US as having decisively lost. Every international opinion poll that measures international popular reactions to the US performance in the war – Oxford Analytica, Pew, ABC/BBC/ARD/USA Today, Gallup, etc. – sees the US as responsible for a war it cannot justify and which has caused immense Iraqi suffering. Virtually every internal poll of Iraqi opinion with any credibility — Oxford Analytica, ABC/BBC/ARD/USA Today, ORB, etc. – has produced similar results.

The US probably cannot entirely reverse these attitudes in Iraq, the region, allied states, and increasingly in America. It may well, however, be able to greatly ameliorate them over time. It seems likely that the US will ultimately be judged far more by how it leaves Iraq, and what it leaves behind, than how it entered Iraq. The global political image of the US – and its ability to use both “hard” and “soft” power in other areas in the future, depends on what the US does now even more than on what it has done in the past.

What you are advocating - even though noble and desired by all patriots - is simply not possible.

Time to rethink Iraq - for BOTH sides.

The situation cries out for a bi-partisan solution between Congress and the White House. In order for that to happen BOTH sides have to recognize that neither of them can achieve their goals. The Democratic left is not going to be able to cut and run from Iraq. The Republican right is not going to be able to stay indefinitely, endlessly engaged in a struggle against ghosts.

(Parenthetically, Middle East and military expert Doug Hanson, speaking on my radio show yesterday, put the number of insurgents and potential insurgents in Iraq at “several hundred thousand.” These are former Saddam loyalists who were placed where they are and given instructions just for this kind of scenario happening in Iraq today. What is blood boiling about this number is US intelligence has known since 2005 that we are facing hundreds of thousands of fighters and potential fighters while Rumsfeld was assuring Congress there weren’t more than 20,-25,000.

We can’t kill them all.)

We can’t leave precipitously and we can’t stay forever. What’s the solution? The situation doesn’t lend itself to the easy talking points of either side which is why both my right and left leaning readers and commenters will not be pleased. Believe me, I’d love to write a post on Iraq just once where only one side gave me hell. But the times and situation in Iraq demand a little bit more out of all of us.

The only way out of Iraq that least harms our national security interests (interests made very plain and spelled out in English by Cordesman in his report) and that would leave Iraq with a chance at peace is together. And after we leave, the hard part begins. Staying engaged also would demand a bi-partisan consensus with the acknowledgement by both sides that there may be certain circumstances where we would have to send troops back into Iraq to save it from external threats or other disasters.

Cordesman’s report forms the basis for a long term commitment to Iraq and its people. Do we have the political will to make it happen?

I can dream, can’t I?

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

As our young men and women spend the next month sweating in the 130 degree heat of a Baghdad summer, risking their lives to build a better future for the Iraqi people, the elected representatives of the people of Iraq - men who will have a hand in running that future our military is trying to build for them - have decided to beat the heat and take the month off.

It is totally, completely, incomprehensible.

Their excuse? They’ve got nothing to do:

Lawmakers said the government had yet to present them with any of the laws. The parliament had earlier signaled its intention to go into recess in August after cutting short its summer break that normally starts in July.

“We do not have anything to discuss in the parliament, no laws or constitutional amendments, nothing from the government. Differences between the political factions have delayed the laws,” Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman told Reuters.

The parliament is due to reconvene on September 4, just two weeks before the top U.S. general in Iraq, General David Petraeus, and Washington’s envoy to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, are due to report to Congress on the success of U.S. President George W. Bush’s new Iraq strategy and make recommendations.

Just a second here. Hold the phone. They claim they’ve got nothing to do? How about ironing out some of those “differences between the political factions” that have paralyzed the government these many months. They all know the issues involved; reconciliation, the oil revenue sharing plan, a federalism arrangement for power sharing, local elections, and allowing former Baathist party members to get jobs in government. While they’re at it, they might think of reforming the civil service to deal with rampant corruption, hold some hearings on where those billions in reconstruction money is actually going, and tell Mookie al-Sadr to take a hike.

But hey! They’ve got nothing to do so let them flee the capitol for those sandy beaches in Dubai. I hear the Gulf water is fine this time of year - if you don’t mind the film of oil that covers the surface. Maybe that’s why beach volleyball is so popular although the images of women in burkini’s prancing around on the beach would be enough to drive me back to Baghdad.

Actually, I think we should make those weasels meet outdoors in the same 130 degree heat our boys are enduring. We could strap 100 pounds of gear on them for the whole month and tell them they don’t get to go inside until they come to an agreement on at least some of the political benchmarks set by the Administration and Congress. Just to make it interesting, we could lob a few mortars over their heads once and a while to give them the same feeling our guys are experiencing every time they go out on patrol.

All sorts of images come to mind to describe the utter contempt I feel for these bozos. Nero fiddling while Rome burned is particularly apt although history tells us that Nero didn’t fiddle and that Rome actually needed a good fire to clear out the disease infested slums where the fire began. Things just got a little out of hand, that’s all.

No need to start a fire in Iraq. The conflagration that currently engulfs that bloody country has been burning for 4 years and shows little sign of abating. And there’s still plenty of hatred on all sides of the sectarian divide to feed the flames of violence and death for the foreseeable future. That the Iraqi government has chosen this time of all times to abandon their posts and refuse to continue trying to settle their differences shows a lack of respect for the United States and its president who has expended every ounce of political capital - and some he didn’t have - to keep the American commitment from faltering.

And what of our military? We have stretched the ability of our army to deal with conflicts to the absolute limit. Don’t believe me? Ask the incoming Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

He said he was committed to “resetting, reconstituting and revitalizing our armed forces,” acknowledging, “There is strain. We are stretched.” Although recruitment and retention generally remain good and “morale is still high,” he said, “I worry about the toll this pace of operations is taking on [service members and their families], our equipment and on our ability to respond to other crises and contingencies.

“The U.S. military remains the strongest in all the world, but it is not unbreakable,” Mullen said. “Force reset in all its forms cannot wait until the war in Iraq is over.”

Mullen also had this bit of cheery news about our friends in the Iraqi parliament:

Levin expressed skepticism that Iraqi political leaders can take the necessary steps toward reconciliation, saying they “remain frozen by their history.” He described the Iraqi parliament as “at a standstill,” with nearly every session since November forced to adjourn because too few legislators showed up.

Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) voiced similar doubts about the ability of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government to meet its commitments.

“So the surge is moving forward successfully,” he said. “But the Maliki government is sliding backwards and is failing in the partnership that was established as the predicate, the foundation, for the surge concept.”

It’s not all the PM’s fault. Maliki got the lawmakers to stick around in July, foiling the Council’s plan for two months of lying in the hammock and snoozing the nation’s future away. But for the rest, one can’t help get the feeling that the Prime Minister is just not up to the challenge of enticing the factions to come together and do what is necessary to begin the process of putting Humpty Dumpty back together again. In the end, he appears to me to be an empty suit, tugged this way and that by various Shia factions and totally incapable of standing up to those who thirst for the blood of Sunnis or seek revenge for Saddam’s atrocities.

When General Petreaus delivers his report in September, Congress will have to weigh both the successes and failures of the surge as well as the prospect for any progress from the Iraqi government.

For the former, I have no doubt that there will be encouraging news about the security situation in several parts of the country. As for the latter, while Petreaus may seek to put the best face possible on political developments, the cold hard truth is that the Iraqi Council of Representatives does not reconvene from their fun and games until September 4 - a scant two weeks before the American general must face the Congress and try and convince them that the Iraqis are serious about doing the things they simply must do to heal the gaping wounds in the national polity which fuel the violence that make Iraq such an aching tragedy.

Nothing new on the Scott Thomas Beauchamp matter to report - or at least worth reporting. The fact is, I find the digression into who his wife is, what he blogged about 2 years ago, who he went to school with, or any other minutia the rightosphere has been unearthing these last 24 hours to be irrelevant to the main point.

Indeed, this point seems to have escaped the left’s attention as well. Digby’s post yesterday sums up the view from the left:

But this is bigger than blogospherics. There has been precious little good writing about the actual gritty experiences of average soldiers in these wars. Everything has been so packaged and marketed from the top that it’s very difficult to get a sense of what it’s like over there. I have no idea if this piece is accurate, but regardless it didn’t seem to me to be an indictment of the military in general, merely a description of the kind of gallows humor and garden variety cruelty that would be likely to escalate in violent circumstances. And so far, there has been nothing substantial brought forward to doubt his story — the shrieking nitpicking of the 101st keyboarders notwithstanding.

It certainly should not have have garnered this vicious right wing attack from everyone from Bill Kristol to the lowliest denizens of the right blogosphere. They want to destroy this soldier for describing things that have been described in war reporting since Homer so they can worship “the troops” without having to admit that the whole endeavor is a bloody, horrible mess that only briefly, and rarely, offers opportunity for heroic battlefield courage (which, of course, it sometimes does as well.)

(Read the whole thing for a fascinating glimpse into something I’ve been noticing more and more on the left: This need to practice armchair psychology on the right, laughably - indeed uproariously trying to “explain” why many on the right support the troops or the war. What makes it so amusing is not only their painfully obvious ignorance of psychology but their overarching hubris in believing that their diagnoses are viable.)

I find these thoughts of Digby’s fascinating on several levels. He really doesn’t have a clue the extent to which current and former vets have destroyed Beuachamp’s claims. No doubt he hasn’t bothered to read the debunkings of people who know a helluva lot more about the efficacy of Beauchamp’s stories than he or I. The critiques of the Milbloggers as well as soldiers emailing from Iraq are persuasive and compelling. It is a shame Digby didn’t feel it necessary to grant them the courtesy of reading their admittedly circumstantial but strong case for Beauchamp being a fabulist.

It is equally baffling that Digby downplays the dispatches of several embedded bloggers whose powerful reporting on the “gritty experiences of average soldiers in these wars” is rightfully seen as the best journalism out of Iraq and Afghanistan to date? Michael Yon, Michael Totten (whose detailed Lebanon dispatches have also been far beyond anything you can read in the US except perhaps the English language Arab press), and J.D. Johannes have each, to varying degrees expressed disgust with the way the war was being fought over the last three years as well as revealing bad soldiering and bad leadership. One could hardly call their writings “packaged and marketed from the top.”

What this shows about Digby is an insularity about the war I find common on both the right and left. No one wants to read anything that will shake the foundations of their beliefs about Iraq. Good news is no news for the left as is bad news about the war on the right. Perhaps this is inevitable with the current state of our shattered polity. Challenging long held assumptions gets people out of their comfort zone very quickly and stories like those told by Beauchamp are unsettling as is their attempted debunking for that reason.

Smearing the troops (and yes, that is what Beauchamp was doing and doing it knowingly) goes hand in hand with delegitimizing their efforts. John Cole makes the point that thanks to the attention paid this story by the rightosphere, the smear has spread far and wide whereas before, it was confined to TNR’s dwindling number of readers. There’s something to that notion although if, as seems very probable, much of what Beauchamp was “reporting” from Iraq were either fantasies or rumors presented as fact, certainly it needed to be exposed. But as for all the side issues about Scott Beauchamps wife working for TNR and what he may have written before being deployed seems to me a lot of fluff and non-germane to the real question no one on the left is asking.

Why didn’t TNR vet the stories before going to press?

It could be that they are simply bad journalists in which case anyone involved in getting this story out to the public should be fired. But the most common reason given for running the articles on the right is that Franklin Foer and his staff have an inherent bias against the Iraq War and wished to undermine support for it by publishing false information deliberately.

First, it should be said, support for the war can hardly be “undermined” when 70% of the country has already given up and wants the troops home. The deadly combination of George Bush’s incompetent prosecution of the war and incoherent defense of the reasons for being there along with the deliberate effort by the left to sabotage the war effort by questioning our motives and challenging the integrity and even legitimacy of those in charge has predictably caused the average voter to demand an end to the conflict.

But relating to Beauchamp, the right’s critique of his probable fables is a hollow victory. It will change no one’s mind about the war. It will not prove anything about the military that we don’t already know; that the overwhelming majority of those serving in Iraq are dedicated people who perform their duties honorably but that there are a few whose actions do not reflect well on the history and tradition of the United States Army. This is why Beauchamp’s stories seem plausible to people like Franklin Foer and Digby. Why bother to check the facts if we know this kind of thing happens all the time in Iraq? I see nothing in Digby’s piece that takes TNR to task for just now getting around to checking the accuracy of the incidents portrayed in Beauchamp’s stories which leads me to believe he didn’t think it important either.

But that is the point about the Beauchamp caper; incuriousness on the part of the press in general regarding stories about anything in Iraq - the troops, al-Qaeda, signs of progress or lack thereof, and especially about where much of the news appears to be coming from.

In the defense of journalists, more than 120 members of the press have been killed in Iraq making it the most dangerous war zone for journalists since World War II. It is an almost impossible task to cover the “big picture” for which major publications and the news nets are so fond of reporting. In fact, in a conflict like Iraq, there might not be much of a big picture or perhaps a big picture that has so many pieces to it that it becomes too expensive or too complex to cover. For the press, when in doubt, follow the blood. So because of the difficulty in telling the whole story, the press substitutes body count journalism - so many Iraqis blown up here. So many dead terrorists there. And of course, the solemn, ever rising toll on American families as their loved ones are killed or maimed.

Is this really the best the press can do? Obviously not. And Scott Beauchamp is living proof of both the pitfalls of a different kind of war reporting attempted far too rarely by the media as well as the opportunities it provides.

Is there a “larger truth” about the war to be found in the writings of people like Yon, Totten, and even Beauchamp? It may not be sexy or even very interesting in a modern media sort of way - not with the news taking on all the characteristics of show business - but I believe there is an “overall” being missed by those who cover Iraq for traditional media. It is the simple everyday travails of both the Iraqi people and our men in Iraq that will determine the success or failure of our Iraq adventure.

There is now nor will there ever be some grand denouement to the war. No general will be able to place his boot on the bloody neck of a vanquished al-Qaeda leader and claim victory. Nor I suspect will there be some cataclysmic explosion of violence that will turn Iraq into the haven for al-Qaeda and puppet of Iran. Whatever happens will occur at street level. And it is here that the worm’s eye view of the war by the internet correspondents and the wannabes like Beauchamp have it all over the traditional media.

I was pleased to see that someone decided to spend the time and energy to scientifically debunk the politically motivated statistical study on deaths in Iraq since the invasion published by the Lancet just days before the 2004 election.

First of all, it is important that these charlatans be exposed for the scientific hacks they are. Dr. Les Brown, an epidemiologist, headed the 2004 study which estimated 100,000 or more excess Iraqis had died as a result of our invasion and occupation. What should have been the tip off to the study’s uselessness was the contention that “most of the excess deaths” were the result of violence and that “80% of those deaths were the result of air strikes.”

Unless the US was carrying on a massive bombing campaign that killed tens of thousands of civilians without the media, the UN, the Iraqis themselves, or anyone else knowing anything about it, that statement was either a laughable corruption of statistics or a bald faced lie.

And given this thorough destruction of the study by David Kane, Institute Fellow at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University, the latter explanation may be the most logical.

Much of the math here is mind-numbingly complicated, but Kane’s bottom line is simple: the Lancet authors “cannot reject the null hypothesis that mortality in Iraq is unchanged.” Translation: according to Kane, the confidence interval for the Lancet authors’ main finding is wrong. Had the authors calculated the confidence interval correctly, Kane asserts that they would have failed to identify a statistically significant increase in risk of death in Iraq, let alone the widely-reported 98,000 excess civilian deaths.

An interesting side note: as Kane observes in his paper, the Lancet authors “refuse to provide anyone with the underlying data (or even a precise description of the actual methodology).” The researchers did release some high-level summary data in highly aggregated form (see here), but they released neither the detailed interviewee-level data nor the programming code that would be necessary to replicate their results.

Failing to provide the detailed interviewee-level data and the programming code so that colleagues could duplicate their results thus validating the study is a clear indication that Brown and his crew could have cared less if the study was accurate or even scientifically useful. It is an open question whether they knew the study was flawed which would make their sin a mortal one for a scientist, a transgression that would get you fired from any respectable scientific institution in the world and leave your career in tatters.

The study was a political statement - propaganda in service to people that Brown, whose work was most praiseworthy in Rwanda, should have recognized as kin to the genocidal maniacs who hacked 800,000 tribesmen to death in the 1990’s. The beheaders and mass murderers that we are fighting in Iraq were aided by this study. And Brown and his team should be abjectly ashamed of themselves for knowingly giving them assistance and comfort.

This ethical transgression by Brown should finish his career. Instead, don’t be surprised if he gets the Nobel Peace Prize.

And what of the Lancet? Publishing the study 5 days before the presidential election and then claiming that the publication date was only a coincidence exposes them as frauds and liars. One of the oldest and most respected medical journals on the planet was put in service of a partisan political agenda and in a most cowardly manner, denied it’s motives were anything except pure as the driven snow.

Outrageous.

As we have seen with the Bush Administration, politically motivated science put in service to a specific agenda is extraordinarily damaging. For the Bushies, who have no respect for science in my opinion and see it as a tool to be used to advance their political agenda, everything from the public health to climate change was affected by their cooking the books. But Brown and The Lancet went the Bush Administration one better; they put themselves and their scientific expertise at the disposal of the enemies of civilization. They allowed their animus toward the war, or Bush, or the United States to blind them to the fact that by hurting America’s cause they were helping those who, if given the chance, would just as soon put a bullet in their brains as give them the time of day. It makes no sense.

In the end, this is an esoteric argument. Tens of thousands of Iraqis are dead, most of them innocent women and children. And while it’s true that insurgents and terrorists use civilians as human shields, it is also true that no study, no argument can be made to really defend or obscure the fact that for many Iraqis, this war has been a personal tragedy beyond their ability to bear. Loved ones who have died in crossfire or because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time when a car bomb went off, or simply because a mistake was made by American forces are lost forever. They cannot be brought back by bogus studies or “supporting the troops” or “winning through to victory” or political posturing here at home. Dead is dead. And we don’t need cooked statistics published by ethically challenged journals to tell us of the immense pain and human toll our war of choice is costing the Iraqi people.

Iraq is an open wound, bleeding as a result of our ministrations. Even though the surge is showing some signs of success in some areas - less so in others, the political differences that divide the country are a chasm that no one seems willing or able to bridge. Until the Iraqis decide they wish to live together in peace, the body count will continue to rise. The only question is will more die if we leave than if we stay.

And no one knows the answer - no one has any answers that would allow us the luxury of a quick exit.

UPDATE

Vindication for Shannon Love of Chicago Boyz whose series of posts on the study back in 2004 I relied on for my own piece questioning the study.

Kane shows that if the Falluja cluster is included in the statistical calculations, the confidence interval dips below zero, which is a big no-no. Since the study’s raw data remain a closely guarded secret, Kane cannot be absolutely certain that the inclusion of the Falluja cluster renders the study mathematically invalid…

Ah, vindication is sweet.

I find the imbroglio over Senator Barak Obama’s remark that he would be willing to meet with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea without pre-conditions amusing on several levels.

First, who is surprised that a man of the far left would be naive enough to make himself available as a propaganda tool for our deadliest enemies? The belief among liberals that their purity of heart and plain, simple goodness will warm the cockles of beasts like Assad or Kim Jong Il has been part and parcel of lefty dogma since before Americans were accused of having “an inordinate fear of communism.”

Hence, the man who uttered those words before visiting Moscow and kissing a senile Brezhnev on the cheek 5 months before the old coot ordered Soviet troops into Afghanistan could genuinely be heartbroken at such a monstrous betrayal of “trust.” Who would have guessed that the Soviets would double cross us like that?

The answer at the time was just about anyone who chose to see the Soviets for what they were.

Obama seems to have a similar problem in identifying the difference between genuine diplomacy and handing an opponent your head on a platter. Perhaps he should ask Nancy Pelosi, the highest ranking American leader to visit with President Bashar Assad of Syria in many years how well that kind of face to face diplomacy works.

Since Pelosi’s disastrous visit with Assad (in which she embarrassed herself and the United States by claiming she passed along a message of peace from Prime Minister Olmert - a notion quickly and brutally shot down by the Israeli foreign office) President Assad has proven just how easily he played his American visitor for a fool.

Just exactly what has the Syrian President been up to since that April visit?

* He let loose the Palestinian/al-Qaeda inspired terrorist group Fatah al-Islam on the Lebanese government.

* His forces have occupied areas inside the Lebanese border, building revetments and digging trenches.

* The flow of foreign fighters into Iraq - about 80 a month - has not slackened one bit.

* According to the UN he has resupplied Hebzbullah with arms and missiles to the point that the terrorist group has bragged they are as strong today as they were prior to their aggression against Israel last summer.

* He has continued his attempts to intimidate the Lebanese government, trying to force them into bringing the pro-Syrian opposition to power.

This is what has been confirmed. Much more troublemaking by Assad has been suspected including plots to murder anti-Syrian Lebanese as well as foment a civil war in that tiny country. And his plans to destabilize the Golan Heights the same way he’s roiling the streets of Lebanon are well known by the Israelis.

What Pelosi’s face to face meeting accomplished was clear; zero for America and a PR triumph for Assad. Even non-competitive liberals have got to see that score as a losing proposition.

Now take Pelosi’s gaffe and imagine President Obama in Caracas with that smiling goat of a President-for-life Chavez introducing our hero to the multitudes of Venezuelans paid to go into the streets (or perhaps genuinely curious to see an American president handing a sworn enemy a propaganda coup). Does Chavez inch away from Tehran. Does he drop his support of the drug cartel/terrorists/communist revolutionaries in FARC? Does he stop his meddling in other South American countries?

Not likely. But Chavez has gotten exactly what he wants - legitimacy offered up on a silver platter by an American president.

Hillary has called Obama’s plan to take the 50 cent tour of America’s enemies “irresponsible and naive.” Actually, she’s probably upset she didn’t think of it first. For his part, Obama was backtracking but only slightly:

“What she’s somehow maintaining is my statement could be construed as not having asked what the meeting was about. I didn’t say these guys were going to come over for a cup of coffee some afternoon,” he said.

He added Clinton is making a larger point.

“From what I heard, the point was, well, I wouldn’t do that because it might allow leaders like Hugo Chavez to score propaganda points,” he said. “I think that is absolutely wrong.”

He likened the position to a continuation of the Bush administration diplomatic policies. And he said what was “irresponsible and naive” was voting to authorize the Iraq War.

I gather from those comments that as long as there was an agenda for such meetings, he’d attend. Fair enough. But Hillary’s point was that beyond an agenda, diplomacy is a two way street. In other words “What’s in it for us?”

Atmospherics mean little when Iran is trying to bring the entire post World War II structure of alliances and relationships crashing down in order to drive America and the west out of the Middle East. Is there anything Iran can give us - or say anything that we’d believe - that would stop their march toward dominance? The optimists like Hillary would probably say yes. And I shudder to think what she’d be willing to trade for that.

I’d like to believe that Obama’s gaffe would hurt him in the primaries. But from what I’m reading today on lefty blogs, most think the controversy is a non-issue invented by Hillary or actually support the notion of an American president giving a boost to our enemies stature and legitimacy. Most often, the precedent of talking to the Russians comes up in response to foreign policy realists who object to talking to the Damascus Don or the Tehran Terror Enabler. But just what were the Soviets after in agreeing to all of those summits - which were years in planning and carefully scripted? Nothing less than recognition that they were an equal with the United States in superpower status. The fact that they had 25,000 nuclear weapons aimed at us made that a reality that had to be dealt with.

But what of pissant dictators like Chavez? Do we offer him the same stature building, the same legitimacy? What the hell for? No matter what he says, he can’t be trusted to stop trying to foment revolutions in Latin America. Ditto the Iranians and Syrians as far as trusting them to be good global citizens. (Cuba may not be a problem by November of 2008 and Kim may be in a Chinese box by then as well.)

What makes these countries enemies is their desire to damage the interests of the United States. There is nothing concrete that we could offer them that would change that goal. No matter how much spadework was done by our diplomats and envoys, the fact is we would be giving these cutthroats exactly what they want without getting anything of substance in return. Why both Hillary and Obama would even contemplate such meetings only shows that atmospherics will always mean more to the left than what can be accomplished in the real world. And despite talk of our “broken military” and our “waning influence” in the world, I guarantee you that such nonsense is not on the agenda of leadership meetings in Iran and Syria. Potential targets inside their country for American bombs is, however, at the top of the list.

In the end, it is that perception that will modify the behavior of Iran and Syria, not the smiling, good hearted entreaties of naive American presidents who think that because the voters of America found them irresistible that the brutes who wish us ill would similarly be charmed.

Amid talk of end games, withdrawals, and timetables for the American military leaving Iraq, precious little is being said of the consequences if we stay, albeit with a much reduced force.

Yes more Americans will die. And more Iraqis. Perhaps many more Iraqis if some of the more extremist Shia elements get their way. But frankly, I’m puzzled by those who wish to see the US military policing Baghdad for the next ten years as well as those who think withdrawing every American soldier from Iraq is the best outcome available.

This piece by Timothy Garton Ash appearing in the Los Angeles Times actually makes the case - unintentionally - that we should not only stay in Iraq but institute a draft and take the country to a full war footing:

In an article for the Web magazine Open Democracy, Middle East specialist Fred Halliday spells out some regional consequences. Besides the effective destruction of the Iraqi state, these include the revitalizing of militant Islamism and enhancement of the international appeal of the Al Qaeda brand; the eruption, for the first time in modern history, of internecine war between Sunni and Shiite, “a trend that reverberates in other states of mixed confessional composition”; the alienation of most sectors of Turkish politics from the West and the stimulation of authoritarian nationalism there; the strengthening of a nuclear-hungry Iran; and a new regional rivalry pitting the Islamic Republic of Iran and its allies, including Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, against Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan.

For the United States, the world is now, as a result of the Iraq war, a more dangerous place. At the end of 2002, what is sometimes tagged “Al Qaeda Central” in Afghanistan had been virtually destroyed, and there was no Al Qaeda in Iraq. In 2007, there is an Al Qaeda in Iraq, parts of the old Al Qaeda are creeping back into Afghanistan and there are Al Qaeda emulators spawning elsewhere, notably in Europe.

Osama bin Laden’s plan was to get the U.S. to overreact and overreach itself. With the invasion of Iraq, Bush fell slap-bang into that trap. The U.S. government’s own latest National Intelligence Estimate, released this week, suggests that Al Qaeda in Iraq is now among the most significant threats to the security of the American homeland.

Would someone please tell me why, after listing the most dire consequences that will flow from our withdrawal that anyone in their right mind would even contemplate such a move?

Why give up and leave when the world will fall upon our head? Why remove all of our troops if our strategic position in the Middle East will suffer such a grievous blow? Why skedaddle and give Osama Bin Laden his victory?

The de facto argument of people like Ash and those on the left is that there is nothing that can be done to prevent this catastrophe so we might as well get out of the way and allow it to happen. Obama said as much yesterday with regard to Sunni genocide:

Well, look, if that’s the criteria by which we are making decisions on the deployment of U.S. forces, then by that argument you would have 300,000 troops in the Congo right now — where millions have been slaughtered as a consequence of ethnic strife — which we haven’t done,” Obama said in an interview with The Associated Press.

“We would be deploying unilaterally and occupying the Sudan, which we haven’t done. Those of us who care about Darfur don’t think it would be a good idea,” he said.

It is bothersome that liberals like Obama can’t differentiate between a humanitarian mission where American interests (oil, economic, strategic) are not in play and a place like Iraq where we are not only responsible for breaking the china but have spent the last 4 years stumbling around like a blindfolded bull in a curio shop. Iraq is, if nothing else, of extraordinary importance to our national security and our interest in seeing that the free flow of cheap oil continues from the Middle East.

But this is much to selfish for the average lefty. When they look in the mirror, they want to see self-sacrifice as the price of going to war. It feeds their heroic self-image to believe that we are sacrificing American lives (not theirs, of course) for no discernible American advantage. Grubby questions about whether military action would benefit the United States in any way simply never enters into the equation. And if they do, the questions are dismissed or disparaged as “war mongering.”

We saw the exact same crap in Kosovo and Bosnia. Liberals are not in favor of military action unless it can be seen as an act of self-abnegation. This explains a lot about why they wish to see such a precipitate and total withdrawal from Iraq. They want to punish the United States for acting in its own interest.

But is it true that all is lost in Iraq? Can any of the consequences listed by Ash above be mitigated or stopped?

Of course they can. We can’t create a civil society in Iraq with our military. That much is certainly true. But preventing a regional Shia-Sunni war? I daresay with 130,000 troops (even fewer if you believe people like Senators Lugar and Domenici) we can keep the two sides outside of Iraq from going at each other’s throats. Preventing the “destruction of the Iraqi state?” With enough troops, this too is possible. It won’t be a healthy state. It won’t be a democracy (if we can get Bush to drop his unquestioned support for the sectarian killers who are currently running Iraq). But with enough troops we can continue to battle al-Qaeda while our very presence may deter the worst of the sectarian massacres.

Turkey’s internal political struggles will continue whether we are in or out of Iraq. But it would help Prime Minister Erdogan in maintaining a secular state if we could reinforce the 3,000 troops we already have at the border and work with our NATO ally to prevent the Kurdish terrorists from striking inside Turkey.

Also with enough American troops in Iraq, Iran would feel constrained from being too aggressive. Yes, they’d meddle in Iraqi affairs and keep up the pressure elsewhere using their proxies to stir up trouble. But Iran has their own internal problems and it’s an open question just how the future will play out. And, of course, Iraq could be the launching pad for any kind of strike at Iran if it ever became necessary - something that would certainly play on the minds of the Iranian leadership if we stay in sufficient numbers.

The point is anything is better than the catastrophe outlined above and echoed by many experts who see our withdrawal in such stark, unforgiving terms. Are all of these people so anxious to see their prophecies fulfilled that they can’t wait for American troops to leave so that the show can begin? To not even try to head off this monumental blow to our security is just plain daffy.

And to my righty friends who insist on believing that victory on the battlefield will translate into an Iraq with a functioning government that represents all the people while creating some kind of viable, multi-sectarian state I would point out that the military doesn’t do faith. Nor do they do trust. Nor do they do hope. And without those three attributes, Iraqi society will remain what it is today - a broken mess teeming with hate and vengeance.

If we are going to salvage something from this military adventure while heading off the worst of the fallout from our invasion and occupation, we are going to have to get used to the idea that while the security situation may become tolerable, Iraq will not improve dramatically for many years. In the interregnum, the death squads will be ever present while the elements pushing for a “cleansing” of Sunnis from the country will continue to agitate for genocide. It will not be pretty nor will it be democratic. But if we can maintain a large enough force there, it may prevent the kind of catastrophe that so many experts are predicting but failing to offer any rationale why this is acceptable.

And Bush? If Iraq is as important as he says it is. If the stakes are so high. If it is a matter of the highest national security interest of the United States that we stay in Iraq and continue to involve ourselves directly in this civil war, then why only 160,000 men? Why not strip foreign postings of troops and send them to Iraq? Why not call up the rest of the reserves, initiate a draft, put a gun in the hand of any soldier that can walk and send them to points north, south, east, and west in that bloody country to truly get a handle on all aspects of the security situation; the insurgency, al-Qaeda, the militias, the foreign jihadists - anyone who opposes the government or us?

If Iraq was that important, shouldn’t we be doing at least some of these things? Bush will have a lot to answer for from history but his monumental failure in articulating what is at stake in Iraq while failing to make his actions match his rhetoric will be perhaps his greatest blunder. No wonder the American people want out. When their president has failed so miserably in giving them logical, coherent reasons to support the mission, why not just give up and go home?

We can still prevent the kind of catastrophe mentioned by Halliday and predicted by many others. Unfortunately, it would take leadership to do so. A leader in the White House that would do everything in his power to prevent the unthinkable. But Bush seems oblivious to differentiating between his vision for Iraq and what is actually required to avoid a serious blow to American interests. And that kind of stubbornness will truly lead to a disaster of epic proportions in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Harry Reid wasn’t pulling any punches in this call to action on the Democrat’s Senate blog:

The high temperature in Baghdad today is 113 degrees. But our troops will wear their 100 pounds of gear and bravely go about the jobs that they are given. By nightfall, it is likely that some of them will die. It is certain that more will be wounded. The rest will end another day on foreign sand, not knowing when they will come home to American soil.

“Those 160,000 troops are heroes. Every single one of them. They are serving with courage despite enormous hardships and without even proper equipment. They are serving with courage despite a President who took us into war falsely, prematurely and recklessly. They are serving with courage despite a President who refused to form a coalition of nations to share their awful burden of sacrifice. They are serving with courage despite a President who has never had a plan for peace. And they are serving with courage despite Republicans in Congress who are blocking us from passing laws that will bring a responsible end to the war.

(Italicized portions could have been lifted from 10,000 blog posts and Democratic campaign speeches over the last 4 years. Ed.)

“I want everyone here tonight – every American from coast to coast – to know that we won’t stop fighting until we end this war. That is what this night is all about.

Elegant, symmetrical, logical - and utterly false. Does Harry think people have forgotten that our boys sat in the desert for nearly 5 months waiting on the UN, waiting on our allies, waiting on Saddam to simply comply with one - just one - of the 11 Security Council resolutions passed in the previous ten years? Bush didn’t “refuse” to form a coalition. That would have meant that others offered to help and he turned them down. Or that he didn’t ask our allies for help. Nothing of the sort happened, of course, which makes Harry Reid a bald faced liar about that and other facets of his rewritten history. I will have to congratulate him for condensing The Narrative into two or three paragraphs of pungent, if overwrought prose. And, of course, it is to one end only that all of this hysteria is being ginned up.

Ending the war is easy, Harry. The hard part is answering the question then what?

Despite warnings of catastrophe in Iraq if we pull out precipitously from just about every analyst who has bothered to look at the problem of our disengagement - good, smart people from both parties and both ends of the political spectrum - the Democrats insisted on going to the mattresses last night in their war against a man that they have allowed their hate and loathing to overtake any semblance of common sense and patriotism.

And lest anyone think the Democrats “changing course” in Iraq means that they have a plan to end the war, here’s Senator Levin on that subject:

Does Congress pass legislation to instruct the President on the details of a withdrawal? Do they dictate terms on how to involve NATO or other allies? Or even on how to negotiate with Iran and Syria over the withdrawal? And what if something happens to U.S. troops during the pullout or Iraq rapidly plunges into a bloody civil war as U.S. troops are leaving? Who is to blame? Bush? Congress?

“Those are not decisions that I’m either going to make, or get involved with,” Senate Armed Forces Committee Chairman Carl Levin told TIME. “Assuming everything worked out perfectly, that’s the middle of next year, that’s early next year, so that’s not something that’s we’re focusing on.”

In other words, folks, last night was not about policy. It was not about loving the troops so much you want to bring them home. It was not about any concern whatsoever for Iraq and what would happen if we leave - even in an orderly manner.

Last night was about the politics of blame pure and simple. It was about the Democrats being terrified that caving in to their base on Iraq and bringing the troops home in a Dunkirk style evacuation will precipitate a chain of events in Iraq and the Middle East that would result in genocide, war, and al-Qaeda triumphant.

Being politicians with finely honed instincts for survival and with absolutely no clue about what to do in Iraq (join the club, guys), they seek to shift responsibility for the coming catastrophe precipitated by our withdrawal and all the blunders, errors, mistakes, and stupidities that have marked our adventure in Mesopotamia these last 4 years in order to be able to face the voters and point the finger at their political foes.

This will no doubt serve the purpose of getting them re-elected. And it will also probably serve to increase their numbers substantially when Congress convenes in January of 2009.

But at what price? Remember, the Democrats do not have a plan, do not have a clue on what to do next in Iraq. The “timetable” is a smokescreen. They no more expect Bush to meet that timetable than they do pigs to fly. It is political gamesmanship, nothing more.

Meeting this timetable would lead to rivers of blood being spilled. Bush won’t do it which is great political news for the Democrats. Just think of all the opportunities they will have between now and the election to get up on the floor of the House or Senate and rail against the President and Republicans for not meeting their demands to “end the war.” The Democrats no more want to end the war than al-Qaeda does. “Ending the war” now wouldn’t end anything in Iraq. It would only be the beginning - and Democrats want to be absolutely certain that the resulting chaos and destruction leaves them lily white and blameless.

I suppose it’s too much to ask politicians to put the needs of the country first and their careers and party subservient to that. But one would think that when it comes to confronting the truly great issues of our time, politicians would act like leaders and not screaming infants who have wet their pants or worse, juveniles on a playground sticking out their tongues at one another, trying to shift blame for starting a fight to the other kid.

In the meantime, the Administration remains committed to giving General Petraeus until September to make things better in Iraq. A tall order, that. The Iraqi Parliament, charged with nothing less than saving their country from a bloodbath by coming to grips with issues of power sharing, reconciliation, and political salvation, have decided that August in Bagdad is much to hot and will go into recess in order to cool off.

No word on how our boys, humping 100 pounds of gear in 130 degree heat, risking their lives to give the Iraqi government a chance to deal with its problems might feel about Iraqi parliamentarians taking a break to go to the beach in Dubai. Perhaps we should give them a vacation too. They’ve earned it a helluva lot more than the faithless Iraqi government whose intransigence on every single political issue vitally necessary to bringing their country together is making Petreaus and our boys work themselves to exhaustion for nothing.

Eventually, the Democrats will win out and they’ll get their timetable. And that’s when the pressure from the netnuts will really begin. Democrats will be forced to try and hold Bush’s feet to the fire on sticking to the evacuation while all hell is breaking loose in Iraq. This will give the Democrats additional opportunities to posture. We’ll have more votes about funding the war with more direction from Congress about how to skedaddle in the face of al-Qaeda terrorism and attacks. And the closer to the election, they more strident and unreasonable they will become.

That is, until a Democrat is elected President. Then the calls for bi-partisan unity will ring from the Capitol Dome and all will be peace and harmony. Perhaps they can all get a head start and do that “bi-partisan unity” thing starting now.

Fat chance.

I don’t deliberately set out to anger you, oh gentle and discerning reader, but there are times after I read something about the war that spells out in excruciating detail the monumental problems facing the United States, our military, and especially the Iraqi government, that I can’t help wishing I could take some of you, grab you by the shoulders, and try and shake some sense into you.

If that sounds arrogant, I apologize. But since most conservative websites either refuse to examine some of these issues or are unaware of them or simply ignore them, I figure where else are you going to get the whole story? The MSM, mired in body count journalism won’t give it to you. Even lefty sites don’t bother to examine most of the problems facing us in Iraq. They’re too busy using the war as a political club to beat Republicans over the head or denigrate conservatives to care much what happens to the Iraqi people.

But you and I have come a long way with the people of Iraq. We cheered their first tentative steps toward democracy. We marvel at their courage as they daily face the blood and chaos fomented by both internal thugs and outside forces. But they have been ill-served by a leadership mired in sectarianism and paralyzed by division.

And the hell of it is, there’s precious little we can do to help.

To illustrate that point, allow me to quote extensively from a piece that appeared in the Boston Globe by Robert Malley and Peter Harling of the International Crisis Group. The ICG is one of those earnest left wing internationalist groups that churn out studies and papers about areas of the world in conflict. They play it mostly straight, politics wise - except regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict where they have a decidedly anti-Israeli bias in my opinion. Having said that, they’ve got some pretty brilliant and experienced people who know their stuff that write for them which makes reading their analyses on Iraq a pre-requisite for understanding the conflict. Their insights into the sectarianism, the tribal squabbles, the shifting power centers all contribute to our understanding of the big picture.

They begin by looking past the surge:

TO IMAGINE what Baghdad will look like after the surge, there is no need to project far into the future. Instead, just turn to the recent past. Between September 2006 and March 2007, British forces conducted Operation Sinbad in Basra, Iraq’s second largest city. At first, there were signs of progress: diminished violence, criminality, and overall chaos. But these turned out to be superficial and depressingly fleeting. Only a few months after the operation came to an end, old habits resurfaced. Today, political tensions once again are destabilizing the city; relentless attacks against British forces have driven them off the streets; and the southern city is under the control of militias, more powerful and less inhibited than before.

Operation Sinbad, like the surge, was premised on belief that heightened British military power would help rout out militias, provide space for local leaders to rebuild the city, and ultimately hand security over to newly vetted and more professional Iraqi security forces. It did nothing of the sort. A military strategy that failed to challenge the dominant power structure and political makeup, no matter how muscular it was, simply could not alter the underlying dynamic: A political arena dominated by parties — those the British embraced, no less than those they fought — engaged in a bloody competition over power and resources.

So, what happened? While British forces were struggling to suppress the violence, the parties and organizations operating on the public scene never felt the need to modify their behavior. Militias were not defeated; they went underground or, more often, were absorbed into existing security forces. One resident after another told us they witnessed murders committed by individuals dressed in security force uniform. This, of course, with total impunity since the parties that infiltrate the security services also ensure that their own don’t get punished.

We’ve seen this same scenario being played out in Baghdad. Militias melt away or hide in plain sight as members of the security services. And despite a purge of 10,000 employees of the Interior Ministry suspected of ties to Iran as well as death squad activity, the Ministry is still a hotbed of sectarian violence. That’s because the Ministry oversees approximately a dozen different security forces and it is impossible to determine which ones have gone rogue. Forces to guard the oil fields and oil infrastructure, forces to guard prominent Iraqi politicians, forces connected with other ministries used mostly to protect civilian employees and headquarters buildings - all have been fingered at one time or another as carrying out death squad activities. And they do so usually with the assistance or tacit approval of the police who are also heavily infiltrated by militias. Purging the police units caught helping the death squads doesn’t seem to be to solving the problem.

And there are other parallels with Basra as well. Baghdad has many centers of power and like Basra, we appear not to be challenging the important ones. We’re sniping at the Mahdi Army by going after some of the top commanders who appear to be operating independently of Muqtada al-Sadr’s influence as well as targeting the Iranian trained Quds collaborators in the Iraqi police force. But that’s a drop in the bucket and we know it. This is why disarming the militias was included as a political benchmark to be carried out by the Iraqi government and not a military goal of the surge. How the influence of the militias is going to shake out after the surge is over will determine how much peace there will be in Baghdad.

And if you’re thinking about the Provisional Reconstruction Teams (PRT’s) being able to do much good at rebuilding the country, here’s the British experience in Basra:

Likewise, little was done to rebuild the city. Instead, the leading parties maintained their predatory practices, scrambling to take advantage of available public resources, contracts, or jobs. Oil contraband is an open secret, acknowledged even by a fighter in Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi army, who told us that “when Moqtada al-Sadr met with representatives . . . in Basra, he scratched his nose and said, ‘ I smell the smell of gasoline’ — his way of accusing his own representatives of smuggling oil.” Fadhila siphons diesel off at the source; others drill holes into pipelines. The public sector as a whole is rife with corruption — instance of mammoth-sized projects that have delivered virtually nothing are legion — malfeasance and partisan hiring.

In short, Operation Sinbad, at best, froze in place the existing situation and balance of power, creating an illusory stability that concealed a brutal and collective tug-of-war-in-waiting. Once the British version of the surge ebbed, the struggle reignited.

For Baghdad, the implications are as clear as they are ominous. Basra is a microcosm of the country as a whole, in its multiple and multiplying forms of violence. In the southern city, strife generally has little to do with sectarianism or anti-occupation resistance, both of which are far more prominent in the capital or Iraq’s center. Instead, it involves the systematic misuse of official institutions, political assassinations, tribal vendettas, neighborhood vigilantism, together with the rise of criminal mafias that increasingly are indistinguishable from political actors. This means that even should the armed opposition weaken, even should sectarian tensions abate, and even should the surge momentarily succeed, Basra’s fate is likely to be replicated throughout the country on a larger, more chaotic, and more dangerous scale.

If you’ve been reading this site for the last year or so, you know that the last sentence rings true. And given the fact that come March, the numbers of American troops will start declining (unless the Administration wants to extend the army’s tours again), the situation outlined above will present the Administration and the American people with a huge problem.

Iraq really has become the stickiest of tar babies; we can’t withdraw too precipitously, if at all and yet our military cannot do much of anything to help solve Iraq’s massive political, sectarian, and security problems. We are well and truly stuck. We can’t move forward and we can’t go back. Here’s American Ambassador Ryan Crocker:

“You can’t build a whole policy on a fear of a negative, but, boy, you’ve really got to account for it,” Mr. Crocker said Saturday in an interview at his office in Saddam Hussein’s old Republican Palace, now the seat of American power here. Setting out what he said was not a policy prescription but a review of issues that needed to be weighed, the ambassador compared Iraq’s current violence to the early scenes of a gruesome movie.

“In the States, it’s like we’re in the last half of the third reel of a three-reel movie, and all we have to do is decide we’re done here, and the credits come up, and the lights come on, and we leave the theater and go on to something else,” he said. “Whereas out here, you’re just getting into the first reel of five reels,” he added, “and as ugly as the first reel has been, the other four and a half are going to be way, way worse.”

That from our own Ambassador. I would guess that with talk like that, it will be impossible come September to maintain any political will in Congress to continue with the surge - especially since Crocker is already lowering the bar by dismissing benchmarks as a reasonable way to measure progress in Iraq:

The ambassador also suggested what is likely to be another core element of the approach that he and General Petraeus will take to the September report: that the so-called benchmarks for Iraqi government performance set by Congress in a defense authorization bill this spring may not be the best way of assessing whether the United States has a partner in the Baghdad government that warrants continued American military backing. “The longer I’m here, the more I’m persuaded that Iraq cannot be analyzed by these kind of discrete benchmarks,” he said.

After the Iraqi government drew up the first list of benchmarks last year, American officials used them as their yardstick, frequently faulting the Iraqis for failure to act on them, especially on three items the Americans identified as priorities: a new oil law sharing revenue between Iraq’s main population groups; a new “de-Baathification” law widening access to government jobs to members of Saddam Hussein’s former ruling party; and a law scheduling provincial elections to choose representative governments in areas where Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds are competing for power.

But Mr. Crocker said there were better ways to measure progress, including the levels of security across Iraq, progress in delivering basic services like electricity to the population, and steps by Iraqi leaders from rival groups to work more collaboratively.

I’m afraid this won’t sit well with Congress if Crocker and Petreaus abandon benchmarks as a gauge of Iraqi progress. I don’t believe Crocker understands how tenuous a thread the President is holding his war coalition together. He can have all the determination in the world to see the conflict through to some kind of solution we could live with. But it won’t matter if a dozen or Senators and a couple of dozen Congressmen abandon him on Iraq.

Greg Djerjian, war supporter and Bush booster when the war started, has been a gloomy voice on Iraq over the last 18 months. I think he nails it here:

For the grim realities are these: we are in a massive and exceedingly dangerous mess in Iraq, one where if we pull out precipitously, neighbors are likelier to come in full-bore, the civil war will turn even more brutal, and genocidal actions on a scale not yet seen since the American invasion could result. Meantime, it is crystal-clear, given these stakes, that an immediate withdrawal is not going to happen, even if you think it’s, all told, the wisest course, as no consensus can be built around such a policy at this time. Even harsh Administration critics like Tony Zinni counsel against it.

We are therefore left with a feeling that our best hope is the ISG plan, which I don’t think has been overtaken by circumstances simply because its findings were published over six months ago. If anything, its findings are even more urgent, with regionalization of the conflict looming with the Turks massing more troops on the Kurdish frontier. And is the situation no longer “grave and deteriorating”, as the ISG found? Only more so, of course, as the clock keeps ticking.

There are actually two separate clocks; a countdown to September’s crucial debate and the clock in the heads of many GOP Congressmen and Senators. How long can they stick with the President without permanently damaging their careers? Their answer to that question will determine how much longer the surge will continue before we start to draw down our forces.

For you lefty trolls out there, here’s some red meat to go with your scrambled eggs and coffee this morning.

And for my conservative friends who enjoy a little introspection on a lazy summer Saturday, here’s a piece that will will give you something to think about while you’re on the golf course waiting for the idiots on the green to stop dicking around and putt already.

First, it appears that Chertoff’s “gut feeling” about an impending attack is being taken seriously by some people in the government. Or, if you’re inclined to wear the latest fashion in tin foil chapeaus (Reynolds Wrap Haute couture is all the rage this summer) it’s just more evidence of Administration tomfoolery with terror alerts:

Fearing a possible coded signal to attack, U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials are studying an unusual pattern of words in the latest audiotape from al Qaeda’s No. 2 man, Ayman al Zawahri.

On the tape, posted on the Internet Wednesday, Zawahri repeats one phrase three times at the end of his message.

Have I not conveyed? Oh God be my witness.

Have I not conveyed? Oh God be my witness.

Have I not conveyed? Oh God be my witness.

A new FBI analysis of al Qaeda messages, obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com, warns that “continued messages that convey their strategic intent to strike the U.S. homeland and U.S. interests worldwide should not be discounted as merely deceptive noise.”

A far cry from “John has a long mustache” or “Wounds my heart with a monotonous languor,” no?

Be that as it may, the FBI and Homeland Security seem to be taking this latest threat more seriously than some others lately. As for many on the left, not so much:

Let’s set aside for a moment the hollowness of the threat. Frankly the London and Glasgow plots were ill-conceived and miserably executed. It wouldn’t take much to “dwarf” them. Letting off a firecracker in a movie theater, for example.

First, this smacks of more fear-mongering by the administration. Chertoff had a “gut feeling” we’re going to be attacked, and now you see the media dutifully stoke up the panic with crap stories like this. (Yeah, a Taliban leader threatened big attacks in the US. And the head coach of the Raiders vowed to take his team to the playoffs.) The administration has a history of tweaking with terror alerts and fantasy plots to influence politics. That’s worthy of both impeachment and a swift kick in the *ss.

Second, if this threat is real and imminent, and something actually happens — it’s not the shrapnel I’ll be worrying about, it’ll be the overreaction of the government. This a group of thugs that kidnaps, tortures, and spies on its own people in times of safety. Think what they’ll do when the sh*t flies. Not to mention their track record against your standard-issue emergencies like, say, hurricanes.

I do not want these people in power in a time of emergency.

Well, whether you want them or not, they’re it and it does little good to fantasize about a Pelosi regime doing anything different.

Which brings me to the point of today’s ramblings; the respective views on terrorism and terrorist threats by the two sides and why, because of the viciousness and polarization of our politics, each side sees the other as a bigger threat than the terrorists.

One of the more thoughtful people blogging today is Matthew Yglesias:

Rick Santorum, appearing on the Hugh Hewitt show, predicts “some unfortunate events, that like we’re seeing unfold in the UK” over the next eighteen months or so that are going to lead people to have a “very different view” of the war in Iraq and the vital importance of “confronting Iran in the Middle East.” Avedon Carol wonders if it shouldn’t “concern us that Republicans are constantly talking about how people will all wise up when the next terrorist attack at home comes?” After all, they seem to really be “looking forward to it, and they take great delight in the thought that, by God, people will see things differently when it happens.”

There’s really, even, a larger structural issue here. Namely that while clearly on some level the conservative movement would like to make the country safer from terrorism, on another level everyone knows that mass fear of foreign threats to Americans’ physical security are a boon to the conservative movement’s fortune. On the one hand, this creates systematic incentives to overstate the extent and nature of the real threats facing America. On the other hand, it creates systematic incentives to ensure that such threats as do exist are never ameliorated. In particular, it gives everyone a very strong self-interest in not understanding the extent to which overreacting can be counterproductive since both the overreaction itself and the counterproductive blowback may serve the interests of the Republican Party.

On a superficial level, conservatives must plead guilty as charged. There is a belief by conservatives (not a “wish” or “desire”) that another terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11 would expose the liberal narrative on the War on Terror for what it is; an extraordinary myopic and paranoid view of the threat facing us and of the government charged with protecting us. This narrative is fairly consistent in downplaying the abilities of the enemy, complaining about false or faked terror alerts, ridiculing conservatives for reporting on successful or failed terrorist attacks, and generally positing the notion that the entire War on Terror is a manufactured political sideshow put on by the Bush Administration to jack up fear so that they can tear up the Constitution and set up a dictatorship.

Variations of that narrative exist depending on the reasonableness and thoughtfulness of the liberal writing about it. Some, like Yglesias, take the threat seriously but have huge problems (as many conservatives do) with the Bush Administration’s prosecution of the wider war. Others who are not quite as reasonable or thoughtful have a different perspective:

Democrat John Edwards Wednesday repudiated the notion that there is a “global war on terror,” calling it an ideological doctrine advanced by the Bush administration that has strained American military resources and emboldened terrorists.
In a defense policy speech he planned to deliver at the Council on Foreign Relations, Edwards called the war on terror a “bumper sticker” slogan Bush had used to justify everything from abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison to the invasion of Iraq.

“We need a post-Bush, post-9/11, post-Iraq military that is mission focused on protecting Americans from 21st century threats, not misused for discredited ideological purposes,” Edwards said in remarks prepared for delivery. “By framing this as a war, we have walked right into the trap the terrorists have set—that we are engaged in some kind of clash of civilizations and a war on Islam.”

The mass of Muslims who believe we are attacking all of Islam and not the radical minority are beholden to that idea not because we’ve framed the issue as a war but because of al-Qaeda and other radical Islamic propaganda - something Edwards himself has apparently fallen for. A couple of statements by ignorant American officials (including the President’s incredibly dumb “crusade” remark) that have been played up in Islamic countries do not reflect the policy of the US government in any way. If Edwards wants to criticize our own propaganda efforts, that would be a legitimate criticism. But his adherence to The Narrative in talking about the war as an ideological exercise by the Administration serves to proves my point.

But getting back to Yglesias and his thesis; that while “the conservative movement would like to make the country safer from terrorism, on another level everyone knows that mass fear of foreign threats to Americans’ physical security are a boon to the conservative movement’s fortune…”

The unwritten companion to that idea that Yglesias leaves out is that the reason conservative “fortunes” soar as a result of threats to the homeland is because of the perceived (and in my opinion, rightly so) weakness of the left on security issues. This is not an issue of smoke and mirrors but rather a decades long retreat from the left’s belief in an assertive American foreign policy and funding a military machine to back it up. The modern left never met a weapons system they didn’t try to kill at some point nor has there been an assertive move to protect American interests in the last several decades that they have supported. The American people have taken note of this and voted accordingly.

But what of the notion that this political advantage by conservatives is deliberately fostered by overstating the threat facing us and that this leads to creating “systematic incentives” to make sure the war continues ad infinitum?

The two issues should have been separated by Yglesias because they deal with two different assumptions. 1) Conservatives want to win elections, and 2) The only way the right sees itself as succeeding in this is to make the War on Terror a generational conflict so that a constant state of fear is used as a club to beat the left over the head on security issues.

As for the first part, Yglesias has a point. I think there is a psychological desire on the part of the right to see the country unified behind its point of view on terrorism. And I think this desire at some level includes the notion that the best thing that could happen as far as unifying the country (and making the left’s views on terrorism an irrelevancy) is for a terrorist attack to occur on American soil. I don’t see any “great delight” being exhibited by conservatives in anticipation of such an attack - an attack that every living expert on terrorism has warned is a virtual certainty - nor do I see conservatives “looking forward to it” as Avedon Carol so generously states. But to see the outcome of another 9/11 in superficial political terms, then I think Yglesias has a good point.

Of course, this throws up all sorts of questions about the leadership of President Bush, Republicans in Congress, and conservative intellectuals who have failed miserably in making the case for this wider war on terrorism to the American people. There are other, less destructive ways to unify the country without having an American city reduced to rubble.

But as with the War in Iraq, President Bush has failed to sustain any coherent defense of his policies. This has allowed his political opponents free reign to color his actions in the worst possible light. And while some intellectuals of the right such as Norman Podhoretz and Donald Kagan have defended the Administration’s policies in Iraq and the wider War on Terror, the intellectual underpinnings that should be girding our efforts in the war of ideas against Islamic radicalism as well as offering a rationale for our actions to those willing to listen overseas has been sorely lacking.

As for the second assumption made by Yglesias - that this desire by the right to extend the life of the war by creating “systematic incentives to ensure that such threats as do exist are never ameliorated…” I believe him to be on much shakier ground.

Matthew places that statement in the context of what he terms “over-reacting” to both the threat of terrorism and terrorist incidents themselves. From another Yglesias post following the London/Glasgow incidents:

I’m pretty sure I haven’t been “ignoring” the bomb attempt, but I’ve certainly said less about it than, say, the NBA draft. That said, I find there to be two curious presumptions built into the question. One is that “you’re paying less attention than you should to failed bombings in a foreign country!” is framed as some kind of cutting accusation. Second, is that it’s taken as a given that hyping-up the threat of terrorism is something conservatives will want to do whereas downplaying it is something liberals will want to do.

It’s interesting because on another level if a liberal wants to make the case that Bush has been a horrible president implementing horrible policies, probably the most natural response is to say “look, some of what you say is true, but at the end of the day there haven’t been any more attacks since 9/11.” At that point, it falls to the liberal to point to all this international data indicating a substantial surge in Islamist violence during the Bush years as evidence of the administration’s failures.

Again, on one level, Yglesias has a point. But rather than “over reacting” to gin up fear in the country, I would describe the right’s focus on such attacks - failed or otherwise - as a psychological need to validate their views on terrorism as a genuine threat. (”See? The world is a dangerous place even if liberals downplay these attacks!”) Since part of The Narrative is that there is no such thing as a War on Terror and that even if attacks occur, the jihadis are a bunch of ignorant, 15th century goat herders so there’s no reason for all this fuss, conservatives feel compelled by politics and self-image to play up every incident of terror as part of the larger war against Islamism - a war they feel should engage the continuing interest of the American people to the exclusion of other, more mundane considerations like the economy or health care.

Yglesias points up the political danger of this exercise by the right; that even though no terrorist attacks have occurred here since 9/11, there is little doubt that Administration strategy has created more terrorists than there were prior to that date and that the threat has not been reduced in the nearly 6 years since. I might add there is also a danger for conservatives in that the absence of an attack on our soil since 2001 has brought those “mundane” issues to the fore in 2008, giving Democrats a distinct advantage in domestic policy. Focusing on terrorism as the major concern of the American people is rapidly becoming bad politics - unless we are hit again. Then the question of those increased numbers of jihadis will become a political nuclear weapon with each side tossing screaming allegations back and forth in the aftermath.

I have wrestled with this question of our creating more terrorists by confronting them in several posts over the last year. The reason the question is relevant is because there seems to be a consensus on the left that if only we hadn’t gone into Iraq, the terrorist threat wouldn’t be what it is today.

I find little evidence that our Iraq adventure alone is responsible for the increase in jihadi recruitment. One need only look at the reaction by Pakistanis to our invasion of Afghanistan. Pakistan has become the most anti-American nation on earth not because of our invasion of Iraq but because of what we did to the Taliban.

But the real question remains: Would not confronting the terrorists after 9/11 have made us safer? If we had lobbed a few cruise missiles at Bin Laden’s training camps in Afghanistan rather than going for regime change, would there be Muslim doctors trying to blow up airports? It’s an interesting thought experiment but one I have never seen tried anywhere on the left. They have simply accepted the notion that the War in Iraq is singularly responsible for the surge in terrorist numbers.

And even if there were no terrorists in Iraq prior to the invasion (a still debatable point given the curiously unpublicized revelations contained in the Saddam papers) there’s no doubt there are many in Iraq now. If killing them only creates more of them which in turn makes us less safe, logic would dictate that we basically surrender to the idea that from time to time we are going to be attacked and that the best we can do is work with our allies to mitigate that possibility as much as possible by smashing their cells whenever we find them. Is this the basis of the left’s strategy for dealing with terrorism? It would seem to me and to many conservatives that this forms the basis for a “fear-free” War on Terror that appears to be embraced by many on the left.

Perhaps they don’t like the idea that such a strategy would put them at a distinct electoral disadvantage against Republicans so why not rage against perceived “fear mongering” by the right on the issue. In that context, there’s not much conservatives can do except embrace the left’s strategy for dealing with Islamism which would also include changing our foreign policy so we don’t experience any more “blowback” as a result of our standing with Israel or confronting that other threat in the Middle East Iran.

I’m not sure Yglesias would go as far as that but there’s little doubt that sympathy for the Palestinian cause and a general aversion to confronting the theocrats in Tehran is a part of the left’s solution to Bush’s “failed” policies in the War on Terror. What that would mean as far as our safety and security is concerned is another question - one the American people will have to decide next year. But one thing both left and right better start thinking very hard about if we are attacked again is that the solution to security will eventually have to be found in unity and not in these tiresome partisan dust ups where the motives of both sides are questioned and the War on Terror becomes a weapon to be used by one side or the other for political gain.

UPDATE

Right on cue, Ron Paul shows why unity in the War on Terror is an impossibility at the moment:

Presidential candidate Ron Paul says the U.S. is in “great danger” of a staged terror attack or a Gulf of Tonkin style provocation while also warning that a major collapse of the American economy is on the horizon and could be precipitated by the bombing of Iran and the closure of the Persian Gulf.

“I think we’re in great danger of it,” responded the Congressman, “We’re in danger in many ways, the attack on our civil liberties here at home, the foreign policy that’s in shambles and our obligations overseas and commitment which endangers our troops and our national defense.”

Ooookay, Ron. You can go back to the barbecue now. And next time make sure they don’t grill your brain instead of the steak.

HT for the image: SondraK

Despite the offensive in Baqubah continuing to show great signs of both political and military success and other military aspects of the surge also proving that the strategy developed by General Petraeus is doing what it’s supposed to from a military standpoint, the Iraqi government slips deeper into chaos and ennui, negating any possible chance that the American military alone can turn the situation around and bring peace and stability to the country.

The military successes we’ve had are taking place in a political vacuum. The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki continues to wallow in sectarianism, incompetence, corruption, and a curious lethargy when it comes to addressing the issues that absolutely must be addressed if Iraq is to have a chance at internal peace. To wit:

* A boycott of the cabinet by Sunni ministers shows no sign of being resolved. In fact, it appears that very little effort is being made by the Shias to entice the Sunnis back into the government although it is understood that American diplomats are working frantically behind the scenes to get the parties back together.

* The Parliament is paralyzed. With 74 members boycotting the proceedings coupled with the usual bunch who don’t bother to show up anyway, it becomes impossible to gather a quorum so that official business can be conducted.

* For every step forward, two steps back are the result. While the New York Times is reporting that a moderate group of Shias, Sunnis, and Kurds appear ready to begin working on the oil revenue sharing legislation in order to try and shepherd the bill through parliament, the largest Sunni bloc is still opposing the bill making passage a moot point. Why pass a bill the majority of Sunnis won’t support? It’s just one more indication that the Shias intend on riding roughshod over the political rights of the Sunnis.

* And if that weren’t bad enough, Muqtada al-Sadr has joined with some Sunnis and Kurds to oppose the oil legislation anyway. Mookie knows full well that if the oil bill passes, Bush can claim political progress in Iraq and stop the momentum towards withdrawal.

* Nearly 20 people a day are still being found in Baghdad who have been executed as a result of the sectarian violence roiling the city and its suburbs. This is half the number that was found in February. But sectarian deaths elsewhere are up and the violence appears to be spreading into formerly peaceful northern provinces, especially around Kirkuk where Kurds and Shias are carrying on a low level conflict over control of that vital oil center.

* There is no sign of any mass movement by internal refugees back to the city to reclaim their formerly mixed neighborhoods despite incentives offered by the government. In fact, more people are leaving the country. Both Jordan and Syria are thinking of severely limiting the number of refugees from Iraq.

As competent and bravely as our military has performed, there is little they can do to affect any of these problems. Yes, they can reduce the violence. But can they change what’s in the hearts and minds of the purveyors of this mayhem? Simply keeping the murderers off the streets is not solving the problem in any lasting way. This is a job for the Iraqi people and their elected government.

We can kill al-Qaeda. We can build effective bridges to the Sunni community. We can keep the militias from causing too much trouble by keeping them off the streets. We can keep raiding insurgent strongholds and confiscating weapons and bomb making materials. We can keep building infrastructure and reaching out to the Iraqi people. But this is not a permanent solution to Iraq’s problems. The surge is not designed to permanently solve Iraq’s security problems. It was designed to lower the level of violence so that the Iraqi government could get its act together and start the long, hard, slog toward building a peaceful, democratic society. We are doing more than our part. But the Iraqi government is failing miserably in holding up their end of the bargain.

Realizing this, Republican Senators are finally abandoning Bush and calling for a change in mission. The latest apostate is Senator Pete Domenici:

White House efforts to keep congressional Republicans united over the Iraq war suffered another major defection yesterday as Sen. Pete V. Domenici (N.M.) broke with President Bush and called for an immediate change in U.S. strategy that could end combat operations by spring.

The six-term lawmaker, party loyalist and former staunch war supporter represents one of the most significant GOP losses to date. Speaking to reporters at a news conference in Albuquerque, Domenici said he began to question his stance on Iraq late last month, after several conversations with the family members of dead soldiers from his home state, and as it became clear that Iraqi leaders are making little progress toward national reconciliation.

“We cannot continue asking our troops to sacrifice indefinitely while the Iraqi government is not making measurable progress,” Domenici said. “I do not support an immediate withdrawal from Iraq or a reduction in funding for our troops. But I do support a new strategy that will move our troops out of combat operations and on the path to coming home.”

Domenici becomes the fourth Republican Senator in the last week to come out in favor of a change in mission. He also announced he will sponsor legislation that would “embrace the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group” - a clear sign that Bush’s days of having unfettered control over war policy are numbered.

I and many others predicted that the ISG report would eventually be used by lawmakers as political cover to change the mission in Iraq and start the withdrawal of American combat forces. The question is, can the Administration itself adopt some of the ISG’s recommendations in order to avoid the political and military disaster of being forced to accede to the Democrat’s strategy of set timetables and a much faster draw down of troops?

The answer is no. Bush has pinned his political fortunes on the surge strategy and only Congress can make him give it up. Can Domenici and a few other Republicans craft a compromise that falls short of the Democrat’s draconian plan for withdrawal while still recognizing reality and begin the process of redeploying our troops so that we can start bringing them home?

I think this is more than possible and will probably end up a reality soon enough. And I also believe there are enough GOP House and Senate members who would leap at the chance to support such a compromise to make the measure veto proof. With the American people in favor of such a withdrawal - leaving substantial numbers of troops in place to train the Iraqi army as well as keep killing al-Qaeda - the President will face the stark choice of sticking with a losing hand in Congress or grudgingly accepting the inevitable and working with the leadership to come up with the best plan possible.

That last is probably a non starter. This President has shown a sometimes admirable stubbornness when it comes to sticking to his guns on Iraq. But that same stubbornness has also prevented him from changing course when it could have done a lot more good as well as blinding him to political opportunities to work with the Democrats in order to successfully extricate ourselves from the war.

There are some parts of the ISG that most GOP members would balk at implementing. Surely there would be great opposition to engaging in any kind of dialogue with Syria about Iraq. The gangsters who run that thug nation couldn’t be trusted to keep any agreement. And the fact that Syria continues to try and murder their way back into dominating Lebanon should put the Assad regime beyond the pale of all civilized nations.

Iran may be a different story. While the mullahs have zero incentive to come to any kind of agreement with us about Iraq, they may have other issues where a mutually beneficial dialogue can be initiated. With their economy close to collapse and great unrest among the populace, the Iranians may be in a relatively weak position regarding any bi-lateral talks with us about issues of common concern (except the nuclear issue). There’s a chance that some kind of agreement can be forged - but it is a small chance and may not be worth the effort.

Bush will wait on the interim report that General Petreaus is preparing for September before even contemplating changing course. He has promised the general that much and I think Petreaus deserves it. But I am anxious to see just how realistic Petreaus will make the political section of his report given the attitude of the Iraqi government to date. With calls from senior members of the military for a withdrawal, I wonder if Petreaus will heed those calls or cave in to the Administration instead and play the rosy scenario game with his report. At his confirmation hearing, the General appeared to be pretty much of a straight shooter. I would hope he gives the President a dose of truth from both barrels.

NOTE: Comments are unmoderated. As long as we behave ourselves, they will stay that way.

UPDATE

Allah and I seem to be on the same page as far as the ISG goes:

Bush’s team has reportedly been murmuring for the past six weeks or so about a Baker-Hamilton resurgence and the House actually passed a measure to resurrect the Group back at the end of June. There’s no question we’re going to adopt some form of that strategy; the question is whether Bush is going to go along and pretend like he thinks it’s a good idea or if he’ll resist until Congress overrides him and then blame the chaos that follows withdrawal on them. Probably the former — I don’t think he could stand to have his war authority diminished the way the latter process would.

Either way, I think the already-dim prospects of a partisan “truce” are finished. The Dems hold the cards. What would they gain?