No Humor in Welfare State Dependency

Paul Krugman's morning column ridicules Republicans for "laughing at the problems of the poor," saying the tendency to make fun of the disadvantaged is a basic character trait of conservatives (via Memeorandum):

In 1960, John F. Kennedy, who had been shocked by the hunger he saw in West Virginia, made the fight against hunger a theme of his presidential campaign. After his election he created the modern food stamp program, which today helps millions of Americans get enough to eat.

But Ronald Reagan thought the issue of hunger in the world’s richest nation was nothing but a big joke. Here’s what Reagan said in his famous 1964 speech “A Time for Choosing,” which made him a national political figure: “We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. Well, that was probably true. They were all on a diet.”

Today’s leading conservatives are Reagan’s heirs. If you’re poor, if you don’t have health insurance, if you’re sick — well, they don’t think it’s a serious issue. In fact, they think it’s funny.

On Wednesday, President Bush vetoed legislation that would have expanded S-chip, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, providing health insurance to an estimated 3.8 million children who would otherwise lack coverage.

In anticipation of the veto, William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, had this to say: “First of all, whenever I hear anything described as a heartless assault on our children, I tend to think it’s a good idea. I’m happy that the president’s willing to do something bad for the kids.” Heh-heh-heh.

Most conservatives are more careful than Mr. Kristol. They try to preserve the appearance that they really do care about those less fortunate than themselves. But the truth is that they aren’t bothered by the fact that almost nine million children in America lack health insurance. They don’t think it’s a problem...

Read the whole thing.

If you believe Krugman, conservatives are evil because they don't think a public health insurance program for the poor should be expanded to include families earning three times the poverty level (at just over $60,000 a year). Perhaps we should agree with Krugman, that Conservatives are evil because they demand a little honesty from politics, for example insisting from the Democratic congressional majority that they announce the expansion of SCHIPs for what it is - and a push for a socialized health care entitlement. Or perhaps people should agree with Krugman that conservatives are evil because they can see ahead to the collapse of widespread access to the world's finest healthcare amid health rationing and endless waits to see a physician, which is likely if the expansion of SCHIPs crowds out private insurers, ultimately driving up premiums to the point of breaking the market-driven health delivery system.

Or, conservatives might be right to back Bush: It wouldn't be funny to pile even more hardships upon those who desperately need the help. Certainly there are better ways to expand access to health coverage than destroying a system working well for the majority of Americans.

The last laugh will be on liberals when the price tag comes due and everyone's stranded in the waiting line to reform our disastrously socialized health care system.

Administration Plans for Iran: Propaganda or Threat?

Seymour Hersh has a new piece up at the New Yorker belittling the Bush administration's strategic planning on Iran. Hersh argues that the administration's shifting rationale for a military response to Iran is tactical propaganda designed to gain the upper hand in public opinion. Here's a snippet (via Memeorandum):

In a series of public statements in recent months, President Bush and members of his Administration have redefined the war in Iraq, to an increasing degree, as a strategic battle between the United States and Iran....

The President’s position, and its corollary—that, if many of America’s problems in Iraq are the responsibility of Tehran, then the solution to them is to confront the Iranians—have taken firm hold in the Administration. This summer, the White House, pushed by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney, requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff redraw long-standing plans for a possible attack on Iran, according to former officials and government consultants. The focus of the plans had been a broad bombing attack, with targets including Iran’s known and suspected nuclear facilities and other military and infrastructure sites. Now the emphasis is on “surgical” strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism.

The shift in targeting reflects three developments. First, the President and his senior advisers have concluded that their campaign to convince the American public that Iran poses an imminent nuclear threat has failed (unlike a similar campaign before the Iraq war), and that as a result there is not enough popular support for a major bombing campaign. The second development is that the White House has come to terms, in private, with the general consensus of the American intelligence community that Iran is at least five years away from obtaining a bomb. And, finally, there has been a growing recognition in Washington and throughout the Middle East that Iran is emerging as the geopolitical winner of the war in Iraq.

Hersh spends much of the remainder of his essay questioning the credibility of Iranian support for Shiite terror in Iraq, and he dismisses Iranian influence on the mayhem, suggesting that tribal animosities and sectarian infighting within the Iraqi government are responsible for recent violence and instability.

Those familiar with Hersh's work - he's mounted a decades-long campaign to delegitimize the U.S. military and the use of force - will be rightly skeptical of this article. It's been well known for years that Iran has been supplying some of the most lethal improvised explosives killing U.S. forces in Iraq (see here, here, here, here, and here). Further, Hersh's piece fails to provide sources of evidence or argumentation contrary to his major claims.

Antiwar forces will continue to hammer the administration on foreign policy, and neither a full-scale Iranian incursion into Iraq nor the development of Iranian nuclear capability will derail the left's delegitimization campaign against American counterbalancing on Iran.

Note thought that just last week eight Arab nations warned at a diplomatic conference against Iran's "hegemonistic" designs for the Middle East region. In Israel, moreover, the Jerusalem Post suggested that Iran's belligerence presents a challenge to both Israeli and global security:

If a house is on fire, there is little point in worrying about termites, let only the color of the drapes. Western global priorities are seriously misaligned. While it would be wrong to succumb to the global Islamist threat by ignoring other issues, it is even more wrong to ignore the overarching threat that, if it is not defeated, will prevent free nations from comprehensively advancing any of the other critical items on the global agenda.

By force of necessity, Israel has to place grappling with existential threats at front and center. While the country has done an astounding job of building a thriving democracy despite the continuous Arab war against our existence, our politics has been monopolized by matters of peace and security. All other concerns, from the environment to religious-secular tensions to socioeconomic gaps to battling corruption and reforming the electoral system, have had to be largely set aside by a public and political system that cannot adequately address such "side" issues until our existential dilemma is dealt with.

The existential threat to Israel is, of course, part of the Islamist threat to the West. Ignoring it, in either its local or global forms, will not make it go away. Nor can the international community begin to defeat it in earnest while we are still confused and in denial over the pivotal role the outcome of this struggle will have for all other global priorities.

If there's a silver lining in Hersh's report, it's that Israeli military and political leaders are cool to limited U.S. strikes on Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which is a top option being pushed by Vice President Dick Cheney. Israel remains focused on the full-blown decapitation of Iranian strategic capabilities, Hersh notes. The U.S. should be as well.

Drawing Down in Iraq?

Max Boot's article in the current Commentary weighs the competing alternatives for a U.S. drawdown in Iraq. Boot looks at both the diplomatic and military sides of the drawdown equation. For example, Boot reviews the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group (ISG), as well as the proposals of Daniel Byman and Kenneth Pollack, among others.

With reference to the ISG, Boot raises some interesting points with regards to Iran and Syria's sponsorship of terrorism in Iraq. Could Iran and Syria help the U.S. push a diplomatic angle to augment a general drawdown for U.S. forces in Iraq? Boot get to the heart of the matter:

As if Iraq’s internal divisions were not bad enough, the country’s neighbors, in particular Iran and Syria, have contributed greatly to the current unrest. This is the challenge that the ISG’s “diplomatic offensive” proposes to meet. But how? Iran, according to the ISG report, “should stem the flow of arms and training to Iraq, respect Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and use its influence over Iraqi Shiite groups to encourage national reconciliation.” Syria, for its part, “should control its border with Iraq to stem the flow of funding, insurgents, and terrorists in and out of Iraq.”

Well, all that would surely be nice. But how exactly are we to convince Syria and Iran that they should do what the Iraq Study Group thinks they should do? The “United States,” says the ISG somewhat redundantly, “should engage directly with Iran and Syria.” There is, however, little reason to think that such talks would yield progress in the desired direction.

In the Iranian case, one indicator of interest—or, more accurately, lack of interest—in negotiations is that on May 28, even as talks were in fact being held in Baghdad between the American and Iranian ambassadors, the Tehran regime was detaining four Iranian-Americans on fabricated charges. Another is that the Iranians have been stepping up the flow of funds, munitions, and trainers to support terrorism in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Both Syria and Iran are also deeply complicit in backing Hamas, Hizballah, and other radical groups working to undermine two other democracies in the Middle East: namely, Israel and Lebanon.

The ISG report suggests that Syria and Iran have an interest in an “Iraq that does not disintegrate and destabilize its neighbors and the region.” That may be so—but not if it means that Iraq emerges as a democratic ally of the United States and an active partner in the war against terrorism. For a terrorism-sponsoring Iranian regime, that would be the worst outcome imaginable. Much better, from the strategic perspective of both Syria and Iran, to continue fomenting chaos in Iraq so as to prevent the emergence of a unified state capable of threatening them.

Syria and especially Iran have been waging a proxy war against the United States in Iraq that could well end with Iran as the dominant player in most of the country. By means of the Jaish al Mahdi and other front groups, Tehran is doing in Iraq what it has already done with Hizballah in Lebanon: expanding its sphere of influence. Why should Ayatollah Khameini and his inner circle voluntarily put a stop to a policy that appears to be achieving their objectives at relatively low cost?

Tehran might veer from its belligerent course if it feared serious military and economic retaliation, ranging from an embargo on refined-petroleum imports to air strikes against the ayatollahs’ nuclear installations. But with a few brave and prophetic exceptions like Senator Joseph Lieberman, who has continued to call attention to Iranian aggression, there is scant political support in the United States for such a tough policy, however justified it may be.

Boot also takes a close look at the various scenarios involving residual stabilization and advisory forces in Iraq, whereby U.S. contingents would remain in-country to foster the consolidation of Iraq's political regime through counterterrorism and training. How many troops would remain in Iraq after an initial troop drawdown? There's some debate on the requisite numbers, with a bare-bones estimate suggesting that 60,000 U.S. troops remain for logistics, air support and transportation, and medical services.

Here's Boot in his summary of the overall situation:

Sooner or later, we will have to draw down our forces. It therefore makes sense to undertake now the kind of detailed planning that will be needed to effect a transition to a smaller force, perhaps 80,000 to 100,000 strong. Assuming sufficient political support at home—and that is by no means inconceivable, if the situation on the ground continues to improve— such a force could remain in Iraq for many years, focusing, as the ISG proposed, on tasks like advising local security forces and hunting down terrorists. But while the ISG approach makes sense in the long term, moving to a smaller force right now, as so many critics of the administration urge, would constitute an unacceptable risk.

The more security that our “surge” forces create and consolidate today, the greater the probability that a transition will work tomorrow. If we start withdrawing troops regardless of the consequences, we will not only put our remaining soldiers at greater risk but, as things inevitably turn nastier, imperil public support for any level of commitment, whether at 160,000 or 60,000.

Notwithstanding some positive preliminary results, the surge might still fail in the long run if Iraqis prove incapable of reaching political compromises even in a more secure environment. But, for all its faults and weaknesses, the surge is the least bad option we have. Its opponents, by contrast, have been loudly trying to beat something with nothing. If they do not like President Bush’s chosen strategy, the onus is on them to propose a credible alternative that could avert what would in all probability be the most serious military defeat in our history. So far, they have come up empty.

Read the whole thing.

All this talk of immediately withdrawing American forces from Iraq, especially among those most opposed to the war, really misses the reality of the situation. Security has improved in Iraq, and holding onto the recent gains found in the surge strategy will not be possible with an accelerated drawdown timetable. It's advisable, as a matter of prudence, for U.S. forces to stay in Iraq for a good time to come.

Focus on the Iranian Threat

The outrage at Columbia University's speaking invitation to Iran's President Ahmedinejad is fully understandable (see here, here and here).

There may be strong grounds for denying the Iranian leader a platform to spew his vile hatred of the West. Yet, Ahmadinejad - for all his derangement - is a major international player, and the world community has an interest in hearing what he has to say, especially at the United Nations, and even at Columbia (whose administration just doesn't get it).

Folks should not lose sight of the big picture, though. The Oxford Medievalist reminds us of the nature of the Iranian challenge:

Mahmoud is an apocalyptic madman Jew-hating president of a regime bent on spreading its Islamist revolution throughout the Middle East and, eventually, the world.

I'm reminded of Iran's revolutionary aspirations by today's Los Angeles Times, which reports on this weekend's military parade in Tehran, a show of force coinciding with Ahmadinejad's visit to New York:

Iran showed off its armaments Saturday at annual army celebrations meant to highlight the oil-rich nation's military self-sufficiency and prowess in the face of international sanctions and U.S. hostility.

Iranian-made Saegheh fighter jets, which some military experts say are based on U.S. F-18s, screeched across the sky over Iranian-made armored personnel carriers and Ghadr missiles, which have a range of more than 1,000 miles.

"All these arms and equipment have been manufactured in Iran by Iranian experts," an announcer declared on state-controlled television.

Military commanders and political officials assembled for the military parade near the tomb of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini said they were undeterred by the possibility of U.S. or Israeli military attacks or increased economic pressure on Iran. The Islamic Republic is at odds with the West over its ambitions to acquire advanced nuclear technology and its alleged support for armed Islamic groups.

"Those who believe that through rotten means, such as psychological warfare and economic sanctions, they could hinder progress of the Iranian nation are wrong," said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is scheduled to arrive in New York today and to address to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday.

Iran and the U.S. are engaged in a struggle over influence in the Middle East. Tehran accuses Washington of destabilizing the region by backing Israel and occupying Iraq. The U.S. accuses the Islamic Republic of pursuing nuclear weapons and supporting anti-American militants in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

The Times piece notes that American officials have not ruled out military action to eliminate Iran's threat to regional and global security, and in that lies the significance of the Ahmadinejad visit.

Allowing the Iranian leader to denounce the U.S., Israel, and the West will likely bolster the case against Iran's peaceful intentions. One of the best lessons emerging out of the recent MoveOn scandal is that free speech has the powerful value of exposing despicable views to popular repudiation. In the case of Iran, the sanctions regime against Iranian nuclear development has proved ineffectual. While the U.S. delays a decisive showdown, Iran continues its bid for regional domination, and its ultimate campaign for the destruction of Israel.

Let America and the world hear what Ahmadinejad has to say this week in New York. All the while, no one should take their eyes off the big picture - a military showdown is coming, and we have a compelling interest in hearing the continued dissemination of Ahmadinejad's propaganda and warmongering. His rants will bolster the already compelling case for a preventive war to remove the Iranian threat.

Supporting a Unitary Legal Executive

In his U.S. News essay this week, Michael Barone provides an interesting perspective on Jack Goldsmith's new book, The Terror Presidency. Barone argues that Goldsmith offers as serious discussion of the Bush adminstration's "deeply flawed" legal policies. But a close look at the book's underlying message reveals much to be said for the administration's approach:

For one thing, Goldsmith...supports many much-criticized policies—the detention of unlawful combatants in Afghanistan and their confinement in Guantánamo, trials by military commissions, the terrorist surveillance program. And he rejects the charge that the administration has disregarded the rule of law. Quite the contrary. "The opposite is true: the administration has been strangled by law, and since September 11, 2001, this war has been lawyered to death." There has been a "daily clash inside the Bush administration between fear of another attack, which drives officials into doing whatever they can to prevent it, and the countervailing fear of violating the law, which checks their urge toward prevention."

Strangled by the law, eh? If I had a dollar for every left-wing attack on the adminstration's legal policies...you know, the collapse of the rule of law under the "Bush/Cheney regime" (and don't get me going about Glenn Greenwald!)

In my debates with administration opponents, I've often noted how hemmed in the administration's domestic terror enforcement has been. I've stressed particularly how well the separation of powers has worked to provide judicial checks on the assertion of unitary executive power in the administration's anti-terror campaign.

Americans Oppose Immediate Iraq Withdrawal

Today's Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll finds that a large majority in the U.S. opposes an immediate troop pullout from Iraq. The poll also finds President Bush picking up some support for his war policies, although the Democrats have some favorable opinion trends to anticipate as the political calendar unfolds:

Public discontent with the Iraq war has eased slightly, a new Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll shows, suggesting President Bush may have a little more maneuvering room at a critical point in debates over war costs and troop levels.

As Mr. Bush prepares to follow congressional testimony by the top general in Iraq, David Petraeus, with a televised speech to the nation tonight, the poll shows an uptick in support for the president's handling of the war as well as a small increase in the proportion of Americans who believe the troop surge is helping and that victory remains possible.

Those shifts in public opinion remain modest. Solid majorities continue to disapprove of the president's performance and say victory in Iraq isn't possible and that the war hasn't been worth its human and financial costs. "There's been no surge from the American people," said Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducts the Journal/NBC poll with Republican counterpart Neil Newhouse.

Yet only one in four Americans say troops should leave now regardless of conditions on the ground.

The article suggests the next line of attack for hard left opponents of the war:

Some Democratic congressional leaders already are shifting the debate in reaction to indications that Mr. Bush has stemmed his slide -- moving it away from withdrawal timelines and toward their contention that the administration is pursuing an open-ended commitment to American involvement. That represents a political challenge for Republican candidates in 2008, even if Mr. Bush is able to sustain his policy.

Actually, I think it represents a greater challenge for Democrats and their antiwar allies. We're still in Germany, Japan, and South Korea, and I find it unrealistic to expect the U.S. not to maintain a forward troop presence in Iraq for years, if not decades, to come.

Public Sees Iraq Improving Under Surge

Today's Washington Post reports that while Americans remain weary of the Iraq war, there's been a marked improvement in assessments of U.S. progress in combatting the insurgency (via Memeorandum):

Most Americans think this week's report from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus will exaggerate progress in Iraq, and few expect it to result in a major shift in President Bush's policy. But despite skepticism about the Petraeus testimony and majority support for a U.S. troop reduction in Iraq, there has also been a slight increase in the number who see the situation there as improving.

The findings, from a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, underscore the depth of public antipathy toward the Iraq war, the doubts about the administration's policies and the limited confidence in the Iraqi government to meet its commitments to restore civil order.

Fifty-eight percent, a new high, said they want to decrease the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. And most of those who advocated a troop reduction said they want the drawdown to begin either right away or by the end of the year. A majority, 55 percent, supported legislation that would set a deadline of next spring for the withdrawal of American combat forces. That figure is unchanged from July.

Only about a third believed the United States is making significant progress toward restoring civil order in Iraq, most said the buildup has not made much difference, and a majority said they do not expect the troop increase to improve the security situation over the next few months. Just one-third were confident the Iraqi government can meet its political and security goals.

At the same time, however, there has been a six-point increase since July in the percentage of those who said the additional U.S. forces have improved the situation in Iraq (up to 28 percent) and a nine-point jump in the proportion of those who think the buildup will make things better (up to 43 percent). When Bush announced the troop increase in January, 57 percent said the United States was losing the war in Iraq. Now, 48 percent have said so. About a third said the United States is winning the war.

The public's baseline judgment on the war is little changed -- more than six in 10 said the war is not worth fighting, a sentiment that has been a majority view for nearly three years.

But though the public assessment of progress in Iraq remains largely negative, most expected Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, to express a rosier view when he begins his congressional testimony tomorrow. Only about four in 10 said they expect the general to give an accurate accounting of the situation in Iraq. A majority, 53 percent, said they think his report will try to make the situation in Iraq look better than it really is.

These are interesting findings. Especially significant, I would argue, is that less than majority of Americans considers the U.S. losing in Iraq. And those numbers seeing improvement under the surge have gone up considerable. The title of the Post article is putting a more negative spin on the data than would seem warranted.

Other data here simply confirm what is basic to American public opinion and war: The public likes U.S. combat forces to go in hard and heavy, completing the mission with as little casualties as possible. Yet, when the public sees clear national security interests at stake, support will remain firm.

The current war has not had the benefit of the best public relations and marketing it might have had. That said, the upward trend lines show that the public will back a long campaign as long as there are signs of success in the mission.

Sure, I lot of Americans expect to see a spin on the troop increase this week in General Petraeus' testimony (although Petraeus has stated he'd provide an nonpartisan analysis of the war). That's understandable, especially with all the nasty partisanship that's been going on, and not to mention the Democrats' unending attempts to call the war a failure.

Fortress America? The New U.S. Embassy in Iraq

The September/October issue of Foreign Policy has a very interesting article on the new U.S. diplomatic embassy in Iraq. The author, Jane C. Loeffler, notes that while this is the most well-protected embassy installation ever designed and built, can we actually practice diplomacy in such a fortress?

For security reasons, many details about the embassy’s design and construction must remain classified. But the broad outline of its layout says a lot about one of America’s most important architectural projects. Located in Baghdad’s 4-square-mile Green Zone, the embassy will occupy 104 acres. It will be six times larger than the U.N. complex in New York and more than 10 times the size of the new U.S. Embassy being built in Beijing, which at 10 acres is America’s second-largest mission. The Baghdad compound will be entirely self-sufficient, with no need to rely on the Iraqis for services of any kind. The embassy has its own electricity plant, fresh water and sewage treatment facilities, storage warehouses, and maintenance shops. The embassy is composed of more than 20 buildings, including six apartment complexes with 619 one-bedroom units. Two office blocks will accomodate about 1,000 employees. High-ranking diplomats will enjoy well-appointed private residences. Once inside the compound, Americans will have almost no reason to leave. It will have a shopping market, food court, movie theater, beauty salon, gymnasium, swimming pool, tennis courts, a school, and an American Club for social gatherings. To protect it all, the embassy is reportedly surrounded by a wall at least 9 feet high—and it has its own defense force. The U.S. Congress has appropriated $592 million for the embassy’s construction, though some estimates put the expected building costs much higher. Once built, it could cost as much as $1 billion a year to run. Charles E. Williams, who directs the State Department’s Overseas Buildings Operations, proudly refers to it as “the largest U.S. mission ever built.”

But, the idea of an embassy this huge, this costly, and this isolated from events taking place outside its walls is not necessarily a cause for celebration. Traditionally, at least, embassies were designed to further interaction with the community in which they were built. Diplomats visited the offices of local government officials, shopped at local businesses, took their suits to the neighborhood dry cleaner, socialized with community leaders, and mixed with the general public. Diplomacy is not the sort of work that can be done by remote control. It takes direct contact to build goodwill for the United States and promote democratic values. Otherwise, there would be no reason for the United States to maintain its 250-plus diplomatic posts around the world. The embassy in Baghdad, however, appears to represent a sea change in U.S. diplomacy. Although U.S. diplomats will technically be “in Iraq,” they may as well be in Washington. Judging by the embassy’s design, planners were thinking more in terms of a frontier outpost than a facility engaged with its community. “The embassy,” says Edward L. Peck, the former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, “is going to have a thousand people hunkered behind sandbags. I don’t know how you conduct diplomacy in that way.”

It is tempting to think that the Baghdad compound must be an anomaly, a special circumstance dictated by events on the ground in Iraq. But, while it is larger in scope than other U.S. embassies opening around the world, it is hardly unique. Since al Qaeda bombed the American missions in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the State Department has been aggressively replacing obsolete or vulnerable embassies with ones designed under a program it calls Standard Embassy Design. The program mandates look-alike embassies, not the boldly individual designs built during the Cold War, when architecture played an important ideological role and U.S. embassies were functionally and architecturally open. The United States opened 14 newly built embassies last year alone, and long-range plans call for 76 more, including 12 to be completed this year. The result will be a radical redesign of the diplomatic landscape—not only in Baghdad, but in Bamako, Belmopan, Cape Town, Dushanbe, Kabul, Lomé, and elsewhere.

If architecture reflects the society that creates it, the new U.S. embassy in Baghdad makes a devastating comment about America’s global outlook. Although the U.S. government regularly proclaims confidence in Iraq’s democratic future, the United States has designed an embassy that conveys no confidence in Iraqis and little hope for their future. Instead, the United States has built a fortress capable of sustaining a massive, long-term presence in the face of continued
violence.

I think Loeffler raises important points about how the new facility elucidates a larger bunker mentality at work in the foreign service, and American national security more broadly.

Still, while the scope of massive protection built into the mission might indeed make a larger statement about American society, at the immediate level of protection for American personnel, I don't know if we as a country would have it any other way. We're committed to our Iraq project, and the most barbarian attacks on our infrastructure there will have a hard time dislodging us from consolidating some semblance of democratic order in the country.

Rumsfeld Revisited

There's an excellent debate on civil-military relations in the Bush administration in the current issue of Foreign Affairs.

The exchange covers Michael Desch's earlier article on the administration, "Bush and the Generals," which argued that normal tensions between civilian policymakers and the military's general staff were exacerbated by the adminstration ideological campaign to transform the military and privilege civilian battle judgements over that of the uniformed personnel.

A noteworthy segment in the current exchange is Mackubin Thomas Owen's assessment of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's tenure. Owen's generally optimistic on the efficacy of civilian leadership; he looks at a number of historical examples, bringing his case up to the current administration:

In the case of Rumsfeld, it is clear that he was guilty of errors of judgment regarding the conduct of the Iraq war. However, as case after case makes clear, Rumsfeld's critics were no more prescient than he. Rumsfeld failed to foresee the insurgency and the shift from conventional to guerrilla war, but so did his critics in the uniformed services. The army's official historian of the campaign has placed the blame for this failure squarely on the army. "Reluctance in even defining the situation," the historian writes, "is perhaps the most telling indicator of a collective cognitive dissonance on the part of the U.S. Army to recognize a war of rebellion, a people's war, even when they were fighting it."

Critics also charge Rumsfeld's Pentagon with shortchanging the troops in Iraq -- by, for example, failing to provide them with armored Humvees. But a review of army budget submissions even after the war had turned into an insurgency reveals that the service's priority was to acquire big-ticket items. It was only after the danger of improvised explosive devices became obvious that the army began to push for supplemental spending to "up-armor" the utility vehicles.

And although it is true that Rumsfeld downplayed postconflict stabilization operations, it is also true that he was merely ratifying the preferences of the uniformed military, which has a cultural aversion to such operations. The real villain in this case is the Weinberger-Powell Doctrine -- a set of principles long internalized by the U.S. military emphasizing the requirement for an "exit strategy." When generals are thinking about an exit strategy, they are not thinking about "war termination" -- how to convert military success into political success.

In retrospect, it is easy to criticize Rumsfeld for pushing General Tommy Franks, the combatant commander, to develop a plan for a force smaller than the one called for in earlier plans, as well as for his interference with the time-phased force and deployment list (TPFDL), which lays out the schedule for deploying forces. But that charge focuses on the consequences of the chosen path (attacking earlier with a smaller force) while ignoring potential drawbacks of the alternative -- for example, that taking the time to build up a larger force would have meant losing the chance for surprise.

The debate over the size of the invasion force must also be understood in the context of the state of civil-military relations at the end of Clinton's presidency. Rumsfeld was correct that civilian control of the military had eroded during the Clinton years. When the army did not want to do something -- as in the Balkans in the 1990s -- it would simply overstate the force requirements: "The answer is 350,000 soldiers. What's the question?" Accordingly, Rumsfeld was inclined to interpret the army's call for a larger force as another case of foot-dragging. In retrospect, Rumsfeld's decision not to deploy the First Cavalry Division was a mistake, but at the time it was not unreasonable to argue that the TPFDL (like the "two major theater war" planning metric) had become little more than a bureaucratic tool that the services used to protect their share of the defense budget.

Uniformed officers have an obligation to stand up to civilian leaders when they think a policy is flawed. They must convey their concerns to civilian policymakers forcefully and truthfully. If they believe the door is closed to them at the Pentagon or the White House, they also have access to Congress. But the U.S. tradition of civil-military relations requires that they not engage in public debate over matters of foreign policy, including the decision to go to war. And once a policy decision is made, soldiers are obligated to carry it out to the best of their abilities, whether their advice has been heeded or not.

Read the whole thing.

For my earlier post on Desch's "Bush and the Generals, click here.

While I admire Desch's political science expertise, I'm not convinced his analysis of the Bush administration is free of hostily to the president's neoconservative foreign policy project.

Details of White House Planning for Secret Iraq Visit

President Bush's weekend stop to visit the troops in Iraq was carefully planned by the White House, with secret preparations used to maximize the element of surprise:

President Bush was supposed to leave Washington on Monday for an international summit in Australia. Instead, the day found him mingling with U.S. troops in the desert about 120 miles north of Baghdad.

Bush's unannounced trip to Iraq was arranged in tight secrecy, with the president sneaking out a side door of the White House about 18 hours before his scheduled departure for Sydney and driving in a two-car motorcade to Andrews Air Force Base, Md.

Reporters traveling on Air Force One had been sworn to secrecy a day earlier and were held behind curtains in the rear of the plane until takeoff.

The rest of the press corps, on a separate flight headed for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation gathering, learned of the president's Iraq detour only as they arrived in Honolulu for a scheduled refueling stop.

The president met with Iraqi leaders and top U.S. officials during his six-hour stop at Al Asad Air Base, then traveled on to Australia.

On the way to Iraq, White House officials denied that the visit was little more than a stunt designed to help Bush make his case that his military strategy is making progress.

The president "felt it was important for him to come firsthand," said national security advisor Stephen J. Hadley, adding that Bush was particularly looking forward to meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, as well as Sunni Arab tribal leaders. "There is no substitute for sitting down, looking him in the eye and having a conversation with him."

Bush's visit is being held up as a major turning point in the war on terror, commensurate to the significance of the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War.

Iran is Defiant

The New York Times reports that the Iranian regime has ratcheted up its defiant stance against Western demands for the abandonment of its nuclear weapons enrichment program:

Iran’s leaders issued dual, defiant statements on Sunday, with the president announcing that the nation had 3,000 active centrifuges to enrich uranium and the top ayatollah appointing a new Islamic Revolutionary Guards commander who once advocated military force against students.

The pairing of the messages, just days after the United Nations’ top nuclear official said Iran was striking conciliatory poses, appeared intended to reaffirm the country’s refusal to back down to pressure from the United States over its nuclear program and its role in Iraq, political analysts in Iran said. And it came as the Bush administration was celebrating progress in its talks with North Korea to shut down that country’s nuclear programs.

Indeed, the timing and tone of Iran’s declarations may be more politically significant than their content, particularly in the case of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s announcement that Iran had finally reached its stated goal of developing 3,000 centrifuges.

Many technical experts have expressed skepticism over Iran’s periodic claims of enrichment breakthroughs, saying the assertions often turn out to be exaggerated.

That seemed to be the case again on Sunday, though nuclear experts said that even if Mr. Ahmadinejad was overreaching, it would be only a matter of time before the boast became true. The most recent report of the International Atomic Energy Agency, released Thursday, said Iran had 1,968 centrifuges enriching uranium at its main Natanz plant, 328 in testing, and 328 in assembly — for a total of 2,624. The report noted that the assessment was accurate as of Aug. 19, or two weeks ago.

The goal of 3,000 centrifuges is significant to nuclear experts: they say that if Iran could spin that many centrifuges nonstop for a year, it could make enough highly enriched uranium for a single atom bomb.

But Mohamed ElBaradei, the atomic energy agency director general, said in an interview last week that Iran seemed to be intentionally slowing its progress in an effort to strike a conciliatory note as the United Nations Security Council demanded it stop the nuclear work completely. “My gut feeling,” he said, “is that it’s primarily for political reasons.”

Still, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s new claim was a direct challenge to that notion, and to efforts by the United States and European countries to impose harsher sanctions against Iran. “The West thought the Iranian nation would give in after just a resolution, but now we have taken another step in the nuclear progress and launched more than 3,000 centrifuge machines, installing a new cascade every week,” state television quoted the president as saying.

The White House warned that a new round of sanctions was likely in the wake of Iran’s refusal to cooperate. “This kind of announcement is inconsistent with Iran’s recent comments on cooperation with the I.A.E.A.,” said a spokesman, Robert W. Saliterman.

Read the rest. It's extremely interesting that Iran finds its self-interest in intensifying its rejection of international demands at this time.

There has, of late, been a steady drumbeat of increasingly belligerent statements among the world's great powers. So it seems counterintuitive for Tehran to test international resolve now, just as the West's patience is wearing thin.

I'll be interested to see how radical bloggers spin this story, if they address it all. As I've noted in recent entries, there's an increasing effort among the most fanatical Bush-bashers to demonize the adminstration as hellbent on war (see here and here, for example).

For more, see Michael Van Der Galien, who notes the heightening shrillness to the Bush-demonization project among pro-Iran bloggers.

Neoconservativism as Scourge of the Left

This morning's post over at Andrew Sullivan's blog asked "What Maketh a Neo-con?" Here's the main passage:

Today, it seems that a "neo-con" (at least in the fevered imaginations of the net-left) is someone who frequently calls attention to the unprovoked aggression of despotic regimes (e.g. Iran and Syria), the violation of human rights in other countries, and advocates the moral superiority of democratic countries in international affairs. A "neo-con" is now anyone who dares make an issue out of the aggressions and inhumanity of despotisms without explaining them away, and for advocating America do something about these aggressions and inhumanities. It is for this reason that so many on the left attacked Bayard Rustin in the 1970's and 1980's when, in addition to speaking out about racial injustices in the United States and condemning Reaganomics, he also spoke out, vociferously, against the PLO, Robert Mugabe, and the Sandinistas. But Rustin was hardly a proper neo-conservative, even if he happened to write the occasional article for Commentary and helped found the Coalition for a Democratic Majority. And so, simply for stating uncomfortable realities about the world, someone is called a "neocon" (which in today's political discourse--not just left-wing discourse--is akin to labeling someone a "pinko" in the 1950's) and readily dismissed.

I don't know if that last comparison is apt. "Pinkos" in the 1950s were those considered in alliance with the forces of Soviet totalitarianism. Those on the right who opposed these fellow travellers rightly warned against any domestic support for the Evil Empire's ideological and strategic hegemonic project.

Today, neoconservatives support the expansion of democracy around the world, and the rollback of Islamofascism's threatening advance against the developing world's outposts of freedom.

But what really is a "neoconservative"? I think about this a lot, because while I'm Burkean in my basic ideological affinities for traditional culture and values, I firmly believe that America has a mission in the world to advance freedom and justice. Readers here occasionally point out the inconsistency of holding both Burkean and neoconservative positions simultaneously.

But I don't worry too much about it, particularly if one sees Burkean conservativism as a cover for the most paleoconservative isolationism imaginable. If that's what Burke's come to stand for today, I'd come down on the neoconservative side, if I had to take my pick.

Mark Gerston, in his edited volume, The Essential Neo-Conservative Reader, notes that neoconservativism starts with Burkean essentialism, but it depart from Burkeanism's more reactionary inclinations:

In 1952, the sociologist Karl Mannheim wrote, "Conservativism arises as a counter-movement in conscious opposition to the highly organized, coherent, and systematic 'progressive' movement." From Edmund Burke to the present, systematic conservative theory tends to find much of its motivating impulse in critique. True to Mannheim's characterization, neoconservatism, too, has formulated its political positions in response to ideas generated by the left. From the early 1950s to the present day, neoconservatives have castigated liberalism for ignorance of the complexity of social action and the embedded wisdom in human systems, a lack of resolve in confronting evil, a laissez-faire attitude toward human virture, and an unwillingness to defend the critical ideas of American civilization from its discontents. Practically every neconservative argument and position can be seen as a reaction to one of the central ideas of liberalism.

And this is why the radical left mounts its frenzied campaign of demonization against the "neoconazis" in the Bush administration. Today's ideological battles center on competing visions of goodness in the world. For Americans who rightly see the forces of Islamic fundamentalism as the greatest threat to civilization since the Soviet empire, the hard-left represents a fifth column determined to undermine America's mission and values from within.

Much of the debate tends to caricature the views of those on both sides. All of those who support the global war on terror are not crazed Wolfowitz wannabes dead set on preventive airstrikes against Iran's nuclear program. Conversely, all of those troubled by the costs of America's liberation of Iraq - and especially the significant loss of human life on all sides - are not Chomskyite revolutionaries hellbent on the destruction of the United States and its purported project of global imperial expansion.

Yet, there are those who on the left would destroy America and the values of goodness for which she stands. Neoconservative belief - with its stress on anti-authoritarianism, domestic institutions of public order, personal propriety and responsibility - stands against such nihilism and deathlike ideology.

I gladly embrace the neoconservative label. I've been "Radicalized by the Radicals." I believe that if neoconservativism forms the locus of resistance against the forces now intending to destroy the United States, it's an ideational holding ground for the good, to which more right thinking peope will gravitate to some degree, no matter how hard the antiwar hordes try to discredit it.

Iraqi Civilian Deaths as Surge Progress Indicator?

In a report yesterday, Tina Susman of the Los Angeles Times wrote that war-related civilian fatalities in Iraq increased for a second month in a row, and the increasing numbers demonstrated the Bush administration's surge strategy had proved ineffective in stemming terrorist violence.

Needless to say, Susman's slanted journalism got signifcant play in the top-dog, hard-left blogosphere. War opponents - increasingly desperate to paint the war as hopelessly lost - seized on passages like this:

Bombings, sectarian slayings and other violence related to the war killed at least 1,773 Iraqi civilians in August, the second month in a row that civilian deaths have risen, according to government figures obtained Friday.

In July, the civilian death toll was 1,753, and in June it was 1,227. The numbers are based on morgue, hospital and police records and come from officials in the ministries of Health, Defense and the Interior. The statistics appear to indicate that the increase in troops ordered by President Bush this year has done little to curb civilian bloodshed, despite U.S. military statements to the contrary.

But if one continues reading Susman's article, the piece indicates that there's little consensus among the U.S. military and outside monitoring groups on the efficacy of civilian death totals as an indicator of the progress on the troop surge:

Military officials have said the security plan is showing progress because the number of attacks on civilians has decreased and sectarian killings have dropped. The security plan, which began in February, has put an additional 28,500 U.S. troops in Baghdad and other trouble spots.

The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, is expected to cite such indicators when he presents an assessment of the security plan to Congress this month.

The U.S. military says the numbers it gathers are lower than those provided by Iraqi ministries, but it does not release them. But it has said that the monthly civilian death toll from sectarian killings, which do not include all bombings, has dropped to about 1,000 per month from 1,200 per month early this year.

Read the whole article. As is the case with earlier Susman articles, she spins her reports with misleading titles and leads.

The following passage is in fact one of the most significant of the article, and it should have formed the basis for a more objective overview of the difficulties of measuring gains in security on the ground:

Various factors can skew the numbers. Baghdad, usually the most violent part of the country, experienced a four-day curfew in June after the bombing of a key Shiite shrine in Samarra, north of the capital. Other cities also were under curfews, which helped keep violence at bay.

Please recall that we're talking about gross statistics on the tragic loss of human life. Thus it's somewhat unfortunate that troubling data like this is being spun by war opponents whose ultimate concern is destroying the Republican war machine in Washington, not the human rights of the Iraqi people.

The stakes are extremely how now, of course, with the highly-anticipated release of the Petraeus Report next week. Thus, any bit of news construed as favorable to the increasingly fanatical antiwar left (see here, here, here) needs to be dissected and placed in the overall context of the slow but difficult job of consolidating Iraqi security and bolstering Iraq's rough steps toward democratization.

President Bush Fights Backs on Iraq

On the eve of the Petraeus Report's release, President Bush has taken off the gloves to parry the relentless left-wing jabs, upper-cuts, and below-the-belt blows being thrown by the administration's crazed antiwar foes.

The New York Times has the story:

President Bush, appearing confident about sustaining support for his Iraq strategy, met at the Pentagon on Friday with the uniformed leaders of the nation’s armed services and then pointedly accused the war’s opponents of politicizing the debate over what to do next.

“The stakes in Iraq are too high and the consequences too grave for our security here at home to allow politics to harm the mission of our men and women in uniform,” Mr. Bush said in a statement after his meeting with the chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines in a briefing room known as the Tank.

The meeting, which lasted an hour and a half, was among the president’s last Iraq strategy sessions before he leaves for Australia to meet with leaders of Asian and Pacific nations. It came on the eve of a string of reports and hearings that, starting next week, could determine the course of the remaining 16 months of Mr. Bush’s presidency.

Beginning on Tuesday, when Congress returns from its August recess, lawmakers are prepared to debate what to do in Iraq in daily hearings that will culminate on Sept. 10 and Sept. 11 with appearances by the ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker, and the military commander there, Gen. David H. Petraeus.

Congress has mandated a progress report from the White House before Sept. 15, and Mr. Bush chided lawmakers for calling for a change in policy before hearing the views of the two men who are, as administration officials repeatedly point out, “on the ground in Iraq.”
“Congress asked for this assessment,” Mr. Bush said in the statement, “and members of Congress should withhold judgment until they have heard it.”

That has not stopped Mr. Bush from making an impassioned defense of the increase in American troops that he ordered in January, making the judgment that the new strategy was working and deserved a chance to continue doing so. In recent speeches, Mr. Bush has highlighted what he and others have called an improvement in security in Iraq and signs of political compromise that have so far been absent among Iraq’s political leaders.

Read the rest. Democrats, like Senator Richard Durbin, spout the most pessimistic reports on the war's progress to make their case for a precipitious withdrawal:

“What we’re hearing is a pretty consistent message of failure on the political front in Iraq,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, a Democrat, who visited Iraq in August.

The Times story continues with additional points about expected troop reductions. There's no discussion of the significantly upbeat assessments coming from various sources over the last couple of months.

My post citing Jeff Jacoby's analysis of antiwar denialism is appropriate here. The country's antiwar forces have become increasingly desperate in their efforts to tar the war as a disaster. Many mistakes were made in the deployment, especially early on, with the lack of post-invasion security, and the terrible toll of casualities over the years has worn down public opinion.

But under General Petraeus the U.S. is making real progress. In response, the left has shifted its approach, focusing less on military strategy to hammer home the difficulties of Iraqi political progress. That's not to mention all the denials of Iranian influence in the county and the dismissal of likely instability in the entire Middle East after a U.S. defeat.

So, thankfully, Bush is putting up a good fight in combatting the nihilist, antiwar crowd.

(By the way, be sure to check PrivatePigg's post at Liberty Pundit, which skewers Glenn Greenwald's rabid anti-Bush fantasies.)

The Coming "Bush/Cheney" War Against Iran?

A news report today indicates that the international community has become increasingly frustrated in its efforts to reduce Tehran's support for terrorist violence in Iraq; and that the International Atomic Energy Agency plans to announce the end of its four-year program of inspections in Iran, which has been marked by the government's growing rejection of intrusive review of the country's nuclear development facilities.

At the same time, French President Nicholas Sarkozy yesterday blasted Tehran for its nuclear ambitions, and warned that preventive strikes may be warranted in the face of continued Iranian recalcitrance.

As well, President Bush has warned against the specter of a "nuclear holocaust" should Tehran's authoritarian state develop devastating nuclear capabilities.

This concerted international drumbeat of counter-Iranian diplomacy might be considered a substantial measure of the West's stiffening resolve against Tehran's aggressive designs.

Of course, not everyone would agree with such an interpretation, particularly those on the hard left, who continue to demonize the Bush administration for its alleged fear-mongering and bellicosity.

For example, check out this entry from FireDogLake, which denounces the "Bush/Cheney" regime's rush to war:

Now Bush has described the Iranian regime as posing the threat of a “nuclear holocaust.” Not just a “mushroom cloud.” This time, it’s a nuclear holocaust — terms reserved for the most heinous of crimes and the most despicable of enemies. No sane government engages in such inflammatory rhetoric. But where is the dissent? Where is the outcry?

Throughout this inexorable march to war, the Democratic Congress has done worse than nothing. They’ve voted for resolutions condemning Iran without having the factual basis for knowing what Iran is doing or intends, relying only on neocon and Administration propaganda. They’d listened to dishonest and crazed warmongers like Joe Lieberman, for heaven’s sake. They’ve voted for resolutions that would support regime change, but they’ve refused to pass resolutions or amendments that would require the Administration to seek new authorization to start a war with Iran. Most of our Democratic Presidential candidates — Kucinich and Gravel excepted — have pretended to be “serious” people by refusing to rule out military strikes against Iran, even nuclear strikes. These are not serious positions; they are seriously irresponsible.

But of course, this Administration does not need authorization. It it now operating completely outside the law, outside the Constitution, outside any checks by Congress or influence from those who might counsel against war. By Presidential fiat, it has declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to be a terrorist group, effectively making them an enemy of the US without any Congressional declaration of war. We have a lawless, reckless and belligerent Administration, and it is about to start another unlawful war, even as it tries to convince the American people that it is a good thing that the regime has 160,000 US troops bogged down in another quagmire, vulnerable to an enlarged regional war. Who will tell this crazed regime to stop? To whom would it even listen?

The Administration has repeatedly told us Iran is responsible for many of the deaths of US soldiers in Iraq. They trot out their propagandists in Iraq to shows us the weapons and their markings, suggesting that their use in Iraq is a delberate policy of the Iranian government. Their neocon supporters are already spreading the theme that Iran has effectively declared war on the US by arming and training those who are killing our soldiers in Iraq.

The only thing the Bush/Cheney regime needs is the money to wage its aggressive war against Iran, but how they’ll get it is patently obvious. That money is embedded in the authorizations for supporting US troops and their activities in Iraq. Congress no longer asks what the money is for: it’s assumed to be for “supporting the troops.” Now the regime is asking for another supplemental authorization — another $50 billion — and while Democrats are promising a fight, some are already announcing they will “support the troops” by giving the Administration all the money it requests.

Wake up Democrats: you are being asked to fund an aggressive war against Iran. This war will be on your heads. Stop.

I see an ever-deepening sense of irrational desperation among the hard-line forces of the left. It's almost as if the radical cadres have indicted as imperialists and war criminals all the nations of the Western international order.

And notice the conspiratorial tone of the post: The "unlawful" Bush/Cheney "regime" now operates completely "outside the law." War rumblings are foisted by the "neocons" and the administration's "propagandists." Undue influence is detected among "dishonest and crazed warmongers" such as centrist Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut.

But of course those over at FireDog have the gumption to attack the Democrats for budgeting funds for this "aggressive war against Iran," while at the same time begging the party to "wake up" to the administration's imperialistic project.

It's really too much!

I've noted before that some mainstream policy analysts have suggested that the military option cannot be ruled out, and indeed some have said preventive strikes might be the last, best alternative for decapitating the Iranian nuclear development program.

But hey, a little hard-headed policy analysis is not going to get in the way of a good leftist smear campaign against the Bush/Cheney warmongers in Washington.

After Gonzales: Twilight for the Bush Presidency?

The resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales marks a significant turning point for the Bush administration.

For one thing, Gonzales' exit signals a witch hunt victory for hardline leftists and the Democratic Party (see Memeorandum's Monday blog round up here). In addition, the administration faces a remaining term on the defense, with little recent legislative momentum and an upcoming presidential election season likely to pull attention away from the White House.

This morning's Wall Street Journal has an analysis of the prospects for the Bush administration's remaining lame-duck agenda:

President Bush's loss of another close, longtime aide closes one particularly messy stage of his second term, but suggests a new one may be opening: the lame-duck phase.

That hardly means Mr. Bush is irrelevant, but it does suggest his means for exerting influence are going to be different -- and perhaps clumsier -- from hereon. Increasingly, it appears he will be preoccupied with three objectives: managing the Iraq war; using presidential vetoes to thwart Democratic plans and spending impulses; and advancing a Republican agenda as best he can through regulatory moves and executive actions that skirt congressional inputOver the past several months, the controversy over Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his firing of eight U.S. attorneys has impeded parts of Mr. Bush's agenda, notably the effort to expand wiretaps of terror suspects. The attorney general chose to use Congress's August recess period to put a stop to such distractions by ending his embattled term.

Over the past several months, the controversy over Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his firing of eight U.S. attorneys has impeded parts of Mr. Bush's agenda, notably the effort to expand wiretaps of terror suspects. The attorney general chose to use Congress's August recess period to put a stop to such distractions by ending his embattled term.

his August break, though, marks a broader turning point for the Bush presidency. Since Republicans lost control of Congress in last fall's elections, it has been an uphill struggle for Mr. Bush to move big items on his domestic agenda past an uncooperative legislature, or to shake the shadow of the war in Iraq. By his aides' own admission, those tasks will get even more difficult when Congress returns this fall.

Read the whole thing. The White House discounts the notion of declining influence in the remaining months of office:

A White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, rejected the notion that the administration is losing momentum. "The term 'lame duck' is for dime-store political scientists," he said. "It demonstrates a misunderstanding of the power of the presidency, and a miscalculation of the energy and intentions of this president."

He said the White House has an "aggressive" agenda that will address an overhaul of surveillance laws, the Iraq war, spending, education and free trade, and he pointed to solid support among Republicans in Congress for blocking bad legislation, if necessary through upholding vetoes.

Whether the term "lame duck" has much meaning or not, the administration is certainly a far cry from the early-2005, post-reelection era of robust political capital.

Yet, I do think that given the nature of Congress' slim Democratic majority, and the central role the Iraq war will play over the next 15 months, the president is in a good position to set the debate, thwart the Democrats' big spending agenda, and help position GOP candidates for victories at all levels in November 2008.

Public opinion polls show Congress sustaining less public support than the administration. With additional victories in Iraq (and a reasonably good assessment on the war's progress by General Petraeus in September), the Democrats will be desperate to portray the war as a failure, and Bush can hammer their liberal lawmaking agenda with the veto. The appearance of gridlock will consolidate a "do-nothing" image for the "Pelos-tinians" in Congress, and the administration can shift attention to international diplomacy, and can develop an agenda to rebuild America's moral capital in global politics.

A Modest Proposal? Call for Coup d'Etat at HuffPo is Only "Satire"

I first read about Martin Lewis' call for a military revolt against the Bush administration over at Michael Van Der Galien's page. Lewis wrote a letter to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace requesting that President Bush be relieved of his civilian command of the military, placed under arrest, and tried for conduct unbecoming.

It's a pretty outlandish scenario, but not too crazy to be cooked up by the rabid Bush-bashers on the left side of the dial.

It turns out Lewis' proposed coup d'etat provoked an intense backlash in the right-wing blogosphere, and Lewis has responded with an entry over at Huffington Post this morning. He argues that his letter to the general was simply an exercise in Swiftian satire (after Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal").

I'm not expert on Swift, but Lewis does seem to be elevating himself up to an august level of satirical accomplishment. I'll let scholars of English literature hash out the comparisons between the Lewis and Swift essays.

I'd point out here, though, that if Lewis was not serious in his initial letter to the Joint Chiefs Chairman, he's certainly gotten into the ring this morning with his rebuttal to the right-wing. Here's a major flurry of blows against the conservatives' reaction, which Lewis sees as insufficiently deferential to his satirical turn:

The wing-nut world is up in arms (in some cases literally) with calls for me to be tried for sedition and treason. Some want me deported. Others are advocating hanging or shooting against a wall. Worst of all -- someone wants the FBI to open a file on me. (And I thought that the FBI was busy with important matters...)

But how do you explain satire to people who are uncontaminated by either wit or wisdom?

And of course -- as befits those who worship at the shrine of Atwater and Rove -- my satire has been twisted into headlines such as "HuffPo Calls For Military Coup In USA" Yup -- these guys are the Chubby Checkers of politics. They sure know how to twist... Again and again.

If there is even a single person left in the progressive/liberal/Democratic world who doubts how vicious and malevolent these people will be in their desperate attempt to retain the White House and regain Congress next year -- be aware now. These people will literally stop at nothing. 2000, 2004 and 2006 will seem like church picnics compared to how dirty they will fight the 2008 elections.

I'm just a minor satirist on a small soapbox -- and they came after me with all the ferocity of the Bush administration chasing Bin Laden... (Note to right-wing-nuts: That was what we elite, effete snobs -- who CAN hold a candle -- call:'litotes')

After all that they have done to Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, Max Cleland and many more -- I got off very lightly. I was only threatened with murder a couple of times. But what gutter smears will these people come up with to demonize Democratic candidates next year?

And will the mainstream media fulfill its obligation to the American people to stand up and denounce and debunk these Un-American Activities?

Read the whole thing. Lewis declaims any conspiratorial intent. He hides in the alleged respectability of a career in humor writing. But I have to agree with those on the right who take issue with this line of comedy: The challenge today for the United States in Iraq is of the highest stakes, and humor of this sort is of the worst taste imaginable.

Satire has its place in media and literature, but a blog post at the vehemently partisan Huffington Post ought to be taken for what it is: A brazen ideological attack on the presidential administration hardline leftists oppose.

Lewis can deny malicious intent all he wants, but if he's as clever a satirist as his Swiftian moment suggests, he knows damn well that his roundabout call for a military coup against the administration will send his hard left revolutionary cadres to the barricades. September is expected to be a month of widespread protest against the Bush "regime." What better way to whip up the passions of the mob than with calls to decapitate the "illegitimate" regime occupying the White House.

Elections are never enough for the uncleansed hordes of the left. It's politics by other means - anything to destabilize the Republican hold on power. Lousy attempts at satire just reflect the desperation of such efforts.

The Paranoid Style of the American Left

I'm always amazed at the hard left's fascist slurs against the Bush administration. Fascism has come to America, they say, and the Bush administration is the next Hitler!

Yeah, right! And Guantanamo will be our Auschwitz. We'll use ferries off the coast of Florida to transport our victims of genocide, rather than the cattle cars that rumbled the Jews to the camps during the Holocaust.

One could go on with the absurd examples, which is what Noemie Emory does in her devasting critique of current left-wing paranoia in the Weekly Standard:

The fascists are coming! Or rather, they're already here, installed in the White House, planning like mad to subvert the Constitution and extend their reign in perpetuity, having first suppressed and eviscerated all opposition and put all of their critics in jail. Thus goes the rant of America's increasingly unhinged left.

Read the whole thing - the article's a true classic. I love the conclusion in particular:

Let's give the last words to Mark Crispin Miller, as he told the blog Buzzflash in February 2006: "That sort of warped perception comes from extreme paranoid projectivity: the tendency to rail at others for traits or longings that one hates and fears inside oneself. We're dealing with a movement that is anti-rational. It's faith-based...it's a movement that believes what it believes, and it believes what it believes is right. It believes what it wants to believe. If it hears contrary evidence, it comes up with evidence of its own. This is not a movement that the rational can ever shame into surrendering by merely demonstrating its illogic to its followers. Paranoia is based on fear, and therefore on a kind of 'logic' that's impervious to evidence and quite incapable of learning from experience. Paranoia is an atavism, deep within us all."

Anti-rational, eh? Maybe Miller's on to something!

President Bush's Democracy Agenda in Tatters

This morning's Washington Post has an excellent article on the Bush administration's troubled global democracy-promotion agenda. The initiative, for all its high-sounding promise, has been battered by bureaucratic resistance and real-life setbacks around the world:

Two and a half years after Bush pledged in his second inaugural address to spread democracy around the world, the grand project has bogged down in a bureaucratic and geopolitical morass, in the view of many activists, officials and even White House aides. Many in his administration never bought into the idea, and some undermined it, including his own vice president. The Iraq war has distracted Bush and, in some quarters, discredited his aspirations. And while he focuses his ire on bureaucracy, Bush at times has compromised the idealism of that speech in the muddy reality of guarding other U.S. interests.

The story of how a president's vision is translated into thorny policy is a classic Washington tale of politics, inertia, rivalries and funding battles -- and a case study in the frustrated ambition of a besieged presidency. Bush says his goal of "ending tyranny" will take many generations, and he aims to institutionalize it as U.S. policy no matter who follows him in the White House. And for all the difficulties of the moment, it may yet, as he hopes, see fruition down the road.

At this point, though, democracy promotion has become so identified with an unpopular president that candidates running to succeed him are running away from it. At a recent debate, they rushed to disavow it. "I'm not a carbon copy of President Bush," one said. Another ventured that "maybe going to elections so quickly is a mistake." A third, asked if he agreed with Bush's vision, replied, "Absolutely not, because I don't think we can force people to accept our way of life, our way of government."

Read the whole thing. Democracy promotion in Washington policy circles took a tailspin after the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections of 2006.

The article notes that while global democracy promotion has been a long-term policy of the United States, President Bush has pushed democracy in foreign policy more than any other U.S. president.

The case for democracy promotion is a good one. Democracies are more peaceful, and they best protect the basic rights of their citizens.

Establishing elections themselves is only one facet of a state's democratic transformation. The history of democratization shows that democratic regimes consolidate over long periods of time. The British case, for example, held up as the world's prototypical parliamentary system, unfolded over centuries of state-building.

Nations need to resolve a series of national crises before they can stablize into patterns of peaceful democracy and policy-making. For example, the basic elements of a constitutional or political regime need to be settled before the onset of divisive and destablizing issues, such as the expansion of suffrage or the amelioration of socioeconomic dislocation from industrialization.

Nations also need to have achieved a widespread sense of community, with boundaries of the nation matching those of the state. Dramatic ethnic diversity must be concomitant with a centralized ethos of national purpose. Political legitimacy needs to be established, and the process for the selection of the leadership needs to gain universal acceptance.

Democracy also flourishes within a culture of political pragmatism and tolerance of difference. Pragmatism is a political style - part of a nation's political culture - that is characterized by a tradition of adjustment and tinkering of the political procedures and policies of the state. It's a politics of "muddling through." Nations that develop a pragmatic style of development, like Britain, are able to establish systems and laws over time, through deliberation, rather than through more ideological or ad hoc methods. Pragmatism lends itself to bargaining and cooperation.

These sociocultural attributes of democratization are not often discussed in the current rage to establish democracy in Iraq, Syria, or Palestine. But each of these nations - and others around the world - will need to establish these cultural attributes if the promise of democratization is to bear fruit.

The Leftist Tide in American Politics?

Is America turning left? The Economist wants to know:

FOR George Bush, the presidency is becoming a tragic tale of unintended consequences. In foreign policy, the man who sought to transform Iraq, the Middle East and America's reputation has indeed had revolutionary effects, though not the ones he was aiming for. Now something similar seems to be happening in domestic politics. The most conservative president in recent history, a man who sought to turn his victories of 2000 and 2004 into a Republican hegemony, may well end up driving the Western world's most impressive political machine off a cliff.
That machine has put Republicans in the White House in seven of the past ten contests. At times it has seemed as if the Democrats (oddly, given their status as the less Godly party) have had to rely on divine intervention to get elected. Watergate helped Jimmy Carter in 1976, just as the end of the cold war and Ross Perot's disruptive third-party campaign helped Bill Clinton in 1992. Better organised and more intellectually inventive than their “liberal” rivals, American conservatives have controlled the agenda even when they have lost: Mr Clinton is best remembered for balancing the budget and passing welfare reform, both conservative achievements. In a country where one in three people see themselves as conservatives (against one in five as liberals) and where the South and West have grown far more quickly than the liberal north-east, it is easy to see why Mr Bush and his strategist, Karl Rove, dreamed of banishing Democrats from power for a generation.

Now they would settle for a lot less. Having recaptured Congress last year, the Democrats are on course to retake the presidency in 2008. Only one Republican, Rudy Giuliani, looks competitive in the polls, and his campaign is less slick than those of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Voters now favour generic Democratic candidates over Republican ones by wide margins. Democrats are more trusted even on traditional conservative issues, such as national security, and they have opened up a wide gap among the young, among independents and among Latinos (see article).

The easy scapegoat is Mr Bush himself. During his presidency, the words Katrina, Rumsfeld, Abramoff, Guantánamo and Libby have become shorthand for incompetence, cronyism or extremism. Indeed, the failings of Mr Bush's coterie are oddly reassuring for some conservatives: once he has gone, they can regroup, as they did after his father was ousted in 1992.

Yet this President Bush is not a good scapegoat. Rather than betraying the right, he has given it virtually everything it craved, from humongous tax cuts to conservative judges. Many of the worst errors were championed by conservative constituencies. Some of the arrogance in foreign policy stems from the armchair warriors of neoconservatism; the ill-fated attempt to “save” the life of the severely brain-damaged Terri Schiavo was driven by the Christian right. Even Mr Bush's apparently oxymoronic trust in “big-government conservatism” is shared in practice by most Republicans in Congress.

From this perspective, the worrying parallel for the right is not 1992 but the liberal overreach of the 1960s. By embracing leftish causes that were too extreme for the American mainstream—from unfettered abortion to affirmative action—the Democrats cast themselves into the political wilderness. Now the American people seem to be reacting to conservative over-reach by turning left. More want universal health insurance; more distrust force as a way to bring about peace; more like greenery; ever more dislike intolerance on social issues.

Read the whole thing (and also click on The Economist's supplemental analysis of trends in partisan identification).

Next year does look to be a Democratic year in terms of party dynamics. But I don't think we're heading toward a long-term realignment toward Democratic liberalism (some analysts even argue that the GOP retains the edge toward lasting party preeminance). But the final paragraph of The Economist's piece is intriguing:

One finding that stands out in the polls is that most Americans distrust government strongly. Forty years ago they turned against a leftish elite trying to boss them around; now they have had to endure a right-wing version. In democracies political revolutions usually become obvious only in retrospect. In 1968, with America stuck in another bruising war, few liberals saw Richard Nixon's southern strategy as part of a long-term turn to the right. All that was clear then was that most Americans urgently wanted a change of direction. That is also true today.

I think the main changes people want are two: success in Iraq and economic security. Until those two issue areas improve, Democratic prospects will remain bright.