DemRealists

Thinking Things Over

2005-07-27T02:15:00.000-07:00

One of the great things about being young, a student, someone hungry to understand how this world operates, and, of course, honest, is that I'm allowed to question myself, ask myself the difficult questions, and re-think how I consider the issue of our time. That issue is our present war. During my time at the Claremont Institute this summer, I've been exposed to an approach for America's approach to the world that does not jive with what I've written for public consumption in columns for two daily papers at Penn State, what I've written (or linked to) on this blog, and what I've argued over with whomever, everywhere else. I've come to really consider - and even agree with - this new (new, in that it's new to me) approach. Don't worry, though. I haven't become a lefty, I haven't become a blame-America-first type. I'm still a hawk. I still - and will always - believe in defending the United States. And I'm still - and will always - believe in the U.S. military as the gaurantor of our freedom.

However, I'm not going to get into what this new view on foreign policy right now because it is going on 2:30 in the morning (and I have to be up in five hours for work). So I'll get into that at a later time. But, tonight was one of those nights where I just may have come full circle. But then I think, maybe I haven't. I haven't read everything yet, I tell myself. I can't come to a new conclusion on things just yet. Maybe what I've thought all along was and is the way to go. I don't know. Now I'm just rambling. But what I do know is that I'm not done trying to figure everything out. And really, I don't think anyone has it totally figured out. And that's why I can change my mind - or at least be open to accept something new. That's not easy, especially when that's all I've written about and all I've believed.

So before I lose any more precious minutes of sleep, I'm going to leave it at that.

WFB on Iraq

2005-07-26T13:11:00.000-07:00

Bill Buckley makes a great point about the struggle to write up a new Iraqi constitution:

Most recently a division arose in the matter of women’s rights. [Newly appointed U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay] Khalilzad has laid down the law, that women’s rights are to be held as sacred as men’s rights, which is all very well, but requires adaptation to different protocols involving, for instance, inheritance, and divorce.

Communicants of western ideals cannot at this point go back and say simply that Iraq’s three major sectarian divisions will need to work out their own compromises on the authority of the laws, federal and local. We engaged the challenge as arising from the constitutional loins of the West, and we speak as if western accomplishments which required generations of nurture can and should be simply implanted in the new constitution. If we were devising a mathematics textbook for the schools, we would incorporate in it known advances in geometry, rather than proceed as though such refinements would be left to be intuited by Iraqi students. In the United States we took one hundred years to go from the promulgation of laws of equality, to a civil order that demanded true equality — from 1864 and the end of the civil war, to 1964 and the passage of the civil rights bills. Mr. Khalilzad is asking, in respect of women’s rights, that we begin right away with the third act.

It is a very important public question: Will we succeed? Are we traveling at a rate so ideologically prepossessing as to scorn human and cultural experience? Or are we overcome by the universality of insights we grew to know and love? President Bush certainly speaks language of this kind, defining an advance toward liberty as the purpose, pure and simple, of our foreign policy. It is awesome to remind ourselves that in a mere three weeks we are expected to know whether the Iraqi version of our Constitutional Convention is taking off.

The Corner on China

2005-07-26T12:19:00.000-07:00

NRO's the Corner seems to have been expressing the "alternative" view on China lately. This morning Jonah Goldberg linked to a post by Andrew Sullivan's guest blogger, Judith Klinghoffer, who isn't too worried about the China threat. She notes the following, in the context of the Chinese general who recently said he'd hit the U.S. with nukes if we intervened in a conflict with Taiwan:

I suspect that sharp words were also exchanged between the Chinese government and the army. Why? Because some years ago when I raised in private the issue of Taiwanese independence with a senior advisor to the Chinese government on relations with Taiwan, he responded by taking a paper and drawing a map of the Chinese coast and Taiwan. He sought to demonstrate that an independent Taiwan would mean the encirclement of China. "The army will never stand for it," he said excitedly, "everything will be lost." He, apparently, knew what he was talking about and so should all the militant advocates of a formally independent Taiwan.
And last week, Kathryn Lopez posted this email from a CATO Institute think-tanker about the China-Unocal deal:

Most of the objections to the proposed deal stem from fear and loathing regarding the Chinese government. The argument seems to be that anything that promotes economic growth in China and, in turn, "feeds the beast." Now, of course it's true that China's government shows little to no respect for human rights and is one of the uglier regimes that populate the U.N.. It's attitude towards those who challenge party power in print or through civic action is savage and reprehensible. But it is on a positive trajectory. What was once a totalitarian state is now an authoritarian regime. Economic liberalization has had a lot to do with that - the emergence of capitalism and free trade has eroded the government's power and is likely to continue to do so in the future. Encouraging wealth creation and engagement in world markets will do more to encourage civil society in China than economic isolation, stagnation, and saber-rattling.

It's also important to keep the military issue in perspective. China's economy is the size of Italy's and, depending upon how you count it, American defense spending is 5-10 times larger than defense spending in China. Since Mao's death, China has not initiated war with anyone and has shown no inclination to initiate hostilities with the United States, Japan, or any of our allies in the region save for ... Taiwan. That's the only source of tension - the possibility that the United States might initiate a war with China over some future confrontation in Taiwan. A Chinese attack on Taiwan is a real worry, but notice that in that particular case, it would be the United States acting as the aggressor in this relationship, not the Chinese. Whether the U.S. has any business risking a nuclear war over Taiwan is an open question.

The argument that a wealthier, more prosperous China equals a more dangerous China is not necessarily true for the reasons I laid out above. Blocking China from access to markets or private economic assets would arguably incline the Chinese to think that only military muscle will allow it to secure access to markets and resources. That's not an idea we ought to encourage.

And I'm getting sick of hearing how China is a communist country. It is communist in name only. China is laboring to enter international markets and commerce and has substantially freed its economy from state control. It is arguably more capitalist than France. Moreover, China's lack of concern for human rights or the rule of law abroad is not substantially different from France's attitude towards the same.

Finally, the "level playing field" argument is a red herring. U.S. based companies have $105 billion of assets in China and employ 391,000 people there. Chinese firms own only $8 billion of U.S. assets and employ only 15,000 people here. Access to the Chinese economy is regulated and more difficult than it should be, but the suggestion that U.S. firms are "kept out" while we let Chinese firms into the U.S. is not founded upon fact.

National Military Strategic Plan for the War on Terrorism

2005-07-25T23:07:00.000-07:00

Voice of the Taciturn, a great blog I discovered via Michael Ledeen at the Corner, writes on the fruits of the serious strategic planning for the war on terror that has been done the past 18 months at the Pentagon. As you'll read, Special Ops Command is taking the lead in directing the war on terror. The military is transforming. More jointness among the branches and more creative planning. It's just a reaction to the new kind of world we live in.

The idea of the big, two-power war (read: U.S.-China in the Taiwan Strait) is headed out the window. I mentioned this a few weeks ago. Granted, some of the old elements remain, such as strategic defense, but, really, the conventional-style, two-power war died when the Soviet Union died.

Whalid Phares UK Field Trip

2005-07-25T02:15:00.000-07:00

Walid Phares, professor of Middle East Studies at Florida Atlantic University, sent an interesting and eye-opening report to The Counterterrorism Blog about a "sociological field trip" he took throughout Britain in 1999:

The Jihadists have penetrated the country since the end of the cold war. Any expert in the field would have understood as of the mid 1990s that the systematic spread of the Salafi ideology and its activists in the UK was to end up in Terrorism. It was ineluctable that the British dar al Harb [war zone] had to be attacked at some point; especially when many among its elites –inside academia or its political establishment- were confirming what the Islamists were convinced of: That the country was indeed evil, and it needed justice. An Allah administered justice. But while British elite-apologists aimed, such as MP George Galloway, at changes in Foreign policy, their Jihadi sympathizers aimed at the British people while attending their daily lives on July 7.

Read the whole thing.

John Burns on Iraq

2005-07-24T21:38:00.000-07:00

The best reporter on this story gives us the harsh reality on the ground in Iraq. Maybe, as the U.S. commanders tell Burns, we're going to have begin looking at our best worst options:

America, these officers seem to be saying, can do only so much, and if Iraqis are hellbent on settling matters violently - at the worst, by civil war - that, in the end, would be their sovereign choice.

The new U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, obviously has a brutal assignment ahead of him:

"Iraq is poised at the crossroads between two starkly different visions," he said. "The foreign terrorists and hardline Baathist insurgents want Iraq to fall into a civil war."
The new ambassador struck a positive chord, to be sure, saying "Iraqis of all communities and sects, like people everywhere, want to establish peace and create prosperity." Still, his coda remained one of caution: "I do not underestimate the difficulty of the present situation."

The Power of Yellow

2005-07-24T21:24:00.000-07:00

That's 7 straight Tours de France for Lance Armstrong. What a career. How will history regard him? I have a feeling, pretty well.

Articles Worth Reading

2005-07-24T21:11:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple articles I've been meaning to post. The first is Charles Krauthammer in the July/August issue of Commentary, writing on the "Neoconservative Convergence." Sort of a follow-up to his AEI lecture given last year. And pretty much the view held by this blog.

The other is an op-ed from last week's Wall Street Journal by Caleb Carr, whom I've never heard of. But now I'm glad I do know of him. "The Smell of Fear" is a must read for those who want to blame Anglo-American policies in the Mideast for the 7/7 bombings, rather than identify those really responsible for those murders.

If Only More of the French Were Like Him

2005-07-23T00:19:00.000-07:00

French intellectual Olivier Roy has a great op-ed in Friday's New York Times that gets at the root of what I've been trying to figure out since 7/7...and, for that matter, 9/11.

I've never heard of Roy before until I read a recent piece (which I linked to) in which he was quoted by Reuel Marc Gerecht in The Weekly Standard. Good to see a right-minded Frenchman get some op-ed space in the Times.

Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed

2005-07-22T08:42:00.000-07:00

Why is this guy still around?

Mideast Required Reading

2005-07-20T01:42:00.000-07:00

Middle East pro and Bernard Lewis protege, Martin Kramer has posted some of his selected essays on a variety of topics concerning the Middle East as suggested readings to provide some semblance of balance for our impressionable young mind to Middle East Studies curriculae (is that the correct plural form?) on college campuses across the country. Print 'em out and break out the highlighter, yo!

China Round Up

2005-07-20T00:50:00.000-07:00

We've got a pretty good round-up of some articles on China recently.

The Los Angeles Times had two articles from a couple days ago worth reading detailing China's global quest for oil and the new round of Sino-U.S. diplomatic engagement, beginning next month. The Chinese crusade for oil all over the world, where dealing with some not-too-friendly-to-us governments like Venezuela and Iran is viewed by Chinese officials as strictly securing economic interests, has raised concern for many of China's assertion as an emerging world power. The diplomatic engagement with China next month will be headed by Dep. SecState Robert Zoellick, who, as the U.S. trade rep during President Bush's first term, was instrumental in getting China admitted to the WTO. The key, it seems, for both sides is getting the management of China's rise right. Do we consider their rise hostile to U.S. security or do we seek a strategic partnership?

In this context, the Pentagon has released its annual report on Chinese military power. The New York Times reports on it here. The Pentagon report (PDF file) is here.

It looks like the Bush team is performing a balancing act on their China policy. Hawks in the Pentagon and Congress worry about China's intentions toward Taiwan, the balance of power in Asia and its coziness with American adversaries like Venezuela and Iran via oil deals. The other view is headed up by Zoellick and Asst. SecState for East Asia, Christopher Hill, who see the Chinese as more of a partner than a hostile belligerent. I'm more sympathetic to the State Dept. view on China, as I think the Chinese are rational and, despite some of their new oil "friends," are economic determinists. I don't see them risking all their economic gain and political clout for a confrontation with the U.S. that would likely erase all that and devastate the global economy. But it is still necessary to monitor China's military developments, especially their arms transactions.

Lastly, Tom Friedman is talking China today in his column, and I like what he's saying.

Also see my post on the Pentagon and Goldman Sachs.

Jihad Euro-style

2005-07-19T01:18:00.000-07:00

Writing in The Weekly Standard, Reuel Marc Gerecht has a couple interesting points about the evolution of radical Islam in Europe.

The effect of western culture on radicalized Islam:

In Europe as elsewhere, Westernization is the key to the growth and virulence of hard-core Islamic radicalism. The most frightening, certainly the most effective, adherents of bin Ladenism are those who are culturally and intellectually most like us. The process of Westernization liberates a Muslim from the customary sanctions and loyalties that normally corralled the dark side of the human soul. Respect for one's father, an appreciation for the human need to have fun, a toleration of eccentricity and naughty personal behavior, the love of art and folk music--all are characteristics of traditional mainstream Muslim society wiped away by the arrival of modernity and the simultaneous spread of sterile, esthetically empty, angry, Saudi-financed Wahhabi thought. In this sense, bin Ladenism is the Muslim equivalent of Western totalitarianism. This cleaning of the slate, this break with the past, is probably more profound in the Muslim enclaves in Europe--what Gilles Kepel called les banlieues de l'Islam--than it is in the urban sprawl of Cairo, where traditional mores, though under siege and badly battered by modernity, nevertheless retain considerable force.

Gerecht then seems to dismiss the "grievance factor":

Most intellectuals and politicians would prefer to see Islamic terrorism in Europe as a by-product of accumulated foreign grievances [Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Gulf Wars I and II, the current Bush administration]....Although some of the reasons put forth by Europeans to explain their Muslim problems are undoubtedly valid, a wise U.S. counterterrorist policy would downplay the external causes of Islamic activism in Europe. We should prepare for the worst-case scenario and assume that European society itself will continue to generate the most lethal holy warriors."

As as has been the theme recently, I don't know if Gerecht's approach of dismissing the "grievance factor" and getting ready for the worst is particularly sound. Maybe paying attention to this by trying to change minds is a waste of time? Maybe, as Gerecht seems to suggest, the "grievance factor" is tied to the fate of the Middle East:

There is no satisfying, expeditious answer to Europe's Muslim problems. If Olivier Roy is right--European Islam, for better and for worse, is now independent of the Middle East--then democracy could come to Muslims' ancestral homelands even as a virulent form of Islamic militancy persisted for years in Western Europe. But the intellectual and family ties with the Middle East are probably still sufficient to ensure that if the Middle East changes for the better, the ripples will quickly reach Europe. The democratic discussion in the Middle East, which is often broadcast through media headquartered in Europe, is becoming ever more vibrant and powerful. If Hosni Mubarak's regime in Egypt begins to give way to democracy, it's a very good bet that the discussion in every single mosque in Western Europe will be about the popular triumph and the democratic experiment beginning in the Arab world's most important country.

Amid all the ensuing political and religious debates and arguments, in the expectant hope that other dictators would fall, al Qaeda and its allied groups might find it even harder to attract recruits who would incinerate themselves for a revolutionary ideal increasingly at odds with reality. If the Bush administration wants to help Europe, it should back as forcefully as possible the rapid expansion of democracy in the Middle East. It would be a delightful irony if the more progressive political and religious debates among the Middle East's Muslims saved their brethren in the intellectually backward lands of the European Union.

I agree wholeheartedly, but I fear Gerecht is either to Muslim-centric in his analysis or he doesn't believe the state of Europe, with an ever-growing democratic and moral deficit, helps foster these enclaves of radical Islam. The people of Europe need to understand what is at stake in their own backyard. They need to know what is at risk and they have to ask themselves if they're willing to stand up and defend it. It would be great if the Middle East Muslim's can set an example for their brothers and sisters in Europe. Yet, it would be an even greater irony if the democrats in the Middle East prove to be a source of democratic inspiration to Europe as a whole.

Tiger and Lance Do Europe, Among Other Important Things

2005-07-17T23:39:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a weekend road trip up US 101 visiting relatives in Morro Bay, CA. Great to see them as it is a rare occasion, living on opposite sides of the country. Except for the traffic hell-hole that is Santa Barbara, the trip up (and down) the coast is a treat. Beautiful sites of the Pacific and the mountainous California coast. And, I have mastered the L.A. freeway system at 80 mph.

Well it looks like we have more American athletic dominance on the European continent. Tiger, winning his 10th major overall, captured his second Open Championship (second win at St. Andrews, incidentally, in 2000) by five strokes, quelling hopes (or fears?) for a final round charge by Monty - Scotsman and Open gallery favourite, Colin Montgomerie.

Lance Armstrong gets one step closer to winning his seventh Tour de France, extending his overall lead by 2:46, after placing seventh in the 15th stage of the epic bike race.

Haven't had a chance to track too much news this weekend. Looks like Iraq is blowing up again, literally and figuratively. Might be an emboldened response to the London bombings? John Burns is on the beat.

B.D. has a pretty good round-up from the Sunday NYT. As you'll read, the French are being French. And, we may have an answer to the mysterious appeal of radical Islam. B.D. quotes this NYT Week in Review piece:

At least one of the young men from Leeds was from an affluent family, and none were particularly poor or unhappy, according to press reports. At least two had become devout. At least two had traveled to Pakistan. At least some of their parents clearly opposed such violence. A breakthrough for the police came when the mother of one, fearing her son was a victim of the bombings, informed police he was missing.

Jessica Stern, a lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and the author of "Terror in the Name of God," spent part of the spring in the Netherlands investigating the attitudes of young Muslims there. She said she feared that for some of them, violent Islamism had become a fad.

For some, she said, "To be angry and rebellious these days is to be angry, rebellious and Islamist, and, unfortunately, to be violent." In a previous era, she observed, they might have embraced Marxism. She said that while these young people experienced some prejudice and economic hardship, their grievances were reinforced by "a feeling of vicarious humiliation" of Muslims elsewhere. The radicalism of some appeared driven less by contact with a charismatic cleric than by what they found for themselves on the Internet.

"They self-recruit, self-radicalize, and they go and find their own imam," Ms. Stern said. "So the picture that we have, that all we have to do is watch those fiery imams, or go into the mosques - well, those days are over."

A fad?!? This is kinda scary considering how it is sooo cool now at college to wear a Che Guevera t-shirt and fight for "social justice." I hope when my kids go off to college in 2030-whatever, it isn't fashionable to wear an Al-Zarqawi or Arafat t-shirt. But look at the picture of the London bombers before they went off and killed 50+ people. I just spent a semester in Barcelona studying and did a lot of European traveling. The bombers look like any other youthful, wide-eyed college kid heading to out explore some corner of Europe. But, no; these guys aren't studying abroad. These guys are heading to battle.

This NYT July 16 story touches on some themes B.D. mentions, as well. Although B.D. wants to shrug off what seems to be the motivating factor for these young guys joining the jihad:

Reports the NYT:

LEEDS, England, July 15 - At Beeston's Cross Flats Park, in the center of this now embattled town, Sanjay Dutt and his friends grappled Friday with why their friend Kakey, better known to the world as Shehzad Tanweer, had decided to become a suicide bomber.

"He was sick of it all, all the injustice and the way the world is going about it," Mr. Dutt, 22, said. "Why, for example, don't they ever take a moment of silence for all the Iraqi kids who die?"

"It's a double standard, that's why," answered a friend, who called himself Shahroukh, also 22, wearing a baseball cap and basketball jersey, sitting nearby. "I don't approve of what he did, but I understand it. You get driven to something like this, it doesn't just happen."

To the boys from Cross Flats Park, Mr. Tanweer, 22, who blew himself up on a subway train in London last week, was devout, thoughtful and generous. If they understood his actions, it was because they lived in Mr. Tanweer's world, too.

They did not agree with what Mr. Tanweer had done, but made clear they shared the same sense of otherness, the same sense of siege, the same sense that their community, and Muslims in general, were in their view helpless before the whims of greater powers. Ultimately, they understood his anger.

B.D. says, big deal?!:

There are those, even now, who seek to 'understand' their actions and who get airtime in the predictable places like the pages of the Guardian. This time is past. The call must be to ferret out such killers before they strike again. Too much is at stake.

I think this "grievance" issue is the heart of the problem for young, Westernized Muslims. They feel - for whatever their circumstances - there has been no justice for what they view have been repeated wrongs. Just re-read the quote above from the 22 year old friend of the one bomber. He "understands" - and probably feels - the same anger his buddy had, but isn't compelled to blow himself and everyone else up. So again, I go back to what I wrote a few days ago about a re-education of the Western world about the Western world. You talk to any foreign student at Penn State or anyother college in the U.S. or Europe about U.S. foreign policy past and present, America's history of slavery and racial segregation, etc., etc., and you'll get at least a similar response like you did from the kid in Leeds. Everything is America's fault. Nothing America does or has down is legitimate or good, in foreign students' eyes. The ironic thing is that, for how bad America is, it's still a great place to get that PhD.

An answer, a response, something is necessary to counter the various views or opinions that make the young Muslims in Leeds so angry. Because it seems like these views and grievances, which make them feel weak, inferior and full of injustice to Western power lead them to radical Islam, which gives them a feeling of justice, moral superiority and righteousness. Considering all that has been said, can we say that if these guys only knew better, or had a better understanding of whatever they viewed to be a grievance or source of anger, that they might not have been driven to radical Islam and, therefore, the cult of suicide bombing in the name of Allah? It is possible.

Iraq Update

2005-07-15T11:48:00.000-07:00

Greg Djerejian forwards to us an update from the Green Zone in Baghdad:

From a reliable source I hear the tea-leaves from a senior, seasoned diplomat at our Embassy in Baghdad are thus: 1) the strategy of us standing down as they stand up (translation: train and equip) is making real progress (if often hard and tortuous progress); 2) the Sunnis are getting increasingly involved in the political process so that there is some optimism the insurgency will see some life sucked out of it; and 3) there are fears federalist demands from the Kurds could be a sleeper issue that imperils progress on 1 and 2. There are other nuances, but this is the story from the Green Zone at present. If you are on the ground, of course, and this is your life and blood and daily chore--you have the right to be a cautious optimist. My source tells me too that the thinking there is that we will 'make it', if only we do not lose our 'will'. I think all this is pretty much right. Assuming we have the resources in theater if things take nasty, unpredictable turns, however, I'd like to caveat too.

I'd like to know more about the Kurdish demands as well. Though the "cautious optimism" is always welcoming.

Friedman and Krauthammer

2005-07-15T11:43:00.000-07:00

Good columns today from Tom Friedman and Charles Krauthammer.

Friedman alludes to something I referenced yesterday. He writes:

One of the London bombers was married, with a young child and another on the way. I can understand, but never accept, suicide bombing in Iraq or Israel as part of a nationalist struggle. But when a British Muslim citizen, nurtured by that society, just indiscriminately blows up his neighbors and leaves behind a baby and pregnant wife, to me he has to be in the grip of a dangerous cult or preacher - dangerous to his faith community and to the world.

How does that happen? Britain's Independent newspaper described one of the bombers, Hasib Hussain, as having recently undergone a sudden conversion "from a British Asian who dressed in Western clothes to a religious teenager who wore Islamic garb and only stopped to say salaam to fellow Muslims."

The secret of this story is in that conversion - and so is the crisis in Islam. The people and ideas that brought about that sudden conversion of Hasib Hussain and his pals - if not stopped by other Muslims - will end up converting every Muslim into a suspect and one of the world's great religions into a cult of death.

In my post yesterday, the uncle of one of the bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, said: "It wasn't him. It must have been forces behind him." I then wrote, "Here are two seemingly regular, assimilated British citizens. But they caught the Islamo-fascist disease. This disease has been exported to Britain, and everywhere else in Europe."

As Friedman says, the heart of the problem is the conversion to and the appeal of radical Islam by these young Muslims - people my age. Understanding how this process occurs; understanding the appeal of radical Islamism (maybe it's the purpose, the sense of duty and mission?) is hugely critical to winning this war. But, maybe, before we can do that, we have to accept the reality of it. Says Krauthammer:

One of the reasons Westerners were so unprepared for this wave of Islamist terrorism, not just militarily but psychologically, is sheer disbelief. It shockingly contradicts Western notions of progress. The savagery of Bouyeri's act [the slaughter of Dutch filmaker Theo Van Gogh], mirroring the ritual human slaughter by Abu Musab Zarqawi or Daniel Pearl's beheaders, is a return to a primitiveness that we in the West had assumed a progressive history had left behind.

Many people in the U.S. and Europe either don't believe such evil exists or know it exists, but don't acknowledge it and blame the execution of it (9/11, 3/11, 7/7, etc.) on America and the West. These folks might be called the "apologists among us" (hat tip, Roger Simon). And their problem is a rejection of the principles and the inherent goodness and rightness of these principles. I don't know how this problem can be fixed, considering the state of our P.C. universities and high schools. But maybe it can start at the top with presidential leadership?

Europe: Ever The War Front

2005-07-14T01:17:00.000-07:00

In James Taranto's Best of the Web today, he quotes this BBC report:

[T]he revelation that the four London suspects were British will confirm the worst fears of many Muslim leaders....If the apparent British suicide bombers are of similar stock--young British-born men who are not driven by desperation, then British society's ability to deal with this may be severely tested.

Taranto then states:

This is potentially a huge problem not just Britain but for Continental European countries that also have large populations of unassimilated Muslim citizens. It does not appear to be a major problem for America, which has a proportionately smaller Muslim population and a long history of assimilating immigrants. If Islamist terrorism is potentially a domestic problem for Europe, then the stakes in the global war on terror are in a way much higher there than in America.

Assuming this statement is credible and widely held, which I believe it is, we can reach a rather dramatic and alarming conclusion. If we are to adopt Norman Podhoretz's and James Woolsey's view that the war on terror is World War IV (the Cold War being WW III), and acknowledge that World War I, World War II, and main front in the Cold War were all fought to a large extent in Continental Europe, it is possible to reach the conclusion that one of the main fronts - if not the main front - in this war, the war on Islamo-fascism, is, again, Continental Europe.

So how has Europe become the main front in the terror war?

To begin, we know that Islamic terror, in all its forms, originates from the Muslim Middle East—from Casablanca, Morocco to Karachi, Pakistan. That is, in fact, the subtitle of this blog. U.S. policy to win the war on terror is to spread and promote consensual, republican government—even in its crudest form—to “where it counts: from Casablanca to Karachi.” This form of government is not imposed from an outside power, but rather it is adopted by the consent of the people. Our first real effort to put this policy into practice is Iraq (not to exclude Afghanistan, but look where the blood is being spilled on a daily basis). We are attempting to create the conditions for Iraqi self-government. Only the Iraqis can adopt democratic practice, and for that, time and a test of (Iraqi) will and (American) staying-power will prove to be the difference. But it is our hope and the Iraqis’ that they can be example, or model to the rest of the Middle East for a better life, a new hope and a complete rejection of jihadist Islam. In effect, as columnists and pundits galore have been saying, the direction of the Middle East is up to the people that live there to decide.

But, then, is this really a war, as it is fought by America and her democratic allies? The struggle for the soul of the Middle East looks more like an internal civil war between the forces of Islamic modernism and Islamic barbarism. Certainly, our national interest is directly affected by the outcome of this civil war, as we should give all the support we can to the forces of modernism and hope and equality.

But, it is becoming apparent that the war must be fought in the West. However, this war won’t be fought with 20,000 strong Army divisions, Apache helicopters, B-2 bombers, or CIA-led counteroffensives. This war must be fought with the belief that Western civilization, specifically, the ideals of the American experiment, is the last best hope for mankind. And its battleground is Europe.

Therefore, it should be asked: Has the present European, post-modern "paradise," as described in Robert Kagan's thesis, for all that it represents - public disdain of an assertive military and police force, low defense and security budgets, absence of military power as a tool in international relations, open immigration policy, the politics and social orientation of multiculturalism, low birth rates, huge welfare handouts, and the decline of Christianity (some of these, I know, aren't part of Kagan's specific description of the European paradise, but they go hand and hand with the foreign policy aspects of his thesis) – has this post-modern paradise suddenly collapsed? In the wake of the French and Dutch “no” votes against the EU constitution, the unfortunate decline of the Catholic Church under John Paul II’s watch, the 3/11 attacks in Madrid and, now, the 7/7 attacks in London, it looks like Europe, as we now it, is beginning its decline. And guess who’re stepping in to fill the vacuum: the Muslims.

I don’t mean to sound like a paranoid, racially-incited nativist, but let’s not kid ourselves of the emerging reality in Europe. Last year, British historian Niall Ferguson gave a lecture at the American Enterprise Institute, entitled, “The End of Europe?” A question, he was asking. By the end of the lecture, you came away feeling (I wasn’t there, I watched it via the video link) he was asserting the end of Europe, not questioning the possibility. Thus, he began his lecture with a reference to our constant teacher, history:

In order to illustrate my argument, I want to take you back very far in time. In fact, I want to take you back to the year 732. In Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in Chapter 52, Part 2, he describes what might have happened if the Muslim that had invaded across the Straits of Gibraltar and invaded Spain and then France in the year 711 had won what became known in the West as the Battle of Poitiers. So let me quote Gibbon, that much greater Oxford historian.

"A victorious line of march had been prolonged above a thousand miles from the Rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire; the repetition of an equal space would have carried the Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of Scotland; the Rhine is not more impassable than the Nile or Euphrates, and the Arabian fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the mouth of the Thames. Perhaps"--and here is the quintessential Gibbon--"perhaps the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet."

Some of you who know my work on empire may have anticipated that this evening I would talk about empire. Indeed, American empire is the subject of my forthcoming book. But I thought we'd done American empire last year in this very room. And so what I want to talk about instead is a different notion. It's a little neologism of my own. It's "impire," with an "i". It's about what happens when a political entity, instead of expanding outwards towards its periphery, exporting power, implodes--when the energies come from outside into that entity.

Ferguson, citing current—and pretty damning—economic, social, and political trends in Europe (basically the same ideas I mentioned when I referenced Kagan’s work) goes so far to suggest that Europe is “perhaps being colonized by exogenous forces.” Who are those exogenous forces? Yup, Muslim immigrants. So, what’s the big deal? you make ask. They’re immigrants. They come to Europe for a better opportunity. They come to escape the squalor and despair of their homelands. All true. But the krux of the problem begins with a paradox.

Some of these folks have actually chosen to assimilate themselves and adopt (or, in the case of two of the London bombers, be born into) the ways of their new Western countries. For instance, 30 year old Mohammad Sidique Khan, the oldest bomber, was a teaching assistant to newly arrived immigrants at a primary school in Beeston, Leeds, who also had a 14-month-old daughter. As the Times reports:

Staff described him as gently spoken, endlessly patient, and immensely popular with children who called him their buddy.

Imagine that. This is a man helping the children immigrant families begin the process of adjusting to their new culture. Another bomber was 22 year-old Shehzad Tanweer. In an interview, his uncle claimed he was just like every other 22 year-old college kid, except:

It wasn't him. It must have been forces behind him.

Here are two seemingly regular, assimilated British citizens. But they caught the Islamo-fascist disease. This disease has been exported to Britain, and everywhere else in Europe (See the murderer of Dutch filmmaker, Theo van Gogh). Thus, there is a clear and present danger in Europe. Andrew Sullivan suggests that “Western Muslims and the democratically-inclined Muslims in Iraq” are the ones who are “most able” to bring these terrorists to justice; to win the war. That is true for democratically-inclined Muslims in Iraq and the greater Middle East, but it will not get the job done in the West.

What is necessary for the West to defend herself, and ultimately triumph, is a reaffirmation of the ideals that made the West the West. America must take the lead in articulating what she stands for, while the modern source of the rule of law, our Enlightenment, of John Locke, of Adam Smith, Europe, must re-discover and re-affirm this heritage and these principles. The principles of the Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created equal,” must defeat the emptiness of nihilism, which thrives under Islamo-fascism and is egged on by the far-Leftist agenda of multiculturalism. If Europe is not able to re-discover and re-affirm those Enlightened principles that, though she may not have always lived up to (neither has America), are woven into the European experience and the free peoples of Europe today, she will be defeated. And the war will be lost.

Lance Armstrong

2005-07-13T00:52:00.000-07:00

This man is a machine.

Iraqi Troops Make Progress and Other Iraq Notes

2005-07-13T00:33:00.000-07:00

This is pretty encouraging news, from the AP:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraqi troops are ready to take control of some cities as a first step toward sending home American and other foreign soldiers, Iraq's prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said Tuesday. But he rejected any timetable for a pullout....

[H]e said security in many of Iraq's 18 provinces -- notably in the Shiite south and the Kurdish-controlled north -- has improved so that Iraqi forces could assume the burden of maintaining order in cities there.

''We can begin with the process of withdrawing multinational forces from these cities to outside the city as a first step that encourages setting a timetable for the withdrawal process,'' al-Jaafari said at a news conference with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick.

The wire report also adds:

Last weekend, The Mail on Sunday newspaper of London published a leaked British government memorandum showing that Britain is considering scaling back its troops from 8,500 to 3,000 by the middle of next year.

The memo, marked ''Secret -- U.K. Eyes Only'' and signed by Britain's Defense Secretary John Reid, also spoke of a ''strong U.S. military desire for significant force reductions'' after a new Iraqi government is elected in December.

''Emerging U.S. plans assume that 14 out of 18 provinces could be handed over to Iraqi control by early 2006,'' which would see the multinational force cut from 176,000 to 66,000, the memo said.

This report reminds of Charles Krauthammer's column from almost two weeks ago, which provides a possible way forward as Iraqi MPs continue to move forward drafting and deliberating the draft constitution. Krauthammer advises that the August 15 deadline for writing the constitution be thrown away indefinitely, as the amount of time between now and then is way too little for writing a constitution, even as the Sunnis have hesistantly joined the drafting committee. Reports indicate that Iraqi leaders remain committed to the August 15 deadline, but may leave out more difficult issues so as to find common ground before the October constitutional referendum and December elections.

Yet the major issue of security remains. In his column Krauthammer cites the role of the Shia and Kurdish militias as one of the most "vexing" problems of the constitutional process. While the Kurds and the main Shia party employ militias, this current arrangment might "[not be] the most desirable arrangement, but they are trained, cohesive and motivated to fight the insurgency. Both Iraq's president and prime minister endorsed their retention a few weeks ago." Krauthammer then says: "Constitution-drafting can only disrupt this working arrangement. No constitution will legitimize sectarian militias. Why force the issue?"

Well, judging from the prime minister's statement above about security in the North and South and the government's endorsement of these militias, the Iraqis seem comfortable writing their constitution with these "sectarian militias." If the common enemy is the insurgency, and both militias are committed to defeating it as pronounced by Jaafari, why not legitimize these militias, at least until the beginning of next year after the elections? Maybe then the new government can figure out a new military arrangement.

In a July 9 AP story, Jawad al-Maliki, a senior Shia lawmaker in the draft committee, I think, provides us with an interesting observation on the situation before the Iraqis: "All these issues won't be big problems if we have the will to reach an agreement. But if we want to look for differences, we'll find differences." So we can either find common ground among our disagreements, compromise in ways that both serve our interests without sacrificing the greater good, and get this thing hammered out, or we can let ourselves become consumed by our differences. If you're going to have a constitution, you should have the means to change it, but there should be some underlying principles that guide it. If Iraqis can figure out these principles, codify them, have the people endorse them and elect a government by December, all the while by being defended by these Kurdish and Shia militias, then fantastic. If it looks like the militias will become a problem after this point (which I doubt), then the democratically elected government should determine a new course.

From reading people like Bill Safire and Christopher Hitchens, who both have Kurdish friends, the Kurds are committed to one new Iraq. Therefore, these Kurdish militias, who fought off Saddam's creeping rule into the North throughout the 1990s, and who fought bravely with the Coalition forces during the initial invasion in March 2003, might very well inclined to defend their fellow countrymen in the Shia south in a new Iraq. Indeed, the self-outcasted Sunnis remain the main threat to splintering Iraq:

Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish member of the drafting committee, said those involved largely agree on a federal Iraq. But some Sunni Arabs cannot accept the concept--a deal-breaker for the Kurds who had been running their own northern region for more than a decde before the 2003 ouster of Saddam Hussein. "They think that federalism will lead to dividing the country. We think that it will unify the country," Othman said.

We shall see.

Suicide Bombers from Leeds

2005-07-12T21:07:00.000-07:00

So says the Times:

FOUR friends from northern England have changed the face of terrorism by carrying out the suicide bombings that brought carnage to London last week. It emerged last night that, for the first time in Western Europe, suicide bombers have been recruited for attacks. Security forces are coming to terms with the realisation that young Britons are prepared to die for their militant cause.

Three of the men lived in Leeds and the immediate fear is that members of a terrorist cell linked to the city are planning further strikes. The mastermind behind the attacks and the bombmaker are both still thought to be at large.
...

The four were captured on CCTV cameras at King’s Cross Thameslink station, laughing together and carrying rucksacks, minutes before they set off for their targets at 8.30am on July 7.

The article also notes that the bombers were of Pakistani origin. Three of the four have been identified, with ages of 30, 22 and 19. As more details emerge it'll certainly be interesting to learn about these guys in the days ahead.

Related: In classic British humility, a Times opinion piece by Alice Miles asks why the actions of "four pathetic young bombers" need so much attention by everyone: "all this risks glamorising the work of four pathetic young men, and recruiting others to their 'cause'. The shock of the blasts tore lives apart, yes, but they were not, for most of us, our lives." She then issues a stirring and proper challenge:

It is now clear that there is something constructive that the politicians can do. Forget the mourning, and tear into those Muslim ghettos instead. Force them to open up. Make the imams answer. Tell them to let their women speak, as they have been prevented from doing until now. We have done softly, softly. We have pandered to fears about religious hatred. We have listened with utmost sympathy to their concerns.

No one should stigmatise any community, the police said yesterday. But those bombers have stigmatised the communities that made them, and we should spare a thought for the devastation wrought on those communities; but then we should insist that they cannot continue in a state of alienation from the rest of society. That is a challenge for them, and for all of us. They, too, must become ordinary.

The Dead and Missing

2005-07-12T11:56:00.000-07:00

The Times lists the known dead and missing persons from the London bombings. Utterly heartbreaking. When you read the names, you're struck by how many are immigrants from Muslim countries. Then there's this tragicly ironic listing of one of the missing:

Anat Rosenburg, 39, an Israeli-born charity worker who called her boyfriend to tell him she was on the Number 30 bus, moments before the blast. John Falding, her boyfriend, said: “She was afraid of going back to Israel because she was scared of suicide bombings on buses.”

No Contest

2005-07-12T09:44:00.000-07:00

A soldier in Iraq takes down two of the most deluded columnists writing today. The intellectual demonstration of a mere soldier, in a war zone mind you, in analyzing the origins of Islamic jihad devastates the high-minded, arrogant sneering of one Bob Herbert of the NYT and one Gary Younge of the London Guardian (hat tip, Instapundit).

Notre Homme en France

2005-07-12T00:27:00.000-07:00

Foreign Policy magazine profiles the man who just might turn France, and maybe even Europe, around, Nicolas Sarkozy (hat tip, B.D.).

Where the Pentagon Meets Goldman Sachs

2005-07-11T23:36:00.000-07:00

We've got two interesting New York Times stories that reflect Thomas Barnett's influence upon my worldview. The first is from last week:

WASHINGTON, July 4 - The Pentagon's most senior planners are challenging the longstanding strategy that requires the armed forces to be prepared to fight two major wars at a time. Instead, they are weighing whether to shape the military to mount one conventional campaign while devoting more resources to defending American territory and antiterrorism efforts.

The consideration of these profound changes are at the center of the current top-to-bottom review of Pentagon strategy, as ordered by Congress every four years, and will determine the future size of the military as well as the fate of hundreds of billions of dollars in new weapons.

The intense debate reflects a growing recognition that the current burden of maintaining forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with the other demands of the global campaign against terrorism, may force a change in the assumptions that have been the foundation of all military planning.

The concern that the concentration of troops and weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan was limiting the Pentagon's ability to deal with other potential armed conflicts was underscored by Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a classified risk assessment to Congress this spring. But the current review is the first by the Pentagon in decades to seriously question the wisdom of the two-war strategy.

The other story is from today:

SHANGHAI, July 10 - Goldman Sachs and Allianz of Germany are in talks to acquire a $1 billion stake in China's largest state-owned bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, according to a person briefed on the discussions.

The talks come at a time when some of the world's biggest financial institutions are rushing into China to acquire stakes in some of the country's large but troubled state-owned banks ahead of planned initial public offerings in the next few years. The Bank of America said last month that it would pay $3 billion for a 9 percent stake in the nation's third-largest lender, the China Construction Bank, which is expected to offer shares to the public late this year.

And UBS said last month that it was considering investing as much as $500 million in the Bank of China, another huge state-owned bank.

"All the big financial institutions want a piece of the action," said Jack J. T. Huang, who oversees China coverage for the law firm Jones Day in Taipei, Taiwan. "This is not necessarily a rational decision when you look at the numbers. But these institutions believe the government won't allow these banks to fail. They will step in to help them succeed."

How are these stories related? You've got a major shift in Pentagon strategic thinking going on here. Planners in the Pentagon are presumably considering that its future conflicts will not be a conventional, big war, U.S.-Soviet-style match up:

Senior leaders are trying to develop strategies that will do a better job of addressing the requirements of antiterrorism and domestic defense, while acknowledging that future American wars will most likely be irregular - against urban guerrillas and insurgents - rather than conventional.

This isn't to say the Pentagon is totally discounting the possibility of a Taiwan Straits Naval battle with the Chinese. Indeed, "Several officials involved in the review characterized the debate as 'an effort to create a construct that will bring a better balance' among domestic defense, the antiterrorism campaign and conventional military requirements." Yet, in today's story out of Shanghai, you read about the big guns of American investment banking rushing to set up shop in China, which inevitably forces China to clean up its banking system because they know the potential benefits for serious investment flows:

But analysts say the government has pressed the big financial institutions to help clean up the banking system by taking sizable stakes in the four largest state-owned banks, which also include the Agricultural Bank of China.

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley - considered the two most powerful foreign investment banks in China - have each purchased a substantial number of bad loans from China's financial institutions.

Goldman, J.P. Morgan Chase and I.C.B.C. have also teamed up to agree to loan about $9 billion to the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, one of China's largest state-owned oil companies, if it succeeds in acquiring the Unocal Corporation, an American company. The Chinese oil company, known as Cnooc, is in a bidding war with Chevron over Unocal, and Goldman and J. P. Morgan are Cnooc's financial advisers in that effort.

Indeed, Goldman has moved aggressively in recent years to strengthen its operations in China and solidify its ties to the government in the expectation that the country could some day be a source of billions of dollars in profits.

Henry M. Paulson Jr., Goldman's chairman, has made dozens of trips to China in recent years. And last year, Goldman agreed to donate $67 million to the government to bail out a Chinese brokerage firm.

Goldman then got approval to form a joint venture that could operate in China's domestic securities market. Altogether Goldman's investment in the joint venture is expected to top $200 million in the first few years.

The level of economic integration between the U.S. and China is deep and it is consequential. Certainly you've got a mob-style government running China, which loves profit, but also doesn't mind selling nasty weapons to nasty governments. But as China develops a middle class, and as it connects more and more to the West, its democratic governance where everyone is equal under the law, and its rule-based institutions like the WTO, China is going to have make a decision. Does it want sustained prosperity? Or will it choose to be a belligerent, continued to deny its people their basic human rights and risk all that they've gained? That's the balancing act those in the Pentagon are still assessing. But it looks like Wall Street already knows the answer.

London Bombing Investigation

2005-07-11T21:48:00.000-07:00

The Times gives us a first glimpse into what the Scotland Yard investigations into last Thursday's bombing have yielded thus far:

A single bombmaker using high-grade military explosives is believed to be responsible for building the four devices that killed more than 50 people last week, The Times can reveal.

Similar components from the explosive devices have been found at all four murder sites, leading detectives to believe that each of the 10lb rucksack bombs was the work of one man. They also believe that the materials used were not home made but sophisticated military explosives, possibly smuggled into Britain from the Balkans.

“The nature of the explosives appears to be military, which is very worrying,” said Superintendent Christophe Chaboud, the chief of the French anti-terrorist police, who was in London to help Scotland Yard.
...

It is understood that the examination of the No 30 bus at Tavistock Square has yielded vital fragments that have sharpened the focus of the police inquiry. Forensic pathologists have been paying particular attention to the remains of two bodies found in the mangled wreckage of the double-decker.

A senior police source said: “There are two bodies which have to be examined in great detail because they appear to have been holding the bomb or sitting on top of it. One of those might turn out to be the bomber.” A decapitated head was found at the bus scene which has been, in Israeli experience, the sign of a suicide bomber.

It would be God-awful if terrorism, Intifada-style, reaches the West. Israel has learned to live with this sickening brand of terrorism, but is forced to build a wall to protect itself. In Israel's neighborhood, that might be the way to go. But don't expect New York, London and Paris to wall itself off anytime soon. However, this certainly isn't a good sign.

More London Reax

2005-07-11T14:59:00.000-07:00

Let's hope this becomes a continuing trend.

Eliot Cohen On The War

2005-07-11T02:08:00.000-07:00

Eliot Cohen, military scholar and hawk, gives a sobering interview to the Washington Post (hat tip, B.D.). As his son heads to Iraq as an Army Infantry Officer (something I'll likely be training for this time next year), Cohen does an extraordinary job of putting things in perspective. You may not agree with his assessments, but if you support the war in Iraq it'd be a disservice to you not to digest Cohen's thoughts.

London: Terror Swamp

2005-07-11T01:38:00.000-07:00

Picking up on what I mentioned yesterday, the New York Times runs a story today detailing how London has been a crossroads for Islamic terrorists for some time now. First, try this bit of information on for size:

Britain's challenge to detect militants on its soil is particularly difficult.

Counterterrorism officials estimate that 10,000 to 15,000 Muslims living in Britain are supporters of Al Qaeda. Among that number, officials believe that as many as 600 men were trained in camps connected with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

British investigators say that identifying Islamic militants among the two million Muslims living here, about 4 percent of the population, is especially hard. The Muslim community here is the most diverse of any in Europe in terms of ethnic origins, culture, history, language, politics and class. More than 60 percent of the community comes not from North African or Gulf Arab countries, but from countries like Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.

How do you let this happen?

Although Britain has passed a series of antiterrorist and immigration laws and made nearly 800 arrests since Sept. 11, 2001, critics have charged that its deep tradition of civil liberties and protection of political activists have made the country a haven for terrorists. The British government has drawn particular criticism from other countries over its refusal to extradite terrorism suspects.

For years, there was a widely held belief that Britain's tolerance helped stave off any Islamic attacks at home. But the anger of London's militant clerics turned on Britain after it offered unwavering support for the American-led invasion of Iraq. On Thursday morning, an attack long foreseen by worried counterterrorism officials became a reality.

"The terrorists have come home," said a senior intelligence official based in Europe, who works often with British officials. "It is payback time for a policy that was, in my opinion, an irresponsible policy of the British government to allow these networks to flourish inside Britain."

It's important to point out that these terrorists are home-grown and have been living in their respective communities long enough to be considered your normal immigrant neighbor. They form their terrorist groups in their neighborhoods (and various other European cities), plot and plan, draw inspiration from bin Laden and his disciples at places like the Finsbury mosque, and then go out and wage jihad. Example:

Another prime terrorism suspect who operated in London for years is Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, the suspected mastermind of the Madrid bombings. Although the authorities now cannot find him, he is believed to have visited Britain often and lived here openly from 1995 to 1998.

Officials believe he tried to organize his own extremist group before Sept. 11, but afterward officials say he pledged loyalty to Osama bin Laden. He lived in north London and was the editor of a militant Islamist magazine, Al Ansar, which is published here, distributed at some mosques in Western Europe and closely monitored by British security officials.

Then you have these Islamo-crazies, protected by law to spout off these incitements:

Even last week's bombings did little to curtail the rhetoric of some of the most radical leaders, who criticized Prime Minister Tony Blair for saying that the bombings appeared to be the work of Islamic terrorists.

"This shows me that he is an enemy of Islam," Abu Abdullah, a self-appointed preacher and the spokesman for the radical group Supporters of Shariah, said in an interview on Friday, adding, "Sometimes when you see how people speak, it shows you who your enemies are."

Mr. Abdullah declared that those British citizens who re-elected Mr. Blair "have blood on their hands" because British soldiers are killing Muslims. He also said that the British government, not Muslims, "have their hands" in the bombings, explaining, "They want to go on with their fight against Islam."

Our friend, Mr. Waheed, appears again in the Times. The article yesterday mentioned that his group, Hizb ut Tahrir, seeks to restore the Islamic caliphate. Ok, no big deal. Just like every run-of-the-mill jihadist. However, today's article mentions this about Mr. Waheed's group: "[It]is allowed to function here but is banned in Germany and much of the Muslim world...." Wow. This son-of-a-bitch then tries to put this nonsense on us:

"When Westerners get killed, the world cries. But if Muslims get killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, it's the smallest of news. I will condemn what happened in London only after there is the promise from Western leaders to condemn what they have done in Falluja and other parts of Iraq and in Afghanistan."

Do you see the disconnect hear? Do you see the utter hypocrisy? This man's group is banned in much of the Muslim world where, except for places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and Lebanon, there is no freedom of speech, and yet he has every right to advocate the establishment of 7th century Islamic rule across the world (which means only to wage jihad) and accuse the government that secures his right to speak freely of being guilty of killing Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. I would not be surprised if this guy and his group's members are among those 600 trained al Qaeda members living in Britain. How dare this punk try to speak for his Muslim "brothers and sisters" in Iraq when we saw on January 30 8 million Iraqis defy Zarqawi's gang and go vote. Why won't he condemn those bombers that go and blow up recruiting stations in Iraq? Why is this nut and his organization allowed to exist in Britain, let alone be interviewed by and represented in the New York Times? There should be utter outrage. Indeed, I am fuming right now just writing this. This is the face of war in the 21st century. Whose side are you on?

Iraq and al Qaeda; Don't Even Dare Say It

2005-07-09T17:42:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the thorough reporting of the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes, we know and, indeed, have known, about the complex marriage of Saddam Hussein's intelligence service and al Qaeda, which was devoted not to each other's well being, but the destruction of America. In his latest finding on this relationship, Hayes (with Thomas Joscelyn) makes it quite evident the marriage was deeper and stronger than we've been lead to believe:

Indeed, more than two years after the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein was ousted, there is much we do not know about the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. We do know, however, that there was one. We know about this relationship not from Bush administration assertions but from internal Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) documents recovered in Iraq after the war--documents that have been authenticated by a U.S. intelligence community long hostile to the very idea that any such relationship exists.

We know from these IIS documents that beginning in 1992 the former Iraqi regime regarded bin Laden as an Iraqi Intelligence asset. We know from IIS documents that the former Iraqi regime provided safe haven and financial support to an Iraqi who has admitted to mixing the chemicals for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. We know from IIS documents that Saddam Hussein agreed to Osama bin Laden's request to broadcast anti-Saudi propaganda on Iraqi state-run television. We know from IIS documents that a "trusted confidante" of bin Laden stayed for more than two weeks at a posh Baghdad hotel as the guest of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.

We have been told by Hudayfa Azzam, the son of bin Laden's longtime mentor Abdullah Azzam, that Saddam Hussein welcomed young al Qaeda members "with open arms" before the war, that they "entered Iraq in large numbers, setting up an organization to confront the occupation," and that the regime "strictly and directly" controlled their activities. We have been told by Jordan's King Abdullah that his government knew Abu Musab al Zarqawi was in Iraq before the war and requested that the former Iraqi regime deport him. We have been told by Time magazine that confidential documents from Zarqawi's group, recovered in recent raids, indicate other jihadists had joined him in Baghdad before the Hussein regime fell. We have been told by one of those jihadists that he was with Zarqawi in Baghdad before the war. We have been told by Ayad Allawi, former Iraqi prime minister and a longtime CIA source, that other Iraqi Intelligence documents indicate bin Laden's top deputy was in Iraq for a jihadist conference in September 1999.

All of this is new--information obtained since the fall of the Hussein regime. And yet critics of the Iraq war and many in the media refuse to see it. Just two weeks ago, President Bush gave a prime-time speech on Iraq. Among his key points: Iraq is a central front in the global war on terror that began on September 11. Bush spoke in very general terms. He did not mention any of this new information on Iraqi support for terrorism to make his case. That didn't matter to many journalists and critics of the war.

It's long, but read it all.

Oh, Come On

2005-07-09T17:02:00.000-07:00

Let me preface this post with this: I think the New York Times is a very valuable newspaper, and its international coverage is probably the best in the world. Yet, sometimes its overt liberal bias makes you want to snap your lap top in half over your knee in an animalistic fit of political road rage. Case in point: The Week in News item in the Sunday Times' Week in Review section. Charting the all-encompassing emotional, athletic and national roller coaster Great Britain has been on this past week (from getting the 2012 Olympic bid, to hosting the G8 summit - and one of the Live 8 concerts - to the barbarity on 7/7), the folks at the Times write this:

The News Bombers struck London in the Thursday morning rush hour. Terror again trumped triumph, and the faces of grief overtook those of joy.

Behind the News Britain's week had begun in a spirit of celebration, anticipation and resolve, with a variety of sports and entertainment and political events drawing the avid interest of the world. Euphoria entered the equation on Wednesday, when London won its bid to hold the Olympics. But the 2012 victory lap lasted scarcely 24 hours, ending abruptly with the bombings on the London Underground and on one of the signature red double-decker buses. The bombings also diverted attention from the G8 agenda, which itself had been intended, in part, to divert attention from the Blair-Bush lock step in the war on terrorism.

Where the hell do you get this from? How does the Times reach this conclusion, that the G8 agenda was supposed to "divert attention" from the terror war? We all know this G8 was about Africa, and not about "diverting attention" from Bushitler and his poodle Blair's war for Mideast petroleum. Blair has made Africa a priority and decided to use this G8 to focus on Africa. The way the Times writes this line implies the war on terror is a political burden for Blair, and his un-holy alliance with George W. Bush is costing him dearly - even though he was re-elected to a record third term in office in May. The sneering phrase, "Blair-Bush lock step in the war on terrorism," is itself revealing about the article's author, which is simply "THE NEW YORK TIMES". Maybe I'm just a paranoid right-winger looking for a fight in over-analyzing one sentence of a Week in Review article, but sometimes it's good to put this kinda stuff on the table for everyone to see.

Hitch Takes Down Ron Reagan

2005-07-09T14:41:00.000-07:00

This is too sweet (hat tip, Roger Simon).

We Can Only Hope

2005-07-09T13:58:00.000-07:00

The New York Times has this interesting report today:

LONDON - The new imam at the Finsbury Park mosque, once a hotbed of radical Islam, had a message for those who gathered for prayer on Friday, a day after four bombs killed at least 49 people: help identify the bombers, he told them. Show your anger at what happened here.

His call to cooperate was a stark and deliberate contrast to a former imam, Abu Hamza al-Masri, now detained and facing extradition to the United States to face terrorism-related charges. Under his leadership, the Finsbury Park mosque became a recruiting center for jihadists for holy wars from Bosnia to Afghanistan.

It is that image the residents of this North London immigrant neighborhood are working hard to shed, eager to demonstrate to an increasingly anxious country that they are not to blame for the attacks on Thursday and that Finsbury Park has rid itself of extremists.

Already, residents here were bracing themselves, fearing they would become targets. "It'll soon be 'kick-a-Muslim week' if we don't watch out," said one young man who declined to give his name. Already, there have been some retaliatory acts against Muslims in Britain.

The struggle in Finsbury Park reflects the broader divide between two Muslim worlds in Britain - the majority of moderates and the radical Islamists who live among them. For years, a relatively small band of radical Islamists hijacked Finsbury Park's image and threatened its economic rejuvenation.

But the moderates are reclaiming the mosque. They installed a new board of trustees who brought in the new, moderate imam. The mosque now offers a course on Islam for non-Muslims. The neighborhood's other, smaller mosque has thrown open its doors in an aggressive program to show London and the world that they do not harbor terrorists. It holds regular "open mosque weekends," in which all comers are invited to tour the mosque, watch videos about its charitable programs and eat from a buffet of halal food.
...

The police raided the Finsbury Park mosque in January 2003, and Britain's moderate Muslim community leaders orchestrated Mr. Mustafa's ouster.

"That place is now safe in the hands of mainstream Muslims," said Ahmed Sheik, president of the Muslim Association of Britain, which helped install the mosque's new board. "We have no fear of the radicals coming again."

The Finsbury Park mosque cannot prevent Muslims with extremist beliefs from coming to pray, but they can no longer use the premises for other activities, said Muhammad Kozbar, the new secretary of the mosque's board of trustees. As proof that the mosque has been reclaimed, he said the average congregation for Friday Prayer has tripled from what it was in its radical days.

Then, of course, you find this caveat:

For many Muslims here, condemning terrorism does not mean condoning American or British policies.
...

"We have far greater experience as victims of terror than as perpetrators of terror," said Mr. Waheed of Hizb ut-Tahrir, saying that the community's reaction to the killing of Muslims in Afghanistan and the Middle East has been "remarkably restrained."

"People need to understand the feeling on the Muslim street," he said. "People hate the foreign policy of Britain and the United States, and the West needs to consider whether constant interference in the Muslim world is productive."

Yeah, pal. Productive. The only measurable level of productivity of anything from the Muslim world - before the U.S. invasion in Iraq and Jan. 30 elections - was coming from crude oil fields and the madrassas where imams pumped out those charming Islamo-fascists. Mr. Waheed also needs to consider whether the Islamization of the West is productive, as well. And what's this about "the killing of Muslims in Afghanistan and the Middle East has been 'remarkably restrained'"??? The reporter, Craig Smith, doesn't say who's doing the killing, but we can safely assume we know who Mr. Waheed believes is responsible - the American soldiers. Why doesn't Mr. Waheed condemn Zarqawi when his ilk blow up Shia mosques and kill Shia and Sunni Kurd Muslims in cold blood in Iraq? Or the Egyptian ambassador to Iraq? Why the silence there, Mr. Waheed?

Trying To Get Back in the Blogging Grove...

2005-07-08T17:43:00.000-07:00

At the urging of some of my colleagues at the Claremont Institute and my own attempt to muster up the motivation to blog and write again, I'm going to try to get back in that blogging groove. Let's hope I can keep up a respectable posting pace. Anyway...to some news.

First a couple of points about the London bombings. One thing I noticed reading through all the coverage and commentaries was the seemingly universal acknowledgment that an attack in London was all but a foregone conclusion. Christopher Hitchens is one of many examples:

My son flew in from London at the weekend, and we were discussing, as we have several times before, why it hadn't happened yet. "It" was the jihadist attack on the city, for which the British security forces have been braced ever since the bombings in Madrid. When the telephone rang in the small hours of this morning, I was pretty sure it was the call I had been waiting for. And as I snapped on the TV I could see, from the drawn expression and halting speech of Tony Blair, that he was reacting not so much with shock as from a sense of inevitability.

The fact that the 3-11 Madrid bombings brought home to Europe the utter horrors of Islamo-fascist terror, putting big cities like London and Paris on notice, the radicalization of British Muslims in Finsbury Park egged on by hideous thugs like Abu Hamza al-Masri, and the U.K.'s partnership with the U.S., especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, all could be cited as evidence of the inevitability of an attack in London. But my question is why did Tony Blair and the Brits and many in the U.S. resign themselves to this supposed fact?

Granted, it is impossible to deter someone so determined to kill others that he will kill himself in process, but I think that the resignation to this inevitability is a sign of who is still playing offense and defense in this war. Do you think the terror masters who are the mullahs in Iran or the Baathists in Syria harbor a feeling that their rule is at the mercy of American firepower? I doubt it. You can be sure those pockets of al Qaeda dispersed all throughout Europe plot and plan in a manner that is definitely not on the defensive. These bastards are playing offense, and they want to drive hard to the basket at any opening they get.

And even despite the offensive we launched in Iraq, we're still on our heels. We resigned ourselves to an attack in London because we know al Qaeda is gunning for us 24/7. When the hell are we - that is, the West - going to say, enough! When will Europe wake the hell up? When will the cranky Left finally put the blame on the killers rather than trying to pin it on Bush? It was good to hear London mayor and left-winger extraordinaire Ken "Red" Livingstone tell the terrorists to flip off. Definitely a good start (George Galloway notwithstanding). So we'll see we go from here. Although Tom Friedman's column provides us an interesting route - even though it's one we, as Americans and Westerners, can't actually take:

...[It] is essential that the Muslim world wake up to the fact that it has a jihadist death cult in its midst. If it does not fight that death cult, that cancer, within its own body politic, it is going to infect Muslim-Western relations everywhere. Only the Muslim world can root out that death cult. It takes a village.

What do I mean? I mean that the greatest restraint on human behavior is never a policeman or a border guard. The greatest restraint on human behavior is what a culture and a religion deem shameful. It is what the village and its religious and political elders say is wrong or not allowed. Many people said Palestinian suicide bombing was the spontaneous reaction of frustrated Palestinian youth. But when Palestinians decided that it was in their interest to have a cease-fire with Israel, those bombings stopped cold. The village said enough was enough.

The Muslim village has been derelict in condemning the madness of jihadist attacks. When Salman Rushdie wrote a controversial novel involving the prophet Muhammad, he was sentenced to death by the leader of Iran. To this day - to this day - no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden.

Some Muslim leaders have taken up this challenge. This past week in Jordan, King Abdullah II hosted an impressive conference in Amman for moderate Muslim thinkers and clerics who want to take back their faith from those who have tried to hijack it. But this has to go further and wider.

The double-decker buses of London and the subways of Paris, as well as the covered markets of Riyadh, Bali and Cairo, will never be secure as long as the Muslim village and elders do not take on, delegitimize, condemn and isolate the extremists in their midst.

I think this wider point proves that American efforts to promote democracy in the Middle East can only go so far. In fact, if this Muslim problem can only be cured by a Muslim solution, it shows how limited our capacity for transforming an entire region of the world really is. Don't get me wrong; I think it is worthwhile that the U.S. be in Iraq to help set up a democratic beach head in the heart of the Mideast. The effect of the Jan. 30 elections in Iraq was palpable from Beirut to Cairo to Riyadh to Tehran. But the process is ultimately self-actualized (if that's even a word). This is taking Friedman's point to the next level. First delegitimize the terrorists, then let the people decide their future.

Update and Condi's State Department

2005-06-07T10:50:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a while due to the fact that I've "moved" to southern California for the summer to work as an intern at the Claremont Institute. We got the internet up and running in our apartment at Harvey Mudd College a few days ago and I've finally gotten around to do some posting. The town of Claremont is absolutely beautiful; tree lined streets - with sidewalks! (something non-existant back home) - big mountains, lots of suns and no humidity. The other interns I work with a pretty impressive bunch of people - and pretty cool, too. We've even started our own Claremont intern blog at http://calicons.blogspot.com. Nothing up there yet, but hopefully we'll get crackin' on that soon.

In news-related stuff (btw, I feel pretty guilty for missing the boat on the "non" and "nee" votes against the EU constitution in France and the Netherlands, respectively, having just spent four months living on that continent and studying the EU. Maybe I'll say something a little later.) The WashPost has a pretty interesting look into the make-up and structure of Condi Rice's "inner circle" at the State Department. Do I hear a yawn? That's all right. I don't know why, but I really like this kind of story. It's like a little window into what I think is a pretty fascinating place. The article details Rice's daily agenda and the serious players surrounding her, as well as pointing out that the bureaucracy won't be dictating policy:

Before becoming secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice studied the various ways her predecessors managed Foggy Bottom. She concluded she did not want to be barricaded by a palace guard on the seventh floor of the State Department -- but she also decided she did not want to let the building run her, aides said.

So she identified a few key priorities that she believes will define her tenure as secretary, such as promotion of democracy. And then she put together an inner circle that draws heavily on longtime personal connections to her and one another.

The result is a powerful and focused group of aides -- and some grumbling in parts of the building that have felt their priorities ignored or played down.

Iraq and Al Qaeda Revisited

2005-05-25T07:32:00.000-07:00

Austin Bay brings to our attention something that has slipped our minds of late: the Saddam and al Qaeda connection vis-a-vis al-Zarqawi. Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard was all over this last year and even wrote a book documenting the allegations. As Bay notes, former NYT columnist Bill Safire insisted the connection as well.

I wonder when Newsweek will do a cover story on this? In their minds, this should qualify for the "fake, but accurate" template, no?

An Extraordinary Story

2005-05-21T14:29:00.000-07:00

The NBC hospital-drama E.R. couldn't top this story from an emergency room in a Jerusalem hospital (via Roger Simon). Civilization vs. Islamic barbarism. Us vs. Them. Right over Wrong. This story is what it's all about - and it's why we'll win.

Recruiting the Mentally Challenged for Jihad

2005-05-20T14:25:00.000-07:00

That is what Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is doing in Iraq. According to Strategy Page:

In response to faltering Iraqi support, al Zarqawi has been bringing in more foreigners. This has been produced a mixed lot of volunteers. When you call for all suicidal religious zealots to join you, some strange people will show up. Autopsies of suicide bombers has revealed that three of them had Downs Syndrome (a genetic disorder that results in mental retardation). Islamic countries tend to keep the mentally ill at home, living in extended families. Those who are able to get about, can come and go as they please, and some have apparently come to Iraq to die for Islam. This apparently explains the suicide car bombs that have been set off by remote control, even though a suicide bomber was at the wheel.

At any rate, as you'll read, we're putting the clamp down on Zarqawi's gang.

The Bigger Picture

2005-05-20T08:01:00.000-07:00

I wanted to write something about the dynamics involved with the Newsweek riots in Afghanistan, but VDH beat me to it:

That long odyssey [of Western progress and advancement] is not so in the world of bin Laden or an Iranian theocrat — or the ignorant who stream out of the madrassas and Friday fundamentalist harangues along the Afghan-Pakistani border. These fist-shaking, flag-burning Islamic fascists all came late to the Western tradition and now cherry-pick its technology. As classic parasites, a Zawahiri or al-Zarqawi wants Western sophisticated weapons and playthings — without the bothersome foundations that made them all possible.

An Afghan who riots because he learns of a rumor in a Western magazine, and those like him who explode and behead in Iraq, are emblematic of this hypocrisy. Nothing they have accomplished in their lives, either materially or philosophically, would result in a free opinion magazine, much less the technology to send out the story instantaneously — or, in the case of al-Zarqawi, to have his murdering transmitted globally on the Internet.

Instead, our Afghan rioters, and the Islamist organizations that have endorsed them, live in the eighth century of rumor, sexual and religious intolerance, tribal chauvinism, and gratuitous violence — but now electrified by the veneer of the 21st-century civilization that is not their own, but sometimes fools the naïve that it is.

Yet all the illumination in the modern world — neon, fluorescent, or incandescent — cannot light up the illiberal Dark Age mind if it is not willing (or forced) to begin the long ordeal of democracy, tolerance, legality, and individual rights.

Despite cheap, accessible, and easy-to-operate consumer goods imported from the Westernized world, the thinking of a bin Laden or Muslim Brotherhood still leads back to swords, horses, and jihad, not ahead to iPods and Microsoft.

They want such things to use to destroy, but not along with them the institutions like democracy and freedom that would allow such progress in their own countries — and shortly make al Qaeda and the fundamentalists not merely irrelevant, but ridiculous as well. Thus, we can understand the increasing hatred of the United States and its policy of democratic idealism abroad that threatens to put them out of business.

As we learned on September 11, they try to kill us now with our own appurtenances before they are buried themselves under modernism, liberality, and freedom. That really is what this war is about: a last-ditch effort by primordial fascists to prevent the liberalization of the Muslim world and the union of Islamic society with the protocols found in the rest of the globe and which many in the Middle East prefer if given a chance.

Only democracy and freedom, not Western money or cheap guilt, will remedy the deep sickness of radical Islam that now so tires and sickens the rest of the world that daily has to watch and endure it.

Euro-conomy Report

2005-05-20T07:34:00.000-07:00

The New York Times has a pretty good look at the "unlevel playing field" that is the European economic landscape, paying special attention to the country I called home for four months.

Meanwhile, Barcepundit has a post warning of a "sudden siesta" in Spain's economy.

Rummy: Transformer

2005-05-19T12:04:00.000-07:00

David Ignatius (via Tom Barnett) writes a great column detailing Donald Rumsfeld's military transformation plans with a plug for Barnett himself.

Iran In Iraq

2005-05-19T11:56:00.000-07:00

Belgravia Dispatch has a pretty informative post about the Iranian foreign minister's recent visit to Iraq right on the heels of the Condi Rice's stop-over.

Iraq Reality Check

2005-05-18T15:36:00.000-07:00

John Burns, the best reporter in Iraq, gives us some necessary perspective:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 18 - American military commanders in Baghdad and Washington gave a sobering new assessment on Wednesday of the war in Iraq, adding to the mood of anxiety that prompted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to come to Baghdad last weekend to consult with the new government.

In interviews and briefings this week, some of the generals pulled back from recent suggestions, some by the same officers, that positive trends in Iraq could allow a major drawdown in the 138,000 American troops late this year or early in 2006. One officer suggested Wednesday that American military involvement could last "many years."

Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top American officer in the Middle East, said in a briefing in Washington that one problem was the disappointing progress in developing Iraqi police units cohesive enough to mount an effective challenge to insurgents and allow American forces to begin stepping back from the fighting. General Abizaid, who speaks with President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld regularly, was in Washington this week for a meeting of regional commanders.

In Baghdad, a senior officer said Wednesday in a background briefing that the 21 car bombings in Baghdad so far this month almost matched the total of 25 in all of last year.

Against this, he said, there has been a lull in insurgents' activity in Baghdad in recent days after months of some of the bloodiest attacks, a trend that suggested that American pressure, including the capture of important bomb makers, had left the insurgents incapable of mounting protracted offensives.

But the officer said that despite Americans' recent successes in disrupting insurgent cells, which have resulted in the arrest of 1,100 suspects in Baghdad alone in the past 80 days, the success of American goals in Iraq was not assured.

"I think that this could still fail," the officer said at the briefing, referring to the American enterprise in Iraq. "It's much more likely to succeed, but it could still fail."

The officer said much depended on the new government's success in bolstering public confidence among Iraqis. He said recent polls conducted by Baghdad University had shown confidence flagging sharply, to 45 percent, down from an 85 percent rating immediately after the election. "For the insurgency to be successful, people have to believe the government can't survive," he said. "When you're in the middle of a conflict, you're trying to find pillars of strength to lean on."

The jihadis (as Christopher Hitchens instructs us to call them; NYT still isn't listening) in Iraq are well aware of this, thus their brutal bombings and assassinations of Iraqi soldiers, civilians and government officials to weaken these "pillars of strength." They also know it's their last stand. If you're going to go down, may as well go down with a fight.

"Outrage and Silence"

2005-05-18T15:20:00.000-07:00

Tom Friedman has one of his good columns on the dynamics of the Middle East as he compares the outcry in the Muslim world over the Newsweek-Koran hub-bub to the Muslim world's silence over Muslim-on-Muslim violence in Iraq:

It is hard not to notice two contrasting stories that have run side by side during the past week. One is the story about the violent protests in the Muslim world triggered by a report in Newsweek (which the magazine has now retracted) that U.S. interrogators at Guantánamo Bay desecrated a Koran by throwing it into a toilet. In Afghanistan alone, at least 16 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in anti-American rioting that has been linked to that report. I certainly hope that Newsweek story is incorrect, because it would be outrageous if U.S. interrogators behaved that way.

That said, though, in the same newspapers one can read the latest reports from Iraq, where Baathist and jihadist suicide bombers have killed 400 Iraqi Muslims in the past month - most of them Shiite and Kurdish civilians shopping in markets, walking in funerals, going to mosques or volunteering to join the police.

Yet these mass murders - this desecration and dismemberment of real Muslims by other Muslims - have not prompted a single protest march anywhere in the Muslim world. And I have not read of a single fatwa issued by any Muslim cleric outside Iraq condemning these indiscriminate mass murders of Iraqi Shiites and Kurds by these jihadist suicide bombers, many of whom, according to a Washington Post report, are coming from Saudi Arabia.

The Muslim world's silence about the real desecration of Iraqis, coupled with its outrage over the alleged desecration of a Koran, highlights what we are up against in trying to stabilize Iraq - as well as the only workable strategy going forward.

The challenge we face in Iraq is so steep precisely because the power shift the U.S. and its allies are trying to engineer there is so profound - in both religious and political terms.

Read it all (before the Times starts charging you to read its website).

Must Reads

2005-05-17T15:28:00.000-07:00

First, Christopher Hitchens on the New York Times and word choice.

Second, and more importantly, Yale History professor John Lewis Gaddis (via Roger Simon and Chapomatic) gave a speech at Middlebury College in Vermont in April on American grand strategy. It is incredibly long, but its intellectual, historical and inspirational value make the length of the speech irrelevant. There's so much of everything in here that you need to take a half hour out of your day to read it. If you can't, at least copy and paste it onto a Word document and print out a copy so you can save it for later. The entire speech is as follows:

The Past and Future of American Grand Strategy

Professor John Gaddis
Charles S. Grant Lecture
Middlebury College
4/21/05

You’ve all been to movies that carry the disclaimer: “Contains material that some may find disturbing. This lecture may require such a warning.

I’ve learned to be careful about this ever since, a couple of years ago, I gave a talk at Harvard and a very distinguished professor whose name most of us know announced, quite majestically, after I’d finished: “I’ve been at this university for 47 years, and I have never heard a presentation with which I disagreed more.”

So please be advised of the following: “This lecture will contain material that some may consider to be complimentary toward the Bush administration. It may, therefore, strike some listeners as unsettling, naïve, partisan, propagandistic, chauvinistic, muddle-headed, or paid for by Karl Rove.”

Let me deal with that last allegation right off the bat.

It is a matter of public record that I did, on January 10th, attend a meeting at the White House at which several journalists and academics were invited to discuss the course of our Middle Eastern policies over the next four years – together with what the President should say in his upcoming inaugural address.

In the interests of full disclosure, I can confirm that I paid my own way down and back, plus taxi and hotel accommodations. I did not attend under an alias. I did, however, accept lunch with the group in the White House mess. And, at the suggestion of Mr. Rove, I consumed a dessert listed on the menu as a “chocolate freedom tart.” Prior to the United Nations debate over the invasion of Iraq, I understand, this dessert had a French name.

That, however, is the extent to which I have accepted compensation from the White House.

I should say something, though, about how this invitation came about, because it will lead into one of the major themes of today’s lecture, which is that of unexpectedness.

The story begins with the publication of my book, Surprise, Security, and the American Experience, which appeared a year ago last March.

Late in June, I had a cryptic e-mail from a former student, now working in the White House speech-writing shop: “the boss has read your book, and has told all of us to read it.”

I wasn’t quite sure which boss he meant, but soon there was a call from Condi Rice which cleared things up: “The President has read your book, and has told all of us to read it. Could you come down and brief the National Security Council staff?”

I of course said yes, but then started quickly flipping through the book to review what I’d actually said about the President and his policies. Here are some sample quotes:

I said that he had “failed miserably” in getting United Nations support for the invasion of Iraq.

I said that his solutions to complex problems tended to be “breathtakingly simple.”

I said that the phrase “axis of evil” originated “in overzealous speechwriting rather than careful thought.”

I said that the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq had “diminished, in advance, the credibility of whatever future intelligence claims Bush and Blair might make.”

I said that the so-called “coalition of the willing” there had been “more of a joke than a reality.”

I said that, “within a little more than a year and a half, the United States had exchanged its long-established reputation as the principal stabilizer of the international system for one as its chief destabilizer.”

And I said that although great grand strategists know the uses of “shock and awe,” they also know when to stop. Here I cited the example of Otto von Bismarck, who had shattered the post-1815 European state system in order to make possible the unification of Germany in 1871, but then had “replaced his destabilizing strategy with a new one aimed at consolidation and reassurance – at persuading his defeated enemies as well as nervous allies and alarmed bystanders that they would be better off living within the new system he had imposed on them than by continuing to fight or fear it.”

So I was not too sure how all of this was going to go over at the White House.

I did indeed meet with Condi and the NSC staff in mid-July for a lively discussion of points made in the book and possible future directions for the administration’s grand strategy.

At the end of it, she casually asked: “Could you spare a few minutes for the President?”

I allowed as how maybe I could, and so she took me into the Oval Office where the President and the Vice President were waiting.

I expected, at best, a handshake and photo op.

But the President said: “Sit down. Loved your book. Tell me more about Bismarck.”

There followed a twenty minute conversation with Bush asking all the questions. After which we found, cooling their heels outside, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, Under-Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Myers. “This is Professor Gaddis,” the President said, waving the book at them. “I want you all to read his book.”

Well, I don’t know how you would have responded in such a situation, but I was somewhat surprised.

I’d been told, first of all, that the President never read anything beyond his daily press and intelligence digests. So it was certainly a surprise to find that he had read my book, and that he had done so ahead of his own staff. We’ve since learned, of course, that the President has a pretty eclectic reading list, ranging from Nathan Sharansky and Ron Chernow to Tom Wolfe.

I’d been told, second, that this was an administration that could not take criticism – that it listened only to people who agreed with it. But the criticisms I’d made didn’t seem to bother anyone.

And I’d been told that this was an administration that was incapable of changing direction, of learning from mistakes, of assessing its own performance. But the whole tone of the discussions was one of acknowledging that, while the overall direction of policy was right, much had gone wrong along the way, and that in the second term – if the voters were to grant one – there would have to be certain changes.

I had by this time already accepted an invitation from Foreign Affairs to write an assessment of Bush’s first-term grand strategy, with a view to predicting what the grand strategy of the next term – whether presided over by Bush or Kerry – was going to be.

So I went ahead and wrote that article, and it appeared shortly after the November election. Here are some of the things I said in that piece:

That “Washington’s policy of pre-emption has created the image of a global policeman who reports to no higher authority and no longer allows locks on citizens’ doors.” (This echoes a point made by John Ikenberry).

That “Bush’s decision to invade Iraq [in the absence of multinational consent] provoked complaints that great power was being wielded without great responsibility. (This echoes a point made by Spiderman).

That “It is always a bad idea to confuse power with wisdom: muscles are not brains. It is never a good idea to insult potential allies. . . . Nor is it wise to regard consultation as the endorsement of a course already set. The Bush administration was hardly the first to commit these errors. It was the first, however, to commit so many so often in a situation in which help from friends could have been so useful.”

That “[The Bush administration] has produced an overstretched military for which no ‘revolution in military affairs’ can compensate. It has left official obligations dangerously unfunded. And it has allowed an inexcusable laxity about legal procedures – at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere – to squander the moral advantage the United States possessed after September 11 and should have retained.”

And that the single greatest mistake the administration had made was to assume that it could shatter the status quo in the Middle East, and that the pieces would then realign themselves spontaneously in patterns favorable to American interests. Bismarck, I said, would never have made such an error.

So much for further invitations to the White House, I thought to myself – and actually said to my wife.

Before that issue of Foreign Affairs had even hit the newsstands, however, there was another invitation to come down – for the January 10th meeting I’ve already described.

I discovered that the piece had not only been read and circulated around the White House, but it had also been sent out to an e-mail distribution list for columnists and commentators that Karl Rove’s office maintains.

Whether the President has read it I don’t know – I didn’t see him on this occasion, and he was quoted recently as saying we shouldn’t assume that everyone reads Foreign Affairs. But it’s clear that his top advisers have certainly done so.

All of which brings me to the January 20th inaugural address, which we talked about at the January 10th meeting and which of course I awaited with some interest.

That’s why I found it so frustrating, at noon on Inauguration Day, to find that nobody in the Yale History Department had the speech on as it was being delivered. All the television sets were unplugged, and of course my generation of professors doesn’t know, on short notice, how to plug them in program them. So I missed it. The speech just wasn’t considered important.

I think that was wrong, because the second Bush inaugural constitutes the clearest explanation yet of where the administration is and what it hopes to do. It was carefully written, clearly delivered, and it bears close reading.

The first major point in it had to do with what the President called the “day of fire” that followed our “years of repose” after the end of the Cold War.

9/11, he argued, meant the end of isolationism once and for all. That event happened because of “ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder.”

Such ideologies, of course, have always existed. During the Cold War, though, they either lacked the ability to transform themselves into actions that could hurt us, or, where they were capable of such actions the countries espousing such ideologies could be identified and deterred, as in the case of the Soviet Union and China.

That was not true on 9/11. Decisions made by largely invisible individuals in a primitive country halfway around the world produced an attack that killed more Americans than the one the Japanese fleet carried out at Pearl Harbor sixty years earlier.

The only solution, the President has insisted, is to neutralize where possible, but to remove where necessary, regimes that embrace such ideologies. The objective, as the inaugural put it, should be to “expose the pretensions of tyrants and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant.” That means that “the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands.”

There follows, then, what I take to be the definitive statement of the Bush Doctrine: that “it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate aim of ending tyranny in our world.”

Several subsidiary points follow from this very big one:

That this is not exclusively, or even primarily the task of arms, though arms will certainly be used when required. The right of preemption, therefore, will remain, as will the option, where necessary, of preventive war. The implication, however, is that these are to be reluctantly resorted to, and rarely practiced.

This sounds like a new policy for the United States, but it really isn’t.

As I tried to show in Surprise, the principal method by which the United States became a continental hegemon during the 19th century was by preempting perceived dangers along an expanding frontier. The Spanish, the Mexicans, and the native Americans can tell you more about that.

The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, proclaimed in 1904, explicitly claimed the right to intervene in the Caribbean and Central America to preempt European intervention: the most avid practitioner of this right was Woodrow Wilson.

Nor was the right of preemption – or of preventive war – ever relinquished during the Cold War. It just wasn’t advertised, and fortunately (given the risks of escalation to nuclear war), it wasn’t practiced.

Nor is there any evidence that John Kerry, had he won the election last November, would have relinquished that right either.

So preemption is less revolutionary than it sounds: Bush is fully within the traditions of American foreign policy in claiming it as one of the methods available to him.

A second major point made in the inaugural is that the task of spreading democracy and ending tyranny requires help from allies: “division among free nations,” the President pointed out, “is a primary goal of freedom’s enemies.”

It is fair to say, I believe, that the administration never wanted to undertake preemption in Iraq unilaterally – or with only minimal multilateral support: hence its efforts, even if unsuccessful, at the United Nations.

The inaugural reaffirms that desire to act multilaterally, as does the appointment of Condi Rice as Secretary of State, as does President’s recent trip to Europe, as does his acknowledgement, while he was in Belgium, that he was actually eating “French fries.”

There will, however, be no multilateral veto on American action. John Kerry, after some confusion during the campaign, made it clear that that was his position also.

A third important point made in the inaugural is that the goal of ending tyranny does not require following an American blueprint: “when the soul of a nation finally speaks,” the President noted, “the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own.”

This represents a useful clarification of what the administration has said before: it’s an explicit acknowledgment that a “one size fits all” model is not what it has in mind.

There are lots of ways to get rid of tyrants – ranging from overthrowing them to persuading them to change their minds and institute reforms to letting them simply wither into irrelevance and die of old age. I understand Bush’s strategy as incorporating all of those approaches.

A fourth point is that the end of tyranny is not to be accomplished immediately, or even within this administration: is the work “of generations.”

This was a speech that sets a course, but it does not promise a quick arrival at the destination, nor does it preclude diversions and delays, even contradictions and reversals, along the way.

In this sense, it’s consistent with the great foreign policy addresses of previous presidents, like Wilson’s “world safe for democracy” speech, or Roosevelt’s “four freedoms” speech, or Kennedy’s “world safe for diversity” speech, none of which proclaimed an objective that was meant to be attained within the term of the administration in question – indeed in these instances, even within the lifetime of the presidents who set these great goals.

Finally, the Bush inaugural sought both to reassure and to disturb authoritarian allies.

They need not fear that we will try to depose them, for in many instances, we will need their help, as we will that of democratic allies.

However, they should not sleep too well in their beds at night, because in order to survive over the long run, they will need to learn to trust their own people: note the respectful but explicit warnings to this effect, in the State of the Union address, to Egypt and Saudi Arabia – something not heard from any previous American president.

In the end, the President claimed, that the triumph of freedom is assured, not because “history runs on the wheels of inevitability,” but because “it is human choices that move events.” (This is, I believe, the first time historical determinism has been considered and rejected in a presidential inaugural address.) And “freedom is the permanent choice of mankind.” Not just America. Of mankind.

So – what are we to make of all this? Let me try to answer that question by commenting on some of the criticisms of the inaugural that have been made during the weeks since it was delivered. Some have come from students and colleagues, some from the media, some reflect my own concerns.

First, that it was a nice speech, but that Bush’s credibility is zero: no one believes anything he says.

This is, to me, a somewhat puzzling comment, because Bush has generally done what he promised to do: he said he would overthrow the Taliban, that he would get rid of Saddam Hussein, that he would isolate Arafat as a way of restarting the Arab-Israeli peace process, that he would pressure Arab allies to move toward democracy, that he would promote the holding of elections in Afghanistan, the Palestinian territories, and Iraq – and that he would protect the United States against future terrorist attacks. He has, in fact, done all of those things: it seems to me his credibility should, by now, be pretty high.

My guess is that there are two reasons why it isn’t.

One is that no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. But every intelligence agency in the world also believed that they were there, and it may be that Saddam Hussein believed that also. That they weren’t, was universally unexpected.

The recently released report of the Weapons of Mass Destruction – while it does not attempt to evaluate the Bush administration’s use of the intelligence it received – provides plenty of evidence that internal flaws within the American intelligence establishment were enough in and of themselves to produce a flawed product.

The Bush administration was no doubt unwise to emphasize WMD as much as it did as a justification for the war in Iraq – it had lots of other good reasons for going in. But deliberate deception has yet to be proven.

A second reason for challenging Bush’s credibility has been the persistence of allegations that it’s all being done for oil, or for Halliburton, or for the Carlyle Group, or whatever – in short, the Michael Moore view of history.

What I’ve never quite understood is why, if this is the case, the Bush administration didn’t simply follow the example of several of its predecessors, Republican and Democratic, and cut a deal with Saddam Hussein to secure access to all the oil we needed?

Had we done so, we would even have been acting multilaterally, for as we now know certain figures within the United Nations and among our European allies had already made such arrangements.

Why all the administration’s talk about democratization in the first place, then, if the Hollywood interpretation had been correct?

There is an old principle in logic known as Occam’s Razor: that the simplest explanation is usually the best one. I know this may sound shocking, but I think we ought at least to entertain the radical notion that the President means exactly what he says when he talks about democratization – and that what he means is what he believes.

But how can you say that, other critics have argued, in the light of the Bush administration’s obvious denials of basic human rights at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere?

That criticism holds up, it seems to me, only if you require, of presidential administrations, freedom from inconsistency – the absence throughout their term in office of gaps between aspirations and actual practices.

The historical record shows very few instances in which this has been achieved.

It was the Clinton administration, for example, that averted its eyes from the horrors in Rwanda, demanding that the word “genocide” not even be used in characterizing what plainly was that, lest telling the truth commit the United States to taking action.

It was the Reagan administration that flouted the will of Congress with the Iran-Contra scheme, and that averted its eyes from death squad massacres like the one at El Mozote.

It was the Nixon and Ford administrations that sought to overthrow the Allende government in Chile, and that averted their eyes from the actions of its successor.

It was the Kennedy administration that tried repeatedly to assassinate Fidel Castro, and that throttled the emergence of democracy in British Guiana.

It was the Roosevelt administration that incarcerated 120,000 Japanese-Americans, while treating Stalin’s Soviet Union as a glorious ally.

It was the Wilson administration that forced radicals into exile, and presided over the first great Red Scare.

It was Lincoln who suspended the right of habeus corpus during the Civil War.

And it was the Founding Fathers who wrote legal protections for slavery into the Constitution.

My point is not to condone the Bush administration’s abuses, for abuses they certainly have been: they were, in my view, illegal, immoral, and stupid, all at the same time. I only wish to point out that if the absence of hypocrisy is to be our standard in judging the performance of presidents, then we must also apply that standard to previous administrations whose record is often compared favorably – but forgetfully – with that of the current one.

But how can you say that, still other critics have argued, in the light of the Bush administration’s abysmal domestic record, as well as its obvious contempt for such praiseworthy initiatives as the Kyoto Protocol, the International Criminal Court, and so forth?

Well, first of all, I am talking about foreign policy, not domestic policy: we have had administrations in the past who accomplished great things in the international arena while conducting activities at home that no one would now defend: Nixon’s particularly comes to mind.

But that’s more of a fudge than an answer. A better one is that the American electorate does not appear overwhelmingly to have rejected Bush’s domestic policies, or his attitude toward international organizations. There’s nothing secret about them, as there was about so much of what Nixon was trying to do.

Finally, the administration’s positions on Kyoto and the ICC reflect an overwhelming consensus within the Senate of the United States, which would have to ratify the relevant treaties: there has never been a chance of getting those initiatives through the Senate in their present form. Which raises the question of why the Clinton administration signed onto them in the first place.

Whatever you think of the Bush administration’s domestic record, therefore, or of its position on international institutions, it’s hardly flouting the will of the people.

OK, some critics will insist, but isn’t the administration’s agenda still inconsistent with international law?

Only, I think, if you understand international law as unconditionally safeguarding sovereignty, whatever the abuses sovereigns may have committed.

But that principle began to be called into question by the Helsinki Final Act of 1975, and we have seen it further questioned by international actions that have violated sovereignty in the defense of human rights: in Bosnia in 1995, in Kosovo in 1999, in Afghanistan in 2001 – and as almost everyone would now wish had happened, in Rwanda in 1994 and in the Sudan today.

If you favor, or favored, those interventions, I’m not sure you can easily take the view that Saddam Hussein – one of the worst abusers of human rights on record – should have been left in power, especially since he had also demonstrated his serial contempt for over a dozen United Nations resolutions.

Unless, of course, you take the view a friend of mine recently expressed: that it was ok to be liberated by Clinton, but if you have to be liberated by Bush it’s better to remain oppressed.

All right, then, even if what the administration has done can be justified in terms of international law, isn’t it cultural imperialism?

Not anymore, it seems to me. It’s significant that the Bush Doctrine is now framed as a negative – freedom from tyranny – than as a positive: that you must all become democrats on the American model.

This brings the Bush policy into line with the famous distinction Isaiah Berlin once made between “negative” and “positive” liberty: negative liberty was the freedom to arrange your own life; positive liberty was the claim advanced by somebody else to know how to do that for you.

It’s also a shift in emphasis from preceding pronouncements of the administration, which did I think too easily assume the transferability of American practices and procedures – a point Fareed Zakaria made in his book The Future of Freedom..

I also detect in this some humbling effects of the Iraqi experience: that we didn’t know what we were doing when we first occupied the country; that we’ve had to adapt, based on what we’ve learned; that there’s been an increasing willingness to shift from the imposition of an ideology from the top down to the application of lessons learned from the bottom up.

The key to understanding the administration’s position now, I think, is this: that while everyone in the world may not know what democracy is, everyone certainly does know what tyranny entails.

The validity of that assumption became a lot clearer on January 30th, when even in the face of persistent insecurity, literally at the risk of their lives, Iraqis who’d not had the opportunity to vote in a free election for decades turned out to do so in percentages that compare favorably with the number of Americans who turned out to vote in their own far safer presidential election last November.

So while there may still be all kinds of disagreement about what kind of government will be best for Iraq, there is apparently agreement about one thing: tyranny is not that form of government.

That much the Bush administration has accomplished, and let us be clear about how that happened: without the invasion of Iraq – and without the sacrifices of a lot of Iraqi and American and British lives – it would never have happened. As even The New York Times, at last, has got around to admitting.

Are the costs worth it? Only time will tell, but as the President commented in his inaugural address – in what was surely the first time Dostoyevsky has ever been quoted in one – a fire has been ignited in the minds of men. And if recent events in Afghanistan, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Egypt, Ukraine, and even Kyrgysystan are any indication, that fire is spreading.

All right, my students and even some colleagues have argued, but isn’t idea of ending tyranny a departure from the more sensible policies the United States has followed in the past?

No way: there were echoes in Bush’s speech of the Declaration of Independence, Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, Wilson’s Fourteen Points, FDR’s Four Freedoms, the Truman Doctrine, Kennedy’s inaugural, Reagan’s 1982 speech to the British Parliament, and any number of speeches by Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

What is new is this: previous presidents tended to distinguish between ideals and interests. The expansion of freedom was an aspiration – but the interests of the United States lay elsewhere: in securing independence, suppressing secession, winning world wars, containment, deterrence, the maintenance of a balance of power, the promotion of capitalism, the encouragement of predictably pro-American regimes elsewhere, even if they didn’t meet our own standards for representative government and the defense of human rights.

Bush has now conflated ideals and interests. As he put it in the inaugural: “America’s vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one.” Freedom itself is to be the strategy, not just the aspiration. It may, in this sense, be radical. It is hardly un-American.

But isn’t it impractical? However will we get to the point of ending tyranny throughout the world? How will we ever afford it, given our overstretched finances and our even more overstretched military?

That’s where Bush’s view of history comes in. As he pointed out in the inaugural address, the past four decades been defined by “the swiftest advance of freedom ever seen.” It is, he added, “an odd time” to doubt the continuation of this trend.

Or, to put it in terms my friend and neighbor Paul Kennedy – a former bookie’s runner – would be familiar with: if you had to place a bet on which form of government will expand its reach over the next four years – or, if you prefer, the next forty – where would you put your money: on the growth of tyranny, or on its further decline?

The test of a good grand strategy is to align itself with trends already underway, so that you minimize, as much as possible, what Clausewitz called “friction.” My bet is that we’ll encounter more friction from now on if we support tyrants than if we resist them. So it does seem to me that the Bush administration has placed its bet in the right place.

Doesn’t the Bush grand strategy violate John Quincy Adams’s great principle that “the United States goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy”?

Not really, and this brings us back to 9/11. Because the danger now is that the monsters from abroad, if nothing is done to counter them, will seek to destroy us here at home.

The trend in global politics is indeed toward democracy, but the trend could be reversed by just a few more well-placed attacks on the scale of 9/11 or greater, whether in this country or elsewhere. In this sense, the world itself is now like Iraq, in which the depredations of a few place all at risk.

Given the choice, the President insists, people will choose freedom. But tyrants and terrorists – even just a few of them – could still deny that choice for many if they were to obtain and use weapons of mass destruction. If we wait for them to act, it will be too late.

That’s why it’s necessary now – as it has not been in the past – to go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. I suspect that even John Quincy, no shrinking violet, when confronted with this choice would have seen its logic.

So this is where we are: with great power has come a great aspiration, which is to end tyranny throughout the world.

The historians will decide, in the end, whether it meets Spiderman’s test of great responsibility – but this historian, for one, is leaning in the direction of saying, yes it does. It would be irresponsible, I think, to have such great power, and not to try to use it in this way.

This historian is also leaning, somewhat more controversially, in the direction of acknowledging that George W. Bush is likely to be remembered as the first great grand strategist of the 21st century. He is, however, somewhat ahead of most of his faculty colleagues and many – though by no means all – of his students in this respect

Let me suggest, though, that this would not be the first time professors and their students have been surprised to see grand strategies from unlikely sources.

Consider this comment from Henry Kissinger on one of Bush’s predecessors: “Reagan’s was an astonishing performance and, to academic observers, nearly incomprehensible. . . . When all was said and done, a president with the shallowest academic background was to develop a foreign policy of extraordinary consistency and relevance.”

But how could this be? How could the shallowness of academic training be an advantage in the conduct of grand strategy? This is a really disturbing idea, but I think we’d better begin pondering it because to paraphrase another great grand strategist, it’s beginning to look like déjà vu all over again.

So let me try to answer this question – why the academy finds leaders like Reagan and Bush so difficult to understand – somewhat in the spirit of Larry Summers, by tossing out a few provocations.

First, that grand strategy is, by its nature, an ecological enterprise. It requires taking information from a lot of different fields, evaluating it intuitively rather than systematically, and then acting. It is, in this sense, different from most academic training, which as it advances pushes students toward specialization, and then toward professionalization, by which I mean the ever deeper mastery of a diminishing number of things. To remain broad you’ve got to retain a certain shallowness – but beyond the level of undergraduate education and sometimes not even there, the academy is not particularly comfortable with that idea.

Second, grand strategy requires setting an objective and sticking to it. The academy does not take easily to that idea either. It asks us constantly to question our assumptions and reformulate our objectives. That’s fine to the extent that that sharpens our intellectual skills, and therefore prepares us for leadership. But it’s not the same thing as leadership: for that, you’ve got to say “here’s where we ought to be by such and such a time, and here’s how we’re going to get there.” Taking the position that, “on the one hand this, and on the other hand that,” as you might around a seminar table, won’t get you there. Nor will saying that you voted for the $87 billion appropriation before you voted against it.

Third, grand strategy requires the ability to respond rapidly to the unexpected. It acknowledges that trends can reverse themselves suddenly, that “tipping points” can occur, and that leaders must know how to exploit them. The academy loves this sort of thing when it happens on the basketball court or the hockey rink. In the classroom, though, it resists the idea: instead the emphasis is too often on theory, which promises predictability, and therefore no surprises. That’s why the academy tends to be so surprised when events like the end of the Cold War and 9/11 take place. Leaders, like athletes, have to be more agile.

Fourth, grand strategy requires the making of moral judgments, because that’s how leadership takes place: in that sense, it’s a faith-based initiative. You have to convince people that your aspirations correspond with their own, and that you’re serious about advancing them. You don’t lead by trying to persuade people that distinctions between good and evil are social constructions, that there are no universal standards for making them, that we should always try to understand the viewpoint of others, even when they are trying to kill us.

Finally, grand strategy requires great language. As the best leaders from Pericles through Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan have always known, words are themselves instruments of power. Their careful choice and courageous use can shake the stability of states, as when Reagan said, before anybody else, that the Soviet Union was an “evil empire” headed for the “ash-heap of history.” They can also undermine walls, as when Reagan famously demanded, against the advice of his own speech-writers, that Gorbachev tear one down.

But where, within the academy is the use of great language taught? Where would you go to learn how to make a great speech? Certainly not to political science, language, and literature departments at Yale, where as students advance they are spurred on toward ever higher levels of jargon-laden incomprehensibility. I think not even to my beloved History Department, where my colleagues seem more interested in the ways words reflect structures of power than in ways words challenge or even overthrow structures of power.

The art of rhetoric, within the academy, is largely a lost art – which probably helps to explain why the academy is as often as surprised as it is to discover that words really do still have meanings – and that consequences come from using them.

The Bush administration, however – like Reagan’s, Roosevelt’s, Wilson’s Lincoln’s – understands that words carry weight. It is choosing them carefully. It is applying them strategically. And to the surprise of its critics, is getting results. It would be a mistake, then, not to listen.

I myself, from time to time, like to listen to students, who often seem to understand, even when their teachers fail to teach them this, that words carry weight. As those of you who’ve read Surprise, Security, and the American Experience know, I ended that book by quoting two of my own undergraduates, the eloquence and seriousness of whose words moved me deeply in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. As it happened, I heard from both of them in the week after the Iraqi election – they’re former students now – and I’d like to let what they said stand as the conclusion to this talk.

Ewan MacDougall, ’03, is now a 2nd lieutenant in the Marines, serving in Iraq. Here’s an excerpt from his e-mail, sent just before he shipped out:

“Through the twists and turns of the last two years, I must admit that at times my faith, besieged by naysayers in the media and other elite circles both at home and abroad, faltered, though I never stopped supporting the president or the policy or the war. I doubted how much success we could achieve but still thought we should try our best. [The Iraqi elections showed that] Bush’s instincts, and my initial instincts to believe, were right. I’m very enthusiastic, not least about my work over the next half year, even if the results in Ramadi brought down the national average – if anything, my battalion’s going to the right place. See you soon.”

Sky Schouten, ’03, is now at the Harvard Law School. Here’s what he wrote:

“On Sunday, in Iraq, the US and its allies pulled off a liberal democratic equivalent of 9/11. Strategically speaking, there are many loose ends; there is momentum that can either be captured or wasted; in the process, we have deeply embittered many people, and they will resist our aims to the utmost; and if we are honest with ourselves, we do not particularly understand much about the broader society on which we are unleashing these shocking developments. Nonetheless, let me suggest: for the moment, we may be forgiven for pausing, smiling, and listening to the ground creak beneath the feet of our adversaries. After all, we are only human, and we are engaged in a long human struggle.”

I can’t do any better than these guys.

Pew Poll

2005-05-15T13:37:00.000-07:00

The Pew Research Center has a pretty good political typology poll you can take. Check it out.

For the record, I am an Enterpriser.

Newsweek

2005-05-15T13:34:00.000-07:00

I am hoppin' mad about the Newsweek boondoggle. Obviously, heads need to roll at Newsweek. Roger Simon conveys my sentiments quite well. Instapundit has a good round-up, too.

Don't buy the magazine until they come clean.

I'm Glad He's On Our Team

2005-05-15T13:10:00.000-07:00

Christopher Hitchens gives us some perspective on Abu Ghraib and, then, notes this:

How shady it is that our modern leftists and peaceniks can detect fascism absolutely everywhere except when it is actually staring them in the face. The next thing, of course, if we complete the historic analogy, would be for them to sign a pact with it. And this, some of them have already done.

Better grab the ice pack for that rhetorical left hook. Ouch.

Following Iraq

2005-05-13T13:49:00.000-07:00

I want to get back on blogging about Iraq and what better way is there to start - despite the horrofic violence the past two weeks - than this report a couple of days ago from the Washington Times:

The war in Iraq is increasingly looking more like a showdown with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda followers than a battle primarily against Saddam Hussein loyalists. The shift is making the fight a focal point of the U.S. global war against Islamic terrorists and one that might dictate whether the U.S. wins or loses, said a senior official and an outside expert."If they fail in Iraq, Osama and his whole crew are finished," said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, a military author and analyst.

The changing dynamic was highlighted this week when the U.S. military launched a major offensive in western Iraq, primarily against foreign jihadists who crossed the border with Syria to join the al Qaeda network in Iraq led by Abu Musab Zarqawi. In a troubling sign, U.S. officers said Zarqawi's terrorists seemed well-trained and well-equipped. The U.S. offensive, code named Operation Matador, entered its third day yesterday in the dusty border towns west of Baghdad near Syria. The command said three Marines and more than 100 enemy fighters have been killed.

"In the Muslim world and extremist world, this fight for Iraq is their key battle," said Gen. McInerney. "If they lose it, they lose the war. And so the imams are inciting young people, not particular well-educated, to head to Iraq. Most are going through Syria via Damascus. "This is why Iraq is such a fundamental part of the global war on terrorism. When we finally defeat Muslim extremists, it will be the battle in Iraq that defeats them."

We're all pretty much the same...

2005-05-13T09:38:00.000-07:00

...when it comes to foreign policy. How is this possible? You have George Will, the preeminent conservative columnist and Iraq war skeptic, praising Paul Wolfowitz as a realist (!) in this New York Post column. You have my man Tom Barnett, the uber-strategist, giving Sen. John Kerry his famous brief in Kerry's Senate office (Barnett, btw, voted for Kerry). And, finally, you have Henry Kissinger, the king of foreign policy realists, coming to terms with and basically endorsing President Bush's democracy promotion policy - of course not without some warnings.

And, in a related, but not wholly related aside, James Pinkerton's column on our grand strategy in the Middle East vis-a-vis Russia is must read.

Home

2005-05-12T07:55:00.000-07:00

After a little unannounced hiatus from blogging upon my return to the States, I hope to get back to regular blogging. We'll find out what "regular blogging" really means in the next couple of days/weeks.

Anyway, just a couple comments on my trip home. Glad to say I had no troubles - besides a 45 minutes delay at Dulles Airport in D.C. before my flight to Pittsburgh - coming home. Got a cab from my four star hostel in London the morning of my flight back to the U.S. into Terminal 3 at Heathrow Airport. It was my first time at Heathrow and I had always heard it was a big airport, but I was blown away at the sheer magnitude of the airport itself. The capacity to handle all those passengers, their flights to every corner of the world (Kuwait City, New Dehli, Moscow, Tokyo, San Francisco, etc), baggage, etc. is incredible and I got to appreciate the management and coordination necessary to run such an operation. I know this may not seem like a big deal, but for a young, wide-eyed traveler, passing through the figurative center of the world, it was a pretty cool experience.

Coming home and re-adjusting to what it's like to be home again wasn't that big of a deal. Of course it was great to see my folks again. We went for beers at a bar in the South Side section of Pittsburgh. Felt good to taste Yuengling again. Couple days later, I headed up to Penn State for a quick visit with friends. I apologize to those I didn't spend a lot of time with, as my sister let me have the Jeep for only two days. So now I'm back home, doing yard work, seeing some old high school friends, and looking forward to my summer in California.

I Can Now Go Home With No Hassle (Let's Hope I Don't Jinx Myself)

2005-04-27T08:35:00.000-07:00

I'm leaving Barcelona on Friday. I have a 3:30 flight out of Girona-Barcelona airport to London-Stansted Airport, upon which I'll be spending the night in London, before flying back to the States the next day. However, for a little bit, I wasn't sure if I was even going to get out of Spain. Spanish baggage handlers were threatening a strike during the upcoming May Day weekend holiday, choosing April 29 and May 4 as their strike days. The 29th is the day I fly out of Girona. Until now.

From Ryan Air's website:

Ryanair was advised today 27th April that the proposed strike action by Spanish Baggage Handlers for Friday 29th April & Wednesday 4th May 2005 has been cancelled. Normal flight operations will apply and check-in baggage will be accepted in accordance with Ryanair's terms and conditions. Ryanair apologise for any inconvenience caused to customers by this threatened strike action which is now cancelled.

Thank God. Otherwise, if the strike was going to carry on, I would have been screwed. I have a huge suitcase, a huge duffel bag, a smaller travel bag and a book bag - the latter two I'd carry on. There was no way they would let me carry on my two big bags, and I don't know how I would have gotten my bags to London in time for my Saturday afternoon flight home out of Heathrow.

Anyway, I could not believe, that of all the days the unions here chose to strike, they had to pick the day I was leaving. I somehow have the best luck flying to and from Europe. I say this because coming to Barcelona via Paris in January, I missed my flight from Newark to Paris because my flight out of Pittsburgh was delayed a half hour. Fortunately, the folks at Air France at Newark were able to put me on stand-by on the next flight to Paris -- only problem was that the flight was out of Kennedy airport! They advised me to get in a cab ASAP and high-tail it to JFK. They said if my bags didn't come in off the Pittsburgh-Newark flight, forget about them (because they were tagged final destination Barcelona) and get over to JFK. Of course, my bags didn't show up.

So I get a taxi, tell the cabbie (a really nice guy from Egypt) my "situation," and he gets me to JFK in 45 minutes -- half the time in normally takes to get from Newark International to JFK. The bill came to (including tip) 120 freaking dollars. Drama already, and I hadn't even left the country! I checked in at JFK -- 10 minutes before the flight closed -- and, thankfully, I was bumped up from stand-by. Walking to my gate, I finally began to breath again. I was at least going to Europe. My two big bags, on the other hand, didn't make it to Barcelona until four days after I arrived. As you can imagine my first week basically sucked. But I made the most of it.

And so, here I am, four months later, ready to head back home. My Spanish has gotten a lot better - from where it was. I can read the paper and hold a basic conversation. I got to see a lot of Catalonia, London (again; and I'll be visiting again on Friday!), San Sebastian, Rome, and Mainz and Wiesbaden, Germany. Also during the course of my stay, I got an internship at the Claremont Institute in California (which is, I think, about an hour or so east of Los Angeles). I'll be working there from the beginning of June to the end of July. So I'll have May to re-adjust (i.e. catching up on Seinfeld re-runs, Brit Hume, ESPN, etc.) and all of August to get ready for my last semester at Penn State. And then, sometime early next year, I voluntarily become property of the United States government and the United States Army!

Lot of stuff going on right now. Pretty exciting time. Barcelona to California to PSU to the Army. The scary part is how fast it's all going by.

Finals week

2005-04-27T01:40:00.000-07:00

I've got finals this week and had final papers due last week, thus explaining the lack of updates. Will be coming back to the States on Saturday and regular blogging will certainly return.

By the way, I'm really looking forward to ordering some buffalo wings and watching Brit Hume's Special Report. Along with catching up on my Seinfeld re-runs, CNBC, SportsCenter, Viva La Bam marathons on MTV, and of course, regular C-Span programming.

I'm planning on kissing American soil when I get off the airplane, as well. Being away for four months, you don't realize how good you have it in the U.S. Nothing beats home.

Habemus Papem!

2005-04-19T12:20:00.000-07:00

Pope Benedict XVI, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, has been selected as the new pope. God bless him. From what I've been reading, he's a true conservative and defender of church doctrine. Following the news and commentary on Pope Benedict XVI at NRO's the Corner, I came across this excerpt from the pope's work, "The Question of Suffering, the Response of the Cross," that just about sums up my personal attitude toward my faith:

Today what people have in view is eliminating suffering from the world. For the individual, that means avoiding pain and suffering in whatever way. Yet we must also see that it is in this very way that the world becomes very hard and very cold. Pain is part of being human. Anyone who really wanted to get rid of suffering would have to get rid of love before anything else, because there can be no love without suffering, because it always demands an element of self-sacrifice, because, given temperamental differences and the drama of situations, it will always bring with it renunciation and pain.

...

As mentioned above, updates at the Corner.

Also, no doubt, in the mainstream media's analysis of the pope's background and life, the myth that he was a Nazi will surely be propogated. Sam Ser, of the Jerusalem Post, says don't believe it (reg. required).

Problems and Progress

2005-04-18T17:37:00.000-07:00

Tim Russert and NYT reporter Dexter Filkins on Meet the Press on Sunday, discussing Iraq:

MR. RUSSERT: Dexter, talk about life in Baghdad as opposed to prefall of Saddam. What is the average guy, the average lady--do they get up in the morning? Are they going to work? Is the city functioning? Are kids going school? Are the markets open? What do you see?

MR. FILKINS: All those things. I mean, the truth is, you know, on most days, Baghdad is a very normal, Middle Eastern city. You know, after the fall off Saddam, there was a huge economic boom. They took down all the duties, you know, the amount of car traffic has, you know, quadrupled or possibly more. The traffics--the streets are jammed, the schools are open. There's lots of commerce. So in that sense, it's a very vibrant, bustling place. It's just sort of punctuated by, you know, this terrible violence. But, you know, it's difficult to describe the country because you have these very dramatic moments of violence. But the truth is, you know, most of the time, it's pretty normal.

Telling words from a Times reporter. Granted Filkins and the other MTP guest, NBC News' Jim Miklaszewski, were quick to note the on-going difficulties, but it's encouraging (from a media standpoint) to see these kinds of comments being made.

The Weekend

2005-04-14T05:03:00.000-07:00

I'm off to Frankfurt, Germany for the weekend. I'll be back Sunday. And then, only two weeks left in Barcelona. I cannot believe how fast this semester has gone.

Via Instapundit. Interesting post on the possible "collapse" of the EU from Anklebitingpundits.com.

Tiger Woods ya'll

2005-04-13T14:05:00.000-07:00

"Socially aware" Europeans would find the following story typical of the greedy, money-grubbing mindset that consumers America (Ha!), but how could Nike not want to, uh, capitalize on something like this? ESPN.com reports:

In the time it took the swoosh to disappear over the lip of the cup on the 16th green, Chris Mike had already picked up the phone to discuss strategy with Nike's advertising specialists about how to capitalize on the defining moment of Tiger Woods' fourth Masters title.

Nike pays Woods $20 million as its top endorser, but it's Mike's job to seize on moments like Woods' amazing chip shot on Sunday.

"When I saw the shot roll in, I knew that what we would be doing for the next quarter or two would revolve around this," said Mike, director of marketing for Nike golf.
...

"This moment was so natural, it was almost unbelievable," said Joseph Jaffe, a marketing consultant and author of "Life After The 30-Second Spot." "The ball stopped as if it were in 'Caddyshack.' And as it slowed, everyone could see the swoosh on the ball."

Nike, the shoe and apparel maker, owns about 9 percent of the golf ball market and 4 percent of the club market, according to Golf Datatech. But capitalizing on the moment could give Nike golf products a boost. The timing couldn't be better. The ball Woods played during The Masters, the One Platinum, hits stores in May.

"Every time Tiger does something great, he can affect sales," Mike said. "When he hit a 300-yard drive with a 3-wood at Doral, our phone lines were flooded, so I suspect we could see an uptick now."

Yeah, I should say so.

China News

2005-04-13T11:48:00.000-07:00

Not sure how I missed this story from the Washington Post (from Friday Apr. 8):

President Bush has decided the United States and China should begin holding regular senior-level talks on a range of political, security and possibly economic issues, signifying both China's interest in the prestige of such sessions and the administration's efforts to come to grips with China's rising influence in Asia, senior administration officials said.

Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick has been assigned to head the U.S. delegation, and a Chinese vice foreign minister will be his counterpart, officials said. Regular meetings between the two countries have never been held at such a level.

Chinese President Hu Jintao formally asked Bush to consider engaging in what the Chinese call a "strategic dialogue" during an economic meeting in Chile last November. During a visit to Beijing last month, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice confirmed that the United States is interested in regular senior-level talks, but the administration has chosen to call the meetings a "global dialogue" because, officials say, the phrase "strategic dialogue" is reserved for close U.S. allies.

OK, but then there's this line:

Reflecting the administration's concern, Rice initiated an effort during her trip to Asia to make India into a major world power and elevate Japan as a key ally on a range of international issues.

During Zoellick's meetings, U.S. officials expect to ask tough questions about China's rapid rise in military capabilities. "It will almost certainly be raised in the strategic dialogue," a senior administration official said. During Rice's visit to Beijing, she was "very direct in our concerns on their military buildup," he added.

OK, so which is it? Global dialogue or strategic dialogue? If officials say a "strategic dialogue" is for close allies and go out of their way to describe these talks as a "global dialogue," why is "a senior administration official" saying otherwise? Maybe the qualifications of a certain type of "dialogue" really have no bearing on this relationship? Or maybe this public diplomatic-speak is a bunch of bull - which it usually is anyway. Still, I would think a strategic dialogue is necessary to deal with North Korea:

The growing coordination between the United States and China -- even when each country's objectives may be different -- is illustrated by the crisis over North Korea's nuclear ambitions. The United States has increasingly relied on China to persuade North Korea to attend six-nation talks as a way to dismantle Pyongyang's nuclear programs, even though China often appears to value stability on the Korean peninsula over the goal of disarming -- and possibly destabilizing -- North Korea.

Indeed, U.S. officials have been frustrated that China has often acted as a mediator in the talks rather than as a full participant. Frequently, China has called on the United States and North Korea to show greater "flexibility and sincerity" in dealing with each other. U.S. officials in recent weeks have privately told the Chinese that there is little appetite in Washington for that rhetoric and that it is time for China to demonstrate more toughness with North Korea.

Publicly, China still refers to the United States and North Korea as the "major parties" in the talks and says the burden should not be on China to get Pyongyang back to the table. But in recent talks with U.S. officials in Beijing, Ning Fukui, China's special ambassador for the nuclear issue, indicated growing frustration on the part of China at North Korea's behavior, U.S. officials said. Ning for the first time did not call for additional flexibility by the United States and said the two sides may need to discuss "next steps" in addressing the crisis -- a euphemism for possibly ending the six-party process.

U.S. officials are not sure what to make of Ning's comments, though some believe they may signal a growing willingness to pressure North Korea. In the past, China has generally lured Pyongyang to the talks with offers of cash and other sweeteners -- exactly the opposite of the Bush administration's mantra that North Korea should receive "no reward" for its behavior.

Tom Barnett, of course, has some thoughts on this emerging relationship (first and second series of items).

A Letter to Andrew Sullivan

2005-04-13T10:57:00.000-07:00

I recently sent this letter to Andrew Sullivan (not sure why I read him anymore, curiosity perhaps?):

Andrew,

And you voted for/endorsed this guy for commander in chief?

Re: Your Iraq post.

How convenient for you now to admit you were wrong. While you were busy "fearing the worst," George W. Bush, his commanders in the field, our troops, and the Iraqi people never stopped believing that the outcome we are seeing now - genuine progress - could have been "stymied by wrong decisions." I'd also throw in 59 million Americans who felt the same way. For all the criticisms you made about how hopeless Iraq was, you could never convince me all was lost (the guys at IraqTheModel gave me some perspective, a website you never seem to link to anymore; to pro-Bush, right?).

Mistakes were made, and we learned from them pretty damn quickly. Bush may have not admitted so publicly, but the progress in Iraq today is proof positive that Bush learned from those mistakes and made the necessary adjustments. There was no other choice! (not going into Fallujah last April being the case 1 example.) If you feel a public acknowledgment of those mistakes by Bush would have made everything better for you, would have reassured you that Bush's supposed hubris was actually a determined, yet realistic, focus, based upon a deep faith in his generals and GI's, to rewrite the wrongs made, then you, sir, do not know what a true leader is. After all he did stake his presidency on the whole enterprise.

A leader is someone not to wallow in his mistakes, consumed by guilt of the consequences of those mistakes (i.e., 19 year old GIs getting RPGs shot through their chests). A leader does not quiver in the face of opportunistic politicians and agenda-driven reporters (both, btw, who are still stuck in that warped Vietnam syndrome) pleading for his mea culpa. How do you think Zarqawi would have taken the news that Bush admitted he messed it all up? Funny how Zarqawi, in his "memo" that circulated around last fall, admitted he was on the ropes.

Were we ever on the ropes? I don't think so. Our soldiers sure as hell didn't think so. You certainly did. How ironic. So if Bush was going to give in to the media and a politician that, let's be honest, were not genuinely concerned with a positive outcome in Iraq simply because their Bush-hatred superceded everything, how do you think our soldiers would have taken that? You can bet the New York Times would be all over the GIs, hounding them for their response to the president's admittance that Iraq was "botched." It would have made their job impossible because their commander in chief now had some doubts about the mission. The soldiers knows things may not have gone smoothly, but that's why they are the finest fighting force humanity has ever seen. They can adjust, adapt, learn on the fly, and come back kick your ass so hard you're already dead before your heart stops beating. Those warriors were the same ones building schools, delivering Iraqi babies in helicopters, training Iraqi police, and organizing basic civics classes for Iraqis - all the while you were convincing yourself the mission was botched.

My point is this: how can things be looking so (cautiously) positive right now when, in all your "thorough" analyses and assessments, you came to the conclusion that the decisions President Bush made in post-war Iraq warranted your endorsement of that "pathetic vulture," who is now trying to score political points by exploiting fallen soldiers, Senator John Kerry. That man's post-election behavior, first on Meet the Press, the day Iraqis were going to the polls in the face of Zarqawi's threats, and now this, is utterly sick. And not a peep from you.

Instead of holding our would-be president accountable (who still hasn't released his 180 forms yet), you say, let's be that contrarian and rip the pope - another man with rock solid principles. You seem to like to go after those people with conviction without acknowledging the fact that their humanity permits them NOT to be perfect (you actually believe the pope - not those cardinals surrounding him - is that power-hungry to ignore the pedophilia in his church?). I say, let God judge those sinners who show no remorse for their transgressions. President Bush and John Paul II, I think you would agree, are the kind of men who are humble enough to ask for forgiveness for their wrongs. Despite their failures and shortcomings, they seek only to learn from their faults and be a better commander in chief and a more holy sheperd of his flock, respectively. And this is why they are the true leaders of our time.

UPDATE.

The Wall Street Journal has some similar thoughts re: Iraq.

Rudy G in 2008?

2005-04-12T05:39:00.000-07:00

Via Austin Bay, Outside the Beltway has great post and an even better discussion in the comments section about the prospects of Rudy Guiliani running for president in 2008.

For the record, I'd support him in a heartbeat. I really don't have a problem with his social issue positions (except for some pro-choice comments he made several years ago), and anyway, he'd at least shift a little to the right in the primaries.

Although I'm still holding out hope for a Cheney run!

The Church, Condoms, and AIDS in Africa

2005-04-12T05:29:00.000-07:00

Ross Douthat has a pretty enlightening post that certain Church critics should take note of.

The Arab Human Development Report

2005-04-12T05:14:00.000-07:00

The UN's Arab Human Development was last week's news, but I thought Powerline's take is on the money:

The UN Development Project has released its 2004 report on Arab development. It finds that a good portion of the blame for the Arab world's lack of progress lies in the creation of Israel 57 years ago, and in the support by the U.S. for Israel's existence since then (our presence in Iraq hasn't helped either). That's right -- 300 million Arabs live under oppression because 5 million Israeli Jews live in freedom, supported by the U.S.

Israel and the U.S. already have officially rejected this crackpot theory. However, Caroline Glick in the Jerusalem Post points out that "both Israel and the US are basing their policies towards the Palestinians specifically, and the Arab world generally, on an internalization of the UNDP's ridiculous claims." First, they assume that the Palestinian conflict with Israel is the cause of the Arab conflict with Israel. Second, they assume that the Palestinians are weak and the Israelis are strong, and that the way to solve the conflict is to strengthen the Palestinians and weaken Israel. This latter assumption "leads both Israeli and American foreign policy elites to advocate Israeli surrender of land and rights to the Palestinians and to support Palestinian acquisition of arms, money and sovereignty."

Glick dispatches these assumptions. She shows how the Arab states conspired to keep the Palestinians in squalor thus fueling the rejectionism that would promote their perpetual conflict with Israel. She also shows how the strength of the Arab states, based in large part on the economic power they wield thanks to their oil reserves, has enabled them to play this deadly game for decades.

Rocket Man has argued that, contrary to the conventional wisdom (not to mention the nonsense promulgated by the UN), the transformation of our relations with the Arab states, and the transformation of these states themselves, does not depend on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Rather, resolving that dispute depends on the transformation of the Arab states that stand behind it. Glick's piece provides powerful support for this thesis.

It also backs up Princeton professor Michael Scott Doran's thesis I talked about a few days ago, that finds major holes in this Palestine-centric argument.

The Offensive in Iraq Continues

2005-04-12T05:03:00.000-07:00

The Times reports a very encouraging story (despite the unfortunate news about the American contractor kidnapped by insurgents) about a recent Iraqi forces-led raid that netted 65 bad guys:

Hundreds of Iraqi troops and commandos backed by American soldiers swept through central and southern Baghdad early Monday morning, capturing at least 65 suspected insurgents in one of the largest raids in the capital since the fall of Saddam Hussein, military officials said.
...

The raid, which began at 3 a.m. and lasted more than six hours, disrupted three insurgent networks, American military officials said. They said those captured included men suspected of assassinations, beheadings, kidnappings and attacks on Iraqi and American forces. One group was planning attacks on the new National Assembly, said Maj. Gen. Mudher Moula Aboud, an Iraqi Army commander.

In the raid, more than 500 Iraqi soldiers and police officers cordoned off areas in some of Baghdad's most dangerous and crime-ridden areas, searching from house to house in more than 90 locations with American troops playing a supporting role, United States military officials said. One of the men captured was reported to have been injured. The raid was the latest of several large-scale operations led by Iraqi forces in recent weeks.

In the Washington Times, Rowan Scarborough documents al Qaeda's man in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's "close call" with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force:

Abu Musab Zarqawi, the most-wanted terrorist in Iraq, is on the run in an undeveloped western border region where he was nearly caught in recent weeks, a U.S. Marine commander says. "He's going from brush pile to brush pile just like a wet rat," said Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, whose 1st Marine Expeditionary Force is back home at Camp Pendleton, Calif., after months of intense combat in Anbar province. "I believe he possibly slid back into the Anbar area, possibly the hinterlands."

Gen. Sattler, who commanded operations in the region, said in an interview with The Washington Times that the U.S.-led coalition has forced Zarqawi to work "independently" by killing or capturing his first- and second-string lieutenants. Zarqawi fled the Anbar region before his base in Fallujah was captured by a Marine-Army force in November. He operated in northern Iraq until he was pressed back to western Iraq, but this time in isolated frontier country.

"He can't use cell phones," Gen. Sattler said of the Jordanian-born terrorist, whose capture promises a $25 million reward. "He can't use any type of Internet. He doesn't know who he can trust."
...

Gen. Sattler disclosed in the interview that his Marines and special operations troops came within a whisker of capturing the terror master "within the last six weeks" in western Iraq. While guarded on details, Gen. Sattler said that only poor visibility in bad weather allowed Zarqawi to escape. "The elements worked to his advantage," the three-star general said.

Lastly, SecDef Rumsfeld is in Iraq today, on a surprise visit meeting with new Iraqi leadership and his top military brass, the AP reports.

Bolton Hearings

2005-04-12T04:09:00.000-07:00

Over at Slate.com, Fred Kaplan, a big critic of John Bolton, thinks the hawkish U.N. envoy nominee tanked on the first day of Senate confirmation hearings. He points to Bolton's evasiveness on a variety of topics and thought Bolton never really showed any desire to want to improve the battered world body.

However, I didn't see any mention in Kaplan's piece about Kofi Annan calling Bolton and telling him to "get yourself confirmed quickly"? National Review is running an editorial supporting Bolton's nomination, and takes on the charge that Bolton fired intel officers who didn't agree with Bolton's policy conclusions - specifically on alleged Cuba's bio-weapons program.

India-China update

2005-04-12T04:06:00.000-07:00

Good news out of New Delhi, the New York Times reports:

China and India agreed Monday to resolve a decades-old border dispute and let trade flourish between the countries. Promising a new era of "peace and prosperity" between the world's two most populous countries, the announcement came during a four-day visit to India by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China.

It signaled an end to a protracted dispute over several patches along the 2,200-mile border between the countries, stretching from Kashmir to Myanmar. China defeated India in a war over territory in 1962, and relations have been fraught for four decades. The two countries have reached "a certain level of maturity," India's foreign secretary, Shyam Saran, said at a news conference here. "India and China are partners, and they are not rivals," he added. "We do not look upon each other as adversaries."

The announcement did not spell out which territory would go to which country, but the two countries did agree to come up with a plan to resolve disputes over frontier territory. Each side has troops along the border, but there have not been any recent skirmishes. Despite the border dispute, relations between India and China - both nuclear powers, both witnessing rapid economic growth, both facing an enormous demand for energy - have flourished in recent years, led primarily by trade. China is now India's second-largest trading partner, after the United States.

On Monday Mr. Wen and his Indian counterpart, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said the two countries expected to increase bilateral trade from $13 billion last year to at least $20 billion in 2008.
...

Twelve separate agreements were signed during the visit, ranging from the border issues, to cooperation on filmmaking, to the export of Indian bitter gourds and grapes to China. India and China also agreed to expand flights between the countries, and to military exchanges to enhance "mutual trust" between their armed forces. They also agreed to engage in joint exploration for oil and gas in other countries. What India did not mention were agreements that China has made with India's neighbors and rivals, from building road links with Bangladesh to financing a deep-sea port in Pakistan.

On that last point about the Chinese financing a deep-sea port in Pakistan, there was an op-ed yesterday in the Times by Nayan Chanda about this issue and larger issue of expanding Chinese navy that I meant to clip and post as well. The primary reason for this port is obviously better accessibility to energy reserves in the Middle East:

Five hundred and ninety years after a Chinese fleet cast anchor at Hormuz, the Chinese are back in the Arabian Sea. When Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China visited Pakistan last week, one of the many deals he signed was for the deepening of the port at Gwadar, whose Chinese-built facilities symbolize China's return to an area that was, briefly, a playground for its navy.

The port's just completed first phase - three berths that can accommodate very large ships - is relatively insignificant. But its projected size and strategic location have sent ripples of anxiety through Washington, Tokyo and New Delhi about the potential establishment of a permanent Chinese naval presence near the Strait of Hormuz, through which 40 percent of the world's oil passes.

For the sake of regional stability, Beijing should forgo any ambitions to use Gwadar for its naval vessels. Yet China has valid reasons to help develop a commercial port that other powers must accept. Its return to the Indian Ocean is the logical outcome of its blazing economic growth, which the West has encouraged, applauded and profited from. A China that depends increasingly on imported oil transported great distances can justifiably seek commercial refueling and repair facilities, just as European powers dependent on far-flung coaling stations for their ships did in the 19th century.
...

Many believe it is only a matter of time before the Chinese Navy, much strengthened by recent purchases of ships and technology, arrives in Gwadar. Pakistani officials boast that Gwadar's Chinese connection will help to frustrate India's domination of regional waterways. A Chinese maritime presence in the area would enable the mainland to monitor naval patrols by the United States and protect Chinese sea lines of communication. China Economic Net, an online news outlet sponsored by China's leading business paper, calls Gwadar "China's biggest harvest."

The fact remains, however, that with the exception of the Chinese "fishing trawlers" occasionally found mapping the ocean floor (information needed by submarines), the Chinese Navy has yet to show up. So for now, instead of raining on China's parade at Gwadar, India and the United States should welcome China's contribution to expanded maritime commerce and the additional sense of security that Beijing might derive from it. The port at Gwadar will be a boon to the regional economy; and to deny China's need for a secure oil supply while pumping billions of dollars into China to produce more gas-guzzling cars is both illogical and, in an indirect but palpable way, hostile. China should be left in no doubt, however, that using the Gwadar port for its military would increase tensions and weaken the energy security that it ostensibly seeks. Checking its frigates and submarines at the door would be a good way for China to ensure that others are also able to enjoy the party.

In a separate, unrelated article, the Washington Post picks up on the strengthening-Chinese-military theme that has been circulating the major papers in recent weeks. The article basically documents China's hardwares and the strategic posturing vis-a-vis Taiwan. However, I did find this line to be noteworthy:

"The main purpose of that is not to attack the United States," Lin [Chong-pin, a former Taiwanese deputy defense minister and an expert on the Chinese military at the Foundation on International and Cross-Strait Studies in Taipei] said. "The main purpose is to throw a monkey wrench into the decision-making process in Washington, to make the Americans think, and think again, about intervening in Taiwan, and by then the Chinese have moved in."

Interesting that line comes from a former Taiwanese official. It makes you think the absorption of Taiwan by China is inevitable (we just don't know when) and that the U.S. really isn't going to do anything about it. So in 2025, don't be surprised if the "War of the Taiwan Straits" really isn't war at all - or, at the very least, a war without the American Navy.

*Just a note: for whoever reads this blog and wonders why I post huge chunks of new articles with little commentary, it is because I like to "clip" articles that I feel are important in helping me understand ever-changing world we're living in. In that context, I consider this blog a personal research archive (along with being an outlet for my own commentary). For example, I see the economic and military emergence of China and India as critically important developing story in the world today, and I think the United States is in a position to create important relationships (economic, strategic, political) with both countries to advance its interests in Asia. Likewise in the Middle East. So, my goal, I guess, is to do my best in tracking all the important goings-on around the world and attempt to synthesize that information for myself and whoever else might be slightly interested. Of course, as I said before, commentary on whatever issue that needs discussed will not cease.

Press Conference in the Dirt

2005-04-11T18:42:00.000-07:00

Of the many reasons why I love George W. Bush: an "open collar" press conference with Ariel Sharon in the dirt (literally) at the Crawford ranch, while wearing cowboy boats.

Other reasons why I love W include: the customary Ford F-350-tour -around-the-Crawford-ranch with world leader X; the cactus theme; the "open collar" dress down for the White House staff, as well; W's giant belt buckle; and, of course, W clearin' brush at Prairie Chapel. How bad ass is that shot?

If you think I'm "making light" of all this, you're wrong - except for maybe all the cacti. Honestly, this is what I love about Bush. This whole swaggering, cowboy aura he gives off that pisses off all those tweedy, uptight professors/intellectuals, elite media-types and Eurocrats/limp-wrist publics just makes my day. He does things his way, in his environment - and he's damn proud of it.

Cockiness? No. Arrogance? No. Confidence? You bet. You think he gives a flip about his low poll numbers? Doubt it. He's too busy spendin' all that political capital right now.

Ok, enough Bush fawning. The Times gets into the meat of the Bush-Sharon meeting. Full press conference t-script here (with more Crawford pics! - sorry)

Live Free or Die

2005-04-11T16:58:00.000-07:00

Neo-Neocon has a heartfelt post in honor of everyone's favorite Iraqi blog, IraqtheModel, as they celebrated what they call the "Eid of Liberty" on April 9 - the day of their liberation two years ago from Saddam Hussein. Be sure to read both posts.

And how fitting is it that we get confirmation that true victory in Iraq is in sight from our commanders in theater. From the New York Times:

Two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the American-led military campaign in Iraq is making enough progress in fighting insurgents and training Iraqi security forces to allow the Pentagon to plan for significant troop reductions by early next year, senior commanders and Pentagon officials say.

Senior American officers are wary of declaring success too soon against an insurgency they say still has perhaps 12,000 to 20,000 hard-core fighters, plentiful financing and the ability to change tactics quickly to carry out deadly attacks. But there is a consensus emerging among these top officers and other senior defense officials about several positive developing trends, although each carries a cautionary note.
...

Several top associates of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant whose network has claimed responsibility for many of the most deadly attacks, have been captured or killed in recent weeks. American commanders say it now takes longer for insurgents to regroup and conduct a series of attacks with new tactics, like the one on the night of April 2 against the Abu Ghraib prison that wounded 44 Americans and 13 Iraqi prisoners.
...

The American military's priority has shifted from waging offensive operations to training Iraqi troops and police officers. Iraqi forces now oversee sections of Baghdad and Mosul, with American forces on call nearby to help in a crisis. More than 2,000 American military advisers are working directly with Iraqi forces.

More Iraqi civilians are defying the insurgents' intimidation to give Iraqi forces tips on the locations of hidden roadside bombs, weapons caches and rebel safe houses. The Pentagon says that more than 152,000 Iraqis have been trained and equipped for the military or the police, but the quality and experience of those forces varies widely. Also, the Government Accountability Office said in March that those figures were inflated, including perhaps tens of thousands of police officers who are absent from duty.

Interviews with more than a dozen senior American and Iraqi officers, top Pentagon officials and lawmakers who have visited Iraq yield an assessment that the combination of routing insurgents from their sanctuary in Falluja last November and the Iraqi elections on Jan. 30 has given the military operation sustained momentum, and put the Bush administration's goal of turning Iraq over to a permanent, elected Iraqi government within striking distance.

"We're on track," Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview. But the insurgency "kills virtually every day," he warned. "It's still a very potent threat.
...

Precisely when and how many American forces withdraw from Iraq hinges on several factors, including the security situation, the size and competence of newly trained Iraqi forces, and the wishes of the new Iraqi government. Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Iraq, told CNN two weeks ago that if all went well, "we should be able to take some fairly substantial reductions in the size of our forces" by this time next year.

General Casey has declined to describe the size of any possible troop reductions, but other senior military officials said American force levels in Iraq could drop to around 105,000, or about 13 brigades, by early next year, from the 142,000 now, just over 17 brigades.

Matt's Sports Report

2005-04-10T08:34:00.000-07:00

Keeping an eye on some interesting developments back home in the States:

- At Augusta National:

"Tiger Woods tied a Masters record with seven straight birdies and surged past Chris DiMarco to take a three-stroke lead into Sunday's final round at Augusta National. Woods shot a 7-under 65, one stroke better than the second-round score that got him back in contention. He opened the tournament with a 74.

"Not bad, huh?'' Woods said, smiling. "It's been a while, hasn't it? Most majors, you're not going to be making a whole bunch of birdies. You're going to be making a bunch of pars.''

Just when everyone was beginning to say his run was done. Not quite. Live Leaderboard here.

UPDATE: Tiger wins his 4th Green Jacket and ninth major championship, beating out Chris DiMarco in a playoff. Halfway there Jack! (to Nicklaus' record 18 majors, for those who may not know)

- The Bus, Jerome Bettis, will come back for the 2005 season with the greatest football team in NFL history, my Pittsburgh Steelers.

- The Chicago Bulls, for the first time in the post-Michael Jordan era, have made the playoffs. I guess this is the compensation for those Illini fans still bummin' after UNC .

The Up-and-Comers

2005-04-10T05:00:00.000-07:00

Fascinating New York Times article on the rise of China and India on the heels of Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao's arrival in New Dehli. The narrative goes a little like this: 1/3 of the human race expanding economically at incredible rates; huge demand for energy resources; on the hunt for new markets; and a reassertion of the balance of power in the world (from the trans-Atlantic relationship with the U.S. to the emergence of an East Asian-Pacific relationship with the U.S.). Where the two diverge is political openess:

"There is constant talk these days of turning Mumbai, the southern commercial metropolis formerly known as Bombay, into a new Shanghai, China's most glitteringly modern city. More to the point may be Bangalore, India's booming capital of telephone call centers and high-tech software. Growth there has been menaced by political delays that have stalled construction of a new airport for seven years. Shanghai, on the other hand, built one of the world's most spectacular airports in three years.

Such contrasts have left some Indians to remark, sometimes despairingly, about a "democracy price" that slows development. At the same time, Indians almost invariably say they would have it no other way. "I'm often approached by friends returning impressed from China, saying how our airports in Bombay and Delhi can't compare," said G. P. Deshpande, a longtime China scholar at Jawaharal Nehru University in Delhi. "When I tell them that these things come in a package, that you don't just get the new airports, and I describe the package, though, they say no thank you."

The package Mr. Deshpande alludes to is strict authoritarianism, which allows the local and central governments in China to rezone entire districts without so much as a hearing, to pollute city and countryside without having to face public objections and to conduct large-scale social engineering, often disastrously, but with similarly little question. For their part, mainstream Chinese intellectuals talk of India's advantages in democratic governance. For all of China's apparent strengths today, they say, future success may depend on democratic reform.

"If China learns its lessons from India, it can succeed in democratizing in the future," said Pang Yongzhing, a professor of international relations at Nankai University in Tianjin.

"India is a far more diverse country," he said, "a place with the second largest Muslim population in the world, and lots of ethnic minorities, and yet it organizes regular elections without conflict. China is 90 percent Han, so if India can conduct elections, so can China."

Chinese have also begun openly to question the kind of growth their authoritarianism has spawned.

"We are using too many raw materials to sustain this growth," said Pan Yue, China's environment minister, in a recent interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel. "To produce goods worth $10,000, for example, we need seven times more resources than Japan, nearly six times more than the United States and, perhaps most embarrassing, nearly three times more than India.

"Things can't, nor should they, be allowed to go on like that," he said.

Others worry about China's seeming addiction to large investment, which leads to huge waste and steep cyclical downturns, a shaky financial system imperiled by a huge burden of nonperforming loans, and rampant official corruption.

"In India there is a lot more room to move around," said Zhang Jun, director of the China Center for Economic Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. "Their capital markets are good, their banking sector is better than in China, and there is entrepreneurialism everywhere in India, along with well-protected intellectual property rights. All of these are things that China lacks."

Pressed for a prediction, Mr. Zhang said he saw the two countries' positions converging within 15 or 20 years, by which time they may rank as the two largest economies in the world, if still far below the United States and other top economies in terms of per capita wealth. How they get there, and the examples they set along the way, may hold important lessons for other developing nations, on global peace, human rights and democratization.

"If China continues to grow and grow, people will inevitably begin to think this is proof of the validity of their system, and that would be very bad for all of Asia," said Subramanian Swamy, president of India's Janata Party and former minister of law, commerce and justice.

"On the contrary, if India continues to emerge, taking a seat on the Security Council, it will have a tremendous impact for the good," he said. "As far as exporting democracy, it is only a matter of time before India gets the self-confidence to begin doing this."

My guess is that the first part of the 21st century, the primary focus for the U.S. will be continuing to help the Middle East get up to speed and stomping out the the last remants of al Qaeda. But the for the rest of this century, the action will be in East and South Asia, led by India and China. Wall Street and American business are already there "setting up shop." The question remains if our political and strategic thinking will follow the economic and financial route in locking up those important diplomatic and strategic partnerships -- not antagonizing or threatening these folks.

The Unipolar Moment

2005-04-10T04:43:00.000-07:00

David Brooks makes the case for what I might call "cultural neoconservatism" -- and really isn't too high on it.

Politics Are Always Local

2005-04-09T18:11:00.000-07:00

I was looking through the archives on the Foreign Affairs website and I found this short essay on the issue of Palestine as the "vulcrum of Middle East politics" written by Princeton Near East Studies professor (and Bernard Lewis protege) Michael Scott Doran. It's actually a follow-up to a piece he wrote in an earlier issue of Foreign Affairs examining this Palestine-centric thesis in much more depth:

"'Palestine, Iraq, and American Strategy' attacked the school of analysis that identifies the Palestine question as the fulcrum of Middle East politics. Washington's pro-Israel bias, this school argues, alienates Arabs and feeds support for radicals such as Osama bin Laden. The school's adherents were so myopically focused on Israel as the "root cause" of the region's problems, I claimed, that they failed to appreciate the diversity and significance of various inter-Arab conflicts. Events over the past two years have largely borne out my thesis.

Professor Doran continues:

"Many commentators warned, for example, that there would be dire consequences if the Bush administration set out to topple Saddam Hussein without also pressuring the Israeli government to do more for the Palestinians. The administration chose to ignore this advice, and -- thanks partly to the passing of Yasir Arafat -- Israeli-Palestinian relations are now the warmest they have been in years.

"Similarly, many commentators warned that the invasion of Iraq would produce a powerful nationalist backlash in that country. They were taken by surprise, accordingly, when millions of Iraqis turned out to vote in the recent elections, putting the lie to the notion that the insurgency represents anything like the will of the people.

"And they have been shocked by the recent developments in Lebanon, because the spectacle of teeming Lebanese crowds protesting Syria's occupation -- rather than Israel's -- was beyond their imaginations.

"What all these 'surprises' have in common is that they can be traced to local issues. They came as a shock because they put paid to the concept at the heart of the 'root cause' school's thinking: a monolithic pan-Arab public opinion driven by an obsessive concern with the Palestinians and their supposed Israeli and American oppressors."

Doran then furthers his point with a really interesting discussion about the Shia in Saudi Arabia. Pretty enlightening stuff from a guy who was denied tenure at Princeton.

F*** Time Magazine

2005-04-09T09:08:00.000-07:00

Powerline explains why that magazine should go screw itself.

Bolton's The Man

2005-04-09T09:03:00.000-07:00

Bill Kristol comes out swining (no surprise) for John Bolton's nomination as U.N. ambassador:

"Despite Soros's millions and the Times's resources, the assault on Bolton has been pathetic. What does it amount to? He's a longtime U.N. skeptic -- appropriate, one would think, given the U.N.'s 'Zionism is Racism' history during the Cold War, and its ineffectiveness (to be kind) in

Rwanda

in the '90s and in

Sudan

in this decade. But he's worse than a skeptic, the critics say: He has been disrespectful of the august body in which he will represent us. Why, he once joked, 'The Secretariat Building in New York has 38 stories. If it lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference.' Well, truer words were never spoken.
...

"The case against Bolton is silly and weak. Democrats want to embrace it. Let them do so, and let Republicans make them pay a price. When Bolton is reported out of committee, Senator Frist should schedule floor debate without a time limit. Republican senators should challenge their Democratic counterparts to debate John Bolton's record, and the U.N.'s record, every day, for as long as the Democrats want. The Bush administration should put senior spokesmen on TV every night to engage in an argument over whose foreign policy is preferable for the country--George Bush's or George Soros's. Republicans should welcome a discussion of whether the U.N. is just fine as it is, or requires tough-minded reform. In stimulating such a debate, Bolton would be doing yet another service to this country. And then he can go to New York as ambassador to the United Nations and get to work chopping 10 stories off the Secretariat building."

Ha!

A Little Bit of Nostalgia

2005-04-08T17:57:00.000-07:00

Democracy Arsenal, which I have linked to before, is one of those blogs conservatives need to read regularly to keep our foreign policy arguments sharp and clear. This group blog of foreign policy professionals are openly partisan Democrats, don't care much for George W. and are sometimes snarky about it, but share the relatively same vision of a muscular liberal internationalist foreign policy. They also adamantly oppose John Bolton's nomination as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. I disagree with plenty of what is said at DA, and I hope to spend some time challenging some of their own arguments.

In the meantime, Derek Chollet has a very cool "who's-who" round-up of Bush II's foreign policy team. Ever since I've began to regularly follow foreign affairs and American foreign policy, I've always been interested in the personalities that shape and influence foreign policy. I love to know where they studied, what degrees they've earned, how they built their careers, what schools of thought they come from, who they've worked under, what articles or books they've written, etc.

I think my interest in the "who's-who" aspect of U.S. foreign policy goes way back to my grade school and middle school days when I collected baseball and basketball cards and obsessively followed the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Chicago Bulls, and my ex-favorite NBAer, Grant Hill. Like any kid growing up playing baseball and basketball in a relatively serious environment (i.e. tournament team and American Legion baseball and CYO and public school league basketball), I liked to pattern my playing habits and style of play in both sports off of the great ones like Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey, Jr., Andy Pettite (the Yankee southpaw with the best pick-off move to first), Michael Jordan, Grant Hill, Penny Hardaway (remember him?), and Kobe Bryant. My success wasn't notable, but I held my own up through the varsity level in high school.

Getting back to foreign policy...now that my focus has shifted from athletics to academics, I see a definite parallel in how I modeled my athletic abilities after those top guns from the court and the diamond, to now, when I do a paper on the Iraq war and the role of the foreign policy bureaucracy or post a blog entry on whatever issue of the day I wish to discuss. Today I use the resources I have availabe to me - the newspapers, other blogs, journals, papers, books, government reports, etc - to help me write that paper or write a coherent post in the same way I'd go to the batting cage to work on my swing, run a couple miles on the track to build up stamina, hit the weights to add muscle, or watch video tape of the Chicago Bulls or own my own varsity basketball team to gain that competitive edge.

Although, I'm reluctant to admit that I find myself much more passionate about my academic and political pursuits than I ever really was with baseball and basketball. Don't get me wrong; I really enjoyed both sports, got to be pretty good at both, and actually started for a championship baseball team my junior year of high school. But...there's always a but, I don't think my heart was ever really in the "game," as I believe it is with what I do and enjoy now. I haven't mentioned this anywhere on this blog or in any of my college newspaper columns, but my passion for what I enjoy now has led me to the decision (which I made last spring/summer) to join the Army and apply to Officer Candidate School (because I'm not in ROTC) after I graduate this December. After 9/11 and the war in Iraq, I've slowly discovered that I want to be where the action is, as scary as that sounds. Reading all the Baghdad dispatches from the Times and the Post only gets you so close. I read about the discipline and comraderie amongst our soldiers, and I find myself wanting to be a part of that, even with all the tragedy that war brings - the lost limbs, the parents that bury their kids. Maybe I'm being a naive idealist. Maybe I'm gonna be in for a rude awakening. Or maybe this is my inner-self trying to reclaim that athletic glory I could have had if I only got up at 5:30 a.m. every morning and head to my high school gym to shoot those 5oo jumpers like those guys from Gateway did; or if only I had gone to the batting cage during the winter months after my Saturday morning basketball practices to get ready for the spring baseball season. Ha. Maybe not all that. But the point is that I think I've found one of my callings in life with military service and, honestly, I can't wait to see how it goes.

Anyway, wow. This post got a little off track and probably a little too personal. But it's all good. We all need a little self-examination every now and then, right? And what better place do it than in the pseudo-anonymous setting of a blog, haha!

Iraq: Still A Long Way To Go

2005-04-08T15:30:00.000-07:00

Here are two items - one security, the other political - that signal how far we (Americans and Iraqis) still have to go in Iraq - and why it's critical we don't get complacent and declare victory just quite yet. Although, in the same breath, we can't set the goal posts so high - Iraq becoming Sweden, or some other blissful European social democratic haven - that we're never able to declare victory. I think we have to come to the realization that, yes, there will be troop reductions after the elections set for this December (that is if they don't get delayed which is likely the case because, according to most observers, the deadline for writing and ratifying the new constitution - originally set for August 15 - will be given a six-month extension, as stipulated in the TAL), but there will be a long-term U.S. troop presence in Iraq for at least, in my estimation, five more years. (In fact, I've read that the Pentagon plans to deploy somewhere around 20,000 more troops for those elections). I don't know what the troop number will be reduced to over that period of time, but, barring any dramatic uptick in insurgent activity, I can see the level of U.S. forces being cut to half or 60% of the current 140,000 or so currently deployed. All depends on, one, security, stability and the ability to continue to train and deploy indigenous Iraqi forces; two, the pace and quality of reconstruction; and three, when the Iraqi government tells us to go home (however that will come when American and Iraqi generals tell the Iraqi government that the first stipulation is sustainable for the long haul).

Ok, let's go to those two items I mentioned. First, from the WashPost. The article talks about the youthful renegade Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, and the apparent "resurgence" of his Mahdi Army. At first read, you get the feeling al-Sadr's boys are back for more. But then you get into the meat of it, and you find some rational thinking and political straddling among even the radical Shia elements.

On Sheik Aws Khafaji, al-Sadr's man in Nasiriyah: "In private, he can be measured and militant. In one sentence, he will denounce the U.S. presence, warning of calamity if American troops fail to depart. In another, he strikes a more mainstream, nationalist tone -- outreach to Sunnis, cooperation with police, even holding out the prospect of formal participation in the political process once the Americans leave."

On the other hand, Post reporter Anthony Shadid gets this assessment from the U.S. military:

"U.S. military officials say they believe the toll they inflicted during last year's fighting sapped the young cleric's support. While still a threat, the militia is less so than when it first took up arms in April 2004, the officials say.

"'We believe Moqtada's militia is generally marginalized, and there is little to be gained from taking a military role,' said Lt. Col. Bob Taylor, chief intelligence officer for the 3rd Infantry Division, which oversees Baghdad. 'But it could still be a threat.'"

On to the second item, the political front. Nathan Brown, in an interview with the CFR, says the two biggest challanges facing the newly appointed Iraqi government include the status of the Kurdish and oil-rich city of Kirkuk and the level of Islamic influence in the new constitution. He also has a few interesting points about the Sunnis.

I want to highlight his analysis of the role of Islam in Iraq:

"Nobody seems to dissent from the position that Islam should have some kind of official standing and some kind of official recognition, so a completely secular state is out of the question. And at the other end of the spectrum, a completely Iranian model under which clerics exercise some rule in day-to-day politics, is off the table as well. But almost anything in between is a possibility. It could be that laws are given a greater Islamic coloration. It could be that clerics, if not ruling day to day, are still consulted in important matters. It could be that you would have, especially in personal-status matters, a reversion to a situation in which religious law--as determined by religious scholars rather than by the state--plays a much greater role."

Also, Brown on the importance of bringing all parties to the table:

Q: Prime Minister Jaafari, a Shiite, has been talking about the need to bring Sunnis, Kurds, everybody into the government. Do you think that sentiment will prevail at least for the writing of the constitution?

A:It has to prevail for the writing of the constitution, because so many people are given so many different points at which they can exercise a veto. It's a process of virtually enforcing a consensus. So the question is: can a consensus be developed? Without a consensus, the process breaks down. If any three provinces vote against the adoption of the constitution, it is rejected. So, in effect, Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds all have a veto.

Q:That requires a major effort to bring Sunnis into day-to-day politics.

A: Yes. On a constitutional level, I think that's a little less difficult than it is with the Kurds, because most of the Sunni demands don't focus on the content of the constitution. They focus on [pressing for an end to the] American presence, they focus a little bit on procedure. I don't think, when writing the constitution, it'll be that hard to make it more palatable to a Sunni audience. The trick will be to get Sunni leaders and the Sunni population on board in the process.

Q: We've seen mixed signals recently, haven't we? Some Sunni leaders are saying people should join the army and the security forces, but some others say that is meant to subvert those forces.

A: And, unlike the Kurdish population and the Shiite population, who have a set of clearly identifiable leaders, it's much less clear who is speaking authoritatively for the Sunni population.

And, finally, as if this post isn't already long enough, StrategyPage has an pretty upbeat, yet realistic, assessement of some of the things I've discussed above along with a discussion about the trouble al Qaeda is having in Iraq.

UPDATE

The AP reports (and the NYT picks it up) on an Sadr-inspired Shia protest in Baghdad today, marking the second anniversary of the crumbling of Saddam's regime. Some telling points: Sadr himself didn't even go because of security concerns. And then you find this nugget of information buried deep down in the story:

"Al-Sadr had stayed out of the limelight since leading failed uprisings last year in the southern city of Najaf and in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood. But he has stepped up criticism of the United States in recent weeks, mainly by organizing Saturday's protest, which fell far short of the 1 million people he hoped would assemble."

So there are about 26 million Iraqis, 60% of which are Shia, and al-Sadr's hopes of 1 million of his young trouble-makers turning out to protest the oppressive American occupation doesn't quite materialize. Despite the AP pointing out this well-know fact - "Al-Sadr has wide support among impoverished and young Shiites but overall fewer followers than Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most revered Shiite cleric in the country" - the reporters, Qasim Abdul-Zahra and Sameer Yacoub, seem to want to lead us to believe that al-Sadr's movement is regaining traction. I'm not buying it.

In somewhat related news, I didn't catch an AP or NYT dispatch on this or this.

Spain Exporting WMDs to Chavez

2005-04-08T13:28:00.000-07:00

It looks like Zapatero's government sold a little more than some military spy planes and patrol boats to the Venezuelan dictator. Barcepundit's all over it.

Gordon England to be Dep. SecDef

2005-04-08T10:58:00.000-07:00

Paul Wolfowitz's replacement at the Pentagon will be, pending Senate confirmation, SecNavy Gordon England. The Boston Globe (via YahooNews) has this report:

"President Bush yesterday nominated two-time Navy secretary Gordon R. England, 67, to replace Paul D. Wolfowitz as the deputy secretary of defense. A native of Baltimore, England is a confidant of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and last year was put in charge of overseeing the military's controversial detention operations [wonder if that'll slow his confirmation??]. A former executive at General Dynamics, England was Navy secretary from 2001 to 2003, when he served a brief stint as deputy secretary of homeland security before returning to the Pentagon. He must be confirmed by the Senate."

Here's his official bio from the Navy's website. I didn't see any neocon credentials (like that matters anymore, especially if Wolfowitz can be voted in to the World Bank presidency by a bunch of Eurocrats), however his military detainee policies may bring some scrutiny to his nomination. Otherwise, he looks to be a solid pick. Reports also said he's on board with Rumsfeld's transformation goals. However, I'll, of course, have to wait to see what Tom Barnett says about the news.

41 And 42 Join 43 on Intel Brief

2005-04-08T07:03:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you but I thought this little bit in the Times was pretty cool:

''According to a pool report filed by reporters aboard Air Force One, Mr. Bush asked his father and Mr. Clinton to join him on Wednesday morning during his intelligence briefing.''

I wonder what that must've been like for Papa Bush and Clinton. I'm sure they've gotten their fare share of intel briefings during their terms in office, but this is probably their first (if they've sat in on them before, it would be news to me) post 9/11 brief. It would be cool to know if they had anything to offer during the briefing.

Yeah, this is an extreme example of my political geekiness, but I just find this kinda stuff fascinating.

UPDATE:

Well, thanks to Bill Sammon at the WashTimes, we have some idea of what those intel briefings were like with Bush 41 and Clinton. Plus, the White House released the transcript of that press pool. If you'll allow me to, I want to reprint a portion of the exchange between Bush and some of the reporters I found to be quintessential Bush...

Q What has it been like spending time with the former Presidents for three days? That's the longest time --

THE PRESIDENT: It's fun. Oh, it's great. You know, we share war stories, you know, a lot of talking, a lot of interesting experiences about different world leaders that we may all have met -- or all three of us met. Just different experiences that, you know, my dad might have had or President Clinton might have had.

There is a lot of interest, obviously, with former Presidents about, you know, policy, so I had them sit in on our policy briefings this morning with Condi and [National Security Advisor] Steve [Hadley] and the CIA fellow traveling with us -- not this morning, yesterday and the day before, on Air Force One. And then yesterday at the embassy I wanted to include them in. And, you know, we had a -- these CIA briefings a lot of time prompt policy discussions, you know, how is this process going, Steve -- and Condi, now that she's here, both of them were able to bring dad and President Clinton up to date on our strategy in dealing with a particular issue. It's interesting to get their points of view about their experiences in particular countries. It was fun. It was really a lot of fun. I was honored they came.

Q Are you worried about them spending so much time together, those two? (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: Well, you heard my Grid Iron speech. (Laughter.)

Listen, thank you all. Hope you enjoyed the experience as much as I did. Absolutely fascinating.

By the way, I think when you discuss religion -- on doubt --there is no doubt in my mind there is a living God. And no doubt in my mind that the Lord, Christ, was sent by the Almighty. No doubt in my mind about that. When I'm talking about doubts, I'm talking about the doubts that an individual struggles with in his or her life. That's important for you to make sure you get that part of the dialogue correct, if you don't mind.

Q Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Got it? Everybody got it correct? All right.

Q Thank you.

Q What are your plans this weekend?

THE PRESIDENT: Like Stretch, I'm on the injured reserve list from running, so I'll be mountain biking. I think Cat McKinnon is going come up from Austin. Oh, yes. And I'll be fishing. I'll be finishing my book, "Peter the Great," by Robert K. Massey. Some of you old-timers have probably already read it, I'm just now -- have you read it?

Q Getting ready for the next Russia trip.

THE PRESIDENT: Have you read it?

Q No.

Q I like when you said "old-timer" and you looked at Steve -- (laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: He probably had read it -- and I wasn't going to look at Ann, of course, I'm too polite. (Laughter.)

We'll have briefings, Condi is coming to spend the night, Hadley will be spending a night there. We'll start briefing the Sharon visit Sunday night. And then we'll obviously greet the Prime Minister and then head off to Fort Hood on Tuesday morning, and work on that speech probably Monday evening.

Looking forward to getting back down there again. I may do a little cedar work, depends on how sleepy the crew is.

Q I'll be fishing, just down the Bosque River.

THE PRESIDENT: Really?

Q Yes. I'm sleeping at the Side Oats Ranch tonight.

THE PRESIDENT: Tell them "hi." Middle Fork has got some water in it.

Q They do.

THE PRESIDENT: The Middle Fork comes down to my place.

Q Does it come down to you from his, or goes the other way?

THE PRESIDENT: I think it comes down, doesn't it? Yes, I think he's west of me, so it's coming down toward Waco. The Middle Fork feeds into the Brazos.

Consider yourself lucky you get to go down to Texas.

Q I'm delighted.

THE PRESIDENT: You're not grousing about it, are you?

Q Oh, no, no, no. I'm sorry I missed Easter, I was at home for that.

THE PRESIDENT: It may be -- I hope, I haven't heard, but it may be that the wild flowers, are they out yet? They say there is going to be a spectacular blue bonnet season this year, I mean, spectacular.

Q Is that in honor of the Baylor women's basketball team?

THE PRESIDENT: I called, as a matter of fact, on the airplane flying to Rome, I called the coach, Kim Mulkey-Roberts. A fine person. I had met her before when she brought -- you all saw her, at least if you were on the pool, right, let's see -- anyway, she was with the Midway girls softball team when they came out, the national champs softball team. Her daughter is a player on it, and so she came out with the parents. But she was one excited lady. And she did a heck of a job.

Q Blew them out.

THE PRESIDENT: They've got a great team. I'm looking forward to welcoming them to the White House.

END 9:16 A.M. EDT

As Much As It Pains Me to Say

2005-04-08T06:54:00.000-07:00

For an American conservative, what I am about to say is tantamount to an act of treason (well not quite treason, but some on the right may now feel justified in calling me a "cheese-eating, surrender-monkey"), but I think this needs to be said.

France is right - and we are in fact quite wrong - to want to lift the arms embargo on China. Yes, despite even China's recent passage of the anti-secession law threatening military force against a Taiwanese break for independence, the French and those limp-wristed Europeans have it right this time. I couldn't put it any better than how French foreign minister Michel Barnier put it in yesterday's Financial Times, page 2 (from the print edition I picked up; didn't see it online):

"'There is a real, fundamental difference of perception that we have about China on both sides of the Atlantic,' he said. 'One cannot treat China like Zimbabwe.'"
...

"Mr. Barnier said China had evolved since the EU imposed the embargo in 1989, entering the World Trade Organization and winning the right to stage the 2008 Olympic Games. It was now 'anachronistic' to maintain the arms embargo, he said, while stressing that a strict arms export regime would could continue to apply to arms sales to China."'Our intention is at no point to multiply the sale of arms in the region. This lifting of the embargo has a political dimension,' he said."

Barnier is right; the decision to lift the embargo is not so much so Europe can arm China to the teeth, but so Europe can continue to expand trade with the Chinese because, after all, who doesn't want to do business with China now? Let me allow Tom Barnett to explain the Bush administration's backward thinking on this:

"The US can't trade with and invest in China like crazy, sell arms to both Taiwan and Japan, and then tell the EU not to do the same with China on both trade and arms. We just don't get to decide which other Core powers [if you're not familiar with Barnett's lingo, these are essentially the G-8 countries] get to arm and under what conditions. China's rising economically, and like any other country in such a trajectory, it builds up and modernizes its military. We can't stop that, but we can shape it and work to make that process dovetail with a rising security alliance between us two. But the Bush Admin seems to think they're in the driver's seat on this one, when they're not. I mean, China's supposed to keep buying our debt so we can spend lots on our military and then we get to tell them what they can or cannot buy in military arms?"

Barnier's comments come on the heals of Deputy SecState Robert Zoellick's recent trip to Europe where he implored Europe to not give in to China on this issue (I should point out that the U.S. has had success in getting the Europeans to delay removing the embargo - mainly due to the passage of the anti-secession bill). It's pretty ironic that Zoellick's leading the charge against China when, during his tenure as the U.S. trade representative, he was instrumental in getting China into the the WTO.

What worries me even more about the Bush administration's China policy is the kind of stuff I read on page 13 of the FT. The full page "Comment & Analysis" article by Victor Mallet begins with the fearful headline: "Strait ahead? China's military build-up prompts fears of an attack on Taiwan." Little background first. The Bush administration came into office in Jan. 2001 seeing China as its number one foreign policy challenge. Indeed, the collision of a China fighter jet and an American spy-plane in April 2001 only heightened those worries (remember that?). But then came 9/11 and the war on terrorism which brought about a general shift in focus, rightly so, from China to the Middle East. Now it seems, with progress being made in southwest Asia, Bush and Co. want to put China back on the "hit list" for the simple fact that China may actually match our military capacity in the coming decades - it would be the first challenge to our military (and economic) hegemony since the Soviet Union. But why are we looking for a fight when, just last month, our own National Security Council gave clearance to a deal that saw IBM sell its PC business to China's own PC-maker, the Lenovo Group?

This is not good strategic thinking, especially when you've got someone like Kim Jong-Il with nukes and no stake at all in the global economy. The view in Washington has gotten so off track on East Asian issues that I have to read a sentence like this in the FT article:

"The Taiwan Straight is regarded in Washington as the most dangerous flashpoint in the Asia-Pacific - more sensitive for now than North Korea's nuclear weapons program."

Fantastic. I know this might sound like some kind of lefty-argument, but how we can threaten and then actually go to war against Iraq, but object to China's saber-rattling over an island that only over just a half-century ago - before it broke away after the civil war - was still part of China? Are we really going to live up to our defense guarantee with Taiwan if China does attack? How does China's intention to "reabsorb" Taiwan threaten U.S. national security more than a nuclear-tipped ICBM from North Korea? That's the kicker here. And, in addition, are we willing to send the global economy to the crapper for Taiwan's independence? As I've said before, I'm quite sympathetic to the neocons' vision for the Middle East, but I don't want anything to do with what they have planned for China - for the scary fact that they're totally ignoring the whack-job on the Korean peninsula who actually wouldn't mind an epic battle to the finish.

Spain, you've been a bad boy!

2005-04-07T02:43:00.000-07:00

In relation to Zapatero's apparently contradictory foreign policy - by selling military planes and boats to Chávez's bellicose Venezuela, Rumsfeld has stepped in saying that Spain is making a "mistake." Read more here.

Iraq's New Government

2005-04-06T18:16:00.000-07:00

How cool is this? From the New York Times:

"After being named president of Iraq today, one of Saddam Hussein's staunchest opponents urged the diverse national assembly that appointed him to move past sectarian and ethnic differences.

"Mr. Hussein watched the announcement on a television set outside his jail cell, a senior Iraqi official said.

"The new president, Jalal Talabani, 72, was the first Kurd to take the office in the history of modern Iraq, and his appointment brought the minority Kurds out into streets in celebrations across the country."

Following up on the good news straight out of Baghdad is Omar at IraqTheModel, who offers some perspective on what some Western observers said would become a political Vietnam:

"Some people are skeptical about the capacity of the new National Assembly to monitor and guide the democratic change in Iraq because they think the Assembly's meetings are chaotic and disorganized but what I see is fruitful and free dialogues that were absolutely impossible two years ago under the rule of the one and only glorious leader.

"Our democracy is not perfect, I know that and our politicians still have a lot to learn and I know that too but what I care about and what really counts here is that freedom of speech and freedom of criticism is granted for the members of the Assembly who are the representatives of the people.

"It will probably take years before security stops being a concern and probably more than that before electricity becomes normal but you know what? I don't care much about that because my freedom is worth much more than all these things and freedom is the key to achieve unlimited progress and we have this key now."

The Pope, Bush, and the Media

2005-04-06T15:29:00.000-07:00

Arriving a couple of hours ago in Rome, President Bush is leading the high profile American delegation including the first lady, SecState Rice and Presidents Clinton and Bush 41 to the Vatican for Pope JP II's funeral. Here's how AFP reported the President's visit to the Vatican to pay his respects:

"US President George W. Bush knelt before the body of Pope John Paul II, rendering homage in Saint Peter's Basilica to one of the leading critics of the US-led war on Iraq.
...

"Although the two leaders clashed over the US-led war in Iraq, Bush hailed the pontiff earlier this week as a "great world leader."

The lede graph just says it all about the international media, whether it be Agence France-Presse, Reuters, the BBC, or the AP for that matter. Is it really necessary to make the point about JP II's opposition to the war in the first line (and again later in the story)? Why don't they say, if they want to include the pope's politics, "...rendering homage to the fiercely anti-communist pontiff who was seen as instrumental in helping to bring about communism's demise in the 1980s"? Or, if they want to stick with Bush's politics, they could have said something about the pope's social conservative teachings on gay marriage, abortion, and morality. But, mustering a semblance of respect for the pope, the news agencies (who would trash both the pope and Bush if they could) take the cheap swipe at Bush. No big surprise, just kind of annoying.

Drudge is King

2005-04-06T04:05:00.000-07:00

Awesome article from the NY Observer about Ariana Huffington's new "Huffington Report" - a Hollywood-liberal counter to what they see is a right-leaning Drudge Report. These Hollywood types are too funny to watch in their vain efforts to counter the ascendancy of the new media. Don't they ever stop to think that maybe - just maybe - their ideas, or lack thereof, that explain why they're losing the media battle and the greater political battle? The Democrats really have an opportunity to make up ground if they lose the silly anti-war babblers like Mike Moore and company and follow in the tradition of FDR, Truman, JFK and Sens. Scoop Jackson & Joe Lieberman, remain where they are on social issues, and adopt an economic policy of fiscal restraint and balanced budgets. This seems like a no-brainer, but I'm afraid that the Dems continue to be mired in the ludicrous belief that they're "still having trouble getting their message out."

Friedman firing blanks?

2005-04-05T18:24:00.000-07:00

And the battle of the two most ardent advocates for globalization has begun. Tom Barnett launches this assault on the Tom Friedman article I linked to the other day:

"If Friedman thinks that telling everyone about outsourcing is going to make for a great book, then I think he's run out of ideas completely. But I'm sure the book is full of Geo-Green and a host of other kewl phrases he's worked to death in his columns. But just stringing those together with all his "conversations" with famous people gets a bit tiresome. I really feel like he's in a rut and needs to change jobs or something to get back to what he once did. He's becoming a hybrid Andy Warhol/Rooney on globalization: either too poppy or too cranky."

Strange how, even though I buy both guys' general arguments, I took something away from Friedman's piece, while Barnett didn't. I'm gonna read both of their new books and then come to my own conclusion.

Dance, Whiteboy, Dance

2005-04-05T18:19:00.000-07:00

Brilliant. This kid will probably be flying an FA-18 Hornet one day. (HT, Andrew Sullivan)

Iraq's TAL

2005-04-04T09:25:00.000-07:00

I read this yesterday but didn't get a chance to post it. Jim Hoagland's WashPost column takes good and honest look at the current political gridlock (Amazing, political gridlock in Iraq! You'd think it was Capitol Hill and the judicial filibustering...) we're seeing in Iraq right now:

"The code -- the Transitional Administrative Law, or TAL -- was deliberately shaped in an anti-Baathist image. It fragments power among the country's ethnic and religious groups to guarantee that none of them can again dominate and abuse human rights as Saddam's regime did.

"The TAL contains great value, especially its protections for women and the country's victimized Kurdish minority. But it sets the bar for forming the transitional legislative and executive branches of a new government so high that few nations could clear it. The pursuit of the perfect has become the enemy of the good in post-occupation Iraq.
...

"Greece's Arcadians might have been able to resist the temptation to use the blocking mechanisms built into the TAL, which requires a two-thirds vote of the parliament for a three-member presidential council that must then unanimously name a prime minister. Got that?

"Neither do the Iraqis. The Kurds lay claim to the ceremonial presidency for Jalal Talabani but are unhappy with the Shiite majority's Islamist candidate for prime minister, Ibrahim Jafari. So they stall and hope he will go away. Jafari's main short-term supporter (but his long-term rival for power), Abdul Aziz Hakim, lets Jafari twist in the wind. Meanwhile the Sunni Arabs demand an unobtainable guaranteed American withdrawal date as their price for participation in a new government.
...

"The TAL delivered the elections and a period of calm. But without active U.S. leadership, its complex provisions could strangle the embryonic, still traumatized Iraqi democracy that American soldiers died to create. Those provisions must be made to work and quickly, or set aside in favor of simple majority rule."

The NYT has a good summary of the issue here. And today, the Times also reports this encouraging, however, in reporter Edward Wong's words, "symbolic," development:

"The Iraqi national assembly appointed a speaker and two deputy speakers on Sunday, taking the first step, though a largely symbolic one, toward installing a new government.

"In last-minute deal making on Saturday and Sunday morning, the leaders of the top political parties settled on Hajim M. al-Hassani, a prominent Sunni Arab and the minister of industry in the interim government, as speaker. They selected Hussain al-Shahristani, a nuclear physicist and leading Shiite Arab, and Arif Taifour, a Kurd, as the two deputies.

"Speaker of the assembly is a largely ceremonial post, and so the step the assembly took was more symbolic than substantive. But it showed that the various parties could at least resolve their differences on minor issues. The first significant move will only occur if the assembly agrees on a president and two vice presidents. Those officers would then have two weeks to select a prime minister, who would appoint a cabinet."

Weigel (again!) on JP II

2005-04-04T08:55:00.000-07:00

The more I read up on the pope, the more I am blown away by this man's intellectual and spiritual capacity. He was truly fearless in the espousal of his beliefs because his convictions were rooted in the unwavering truth of his faith. George Weigel, in the WSJ today:

"This profound crisis of culture [the great catastrophes of the 20th century], this crisis in the very idea of the human, had manifested itself in the serial crises that had marched across the surface of contemporary history, leaving carnage in their wake. But unlike some truly "conservative" critics of late modernity, Wojtyla's counter-proposal was not rollback: rather, it was a truer, nobler humanism, built on the foundation of the biblical conviction that God had made the human creature in His image and likeness, with intelligence and free will, a creature capable of knowing the good and freely choosing it. That, John Paul II insisted in a vast number of variations on one great theme, was the true measure of man--the human capacity, in cooperation with God's grace, for heroic virtue."

I think there's some saying that (I'm going to butcher it but...) says "you really don't know what you had until it is gone." As a 21 year old college-kid, this axiom couldn't be more true. More Weigel:

"For if there is only your truth and my truth and neither one of us recognizes a transcendent moral standard (call it "the truth") by which to settle our differences, then either you will impose your power on me or I will impose my power on you; Nietszche, great, mad prophet of the 20th century, got at least that right. Freedom uncoupled from truth, John Paul taught, leads to chaos and thence to new forms of tyranny. For, in the face of chaos (or fear), raw power will inexorably replace persuasion, compromise, and agreement as the coin of the political realm. The false humanism of freedom misconstrued as "I did it my way" inevitably leads to freedom's decay, and then to freedom's self-cannibalization. This was not the soured warning of an antimodern scold; this was the sage counsel of a man who had given his life to freedom's cause from 1939 on.

"Thus the key to the freedom project in the 21st century, John Paul urged, lay in the realm of culture: in vibrant public moral cultures capable of disciplining and directing the tremendous energies--economic, political, aesthetic, and, yes, sexual--set loose in free societies. A vibrant public moral culture is essential for democracy and the market, for only such a culture can inculcate and affirm the virtues necessary to make freedom work. Democracy and the free economy, he taught in his 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus, are goods; but they are not machines that can cheerfully run by themselves. Building the free society certainly involves getting the institutions right; beyond that, however, freedom's future depends on men and women of virtue, capable of knowing, and choosing, the genuinely good."

The World Is Flat

2005-04-03T08:31:00.000-07:00

Tom Friedman previews his new book, The World Is Flat, in the the New York Times Sunday Magazine. I read this article, and realized how lucky we are to have people like Friedman who can think on such a grand level and articulate that thinking so persuasively. I also realized that, instead of international relations and history, maybe I should have taken math and science courses a little more seriously in high school so I could have majored in engineering at Penn State. As Friedman writes:

"These are some of the reasons that Bill Gates, the Microsoft chairman, warned the governors' conference in a Feb. 26 speech that American high-school education is ''obsolete.'' As Gates put it: ''When I compare our high schools to what I see when I'm traveling abroad, I am terrified for our work force of tomorrow. In math and science, our fourth graders are among the top students in the world. By eighth grade, they're in the middle of the pack. By 12th grade, U.S. students are scoring near the bottom of all industrialized nations. . . . The percentage of a population with a college degree is important, but so are sheer numbers. In 2001, India graduated almost a million more students from college than the United States did. China graduates twice as many students with bachelor's degrees as the U.S., and they have six times as many graduates majoring in engineering. In the international competition to have the biggest and best supply of knowledge workers, America is falling behind.''

We need to get going immediately. It takes 15 years to train a good engineer, because, ladies and gentlemen, this really is rocket science. So parents, throw away the Game Boy, turn off the television and get your kids to work. There is no sugar-coating this: in a flat world, every individual is going to have to run a little faster if he or she wants to advance his or her standard of living. When I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, ''Tom, finish your dinner -- people in China are starving.'' But after sailing to the edges of the flat world for a year, I am now telling my own daughters, ''Girls, finish your homework -- people in China and India are starving for your jobs.''

Well, in my case, hindsight is always 20/20. Engineering or not, I'm happy studying what I'm studying. Maybe I can take what I've learned in the classroom and on mine own time and mix it with some good ol' American ingenuity and create that "next big thing." Why not? But I also need to be realistic and look to my strengths. I can read people like Friedman so I can better understand the world and, in a way, take the torch from him and continue to advocate those ideas in the years ahead. I can use the power of the pen (or, now, the keyboard) and argue in favor of the conditions that enable that American ingenuity to reach its full potential. I can raise my kids to take up math and science and learn Mandarin Chinese. Who knows! It's so exciting to think about the possibilities in front us, but, at the same time, it's also going to be a pretty daunting challenge. The question is if we - especially my generation - are going to be up to the challenge.

Catholics and Jews

2005-04-02T18:43:00.000-08:00

The Weekly Standard republishes George Weigel's important essay on the late pope's visit to the Holy Land in 2000 and with a serious reflection on the Catholic-Christian/Jewish relationship. Well-worth reading.

John Paul II, 1920-2005

2005-04-02T12:35:00.000-08:00

Karol Wojtyla, the only pope I have ever known, has passed on to heaven, where he'll join my late grandfathers and the angels and saints in the company of God.

One of the most important things my faith has taught me in my short life is humility and John Paul II was the exemplary model of humility on earth. I think one of his greatest and most heroic acts during his papacy was when, two years after the assassination attempt on his life, he visited the jail cell of his assailant to offer forgiveness. How extraordinary and how telling.

The Catholic Church is by no means a perfect institution, but John Paul II, a hero for our time, lived his life in the image of Christ. His leadership and his spirit, irregardless of creed, is an inspiration to the world. May God bless him and welcome him home.

......

Full news round-up here on Yahoo News.
......

National Review's November 10, 1978 editorial after JP II was elected to the papacy.

The Wall Street Journal's editorial today on the pope's passing.

Official Vatican press release (via the Corner).

Plus, lots of updates and running commentary on NRO's The Corner.
......

President Bush's full remarks on the pope.

Also from the White House:

"A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America

As a mark of respect for His Holiness Pope John Paul II, I hereby order, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, that the flag of the United States shall be flown at half staff at the White House and on all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions until sunset on the day of his interment. I also direct that the flag shall be flown at half staff for the same period at all United States embassies, legations, consular offices, and other facilities abroad, including all military facilities and naval vessels and stations.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this second day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twenty ninth.

GEORGE W. BUSH"

China's Petition

2005-04-02T07:50:00.000-08:00

Suzanne Nossel (via B.D.), at DemocracryArsenal, has a post about a petition that has been signed by 22 million Chinese protesting Japan's bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council. She makes two good points (the latter half of the first point I have a quibble with), but the second I found particularly interesting:

"The second noteworthy angle is what this means for China. The NYT article doesn't look at the larger implications of a mass political movement coming to the fore there, though its last line quotes the petition drive's organizer saying 'There has never before been a petition campaign of this magnitude in China. It will be much harder for the government to suppress in future.' Surely the Chinese know this . . . what's interesting is that they seem to be promoting this effort anyway."

Whether one agrees with the Chinese government's and those 22 million people's opposition to Japan's UNSC seat, is not the point here. Slowly, but surely, the Chinese are opening up politically. The real test will be - in the spirit of that petition drive's organizer statement - when another 22 million come along and sign a petition in protest of their government's human rights violations or its squelching of freedom of speech. It's certainly easier for the Communist government to promote this particular anti-Japanese petition than it is a petition that actually challenges their ruling power.

Sunnis Join The Fight (?)

2005-04-02T03:14:00.000-08:00

The New York Times:

"A group of Sunni Arab clerics, including some hard-line figures who fiercely oppose the American presence here, issued a statement on Friday urging their fellow Sunni Arabs to join the Iraqi Army and police.

"The edict, signed by 64 imams and religious scholars, was a striking turnaround for the clerics, who have often lashed out in sermons at the fledgling army and police force and branded them collaborators.

"Prominently missing from the signers was Harith al-Dari, the leader of the Association of Muslim Scholars and one of the most influential Sunni Arab clerics in Iraq, who is said to have close ties to the insurgency.

"Still, the directive, which carried the signature of Ahmed Hassan al-Taha, an imam at an important Baghdad mosque who has been a strong critic of the occupation, seemed to represent a significant step."

Certainly sounds like encouraging news and a continuation of the steady trend of positive developements we've seen in Iraq since the Jan. 30 elections. Of course, there are always qualifiers:

"'The new army and police force are empty of good people, and we need to supply them,' the edict said. 'Because the police and army are a safeguard for the whole nation, not a militia for any special party, we have issued this fatwa calling on our people to join the army and police.'

"The edict contained a condition seemingly aimed at sweetening the pill for resistant Sunni Arabs: that a new police or army recruit must agree 'not to help the occupier against his compatriots.'
...

"In the past, members of the association have often complained about injustices committed by Iraqi soldiers and police officers and by the American military. On Thursday, Sheik Abdul Ghafour invoked those injustices as the main reason for issuing the edict.

"'The bad conduct of some army recruits has led the wise men and loyal Iraqis to recognize that they must build up this country and not leave things in the hands of those who have caused such chaos and destruction,' he said.

Whatever the Sunni clerics' reason for wanting to come on board, the fact remains they want to come on board.

As the Washington Post reports on the decision:

"The Sunni clerics' recruiting call -- which had the authority of a religious edict, or fatwa -- marked their most open cooperation with Iraq's leaders and foreign patrons since the fall of Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated government in April 2003. The Sunni clerical bloc had rejected the country's post-Hussein leadership as irredeemably tainted by ties to the U.S. government and military."

The Post article, however, also raises this question:

"Others, however, expressed concern that the Sunnis' new stance toward the armed forces suggested the clerics sought less to ally themselves with rival Shiites and Kurds than to counter the dominance those groups have gained in Iraq's new security forces.

''This reflects . . . an attempt on their part to . . . have an influence in this growing military power, which in fact indicates a lack of faith in democracy,' said Wamidh Nadhmi, an outspoken Sunni who has been promoting a broad coalition government. He added, 'This process should have proceeded by negotiations to enter the government, to have some sort of dialogue, which I don't find at all.'

But wait a second. Haven't the majority Shia, despite the Sunnis' refusal to participate in the Jan. 30 elections, been insistent upon leaving several seats open for Sunnis in the new government? Rather than saying "screw you, it's your loss" to the Sunnis for boycotting the elections, the Shia have acted remarkably pluralistic in keeping the door open for Sunnis. Yet the Sunnis' condition for joining the new government has always been the depature of coalition forces from Iraq. But now:

"Politicians say the Sunni clerics' group is now participating at least indirectly in talks on the formation of what Shiites and Kurds promise will be a national unity government. But some Sunni leaders have said they will fully join the political process only after the United States announces when it will pull out its troops.

"The clerics' call Friday not just to spare Iraqi forces but to join them 'seems to be a new attitude,' Nadhmi said. 'They want the departure of occupying armies -- well, we all want that,' said [Sabah] Kadim, the Interior Ministry spokesman. Sunnis opposed to the U.S. presence, he added, increasingly realize 'it doesn't help a bit to be a terrorist. Really, it's hurting Iraqis.'"

WashPost's Iraq Coverage

2005-04-01T10:44:00.000-08:00

Austin Bay dissects another "police-blotter" report from Iraq in the Washington Post - this report lamenting the "bogged down" political process since the Jan. 30 elections:

"Faliure, quagmire, or difficult political process in a nation emerging from brutal dictatorship? I think this is another example of 'minutes versus months' – the police blotter minute by minute report mentality that obscures or ignores long-term context.

"I’m going to be a little bit harder on this Washington Post article than it deserves– the reporter, Caryle Murphy, does a fine job of capturing individual character and color. However, critiquing it serves to reinforce a point I’ve made regarding media coverage in Iraq, ie, police blotter and bomb by bomb versus operational and strategic achievements. The 'time lens' can impart a 'spin.'"

Martin Peretz on the Mideast

2005-03-31T16:34:00.000-08:00

The New Republic editor-in-chief Martin Peretz has an important essay on President Bush and the Middle East. The following are what I found to be noteworthy excerpts:

"No, the president has not discovered a cure for cancer. But there is a pathology, a historical pathology, that he has attacked with unprecedented vigor and with unprecedented success. I refer, of course, to the political culture of the Middle East, which the president may actually have changed. And he has accomplished this genuinely momentous transformation in ways that virtually the entire foreign affairs clerisy--the cold-blooded Brent Scowcroft realist Republicans and almost all the Democrats--never thought possible. Or, perhaps, in ways some of them thought positively undesirable. Bush, it now seems safe to say, is one of the great surprises in modern U.S. history."

On the revolution in Republican foreign policy:

"The achievements of Bush's foreign policy abroad represent a revolution in the foreign policy culture at home. The traditional Republican mentality that was so perfectly and meanly represented by Bush père and Baker precluded the United States from pressing the Arabs about reform--about anything--for decades....This was the state of U.S.-Arab relations in 2001: The United States was actually more frightened of the Arabs than they were of us. The extraordinary report of the 9/11 Commission about the delinquent reactions to the decade-long lead-up to the catastrophe of September 11 only confirms this impression of official U.S. pusillanimity."

On the Clintonian approach to terror:

"The Clinton administration seized on every possible excuse--from the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, right through the atrocities in Kenya and Tanzania, to the attack on the USS Cole--not to respond meaningfully to Osama bin Laden....Clinton, it is true, resolved to eliminate bin Laden, but soon he eliminated his desire to eliminate him. The Clinton administration's true desire was to arrest bin Laden, to indict him, and to put him on trial--to "bring him to justice," as these men and women pompously exhorted each other."

How 9/11 helped crystallize what would become the Bush Doctrine (which equated state-sponsers of terrorists to actual terrorists):

"What the Bush administration gradually came to realize was that fighting the Muslim terrorist international could not be done in a vacuum. If the Islamic and Arab orbits were to continue to revolve around sanguinary tyrannies, there would be no popular basis in civil society to rob the cult of suicidal murder of its prestige. So, rather than being a distraction from the struggle against the armed rage suffusing these at once taut and eruptive polities, confronting their governments was actually intrinsic to that struggle. The Bush administration recognized that removing the effect means removing the cause."

On "the acceleration of history" over the past two years in the Middle East:

"There certainly was a basis in reality for skepticism about the Arabs' hospitability to the opening of their societies. Whatever the proper historical and cultural analysis of the past, however, the fact is that democracy did not begin even to breathe until the small coalition of Western nations led by the United States destroyed the most ruthless dictatorship in the area."

On the emerging democratic polity in Iraq:

"The U.S. liberation-occupation has now tried to cobble together these diverging Iraqis into the beginnings of a democratic regime. Wonder of wonders, these estranged cousins have shown some talent in the art of compromise; and trying to make this polity work is hardly an effort undertaken without courage."

On the emerging democratic movements in the Greater Middle East:

"The fine fruits of the Bush administration's indifference to international opinion may be seen now in Lebanon, too. What is happening there is the most concrete intra-Arab consequence of the Iraq war....Suddenly, the elections in Iraq, Bush's main achievement there, exhilarating and inspiring, sprung loose the psychological impediments that shackled the Lebanese to Syria.

"But the mission is nonetheless real, and far along, and it is showing thrilling accomplishments. It is simply stupid, empirically and philosophically, to deny that all or any of this would have happened without the deeply unpopular but historically grand initiative of Bush."

On Bush's hugely consequential - and always overlooked - decision back in 2002 to make Yasser Arafat an irrelevant element of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process:

"Had Bush made even a single accommodation to Arafat, Arafat's way in the world would have been enshrined in Palestinian lore for yet another generation as the only way."

Finally, Peretz, being the good liberal he is, has some advice for his fellow left-leaning bretheren:

"One does not have to admire a lot about George W. Bush to admire what he has so far wrought. One need only be a thoughtful American with an interest in proliferating liberalism around the world. And, if liberals are unwilling to proliferate liberalism, then conservatives will. Rarely has there been a sweeter irony."

U.S. Troop Levels in Iraq and Sunni Politics

2005-03-31T03:06:00.000-08:00

Belgravia Dispatch as an awesome and thorough discussion of the possibility of establishing timetables for American troop withdrawls and the political implications that has for Sunni involvement in the Iraqi political process. It's long, but well worth reading.

The Next JCS Chairman

2005-03-31T02:55:00.000-08:00

In yesterday's WashPost, David Ignatius had an interesting column forecasting who might be the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He believes current the current vice chairman, Marine Gen. Peter Pace is first in line when Air Force Gen. Richard Meyers' term ends this summer.

However, Tom Barnett, ever in the know in Pentagon circles, offers this insight:

"Not that I'd ever say anything bad about David Ignatius, but my sense of the dynamics in the Pentagon is not that a new Chairman needs to be able to stand up to Rumsfeld, but that Rumsfeld finally needs to get his own chairman.

"According to people I speak with, Ignatius is right about Pace (current Vice, USMC Gen.) and Giambastiani (JFCOM boss and USN Adm) being the front runners. Most likely scenarios are: 1) Pace moves up for 2 years, with G. as his Vice, then G. takes over for his four-year stint, or 2) G. goes straight to Chair and Pace remains his Vice for two more years. Many think Pace is in slight lead, but others tell me the service clock on Giambastiani's career means he either goes this summer to Chief or not at all. Something about his being trapped by 35-year-mark in Vice's job (a technicality that apparently doesn't apply in same way to Chief's spot). I'm not too clear on such details, but my guess is that Adm. G. is the man. He was Rumsfeld's mil aide and then the guy he trusted with Transformation's main command. I think this one's in the bank, and such an outcome would be good for the Pentagon and DoD as a whole, methinks."

Spring Break and Iraq updates

2005-03-28T06:30:00.000-08:00

Jon and I have been on our spring break for the past ten days. It was great to get away from classes and what always ends up being the monotony of our everyday lives. I spent a couple days in beautiful San Sebastian, came back to Barcelona for two days, and then spent the rest of Holy Week in Rome with friends from home. Really a joy to experience Easter in Rome.

A couple of stories I noticed recently. First, on Iraq, from Rich Lowry in NRO's The Corner and the Washington Times.

Lowry (this was from 17 March, but because Blogger was awfully slow for awhile two weeks ago, I couldn't link to it) posts the heavily-circulated email from Army 1st Calvary Division Major Gen. Peter Chiarelli's report upon his return to the States from Iraq. A couple of points that stood out to me:

"6. Said that not tending to a dead body in the Muslim culture never happens. On election day, after suicide bombers blew themselves up trying to take out polling places, voters would step up to the body lying there, spit on it, and move up in the line to vote.

"7. Pointed out that we all heard from the media about the 100 Iraqis killed as they were lined up to enlist in the police and security service. What the media didn't point out was that the next day there 300 lined up in the same place.

"8. Said bin Laden and Zarqawi made a HUGE mistake when bin laden went public with naming Zarqawi the 'prince' of al Qaeda in Iraq. Said that what the Iraqis saw and heard was a Saudi telling a Jordanian that his job was to kill Iraqis. HUGE mistake. It was one of the biggest factors in getting Iraqis who were on the 'fence' to jump off on the side of the coalition and the new gov't.

"9. Said the MSM was making a big, and wrong, deal out of the religious sects. Said Iraqis are incredibly nationalistic. They are Iraqis first and then say they are Muslim but the Shi'a - Sunni thing is just not that big a deal to them."

Be sure to read all of it.

Rowan Scarborough, echoing Gen. Chiarelli's assessment, reports:

"In the privacy of their E-ring offices, senior Pentagon officials have begun to entertain thoughts that were unimaginable a year ago: Iraq is turning the corner.

"Military officials and analysts say the clearing out of enemy-infested Fallujah in November, the Jan. 30 elections and the increasing willingness of Iraqis to fight and die for a democratic country are contributing to the momentum."

"Wolfy Shocks Europe"

2005-03-17T02:48:00.000-08:00

President Bush's decision to nominate Paul Wolfowitz as the next president of the World Bank has sent shockwaves throughout the world, as well as a lot of European's running for cover. To read up, check out the post over at The Belgravia Dispatch.

Lebanese Babe Watch (continued)

2005-03-16T03:28:00.000-08:00

As Chrenkoff admits, sure "...it's shallow, but it's fun." Just to keep you updated, here is the most recent crop of hot Lebanese female activists, brought to you by my favorite Arab street neoconservative, Jihad-Pundit.

A sign of the times maybe?

2005-03-14T13:50:00.000-08:00

You know things are changing in the Middle East when the flag a group of Arabs burn isn't American, but another Arab country's (hat tip Instapundit).

International Ban on Stupidity

2005-03-14T09:17:00.000-08:00

Alright, the Madrid conference on terrorism last week was not only a complete waste of time, but also a waste of European taxpayers' hard-earned euros. After three full days, comprised of conferences, discussion groups and seminars attended by 200 experts and academics from more than 50 countries, the final product is the brainchild now known as, “The Madrid Agenda.” What is it you may ask? The Americans are obviously incapable of combating terrorism, for it only “produces more terrorists than you can find,” according to Argentine entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky. What have the Europeans cooked up in their kitchen that only serves main courses of high-mindedness with a side a moral superiority? Let me tell you; a call for a comprehensive treaty banning terrorism… wow… sheer brilliance.

According to a National Public Radio broadcast by Jerome Socolovsky, highlighting the differences between Europe’s and the United States’ approach to terrorism, Spanish prosecutor Carlos Castrasana stated, “we have a lot of people arrested here, we have a lot of people indicted, mostly the group behind the terrorist attack has been dismantled. And in the case of the United States, even Osama Bin Laden himself has not been indicted after September 11th.” Hey Carlos, since when is this a competition about numbers? And if it is, you are losing. For the United States has in fact indicted far more terrorists than Spain. Not to mention the fact that there are nearly 2,700 detainees in Abu Ghraib alone. If Spain is so advanced and capable, you go out and get Osama. Or here’s an idea, maybe if some countries, which I will leave unmentioned, were willing to help participate in the international effort, he may have already been caught. Castrana’s statement was seen on behalf of Spain as a vindication of the idea that law enforcement not war is the key to combating terrorism.

Now give me a break, give me a break, give me a break off of that freakin’ Kit-Kat bar. If this is the type of material that Spain and Europe as a whole are capable of producing, I guess we really are in more trouble than I imagined. A five-year-old is capable of deciphering better plans from the random arrangement of letters in his Alphabets soup. So once again, let’s just leave everything to the criticism of the Europeans while they kick their feet up poolside drinking margaritas while others are out there getting their hands dirty.

*NOTE – The above sarcasm is only directed at certain European actors, you know who you are.