Inside the Arab Mind Posted by David Adesnik

Those of us with overpriced, overhyped academic credentials like to think of policy analyis as a firmly rational discipline in which logic and evidence serve as the basis for sound judgments.  However, IMHO, there is so much uncertainty in world politics that even the best-informed analysis must depend on an extraordinary degree of speculation.

My case in point is the standard American discussion about Arab popular opinion, to which some analysts condescendingly refer as "the Arab street".  In his inaugural post as a guest blogger here on DA, Michael Kraig called into question

The status quo policy conception that the anger in the Middle East is due to internal, domestic repression/ oppression/injustice under autocratic governments, and that the anger toward Israel, the West, the US, and the globalizing world order is a byproduct of this, or an escape valve for this.

According to Michael, this argument is

Wrong -- or at least, half-wrong.  There is of course an "escape valve" factor at work here...But would this anger and hate disappear if the Middle East were democratized at the domestic level?  The answer is, simply, no.  Because the feelings about lack of justice, or lack of democracy, at the INTERNATIONAL level are just as acute and just as real for many citizens and officials alike throughout the Middle East, and only the US supporting the rule of law at the international level will appease this anger and truly bring about a sea-change in relations and perceptions.

To Michael's great credit, his observations are based on extensive discussions he had during two months of business travel throughout the Middle East.  The opinions his counterparts expressed are ones that should be taken seriously.

Nonetheless, as any student of public opinion knows, it is extraordinarily hard to gauge the instensity of an interview subject's preferences even when one is fairly certain about what those preferences are.  In other words, I don't doubt for a second that the overwhelming majority of Arabs sincerely resent Israeli behavior toward the Palestinians or perhaps even the existence of Israel itself, not to mention being critical of the United States for defending Israeli interests. 

But what I really want to know is how intense these feelings are.  For example, one great challenge for the United States is to confront the surprising degree of sympathy for Al Qaeda and its methods in the Arab world.  To what degree will this sympathy diminish in those Arab nations such as Lebanon where the transition to democracy has begun? 

As Michael acknowledges, some of the anger directed at the United States and Israel is the byproduct of domestic repression and should therefore diminish as a result of domestic liberalization. Thus, I am inclined to say that the difference between Michael's position and my own is one of degree and not of kind.  The question then is how one should go about determining to what degree Arab anger is the product of actual greivances rather than an indirect response to domestic oppression.

In 2003, Foreign Affairs published an excellent essay on this subject by Michael Scott Doran, a professor of Near Eastern Studies.  Doran's analysis focuses on Arab attitudes toward the Palestinian question, rather than Arab resentment of the United States.  Doran argues that most expressions of concern about the Palestinians in the Arab world are rhetorical gambits designed to entrap one's domestic opponents rather than an expression of an actual desire to do something for the Palestinians.

One fascinating illustration of Doran's point is his description of a protest in the impoverished region of Al Jawf in northeastern Saudi Arabia.  Doran writes that:

Al Jawf has earned the distinction of being the only place in the Saudi kingdom repeatedly and consistently to defy laws criminalizing popular demonstrations. Matters reached a head last April 5 [of 2002 -ed.] in the town of Sakaka, where about 4,000 angry young men congregated in town squares, burned Israeli and American flags, and called on Arab states to take action on behalf of the Palestinians. To restore order Saudi authorities had to dispatch three transport planes carrying 500 riot police, and for weeks afterward these forces continued to patrol the area.

As extensive reporting in the London-based Arabic daily Al-Quds al-Arabi has made clear, the demonstrations "were organized in solidarity with the Palestinians and in protest over the neglect which the [Al Jawf] region is suffering at the hands of the government."  Al Jawf is one of the most backward places in Saudi Arabia. Many towns in the region, including Sakaka, lack electricity and the basic amenities of modern life. Located far from ports and oil revenues, lacking access to the corridors of power, the residents of Al Jawf feel deprived.

In Saudi Arabia, the punishment for dissidents is usually imprisonment or worse.  Yet by framing their protest as an action on behalf of the Palestinians, the residents of Al Jawf made it impossible for the monarchy to punish them as traitors.  After all, at least officially, the House of Saud shares the protesters sympathy for the Palestinians.

As Doran points out, even Osama bin Laden's concern for the Palestinians arose as a byproduct of his hatred for the House of Saud and other pro-American dictatorships.  Only after 9/11 did bin Laden start to describe as Israeli behavior as a leading justification for his terrorism.  Personally, I think it is safe to infer that bin Laden had no love lost for Israel before 9/11.  Yet his behavior speaks volumes about the intensity of his preferences; he may have been sympathetic to the Palestinian cause but devoted himself to the struggle against his own government and its American patron.

Another important point that Doran makes is that even if one were to assume that Arab anger is primarily a response to Israeli transgressions rather than domestic oppression, it may simply not be possible for either the United States or Israel to allay such anger since:

Americans and Arabs nurture such different conceptions of what constitutes a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that it is hard to imagine Washington ever adopting a policy toward it that would be truly popular in the Arab world. The most "pro-Palestinian" policy realistically conceivable would look something like the Clinton plan presented in late 2000, but even this would entail major Palestinian compromises (such as the renunciation of the right of pre-1967 refugees to return to their homes inside Israel proper).

Of course, this point in no way constitutes evidence for the assertion that Arab anger is more of a response to domestic oppression than it is to foreign encroachments.  Nonetheless, it does throw the ball back into Michael's court by demanding to know how exactly progressives might attenuate Arab resentment of the United States and Israel.  Michael?

Rumsfeld is evil. Eeeevil! Posted by David Adesnik

The latest round of speculation about a rushed American withdrawal from Iraq began more than three weeks ago with a WaPo report entitled US Signals Spring Start for Pull Out.  The story was irresistible.  Thanks to George Bush's constant and unequivocal declarations that we will stay in Iraq until we've won, any hint of a planned withdrawal carried with it intimations of hypocrisy.

The process of speculation rapidly intensified four days ago, when the WaPo ran a top-of-the-front-page story entitled U.S. Lowers Sights on What Can Be Achieved in Iraq. The essence of the story was that a "senior official" and "another U.S. official" had concluded that even an indefinite occupation could not achieve the objectives that President Bush had for Iraq.

As things now stand, progressive analysts seem to be 100% persuaded that the remarks of these unnamed officials represent the opening salvo in the administration's effort to declare victory and go home or, less kindly stated, to cut and run.  If you scroll down, you can see that Heather, Derek and Stanton have all elaborated some version of this hypothesis.

One scenario that none of these progressive hypotheses address is the possibility that the unnamed officials who spoke to the WaPo are not operating on behalf of the administration as a whole, but instead represent the agenda of an embattled faction within the cabinet.  In contrast, prominent pro-war conservatives have almost uniformly lain responsibility for all of this withdrawal talk at the door of Donald Rumsfeld.

Most vociferous of all is the criticism coming from William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard.  In an editorial entitled Bush v. Rumsfeld, Kristol lashes out at the SecDef for his "weakness and defeatism".  As Kristol goes on to argue, the President himself seems to have decisively rejected much of the pro-withdrawal sentiment coming out of the Pentagon:

On Wednesday, speaking in Texas, the president used the word "war" 15 times, and the phrase "war on terror" five. "Make no mistake about it," the president exclaimed...

And so, the president added, "I hear all the time, 'Well, when are you bringing the troops home?' And my answer to you: 'As soon as possible, but not before the mission is complete.'" As the president said Thursday, "We will stay the course. We will complete the job in Iraq."

For liberals and progressives who have little to no faith in Bush's ability to tell the truth, all of this tough-talk may seem nothing more than an elaborate charade designed to mask the impending cut-and-run.  But my sense is that Bush, much like Reagan before him, has no interest in this kind of charade.  If there is a message to deliver, he will deliver it himself.

In the blogosphere, Kristol's criticism of the SecDef has been echoed by intelligent hawks such as Greg Djerejian of the Belgravia Dispatch, who writes that:

Mr. President, this hubris-ridden, incompetent Secretary is increasingly becoming a major liability to you...

If a key member of your team doesn't understand that an Iraq characterized by civil war or dueling militias is a strategic and moral failure, he must be taken off your team. National interest must trump any residual loyalty...If [your] Defense Secretary is not on this page anymore, [your] Defense Secretary must go.

Although Greg shoots straight 100% of the time, I think one has to consider the possibility that a veteran infighter such as Kristol has decided to make Rumsfeld the scapegoat for all of this withdrawal talk even though, perhaps, Kristol has private concerns that the President may have more sympathy for Rumsfeld's position than his public statements imply. 

By the same token, John McCain has also issued an unequivocal denunication of any planned withdrawal while suggestiong that the Pentagon, and not the White House, is responsible for the current bout of speculation.  Yet when McCain made this argument during an interview with Chris Wallace, Wallace asked the Senator a fairly logical and perceptive question:

You seem to be suggesting that it's coming from the pentagon, and that they are pushing for withdrawals, when the political people at the White House, who you think would be the most sensitive on that issue, are saying: "No...we're going to stand firm."

Why would the Pentagon be softer in this regard than the White House?

Being his usual self, McCain responded "I have no idea...I can't explain it."  And, of course, from an electoral perspective it makes no sense for the Pentagon to be more dovish than the White House.  But I think the real issue here is ideology.  Rumsfeld has simply never signed off on Bush's democracy promotion agenda, either for Iraq or for the broader Middle East.  A fairly traditional realist, Rumsfeld has every reason, especially as SecDef, to oppose an occupation that has tied down almost our entire Army and left us with only air and naval forces capable of responding to a crisis in South Korea, the Taiwan Strait, or elsewhere.

Once again, this explanation will presumably carry no water for liberals and progressives, who don't think Bush is the least bit sincere when it comes to his supposed support for a global democratic revolution.  But even though I think Bush is sincere and has been for a very long time, he is still a politician who has to reckon with the impact that his principles have on his approval rating.

Now, it is important to remember that liberals have been talking up a "cut and run" scenario since the fall of 2003.  Back then, they said that Bush would never risk running for re-election with our troops still on the ground in Iraq.  Then, as the election approached, liberals began to assume that Bush was concerned about looking weak but would pull out right at the beginning of his second term, so that he could focus on other priorities such as Social Security reform.

In short, there will always be some explanation available for why Bush's self-interest would dictate a rushed withdrawal from Iraq.  The question is, can we confidently say that the rise of Cindy Sheehan and the intensification of the anti-war movement has put the President under more pressure to withdraw than ever before?  Or is Bush thinking to himself that these are just the dog days of August, and that what Americans really want from their President is idealism and resolve?

PS Special thanks to MH for pointing out some of the editorials and blog posts quoted above.

The Foe We Face Posted by Stanton Denman

Hello, my name is Stanton, one of the people Lorelei asked  to post while she's gone-- I'm still scratching my head over that, as I don’t have the impressive credentials of the other folks here. As for me, I've been an actor, musician, landscaper, journalist, and now a contractor for the government (be a musician, if you get the choice), but I won't bore you with my ADD resume any more.

I was reading this about the car bombings in Baghdad yesterday. Couple things:

1) there is seething anger at what was done, stoked by non-stop coverage of the event, a first in Iraq; anger at those behind the bombings, but also and especially at occupation forces and the Iraqi government for lack of protection.  Why the extra rage for what seems a weekly occurrence?  IMO, there was something exceptionally remorseless about the bombings yesterday-- something especially vicious that stabbed at the hearts of Baghdadis. Perhaps because, asassination-tag between Sunni and Shia militias aside, insurgents had lately been targeting US or Iraqi forces and not civilians, and there was an unspoken hope that despite looming violence, the rest of Iraqi society would be more or less left alone. Perhaps because there seems progress, even if it turns out illusory, towards a constitution, and a real government could actually be envisioned in the distance like an oasis.  For whatever reason, it seems many Iraqis had let themselves hope-- just a bit--  and this return to savagery was a numbing blow.  This was a methodical, triple hit, with especially cruel intentions-- on a police station, then two civilian targets, the second a hospital. The bombers could have easily hit the police station with each -- but they didn’t: one bomb to intimidate police, one bomb to kill Shias travelling south at the bus terminal, and a finale down the street at the hospital entrance, as the injured streamed through its doors .  As COL Kurtz says to Willard towards the end of Apocalypse Now:

And then I realized...like I was  shot...Like I was shot with a diamond...a diamond bullet right  through my forehead...And I thought: My God...the genius of that. The  genius. The will to do that.

The will to do that.

Posturing aside, do we as nation-- truly-- have the stomach for this fight?  We know the answer-- we don't, which is why even the old faithfuls on the right on are starting to get happy feet.  If anyone thinks a quick exit isn't already being planned at the highest levels, I invite them to read this front page story from Sunday's Washington Post.  So we will be getting out, sooner than later. But we can't leave overnight, and the Iraqis (except the educated urbanites we desperately need to stay there) can't leave at all.

Well, then, what does the future hold?

2) Some of the witness statements are chilling predictors, with or without US troops there. From a taxi driver at the terminal:

"I was waiting to get two more passengers to go to Kut when this explosion occurred," he said. "I found myself bleeding and my car damaged. Why would anyone detonate his car here? Are they trying to kill passengers, but for what purpose? Only because most of the ones traveling south are Shiites?"

A reminder, from the bombers and their support network to the rest of the country -- especially Shias-- that, a) the sectarian fight ain't over, it's a multi-pronged war, and they are capable of fighting both simultaneously, and; b) their abilities to execute these types of sophisticated operations have, if anything, become enhanced.  An ominous calling card for when the inevitable US withdrawal occurs, and they can focus their murderous attention on other, much less challenging targets.

This, though, disturbed me most:

"But how can we stop these attacks?" asked a woman who identified herself as Um Karim, a passenger in a bus that had just turned out of the terminal onto a main street when the third bomb exploded. "We have a saying in Arabic: 'It's hard to catch the thief if he is a member of the family.' That's our predicament."

It's now fairly obvious, at least to me, that US forces will never "get inside the decision-making loop" of the insurgency. But now it appears that the native Iraqis doing intel work with the best of intentions may fare no better; her quote is a haunting look at just how buried the insurgency is, and how vicious and anonymous this fight will continue to be, even after US forces begin to leave. Imagine our own Civil War, fought without uniforms.

As we make our plans for the future, we need to look down the road, at the evolution of the foe both the US and the Iraqi governments will be facing.  The picture I see is bleak.  To paraphrase Paul Rieckhoff (sp?) of Operation Truth: you can't plan unless you establish a baseline.  And part of the baseline is finding out the capability of the opponent. It seems, as we start to truly  gauge the opponent's capabilities, that our government is now tripping over itself to get out of Dodge, while Iraqis, who have borne witness to the inabilities of our war machine against this wraith, are now coming to terms with both the monumental cruelty of the war to come, and the increasing likelihood that it will be theirs to fight alone.

I'm not smart enough to have or even suggest a solution. But I do know it's past time we take a long hard look at where we are, and what we have wrought.

The Definition of A Noble Cause Posted by David Adesnik

There's about a forty mile stretch of US-29 that runs from Opal to Ruckersville in central Virginia.  In my mind, those forty miles are the graveyard of rock 'n roll.  From Washington DC down to Opal, you can listen to DC101.  One you make it down to Ruckersville, you can pick up 91.9 WNRN coming out of Charlottesville.

The only station I've found that comes in clearly from Opal down to Ruckersville is 93.3 WFLS, "Virginia's Best Country".  Living in a red state for the past twelve months, I've often thought that I should try my best to develop an appreciation for red state music.  To be honest, it hasn't worked out that well.  Often, I just turn off the radio and enjoy the scenery from Opal down to Ruckersville.

But this time I was driving after dark and really needed some music to keep my energy levels up.  And what I heard blew my mind.  First I heard Trace Adkins sing Arlington.  It's a wonderful song.  It's a story told by a soldier killed in Iraq who discovers that he is being buried in Arlington National Cemetery.  He tells us not to cry for him because:

I'm proud to be on this peaceful piece of property,
I'm on sacred ground and I'm in the best of company,
I'm thankful for those things I've done,
I can rest in peace, I'm one of the chosen ones, I made it to Arlington.

I often wonder about the Red States' support for the war in Iraq.  Conservatives have always distinguished themselves by their readiness to use force in order to protect the United States from those who threaten it. 

But now that Saddam's cache of chemical and biological has been exposed as a phantom, why do Red State voters support the war?  Is it because they support the president, full stop?  Is it because they support the soliders, full stop?  Or have a good number of them actually converted to George Bush's crusading democratic faith, which has so little in common with conservatives' traditional definition of the national interest?

In the second verse of Arlington, the narrator recalls that:

I remember Daddy brought me here when I was eight,
We searched all day to find out where my Granddad lay,
And when we finally found that cross,
He said, "Son this is what it cost to keep us free".

The narrator this implies that Iraq is also a war "to keep us free".  But how many Americans buy that?  Although I adamantly support the war on the grounds that only the democratization of the Middle East can ensure our ultimate victory in the War on Terror, there is only a distant and complex relationship between my personal freedom and the war in Iraq.  If conservatives' support for the war derives its strength from a sense of America being threatened, how long can that support truly last?

And then I heard Luke Stricklin sing American By God's Amazing Grace.  Luke Stricklin (photo above) is a National Guardsman who returned this past March from a twelve month tour of duty in Iraq.  There is no description that can do justice to his song, so I will simply reprint the lyrics, which even without the music are compelling and inspirational:

Bottom of my boots sure are gettin' worn
There's a lot of holes in this faded uniform
My hands are black with dirt and so is my face
I ain't never been to hell
But it couldn't be any worse than this place.
Tell my wife don't worry 'cause I know what to do
It makes you feel better sometimes, but don't know if it's true.
I know if I die it's just my time to go
But I pray to God every day that I may get back home.

Chorus: Well when you've seen what I've seen
Things don't seem so bad
Quit worrying 'bout what you ain't got, thank God for what you have
'Cause I could be raising my family in this place
But I was born an American
By God's Amazing Grace.

For the last twelve months I've had a new address
The neighborhood smells like sewage and the streets are lined with trash.
You never know what's gonna be the next thing to explode
But unlike these people, I have another home.
It breaks my heart to see these kids out on the streets
Walking barefoot through the trash, diggin' for something to eat.
I give them what I got, just to let them know I care
And I thank God it's not my son that's standing there.

(Chorus)

You want to talk about it, you better keep it short
'Cause I got a lot of lost time I gotta make up for.
Really don't care why Bush went in to Iraq
I know what I done there and I'm damn sure proud of that.
You got somethin' bad to say about the USA
You better save it for different ears 'less you want to crawl away.
And I laugh in your face when you say you've got it bad
Until you've spent some time on the streets of Baghdad.

(Chorus)

After recovering from my initial shock, I began to wonder if Karl Rove had written that song.  (You can listen to some of it here.) How could an actual Guardsman from Arksanas, just 23 years old, who suffered through twelve months in Iraq, feel that way about the war? Of course, I feel that way about the war.  But it isn't my life on the line.  I haven't had to test my ideology against the actual experience of democracy promotion.

I seriously did wonder if the song was some sort of hoax.  But for what it's worth, the Associated Press did a story on Luke Stricklin, so I'm going to assume that he really is the real thing.  It turns out that Stricklin first recorded the song in Iraq using a $25 guitar that an Iraqi boy found for him at a street market.  With the help of laptop and microphone, he went to work.  Once again, it's a story almost impossible to believe.

This is the definition of a noble cause.  This is the answer to Cindy Sheehan's question.  Luke Stricklin doesn't have a team of speechwriters or a degree in international relations.  Nor does he describe America as threatened, like Trace Adkins does.  He is simply proud of what he and his country have been able to do on behalf of others.

In contrast to Bush, Stricklin openly acknowledges that there are serious questions to be asked about why the United States invaded Iraq.  But now our mission is clear.  (See boldface above.  Emphasis added.)  Surely it is noble to defend one's homeland from foreign attack.  But how much more noble is it to risk one's life in order to protect a nation of strangers from deprivation and terrorism?

Perhaps it is not wise for the United States to commit so much blood and treasure to the struggle for democracy in Iraq.  Perhaps.  But it most certainly is noble.

Good News from the Islamic World Posted by Heather Hurlburt

Just as the Bush Administration decides to throw in the towel on post-conflict nation-building, there’s some good news from the slow-mo, frustrating, not-with-a-blunt-instrument side of the house where conflicts sometimes actually get resolved and nations get built.

It was easy to miss – one graf in the New York Times announcing the signing of a peace agreement in Aceh, the rebellious province of Indonesia where fighting since 1976 has claimed 9,000 lives and raised concerns about Islamic fundamentalism.  (To be fair, more coverage in the Washington Times and quite a bit more coverage in the Washington Post.  What’s the Grey Lady’s problem?)

"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">A previous agreement, signed in 2002, fell apart in five months.  But while my former employers the International Crisis Group caution that the road ahead will be difficult, their peerless Indonesia expert Sidney Jones writes that “’can-do’ excitement is in the air, however, as though the impossible may just be achievable.”

There's also some decent coverage on the BBC, but I'm going to plug ICG's report again, because the detail are fascinating.  Anyone thinking about how conflict resolution and peacemaking actually happen in the post-Iraq era ought to give it a look.

Why did this happen now?  Three reasons, says ICG:  Indonesia’s newly-elected vice president wanted to make a deal and reached out; Indonesia’s military offensive of the previous year had weakened GAM rebels on the ground; and the tsunami, which hit Aceh harder than any other region, had given everyone the opportunity to look for a fresh start.

A peace in Aceh has huge potential significance for the prospects of settling the archipelago’s other simmering conflicts and ultimately for the future of stability, democracy and moderate Islam in the world’s largest Muslim nation. 

After the peace was mediated not by the UN, US or ASEAN, but by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari (who helped pull the Kosovo peace out of a hat in June 1999), monitoring will be provided by a coalition of the EU and five southeast Asian nations.    ICG has some good specific points on what else is needed from the donor community.

It’s great to see the EU in the lead on the security side here; this is why common EU security institutions are good for US interests.  Now let’s see the US step up (and follow through) on the donor side to help a Muslim nation out.  And, press and punditocracy, let’s highlight what just might be a major Islamic peace success in the making.  (Remember, Indonesia is the world's one Islamic country where views of the US are improving.  Why?  Aid after the tsunami.)

Deadline Politics Posted by Derek Chollet

So, they missed the first deadline.

Voting for an extension dressed it up to save face, but make no mistake: they missed it, and while there’s a lot of positive words coming out of Baghdad (and Washington and Crawford) about how this is just democracy at work, today’s papers are also filled with some pretty ominous statements – about how 50% of the constitution is left to be finished, that all the tough issues (federalism, role of Islam, share of oil revenues) are still left on the table, and that if things don’t get finished by next Monday, they will dissolve the parliament and call for new elections.  In a situation where it seems that political crisis/stalemate equals discredited government equals refueled insurgency equals our troops need to stay for a long time to keep a lid on things, this is not good news.

That said, I have to say that I am of two minds about this: part of me agrees with Noah Feldman, who today says that the American efforts to push the Iraqis to meet the artificial deadline were “shameful” and “constitutional malpractice,” and that is more important to get things done right than quickly (also, there is something about the image of U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalizad, on the floor of the Iraqi parliament working folks over like Hastert and DeLay that seems a little off to me).

But on the other hand, I also believe that the faster the journey to a credible political outcome – the constitution and the two rounds of elections – the more likely there will be a conducive environment to start reducing our military commitment to Iraq (and on this point, I actually agree with something Henry Kissinger wrote last week—that one way to help support Iraq’s political development is by creating a kind of regional political framework for Iraq’s future, bringing in Iraq’s neighbors and our key allies to help establish the rules of the road and to support the new government).

Here is where I want to put my two cents behind the glum prediction that Heather just outlined below: I think we are going to get out of Iraq, slowly but surely.  That’s why the Administration is pushing so hard for the Iraqis to hit these deadlines (that we created, by the way), so they can say that benchmarks have been met, Iraqi troops are being trained, and now is the time for us to turn things over to the legitimate Iraqi government.  They’ll argue that if things get a little ugly in our wake, so be it.  We gave it our best shot, it’s their country, and it is now for them to handle.  (This scenario, by the way, looks a lot like one that has been floated by outside analysts).

Part of this is politics—the American people are starting to clamor for us to get out.  But a big part of this is military necessity—I don't know of a single military expert who believes that we can sustain the pace of deployments in Iraq much longer without breaking the force.  And if we need troops to deal with another contingency – North Korea, Iran, Taiwan – forget it.  So if in many ways we have to get out, the Administration wants to lower the bar and create a scenario to declare, well, mission accomplished.

Now I don’t think we will get out entirely – in two years time, we might still have 50,000 troops there.  This is still cutting our troops at current levels by about one-third, but leaving there significantly more than we’ve had in South Korea for over fifty years.

And this is where – politically speaking for progressives -- I want to make Heather’s prediction gloomier.  Because if a slow but steady withdrawal is the future, then progressives will be split between the “get-out-of-Iraq-now” faction, who will claim that we’re not getting out fast enough, and the “complete the mission” faction that will agree with leaders like Joe Biden and John McCain that we need to stay in Iraq (and if anything, increase our troop strength) to get the job done right.  Threading this needle will be one the huge challenges for progressives in the months ahead.

A Glum Prediction Posted by Heather Hurlburt

I see a scenario unfolding in which progressives and moderates find ourselves calling for more troops while the Administration touts its troop withdrawals.  I see it coming fast, before the end of this year.  And I really don't like it.

If they salvage a constitution, there is a referendum this fall -- and it looks like a rather contentious one.  Otherwise, there are new elections.  So more votes -- and a more dramatic need for extra security -- no matter what.

But with perfect timing, Administration officials leaked like a sieve on plans to "settle for far less than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months" to the Washington Post over the weekend.

Sure sounds as if the Administration is serious about those drawdown balloons they've been floating, even if the uniformed military is not. 

Am I too paranoid to expect that those of us who try to balance our desire to extract the US from the mess we have made with a strong concern that we leave Iraq not less stable or even less democratic than we found it are likely to find ourselves calling for more troops?

And the American public, quite reasonably not understanding why we haven't gotten things in order by now, is telling every pollster in sight that they're having none of that.

Perhaps I'm wrong, and the Administration will step up and do what it needs to for relatively secure votes.  (I'm not even getting into whether those votes will accomplish anything.)  But I have this grim feeling that my principled desire to do right by Iraq resembles nothing so much as Charlie Brown running up to kick that ol' football.   

And here's a side question for you constitutional scholars out there:  why does an easily-amended constitution make it more like that Iraq can "grow into a democracy" than one like ours, which is quite difficult to change?  (Goodness knows we've done a bunch of "growing" since 1781.)   

Since the anonymous Administration officials chose the "growing into" metaphor, I'll continue it.  Is a constitution more analogous to my baby's shoes, which do need to be changed frequently, or to the household rules under which my family lives, which may be interpreted differently as babies, children and adults come and go, but shouldn't fundamentally change much? 

Foiled by Assumptions Posted by Michael Kraig

I am writing in my capacity as a temporary replacement for Lorelei Kelly as she takes a much-needed vacation.   And as a new voice, I would like to comment on some assumptions about international security that centrists and progressives hold in common with the conservatives, which consequently undermines attempts to arrive a truly different security paradigm that can be held up as a strong, coherent alternative.

First, David Adesnik said in a post about Cindy Sheehan, "And what if the Ba'athists and their Al Qaeda allies prevail in that war and transform Iraq into a staging ground for international terrorists attacks, a la Afghanistan except with oil?"  This is a mischaracterization of what's happening in Iraq, and it is an error that points to larger US policy community assumptions in general about connections between groups, and between states and groups.  The fact is that there are multiple fights, battles, and mini-wars going on in Iraq, by myriad groups, and though the Ba'athists and Al-Qaeda fighters may indirectly benefit from the chaos and fear that each is creating, they are NOT creating this chaos and fear with an eye to helping each other (and, they are not the only ones doing it; representatives from nearly every group are involved).  Nor is there any compelling evidence that they are actively planning and coordinating their activities together.  The Ba'athists are fighting for their once Sunni-dominated homeland; the foreign insurgents are taking the opportunity created by Bush to cause as much chaos and pain as possible in the cause of overturning the globalizing status quo in the Middle East.  Rest assured, if the Ba'athists were to finally win (even if just over a slice of the original Iraq), they will ruthlessly root out the foreign insurgents -- of any kind, creed, ideology, religion, or national origin - and rest assured, the foreign insurgents will fight them to the death (or, go next door to Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, where they can cause more trouble for years to come for those governments).   For instance, at a recent Stanley Foundation dialogue in Dubai, it was made quite clear that the biggest fears of Iraq's neighbors is not an alliance of insurgents within Iraq, that then make a strong Iraqi state that supports terrorism, but rather, an eventual return of foreign insurgents to the lands from which they first originated.  In short: they fully expect the foreign fighters to be kicked out at some point in the foreseeable future, because they do not assume that these foreign fighters agree with any other group, or ally with any other group.  Rather, the assumption (which I believe is correct) is that these groups are opportunists, quite separate from the Ba'athists, who simply wish to wreak as much havoc as possible -- and when Iraq gets its act together, whether in Sunni or Shi'ite form, then these foreign terrorists will raise literal hell elsewhere.   

With this in mind, I'm not sure it really matters whether the centrists and leftists be seen as appeasers in 2008 elections, because the entire threat and entire problem is being defined incorrectly from the beginning, by both conservatives and liberals alike -- much as Vietnam and the infamous "domino theory of communist expansion" were ruled by misconceptions on each side of the DC spectrum throughout that entire war.   The question is not whether we stay or go, but whether we are willing to admit just how big a mess it really is, and recognize the true costs of cleaning it up, and admit what kind of transnational (not national) terrorist legacy it is going to leave behind.  Iraqi stability and unity should be a goal -- but this goal will not be reached if characterize the problem incorrectly.

Another example: I find on Democracy Arsenal (and other blogs) a certain amount of agreement with the status quo policy conception that the anger in the Middle East is due to internal, domestic repression/oppression/injustice under autocratic governments, and that the anger toward Israel, the West, the US, and the globalizing world order is a byproduct of this, or an escape valve for this.   Indeed, I've heard this from numerous US officials and non-officials throughout my work for the Stanley Foundation; you could almost call it a standing epistemic agreement in the US policy community. 

Unfortunately, it's wrong -- or at least, half-wrong.  There is of course an "escape valve" factor at work here.  But after traveling to the Near East and the Persian Gulf for a combined total of two months this year (in a cross-country outreach tour for a Stanley product translated into Arabic), what I found was nearly everyone saying that "democracy" is not just about internal practices -- there is also an international dimension to justice, development, and democracy.  And this is where anger toward perceived neo-colonialist aggression, not too different from the British mandate in Egypt and the French mandate in Lebanon and Syria, comes in.  The truth is that people feel oppressed at one in and the same time by their own governments (internally) AND by perceived anti-Islamic, anti-Arab forces at the international or global level (externally), and neither of these exists in a vacuum apart from the other.  There is a palpable feeling throughout the Middle East that their values and way of life are potentially or actually under assault by hostile attempts to subvert true Arabism and Islamism and turn it into a Western template.  Israel's actions fall under this umbrella, but by no means is it just Israel alone; Israel is just sort of the lead "indicator", if you will, of overall Western intentions, especially US intentions. 

Put another way, and a bit more broadly: a Chinese analyst complained to me some years ago that Americans talk about democracy all the time, but they subvert it all the time.  I asked what he meant.  And he sincerely said that international institutions, and international rule of law, were the international equivalent of domestic democracy within sovereign states.  He said that China had finally bought into the conception promulgated by the Clinton Administration in the 90s that the NPT, the CTBT, the ICC, etc. and so on, were legitimate institutions to join and adhere to -- and the internal Chinese debate had been won on this score in part because it was "sold" by analysts within China as "international democracy" -- with soveriegn states as the individuals comprising the electorate.  But, this analyst complained, now the US is abusing the UN, failing to ratify the CTBT, disregarding key obligations of the NPT, and is slowly but surely weaponizing outer space.   In this analyst's view, this was "undemocratic" behavior at the international level, even though it was all being done due to democratic decisions made by the US within its own domestic level of politics. 

Long story short: this is how many Arabs feel about Iraq, Palestine, and about globalization in general.    And this is why the assumption mentioned above is a very dangerous one to hold, particularly for progressives trying to lay out true alternatives to the current policy status quo.  Yes, it is necessary to support democracy internally within Middle East states; yes, if people were not repressed domestically (and were not as poor economically, for some countries) in the Middle East, they probably wouldn't hate Israel, Europe, or the US as much as they currently do.  But would this anger and hate disappear if the Middle East were democratized at the domestic level?  The answer is, simply, no.  Because the feelings about lack of justice, or lack of democracy, at the INTERNATIONAL level are just as acute and just as real for many citizens and officials alike throughout the Middle East, and only the US supporting the rule of law at the international level will appease this anger and truly bring about a sea-change in relations and perceptions.  We may not see ourselves this way, but many in the Middle East (including rigorous analysts) really don't make much of a distinction between colonial Britain in Egypt, colonial France in Syria, and now today, the US in Iraq and Israel in Palestine.   It's all pretty much the same to them: international repression against pan-Arab and pan-Islamic identity (and for many citizens in the Middle East, they still even today feel just as much allegiance to pan-Arab culture as they do to the culture of their own sovereign nation; hence, purely national-domestic efforts at democratization are not meeting the culture of the region as it actually exists, in a transnational/international as well as national context).  Unless the progressive community in the US comes to grips with this reality, we really aren't offering true alternatives to the accepted assumptions of US foreign policy today.   

Confessions of a Battle-Shy Raptor Posted by Michael Osborne

Angryman responds (August 9), to my piece (August 8), on the Iraqi constitution by grousing that I "backhand the left as a mere afterthought" to my "generally misguided theme."

"Enlist, chickenhawk.  Enlist," he admonishes.

Clearly, Angryman is too angry to explain why he considers me "misguided."  Or to engage on the merits otherwise.  Moreover, he cannot know that, not being a U.S. citizen, I am ineligible to serve.

But let us suppose I was a citizen.  Would I enlist in the United States army?  Let me be clear: Not bloody likely.  For one thing, as Angryman rightly senses, I am chicken.  There.  I said it.  (On reflection, my cowardice would be irrational; I suspect any given enlistee's chances of dying in Iraq are not significantly greater than of being killed on the interstate).

For another thing, my economic opportunities in civilian life mean it would just make no economic sense to enlist.  Let us not hide from the fact that the U.S. army is now effectively a mercenary force.

From the point of view of those who, like Angryman, vehemently opposed the war from the start, those who back it from the comfort of their armchairs make irresistible targets.  (Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 may be the most mendacious movie ever made.  Yet I could not help enjoying the fat man's earnest attempt to coax congressmen into signing up their sons.)

As a matter of logic, there is, of course, nothing inconsistent in my arguing for an initiative entailing others doing work I would not myself consider.  Why should a councilor not vote for a environmental cleanup that would necessitate workers wading in rank cesspools, just because he himself would not touch the job with a bargepole?  And, to reply to a cheap shot sometimes hurled at liberals, why precisely am I disentitled to vote for a tax hike by the fact that I would not voluntarily pay my share into the public coffers, short of a tax law compelling everyone else also to do so?

That being said, I think that war is one area where pure logic runs out.  Fighting, dying and killing for one's country are just too emotionally and symbolically freighted to permit cool public policy analysis to be insulated from one's personal fears, commitments and aspirations.  So, let me agree with Angryman to this extent: the enthusiasm with which those of us who back the war do so must be tempered by careful consideration of the atrocious costs our position impose upon others -- and searching reflection on whether we would be willing to bear those costs ourselves.

Adventures of a Hero of Mulilateralism Posted by Michael Osborne

Responding to my post of yesterday, in which I made the point that France had intervened without UN authorisation in the civil war in Côte d'Ivoire, KB says that “when the French deployed in 2002 it did so at the request of the legitimate government of the IC and therefore didn't need UN say so.”

The French action has not been adjudicated in any international tribunal but I suspect that if it was it might well be found to have been unlawful. For one thing, by the time the French arrived on the scene a large portion of the north of the country had been seized by opponents of President Laurent Gbagbo, who had thereafter requested French assistance.  Under international law, if rebel forces succeed in acquiring control over a significant portion of the country, the conflict advances to a state of "insurgency," by which time the government's inability to control the entirety of its territory renders its claim to legitimacy uncertain.  Short of U.N. authorisation, states are then expected to refrain from offering assistance to either side in the conflict, inasmuch as any assistance would likely influence the outcome of what has now become a civil war.

Nothing to fear in Egypt except fear itself? Posted by David Adesnik

In a WaPo opinion column, Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy (photo opposite) reports that during her annual visit to Cairo, many of her friends told her that the Egyptian people had "broken the barrier of fear" on which the Mubarak regime depends for its longevity.  Eltahawy writes that:

I have never heard so many relatives and friends take such an interest in Egyptian politics or -- more important -- feel that they had a stake in them. This opposition movement holds almost weekly demonstrations. It draws Egyptians from across the political spectrum: leftists, liberals and Islamists. And, more worrisome for Mubarak, it has solid roots in the country's middle class: Journalists, lawyers, judges and university professors have all thrown their hats in.

Before taking an active interest in Egyptian politics, Eltahawy's friends were preoccupied with the sins of America and Israel in Palestine and Iraq.  Eltahawy doesn't say, but seems to imply, that the projection of her friends' anger abroad was the inevitable consequence of thier impotence on the homefront.  But now that has changed:

In Cairo I met reform activists and was lucky enough to march with 300 fellow Egyptians in a demonstration through Shubra, a working-class neighborhood weighed down by the unemployment and poverty that are constant concerns for many Egyptians. It was the first time since the anti-Mubarak protests began in December that protesters had taken their message to the street.

Riot police, who had previously confined demonstrations to one spot, were nowhere to be seen. Most of us knew it was because two days before the protest, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had admonished the Egyptian government for the May beatings and said that peaceful supporters of democracy should be free from violence.

In other words, words get results.  As Eltahawy rightly observes, the Bush administration must keep up the pressure if it wants to see real results.  Democracy is still a long way off, but its foundations are now being laid. 

And to think that just seven months ago, the prospect of serious reform in Egypt was almost unimaginable.  Only the fools seemed to believe back in February that "the great and proud nation of Egypt, which showed the way toward peace in the Middle East, can now show the way toward democracy in the Middle East."

Cindy Sheehan, Democratic Savior? Posted by David Adesnik

No matter what you think of her politics, you have to give Cindy Sheehan credit for staging one of the most brilliant pieces of political theater that Americans have encountered in a very long time.

Conservatives such as Michelle Malkin and Bill O'Reilly have blasted the liberal media for lavishing attention on an unworthy protest, but that hardly takes away from what Sheehan has accomplished.  After all, there are countless efforts made by anti-war protesters which don't result in this kind of coverage.  But Sheehan did a perfect job of framing herself as a lonely voice in the wilderness of Crawford, attempting to soften the heart of an American pharoah hiding behind the darkened windows of his limousine.  And as the NYT points out, Sheehan had the good luck (or perhaps the good sense) to stage her protest in the "slow news month" of August, when journalists are almost desperate for news.

But the broader question here for Democrats is not whether they can learn from Sheehan's tactics, but whether they should embrace her success as the foundation for a full-frontal assault on Bush's war policy.  Thus we come back to the question of what exactly Sheehan's politics are.  Although Sheehan hasn't been terribly consistent in her criticism of Bush, there is no question about what her politics are now: The war in Iraq is not a noble cause.  Pull out now before any more of our soldiers get killed.

In a certain sense, the question of whether or not to embrace Sheehan is same as the question Democrats faced in January of 2004: Should the party close ranks behind a charismatic anti-war firebrand or should it run to the center by adopting a more nuanced approach to the war?  My sense is that John Kerry's loss has led numerous Democrats to embrace the Sheehan approach.

For example, over at TPM Cafe, blogger cscs asks:

Cindy Sheehan has a simple question for the President:

Is Iraq a noble cause?...I believe Democrats who advocate a "stay the course" plan for Iraq have a responsibility to answer the same question.

So, is Iraq a noble cause?

This question generated 64 responses, almost all of which describe the war in Iraq as a manifest failure, both moral and strategic, that must be brought to an end right now.  Yet as one of those commentators pointed, leading Democrats such as Bill Clinton adamantly insist that we must stand by the people of Iraq as they embark on one of the most improbable and ambitious transitions to democracy in the history of the modern world.

Moreover, Clinton insists that one's support or opposition to the initial invasion of Iraq is absolutely irrelevant to whether we should stand by its people now, in their time of need.  That is the moral case for staying in Iraq and describing it as a noble cause.  Although Cindy Sheehan relentlessly speaks the language of compassion, she never seems to address the question of whether there are Iraqi mothers just like herself who are sending their sons out to fight an extremely dangerous war against Ba'athist and Al Qaeda terrorism and therefore deserve American support that will save many of their children's lives.

But in addition to the moral question of whether to stay the course in Iraq, there is the strategic question as well.  If we pull out of Iraq, then what?  This is another question that neither Sheehan nor her supporters seems willing to answer.  What if the low-grade civil war in progress today erupts into a full-scale bloodletting of the kind that took place in the aftermath of the first Gulf War?  And what if the Ba'athists and their Al Qaeda allies prevail in that war and transform Iraq into a staging ground for internation terrorists attacks, a la Afghanistan except with oil?

But perhaps the most important question for those who support Sheehan is not moral or strategic but partisan politcal.  The advocates of a pullout seem confident in their conviction that it is the moral and practical thing to do.  But what about 2008?

You can call Bush either stubborn or principled, but the bottom line is that he seems dead set on keeping tens of thousands of American soldiers in Iraq for as long as he is President.  And the Republican Congress seems to have few qualms about providing Bush with the necessary funds.  Recently, there has been widespread speculation in the media about the administration's semi-secret plan to pull out, but those stories never seem to pan out.

So what we are looking at for 2008 is another scenario, similar to 2004, in which American soldiers are fighting for their lives and the Democrats aren't sure whether the centrist voters that decide presidential elections will trust a Democratic party that continues to embrace its Vietnam heritage of demanding prudent withdrawals rather than investing ever more resources in the prospect of victory.

My intuition is that the response of centrists will depend on just how badly the war is going.  What the Democrats really need in order to make their anti-war stance both marketable and credible is for the army itself to turn against the war, along with a good number of prominent Republicans.  Otherwise, the GOP will once again be able to brand the Democrats as the party of appeasement and surrender. 

That is really what's at stake in the debate about Cindy Sheehan.  The Democrats have to decide whether they are willing to gamble their political future on the United States losing another war in the manner that it lost Vietnam.  Even opposing that sort of quagmire has had an enduring impact on the Democrats' reputation as guardian of our national security.  If democracy prevails in Iraq, the Democrats may find that they have cemented their status as the minority party of this generation. 

Bad, Bad, Sam Posted by Michael Osborne

Back in Cape Town, South Africa, after a stint teaching at the New School, I must report that, at least based on my observations here, everything you hear about the unpopularity of the United States in foreign parts is true.  As a native South African who has spent about half his adult life in the United States, I am still shocked at the virulent animosity towards America in so many of politically conscious people here.

Few of my friends and acquaintances in Britain have anything good to say about the U.S.   (A far from patriotic American friend who studied at Oxford tells me he will never forget how isolated he felt when the common room at his college erupted in cheers as the  Space Shuttle exploded on TV).  But my impression is that British anti-Americanism is largely the indulgence of the intellectual.  Here is the South Africa, many people with only a bare knowledge of (or interest in), international affairs love to hate Uncle Sam.

The evil of America is one of the few things upon which South Africans of  the left and the right can agree upon.   I vividly recall the fury evoked in whites by Jimmy Carter and, in particular, by his U.N. ambassador, Andy Young, when Young was regularly denouncing South Africa in the General Assembly.   So fervently was the U.S. disliked that the denouement of Carter's attempt to rescue the Teheran hostages was greeted with joy.   White South Africans nostalgic for the days of apartheid still have a vague sense that De Klerk's sell-out was due in part to U.S. pressure - a thesis with perhaps a germ of truth to it.  More fundamentally, some South African whites have always despised America as an upstart nation of half-breeds and mongrels.  Jews pull the strings.  Worse, uppity blacks hold high office. (It is difficult to exaggerate how the simple fact that a black women is Secretary of State of the most powerful county in the world must grate on some whites in South Africa, as on bigots around the globe; that she was appointed by Bush offers absolutely no comfort).

The South African left has its own reasons for disliking America.  Some stem from cold war politics.  The African National Congress in exile was closely allied with Moscow.  It went so far as to openly support the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.  Also, it is widely believed (although I do not know whether it has been proven), that the CIA tipped off the South African government about the movements  of Nelson Mandela when he was underground in the early 1960's, leading to his arrest at a roadblock in Natal.

The "new" South Africa is self-consciously internationalist  in  orientation, owing in part to the role played by the international community in squeezing apartheid.  It has shown a strong commitment to international law. The South African Constitution  is the only one of which I am aware that mandates domestic courts to apply international law)    South Africa has enthusiastically embraced multinational efforts to address global problems, such as the Kyoto protocol.  That being the case, it is to be expected that Bush's unilateralism will not be applauded in Pretoria.  The antipathy of South African leaders towards the United States has in the past taken on a bizarre racial flavor: former President Nelson Mandela once suggested that Bush and Blair wanted to undermine the United Nations because Kofi Annan is a black man.   In the view of influential South Africans, the U.S, is the one true rogue state on the globe.   One respected commentator confessed a feeling of schadenfreude at the sight of the World Trade Centre towers crashing to the ground.   

Historical peculiarities aside, I suspect that South Africans despise the United States for reasons similar to those that animate dislike of America globally.  No one likes a bully.  And it can scarcely be denied that the Bush administration's foreign policy has cast it as the meanest kid of the block. 

Even if its substantive policies could be justified, the tone of statements in their defense would be unforgivable.  Bush's arrant "with us of against us" rhetoric is essentially a "bring it on" to foreign approbation.    And when not engaged in swaggering bluster, Washington defaults to hypocritical rationalizations.  ("Operation Iraqi Freedom")    A regular bully is bad enough.   A sanctimonious thug is beyond the pale.

That being said, hostility towards America long predates the Bush administration, and bears no necessary relationship to the virtue or otherwise of particular U.S. foreign policy.  The U.S. was excoriated for doing nothing to stop the Rwanda genocide in 1994.   But you can be sure that, if Clinton had dispatched Marines to Kigali, the very same critics would have lambasted the action as another imperialist adventure.   In one of the few positive steps the Bush administration has taken with respect to Africa, it has instituted a programme to spend $9-billion on HIV/Aids.   Does this initiative, vastly greater than offered by any other country, temper antipathy towards America?  Not a chance.  The angle picked up by the leading South African weekly, is that the program places too much emphasis on abstinence. 

The astounding depth of South African anti-American animus is made clear in the double standards routinely applied.   France last year intervened (without UN authorisation), in the civil war in Côte d'Ivoire, destroying the country's air force in the process.   The action drew no significant criticism here. It goes without saying that equivalent American action would have provoked a firestorm of protest.   Another example: The U.S. role in helping depose Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide last year was roundly condemned in South Africa (which had close ties with Aristide, who now lives in exile near Johannesburg)   But no-one seemed to notice that France, Haiti's former colonial master, co-operated closely with Washington in the de facto coup.   France remains the hero of multilateralism for its brave defiance of U.S. unilateralism on Iraq.

I find the damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't quality of anti-American animosity frankly puzzling.  One thoughtful friend of mine admits that her antipathy towards America is based on an irrational aversion.  But most do attempt to justify their deep-set resentment, although in ways I do not find especially convincing.    Some, for example, point to the pitifully low level of U.S. foreign aid as a percentage of GNP.   I think this criticism does carry some weight; the percentage is the lowest of any industrialized nation.   But the point is difficult to take seriously from the mouth of a very privileged South African whose own lifestyle would be the envy of all but the wealthiest of Americans.   (Nor is the criticism tempered by an acknowledgment that in absolute terms the American contribution exceeds that of any other country.)    Other South Africans bristle at American cultural imperialism.  That is quite understandable.  How could South Africans proud of their country's indigenous art, music, theater and literature not feel embittered when worthy local plays of films run in empty houses, while the masses stand in line across the street to catch the newest excrescence of the Hollywood junk factory?

But at the end of the day, who cares if a lot of South Africans do not like America?   After all, Pretoria nevertheless maintains, behind the rhetoric, a very good  day-to-day relationship with Washington.  (It is not only in Arab autocracies that we find a yawning chasm between street sentiment and state policy).  South Africa has bent over backwards to help out in the "war of terror."  The Constitutional Court had to rap the government over the knuckles for hustling a suspect in the 1998 Kenya and Tanzania embassy bombings onto a FBI-chartered plane waiting at Cape Town airport, without a smidgen of due process.   (Judge Sand sentenced Khalfan Khamis Mohamed. to life in prison).  Also,  Bush has praised President Mbeki as his "point man" on the subject of Zimbabwe. 

Still, I think the U.S. should be worried about its very bad name in South Africa.   Over the long term, even partially democratic governments cannot but be influenced by their people's views.  And if Washington cannot win hearts and minds in a country so far removed from the front lines of the "war on terror," it is difficult to imagine how it can secure them anywhere.

Is there an iron fist in the Democrats' velvet glove? Posted by David Adesnik

This post isn't about foreign policy per se, but it is about whether and how the Democrats' can retake control of issues they have lost, foreign policy being just one.  This morning, the WaPo ran an analysis column by Dana Milbank that asked whether Democrats lack the ability of the GOP to go for the jugular.

Milbank's case in point is the Democratic response to a patently dishonest ad by NARAL, which accused John Roberts of supporting those who bomb abortion clinics.  On Friday morning, the WaPo denounced the NARAL ad in an editorial entitled Abortion Smear.  Also on Friday, liberal columnist EJ Dionne dismissed the accusations against Roberts as "outrageous".  Then, the NYT editorial board joined the chorus as well.

According to Milbank's analysis column, this sort of liberal self-flaggellation provides a stark contrast to what happned last summer, when,

Amid similar criticism against another controversial ad, most Republicans brushed aside demands to repudiate Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Milbank has chosen his words carefully, but still leaves a somewhat misleading impression.  While refusing to condemn the Swift Vets, top Republicans, including the President, were also extraordinarily careful not to say anything that might have been construed by the media as an endorsement of the Swift Vets' accusations.  (I confronted this evasiveness first-hand when I, along with other bloggers, interviewed RNC chairman Ed Gillespie last summer at the GOP convention in New York.)

Did Bush have a moral obligation to condemn the Swift Vets explicitly?  Or would have expecting such a condemnation from Bush amounted to demanding that he play by the same rules to which Milbank attributes the Democrats' weakness?

Either way, the adamant refusal of Bush, Gillespie and others to say anything positive about the Swift Vets demonstrates that there clearly are lines that the GOP will not cross.  Depending on your perspective, you can chalk this up either to a sense of fair play or to the realization that the media would have eviscerated Bush for saying anything positive about the Swift Vets.

Thus, the question to ask is not whether the Democrats should abandon their ethical standards, but whether they should adjust them slightly downwards in the name of expediency.  Before endorsing such a notion, I think it is important to point one critical difference between the Swift Vet and NARAL offensives.  As Kevin Drum astutely observes,

The Swift Boat folks were able to manufacture uncertainty by focusing on an event that was genuinely hard to gather facts about. It was something that happened over 30 years ago...

The NARAL ad, conversely, focused on an event in which the facts were well established and every news organization in the country was able to figure out within hours that the charges against Roberts were dubious at best. Sure, partisans could have stuck with NARAL, but the court of public opinion matters, and the NARAL ad was so easy to fact check that there was never any chance of winning in that court. That's dumb politics.

Although Kevin states unequivocally that he believes the Democrats to be morally superior to the GOP, his observation about the sheer stupidity of the NARAL ad explains why Milbank and others are wrong to chalk up the Democratic backlash against NARAL as a sign of weakness.

But there are other cases in point.  According to Milbank

In June, Democrats demanded that Bush aide Karl Rove apologize for saying that liberals wanted "therapy and understanding for our attackers." Rove refused to apologize, and Republicans leapt to his defense. Just before the Rove episode, Republicans demanded an apology from Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), the number two Democrat in the Senate, who likened U.S. treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay to techniques used by Nazis. Democrats joined in criticizing Durbin, who eventually delivered a tearful apology on the Senate floor.

I think this example begins to get at the question of whether Democrats should go for the jugular when attempting to re-establish themselves as the party of national security.  I certainly think Rove's comments were appalling.  Yet Durbin brought Hitler (and Stalin) into play.  As Kevin would say, that's dumb politics.

From a longer-term perspective, the Democrats need to ask themselves whether it is possible to attack Bush's foreign policy more viciously and more effectively without slipping into a position, such as Durbin's, that can easily be labeled as anti-American or unpatriotic.  As I see it, the problem isn't that Democrats are afraid to bare their fangs, but rather that the party is so divided that it can't agree on how to attack Bush.

The left wing of the party would be glad to aggressively cast the war in Iraq as another Vietnam, but the centrist wing of the party is committed to promoting democracy in Iraq regardless of whether the invasion was justified in the first place.  The centrists would be glad to attack Bush more forcefully for his failure to win the war in Iraq, but that would imply that America should commit more resources to the confict, rather than pulling out (as the Vietnam analogy suggests).

The bottom line is that unless the Democrats can speak with one voice, turning up the volume will only create static instead of taking the national security debate back from the GOP.