Talladega Nights and George Bush's America Posted by Michael Signer

So I wasn't sure if a post on Talladega Nights would be timely, but as the movie is number one in America for the second week in a row, how could it be more timely?

You might not think a movie about an erstwhile NASCAR racer, bedeviled by inner demons and subjected to the wiles of a catty trophy wife, insane children, and fickle fans would be connected to foreign policy.

Oh, how wrong you are.

Two Wars on Terror Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Here's a piece I just published at the American Prospect Online

Five years after September 11, it is possible to take stock of what parts of the battle against terrorism are succeeding and failing, and why. The thwarting of an elaborate terrorist plot against trans-Atlantic flights last week prevented what some maintain could have been a second September 11-style attack. Regardless of what the would-be perpetrators were actually capable of, credit goes to the intelligence, law enforcement and transportation security agencies that uncovered the plan, caught the culprits, and protected the public.

The rest of the picture is bleaker. The announcement that more than 3,400 Iraqi civilians died in unrest in the month of July is a shocking reminder that the world’s most powerful military has, let’s face it, failed in its chief aim of stabilizing Iraq. The Israel Defense Forces’ inability to vanquish Hezbollah in a month-long fight further shows that when in on-the-ground combat, terrorist groups can stand up to the world’s most advanced armies

It’s clear that meticulous intelligence and collaborative criminal enforcement can curb terrorists’ ability to carry out episodic headline-grabbing attacks. But when it comes to uprooting endemic terrorist schemers with roots in unstable societies, at least as a military matter, the task is virtually impossible. The war on terror is happening on two fronts, but headway is being made on only one.

The conclusion is not a surprise. During the last three decades, Israel, despite preventing targeted killings and kidnappings around the globe, never effectively clamped down on the intifada back home. The United States likewise had an easier time defending itself against hijackings and assassinations than it had fighting Viet Cong forces hidden in jungles.

The reasons for the disparity are clear. To succeed in sowing fear, terrorist attacks must be carried out in places and against people who are well-protected and feel safe. Grassroots terrorist activity targets vulnerable populations in already unstable situations. High-profile attacks require perpetrators to risk suicide, capture, or life on the run. Endemic terrorists can melt away anonymously. Whereas splashy international terrorists must plot with utmost secrecy and isolation, domestic terrorists can draw succor from supportive civilian populations.

To read the rest, click here.

Giving up on Iraqi Democracy? Posted by Shadi Hamid

Knowing what we do about this administration, it shouldn't strike anyone as surprising that Bush and his buddies are giving up on Iraqi democracy. From the New York Times:

“Senior administration officials have acknowledged to me that they are considering alternatives other than democracy,” said one military affairs expert who received an Iraq briefing at the White House last month and agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity. (Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)

It's time for Democrats to go on the offensive. We don't have to defer to this administration and play nice and cute Lieberman-style. Let's say it like it is: the Bush administration is quite possibly the most hypocritical in US history. They trumpet up democracy and America's mission to "end tyranny," but no one is subverting that worthy mission more than they are, not just in Iraq but throughout the Middle East. They have betrayed our ideals by continuing to coddle dictators in Egypt, Jordan, Algeria, and just about everywhere else. They also continue to green-light torture with impunity. These issues must be raised by Democratic congressional candidates. Let's make this a campaign issue and take our case to the American people. This administration has lost any national security credentials it might have still had left.

Policy Tips from the Armageddon Lobby Posted by Lorelei Kelly

Now, as I child I attended a Christian church that left me with quite a nice impression of Jesus and Christianity as a religion. Maybe its because my church worried just as much about the here as the hereafter. With that in mind,  I'd sure like to be at this week's Heritage Foundation event: Conflict with the West: Religious Drivers and Strategies of Jihad  in the hopes of getting some insight on our own homegrown armageddon policy planners. 

The blurb promises that the speakers will look at how:

the use of apocalyptic rhetoric for motivation of followers is not easily distinguished from the real expectations and practical plans of radical leaders

Its no secret that the Bush/Rove team relies on the religious right to elect Republicans. Today's LA Times reports on Evangelicals seeking to sign up a new flock of GOP supporters in states with crucial November races.

I hope the IRS reads the LA Times. But where this election strategy meets policy is where I get really nervous. Two items: the latest Seymour Hersh article on the administration's support of Israel's air campaign against Hezbollah as a demonstration experiment for Iran, plus the news that the Bush White House has met repeatedly to discuss Middle East policy with religious-right leaders.  Specifically, they've met with Christians United for Israel CUFI, whose founder, Richard Hagee insists that the United States must join Israel in a preemptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West.

Sarah Posner at alternet has a splendid piece up about this trend.  Where are the guffaws from the majority of liberal American Jews about this clearly one-sided "partnership"? Of course, there will be little room in the rapture-train for them unless they renounce their religion and become fundamentalist Christians on command.  Little room for people like me, too, I imagine, with our warm-fuzzy visions of Jesus and all that peacemaking blah blah.

A Few Modest Proposals Posted by Heather Hurlburt

While everyone's catching their breath post-cease-fire, here are a few initiatives I'd like to see:

1.  A bi-partisan initiative to rebuild Lebanon.  Lebanese-American GOP Senator John Sununu and Democratic Rep. John Dingell (whose district includes one of the biggest Lebanese communities in the US) should jointly take the lead in directing the State Department to open the floodgates of not just humanitarian assistance but real aid in rebuilding all the infrastructure Lebanon just lost, to help put its economy and tourism industry back on track.

1a.  Public diplomacy around a bi-partisan initiative to rebuild Lebanon.  That's a greta example of a substantive policy that might go some tiny way toward repairing the pr disaster this conflict is for us in the Arab world.  Democracy Arsenal's favorite Under Secretary of State Karen Hughes should be up on the Hill full-time trying to make it happen.

2.  Charles Krauthammer explains it all to you.  I want the conservative columnist and his neo-con friends, especially Dick Cheney, to tell me why it's good for right-wing Israelis and their American supporters to criticize their government's conduct of the Lebanon war but unpatriotic for US Democrats to criticize our government's handling of the Iraq war.

3.  Come to think of it.  Perhaps some of our readers and bloggers who live in the region will  correct me, but it sure looks from here like the Israelis are doing an excellent job of having a fierce, existential debate about the use of military power and the threat they face while not actually weakening their ground position in any way.

4.  And one for the home front:  could Tom Mazzie at MoveOn.org please check the authorship of his talkingpoints before suggesting that progressives write letters to the editor telling their fellow Americans how much less safe we are than before 9-11?  Last I recall, that's Karl Rove's playbook.  That stimulus of fear is well associated with conservatives, and as Rove has said over and over this year, it'll work... for conservatives. 

Well, enough dreaming on a sunny day.  Back to work, all of you.   

After the Ceasefire: Winners and Losers Posted by Shadi Hamid

So we have a ceasefire. As the ashes settle, we do, indeed, have a “new Middle East.” Some quick, initial observations:

1. I had thought that Hezbollah would come out of this conflict the biggest loser. If the US and Israel had approached things in a different way, then that might have happened. But it didn’t. Hezbollah comes out as a winner, not because it won, but because it wasn’t defeated. The Arab bar for military victory is, as Michael Totten notes, so “pathetically low” that almost anything is a victory. Perception is more important than reality and the perception among 300 million Arabs was that Hezbollah heroically resisted Israel’s advances.
2. Despite Hezbollah’s PR victory, its military capabilities and strategic reach are undoubtedly diminished. It will take years for it to rebuild its arsenal, if it ever does.
3. Southern Lebanon has been reduced to rubble. Someone is going to have to fill the vacuum and, most likely, it will be Hezbollah. 
4. One of things fueling Hezbollah’s growing popularity both inside and outside of Lebanon was a feeling of Arab solidarity in the face of the Israeli offensive. Without pictures of innocent civilians dying flashing on their TV screens and as emotions hopefully cool down, Arab support for Hezbollah will diminish (but likely remain quite high). 
5. Ehud Olmert finds himself in the unenviable position of selling and explaining a war that almost no one in Israel - either on right or left - considers a rousing success. Olmert's conduct over the course of the conflict provides innumerable lessons on "how not to prosecute a war against a non-state actor."
6. The US, as is almost always the case with the current administration, comes out of this conflict a loser, but, then again, this should not be a surprise to anyone.

You Say You Got a Resolution: What's Next in Lebanon Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Tomorrow morning the UN negotiated ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon will enter into force.  This represents a long-awaited milestone, and yet leaves open as many questions as it answers.  We've talked before about how these much-heralded international agreements sometimes wind up doing little more than paper over differences that just burst back open as deeply as ever.  Will that happen here?  Here are some signs to watch for in the coming days and weeks:

1.  What will Israel do with its forces currently in Lebanon - The idea behind the ceasefire resolution is that Israeli troops will end offensive operations, and gradually withdraw as international peacekeepers and the Lebanese army take their place.  But with intense political pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert after an operation that's seen at best as a partial victory, will the post ceasefire period be sufficiently free of provocation that Israel's guns stay quiet, and will the international force be mobilized quickly enough so that the motions of withdrawal can start?

2.  Will Hezbollah comply with the resolution's requirement that it disarm south of the Litani River - Sheikh Nasrallah has said he will comply with this only once Israel leaves Southern Lebanon (including Shebaa Farms) and is replaced by the Lebanese army and an expanded UNIFIL.  A dispute over this point led to impasse at a Lebanese cabinet meeting this morning, because Israel will not leave with an armed and ready Hezbollah still unchecked in what is to become the buffer zone.  If not solved, this gap could yield a stand-off that quickly turns violent.

3.  Will the Lebanese government be able to coopt Hezbollah into rejecting violence - As long as Hezbollah remains a guerrilla state-within-a-state in Lebanon, even if there's a semblance of partial disarmament in the south, the organization will be poised to regroup and restart its attacks.  The only way to stop that is for Hezbollah to disband, or to transform into a legitimate political party.  Some suggest that a package of incentives - control over ministries and resources, perhaps - might lure Hezbollah into such a conversion.

4.  How quickly does an international force get mobilized - There is no agreement on when the 15,000-strong international force will be deployed, nor who will lead it.  France, Italy, Turkey and others have said they'll contribute troops.  The UN, largely for reasons outside the organization's direct control, is notoriously slow in getting peacekeepers out into the field.  Having witnessed the US's experience in Lebanon in 1982 and in Iraq, other governments will naturally hesitate.

5.  How well can a UN force rein in a terrorist group - I posed the same question some weeks ago in pondering the viability of an expanded UNIFIL as a route to resolving the conflict.  If Hezbollah stands down, that's one thing.  But unless they abandon or put on hold their raison d'etre of returning the region to its 1948 borders (minus the State of Israel, that is), the UN force will be faced with trying to contain an aggressive, well-armed, and sophisticated guerrilla group, something both the US military (in Iraq) and the Israel Defense Force (in Lebanon in recent weeks) have failed at.  This could be a humiliating defeat for the UN, or potentially a triumph that shows the organizations relevance in an era of terror.

6.  How does Hezbollah approach the arrival of a beefed up UN force - This brings up the directly-related question of how Hezbollah deals with the UN troops:  in its heretofore skeleton-staffed and weakly mandated form, UNIFIL seems to have been largely ignored by Hezbollah fighters.  But the augmented force will be far more heavily armed and have robust rules of engagement.  Will Hezbollah want to be seen as cooperating?  Will their quiescence mask behind-the-scenes plotting and rearmament? 

7.  What kind of mettle will the Lebanese army show - The abject failure of the Lebanese army to exert a monopoly on force in Southern Lebanon is at the root of Hezbollah's opportunism and the skirmishes that erupted into this (thus far) mini-war.  Now the world is relying on Lebanese soldiers to play a major role in retaking and securing the country's Hezbollah-ridden border areas.   If past is prologue, this is a recipe for continued Hezbollah infiltration.  If that happens, its a matter of time before Israel comes back in in some form.

8.  Do Syria and Iran still want to rumble with the world - Both governments, known to be political, financial and military backers of Hezbollah, have announced their opposition to the ceasefire resolution.  Both are assumed to have been behind Hezbollah's initial provocations.  In the face of UNSC unanimity and an international peacekeeping force, do they decide that the optics of trying to spoil the deal are untenable?  Or do they see this as some sort of epic battle against the West that they're bent on fighting until Israel returns the Golan and the UN backs off Tehran's nuclear program?

9.  What's next in Gaza - Before this last round started in early July, the big worry was friction between Israel and Gaza, brought to a head by the abduction of an Israeli soldier, subsequent military retaliation, and exchanges of rocket and missile fire.  Before that, the big worry was a restive population as a result of a starved Palestinian authority that could not pay its civil servants because the flow of funds had been cut off after Hamas' election.  The situation could easily boil over if subsequent international efforts are not made to extend the ceasefire to Gaza in some form.

10.  What level of engagement in the conflict will the Bush Administration sustain - The speed with which the international force is mobilized, the pace at which Israel withdraws, and the role the Lebanese government plays will all be influenced by the degree to which the Administration - and others, including notable the EU and the other Permanent UNSC members - continue to pressure the parties.  With an election coming up, will Bush - as never before - be willing to tie his fate to events in the Mideast he cannot control? Truth is he's tied to them like it or not.