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« March 11, 2007 - March 17, 2007 | Main | March 25, 2007 - March 31, 2007 »
If President Bush were Steve Jobs, maybe we'd get this.
(Thanks to my cousin Barry Hurlburt, who is a New Orleans returnee and thus much-acquainted with black humor, for the link.)
Last week, Suzanne argued in the New Republic that
For different reasons, both the administration and its critics in Congress have essentially reconciled themselves to a continuation of something close to the present course of the war. Neither side's moves amount to much, and they know it. They're quietly tolerating the status quo, partly for political reasons and partly because--as bad as things are--there's grim awareness that they could get even worse. It turns out that nobody really wants to rock the boat.
Like everybody else, I'm watching the whip count, and I think she's about to be proven wrong in one important sense.
** Update 12:45pm They got 218...
By finding a way to pass this bill, and even look gracious doing so (cf. Barbara Lee and Maxine Waters last night, and all the Blue Dogs who didn't bark in public), the Democrats serve notice that the party is united around the determination that this war not go on endlessly with no clear goal or purpose. The party finds a voice on national security that says: be accountable to explicit benchmarks. Be accountable for the readiness needs of the troops. and be accountable to what the public told you it wanted.
To me, that looks like a big rock of the boat and shift in the status quo.
However, it is equally true that even if passed by both houses this doesn't alter the President's prerogative to conduct foreign and military affairs as he sees fit. Public opinion data make it very clear that the public is somewhat impatient with these niceties, and regards Democrats as part of the failure for not changing a situation that, constitutionally, they are ill-situated to change.
Okay, not really. But I wish it were, because evidence that al Qaeda was secretly accelerating climate change is about the only thing that might get the Bush Administration to take it seriously. Last July, Harvard psychology prof Daniel Gilbert wrote a great (and funny) LA Times op ed on the psychology of risk and threat perception, focusing on why Americans care more terrorism and even gay marriage than about global warming, though in the longer run, global warming is by far the greater security threat. The piece was originally published almost a year ago, but has somehow bubbled back up to the top of the paper's most-emailed list, and it's worth a read.
This story hasn't yet gotten much play, but I suspect it will if it is not resolved very, very soon. Iran has apparently captured and detained 15 British Navy sailors after what the Britsh authorities say was a routine boarding of a suspicious-looking merchant ship in Iraqi territorial waters. So far no public response from any Iranian government sources.
There is what could potentially be a huge and I mean absolutely huge story out there right now. A number of serious Pakistan watchers are warning that recent protests indicate that the regime may be in danger. Ahmed Rashid in today’s WaPo
Musharraf is now too weak to pursue policies that could keep his back-stabbers in check, restore his credibility at home and abroad, and pursue his agenda of remaining in power for the next five years.
According to former Ambassador Teresita Schaeffer (warning PDF) “it has shaken the aura of invincibility that Musharraf has enjoyed until now.”
America’s relationship with Musharraf is similar to that of the Shah in the 1970s. We have put all our strategic eggs in this basket. When the protests against the Shah began in 1978 they were ignored. His strength was taken for granted until it was too late for the U.S. to salvage its interests in Iran. And by salvage I don’t mean bucking up the Shah at all costs but looking at all options available.
Nobody knows exactly what would happen if Musharraf loses power and most likely he will survive. But considering its role in the “war on terror”, considering it’s a nuclear power, considering that whenever you ask a foreign policy analyst “what’s your nightmare scenario?” the word Pakistan is usually involved in the answer you’d think people would be paying more attention. I guess that’s what happens when you invade a country you shouldn’t have invaded and fire U.S. Attorneys for political reasons. You get too busy. Little things like Pakistan fall through the cracks.
Bush's insistence that his advisors will speak to Congress only if they don't have to speak under oath doesn't seem like a very good one. If you intend to tell the truth, there's no reason to fear being under oath.
Of course, if you intend to lie like crazy, it's definitely wise to avoid being under oath. In fact, now that I think about it, maybe Bush's refusal to let his advisors testify under oath is itself a form of honesty. George W. is updating of the story of George Washington and the cherry tree: instead of "Father, I cannot tell a lie," he offers, "Congress, I cannot swear to tell the truth."
UPDATE: the House Judiciary Committee's having none of it.
Hey Republicans: feeling a little unloved lately? Don't lose hope: Lonely Joe Lieberman's available, and he wants to be swept off his feet by a political party with a "strong and muscular" approach to foreign policy.
Hey, GOP, I think he's talking about you! Look, I know some people-- well, okay, a lot of people-- think you don't have a lot going on upstairs. But don't lose heart: there are those who like that in a political party!
- Seriously, folks: when are we going to stop treating US foreign policy as a chest-beating contest? With all due respect to our friends at ThinkProgress, we don't need to respond to Lieberman's coy little hints by insisting that "the current Democratic presidential candidates want to sharply reduce or eliminate the U.S. presence in Iraq. That is strong and muscular." That misses the point.
I'm as fond of "strong and muscular" as the next girl, but not as the measure of US foreign policy. To paraphrase Zbigniew Brzezinksi, we need to resist efforts to frame policy debates in terms of strong versus weak, or hard versus soft power: the real question is whether we're going to be smart, or stupid. I don't know about Joe, but I'll take smart over stupid any day of the week.
Is it just me, or was the 4th anniversary of the start of the Iraq war mostly greeted by the media with resounding silence? I expected the date to be marked by banner headlines and extensive commentary and analysis... instead, we mostly got coverage of the new Airbus. Hello? Hello?
According to an article last week in the Washington Post, some of our best intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program is coming from the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK), a militant group based in Iraq that is dedicated to overthrowing the Iranian government. Pretty scary considering the disastrous intelligence that came from Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress (INC) in the run up to the Iraq War.
The MEK is a group of terrorists / freedom fighters / American allies that our government can’t seem to make up its mind about. In 1997 they were added to the U.S. State Department’s list of foreign terrorist groups, but after the U.S. invasion in 2003 the Bush Administration granted them status of “protected persons” under the Geneva Convention. Saddam saw the group as a useful ally in undermining the Iranian regime. The Bush Administration seems to be using them for the same purposes.
Cutting deals sometimes with unsavory characters is an unfortunate reality in foreign policy. The real problem here is that according to the article this group is providing key intelligence on Iran’s nuclear weapons program and its operations in Iraq. Have we learned nothing from Chalabi, “Curveball” and the INC? This group’s sole mission is to overthrow the Iranian government. They have every incentive to cook up the intelligence and no reason to be straightforward with us. Are we really going to go down this path again?
Still, all the claims in the article were made by the MEK and weren’t backed up by American intelligence or military sources. So let’s hope against hope that it’s just shoddy reporting and not another case of the administration using questionable sources to build its case.
So I saw Ken Adelman today at a panel at the Center for American Progress (Yes Ken Adelman actually stepped inside CAP).
At one point the moderator asked him about what a new Iraqi government should look like and what he would consider a positive outcome. I thought this was pretty interesting. What does one of the original proponents of the war now think about realistic outcomes?
Adelman's answer left me a little stunned, a little outraged but mostly just sad.
Basically, he explained that when he first supported the war he viewed the establishment of a government similar to that of the Philippines or South Korea to be a positive outcome. They aren't perfect democracies but they're pretty good.
By 2004 he decided that an outcome like Jordan was the best we could hope for. By 2005 his standard had become Egypt. And Now? Wait for it... Wait for it...
Syria!!!
Yes ladies and gentlemen. The Neocon democratization plan for the Middle East. Replace oppressive Baathist dictatorship with slightly less oppressive Baathist dictatorships.
At this rate by 2008 we'll be hoping Iraq turns out like Chechnya. And by 2009 we'll settle on the ultimate solution. Afghanistan...
The Best Available Intelligence Can be Dead Wrong Or, Even Worse, Manipulated for Political Purposes – When the war was first launched, the prospect that evidence of Saddam’s weapons program might never be found was an cringe-worthy nightmare scenario. It was impossible to imagine that Colin Powell’s UN powerpoint was a work of fiction. We all know what happened next, and our trust in the intelligence establishment and the White House’s use thereof has been irreparably shattered
When the World isn’t Behind Us, That Doesn’t Necessarily Mean They’re Wrong – It’s become an article of faith that the UN failed the test posed by Iraq four years ago. But how so It doesn't take a UN-hugger to acknowledge that in refusing to ratify the war, the Security Council avoided the very same mistake Members of Congress are now admitting to one by one One can argue that no matter what Saddam did, Russia, Moscow and even Paris would have given him a pass, but that wasn't put to the test.
The US Military Has Limits - Four years ago it was tough to imagine a scenario in which the mighty US military was, by all accounts, stretched to its limit When we used to hear about the requirement of preparedness to fight two regional wars simultaneously, the prospect always seemed very far-fetched Some may be heartened that, the wisdom of such a potential option aside, launching a military confrontation right now with Iran is all but impossible. But we would rest easier if the military option were off the table only by choice, rather than by necessity as well.
Continue reading "10 Lessons Learned the Hard Way in Iraq" »
Last weekend, VP Cheney gave a speech at the annual conference of AIPAC, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee. Routine, but no less appalling, he gave a speech that all but accused the Democratic party of plotting to commit treason and kill American soldiers. Jeffrey Feldman over at Frameshop analyzed the speech and found that it contained the following words:
war - 31
terror - 26
enemy - 12
attack - 7
battle - 7
kill - 6
destroy - 4
bomb - 3
weapons - 2
death - 2
murder - 2
violence - 2
No wonder it has been called the Murder-Death-Kill talk. Will someone explain to me how this is good for Israel?
