Pomo Rummy Posted by Michael Signer

Amid today's news (chronicled below, rather movingly, by Heather) of the President's further recalcitrance on Iraq, Dana Milbank has a WaPo article today recounting an interesting press conference by Donald Rumsfeld. 

In an agile, postmodern, linguistic pirouette, the Secretary attempted to remake reality through words.  Check this out:

[Rumsfeld] declared that the insurgents would, henceforth, no longer be called insurgents.

"Over the weekend, I thought to myself, 'You know, that gives them a greater legitimacy than they seem to merit,' " Rumsfeld, at a Pentagon briefing yesterday, said of his ban on the I-word. "It was an epiphany," he added, throwing his hands in the air.

Encouraging reporters to consult their dictionaries, the defense secretary said: "These people aren't trying to promote something other than disorder, and to take over that country and turn it into a caliphate and then spread it around the world. This is a group of people who don't merit the word 'insurgency,' I think."

It is the funniest thing for an administration allegedly populated by hard-nosed realists -- and dizzy-eyed idealists -- that the head of defense should believe such a postmodern proposition that reality actually just depends on what you call things.   

The Secretary's hardly a fan of France -- or of Old Europe.  But could he be a closeted admirer of Jacques Derrida? 

"Nothing Less than Complete Victory" Posted by Heather Hurlburt

so now we're not spreading freedom across the broader Middle East, we're spreading the "hope of freedom."  wonder what's up with that.

I think the rhetoric here is going to misfire with regular folks -- who told pollsters they want a less grandiose vision of America in the world, not a bigger one -- and the spill of statistics on staff colleges, etc. is not going to convince anybody who was looking for a detailed "plan."

It's mostly written to appeal to military families, I think -- maybe that serves as a shorthand for whatever the GOP base is these days.  I'd be interested to know how it plays even there.

I just don't have the heart to pick this one apart in my usual snarky speechwriter fashion.  I just want better from my country.  That's all, folks.  God bless America.

Bush Speech Live: "When our mission of defeating the terrorists is complete..." Posted by Heather Hurlburt

The quotes from Iraqi soldiers are good -- I would've led with them if I were the writer.  The description of how the mission will change is right in line with what military analysts and progressives have been recommended.

But the fundamentals appear unchanged.  And did you hear the extra note of stridency in "we will stay as long as necessary to complete our mission?" 

"We will be able to reduce our troops levels in Iraq without losing our ability to defeat the terrorists."  hmmm

Ah, the new code word is "articifial" timetable.   And now we move through our set of coded attacks on progressives:  "cut and run," "invite new attacks on America..."

and a pledge to those who wear the uniform -- "America will not run in the face of car bombers and assassins so long as I am your commander in chief."

Lord, for the sake of us all I hope he doesn't find himself eating that sentence Beirut-style.

So, we will pull lots of troops, but not all of them.  Maybe the Iraqis will get it together and violence will decrease -- against us and them.  And maybe not.  But I don't think this speech is going to give public opinion something to hold onto... and more violence will lead to cascading withdrawals... and we will be forever stuck in another post-Vietnam "it could have been won/it could never have been won" debate. 

Bush Speech Live -- "Basic Survival Skills" Posted by Heather Hurlburt

I just jumped in mid-speech -- thanks to the client who canceled the 10 am call.  I am trying very hard to take off my partisan hat.  I want this strategy to be workable, and to work.  So far I'm hearing lots about staff colleges and training academies -- does anybody really think Iraqis who lived through Saddam, the Iran-Iraq war, and the last three years need help learning "survival skills?"  I continue to wonder whether judging our work in Iraq the way we'd consider accrediting a new educational institution in the US is the right way...

More later.  Steve Clemons has the Administration strategy up here, by the way.

Iraq: A Facsimile of a Decent Interval Posted by Suzanne Nossel

In an act of head-spinning revisionism, just two weeks after his Administration vilified John Murtha for wanting to cut and run, tomorrow night Bush will evidently begin preparing the groundwork for withdrawal.  My read is that having concluded that an actual decent interval may prove elusive, the Administration is now exploring alternatives to avoid the appearance that US withdrawal precipitates immediate Iraqi collapse. 

One such measure that Heather discussed last week may involve getting the Iraqis themselves to demand the US's departure.  That way the Administration can say that since the Iraqis told us they could manage without us, we left honorably having no reason to suspect our going would set off out-and-out civil war.   

But NY Times Baghdad Bureau Chief John Burns said last night on Charlie Rose that American commanders are telling incoming troops the following:  when asked whether they want the US to leave Iraqis overwhelmingly say yes, but when asked whether they want us to leave now, the consensus is no.   I don't know if that's true (cannot find any opinion polls to back it up), but we will need to listen carefully to what Iraqis themselves are really saying about the timeline for the US presence.   Progressives and the press need to poke behind official statements.

A second aspect of the strategy involves identifying external indicators that purport to support the potential for a decent interval, like a functioning Iraqi army and peaceful elections on December 15.  Bush apparently intends to make these a focus of his remarks tomorrow night, pointing out the positive and ignoring assessments like this by Toby Dodge of the International Institute for Strategic Studies:

"It's increasingly becoming a war of all against all, with no rules . . . The Iraqi security forces themselves are becoming just another of the players, and if they owe allegiance to anything, it's to their commanders or communities, and not remotely to the state itself."

Even if the calm doesn't hold, the Administration wants enough to point to in order to credibly argue that when they made the decision to pull out, all signs suggested that Iraq would cohere.

Here's where I part ways with Fred Kaplan's otherwise piercing analysis.  He thinks that by starting to draw-down Bush can pull off a political "win-win."  But in light of this fast-evolving Administration strategy, John Murtha did progressives more help than he knew. 

Because of Murtha, the American public is starkly aware of  two competing interpretations of a possible pullout:  Murtha's notion that Iraq is spinning downward but there's nothing more we can do, and Bush's vision that Iraq is turning a corner.   So if we do pull back, Bush's credibility will lie in the hands of the Iraqi insurgency, a force that not even Karl Rove can manipulate.

So the political fates are inextricably entwined with Iraq's fate.  And, right now, Iraq's fate isn't looking good.

Required Reading Posted by Heather Hurlburt

Or CliffsNotes for all those articles "everyone is talking about" that you meant to read, honest you did -- and that I read over Thanksgiving weekend while blogger babe was being loved to pieces by his adoring relatives.  I'll be putting up notes on these one at a time over the next day -- keep checking this post as it grows...

Jim Fallows in The Atlantic on why Iraqis "have no army...and aren't even close."

James Bamford, of Puzzle Palace fame, on the PR firm 'hired by the CIA to help 'create the conditions for the removal of Hussein from power'"... in the United States.  It's called The Man Who Sold the War.  (thanks to Steve Clemons for catching this piece -- check out his explanation, over at The Washington Note, of why Bamford is worth reading even if you don't usually peruse Rolling Stone.)

Yep, the new Sy Hersh piece in the New Yorker that everyone is filling up each other's inboxes with.

I'll point you again to the new Pew-CFR poll -- actually, people aren't talking enough about this one -- and my friend Lee Feinstein's insightful commentary on it, which he has been making everywhere, to anyone who will listen. 

And, for amusement, the Daily Telegraph piece on John Bolton that got a write-up in the Times a couple weeks back.

Another Bush Speech Posted by Derek Chollet

Another week, another curtain-raiser for one more “major” Bush speech on Iraq.  So far these speeches have fallen relatively flat -- doing little more than fuel the partisan war in Washington – and have not foreshadowed any new policies. 

But tomorrow’s speech at Annapolis seems to be different – and will be the most important speech Bush has given on Iraq since the debate exploded last June, when the President had to scramble to the prime-time airwaves to steady his course.

As the LA Times first reported over the weekend (and the Wall Street Journal writes today), tomorrow’s speech will be the beginning of the pivot on Iraq – laying the groundwork for a gradual troop withdrawal starting next year.  Bush will apparently praise the training of Iraqi troops, talk about the progress they’ve made, and move beyond his standard “as they stand up we’ll stand down” rhetoric, giving a little more detail to convince people that he really means it.

There are a lot of thoughtful folks who have already outlined what we should be listening for tomorrow (not on the politics, but on the policy), and their questions are worth pondering.  They challenge the Administration, but since they raise questions that all of us who are trying to find a responsible way forward in Iraq are trying to answer, they also challenge us.

For example, CAP’s Brian Katulis (co-architect of the influential “strategic redeployment” strategy that has driven a lot of the debate about what to do within progressive circles) raises important questions that will certainly help poke holes in what Bush says: Are his troop training numbers credible?  How many Iraqis that we say are trained actually work for militias, not the state?  Are we failing to give the Iraqis we are training the equipment they need?  If what we’re doing is working, then why isn’t the insurgency getting smaller?   

But perhaps more important are the questions on Fred Kaplan’s mind, which go to the larger strategic plans (and risks) of a Bush withdrawal:

“How does he plan to do it? Which troops will come out first? How quickly? Where will they go? Under what circumstances will they be put back in? Which troops will remain, and what will they do? How will they keep a profile low enough to make the Iraqi government seem genuinely autonomous yet high enough to help deter or stave off internal threats? Who will keep the borders secure, a task for which the Iraqi army doesn't even pretend to have the slightest capability? What kinds of diplomatic arrangements will he make with Iraq's neighbors—who have their own conflicting interests in the country's future—to assure an international peace?

“More to the point, does the president have a plan for all this? (The point is far from facetious; it's tragically clear, after all, that he didn't have a plan for how to fight the war if it extended beyond the collapse of Saddam.) Has he entertained these questions, much less devised some shrewd answers? If he's serious about a withdrawal or redeployment that's strategically sensible, as opposed to politically opportune, we should hear about them in his speech Wednesday night.”

Let’s hope so.  But don’t hold your breath.

Is Marwan Barghouti a Palestinian Ariel Sharon? Posted by Suzanne Nossel

While all eyes are on the December 15 Iraqi elections, January 25 will bring Palestinian parliamentary elections that could have just as much influence over the future of the Middle East.  With Ariel Sharon hard at work building a new party, and Shimon Peres looking likely to assume the role of vice premier with responsibility for negotiations with the Palestinians, Israel seems poised to move forward.

If Fatah sweeps to decisive victory, January's poll could mandate Mahmoud Abbas to press ahead on a deal.  Or it could strengthen the hand of Hamas, reigniting violence and eroding the tentative Israeli political will t0 make the Gaza Strip withdrawal a prelude to a final settlement on the West Bank.   In a hopeful sign, support for Hamas has slipped in the latest polls, with a large majority of Palestinians now saying they support negotiations with Israel.   

In an interesting wrinkle, in Fatah primaries held in Ramallah over the weekend, the overwhelming victor was Marwan Barghouti, a long-time leader who is currently serving five successive life sentences in an Israeli prison for his involvement in terrorist activities.

The results have fueled speculation that a (long-discussed) pardon for Barghouti may be in the works.   Barghouti, 46 years old, represents a new generation of Palestinian leadership who commands the loyalty of radical youths to a degree Abbas never has.   A former leader of the notorious al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade, Barghouti has "street cred" among Palestinians who believe they have no choice but to stand up to Israel through any means possible.

Though he's an avowed terrorist, there's more to Barghouti than his conviction for the deaths of four Israelis and a Greek monk in terror attacks.  He was a participant in and outspoken proponent of the original Oslo peace process in the early 1990s and has always favored a two-state solution.  As a member of the Palestinian legislative council after 1996 he led an aggressive campaign against Arafat's human rights abuses and corruption.  His commitment to clean government positions him to stand up to Hamas' most powerful line of attack against the sometimes feckless Fatah leadership. 

Barghouti has also spoken out against both suicide attacks and attacks against civilians within the green line.  This 2001 profile gives you a feel for the contradictions.

Both the Israeli and the Palestinian people have been pushed by their histories into positions of profound insecurity and deep suspicion of anything that endangers their security or their nationhood. 

Americans get the concept of "Nixon in China."   For both the Israelis and the Palestinians its become clear that at this point, with hopes dashed so often, only tested, trusted hard-liners will be given a mandate to compromise.   Given the drama and emotion that surrounds the conflict, charisma and a larger-than-life personality may be essential ingredients as well.  Shimon Peres' decision to join Sharon signals that even he finally accepts this.

Privatizing ROTC? Posted by Lorelei Kelly

The privatization of many functions of the military has occurred without much discussion over the past 15 years--bouyed along, in part by the free-market fundamentalism peddled by so much of the idea industry here in DC.   This issue is ripe for Democrats and progressives as a cornerstone in a regenerated "philosophy of government" argument about what are essential public service roles that only government can perform (FEMA might be another one...) 

A good article on the subject can be found here, but you can read the abstract below.  Along the same theme, make sure to read this LA Times piece called The Journey that Ended in Anguish  about the suicide of a military ethicist in Iraq.

The Privatization of Military Affairs: A Look into the Private Military
Industry

By Kyle M. Ballard, Occidental College

In the push to revolutionize military affairs, governments are turning to private companies to conduct many tasks that were once undertaken by the military alone. Anything from  feeding troops to fighting on the front line can now be outsourced to highly advanced, corporate-structured  private military firms (PMFs). In the United States, for example, PMFs now "provide logistics of every major  US military deployment, maintain such strategic weapons systems as the B-2 stealth bomber and Global  Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle, and [are] taking over the ROTC programs in over 200 American  universities."1

Careful What you Ask For... Posted by Lorelei Kelly

I spent today setting up a home office--and out of one of my boxes fell a business card. It belonged to Marla Ruzicka--humanitarian extrordinaire--who founded the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict--and who died on a Bagdhad highway last April.  Seeing her name reminded me of the great responsibility we Americans have for Iraq and its citizens, a sentiment that makes the increasingly polarized debate over Iraq policy seem quite inadequate.

Congressman Murtha's assertion last week, that we need to get out of Iraq as soon as practicable,  is very significant whether you agree with him or not.  The most important outcome of his statements, I believe, is that he's disturbed the silent and/or mumbling intertia in Congress.  Now we might see some actual democratic deliberation and debate about options.  Is it still possible to leave responsibly, given the increasingly strident politics? (and the recent call by the Cairo Arab League Summit for a timetable)?  Will the long-term viewpoint be buried?

Here are some comments sent to me yesterday by someone on active duty.