"Don Juan and the Jingo Tarantula"

(Would you look at a film called that, Mr. Bones? Me neither.)

Neither epic combatant comes off very well, although considering the low moral and political base that he starts from, Dr. Tarantula must be accounted victorious, and especially if you stop quoting him exactly where I shall stop:

Juan Cole, the Arabist historian who is well-regarded on the Angry Left, has a warning for Democrats. Because of the presidential veto and the necessity for 60 votes to get anything done in the Senate, they cannot "force a significant reduction of troops from Iraq on Bush's watch, so as to avoid Iraq becoming exclusively their headache when they (as is likely) take over the White House in January of 2009": In all likelihood, when the Democratic president pulls US troops out in summer of 2009, all hell is going to break loose. The consequences may include even higher petroleum prices than we have seen recently, which at some point could bring back stagflation or very high rates of inflation. In other words, the Democratic president risks being Fordized when s/he withdraws from Iraq, by the aftermath. A one-term president associated with humiliation abroad and high inflation at home? Maybe I should say, Carterized. The Republican Party could come back strong in 2012 and then dominate politics for decades, if that happened. It is all so unfair, of course, since Bush started and prosecuted this disaster in Iraq, and Bush is refusing to accept responsibility for the failure, pushing it off onto his successor. How can the Dems avoid this? Cole says "they could try to legislate stronger US diplomacy aiming at ensuring peace between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran," although it's not clear how you "legislate" diplomacy. He says "they could resist the temptation to demonize Iran or to push it onto a war footing with threats or even bombings," although it's hard to see how the Democrats have the power to appease Iran, even if one supposes it could be done. He offers one good bit of advice: "As for Iraq itself, the best hope for the Dems may be that Gen. Petraeus actually succeeds, over the next year, in significantly reducing ethnic tensions." That he should even have to say this speaks volumes about the perverse position the Democrats have created for themselves vis-à-vis Iraq.

The convergence of Ann Arbor and Rancho Crawford is real enough, even when viewed darkly through a donkey-bashin' prism. Naturally one does not expect anythin' graceful from a mechanical wind-up-toy opiniator at the Wall Street Jingo, but facts are facts, even when instantly snatched up as Party clubs by Party thugs. Dr. Tarantula did, however, cut off the wicked Arabist before he quite finished offering his dubious-to-odious advice to us surrender donkeys:

But from the moment Bush went into Iraq, Americans were screwed. And that includes the Democratic Party, which is being set up to take the fall. I'm a severe skeptic on the likelihood of anything that looks like success in Iraq. But I don't think career public servants such as Ryan Crocker and David Petraeus are acting as partisan Republicans in their Iraq efforts. I think they both are sincere, experienced men attempting to retrieve what they can for America from Bush's catastrophe. They may as well try, since the Democrats can't over-rule Bush and get the troops out, anyway. If the troops are there, they may as well at least be deployed intelligently, which is what Gen. Petraeus is doing. I wish them well in their Herculean labors. Because if they fail, I have a sinking feeling that we are all going down with them, including the next Democratic president. And their success is a long shot.

If we scrape off the WSJ pond scum and look at the Colean performance in itself, it is not altogether without merit. He joins Senator Biden -- very tardily -- in the Valhalla of those who remember enough from their high-school civics to make out that the Jingo Juggernaut is not to be halted this side of January 2009. Perhaps you and I and Mr. Biden worked that sum out the Wednesday morning after the elections, Mr. Bones, but 'tis better that Don Juan joins us late than never. [1] And rather an alarming number of Democrats have been unable to work it out at all, unfortunately.

Most of the regrettable part of Prof. Cole's convergent or surrender-monkey stance [2] is merely analytical, however, and therefore comparatively unimportant. His substantive policy proposal amounts to "Just stand back and watch the stumblebums keep on stumblin'," which is undoubtedly the wisest thing for decent political grown-ups to do. "Iraq" is pretty strictly a Boy-'n'-Party aggression and occupation now, as the polls reveal clearly, so it would be inadvisable to offer the bozos any helpful advice even if there was the faintest chance they might listen to it. "Pitch defiles, stand back well away from it, O Democrats!"

Area A is definitely not Don Juan's specialty, quâ tertiary educationalist, so perhaps we are lucky that he did not offer the aggression-basers any definite advice beyond (implicitly) that it would be nice to see a little less "sectarian tension" out in their semiconquered provinces. No paleface planmonger is likely to disagree with that recommendation. Though JC is plainly a bit of a sucker for the alleged braininess of Dr. Gen. Petraeus of Princeton, he does not venture to affirm that all those intelligent deployments are likely to have any particular beneficial therapeutic effect.

However, the political "analysis" proper is sad stuff. "[F]rom the moment Bush went into Iraq, Americans were screwed"? "I have a sinking feeling that we are all going down with them"?? The second effusion of sentiment is positively Assyrio-Babylonian, and thus backhandedly appropriate: at Ann Arbor they evidently predict the American political future by examining their own entrails.[3] I suppose nowadays one can do that divination trick noninvasively, and also without cruelty to innocent sheep, using a CAT scan or whatever. Such a technology is too new, however, for any hasty judgment about its effectiveness to be prudent. And in any case, who wants X-rays instead of old-fashioned prose? If the latter medium seems hopelessly obsolete and unpictorial, there is always PowerPoint™ at hand, with at least some sort of attested track record.

The crux of the matter, and not just from the narrow Tarantulan point of view, is "In all likelihood, when the Democratic president pulls US troops out in summer of 2009, all hell is going to break loose." Notice that Don Juan did not specify whether he was emoting vaguely about Area A or about Area ME. To continue immediately with "The consequences may include even higher petroleum prices than we have seen recently" is probably, but far from certainly, a sort of implied swipe at the Tarantula faction, "Of course I understand that you gentlebeings don't give a hoot what happens to the natives, so I shan't waste your time discussing such trivia." The swipe could also have been meant for "President Clinton," although in that case either JC or I must seriously misunderstand the lady's invasion and occupation policy.[4]


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[1] JC is very weak on political structures in general, of course. Remember how he condescended to explain proportional representation to us as if it was advanced rocket science that no lay sheep could seriously be expected to know already? In this case, though, presumably he is not himself learning what is in the Fedguv Constitution for the very first time. "Area studies," as practiced by the Greatest Area Student of All Time, is decidedly tinged with social-scientizing, yet at the same time devoid of Pol. Sci. -- an odd business, though no doubt an addition to the splendid diversity of things as well.


[2] The "surrender" being of course to Dr. Tarantula's crew rather than to M. Bin Ládin's crew.


[3] Dr. Tarantula actually notices the "I have a gut feeling" side of "Informed Comment," sort of:

Cole acts as if it is a foregone conclusion that the next (Democratic) president will quickly surrender, with results that even he says would be disastrous.

Perhaps the autoentrails don't really predict irresponsible withdrawal, exactly, but they do seem to feel quite sure that "President Giuliani" or the like is quite impossible.


[4] And then there is "President Obama," on whom fat Freddy (Rear-Col. F. Kagan of AEI and GOP) just did an interesting preëmptive strike. Needless to say, all Hell really will break out if the Baní Kagan Plan is seriously deviated from!

Freddy illustrates the maxim about touchin' pitch nicely: he started off like Gen. von Clausewitz but by now has pretty well sunk to the level of a Boy-'n'-Party tarantula. As we've noted, Mr. Bones, the same fate has befallen Col. V.D.H. Blimp and Col. R.M.G. Spook. It looks very much as if AEI corrupts, for all three of these thugs used to have much more interesting and nonpartisan ways of defending their thuggery than there has been much sign of lately. But God knows best.