The gentleman from Delaware stands out in such a crowd at that one, no doubt about it! If one hides one head inside the Beltway and grades on a curve, Mr. Dionne of the Washington Post may well burble about Biden's Clarity on Iraq Stands Apart ! A prodigy of informedness is Dr. Joseph Biden: so much so that we hereby confer upon him a doctorate in aggression and occupation policy honoris causâ.
That step brinks us to a familiar brink, however. All the persons with nonhonourary degrees in the same field combine to badmouth poor overinformed Doc Joe. Dr. Juan Cole at Ann Arbour, Dr. Righteous Virtue at Spitzbergen or wherever, Dr. HC of JWN are first and foremost, but the most vivacious zinger I've seen comes from a slightly unexpected direction, namely Dr. Abú Aardvaark of George Washington University:
| As meaningless, non-binding symbolic Senate resolutions go, Joe Biden just managed a doozy. By passing with 75 votes a meaningless, non-binding symbolic Senate resolution in favor of the partition of Iraq, Biden managed to simultaneously: infuriate nearly all Iraqis, who have virtually unanimously condemned the resolution (as have the Arab allies of the US, for that matter); let Senate Republicans off the hook by allowing them to say that they voted for change even though they continue to vote against anything real; and endorse an unworkable plan which would massively increase human suffering while working against American interests in the region and not actually solving the problems. I've never understood the appeal of "soft partition" to anyone other than dedicated pro-Kurdish activists. It sounds like such a nice, clean exit strategy. [1] But near as I can tell, it would actually mean heavy and active involvement of US troops in facilitating "transfer" of peoples (ah, how delicate that sounds) and a long-term military commitment to protecting the new entities (especially the Kurds). It would simultaneously exacerbate Shia-Shia conflict while enhancing Iranian influence in the Shia areas. It would infuriate the Sunnis who cling fiercely to the principle of a unified state and fuel the most radical trends in those areas while undermining more moderate leader. It would guarantee that the crisis of the internally displaced and refugees will never be solved, promoting instability in the country and the region for decades (while also rewarding sectarian cleansing strategies and encouraging them in the future). And - most ironically - it would probably go along quite nicely with the current Bush strategy of ignoring the national government and focusing on the local level. At least there could be some return on otherwise wasted investment, though: the security forces we've spent the last four years training at least have some valuable experience and a fine track record in carrying out the sectarian cleansing that the plan would require. All in all, a nice day's work! |
The unexpectedness of that is that Dr. AA has not, so far as I am aware, set up as a paleface planmonger himself [2], unlike the other specimens named, and so can presumably not simply be jealous of "Dr." Biden on the principle that two of a trade shall never agree.
It would be easy to get distracted into various Pol. Sci. peculiarities of that beauty, but for this morning, Mr. Bones, let's not. I adduce it mainly to indicate that Prussian-American graduate school cogitation is vastly underwhelmed by "Dr." Biden. And, as AA notes, hardly anybody out in the semiconquered provinces has a good word to say for him either. Our own theme du jour, however, is those who come to praise Joe rather than dump on him.
"Fit audience though few"! -- at very least, Dr. Joseph Biden has seventy-four (74) Senators of the United States of America with him, plus Dr. Leslie Gelb of the Conspiracy on Foreign Relations, and Mr. E. J. Dionne, Jr., of the Washington Post, immediate occasion of this scribble -- and it is probably safe enough to toss in a few more nomina clara like those of Ambassador Peter Galbraith and Señorito Davey Brooks of the New York Times Company. It appears primâ facie that relishing the wisdom of Dr. Joseph Biden and of "soft partition" as an occupation strategy for the former Iraq is an élitist taste, even though the élites of tertiary education and minor Middle Eastern bloggism do not share it.
Let's have a moderate amount of eulogy from Mr. Dionne, shall we? We already know that Dr. Joe's "clarity stands apart." Beyond that, it looks as if the Senator specializes in one specific sort of clarity, namely the US-political sort:
| Biden's clarity stands as a challenge not only to Bush, but also to Clinton, Obama and Edwards. At a debate last week, each of them refused to pledge that American troops would be out of Iraq even by the end of her or his first term. If the troops will still be there, what strategy would they be advancing? If not federalism or "soft partition," what? Clinton, by the way, voted for the Biden resolution, while Obama missed the vote. Will federalism be Clinton's approach, too? |
"If the troops will still be there, what strategy would they be advancing?" That is not a product for mass marketing yet, either in the holy Homeland or in Occupied Mesopotamia. At the Oxenstierna level of Weltherrschung, so to call it, the Responsible Nonwithdawal™ product seems to be in like Flynn already, yet neither Peoria nor Ba‘qúba have yet perceived with their betters that of course "the troops will still be there." Even if the vulgar did perceive, Mr. Dionne's elegant proleptic retrojection from 2113 would soar over their heads. Should Jane Sixpack or Ibn Fulán ever came across somebody worrying "Now that we all agree that 'we' will still be the Occupyin' Party in the former Iraq as far ahead as foresight can foresee, let us figure out what we shall be occupyin' it for!", I daresay she or he would find the premise deplorable and the project cynical. Oughtn't one's reasons to come before one's aggressions and invasions and occupations and countersurges, not afterwards? When one as good as admits with Mr. Dionne that the cart is in front of the horse, communication with "real people" becomes difficult.
I'm not even very sure about communication with oneself and one's upscale co-conspirators, i.e., about the "clarity" of Dr. Biden and soft partition. Five and a half years ought to be enough time to build the theocommunitarian pigeon holes and shift the appropriate pigeons into each. If after that it remains necessary that "the troops will still be there," what sort of a "strategy" is that? Mr. Dionne seems to tacitly asume that his and Dr. Biden's partition will be "soft" in almost the literal and physical sense: unless there is an Occupyin' Party around to shore up the levees continually, they are bound to crumble very rapidly -- and then all the bloody bushogenic quagmire will come again at once!
Unfortunately Mr. Dionne's explicit remarks are not altogether easy to reconcile with his tacit assumptions:
| The leading Democratic candidates might well argue that Bush has made such a mess of Iraq that the seemingly crisp and clean solutions on offer from Biden and Richardson [an irresponsible withdrawer] simply aren't workable. But there is no getting around how important Iraq is to so many Democratic primary voters. They are looking for well-defined alternatives to Bush's recipe for troop commitments as far as the eye can see. Biden and Richardson are trying to fight their way into contention by offering very different visions of a future that might allow us to leave. |
If one could cross-examine this rampant élitist, the first question to settle would be simple enough: does E. J. Dionne, Jr., want to get 'us' out of the former Iraq -- out of the GOP's semiconquered boondocks lock, stock and barrel? [3] On the whole it looks as if he doesn't, for verbal waffles like "seemingly crisp and clean solutions" are only too sadly familiar.[4]
But at the same time, what becomes of Dr. Biden's alleged "clarity" if he deals in specious simplisms? Perhaps -- I'm only guessing -- the nifty pro-aggression sophistry of Mr. Dionne thinks that the Senator's paleface planmongering is excellent as far as it goes, only he fancies that his own crystal ball works better than Dr. Biden's, forecasting that once "soft partition" has been put into place, something like neocomrade M. Boot's eighty thousand Big Party military operatives will be required in perpetuity to ensure that the pigeon coop is properly maintained. Dr. Biden would thus be "clear" enough as regards today and tomorrow in the former Iraq, and fogged over only as regards the day after tomorrow. (Poor Sen. Richardson is no doubt hopelessly fogbound throughout, from the virtuoso Dionnean perspective.)
Over at Mu’ámara Junction, an arguer would doubtless argue that Mr. Dionne discoursing on Dr. Biden is a positive cartoon that ought to be labeled "Iraq and the Iowa primary." That does the Dionnean sophistry less than justice, however. The man pretty plainly does not give much of a hoot what happens to the natives, yet he is concerned to arrive at an occupation policy that is "workable" as well as one that is electorally advantageous. He says so himself, after all!
Here we have a marginal case, perhaps, Mr. Bones, as regards our policy of presuming everybody in politics to mean what she says and say what she means. Mr. Dionne is almost certainly clever enough to be cynical, but whether he actually is so does not quite appear. Should he in fact be a cynic, then "workable" in the former Iraq would be unimportant as compared to eligible in Iowa. Dr. Biden, or even the sadsack Sen. Richardson, might be praised for hornswoggling the rubes with "seemingly crisp and clean solutions" that have no necessary connection whatever with how either pol would act in the White House [5], EJDj assuming that they -- or at least Dr. Biden -- would be bound to come around to mainstream élitist Responsible Nonwithdrawal™ sooner or later.
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[1] Even the nonhonouraries can't be scored 100% on clearheadedness, unfortunately. You'll notice, Mr. Bones, that immediately after professing not to understand the appeal, this professor professes to explain it to us with his "sounds like . . ."
[2] AA is rather severely infected with the "Ladies and Sunnis first!" virus, to be sure, but that is not a conscious or cold-bloodedly perpetrated plan with PowerPoints A, B, C, ... X, Y, Z formally thought out in advance to be thrust upon the GOP's neo-Iraqi subjects.
[3] "Let the [militant Republicans] now carry away their abuses, in the only possible manner, namely, by carrying off themselves. Their Zaptiehs and their Mudirs, their Bimbashis and Yuzbashis, their Kaimakams and their Pashas, one and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear out from the province[s] that they have desolated and profaned. This thorough riddance, this most blessed deliverance, is the only reparation we can make to those heaps and heaps of dead, the violated purity alike of matron and of maiden and of child; to the civilization which has been affronted and shamed; to the laws of God, or, if you like, of Allah; to the moral sense of mankind at large."
[4] At least nine times in ten, any sophist who harps on the complexity of a proposed course of action does not desire to adopt it herself. Still, one cannot tell absolutely for sure.
[5] The chances that either will get to the White House in 2009 being indistinguishable from zero, there is not much point in to investigating whether Dr. Biden or Sen. Richardson are cynics. For what it's worth, though, the latter is plainly not up to cynicism mentally, whereas the former might be capable, but obviously is innocent. Like all the rest of the paleface planmongering gentry, Dr. Biden is quite certain that what he wants to impose is by far the best imposition product available. The Senator may even be running for President and mucking about in Iowa more in order to advertise his panacea for the former Iraq than vice-versa, which would make him guilty only of the joke "cynicism" of running for Secretary of State under false colours. But God knows best about such private motivations.
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