'Stupidest Ever, Downright Criminal'

Michigan's greatest Oriental area student had some unkind words for his, and his planet's, Imperial Master yesterday:

Bush said in a speech on Thursday that he hopes Iraq will be like Israel, a democracy that faces terrorist violence but manages to retain its democratic character: 'In Israel, Bush said, "terrorists have taken innocent human life for years in suicide attacks. The difference is that Israel is a functioning democracy and it's not prevented from carrying out its responsibilities. And that's a good indicator of success that we're looking for in Iraq. ' These words may be the stupidest ones ever uttered by a US president. Given their likely impact on the US war effort in the Middle East, they are downright criminal.

There is a lot more of Don Juan's bellow -- computers and word processing have many crimes against literature to answer for, among them the abolition of brevity -- and we'll get to part of it or all, but the casus bellow is already sufficiently indicated. Everybody instructed knows the general background, so let us begin with a personal word about the bellower.

The jihád careerists and zealots for Zion have been leaving JC alone recently, presumably satisfied to have kept uncongenial Middle Western expertise from contaminating the state of Connecticut and the seminary of Y*l*, but loud noise like this will probably remind them he exists. Not impossibly, it was partially intended to do so: JC is evidently among those who require to be reviled and persecuted for righteousness' sake in order to feel confident that it is indeed Righteousness that makes them do it, not merely a lust for being on TV or some such low motive. JC is not just what US journalists call a "liberal," he's also what they call an "idealist." (Could it be those doom-laden initials?) Well, de gustibus non disputandum and "It's still a free country, ain't it?"

That's enough gossip, let us move on to analyze the Ann Arbor analysis. By way of swift transition we may notice that nobody sane would accuse Prof. Cole of impartial analysis when he makes Palestine the political qibla and commands all other area studies to circumambulate with reverence. That plan is liberal and idealistic insofar as it is not crudely Juan Cole's own friends and narrow sectarian interests that are centralized, but these merits do not constitute impartiality. The jihád carreerists (&c. &c.) account it no merit at all to be vicariously indignant, and plainly they do not even begin to understand any sort of liberalism or idealism that is not out for itself alone the same way neorightism is. Their accounts of why somebody like Prof. Cole should want to smash Western Civilization and go over to evil barbarians like THEM are a constant source of mirth to those who are more aware. It's like listening to the Hottentot theory of physics and chemistry to hear the neocomrades go on, the very starting-point is invisible to them.

Nevertheless, vicarious indignation, though meritorious, is not impartial. The moral dangers of this fact may be passed over for the moment in order to stress the policy dangers, beginning with the danger of getting out of synchronization with those who are selfishly indignant, or vicariously indignant in a different manner from one's own. Specifically, are the inhabitants of the former Iraq, or of Gentile Palestine, or Arabs and Muslims more generally, as upset about George XLIII's verbal stupidity and downright criminality as JC is?

Far be it from me to speak for such persons either, and especially not in the course of scrutinizing vicariousness, yet it seems likely enough that the appointment of the intolerable Tony Blair as Quartet missionary to the heathen might be rather more offensive. It is not, after all, as if the heathen don't know about Mr. Bush's Panglossian notions of the Tel Aviv statelet already. Whereas Mr. Blair is a fresh slap in the face.

If they remember Little Brother's lapse when he referred to his Party's Kiddie Krusade, or so-called GWOT, as a "crusade," and I am quite sure that many of them remember very well, they might reasonably file this latest boo-boo as a second Freudian slip of the same type, an inadvertant dropping of the mask that reveals only what the heathen were quite sure was underneath the mask all along. OF COURSE when Little Brother speaks of "democracy" in the Middle East, he means all the other heathen becoming more like the Israeli heathen; OF COURSE when Little Brother sallies forth against "terrorism" or "extremism," he considers himself divinely commissioned to carry the Cross and try to do down the Crescent as best Big Management can. Amongst THEM, "everybody" "knows" about these things, and they've all known for at least sixty years now. What they all know out there is not entirely accurate, in my judgment, but far more certainly than that, it is not news even in the slightest. If Ann Arbor wants to be suddenly shocked, Ann Arbor may be slightly out of step. Possibly. Perhaps. God knows best.

The US political elite just doesn't get it. Israel is not popular in the Middle East, and it isn't because Middle Easterners are bigots. It is because Israel is coded as the last European colonial presence in the region, an heir to French Algeria, British Egypt, and Dutch Indonesia-- and because the Israelis pugnaciously continue to try to colonize neighboring bits of territory. (This enmity is not inevitable or eternal; in 2002 the Arab League offered full recognition of Israel in return for its going back to 1967 borders, but the Israeli government turned down the offer.) But for the purposes of this analysis it does not really matter why Israel is unpopular. Let us just stipulate that it is. Why would you associate American Iraq with such an unpopular project, if you were trying to do public diplomacy in the region? Bush had just announced a new push to get the American message out to the Muslim world, the day before.

Assuming the final question is real rather than rhetorical, the answer is probably "Because you're a Yalie klutz."

But seriously, has Dr. Cole so completely specialized in study of Area L that he knows nothing at all about Area A? "The US policy elite" have their faults, heaven knows, but it seems unlikely they simply haven't noticed how the Arab heathen feel about the Zionist heathen. "Seems unlikely," my foot! It's just plain wrong, and rather a dumb thing to say. Probably what really works JC up into paroxysms is that the CFR/ISG gentry know about the dislike well enough, but nevertheless don't take it very seriously and of course don't stop liking the Tel Aviv heathendom better themselves. Yet despite that, they have consistently behaved in such a way as to make "even-handed" an insult in the mouth of the chauvinists and faith-crazies, almost as vicious an epithet as "State Department Arabist." When Don Juan writes about the US on an amateur basis, he ought to show people like that a little preliminary respect before disagreeing with them civilly. Instead, he not only makes them out total ignoramuses, he lumps them together with the militant extremism of the Kennebunkport-Crawford Dynasty, as if everybody at the Council on Foreign Relations and Brookings and Foggy Bottom had broken out in cheers upon learning what Little Brother has to say about Zion The Model.

Then comes "Let's take the analogy seriously for a moment," and although there is no doubt that JC thinks he is being serious with complete subjective sincerity, othere have excellent grounds for disagreeing. The objective unseriousness culminates like this,

So who would play the Palestinians in Bush's analogy? Obviously, it would be the Sunni Arabs, who apparently are meant to be cordoned off from the rest of Iraqis and put behind massive walls and barbed wire, and deprived of political power. That is not a desirable outcome and is not politically or militarily tenable in the long run.

If George XLIII (plus CFR and Brookings and the State Department, the whole US political elite!) ever consciously entertained those thoughts, you may address me as Marie of Roumania. Back in the real world, Crawford's occupation policy threatens to converge with Ann Arbor's altogether, both taking the line that gigantic dollops of affirmative action for the Sunni Arab TwentyPercenters are bound to do the pacification trick somehow. I don't believe there exists any such "somehow," but the important thing is that both Juan Cole and the Petraeus-Cocker braniac twosome suppose that it does exist, and that they'll locate it any day now.

The only thing that makes the Colean caricature even faintly plausible is that the ever-immortal Surge of '07™ has to some extent run off the rails. Pretty clearly the stumblebums originally intended to clobber Muqtadá and his juvenile delinquents in tandem with their clobberin' of the insurgents / guerrilas / terrorists / resistance. This has not happened, and the result is indeed picturesque: the occupationmongers find themselves fightin' against, and even buildin' walls at al-’A‘zamiyya around, basically the same folks that they propose to pander to with affirmative action schemes. Nothing very good is likely to come of this schizophrenia, but the badness to come will not at all resemble the various badnesses that afflict Gentile Palestine. Even the intramural disunity between the Hamás and the Fatáh only very distantly resembles how the Arab Sunni theocommunity in the former Iraq has been fragmented in a hundred directions.

Such comparison as the Yalie bozo actually intended might even be considered mildly encouraging: to save the face of militant Republicanism and vindicate the dogma of Preëmptive Retaliation , it is (apparently) not necessary to put down the insurrection / resistance / terrorism / guerilla in Peaceful Freedumbia altogether, it will suffice if it can be reduced to a containable level -- by narrow analogy, to a Gentile Palestinian sort of level. At any rate, that would be encouraging news, if only there were some sign that the Big Management Party has a clue how to effect the proposed reduction.

It is nearly meaningless that Little Brother refers to the Middle East heathen that he likes best as "democracies." For many decades that label has meant little more in such contexts than sugar and spice and everything politically nice for any reason at all, often quite without reference to the structure of whatever régime or neorégime the label is pasted onto.[1] As an academic exercise, there is no harm in demonstrating that Jewish Statism is not quite altogether democratic, but how much practical pain relief does that demonstration afford anybody?

Perhaps a little bit: a few newcomers to the Palestine Puzzle may be attracted to even-handedness, and maybe even State Department Arabism!, by having it distinctly brought to their attention that to give the Tel Aviv statelet every green light it asks for because it is "democratic" and nobody else in the Levant is "democratic" amounts to being taken in by a confidence racket. Yet this is a very limited and marginal benefit, and for that matter, that one magic label is not absolutely necessary for the con to function. It would work just as well to inform the mark with equal or greater plausibility that the Jewish State alone stands for "Western Civilisation" amidst a sea of oriental barbarism -- without supplying any very clear specification of what its westernity consists in, exactly. Or its civilisation either.


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[1] Notice that a Bloomian strong reader could take George XLIII to be proclaiming, in the passage cited against him, that "democracy" signifies a State that cannot be prevented from carrying out its responsibilities.

For Whom Do The Kiddies Krusade?

Not a hard question! They krusade for M. Mithál al-’Alúsí of course, because he's a Wingnut City kind of guy. Their neohero "fought for a just war against our terrorist enemies." How many natives in the happy Land of Peace and Freedom have signed up to fight to fight the terrorist enemies of The New York Sun? Damn few, that's how many!

Moment of Truth / New York Sun Editorial / June 29, 2007 The double murder of the two sons of a freedom-loving Iraqi parliamentarian is presenting President Bush with a moment of truth. It involves Mithal al Alusi, an Iraqi parliamentarian who has fought for a just war against our terrorist enemies, regardless of their confessional stripe. He has helped prosecute the worst of Saddam's henchmen, he has publicly refused to take the lucre of Iran's ambassador, and he has long since decided he would not hide the fact from the Arab and American press that he attended a counter-terrorism conference in Israel.

(( Hmm -- does the double murder of two persons work out to four coffins or only two? And while we're asking rude questions, did the evil Qommie ambassador try to bribe the new sea-green incorruptible at a press conference or in a crowded marketplace or where was it, exactly? ))

Mr. al-Alusi has paid a price for his principles. On February 8, 2005, assassins out for him murdered his two sons, Ayman and Jamal. Mr. al-Alusi abjured doing what almost any other Iraqi politician would have done — namely, seek the killer and exact revenge. Mr. al-Alusi put his faith in Iraq's fragile justice system. There are now confidential witnesses, including testimony from some of the men involved in the killing, that implicate Iraq's minister of culture, As'ad Kemal al-Hashemi, as the individual who ordered and financed the murder.

The New York Sunnis have started to forget their English, it looks like, or else M. al-’Alúsí really did go to a notary public and solemnly swear (or, as the case may be, affirm) "I promise I shall seek no private-sector revenge. Nay rather, I hereby put my faith in my neofatherland's fragile justice system." Fragile the invasion-based justice system no doubt is, and in addition to that, somewhat peculiar. "Confidential witnesses" sounds as if it came straight from the Code of Guantánamo. It also makes it rather mysterious that the twistatorialists should know about such witnesses. To be sure, M. al-’Alúsí will have mentioned them in his telephone call to Neocomrade E. Lake, but if these witnesses were really confidential, M. al-’Alúsí would not know they exist himself. Alleged or authentic abjurations notwithstanding, the walí al-dam, "inheritor of the vendetta," is one person it might actually make some kind of sense to keep uninformed about supposed witnesses, even as the alleged perp would of course be another.

It may make only a parochial Westistani sort of legal sense, I suppose, to distinguish so-called "interested parties" from the rest of the human race. M. al-’Alúsí may be indeed the moral titan that the NY Sunnis hype him as, the sole just man at New Gomorrah, or maybe he just happens to agree with their own aggression and occupation politics: either way, he's plainly an interested party according to our traditional canons of courtroom judgment. Accordingly when he behaves as described, our presumption must be that he is a blood relative of the murder victims has a good deal to do with what is going on. It is not logically excluded that he would be as insistent about currat lex! if only complete strangers to M. al-’Alúsí were involved in the case, yet it is in effect juridically excluded: we do not think so highly of the human race (in the courtroom) as to assume that most people can be "interested parties" in the technical sense and yet disinterested judges of the human events involved.

On Monday, an Iraqi justice signed the warrant for Mr. al-Hashemi's arrest, and American GIs, on orders of General Petraeus, began to accompany the Iraqi national police to his home in Baghdad. Then, as our Eli Lake reported exclusively, General Petraeus's order was overturned in Washington, and the Iraqi police found themselves outgunned at the home of the culture minister. Mr. al-Hashemi then fled to the fortified international zone in the center of Baghdad, where he is holed up at the al-Rashid Hotel, a compound guarded by military contractors who report to America. The contractors refused to let the police enter the hotel. So Mr. al-Alusi pleaded with our embassy in Baghdad to order them to let the police do their job. He was told by the embassy of the country that controls the roads and checkpoints of the international zone, that they would not interfere, that this was an "Iraqi affair." Nonsense. The evidence points to the fact that our policy makers are interfering in the direction of letting this wanted man go. The head of Mr. al-Hashemi's Sunni political bloc, Adnan al-Dulaimi, says a deal is being worked out now to allow Mr. al-Hashemi leave Iraq without facing his charges.

The Kiddie Krusaders of the NYS run smack up against their own Little Brother at this point, and some really nifty euphemism results: "the country that controls the roads and checkpoints of the international zone." Golly, Mr. Bones, do you think they mean China, or would it be Peru? Perhaps they have been reading M. de Talleyrand about how "nonintervention" is a metaphysical expression that more or less means the same thing as "intervention"?

Considered as an occasion for jolly litigation instead of grave philosophy, the key phrase is "military contractors who report to America." Strictly speaking, of course, the hired hands report to their employin' corporation, which is (presumably) doin' contract work for Crawford's Department of War. Whether that chain of command means that they must do whatever they are ordered to do by armed paleface invaders may well boil down to whether it says so in the particular contract they signed with the militant Bushies. It is well known that such mercs are not at all amenable to M. al-’Alúsí's fatherland's "fragile justice system" -- quite a remarkable fragility in itself! It is less well known, but as I recall nevertheless the case, that mercs are not amenable to the UCMJ either, and that the War Department wants it that way. Can M. al-’Alúsí ask for a Fedguv writ in New York or Washington, then? Well, he can ask, but it hardly seems likely he'll get it. While in New York, he might see if the Security Council would issue him a writ, for some jokesters suppose, when it suits them, that the UN is the true basis of legality in the occupied provinces of the former Iraq. Unfortunately there exists, as far as I am aware, no mechanism for issuing UNSC writs of assistance to private persons, and even if there was, no doubt M. al-Háshimí could skip town long before they cranked it up.

In practice M. al-’Alúsí appealed to the sole agency that might effectively give him what he wants, the invasion-basers themselves.

The logic — if that's the word — of such a deal would be that in the poisoned factional politics of Iraq, an arrest would look like a Shiite judge pressing a purge of a Sunni politician. The abstract "Sunnis" would thus be spared humiliation. Mr. al-Alusi has told our Eli Lake that he will send Mr. Bush a letter making an appeal to countermand the decision of Ambassador Crocker not to intervene. Mr. al-Alusi said that he met with Mr. Bush at a conference of Arab liberal democrats on June 5 in Prague, where the president asked about his wife in light of the murder of their sons. All eyes will be on the president here. It is a moment for him to back up his noble statements with action, by ordering his diplomats and military officers to let the Iraqi police apprehend Mr. al-Hashemi. No doubt it will be controversial — and even ignite another round of violence. But democracies aren't born without labor, and legal systems gain credibility only by breasting controversy. Justice is blind for a reason. A failure here will have worse consequences than any short-term repercussions.

The NYS neocomrades don't appreciate that they put themselves in a lose-lose situation here. They will lose if their titanic M. al-’Alúsí doesn't get what he wants, but they will also lose, and probably rather worse, should Little Brother, upon Whom all eyes are fixed!, graciously condescend to bestow the boon prayed for. Nothing could make clearer what a total bushogenic sham the Sovereignty and Independence and Democracy and Constitutionality of neo-Iraq really are, not even to speak of any alleged "justice system." (Some system, that it should "work" that way!)

But in fact the plight of the New York Sunnis is not quite that bleak: "All eyes will be on the president here" is pure piffle. Most of the GOP geniuses don't even have one (1.0) indig hero to care about, and they'll care less how this fuss is resolved. To accuse invasionites of carin' about Rulalaw as a principle would only be ridiculous. Cheapjack rhetorical tinsel like "legal systems gain credibility only by breasting controversy. Justice is blind for a reason" is easy enough to match. No credible legal system ever at any point brought all offenders to book. Part of the blindness of Ms. Justice is, and must be, to all those things that she somehow never got around to doing.

Out of Step: the Unbrowning of America

[T]he decision in Brown v. Board of Education that focused on outlawing segregated schools as unconstitutional is now out of step with American political and social realities."

Thus begins an analysis in the interest of the Big Management Party, the existence of which is fair enough because Aunt Nitsy provides the inevitable editorial scolding under the label "Resegregation Now."

Dr. Analyst's exact qualifications are a little unfortunate, perhaps, but that point does not much matter. Anybody who votes in the USA and went to school in it is thereby competent to form an opinion, and her formed opinion will matter little or nothing as against that of Five of Nine. Which of these other formed opinions the New York Times Company decides to print, whether as op-ed articles or as paid advertisements, is of course entirely up to the NYTC and no business of anybody else.

Nitsy herself is probably having a seriously bad day. I'm a little surprised not to find her e-columns draped in funereal black. Jim Crow and America First both come back to haunt on the same day! It's not really quite as bad as that, and I've already tried to point at one silver lining. We'll get to Dr. Analyst's preferred expurgation of "American political and social realities" in a moment, but first we may notice what the Five of Nine are in fact principally up to, which is not resegregation, only "recorporatization." The truly crucial winding-back of the clock would not be to get rid of "Brown v. Board" but of "Lochner v. New York." It is no small silver lining that that did not happen yesterday, and probably won't happen tomorrow either. When downdumbing and wombschooling reduce us to the point where Five of Nine can and do make that happen, things will be all bad for us humble, but only half bad for Aunt Nitsy, who is after all a private business corporation herself, that is to say, a (comparatively minor) locus of Big Management.

But the best silver lining of all is what happened in the Senate to the economic OnePercenters' "Amnesty and Open Borders Act of 2007," or whatever they really called it. Nitsy is bound to misconceive that human event as a serious defeat for herself and for liberalism and for "diversity," but she ought to reflect that not a square centimetre of policy turf has actually been lost to the xenophobe community. The battle was a draw, but in the course of it there was an incidental development with (possibly) profound implications for the future, the opening of a vast schism in Grant's Old Party between the true hard core of elephant people, the economic conspirators, and most of the miscellaneous and assorted riff-raff of Big Party camp followers. [1]

Nitsy considers the Wall Street Jingo editorial board entirely right about immigration, and the barks and bellowin's from Rio Limbaugh not merely all wrong, but extremely distasteful. Even as substance, I cannot agree with that view 100% (only about 93.5%), but regardless of the merits of the case, it would be a disaster for Nitsy not to recall that she is far from in cordial agreement with the OnePercenter jingos all across the board. The steel-claptrap minds of all those "conservative" "intellectuals" that the WSJ relentlessly finds fit to print are in no danger of forgetting what they really think of the NYTC editorial board's customary political stance. Let the compliment be returned.

So, then, though the famous clash was only a stalemate as between Diversity and Xenophobia, it was nevertheless also a grave set-back for Big Management, which is always a good thing. When knaves fall out, how shall decent political grown-ups not be pleased, regardless of what division of spoil it may be that the knaves fall out over? It is admirable in itself that the dupes of extremist Republicanism should notice and question how Big Management typically goes about spoils division.

Though unfortunate, it is natural enough that immigration should be the immediate occasion of opening their eyes: there was simply no way that the OnePercenters could pretend that immigration is a private-sectorian matter that they are never to be brought to account for. Little Brother and Mr. Richard Bruce Cheney are capable of almost any Party twistification, but sometimes reality wins despite them, and this is one of those times. Had they favored the xenophobe side, they would probably have decided to snatch what they wanted under the rubric of national security. But even a thorough wombscholar would find it fishy to be informed that letting lots of aliens into the holy Homeland somehow constitutes a positive contribution to the Kiddie Krusade. Only a very learned ignorance would find that claim plausible. Possibly one of their tank-think señoritos or WSJ scribblers has in fact attempted to make such a case, although I missed it. The chances of such ingenious sophistry making any impact on the Party base and vile are negligible.

==

To return to Dr. Analyst on the unbrowning of America, very predictably his diagnosis fails to satisfy me because it ignores the Big Management factor. Perhaps one may fairly say that Dr. Analyst evades the Big Management factor, going out of his way to make sure that his readers don't think of that angle if he can help it. His own expurgation of "American political and social realities" is conveniently summarized at the end of the scribble:

Racial malice is no longer the primary motive in shaping inferior schools for minority children. Many failing big city schools today are operated by black superintendents and mostly black school boards. And today the argument that school reform should provide equal opportunity for children, or prepare them to live in a pluralistic society, is spent. The winning argument is that better schools are needed for all children — black, white, brown and every other hue — in order to foster a competitive workforce in a global economy.

Dr. Analyst appears to be one of the Big Management Party's weaker apologetic brethren: he can't seriously expect many of his customers to buy the notion that desegregation was ever conceived of by its supporters as a deliberate sacrifice of quality to equality. Even worse, he can't pass such stuff as his off as pertinent to a legal decision. What would happen if that tripe was ever sighted by Scalia, J.? Imagine the vials of Ántoninian scorn that would be poured out upon the notion that sometimes the Zeitgeist wants this, and sometime that, and that it is the manifest duty of Five of Nine to make sure the Zeitgeist gets whatever it happens to want at the moment!

More competent Party ideologues have maintained all along that "provide equal opportunity for children" and "prepare them to live in a pluralistic society" were never legal and constitutional arguments in the first place. Framed that way, the antidesegregationist position could be defended under the broader umbrella of rightist constitutionalism and especially "conservative" glossing of Amendment XIV. That position may not be inexpugnable, but it does have the merit of being able to point out that the 1787 document, even as subsequently amended, says nothing expressly about equal opportunity or pluralism.

Dr. Analyst throws away most of his Party's courtroom trumps when he gives us Mr. Justice Brenner's kind of jurisprudence, more or less, in defense of a prticular outcome that Brenner would have abominated. Disciples of Aristotle who happen to disagree with Big Management attitudes ought to rejoice should Dr. Analyst's legal baloney prevail: he throws away Brenner's matter, to be sure, but far more importantly, he has adopted the Form of Brennerism. All we decent political adults would need to do is make sure that the Zeitgeist agrees with us, and then by Dr. Analyst's neojurisprudence, the Supreme Court would have no choice but to agree with us also. Q.E.D.!

No baloney so contrary to the real and permanent interests of Big Management is likely to prevail, however. Unlike immigration, the central question is over the heads of the Party base and vile altogether. At Rio Limbaugh they have a certain tendency to vaguely agree with Dr. Analyst, perhaps, insofar as they frequently call for referendums and plebescites, mechanisms that would plainly put the Zeitgeist in command on specific issues. But Big Management is bound to consult with Philadelphia lawyers who know far better than to fall into any "populist" sand trap like that. The sacred rights of the corporation's management must be made absolutely secure, and therefore Dr. Analyst's use of Brennerian jurisprudence and Dr. Limbaugh's occasional genuflections to the Zeitgeist and numerical majoritarianism are only shifty sand to build upon, not solid granite. Perhaps it is true in 2007 that the fickle mob cares for nothing but "to foster a competitive workforce in a global economy," but who can say what they will be caring for in 2017? The danger of the mob backsliding into concern for equal opportunity and pluralism cannot be eliminated, so the legal ramparts of Big Management must be erected on worst-case assumptions. More exactly, the existing ramparts must remain so erected and all the traditional ideological infrastructure below them must be shored up as well as possible against the evil day when the mob will take an FDR view of Big Management once again. Perhaps no such day will ever come, but that is not the way to bet.

The Great Xenophobia Schism inside the Big Management Party indicates, I think, that "to foster a competitive workforce in a global economy" cannot be the mob's exclusive concern even in 2007. If it were, the Wall Street Jingo would only have to point out what an admirable fostering of competition it would be to open the borders and throw away the key. In the real world, that plan would be at least as absurd as the attempt to deduce liberal rather than restrictive immigration policy from the mob's bein' terrorized of terrorists. Still, whether Dr. Analyst's particular notions about the state of the Zeitgeist are correct or mistaken has no bearing on his neojurisprudence.

Does Big Management have anything concretely and materially at stake in the unbrowning of America? Not directly, perhaps. Despite a good deal of trumpetin' from various individual elephants, a general privatization of education is inconceivable, [2] and accordingly this remains a public sector affair. However some of the neocomrades may perceive an analogy between the wicked Fedguv telling a school superintendant how (not) to do his job and a parallel interference with Big Management proper. Alternatively, some of the practitioners of Big Management in their personal capacity -- i.e., as fathers of their children rather than masters of their corporations -- may find it convenient that residential segregation of education has been implicitly pronounced acceptable by Five of Nine. No need to pay any ourageous tuition fees before the kids are ready for college. (But that's rather a low suspicion, so let us not lay much stress on it, please.)


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[1] The little zinger about "Grant's Old Party" is pertinent, since at its inception, the dupes went along with the dupers mainly because they vaguely supposed that militant Republicanism had crushed Jeff Davis and his traitorous rebels. It only adds to the fun that the general himself was pretty clearly riff-raff and no proper economic conspirator.

[2] One of the mysteries of our age is why private-sectorian schooling cannot be made to reward the shareholders properly. What went wrong for the Edison Project and other similar attempts? Fifteen or twenty years ago even I was suckered into thinking them very plausible.

"... into the gates of [H]ell ..."

One does not expect very much from the official propagandists of the Levant, and on the whole one is not disappointed. Here is one M. "Tariq Hasan, a columnist for the Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram" doing business about as usual:

In Egypt there are those who are trying to reproduce what Hamas did in Gaza… For anyone who has the slightest doubt about this and wants proof, it is sufficient to consider statements by Brotherhood representatives in parliament… They said that Egypt waved the Zionist flag, despite the people's opposition to this. This means that Egypt, like the Palestinian Authority, deserves that a revolution should take place in it. The Brotherhood, like Hamas, does not recognize the legitimacy of the parliament that ratified the peace treaty with Israel, nor the legitimacy of the state that ratified these agreements, since it is a traitorous state that works for foreign interests and that does not represent its people. From these statements we understand that the Hamas problem is not just Gaza, but it is also in Egypt, and that the Brotherhood holds the same positions and uses the same ideas and statements with which Hamas conducted a putsch against the government, and through which it declared Gaza a rebel region under its rule.

Now of course the Arab Republic of Egypt is General H. Mubárak's country, not mine -- nor M. Táriq Hasan's, for that matter -- so I shall not pronounce about whether the A.R.E. "deserves" régime change or not. Far be that from me, who am no extremist Republican to go about in the earth makin' sure that the lesser breeds without get what they "deserve." That way lies only quagmire.

Fortunately neither the ineffable M. Hasan nor his peerless Leader are in any position to quagmirize anybody but ARE. subjects. If I had anything to do with neo-Gaza, I'd be worried about a rather long list of possible invaders, but "Egypt" is not among them. Picking up that stick by the other end, M. Hasan would appear to have profound affinities with Rancho Crawford. It sounds as if he manages to be as terrorized of neo-Gaza as the cowpokers were of Saddam's WMD. Yet it is internal subversion that he dreads, not external attack with forty-five-minute terror-tipped specials. Mutatis mutandis, then, M. Táriq Hasan is a spiritual McCarthyite rather than a spiritual Crawfordite. The Senator from Wisconsin with his supporters, and George XLIII with what's left of his, are equally courage-challenged and prone to Chicken Little Syndrome, but they disagree which quarter the sky is going to fall from. As between the late Mr. McCarthy and M. Hasan of al-’Ahrám there is a pleasing symmetry: both are in a panic about being undermined from within and both know that that enemies at home have allies elsewhere, but when it comes to exaggeration and distortion, the former specialized in domestic Commies, the latter specializes in international neo-Muslims -- in both cases making the bigger hobgoblin out of the lesser threat. (This gruesome twosome manage to make Little Brother look good by comparison: at least when he was cowerin' under the figurative bed after the Pentagon/WTC attacks, he managed not to suppose that much of the holy Homeland was in league with the box-cutter folks.)

M. Táriq Hasan's personal defects are not without interest, but naturally the main event is rather his polemical Political Science and that he attributes to the Brotherhood of Fiends. It is very risky to take an agitprop artist's word for what his enemies think, but for our present purposes it does not matter whether anybody actually believes the views that M. Hasan attributes to his fiends, our interest is only abstract and centered on the views themselves. So, then, certain allegers have alleged that any régime or neorégime that acts "despite the people's opposition" is eo ipso illegitimate and ought to be replaced.

One has heard talk that resembles that closer to home where it is much easier to put such noises into a context. Some brand-name Populists in the USA have perhaps seriously believed something of the sort, but usually this noise-making is a stance lapsed into rather than a platform conscientiously upheld. We have a sort of Default Populism that is appealed to whenever it seems to do the trick immediately required and nothing better suited to the particular occasion comes to mind. On the same terms, there is a Default Isolationism and a Default Libertarianism. Unsurprisingly, when advocates of some particular end must have recourse to these vague generic products, an inconsistency with whatever system of political ideas they deliberately believe in is likely to result. The perennial fuss about abortion illustrates this admirably: Wingnut City and Rio Limbaugh defend their supposed "right to life" mostly with Default Populism; conventional liberals found their countersupposed "right to choose" in Default Libertarianism. In both cases the emergency fall-back position does not agree well with the general tendency of the whole pack. One might go on to guess that neither abortion pack thinks their real reasons are fit to be displayed in the Naked Public Square™ -- but that is getting too deep and too remote from the Levant to be pursued at the moment.

To pursue Default Populism (in America), its great bogey is usually called "elitism" or "elitists." The tone of voice involved in the calling is roughly "Who the Hell are you few to tell Us The People what to do?" We had a splendid display of that syndrome yesterday from the Witch Doctor of Democracy, yet it was a somewhat atypical display as well, because the particular "you few" that Citizen Rush was barkin' and bellowin' at happen to be known as the Senate of the United States. (The occasion was of course that dreadful Amnesty and Open Borders bill.) The same barks and bellows would not have been forthcoming had the question been whether Little Brother's occupation policy in neo-Iraq "despite the people's opposition to this," let alone anything to do with economic regulation of the OnePercenters. Indeed, Dr. Limbaugh valiantly stood up for Home Depot Inc. against "populist" pressures from the ignorant mob and certain local governments the mob had intimidated into compliance with their "improper or wicked project." [1]

The whole flavour of this rather familiar tale dressed up in new words is different from anything the Levantine propagandist's fiends seem likely to have had in mind. M. Táriq Hasan of al-’Ahrám himself may pass for an elitist, I daresay, but the crux of the matter is the General himself, and the E-word falls far short of what the fiends think of Himself. (Was Pharaoh an elitist? Well, yes, no doubt He was, but that's only a small part of what made Him detestable.)

To distinguish the Default Populism of the ARE from that of the USA it may be of use to examine the phrase I have already borrowed from Mr. Madison & Co.: "we the people." Regardless of what was originally intended in 1787, in the holy Homeland of 2007 that phrase signifies "we many, the people" and thus invites the antithesis with "you few, the elitists." Though no doubt the Brotherhood of Fiends consider that they vastly outnumber the minions of Mubárak and the elitists of al-’Ahrám, that fact or mistake is comparatively peripheral to their Default Populism, which is rather qualitative than quantitative. It is of the essential essence of The Egyptian People to be piously Muslim, and what damns General Pharaoh is that he is not.

That is what our Goebbels wannabe is really up against on the Pol. Sci. front. How does he counterattack?

Here in Egypt the Brotherhood brought out the masked militias in Al-Azhar University, and there in Gaza Hamas put them to use. Here they changed the Egyptian flag and removed the eagle of the Republic from it, and there they took down the Palestinian flag and waved the green flag of Hamas. What can we expect?... In light of this severe threat, it is not enough for us to say to people "look at what Hamas did in Gaza" in order to warn them about the Brotherhood in Egypt. We must learn the lessons without delay. Hamas won the game it was playing, and the Brotherhood is doing the [same] thing. There, there was a government that allowed them to take part in elections without their recognizing the legitimacy of that Authority and without their being made to accept the state's constitution and its laws. Hamas used the elections and democracy as an instrument, and then they turned the matter over to the armed militias in order to conduct a putsch against everyone. Here, there are Brothers who do not recognize the legitimacy of the state and oppose the constitution and the law, and despite this, we find people who say that [the Brotherhood] represents them and speaks in their name in parliament… Whoever ignores this will bring us into the gates of hell that we have seen in Gaza…"

Not very impressive. The main active ingredient is guilt by association, and M. Táriq Hasan doesn't even try to demonstrate the association, he only presupposes it. The account of how neo-Gaza was established is tendentious bordering on dotty. Are we to suppose that the Zealots were craftily plotting all along to grab Gaza and ditch East Palestine? Still, none of that twistification is up to the dignity of Pol. Sci.

On the scientific front proper, M. Táriq Hasan's trump card is "legitimacy," just as that of M. de Tallerand was after Napoléon's neorégime had been forcibly changed out from under him. [2] Never so grotesque an impar congressus as that one! Yet after all there is a little bit of warrant for it. True, the French aristocrat had "the forty kings that made France" and all the rest of the Old Order in Europe, whereas the Mubárikite hack has only what's left of Oslo in half of half of one province, but still, they do both conceive of "legitimacy" as a status quo ante, do they not?

The trouble is that M. Hasan talleyrandizes only as regards Gentile Palestine. When it comes to his General's status quo in the Arab Republic of Egypt, which must of course be far closer to his heart, the analogy evaporates. For all I can see to the contrary, Pharaoh's régime is "legitimate" purely and solely because that's what they think at al-’Ahrám. The Fiends of the Brotherhood wouldn't be the least bit impressed by that mere table-pounding, nor should they be.

M. Hasan will doubtless be more interested in his applied Pol. Sci. than in the pure substance, that is to say, in his nifty attempts to delegitimize the fiends. Unfortunately he has not quite thought things through and commits an incoherence. If the Mubárak Pharaohate is legitimate, why, then so must Pharaoh's parliament be, and all those who sit in it. "[T]he legitimacy of the state" can't be left hinging on whether the fiends' handful of deputies are pleased to "recognize" it or not. What a sloppiness were that!

A more competent westoxicated OnePercenter would go about the business differently, it seems to me. She would perhaps try to maintain that the fiends once did recognize Gen. Pharaoh's legitimacy and now attempt to prosecute them either for past bad faith or present breach of promise. Or both. That plan would, incidentally, be talleyrandian, since a status quo ante, genuine or feigned, would reappear.

The trouble everybody in Westistan runs into with that sort of ploy, "conservative" "intellectuals" included, is that the said faith or promise must be taken to be tacit rather than expressed. ARE voters might be supposed to legitimate the Pharaohate by participating in its elections, and ARE pols by running for office under it. Perhaps just paying Pharaoh's taxes and not emigrating to someplace better suffice to afford occult legitimation? Arguments of that sort turn up in the USA often enough, but whether they have much bearing on the political darkness of Egypt is not clear. With us, such exercises in Pol. Sci. are conducted in a context where nobody except a few loons recently flown in from Planet Dilbert seriously questions the general legitimacy of our established system, the occasional Floridagate 2000 notwithstanding. In the Arab Republic of Egypt, where the general legitimacy of Pharaoh is a live question, the support of Pol. Sci. for the existing racket might really come in handy, but is it available? Whatever learnèd clerks may decide, ordinary lay sheep are only too likely to respond to all that "tacit" jazz with contempt, "We never promised you that, Massa Husní, and you are a goddam liar if you or your miserable official fishwrap claim otherwise."


The imaginary expostulation may not fit the ARE context perfectly, however. It is perhaps a bit too individualistic -- too quantitative, even, for is not one (1.0) a quantity? Even the OnePercenters at al-’Ahrám, the actual beneficaries of the Mubárak Racket, may not be yet quite so globalised as that. To judge from that mere table-pounding on the part of M. Táriq Hasan, they may think more qualitatively, more like Huntin'ton of Harvard with his ever-glorious Clashism™ product. Stipulating the existence of an Essential Egyptian, does the essence of the creature consist more in pious ’Islám or more in European statism? That may be a better way to frame the question, even for those of us who don't much hold with essences. But God knows best.


_____
[1] Mr. Madison in Federalist X, of course.

[2] That is Ms. Conventional Wisdom's view, which will do for now since we are not really talking about M. de Talleyrand at Vienna.

Extreme Bidenism Is Nevertheless Extremism

Subtract twenty-five points from Senator Biden's paleface planmonger score at once, Mr. Bones. It now appears that the sneak has been hiding things:

US reliance on tribes is also supported by others who have already written off the possibility of seeing a strong central Iraqi government emerge. "I've been pushing for four years to deal directly with the tribal leaders," said Sen. Joseph Biden (D) of Delaware ... in Washington Thursday. The US, he added, has to "give up on … the possibility of having a strong central democratic government trusted by all the major constituencies.... It's simply not capable of occurring."

If he has really been "pushing [tribalization] for years," he must have been pushing very quietly. Did he tell Herr Dr. Gelb of the Conspiracy on Foreign Relations about his Bedouin dreams before they vouchsafed to the world their joint proposals about occupation policy? I fail to recall it. The occasional cultivated despiser of colonial decentralization who has mentioned that performance subsequently always talks as if the twosome scheme to carve up the former Iraq into two or three chunks, not one hundred and thirteen.

Biden-Gelb pills™ have yet to match the widespread appeal of Murti-Bing pills. The comparatively unsuccessful marketing campaign may be why the Senator has started tinkering with the secret magic formula retrospectively, perhaps even unilaterally and gelblessly! There was not much substance to Biden-Gelbism in the first place, so reconcocting and redecorating the previously released partition product to suit this week's newspaper headlines is not difficult. There is no danger of having to eat many of one's own previous words in this case.

What's that, Mr. Bones? . . . Oh sure, I'd insist on the "retrospectively." But no, that doesn't make Biden a "liar," even though what he said last week may not be strictly accurate according to the truth. We have agreed that even Little Brother himself can not sustainably be claimed to have lied to get himself his aggression. How much less Joe Biden! And after all, sir, crescit eundo, not even Mr. Donkey Foreign Policy began by knowing everything he knows now about the stumbles of the Big Management stumblebums and the local colour of their neo-Iraqi subjects. Don't you think that he must have known rather less about tribes and tribalism in the former Iraq on 21 June 2003 as opposed to 21 June 2007? If he missupposes himself to have always known what he knows now, or thinks he knows now, well, who is to throw the first stone at that? Let us not raise the bar so high that nobody alive can vault it. That game is especially unworthy, sir, when we ourselves sit in the stands safe from ever being called upon to leap at all. At very least, Mr. Biden owes it to his post-January position as the Upper Chamber's majority expert on invasions and conquests and occupations &c. &c. to have some sort of prepared speech about Peaceful Freedumbia always at hand, and to keep it reasonably up to date with developments amongst the neoliberateds.

What he really thought or said or pushed four years ago matters little. Nobody cared then, and nobody remembers now, practically speaking. Once we put it on the record that he has been gilding his lily and fudging his ingredients a little, let him be granted a complete amnesty and a blank slate to scribble on. What is Mr. Joseph Biden's recommended occupation policy for the former Iraq NOW? If we, too, start from scratch, forgetting we ever heard of Leslie Gelb and a' that, we know only two things about it:

(1) Negatively, and much more importantly, all paleface planmongers must "give up on … the possibility of having a strong central democratic government trusted by all the major constituencies.... It's simply not capable of occurring."

(2) Positively and comparatively peripherally, all paleface planmongers must "deal directly with the tribal leaders."

Score the man 500 points (out of one thousand) for his global negativity, then subtract twenty-five points for his tribalization malarkey. That comes to 47.5%, or an unmistakable 'F-', unless I've forgotten my school days altogether.

Without affecting the mark allotted in any way, Mr. Bones, you may annotate the margin of this candidate's blue book with the observation that there is an ingenious occult connection between his two points. Skipping over poor M. al-Málikí to negotiate with assorted shaykhs of the TwentyPercenters directly must tend to make the existing Green Zone neorégime even less capable of strength and centrality and democracy and government and trustworthiness than the GOP geniuses have rendered it already. This is not exactly a self-fulfilling prophecy, for Mr. Biden's global declaration of incapability is not a prophecy about the future, it sounds far more like an eternal axiom. Perhaps he would maintain that the weakness and irrelevance and autocracy and anarchy and "sectarian" unreliability of the current native neorégime at New Baghdad have already reached the point where making these bad things a little worse yet would have no significant impact. (And perhaps he is quite right, so let none of this affect his score.) Nevertheless, the plain tendency of his one positive suggestion is to aggravate what he presumably accounts evils.

It also aggravates other things that some of us account evils, though Sen. Biden perhaps disagrees. To deal directly with the tribal leaders undermines the Sovereignty and Independence and Constitutionality of poor M. al-Málikí's quasigovernment. (Mr. Biden got the undermining of Democracy in himself, I notice, which comes third in my standardized list of these four horsemen.) In addition to that, or perhaps as a consequence of that, to deal directly with the tribal leaders grossly violates the goose-and-gander principle. Fancy the Senator's reaction to foreign powers dealing directly with our own "tribes," say the AFL-CIO or the NRA or the AEIdeologues or the Heritagitarians or dozens of other. Would he not instantly advise them to forget about that sort of direct dealings and go speak with Dr. Rice's people as the sole authorized representatives of Uncle Sam?

Considered politically, Biden's tribal conspiracies would be an infringement of Sovereignty. Considered ethically, which matters less but still does matter, they constitute a violation of equity. His scheme might also be considered legally, which is more important than ethically, though not as important as politically. Strictly speaking, though, Sovereignty is a matter of law and what Biden proposes is flatly illegal. The political violation lies in his failure to bear in mind that upholding Sovereignty is almost always the soundest policy, just as honesty is proverbially the best policy. (This failure is also the major political blunder involved in the original GOP aggression of March 2003.)

The gentleman from Delaware may quite conceivably maintain that the present case is exceptional, that it would be madness for Uncle Sam to attempt to vindicate the Sovereignty of poor M. al-Málikí's neorégime against third parties, or even for Sam to recognize it himself, should such recognition interfere with other nifty plans like "to deal directly with the tribal leaders." Very well, then, a political argument to that effect is certainly not to be ruled out of bounds automatically. Let the Senator actually make the case that Peaceful Freedumbia is the exception, not the rule. In the course of making the case, let him take full note of the fact that Uncle Sam (represented by a certain idiot nephew from Crawford TX) has announced again and again that neo-Iraq is indeed Sovereign, announced the alleged Sovereignty in such a way as to imply a promise to respect it. Let Biden explain why he thinks that his conspiracies with tribalists are so urgently necessary that they warrant the Unites States of America forswearing ourselves.

Again, nobody who believes in Politique d'abord! can disallow such an argument without listening to it and weighing it carefully. Yet the reason a policy rule is called a rule is that there is a presumption in favor of it and a presumption against exceptionality. Sen. Biden evidently considers that the bushogenic quagmire in the former Iraq has now reached a point where two different presumptions are rebuttable. (1) Exceptionally, it is not sound policy to uphold Sovereignty in this one instance. (2) Exceptionally in a different way, it is not the best policy, or even a good policy, to uphold Honesty in this instance either and fulfil our national promises about neo-Iraqi Sovereignty.

Perhaps the Senator can successfully rebut the double policy presumption against his favorite schemes, but he is going to have to actually do so. If he lets the matter go by default, if he refuses to plead, he necessarily loses his case in the Court of Reason.

This is not to say he might not prevail in the U. S. Senate, although that seems unlikely. Witless schizophobia has shown a few signs of decay recently, but nowhere near enough to threaten Little Brother's occupation policy as regards the sacred territorial integrity of the former Iraq. Conventional wisdom depicts Mr. Bush as retreatin' a little bit from complete Kiddie Krusade dementia to more or less the Hamilton-Baker occupation policy. Whether or not that is right, Joseph Biden remains odd man out, since the ISG/CFR gentry are schizophobes too, Dr. Gelb excepted. He is even odd man out in the newspaper story we began with, where most of the occupation policy "experts" quoted think that flirting with tribalism in the Land of Peace and Freedom is a dangerous idea likely to backfire. For instance,

"Most of these Sunnis who were formerly targeting US and coalition forces and are now willing to fight on our side aren't doing it as a result of some deep ideological transformation," says Riedel, now at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "They are doing it for reasons of financing, to make money, and to control turf in the Sunni parts of the country. It's unlikely they will be reliable allies in the long term."

Perhaps one could take a kinder view of Sen. Biden than he shows any sign of deserving on the basis of considerations that he doesn't actually contradict. Has he vaguely come to grasp that the basic structural problem in the former Iraq is how the Arab Sunni theocommunity has gone smash like Humty-Dumpty? Of course to go on from that insight to want to deal directly with the fragments because that is all that is left is scarcely the path of wisdom and prudence, yet one may hope that the Senator will gradually get his analysis into sharper focus and revise the proprietory formula for Biden-Gelb pills™ accordingly. No paleface plan to impose partition on the neoliberateds has any chance of actually working if it blithely takes for granted that simply separating them from one another will do the trick and end the troubles without specifying some real and present Powers that will make sure they stay separated.

Probably the international community, not to speak of Big Management and the Party base and vile, would balk at Poland-the-Model, i.e., handing the Wild West over to Sa‘údiyya or some other Sunnintern outlet, abandoning Najafistan to the evil Qommies, and having NATO underwrite the freedom of the Free Kurds -- incidentally guaranteeing that they don't make trouble for Ankara either. That's far too realpolitisch to be real, of course, but it is a valuable thought experiment to reflect that paleface planmongers with no sentimental scruples or ideological intoxications whatsoever could make some such no-nonsense arrangement actually work -- that is, if "work" means only ("only"?) less bloodshed amongst the neoliberateds and more sacred stability for the impositionists.

Alas, not only will the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington never tolerate any imposition that does not include "some deep ideological transformation," Sen. Joseph Biden won't like it either, since it is the polar opposite of "to deal directly with the tribal leaders." Russia and Prussia and the Habsburg Monarchy made a clean sweep, they ignored all the leaderships of the Poles, tribal or other, and dealt directly only with one another. That was then, and this is now, and direct emulation is out of the question, but understanding why it worked in 1772 and 1793 and 1795 and exactly what prevents it even being attempted in 2009 would be analytically helpful. More helpful, at any rate, than

US reliance on tribes is also supported by others who have already written off the possibility of seeing a strong central Iraqi government emerge. "I've been pushing for four years to deal directly with the tribal leaders," said Sen. Joseph Biden (D) of Delaware ... in Washington Thursday. The US, he added, has to "give up on … the possibility of having a strong central democratic government trusted by all the major constituencies.... It's simply not capable of occurring."

Who's Boss at Basra?

Ah, Mr. Bones, how quickly the happy, invasion-based Land of Peace and Freedom can mutate! In a twinkling of an eye . . . ! All changed, changed utterly!

Literally just yesterday I took the International Crisis Group seriously when that crew of high-minded impositionists informed the world [p. 10] in a report itself dated just yesterday that

Basra’s diversity, potentially a source of tension, largely has been mitigated by the steady rise of armed Islamist parties. The city’s tradition of open-mindedness and tolerance for the most part has vanished and prominent trading families have departed. Most non-Muslim minorities have been forced either to migrate or lie low, basically disappearing from the social scene. Even the Sunni presence essentially has become a thing of the past, thereby reducing the potential for sectarian violence. A British officer pointed out in February 2007: Many Sunni families in the south have fled north to Baghdad and Mosul. The fact that the ratio of Sunni to Shiite is low, and diminishing, means that sectarian violence is now less common than further north. Sunnis cannot afford to be aggressive and so there is less of a cycle of sectarian violence.[fn. 69] [69] Crisis Group interview, defence ministry official, London, February 2007. That said, two Sunni mosques were blown up on 15 June 2007 in retaliation for the earlier destruction of the minarets of the Askari shrine in Samarra.

Not only were the local non-Twelvers allegedly lying low and doing nothing more terroristical than getting their cultural monuments blown up, the Sunnintern presence at Basra was pronounced minimal:

A British official concurred: “It is far more difficult for the other Gulf states to have influence in the south, as many Shiites see them as Sunni-dominated supporters of the former regime. Some, such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, are involved in border security issues and local business deals and are seeking contact with local tribes but, as they are mainly concerned with what they perceive as growing Shiite (and therefore in their eyes Iranian) influence, they have focused their efforts on establishing relations with the central government and on trying to influence Sunnis further north”. Crisis Group interview, defence ministry official, London, February 2007. “The Arab Gulf states do not have a southern sphere of influence to speak of and are doing very little to build one. Their rhetoric and behaviour, echoed by those of countries such as Egypt, amounts to saying they are unhappy with the Iraqi government’s treatment of the Sunni population. But we are still a long way from the Gulf monarchies actively assisting Iraq’s Sunnis”. Crisis Group interview, British official, London, February 2007. [fn. 58, p. 8]

In general, the Intergalactic Civil Service portayed a curious state of affairs --yesterday: all the armed bands (except obviously the former redcoats, who scarcely matter and will presumably matter even less with Mr. Blair now happily obviated) were Shi‘ites, so no matter how much anarcholibertarianism there was, and there was lost and lots, it did not count as "sectarian" in the special sense that the invasion-language press conventionally attaches to that word in the former Iraq. In addition to having no theological or ritualistic differences of any significance, these armed bands did not, yesterday, have any significant political disagreements either. If many in Scandinavia still get passionately worked up over exactly which "federalism" to thrust upon Peaceful Freedumbia, yet at Basra, anyway, the indigenes themselves were, as of yesterday, mostly past caring:

Likewise, the controversy over federalism and relations with Baghdad, though frequently at the centre of debate, does not account for much of the tension and daily violence. Mostly, it has been cynically manipulated by local and national politicians; average citizens, disappointed by their leaders, seem to have lost interest. [p. 10]

In short, the Basráwí armed bands were, yesterday, impeccably purist in their anarcholibertarianism, devotees of smash and grab for its own sweet sake. It appears almost as if that looting that Shaykh Rumsfeld of the Bani Kennebunkport cast a kindly eye on in the spring of 2003 has gone on continuously through at least yesterday down in the Queen City of the South. The Intergalactic Civil Service mentions terror and terrorism frequently enough, but plainly this is Mr. Al Capone's terrorism rather than the Nechayev or Bin Ládin strain.


There's a good deal more to be said about the ICG document, or there would be, if things had not changed utterly, and changed overnight, into this :

New Basrah Police Chief Orders Units to Shave Their Beards: New Basrah police commander Major General Jaleel Khalaf Shuwail called on members of the Sunni community in Basrah – estimated at one third of the population – to join the police force, promising that he would crack down on militias and “saboteurs working for the interests of foreign states” in the southern oil-rich city, according to the pan-Arab Al-Hayat newspaper. Maj. Gen. Shuwail said police officers in Basrah fall into two categories: those who cooperate with militias, and those who are intimidated by them. “We have a tremendous force, but it needs organization and a brave leadership,” he said. “I will fight militias in Basrah, as I love challenges, and I will not neglect fighting terrorism, under whatever label.” Maj. Gen. Shuwail was appointed last Monday to replace Maj. Gen. Mohammed Hamadi Al-Musawi, who was fired by PM Nuri Al-Maliki because he failed to prevent militia attacks against at least nine Sunni mosques in the city in retaliation for the bombing of the revered Shi’ite Askari shrine in Samarra. As soon as the new commander assumed responsibilities, he ordered all units to shave their beards, threatening to suspend salaries or fire those who resisted the order. He visited the Sunni Endowments Board headquarters in central Basrah requested from its director, Dr. Abdul Karim Jarad, to submit lists of Sunnis who are willing to volunteer into the police force, promising to approve them all, according to Al-Hayat . “We have a difficult mission because the foundation of the Basrah police force was 100% wrong,” he said.

"Promising to approve them all," by golly. And no beards! Clearly M. le Géneral Shuwayl must be a sound secularist and a technocrat and an all-round good guy. No more Ayn Rand and Robert Nozick at Basra, ladies and gentleman, Ordnung soll sein!

Slogger City, or perhaps the Anglo-Arabian Press Trust, ventures an actual estimate of the number of TwentyPercenters left in town, which the Intergalactic Civil Service rather pointedly did not. One in three seems improbably high to me, though. Surely with numbers like that they could have fielded an armed band of their own long ago that could hold its own, and perhaps even manage to hold the balance of chaos? If that number came from the Rev. al-Jarrád, as seems not impossible, one would do well to remember that almost every crew of religionists that ever existed has inflated its membership numbers shamelessly, that being pia fraus that only a very humorless anticleric would thunder against.

In the case at hand, there is also the fact that a great many of the TwentyPercenters in the former Iraq seem genuinely to suppose themselves not only a Moral Majority, being of course the predestined natural rulers, but an arithmetical majority as well. (Sheer narcissism and delusion, but more pardonable at Basra or New Baghdad than at Rio Limbaugh.)

Pardon the digression. The great thing is to notice that gangbuster Shuwayl overthrows both pillars of yesterday's reality: "sectarianism" is back in business, and so is GZ politics. The general stands for TwentyPercenterdom, and also for centralism. The combination is banal in itself, it would be hard to find an Arab Sunni who does not expect to become once again a master of the whole "Iraq" megillah, even if no ten of them can agree on anything else in politics. The mystery is why poor M. al-Málikí resolved to dispatch this particular hero to deliver Basra from anarchy and libertarianism. If one supposes the quasipremier to put centralism first, should he not have worried that tossing in M. Shuwayl's additional armed band will only make the chaos more chaotic and therefore cause the GZ neorégime to appear even less in control? If one supposes him primarily a "sectarian," which is the more conventional view, why, he must be out of his mind!

One casts around for a third possibility, and there it is: how if the general is not an indig idea at all, but rather a Crawfordite idea or a Petraean brainstorm? It might be objected that the Party stumblebums don't know enough about their colonial possessions to have selected him and forced him on poor M. al-Málikí, but that is easily answered. One need only suppose that some kind friend at the Sunnintern put them on to M. Jalíl Khalaf al-Shuwayl.

One might even go on to speculate that those same kind friends of the extremist Republicans have independently noticed what the Intergalactic Civil Service did yesterday, that the Sunnintern is very weakly represented at Basra and that something ought to be done to set the oversight right, lest the Safavids have everything their own way. If we assume that this hypothetical friend is bright enough to think his way around the Bushies three times before breakfast, which is likely enough, the fact that Gen. Shuwayl will make very bad even worse is not a blunder, but a point strongly in favour of the scheme. Some minor-league Machiavelli will have begun by assuming that Khalílzád Pasha's "constitutional" "Iraq" is bound to go smash, probably sooner rather than later, and that the urgent requirement at this point is to position the Sunnintern to pick up as many of the pieces as possible. If they can't somehow grab the whole wreckage, they must at least make sure that whatever fragments fall into the hands of the evil Qommies cannot become a danger to them. [1] For various reasons, mostly spelled O-I-L, Basra is a fragment preëminently suitable to be grabbed, and the advantages of having General Shuwayl on the spot when the time comes are patent.

That scenario may be a bit too imaginative to be true, but well short of it there are those 'saboteurs working for the interests of foreign states,' that the Sunnintern devoutly believes in, though the Intergalactic Civil Service seems not to. [2] Gen. Shuwayl would then be a sort of counter-saboteur, dispatched to make sure that the Basráwí anarcholibertarianism does not lopsidely favour the minions of Tehran. (Actually ending it would be a different story.) Conceivably poor M. al-Málikí understands as much and can tolerate it: it is not as if his, or any former, neorégime was ever in control to begin with, and if control is ever to be gained, the project would be easier if neither the Sunnintern nor the Safavids overwhelmingly preside over the ruination of Basra.

If one thinks the quasipremier very narrow indeed, one might add that his own subfaction, the Islamic Call Party, scarcely exists in those parts. He may figure that Gen. Shuwayl will weaken his opposition within the U.I.A. caucus without having the slightest chance of taking Basra over for the TwentyPercenters. In that case, he would be factually in agreement with the estimates of the Intergalactic Civil Service: the Basra Sunnis are now too few to be formidable. That seems plausible enough, though God alone knows what is truly going on. As to appearances of impotence, poor M. al-Málikí perhaps thinks that that problem is so bad for the quasigovernment of "Iraq" already that it can scarcely get worse no matter what happens. To be sure, he might think that and be mistaken.








____
[1] It would be naïve to suppose that indig TwentyPercenters and Sunnintern Central are automatically in accord. A quick glance at the career of non-Zionized Palestine ought to dispel that illusion.

[2] No one brief passage suggests itself for quotation, you'll have to read the whole document and decide for yourself whether or not the ICG think that almost everybody at Basra is unduly paranoid about Iran.

The Bani Kennebunkport Amongst the Tribes

There's an obvious spiritual affinity between Levantine tribalism and GOP extremism, . What's the Big Party's whole Kiddie Krusade if not diya on steroids? The aggression of March 2003 wa a sort of Cecil B. DeMille version of ghazw, ethically and politically indistinguishable, but a great deal flashier and noisier. "Shockier and awier," you might say. During that brief shining moment when Big Management seemed to have triumphed in the former Iraq, did not Shaykh Rumsfeld sagely pronounce "Freedom means looting," or something very like it? Now there was a sentiment that pierced straight to the heart of the Jáhiliyya! And yet quintessentially the spirit of Jay Gould's Old Party as well.

To be sure, little foreign tribal friends do not often have MBA's, and their civil-social arrangements amount only to "petty management," so to call it. But are not the sons of the desert basically sound, almost as sound as Richard Bruce Cheney, about Executive privilege and Executive unaccountability, even though they have been tutored by Nature rather than at the Harvard Victory School?

Isn't the whole point of the Crawfordites makin' deals with Shaykh Bakhíl b. Qabíh that what he says goes, that what he promises the Ál Bú Qabíh as a whole infallibly perform? Probably the Executive execution doesn't work out that way 100.0% in practice, but what mortal plans ever do? The theory of the matter is clear enough, or anyway, the received stereotype. As you'll recall, the Party stumblebums have long since abandoned their short-lived attempt to make "democracy" an export product, and presumably if the late Saddam had not concealed his nukes and nerve gas with such astounding ingenuity, they'd never have embarked on that antecedently dubious marketin' campaign in the first place. Sheikhly petty management is far more their cup of tea.

It would not be surprising if some of the Party tank-thinkers are looking into the tribal situation at neo-Gaza on a crash basis. I believe they won't find much, Non-Zionist Palestine having been a peasant society for several millennia. They are, however, perhaps feeelin' a bit desperate as regards the NZP occupation. Although the Fatáh will have become a bit more GOP-congenial, perhaps, after it was outvoted, it still deplorably resembles a real political party. For that matter, so does the Hamás, although it is easier to present that bunch as mere faith-crazies. Some sort of Third Way starrin' a Silent Majority would suit Big Management's requirements in occupied Palestine admirably, and shaykhly petty management would be ideal, since custom (or anyway, the received stereotype) would require the majority to keep silent once Shaykh Bakhíl has spoken. However this excellent notion is probably only a snark hunt, considering that if such a scheme were viable, the Telavivistanis would have implemented it long since. (I believe they had a certain amount of success in the Sinai before they gave it back.)

Back in the Crawford-blessed land of Peace and Freedom, tribe and shaykh still count for something, obviously, although it is far from obvious exactly how much that comes to. Despite exactly opposite original intentions, the Ba‘th were compelled at last to make serious concessions to tribalism as well as religionism. Compromising with endarkenment did them no good in the end, but how could it have, when the Bani Kennebunkport descended upon them hyperpowerfully out of the blue? Even though the Big Management Party and its violence professionals want to hang around in the former Iraq forever, analysis should probably proceed by attempting to gauge the correlation of strictly indigenous forces before worrying about what our own stumblebums will do next.

Religious endarkenment flourishes everywhere except amongst the Free Kurds. Tribal endarkenment is far more problematical. The "Iraq is a fishbowl" angle is, I presume, quite important here: al-Jazeera and its wannabe, broadcasts from the evil Qommies, those dreadful partisan fishwraps at New Baghdad, the Anglo-Arabian Press Trust, all these media influences can be used to bolster religious endarkenment(s), but if they can be used to prop up Shaykh Bakhíl b. Qabíh, I can't figure out how, and apparently neither can he. (Cellular telephones might be helpful to him, though, though not preferentially as against other civil-social elites.)

Former quasiminster ‘Alí al-‘Alláwí is probably right to consider that the former Iraq suffers from positive religious NEO-endarkenment, that faith baseness is not only strong, but growing stronger, and has been since circa 1980. Tribal endarkenment, however, looks to be weaker today than it was yesterday, and tomorrow it will be weaker still. If the Big Managers expect investin' in the Ál Bú Qabíh is the way to go, they would do well to move promptly.

The object of the investment, as expounded by Karl Rove Associates, is to smash al-Qá‘ida. Boy-'n'-Party loyalists tend to put it that way, and not specify al-Qá‘ida in Mesopotamia, meaning either the organization(s) so called, or all violent Sunni neo-Islam in the former Iraq. Part of their latest stumble is to identify everybody who shoots at Republican Party troops as belongin' to ’Usáma's gang, a ploy that makes obvious sense in Heimatland politics but is decidedly unreality-based out in the boondocks. Bakhíl b. Qabíh clearly cannot do anything worth mentioning for the Big Party as regards smashin' al-Qá‘ida outside Mesopotamia. The GOP geniuses seem to think it will suffice for him to help them smash al-Qá‘ida in the governate of al-’Anbár. Even granting most of their dubious premises, I should think the prospects for their investment depend on whether al-Qá‘ida in al-’Anbár is recruited locally, or imported from afar. At this point, Mr. Rove becomes a serious obstacle to Big Management, because for agitprop reasons it is desirable that as many as possible of the insurgents / guerillas / terrorists be illegal aliens, but in that case buyin' up the local shaykhs is unlikely to get at the root of the problem. If the Party stumblebums clearly understand which parts of their propaganda are flat-out lies, propositions that they themselves consider to be false, and if "al-Qá‘ida" (their expanded hobgoblin) considered as a band of outside agitators is one of their noble lies, then the scheme may have some merit to it. Otherwise not.

As usual, Crawfordology comes first. Mr. Bones and I take the view that the extremist cowpokers are very likely indeed to be suckered into believing their own nonsenses --which nonsenses are accordingly never to be harshly called "lies." Therefore we speculate that investin' in Bakhíl b. Qabíh is unlikely to be profitable for them. In addition to the inveterate and invasionite GOP nonsenses, there are the shaykh's nonsenses to be taken account of. We are talking about the good folks that Dr. Chalabí conned, after all. M. Bin Qabíh will doubtless assure them that tribalism is the wave of the future, and that the very best sort of neotribalism is that of the Ál Bú Qabíh. The hormone-basers are likely enough to take his word for it, for their hormones dearly wish it to be so. If he picks their pocket, that will serve them right. Perhaps even from Uncle Sam's point of view, there would be no need for too many tears about it, since bribes for the tribes can amount to but a pittance compared to all those taxpayer bucks that the Big Management Party has thrown at its Peaceful Freedumbia in other ways.


But let's hear from an outside agitator: Ali al-Fadhily, Inter Press Service's correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, IPS's US-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region.

This year US military authorities worked to firm up a tribal coalition that they said would oppose al-Qaeda terror groups. Unnamed officials in the administration of US President George W Bush have made claims to reporters that the move has reduced violence in Anbar, but residents in the area think otherwise. "It started with the so-called campaign 'Awakening of al-Anbar', then it developed into forming 'The Revolutionary Force for Anbar Salvation'," said Hamid Alwani, a prominent tribal leader in Ramadi. "This was supposed to be a local fight between al-Qaeda and the local people of al-Anbar, but in fact we all realized the Americans meant us to fight our brothers of the Iraqi resistance."

Gosh, they sure can't fool him!

Alwani said "most tribal sheikhs opposed the idea" and made it clear to US military commanders that they would never be part of the US plan. "It seems that the Americans have started to realize their mistake now." Few tribal groups are backing US forces anymore. Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, leader of the Dulaim Confederation, a tribal organization in Anbar, told reporters recently in his Baghdad office that the Revolutionary Force for Anbar Salvation would be dissolved because of increasing internal dissatisfaction. Opposition has grown against one of the council leaders, Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, whom Suleiman called a "traitor" who "sells his beliefs, his religion and his people for money". Any Iraqi working with the US military is now opposed by most people in the province. "Sattar is well known as a former criminal," a tribal leader in Anbar who asked to be referred to as Hatam said. "The Americans are now spoiling him like a favorite child."

Aggression supporters might point out with cause that anybody's claims about what "most people in the province" think or "know" can only be guesswork, and almost certainly not disinterested guesswork either. Our own guess is that there is nothing at all except (1) Sunní Islám and (2) the need for a Sunní Ascendancy if there's ever to be any "Iraq" outside shudder-quotes would command a majority. But God knows best.

A well-respected leader in Fallujah said on condition of anonymity, "Shi'ite leaders had their doubts about him from the beginning, but the desperate Americans thought he was the best solution to their failure in Anbar." Abu Risha has been living in Amman, Jordan, for several months. And there is growing doubt how much influence he has. "The Suleiman family, who were called the princes of al-Dulaim tribes, have no power in Iraq," Mohammad al-Dulaimy, a historian from al-Anbar, said in Ramadi. "They were assigned leaders by the British occupation [during the 1920s], and everyone in Iraq knows that." Dulaimy added, "As soon as the British left Iraq, those guys lost power and went abroad. They then found a chance to return under the American flag."

Brit neotribalisation is an interesting topic, but rather a remote one. And it's not as if the shaykhs who stayed home didn't lose a great deal of power between 1958 and 1992. Caveat lector.

Others see the promotion of Abu Risha as a failed attempt by occupation forces to apply divide-and-rule tactics in the province. "I do not see this working amidst the obvious division amongst tribal leaders looking for power," said a professor at the University of Anbar in Ramadi, speaking on condition of anonymity. "People here know each other, and they knew from the beginning that those warlords would fight over power and money one day."

"[W]arlords would fight over power and money" is a very elementary point, but it does no harm to repeat it. However, "divide and rule" is repeated far too often in dubious passages, of which this is one. Tribalism pretty well means that the natives are divided already, it is not something that aggressors and occupiers need to impose in order to rule.

But such co-opting has not in any case lessened violence. "All the new militia did was increase tensions among the local community," local cameraman Fowaz Abdulla said. "Americans are getting killed by the day, and these militias are just executing people just like Shi'ite militias in Baghdad and the southern parts of Iraq." Police loyal to tribal leaders in the Revolutionary Force for Anbar Salvation have told reporters that the US military provided them weapons, funding and other items such as uniforms, body armor, pickup trucks and helmets, and paid tribal fighters US$900 a month.

Probably M. al-Fadhily means well, but anecdotal evidence is trumped by actual statistics all the same. We learn at Slogger City that 356 GOP troops were killed in al-’Anbár in 2006, whereas 116 GOP troops have been killed there in 2007 so far. That comes to 0.974 deaths per day versus 0.663, or roughly one third fewer. Whether the Bribes for Tribes program has had anything to do with it, who knows? It's at least as likely that the ever-glorious Surge of '07™ has shifted the aggressor casualties to other governates: Diyálá, Níníwá, Saláh al-Dín, and "other" have already seen more deaths in 175 days of 2007 than in 365 of 2006. BGKB.


The voice of Soc. Sci. has a word or two on this question as well:

Anbar Salvation Council head skips town? This story from al-Malaf is currently the talk of the forums: Sitar Abu Risha, head of the Anbar Salvation Council, has allegedly fled Iraq with $75 million that the Americans had given him to fight al-Qaeda. The story links his flight to the near-collapse of the Anbar Salvation Council over infighting among its leadership (which jibes with recent reporting in the Washington Post). It claims that he simply never distributed the American cash to the fighters, who are now threatening to go on strike if they don't get paid. Seeing as how the Anbar Salvation Council has for months now been portrayed as the great American hope in the battle against al-Qaeda, if this story turns out to be true - a big if, given the shaky sourcing to this point - then it would be a rather embarrassing fiasco. "The Anbar model", indeed. I haven't seen this officially reported anywhere, and right now I have no way of checking its accuracy - but thought it worth passing on a juicy rumour just in case it turns out to be true.

It's Not Easy to be King of Airstrip One!

Referendum demand over Blair 'sell-out' By Melissa Kite in Brussels, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 12:35am BST 24/06/2007 A key pledge safeguarding British control over its own foreign policy that was secured by Tony Blair at the Brussels summit is not legally binding, it became clear last night. The Prime Minister said the agreement allowed European nations to focus on the issues that most concerned their citizens The Opposition stepped up calls for a referendum after it emerged that a clause negotiated by Mr Blair allowing exemption from a common EU foreign policy was merely a "declaration of intent" and not an enforcable part of the treaty. The Prime Minister's hard-fought deal began to unravel as the Conservatives accused him of surrendering British sovereignty and boxing in his successor, Gordon Brown. William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, said Mr Blair had broken the most important of his four "red lines" - the limits of the powers he was prepared to cede to Brussels after the rejection two years ago of the EU's planned constitution. The blueprint for a new Reform Treaty, signed by the 27 EU member states at 5am yesterday, was hailed by Mr Blair, who leaves office on Wednesday, as a key part of his legacy. He claimed that it safeguarded British sovereignty on foreign and defence policy, criminal law and justice matters, social policy and tax, and gave Britain an opt-out from a legally binding EU Charter of Fundamental Rights that would apply to the work place. Critics said, however, that the deal was simply a repackaged version of the rejected EU constitution. Crucially, a "declaration" in the footnotes of the treaty giving member states an exemption from common foreign and security policy would not stand up to judicial scrutiny, they said. Mr Hague said: "Tony Blair says he has safeguarded British foreign policy from EU interference, even though he has agreed to an EU diplomatic service, which will mean EU embassies and an EU foreign minister by any other name. "But when you examine the small print it is clear that his so-called safeguards have no legal guarantees at all. "By concentrating on headlines he can try to sell, Tony Blair has yet again neglected what really matters. This is a sell-out of British interests, not a case of standing up for them." Mr Blair also surrendered Britain's right to veto EU decisions in more than 40 other areas of policy, including energy, tourism, transport, civil protection and migration. He and Mr Brown clashed during the summit over a clause watering down the EU's commitment to free trade. Emerging from the talks yesterday, the visibly tired Prime Minister said the agreement allowed European nations to focus on the issues that most concerned their citizens. "We've been arguing for many years about the constitutional question," he said. "This deal gives us a chance to move on. It was important to get out of this bind into which we'd got with the constitutional treaty." The pressure group Open Europe warned that many key elements of the failed EU constitution would be reintroduced, including an EU diplomatic service and an EU foreign minister, renamed as a "high representative". Mr Brown supported Mr Blair's assertion that a referendum on the treaty would not be required. However, in a television interview to be shown today, he appeared to leave the door open for an about-turn. Interviewed for BBC1's Politics Show, he said: "Thanks to the negotiating skill of Tony, they [the four red lines] have been achieved and I think people when they look at the small print will see that we did what we set out to do, and that was to make sure that in these areas we were properly protected as a country to make our own decisions when we want to do so." Mr Brown praised Mr Blair's "skills" in securing a deal that protected Britain's national interest in key areas. "While many other people will call for a referendum," he said, "it seems to me that we have met our negotiating position." Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, said that Mr Blair's "insistence on playing to the press with his 'red lines' has undermined the UK's ability to get the best out of the negotiations".

Plus Tony Monster is widely rumoured to be about to pervert to Continental Papism himself personally. Never a dull moment in the Airstrip One Follies show!

About the Sorrows of Petty Nationalities

Abbas fired his director of internal security, Rashid abu Shabak, who was the highest-ranking security official in the Gaza Strip, and according to Al-Quds al-Arabi, sources say Shabak could now be appointed ambassador to Cairo. Shabak had been appointed director of internal security following the Hamas electoral victory in 2006. He was continually at loggerheads with Hamas people, who accuse him of having caused the failure and resignation of two ministers of the interior, Saed Sayyam and more recently Hani Qawasami. Hamas had repeatedly asked Abbas to get rid of Shabak, and in fact prior to the recent events in Gaza, Shabak had tendered his resignation, but Abbas refused to accept it. Security sources in Ramallah said they think Jabril al-Rajoub will be appointed his successor. Rajoub, a top Fatah person, has served as preventive security chief in the West Bank, and was once national security adviser to Arafat. Here comes the part about Dahlan: The firing of Shabak is the first sign of weakened prestige of Mohammed Dahlan, Abbas' top security person, and of his diminished influence in the security apparatus, because Shabak was extremely close to Dahlan, and in fact many people say it was Dahlan who pressured Abbas to appoint [Shabak] to his position [as director of internal security]. It is still too early to say with certainty what will be the extent of Dahlan's power, or weakness as the case may be, or his status vis-a-vis Abbas. That is something that will only become clear with the announcement of the new membership of the National Security Council, where some Fatah sources say Abbas is resisting external pressure, and American [pressure] in particular, to name Dahlan general secretary of the new council. Implying that Dahlan is still Washington's man. In which case you would have to ask again: What was it Dahlan oversaw for them in the Gaza Strip, was it as everyone says, a humiliating defeat, or was it, as far as Washington is concerned, something else?

And there is an old song for you, Mr. Bones! The "parcel of rogues in a nation" song, in fact. Almost nothing in sight, no matter which way you look, but traitors and apostates and this or that pack of foreigners' "man" -- and a' that and a' that!

Could the original brand-name Philistines have invaded their Palestine from Ireland or Scotland, then? I believe the old sources speak of "sea peoples" . . . .

A rash conjecture, that, and one not to be insisted upon.

Safer to assume the very plain likeness is rather structural than genetic. Any trailer trash negligently pushed about by neo-betters who can actually do the pushing is likely to be thus divided. To stand firm for the locals offers spiritual rewards, but then to ratfink for alien invasionists is also not without its, admittedly rather less spiritual, compensations also.

From well outside this particular fray, Mr. Bones and I are inclined to consider it a toss-up and extend a broad and genial toleration to both the neo-collaborationists and to the more traditional "resistance" folks as well. Which I daresay only goes to show how utterly out of touch Mr. Bones and I am are with peripheral Celtic or peripheral Palestinian reality. Should alien invasionism ever befall us personally, no doubt we too would soon be found evolving a "narrative" for the delectation of all future Eng. Lit. departments that is mostly about treason and apostasy and a' that and a' that.

What a curious fate is ours, O Bones! We are perhaps rather like the "poor little rich girl," who understands neither where her Daddy Warbucks' wealth comes from nor why the wage slaves she'd dearly like to be sympática with should detest Warbucks Enterprises LLC so very bitterly. We've been carried up to the top with the Bushevik Wave, Mr. Bones, even though we are only scum and riff-raff, mere obsolete l*b*r*l flotsam and jetsam, no proper part whatsoever of the august and ever-to-be-adored Bushevik Wave itself, no fans at all of their GOP Kiddie Krusade.

From so very precarious and accidental and transitory a lofty eminence as our own, what sermons shall we preach de haut en bas, Mr. Bones, about "The Sorrows of Petty Nationalities" or about anything else?

Concerning the Lebanese Menace

Golly, Mr. Bones, "unlawful Lebanese aggression"! Apparently the Elephant People really are terrorized of mice! And I thought it was only a joke or a specimen of Unnatural History!

By tacitly allowing Hizballah to control the border region with Israel and by including the group in the then-cabinet, the Lebanese government could no longer readily disavow the terrorists. The Hizballah action was "not a terrorist attack but the action of a sovereign state that attacked Israel for no reason and without provocation"—in other words, a pure casus belli. Hence, we concluded, "So war it is—a war of self-defense against unlawful Lebanese aggression in which the Israeli government has the obligation to its citizens to inflict maximum damage to the infrastructure of those who have attacked them" in order to quickly push the latter to their limit and end the conflict.

Best of all, perhaps, is that this nifty sophist and thug fan thinks his neoteric stuff is impeccably traditional, at least if Herr General von Clausewitz be accounted so:

Our legal analysis was predicated on an essentially Clausewitzian view of war as the continuation of politics by other means. Statesmen ought to do everything possible to prevent the outbreak of hostilities, but, once it is clear that diplomacy has failed or one of the parties initiates hostilities (casus belli), warriors are allowed to deliver what diplomats failed to produce: a definitive resolution of the conflict by determining a winner and a loser so that the outlines of the peace to follow might respect the comparative strengths and other realities on the ground—and thus be more stable than the status quo ante bellum. Precisely because war is a bloody business, however, the traditional doctrine carried strong sanctions which discouraged bellicose leaders from pushing their nations into conflict: [o]nce they unleashed the dogs of war, they faced dire consequences, including debellatio, the ending of their belligerency through the complete destruction of their state. The unconditional surrenders of the Third Reich and the Japanese Empire precipitated by their aggression are prime examples of this principle. However, I underestimated the ability of asymmetric warfare and anti-war "humanitarians", who claim exclusive ownership of the laws of war, to eclipse this traditional doctrine. Human rights advocacy and other groups operating under the "humanitarian" rubric have long eschewed questions of the jus ad bellum.

But fortunately Professor Clever of Wombschool Normal University knows a trick worth two of that! He doesn't merely "eschew" all that obsolete jus in bello jazz, he annihilates it and then mendaciously passes the buck for the annihilation to the celebrated Prussian theorist.

If "mendaciously" doesn't apply to Dr. Clever, that can only be because "incompetently" applies. Perhaps Clever doesn't know that poor Clausewitz didn't say anything of the sort, but then, perhaps he ought to know?

The only authentic tradition that can be appealed to in favor of Cleverism is the proverb "All's fair in love and war," which is interesting enough in its own humble way, although that way is scarcely the Path of Aquinas. J. Yoo, Esq., and A. Gonzales, Esq., and G. Weigel, S.J., are, for all that appears to the contrary, the first toney intellectuals ever to start neotheorizin' about War on the popular and proverbial level, this nifty neolevel of his that Prof. Clever of WNU lyingly or ignorantly attributes to Gen. Clausewitz. (The tone of our intelligentsia sure ain't what it used to be, O Western Civistanis!)

Still, let's not exaggerate. Despite his best efforts to suggest otherwise, probably Clever more or less knows what casus belli (and maybe even debellatio!) really used to mean to all those negligible benighted pre-neos who perforce thought their thoughts de bello in very late Latin rather than in the native New High Party Chinese of Yoo and Gonzales and Weigel and Clever. In the latter tongue, it appears that any conflict that is not about "unconditional surrender" doesn't really count as "war." Not surprisingly, Clever's own instances are very, very recent: "The unconditional surrenders of the Third Reich and the Japanese Empire precipitated by their aggression are prime examples of this principle." Apart from perhaps Cato vs. Carthage, it looks almost as if the "tradition" of Wombschool Normal University began in 1939 or 1941 and ended in 1945. The "Great Generation" they like to claptrapize their favourite period as, I believe, the only generation in all the recorded annals that was ever capable of committing True WAR! (Except maybe that of the Catones and the Scipiones).

Still, let's not exaggerate. Let's only temperately note that "unconditional surrender" hasn't flourished much better since 1945 than it did before 1939. The most striking human event of my own time, who was born exactly three months after Hiroshima Day, can only be the collapse of the Lenin-Gorbachev Racket, which had nothing to do with True War, or even with false war. Dr. Perestroika didn't ever "surrender" with or without conditions, and how could he have? To whom should he have tendered the sword of Stalin?

Now if only the Boy-'n'-Party crew, the Yoos and Gonzaleses and Weigels and Clevers, did not harp so extremistically hard themselves on a "war against terror" that requires to be "aggressively" pursued, one might almost, always moderately and temperately, suppose them to be at bottom far more interested in régime-changin' than in war-makin'. In that case the Path of Aquinas might quite reasonably be eschewed and the militant neocomrades would very properly go back to their drawin' boards to deliniate for an interested world both ius AD mutationem alieni ordinis and ius IN mutatione alieni ordinis entirely from scratch and without any special privileging of sword-wielders. In the vernacular: both WHEN it is fitting and just to sally forth to change other peoples' regimes for them, and WHAT GUIDELINES must be observed in the course of such sallyings-forth. These matters would ideally be expounded with both an Aquinatan (or better, it's been eight centuries now, after all!) transparency of Principle and a Jesuit finesse of Principle application.

A lovely dream. But of course if the Big Management Party's extremist Yoos and Gonzaleses and Weigels and Clevers, or (m)any of their inferiors in that motley GOP mob of wombscholars and neo-downdumbees, have anything like THAT program in mind, Mr. Bones, why I am Marie of Roumania, and you are the Emperor of Ice Cream, sir.

Back down here on Planet Kennebunkport-Crawford, back in the real world, the best one can say -- always moderately and temperately, though one's blood boil as it may -- about Prof. Clever of Wombschool Normal U. is that he has worked up part of the available material in such a way that good guys can see from it what we go up against. "Relentless twistification," Mr. Jefferson of Virginia might have labeled Prof. Clever's performance, being a scholar well aware, for his own day and age, of what the pre-twist originals of these matters were like. I'm not quite sure that Mr. Jefferson would have properly relished the technical ingenuity of Clever's twistifying, however, considering his own rather too short way with Col. Hamilton.

Let we ourselves then, Mr. Bones, carefully note and decently respect the technical ingenuity, how Prof. Clever of WNU disappears the whole mainstream diplomatic tradition of Old Europe that was always aiming at "balance of power," and never even for an instant at the "unconditional surrender" or "régime change" of 2007 Boy-'n'-Party neoterics. There is, to be sure, one big apparent exception, yet what happened to poor Poland was rather "régime annihilation" than any Yoo-Gonzales-Weigel-Clever-Bush-Wolfowitz-Chalabí "régime change." The apparent exception thus at least does not contradict the general rule, even if it does not positively reinforce it.

Our mainstream tradition has for five hundred years been basically to go along with other people's régimes and get along with them. Decent Westistani wars are always about other folks' outlying provinces, they are never what neo-solecism likes to call "existential."

If Prof. Clever of Wombschool Normal University thinks he knows a better plan than that one of ours, let him expound it frankly and we genuine traditionists will listen to his exposition willingly enough. Probably we international retards shall reluct to adopt his Cleverism, probably we'll think that what has worked well enough for so very many years and generations and centuries ought not to be rashly abandoned for some dubious mess of colonial neopottage from Grant's Old Party, whose innate BigManagerial skills have recently been prominently put on display in the former Iraq

That's all as may be, the one radically non-negotiable point is that some cheapjack Prof. Clever of Wombschool Normal University is not to be allowed to sneak his conceptual contraband through the customs controls of Reason and Enlightement, to airily pretend that "we" have always agreed with his Party neo-Endarkenment, as if that had been an agreed-to pact ever since the days of Thomas Aquinas. Let Master Clever go change other people's régimes, if he must, and abstain from mucking about with our tradition. To suppose our own tradition retrospectively reformable, why, what is that but Orwellism?

'Clueless in Gaza, at a mill with thugs'

The subpartition of Gentile Palestine has led to considerable disarray at Wingnut City. This unexpected human event is most readily useful down towards the bottom of the great chain of rightism, in the precincts where one encounters "Pals" and "Pallies" and such creatures. "It just goes to show you," crow the Big Party base and vile, "what THEY are really like, always have been, always will be." There's a certain primâ facie case for that "analysis," and if it does not have any clear policy implications, well, for some folks hormone-basin' is its own reward.

Farther up the totem pole, though, Neorabbi B. Lewis's perpetual question is bound to arise, What Went Wrong? That is, it will arise assuming that "wrong" is the way Gaza went, a point our GOP genius classes seem not to have up their minds about altogether. Neocomrade T. Rose, writing for The Weekly Standard , however, is not one whit perplexed or uncertain, and talks as if the rest of the pack weren't either:

The past week has been a good one for terrorists. The birth of the world's first truly terrorist state in Gaza was quickly followed by a Western response that, if sustained, all but guarantees that terror state's survival.

Naturally T. Rose makes a number of polemical assumptions that cannot pass muster outside Wingnut City and Rio Limbaugh, as for instance that the sulta fílístíniyya presided over by M. ‘Abbás is a "true state" -- a proposition only slightly less jokey than the same claim made on behalf of the brave new Gaza. The resemblance of these occupational contraptions to Massachusetts or Prussia is not entirely imaginary, but it comes close to being entirely unimportant.

However T. Rose was probably not thinking about statism when he surged into his scribble like that, and almost certainly he was not thinking of the incidental concessions he makes as he surges -- the Hitlerites, it now appears, did not run a proper "terror state," nor did the Bolsheviki, nor did M. Pol Pot, nor Ruhollah Cardinal Khomeiní, nor the Taliban out in their remote Khurasanian boondocks, nor even Saddam Hussein himself, he of the forty-five-minute terror-tipped specials, now happily done away with! These are rather serious factual concessions for the Boy-'n'-Party crew to make, and so it is just as well that T. Rose cannot really make them unilaterally and preëmptively and bindingly.

On the other hand, here is T. Rose in the columns of The Weekly Standard, very nearly at the pinnacle of all "conservative" "intellectualism." He cannot merely be informing us that that he, personally, happens to be more terrorized of neo-Gaza than of all those other candidates. It seems unlikely that T. Rose is actually cowering under his bed, but to suppose his terrorization to be exemplary or figurative does not mend matters.

While there are plenty of examples, past and present, of states that encourage, fund and even practice terrorism, no nations have ever been created explicitly for the sake of terrorism. Not even the Taliban. Hamas was built upon the terrorist edifice created by the organization it recently supplanted--the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), or "Fatah" as it is has become more recently known. The PLO was created in 1964, three years before the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, not to create the world's 22nd Arab state, but to destroy its only Jewish state. Hamas overthrew the PLO in Gaza not to change the PLO's dream, but to fulfill it.

In addition to being a "state," neo-Gaza is a "nation" also. And it's become both since just last week! Golly, who'd 'a' thunk it?

On the doubtful assumption that this Party rhetor is in control of his own claptrap, the TWS customer is being solicited to regard neo-Gaza as a sort of faith-crazed suicide bomber writ large, quite content to perish as long as she takes a lot of her enemies with her when she goes to glory. Ah, well, Gaza is quite a suitable place to stage that melodrama!

What, then, is Washington's answer to Hamastan in Gaza? Why, another bailout of the one organization responsible for the entire debacle in the first place--the PLO. After 45 years of ground work preparing for Hamas' takeover by radicalizing Palestinian society through blood-curdling terrorism, mind-boggling corruption, and world-class inefficiency, the U.S. and Israeli governments have announced their gratitude to Fatah with a billion dollar emergency aid package. Worse than being just another advertisement for diplomatic incompetence, this feeble response to the Hamas takeover will achieve the opposite of what we claim to want. Force-feeding life back into the PLO will not weaken Hamas; it will strengthen it by giving the PLO another chance to demonstrate its fraudulent duplicity. Funding the PLO will not strengthen any real Palestinian moderates; it will discredit them by seeming to tie their fortunes once again to a corrupt, inept--and immoderate--organization.

(Anybody who is a hyphen-lover like that can't be all bad.)

It is hard to avoid thinking that T. Rose may be just a bit disordered in his intellectuals. The TWS customer is asked to be terrorized of neo-Gaza not for what it can do itself, but for what it will somehow enable the fiendish M. ‘Abbás to do if he ever becomes rich enough. I think that's what the claptrap adds up to, but even so, it is rather odd to exhort one's troops to be terrorized of corruption and ineptness. Onwards!

Palestinian society cannot be transformed by reviving the group responsible for its degradation. How does one fight terrorism by rewarding those who invented it? Do "Fatah first" advocates believe that financially rewarding the already heavily-armed and well-funded "security" fighters of Fatah, who turned tail and ran at the sight of Hamas gunmen, will lead them now to fight to retake their posts, having gotten a check from Washington? Do they think the PLO's corruption is best combated by re-upping the employment contracts for its 200,000 dysfunctional bureaucrats--60,000 of whom are the gangsters, thugs, and terrorists associated with the PLO's 13 so called "security services"?

Corrupt and inept and cowardly, it looks like! If Ms. TWS Customer isn't scared of that trifecta, what on earth would it take to scare her?

With Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert dutifully nodding by his side, President Bush called last week's debacle "a wonderful opportunity for freedom." How exactly is the resurrection of the world's founding terrorist organization a "wonderful opportunity" for anything other than more terrorism and corruption?

T. Rose is farther down the great chain than I expected. Obviously he agrees with the hormone-basers, not to mention the jihád careerists, that THEY are immutable, that there can never exist such a creature as an "ex-terrorist." A large percentage of the population of Wingnut City and Rio Limbaugh nods assent to that, and it is slightly mysterious that they should, for if there exists some great Party work that demonstrates, or even purports to demonstrate, the dogma in question, I have yet to encounter it. A pious belief that "History is bunk" is a necessary condition for buyin' the T. Rose product, but hardly a sufficient condition. (As regards terrorism, that is, for Bob Cardinal Spencer at least tries to demonstrate his own favorite neo-dogma about the jihád monsters. T. Rose bein' terrorized chiefly of the Fatáh, it would obviously be silly for him to claim that the Qur’án makes THEM be unalterably that way.)

It might be one thing if a policy of saving the PLO had never been tried. But it has been tried, and it has failed, not once, not twice, but three times. It was tried and failed in 1970 when President Nixon pressured Jordan's King Hussein to let the PLO decamp to Lebanon after the PLO failed to destroy Jordan. It destroyed Lebanon instead. In 1982 the United States again came to the PLO's rescue by arranging its exit from Lebanon during the Israeli invasion. The third, most damaging resuscitation came with the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993, this time not at American hands, but at Israel's. President Bush's "wonderful opportunity" pabulum is not only an embarrassing absurdity; it misses the whole point of what has happened in Gaza. Now there are two Palestines, an East Palestine (the West Bank) controlled by competing and discredited PLO warlords, and a West Palestine (Gaza) ruled by a fervently jihadist, well-organized, and highly disciplined Hamas. Even if something could be done to support Fatah in the West Bank (which in itself is undesirable), this would not enable Fatah to return to Gaza.

Hmm. Has "Central Palestine," the Tel Aviv statelet, actually been wiped off the map while nobody was watching?

But seriously, why should T. Rose take for granted that most of the Party lemmin's are eager to put M. ‘Abbás back in control of Gaza? If they wanted to do so, the trick would be easy enough to perform, of course, given the disproportion in numbers and wealth and (hyper)powerful foreign friends. Not a West Point alumnus, obviously!

The PLO is finished. The Palestinians know it. The Arabs know it. Only we don't know it. The PLO's leader, Abu Mazen, is as likely to use the West Bank to retake Gaza as Chiang Kai-shek was to use Taiwan to retake Communist China. Today's lifeline to the PLO will do no more to reverse the Hamas takeover of Gaza than American support for Chiang in the 1950s did to reverse Mao's takeover of the Chinese mainland. But at least with Taiwan we eventually got a model prosperous democracy--far more than we will ever get from supporting Fatah. Even in the West Bank, where the PLO is supposedly strong, Fatah is more a fiction than a fact. Its leader, Abu Mazen, is Palestine's version of the Holographic Doctor from Star Trek Voyager. As far as most Palestinians are concerned, he is nothing but a figment of the West's imagination, and not a very imaginative one at that. The 13 private militias and armies that make up Fatah control Abu Mazen. He does not control them. Abu Mazen is a puppet with no strings. He has no following in either Palestine, East or West. And the Bush-Olmert plan to prop him up won't succeed for long. The immediate danger to Israel and the West comes from Gaza, not the West Bank. It is in Gaza that Hamas can assemble serious and dangerous weaponry with which to attack Israel (not to mention other Palestinians). It is in Gaza, not the West Bank, where agents of the Iranian regime will plant themselves for renewed war against Israel. It is in Gaza where al Qaeda and other terrorists are already establishing themselves. Gaza is a terror threat, and the West Bank could well become even more of one than it is now. This is the reality democratic leaders should face, rather than wishing what is happening were not.

What scheme is T. Rose wink-wink-nod-noddin' at? Should Dr. Gen. Petraeus of Princeton, or somebody like him, whether Crawfordite or Telavivistani, be put in charge at Gaza rather than T. Rose's old buddy "Abu Mazen"? What a pity the man should have to surge off away from us like that without havin' made quite altogether clear what he's so brilliantly right about and the rest of his Party neocomrades so sadly mistaken!

With libido dominandi as with most other things, the devil is in the details. Of course it is desirable that both components of Gentile Palestine should instantly be reduced to compliance with The Weekly Standard, but how on earth is it to be done? And who's to do it? Ruling out M. ‘Abbás is a first step, but that leaves about six billion other possibilities.

What will Ms. TWS Customer make of T. Rose, I wonder? Since we are dealing with a vanity press publication of Rupert Baron Murdoch's, it is not easy to guess the position of its mere supererogatory readers in the great chain of rightism. If they are mostly a slightly superior type of hormone-baser, perhaps T. Rose will go down well enough. True, he has the impertinence to speak of their Little Brother's "pabulum," but because of the Great Xenophobia Schism in the GOP, many a loyal lemmin' has allowed herself that sort of verbal disrespect lately.

On the other hand if Ms. TWS Customer is located way up there at the average level of TWS scribblers, how shall she be anything but disappointed by T. Rose? How avoid wondering what Rear-Colonel F. Kagan of AEI, for instance, might have written on the same topic? Freddy would not wander off vaguely after tantalizin' her with "This is the reality democratic leaders should face," he would spell out exactly where "democratic leaders" should station their Hessians to shoot back at the upstart reality. To be sure, it's quite possible that Freddy himself might want all available Hessians invested in the former Iraq. He's perhaps not entirely disinterested, so let's imagine some TWS scribbler as competent as Freddy K. No name comes to mind at once, but doubtless there must be a number of able tank-thinkers in the Jewish State who specialize in questions like this one.

It would also be interesting to hear from Colonel R. M. G. Spook, also of AEI, also an occasional TWS scribbler. Neo-Gaza looks like being yet another potential problem of success for the Gerecht Doctrine, according to which "we" must allow THEM to do democracy all wrong at first, because that is the only way THEY will ever learn how to do it right. Come to think of it, Spook never did properly explain, or explain away, how the Hamás won that election in the first place. He owes us one.

Chilling!

"He is obviously a braggart, but if a tenth of what he says is true, it is chilling."


Prof. Cole discards nine tenths of it. To discard ten tenths of it would not really so very different, then, would it? Considering that this tale comes before the world with truly bizarre journalistic credentials -- "There's no way to confirm Abu Rusil's accounts, but there's every reason to believe them" --, that odd tenth looks pretty discardable.

A faint whiff of Willi Munzenberg pervades the whole. It is so extremely easy to see why certain interested parties might invent "Abu Rusil" even if he does not exist, that surely one errs on the safe side to guess that in fact he was invented?

It might be objected that mere Arabs with a neo-Iraqi civil war have not yet advanced as far as Willi Munzenberg "journalism" about the Spanish civil war. A weighty point! Yet if mere Arabs are ever to get there eventually -- and why, after all, should they not? what prevents?-- mightn't the first signs of their arrival look rather like this?

P-R-O-V-O-C-A-T-I-O-N: eleven letters, four syllables. Not exactly Groucho Marx's "common word, a word you use everyday," but also a good deal less recondite than almost any noun that significantly figures in Organic Chemistry 101.

But I oversimplify, for this is not provocatio simplex, which mere Arabs knew about way back before they even got religion, when they ruthlessly unleashed their tribal poets' pagan satires upon one another. This is what a political Linné might dub provocatio munzenbergensis, not any familiar and traditional incitement of Spaniard against Spaniard, but an extramural incitement of all the world press against those Spaniards that Willi and Willi's masters thought really worthy to be clobbered. (It's almost a silver lining to the very dark Franquista cloud to reflect that provocatio munzenbergensis didn't in fact work for Willi. Maybe there's hope even now?)

If I am right about what's happening now, -- and I don't absolutely insist that I am, for God knows best! -- about the munzenbergification of the Arabs, then I can easily point you out certain steps that lead up to it, I am by no means reduced to sheer instant baloney like "no way to confirm ... but every reason to believe." First came the Anglo-Arabian Press Trust, expatriated Arab journalism that wasn't immediately and altogether under the thumb of some particular cardboard kingdom or barracks-based republic. Second came al-Jazeera and its tame wannabe. Third came Dr. Ahmad Chelabi, the self-proclaimed Hero of Error, who munzenberged rather successfully (up to a point), though only on a private-sector, behind-closed-doors basis. Plot those three points carefully, please, and extrapolate a little, and then explain to me why my grave doubts about all ten tenths of this alleged "Abu Rusil" are altogether ridiculous. After all that, is not the Arab World well and properly prepared for overt and journalistic munzenbergerizing? For making up defamatory stories from scratch about all those good local civil-war folks that one bitterly loathes, stories that are neither designed to rally one's own local troops nor irritate the bad locals but rather to manipulate the world elsewhere, the world outside the asylum, the "international community"?

Better to take to allegorical fiction at this point:

"It was a dark stormy night. Ibn Willi sat at his desk trying to work out how to lie for the Sunnintern as effectively as the revered Abu Ibn Willi once lied for the Comintern. 'The trouble is,' said Ibn Willi to himself, 'that all their infidel fishwraps are perfectly happy to thunder against the insufferable "death squads" of the ever-abominable Safavids in the abstract, but they never paint a concrete picture of them. Yet invasive infidels always like pictures, everybody knows that! So why don't we paint a pseudo-picture for the infidels our way and then try to finagle things so they find OUR concrete picture what some of them call "fit to print"?'

"How about we pseudo-paint roughly as follows:

'Life is about getting even,' he said coldly, dressed in the all-black uniform of the Mahdi Army militia. 'There is no innocent Sunni.'

"Might not that do the trick? If our own troops ever saw it, they'd no doubt be amazed to find all-black uniforms considered a problem, but amazingly enough, the invasive infidels attach bad connotations to both 'black' and 'coldly,' and if we assure our marks that Safavid death squads are like that, they'll think worse of Safavid death squads. It's something about their own Spanish Inquisition that the marks think of themselves, I suppose, when they shudder at stern dark-robed unforgiving coldnesses -- but that's their problem, not ours. The main practical point is that if we kick that knee of theirs, that knee will jerk. The secondary practical point is that it would be better if our own troops never learned anything about these High Command considerations at all. Should they do so, they might suppose that we at Sunnintern GHQ have gone over to picture-drawing altogether, substituting idolatry for the ’Islám, and so on and so forth. All nonsense, of course, and everything can always be explained, but it would be better that no explanations get demanded in the first place.

"But, of course, it is not that simple"

Mr. Michael Slackman, presently employed by the New York Times Company, ideally ought to be set up as Warbucks Professor of Simple Science at Yale, or Slippery Rock, or Pepperdine, or George Mason. Clearly he knows all about other people's simplisms in theory, and he can do simplism in practice as well if that is what his bosses want. Add a little bibliography or "review of the literature," -- a routine matter which only requires diligence, not flair -- and what's lacking to found a brave new branch of Social Science?

What's that, Mr. Bones, am I elaborately calling the journalist gentleman a simpleton? Not at all, sir, not at all, was the late M. Nabókov a butterfly, plain or elaborated? Even in his own self-conception? (Hmm, perhaps that last query needs some additional research....)

No, Mr. Slackman is not a simpleton himself, because any anthology of two or more simplisms is at once a complex. Even e(n)tymologists know that. And before you ask, sir, allow me to point out that simplisms are not necessarily lies or mistakes or self-deceptions -- or even ignorance plus self plus self-ignorance mishmashed together modo Crawfordiano. The reason simplisms have a faint cloud over their reputation in some circles is, as I conjecture, that outside of Nat. Sci., they invariably omit some ingredient that clamors (figuratively) to be included. Mr. Slackman is not deaf to this silent clamor, and so he surveys a lot more than simplism A, namely simplisms B through Z.

Once established and endowed, or rather vice versa, Simple Science as I conceive it will have a border with Political Science, and some of the issues Mr. Slackman touches upon in his news analysis, or at any rate brings to mind, are probably located on the other side of that educationalist fence. Simplisms are like electrons, for instance, they repel one another. When one team starts bellowing "All you need to know is A!", the devotees of B are likely to modify their own banner to make it more clearly imply or proclaim that A is negligible or contemptible, over and above neutrally being one not-B option out of thousands or billions. The fact of mutual repulsion undoubtedly belongs to Simple Science, but the causes of it may well belong to the province of Pol. Sci.

Dr. Marx and some others used to claim that Economics was sole proprietress of these causes, but his view is obsolete or obsolescent and certainly has no resonanace at the NYTC. This is rather a pity, since it would be a pleasure to encounter a lucid exposition of the current Fatáh/Hamás/TelAviv/Crawford/Cairo/Riyádh shindig viewed as the struggle of economic classes. I have trouble at once attempting to guess how it would go: at the moment a wide variety of simplists seem to have coincided on the practical position that the immediate thing to do is make Gaza poorer and East Palestine wealthier. Whatever its merits as a policy suggestion, that approach looks like almost a deliberate parody of the former Scientific Socialism; it announces as a "solution" to be implemented in the future what ought to have been, according to Marx, an antecedent condition required to get struggle started in the first place. Even if SS is reduced to an extremely vague claim that economic factors are "in the last resort" dispositive, nothing comes of it (that I've noticed) more than chatter about a "war for oil," despite the fact that the Fatáh and the Hamás and the Qadima and the Likud taken together are geologically invisible by contrast with the Gulf of Petroleum. One might go on from that difficulty to notice that the economics of the Great Cardboard Kingdom and all the lesser Gulfies scarcely resembles anything that Dr. Marx ever mentioned, not even the mysterious "Asiatic mode of production."

Now "simple" as an attribute of the projected Simple Science means "not complex." To take it as "not difficult" would fall far short of the ideal dignity of tertiary education, which concerns itself with matters of lofty speculation rather than of banausic implementation. Once the pure science has been endowed and formulated and established, presumably a technology based upon it will come into existence as well, but meanwhile let us not get ahead of ourselves. The fact that it is anything but easy to imagine a Scientific Socialist account of the current troubles in the Levant does not preclude the possibility that the former Marxism was itself a first draft of the Simple Science. Given the theoretical problems noted, however, it can hardly be the final draft.

Distinguishing "not difficult" from "not simple" reminds one immediately of General von Clausewitz, who stressed that distinction more than any theorist ever did before or since. "War" is utterly simple, yet everything in it is almost infinitely hard to accomplish. As every schoolboy knows, the technical name inside the Clausewitzian system for the cause (?) of this difficulty of martial accomplishment is "friction." General von Clausewitz, like Dr. Marx, has some claim to have founded the Simple Science already, in which case Daddy Warbucks need not fund Mr. Michael Slackman to do so in A.D. 2007. However, as you will have inferred from my punctuation, there are some questions as to whether "war" in the celebrated book sufficiently corresponds to what violence professionals actually do in the field, either to what they have done all along or what they have started to do since the 1830's. It also seems mildly displeasing to imagine that Kriegswissenschaft should turn out to be the universal science of simplicity. That is not a speculative objection, to be sure, only a sentimentalism, yet General von Clausewitz ought to take account of it all the same, for surely this, too, must count as a species of friction?

I don't think Clausewitzianity actually constitutes the Simple Science any more than Marxism does, yet in one respect the Prussian general's claims to partial recognition are even stronger than the Prussian philosopher's: lumping a zillion different impediments together as "friction" and then lecturing about that looks primâ facie like a masterstroke of methodological decomplexification. Perhaps detailed scrutiny will show that it is nothing of the sort, yet all the same, the true Simple Science of times to come will be bound to discuss this bold attempt and how it miscarried, even as thorough instruction in modern chemisty must mention the word "phlogiston" and explain how speculative men concluded at last that it is no more than a word. (Marx fans may nominate "alienation" for their guy as being comparable, but if so, they only pronounce themselves no true aficionados of simplicity. Not much reflection is required to notice that "alienation" is headed towards complexity, not away from it. It may be quite as important as "friction" is, but study of it plainly belongs over in the Department of Complexity Science. [1])

==

The Simple Science being uninvented as yet, or if invented, unknown to ourselves, we can only stroll through Mr. Slackman's collection and make a few random unsystematic observations.

[A] The simplism he detected with the words quoted in the title above goes like this:

“Abbas is accepted by all the Arabs,” said Muhammad Abdullah al-Zulfa, a member of Shura Council of Saudi Arabia, an advisory body with no legislative authority. “I think all the Arabs are with Abbas because all Arabs are with the peace initiative. The whole world is behind Abbas.”

Pretty clearly that is the simplism of the Arab Palace People, the ones in the real cardboard-kingly or barracks-based-republican palaces. Neocomrade Prof. Dr. F. ‘Ajamí's "dream palace of the Arabs" is rather a diferent story.


[B] Naturally the Street Arabs have a simplism of their own:

“Imagine if the U.S. did not support President Abbas, would the international community and the Arab governments have taken this position?” said Muhammad Habib, the deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is banned in Egypt. “This is what bothers the Arab people. The U.S. announces a position and immediately Arab governments adopt it. This is what creates a split between people and their leadership, this subordination to the West.”

(Analogy with the mutual repugnance of electrons is not far to seek.)


[C] Mr. Slackman reserves the Dream Palace simplism to end his news analysis with:

"“Life in the West Bank at least economically, will improve and, we hope, politically will improve,” said Taher Masri, a former prime minister of Jordan. “Hamas in Gaza will look to this positive developments and wish they can join, which will lead elements outside Hamas in Gaza to moderate their position and to join the legitimate government. “That might be wishful thinking,” he said. “I don’t know.”

[D] Does the journalist himself agree with the pol he allots the last word to? I don't believe he does, I think he chose to begin with the simplism he likes best:

The conquest of the Gaza Strip by Hamas has frightened Arab leaders because it was characterized by the same dynamics that have been agitating the region. Once again, as in Lebanon last summer, the fight pitted a Western-backed government against a newly empowered, radical Islamist group aligned with Syria and Iran. And, once again, the Western-backed group lost and the Iranian-Syrian group won. The outcome demonstrated the rising threat to the status quo in places like Cairo; Amman, Jordan; and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, posed by political Islam. And it gave Iran yet another foothold on Arab borders.

I beg your pardon, "he likes best" need not be the case, the great thing is that simplism [D] is what consumers of The New York Times are anticipated to like best. Or so I conjecture.


[E] Finally there is this one, which follows [D] immediately and might be thought of as a sort of simplism [D1]:

“We have a big problem here that is much deeper,” said Abdel Moneim Said, director of the state-financed Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. “It is related to the bankruptcy of the shape of the modern Arab political entity and its inability really to convince the people with where they are going. Then you have the success of the other side, like Hamas, in making a clearer, simpler message.”

(Dear Mr. Translator, how can the "shape" of an "entity" be "bankrupt"? Perhaps there might have been a diagram?)

But seriously, that one is worded so spiffy that you might even be fooled into taking for not a simplism at all. Well, classify it as you like, but myself I'll label it the "Dream Palace of Tertiary Education" simplism provisionally, and disconnect it from the NYTC readership simplism, considering that there is no clear sign in it of Damascus and the evil Qommies. True, "the other side, like Hamas" could be taken to mean "the other side, like the Hamás and the Hizballáh and Syria and Iran." But I'm pretty confident that if M. Sa‘íd had been allowed to get in a few more words he'd have made it unmistakable that "the other side" is Street Arabs as against Palace Arabs.

"State-financed" or not as regards its source, [E] is a different simplism from [A]. Unless I am mistaken, Prof. Dr. Sa‘íd stands above the Street-Palace clash, viewing it afar from atop a pyramid or an ivory tower. He notes that Tweedledum and Tweedledee are mutually "other," but both of them are other than himself.

____
[1] To digress from a digression as briefly as possible, the DCS seems to me to exist already, but it is, quite suitably if one considers, dispersed amongst a number of other disciplines. Attempts to pull Complexity Studies all together have been made which Mr. Bones and I have classified under the rubric "Postwhateverism." It is once again suitable that the pullers-together do not have any one name for it themselves: some of them even dispense with the "post" prefix.

Clark Kent in Hell

It's always an advance when one gives up pretending, as M. Pascal persuaded us to think long ago.

Accordingly, let Slogger City be partially/congratulated for partially/admitting that its "Iraq" press summaries come almost exclusively from the Anglo-Arabian Press Trust -- today starring Al-Sharq al-Awsat, Al-Quds al-‘Arabí, and Al-Hayát. Material actually printed under the yoke of Crawford has far less chance of being summararized or summatorialized. (As always, there is a picture of the front page of The Times of Bazzázístán, whether from the New Baghdad version or the Estuary Arabic version, but this is decoration, not information.)

To come clear is especially admirable considering that the economic rationale of Slogger City is to sell secret insider information about "Iraq" to mercenary corporations and perhaps even the occasional demented investor. Here at El Chipo de Silicio, where by definition nobody would ever dream of paying a counterfeit dirham for such stuff, there is no need to wonder whether the sloggers in fact possess any wares to sell corresponding to their advertisements. For that matter, the summators may take their pay checks without worrying about that subtle point either.

Today's summator does, exceptionally, look one of his AAPT gift horses in the mouth and make a couple of dental remarks.

Iraqi/Arab Papers Wednesday: Shrine Politics Government Arrests "Plotters" in the South By AMER MOHSEN Commenting on the recent bombings of Shi'a and Sunni shrines in Iraq, Al-Sharq al-Awsat’s Rasheed al-Khayyun penned a fascinating article discussing the history and politics behind the tearing-down of revered shrines. One important element that al-Khayyun alludes to –- and which was mostly missing from the analysis of Western journalists –- is that extremist Wahhabi groups may have religious reasons to attack Iraqi shrines, aside from their general anti-Shi'ism, and al-Qa'ida’s political motives (in terms of mobilizing and radicalizing Iraqi Sunnis by inciting sectarian strife). Wahhabism is one of the fiercest Salafi sects in its opposition to icons of all kinds. The building of shrines to commemorate dead religious figures is seen as akin to idolatry by the Wahhabi faith. Many of the homes and graves of the Muslim prophet and his companions were carelessly torn down in Mecca and Medina to make way for the building of highrises, since such historical buildings are considered to have no religious significance, and their preservation for their perceived religious value is sternly frowned upon. The departing kings of Wahhabi-dominated Saudi Arabia are traditionally buried unceremoniously in unmarked graves. Al-Khayyun reminds us that the Shi'a shrines in Iraq, housing the graves of the Imams, were equally threatened over two centuries ago, when southern Iraq experienced repeated raids by the Wahhabi armies, originating from Najd (a region in today’s Saudi Arabia) and expanding northward into Iraq’s hinterland, starting from the 18th century all the way into the 1920s. One of the objectives of the iconoclastic Wahhabis was to seize and destroy the revered shrines of Karbala and Najaf. The last such raid occurred in 1922, al-Khayyun says, and resulted in a Sunni-Shi'a conference in Baghdad, in which Sunni clerics announced that they would defend the holy shrines of 'Ali and Husain. It should be noted that not only Shi'a shrines fell victim to al-Qa'ida’s bombs, several Sunni and Sufi temples were also targeted by the extremist group. The destruction of al-Qadiriya shrine last month was a major calamity for millions of Sufis around the world, who witnessed the grave of the revered Sheikh 'Abd al-Qadir al-Gilani turned into rubble. It is also noticeable that Rasheed al-Khayyun refrained from using the term “Wahhabi” throughout the article, and referred to the armies of Ibn Wahhab as “the Ikhwan.” Khayyun writes for Saudi-owned Al-Sharq al-Awsat, in which any criticism of the Saudi regime or the Wahhabi sect is virtually forbidden.

The Great Cardboard Kingdom is indeed slightly at odds with the rest of the Sunnintern on this point. It would be silly to discuss whether its First Estaters "really" belong to the Wahhábiyya or not, or darkly hint that les altesses royales are trying to conceal something discreditable when they dodge the label. Enough to the discredit of the Baní Sa‘úd is unconcealed already, no need to stretch verbal points in quest of more.

On the other hand, Mr. Bones, their attitude is not quite comparable to our own when Dr. Limbaugh barks and bellows against "the Democrat party." That noise is offensive only because the base and vile deliberately mean to give offense, as if they were Danish cartoonists or Sir Salman de la Verse Satanicke. No doubt those who subscribe to the Enthusiasm of Ibn al-Wahháb dislike the label because it seems to imply that their guru invented his characteristic stuff rather than discovered it. It does not help, of course, that the guru's own name for the stuff was al-’Islám. Al-’Ikhwán raises the same difficulty, one solved in a parallel English case by everybody understanding that whoever calls the Quakers "Friends" must be an enthusiast herself. Nobody sane pouts that one small crew of enthusiasts are insolently claiming a monopoly on amicitia. (Hmm ... if the Foxites had ever got control of a whole cardboard kingdom, would they have tried to banish the Q-word from it? Fortunately for wunnerful us, the First Estate was too debilitated to pull off any such trick as that even three centuries ago -- Foxism being part of the debilitation, obviously.)

As to M. Amer Mohsen, perhaps he only insists on Wahhábí to indicate that the "faith" in question is not his preferred brand of Enthusiasm, even as we might carefully say "ROMAN Catholic" to dissassociate ourselves personally from that species of Superstition. Actually, that "faith" business is even more problematical and interesting: can there be an insinuation that al-’Islám is the name of one Faith, and al-Wahhábiyya the name of a different one? M. Mohsen, however, probably does not think in English so well as to perform an advanced exercise like that.

Meanwhile as summator, he does not make clear whether anybody has seriously suggested that some iconoclastic Enthusiasm distinct from al-Qá‘ida is really killing people and blowing things up in Peaceful Freedumbia. The notion fits in with our own emphasis of how the neo-Iraqi TwentyPercenters have been smashed to smithereens -- here would be yet another smithereen. However, "fitting in with" is not evidential or probative.

In other news, al-Hayat published further details pertaining to al-Maliki’s announcement yesterday that “elements connected to foreign intelligence” were arrested by the government. Al-Maliki made it clear that those arrested are linked to political parties that are “conspiring” against his government, a probable reference to a political front engineered by Iyad 'Allawi to challenge the current government. Iraqi “security sources” revealed to al-Hayat the identity of the men who were apprehended. According to the newspaper, the individuals in question are “tribal chiefs, notable figures and ex-officers in the Iraqi Army” originating from the province of Dhi Qar in southern Iraq. The men were arrested, the newspaper continued, “for their proven links to the intelligence services of an Arab state . . . and for supplying moral, material and logistical support for armed groups that operate in southern Iraq.” Clearly, al-Maliki intends these arrests to create a political scandal for the politicians who may be linked to the detained figures. The ultimate objective of the prime minister may be the discrediting of the political alliance that is currently being cemented against his cabinet.

The Sunnintern, and therefore the Anglo-Arabian Press Trust, may be divided about the wahhábiyya, but when it comes to distrusting and detesting poor M. al-Málikí, they are one pan-united monolith. Accordingly, any graduate of an American journalism school would have stuck in a couple of lines in favor of the current neorégime, even if they had to be specially solicited. M. Mohsen gives us an "on the other hand," but not of that type at all:

On the other hand, al-Quds al-'Arabi published an op-ed by Harun Muhammad defending Arshad Zibari (a Kurdish member of the 'Allawi front), and attacking the two mainstream Kurdish leaders –- Barazani and Talabani -– for admonishing Zibari and his newly founded party. Zibari, who comes from a prominent Kurdish family, was a minister in Saddam’s administration. Talabani fiercely attacked him and Iyad 'Allawi (for bringing him into his front), and referred to the ex-minister as a “mule” (a name given to Kurds who were loyal to the Saddam regime and occasionally fought against the Kurdish Peshmerga). Muhammad wrote that the two Kurdish leaders “panicked” over Zibari’s re-entry into politics. The writer argued that the Kurdish leaders do not have the credibility to attack Zibari’s past and that of his Kurdish followers “who did not rebel against the Iraqi state . . . and did not serve foreign intelligence services, and did not conspire against their country and their people.” Muhammad went on to cite the numerous instances in which Talabani and Barazani struck deals with the Iraqi state, starting with Barazani’s father, Mustapha, who was “placed in a mansion in Baghdad” by 'Abd al-Kareem Qasim in 1958 (the author omitted to mention that Mustapha al-Barazani was placed under house arrest by Qasim) up to Barazani’s famous deal with Saddam in 1996.

Here one detects a (slight) wedge between the Sunnintern, to which the Free Kurds technically belong, and the Anglo-Arabian Press Trust, which does not much care about that. Even more interesting, though, is for an AAPT writer to throw stones at somebody else -- at anybody else in all the world -- for having made deals with Saddam.

"Interesting" is perhaps not the best word for that move. ("We have always been at war with Eastasia!")

Wherein Col. Blimp Saves Civilisation With His Frankness ...

... though at the cost of misrepresenting the late M. Thucydides to a certain extent.

This sermonette is called Hypocrisy That Undermines Civilization by the editors at Real Clear Politics. Although V.D.H. Blimp himself claims that Blimpian Civilisation can be "undermined," he does not seem to have thought the matter through. It appears to me that his peculiar concept of BC is more like a Platonic Ideal, something that will always be there, believe in it or not, a banner that can be abandoned, yet scarcely "undermined." But God knows best.

There is only a thin veneer that separates civilization from man's innate barbarity. Some 2,500 years ago the historian Thucydides once warned us about the irony of revolutionaries and insurrectionists destroying this fragile patina of culture, as if they themselves might be exempt from ever wanting it back again. Yet no sooner, he warned, have such outsiders torn down the system of law than they are in need of it themselves when they assume power and the responsibility of governance. Even the worst terrorist apparently wants his wife and kids to be safe--and able to drink clean water when turning on the faucet. The trick apparently is to blow up the neighborhood's electric pylon while still finding enough light and power to assemble an IED device.

I know a trick worth two of that! Why not invasionize other people's countries in violation of specific treaties and international law and the sanctity of internationally recognized borders and all the underpinning of a predictable international order? It's not as if anybody will need legalistic claptrap of that sort ever again.

When the United States toppled Saddam Hussein, a number of Baathists and Sunni militant groups turned to terrorism to thwart a democratic government that would leave them as a minority without their accustomed and inordinate privilege and influence. Suicide bombing, roadside mines, and kidnapping were all welcomed tactics--along with alliances with savage al Qaeda terrorists to torture and behead innocent civilians. But then radical Islamists in their newfound zones of control began even to butcher their erstwhile Sunni allies in horrific ways. And when they destroyed power, water, and sewer services, suddenly such nihilism seemed a bad idea. Too late--since Sunni Iraq is now a miasma of random killing, open cesspools, and abject lawlessness. Only belatedly have Sunni tribes at last come forward to join Americans and Iraqi government forces to rid Iraq of the primordial al Qaeda terrorists in their midst-- and restore the civil society that they once helped to destroy.

Blimp has surged far, far ahead of mere reality in the provinces of the former Iraq. Of course he is not an area student like Col. G. M. R. Spook, but all the same, it takes quite a bit of unreality-basing to fancy that the Bedouin notables have now converted to Civil Socialism, "belatedly" or any other way. But perhaps Blimp doesn't believe that drool himself, and is only deploying it as a counter in Karl Rove's War? ("Primordial" is good!)

But let's move on to the main theme of today's pudding:

"The Palestinian people will never forgive the Hamas gangs for looting the home of the Palestinian people's great leader, Yasser Arafat," Palestinian authority spokesman Abdel Rahman recently exclaimed. "This crime will remain a stain of disgrace on the forehead of Hamas and its despicable gangs." For years Fatah and Palestinian authority-sanctioned terrorists themselves have undermined civil society by torturing, murdering, and bombing innocents. It was accepted by them that the laws of civilization--due process, exemption of civilians from attacks, and the rule of law--did not apply to Yasser Arafat's government that was as corrupt as it was savage. If you ever were in need of dialysis after you blew up the local clinic and shot the doctors, you could always cross the border to the nearby Zionist entity for treatment. But suddenly such Fatah terrorists are being out-terrorized by an even more barbaric Hamas, whose thugs have even looted the Nobel Peace Prize given Arafat. What barbarians! Where is the law? So now the outgunned Fatah gangsters are suddenly crying about the uncivilized evils of looting, gangs, and random killings. Just as Thucydides warned about insurrectionists destroying civil society, so Fatah once erased civilization's protocols on the presumption that no one else would dare do to them what they routinely did to others. How bizarre that Arafat's followers of all people are reduced to appealing to international norms of decency and legality to avoid their utter destruction in Gaza by Hamas.

You'll notice that Blimp does not rally to his Party's current line, according to which the terrorist Tweedledum is to be deluged with bucks whereas something dreadful is to be arranged for the terrorist Tweedledee. There is no sign of any alternative proposal, though. Perhaps we should all just sit back and meditate on peccatum primordiale.

Middle Eastern and North African Muslims flock to Europe to enjoy a chance at tolerance and freedom long denied at home. But no sooner have many arrived than they slur their adopted continent as decadent, and chose instead to live by a de facto intolerant code of Sharia Law. Only in a free West do these immigrants have the opportunity of denying the free choice of association and lifestyle to their fellow Muslims. And yet if the West were to adopt their own Middle East nihilism, it would eventually itself devolve into a Libya, Syria, or Egypt. Then disenchanted, but unrepentant Muslim immigrants would desperately search for some new West that they could once again both simultaneously enjoy and destabilize.

How about that, Eddie Burke? Who says you can't indict a whole people? With Blimp all things are possible, even to adopt a continent!

Onward! Next comes Greater Mexifornia:

Mexico counts on sending almost a million illegal aliens into the United States each year to ensure billions of dollars in remittance from expatriates, a sympathetic Hispanic lobbying presence in the United States, and easy exits for potential dissidents unhappy with Mexico City's failure to provide basic services for its own indigenous people. To facilitate such massive illegal immigration, Mexican officials hector their American counterparts about our supposed illiberality in not letting millions more stream in unchecked. They have even gone so far as to publish a government comic book instructing their own citizens how to cross the American border safely--and in flagrant violation of our laws. But Mexico has nearly the same problem with its own 600-mile southern border with Guatemala as we do with our own 1,800-mile common boundary with Mexico. Hundreds of thousands of Central and Southern Americans try to cross into Mexico, either to work as cheap laborers or to make their way eventually into the United States as competitors to illegal aliens from Mexico. In response, Mexico's policy toward illegal immigrants on its southern border is as brutal as America's is humane. Violators are often summarily deported--if they are not first robbed by Mexican officials or beaten and killed by criminal gangs. Mexicans may lecture Americans about our purported sins in trying to secure our border, but they don't seem to care what their own government does to Guatemalans. Again, the irony arises that a government that has abandoned the rule of international law suddenly is worried that another country may be doing to it what it does to others. What lies behind this abject hypocrisy of first undermining civilization and then demanding that it reappear in the hour of need?

Well, it would be a oversimplification to claim that everybody alien is only trying to become as up-to-date as Wingnut City and Rio Limbaugh.

Double standards depend on demanding from United States and Europe a sort of impossible perfection. When such utopianism is not--and never can be--met, cheap accusations of racism, colonialism, and imperialism follow. Such posturing is intended to con the West into feeling guilty, and, with such self-loathing, granting political concessions, relaxing immigration, or handing over more foreign aid. Left unsaid is that such critics of the West will always ignore their own hypocrisy, and, when convenient, destroy civilized norms while expecting someone else to restore them when needed.

Blimp's primary enemy, then, is not located in the former Iraq, or in East Palestine and Gaza, or even amidst the abominable Mejicani. Not at all! The foe of foes lurks in Old Europe and in certain degenerate "red state" portions of the Holy Homeland, give or take probably Canada. Blimp surges on to worry about how Hoovervillians and Heritagitarians and AEIdeologues are to cope without lingering on exactly what we fiends are up to. It appears, however, that our motive for smashing Western Civilisation is chiefly to make Blimp and his Party neocomrades feel guilty. As far as sheer narcissism goes, that diagnosis is impeccably just what one would expect from this ideological direction, but it contains a technical mistake: he ought to have "translated the axes" (as I believe mathematicians say) of his narcissism, and emphasized how good it makes us fiends feel about ourselves to dabble in anarcholibertarianism and neobarbarism. Blimp can't seriously fancy that we put his feelin's first!

What, then, to do? Stop feeling guilty, apologizing, and trying to rationalize barbarity. Instead insist on the same uniform standards of humane behavior from our critics that they now demand from us.

It sounds swell, and I'm sure Dr. Limbaugh and Dame Ann Coulter will love Blimp's new product, but all the same, isn't it a bit lacking in details? As is often the case, a concrete example would probably have shed some light on the textbook principle. For instance, "We mean to hold you to uniform standards of humane behavior from now on, Ramsey Clark, and that means that in future you won't be getting away with _________________." From the abstract exposition, the only thing that occurs to me to fill in the blank with would be "trying to make wunnerful us feel guilty."

It is theoretically possible, but not at all likely, that "humane behavior" is considered by Col. V. D. H. Blimp of AEI and Hoover to consist entirely in never making other folks feel guilty. That formula, however, sounds a great deal more like what he might accuse us fiends of believing than vice versa. Could he perhaps have Ayatollah Newman vaguely in mind, and suppose that a humane behaver, a.k.a. "the gentleman," never inadvertently makes others feel guilty? Even as amended, it seems an unlikely bumpersticker, although it does dodge the obvious tu quoque about Neocomradess Coulter.

Finally, remember that there is a reason why millions flood into Europe from the Middle East and to America from Mexico--and not vice versa. There is a reason why Democrats and Republicans don't shoot each other in the streets of Washington, or why blue-state America does not mine red-state highways. And there is a reason why a Shiite mosque in Detroit is safer in the land of the Great Satan than it would be in Muslim Saudi Arabia. It's called civilization--a precious and fragile commodity that is missed even by its destroyers the minute they've done away with it.

As an amateur sociologist, Blimp manages to make even Señorito David Brooks look like Ibn Khaldún or Max Weber. If the sweet puppies of the Right are pleased to amuse themselves by lumpin' together everthing they happen to like and callin' the lump "civilization," well, of course it's still a free country, isn't it? But grown-ups are not to be told with a straight face that such a lump as that can ever be a "reason," let alone an efficient cause.

As an amateur hack pol, hackin' for the Party of Lee Atwater, Blimp and his plan have at least a little bit to commend them. Naturally the Wingnut City "civilization" lump is bound to contain a number of ingredients that l*b*r*l fiends do not care to endorse, so of course if that non-endorsement is all the sweet puppies mean by "barbarism," why, they are 100.0% right -- tautologically.

Observe that Rear-Col. Blimp feels he must exhort the Boy-'n'-Party troops to remember his tautology gimmick. That is to say, he does not suppose that many of them think as he does already. About this point, at least, his political sociology appears to be empirically sound. What the neocomrades customarily raise a self-servin' hullabaloo about is ten times more likely to be labeled Freedom than Civilization. This proportion applies to the GOP geniuses as well as to their base and vile. Indeed, the authentic OnePercenters are even more likely to be clamorous self-proclaimed eleutherophiles than their inferiors. Blimp surges straight over the rift in the Big Party about immigration policy as if it wasn't there, but since he sides against the OnePercenters, he is probably headed for intramural trouble sooner or later. Presumably he does not want to encourage anybody at all to regard country-club Republicans as enemies of "civilization," exactly, but he does rather expose himself on that flank.

"His Mind To Him An Empire Is"

By "empire" is meant a locus of postrealitybasing.

As to "postrealitybasing," PRB, punctuation fails: a mathematician could go ahead and write

[ post [reality basing] ]

and careful intonation could make the correct tree diagram clear in spoken English, but abandoned to print or keyboarding, one has to assume that nobody will suppose that there exists some shadowy entity named "postreality" for conspirators and conspiracy lovers to repose themselves upon. In the case at hand, the actual base goes like this:

. . . in point of fact the events in Gaza could just as well be seen as something (planned or unplanned) facilitating the implementation of a pre-existing plan.

What makes this an imperial example, imperial almost after the Crawford Dynasty's own manner, is "could just as well be seen." That's not quite 200-proof PRB of the sort Dr. Suskind first diagnosed: a true imperial perp would probably insist on "must rather be seen." I think. Yet perhaps not, perhaps the full triumph of Conceptual Empire consists in not giving a hoot how things are seen by anybody outside the Officers Mess? (There is some danger of Napoleon in Hamlet's nutshell off in that direction, however.)

Anyhow, we are graciously permitted to "just as well" see

... that the Gaza events are generally ... another catastrophic defeat for the Bush administration (followed by remedial plans such as these seat-of-the-pants economic projects) ....

Could we "just as well see" some third possibility altogether? Perhaps that the said events were completely unanticipated by the GOP geniuses and were also completely uncaused by them? A sadly subimperial point of view, to be sure, since it would leave nobody in particular in charge, or even anybody vigorously attempting to be in charge. ("Ick, 'shit happens!' -- who ordered that?")

Of course Mr. Bones and I don't mind if you "just as well see" Gaza as a proof of Dr. Velikovsky's new physics, or Prof. Toynbee's civilisation collecting, or even the Global Clashism™ of Huntington of Harvard. The more the merrier! And within limits, the dottier the merrier also. Perhaps Dr. V. is a bit too far-fetched, but wait, let's see, ... gimme a minute, ... how about this one? Why not "just as well see" that the Old Euros have deliberately engineered these latest complexities as part of their well known schemes to establish a less unipolar Weltordnung? (Notice to whom the startled elephants run first! Can this be a coincidence, I ask you? &c. &c.)

Doubtless PRB is not a tenth as much fun when you don't really believe in it and are just going through the mental motions to familiarize yourself with them and try to figure out what other folks see in this parlor game. A waste of time, no doubt, to go through such motions when one does not start with a certain attitude towards Reality in the first place. Not about the true facts of the Palestine Puzzle or which side one is on about the Crawfordites, but about all Reality simply as such. Aristotle and Mr. Bones and I will never get the hang of PRB, I fear, because we are so shallow and insensitive as not to mind a WYSIWYG universe. Presented with what purports to be an instance of Reality, we do not instantly assume that it must be only delusive Appearance, not Secret Truth.

To be sure, a devotee of "could just as well be seen as" is not completely enserfed to Parmenides and Plato, at least not as long as her "just as well" can itself be taken WYSIWYG and does not secretly mean something LeoStraussian like "ignorant dunces like you may take that other simplistic view if you like, sir, for we philosophers have learned that it is never any use to argue against vulgar misconceptions." Unfortunately the rhetoric of conspirators and conspiracy lovers is stacked against taking such a "just as well" at face value. What would you make of some kind new friend at the track who offers you a hot tip in utter contradiction of The Racing Form on the understanding that the two guesses are equally likely to be correct, that the fourth race is a perfect toss-up between, say, "Conventional Winner" and "Slowpoke Blues"?

I doubt you've ever been offered an opportunity to close with Secret Truth on precisely those terms, and I further doubt that it is an accident that you have not. The rhetoric of such a situation comes pre-stacked automatically: nobody offers insider tips, real or alleged, except as being superior to the consensus of outsiders. Since everybody takes this stacked rhetoric for granted, ""could just as well be seen as" does not come within miles of mendacity, it's only a conventional form of politeness, or at worst a venial -- because transparent -- attempt at manipulation. The most self-assured bigot in town can say "Well, I don't know for sure, of course, but it does seem to me that, despite what we have been told , . . ." in hopes of making a sale.

The sale-making context no doubt explains why it is only a two-pronged "could just as well be seen as." Why drag in anything other than what the mark believes already and what the salesman wants the mark to believe instead? Mr. Bones and I at once think of tertium quids galore, but that just goes to show that we've come to the intellectual marketplace to enjoy the show, or to dabble in amateur sociology à la Master David Brooks, not for personal shopping.

We ourselves are certainly not going to buy any Gaza product at all, having long since abandoned the Palestine Puzzle as far beyond us to solve, vado in mirabilibus supra me. Thus we may more or less impartially notice that both obtruded prongs of the "could just as well be seen as" dichotomy agree tacitly on one point that might be considered problematical. Dame Conventional Wisdom assures everybody that the militant Republicans have suffered "another catastrophic defeat." No, rebuts Mr. Hot Tipster, "in point of fact the events in Gaza [are] something (planned or unplanned) facilitating the implementation of a pre-existing plan." Well, you're the one who's going to pay one or the other of them, if anybody is, Ms. Customer, so it is up to you to choose, but you might notice that both vendors seem to think they can read the mind of GOP extremism and discern its deep-laid plans. With Mr. Tipster the political mentalism act is obvious and explicit, but Lady Wisdom is really just the same, a medium too, for how can she tell a catastrophic defeat from a glorious victory unless she knows what was being attempted to be done?

We prescind from Gaza and Palestine, but when it comes to Rancho Crawford, it seems to us the WYSIWYG view would be that the cowpoker vigilantes simply don't know what they want in the Levant any more, and have not known since they finally abandoned all hope of discovering Mr. Anthony Blair's terror-tipped forty-five-minute specials in the former Iraq. Since then there has been nothing but Micawberism and stumblebumism as regards "Iraq," it's been all Karl Rove's War, so to speak, ever since, and Mr. Rove does not deal in plans: desperately seekin' anythin' at all (or its opposite) that can be spun as Success and Victory for Little Brother and the Big Management Party is not to be dignified with the name of "planning." Let's be serious, please, folks!

As regards the Middle East generally, GOP extremism seems (WYSIWYG fashion, once more, that "seems") to have started off with a non-plan to the effect that "Whatever Bill Clinton did was wrong." Since President Clinton rather notoriously had genuine and wonk-worthy plans for the Levant, just not havin' any plans at all was, and is, perhaps exactly what GOP genius requires. The consequences of planlessness have not been altogether satisfactory to Boy and Party, I suspect, especially insofar as the Tel Aviv statelet may have been expected to take over the Western Civistan Planning Department by Crawford's default, but these consequnces have not yet amounted to any mess comparable to that deliberately made in Peaceful Freedumbia.

Perhaps you think I'm trying to cheat about the Brave New Gaza? Well, OK, let's say "did not amount before last week to any mess comparable" &c. &c. No big deal. It will take a bit of time to make out how alarmed or rejoiced the elephants actually are about the very latest developments. I'm sure you can make out, Ms. Customer, that I expect them to be cluelessly flummoxed as usual, but you can have that opinion for free, ma'am, because I'm no more here to sell a Gaza product to you than to buy one from either Wisdom or Tipster.

___

The above treatment of PRB syndrome is a bit harsh. Mr. Hot Tipster and other Platonist insiders doubtless do not think of themselves as "post-realitybasers," but as "post-unmasking basers," wise builders upon the firm rock of Secret Truth rather than the shifting sands of deceptive appearances, that lure so many fools to ruin. Unlike the Crawford Empire boob that talked to Dr. Suskind, they do not typically consider that the unmasking process creates the thing unmasked, but that it was there all along waiting to be revealed to the wisdom of the wise. When it comes to human events, the second part of their Credo really won't quite do, for to buy a Gaza product from Mr. Hot Tipster is itself a human event, and thus a secondary cloud of Heisenberg uncertainty (as it were) is bound to arise all around Mount Parmenides, Olympus of the Unmaskers though it be. The obnubilation effect is subtle, for of course to agree with Tipster and his special sources that the (true, and therefore secret) GOP would dearly like to treat the Levant pretty much as the Mongols did -- and positively schemes in private to do just that! -- does not and can not directly inspire the (apparently existing or WYSIWYG) GOP to do so. Even to speak of indirect inspiration is far from easy. When Tipsterism, or something like it, does reach the ears of the Elephant People, I'd guess the usual upshot is something like "THEY have always hated Wunnerful US. THEY are always goin'ta hate Wunnerful US." So far, so bad, but there is no plunge straight into the ultimate abyss, no "So therefore WE must treat THEM according to the Mongol Plan."

Big Management at Bay?

From a Harvard Victory School MBA point of view there is a major silver lining to their latest pesky little problem of success:

Iraqi newspapers relayed an interview that the Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki gave to Newsweek, in which he REQUESTED that the US Army desists from arming tribal militias in the Sunni provinces to fight al-Qa'ida. The Iraqi government was, at one point, actively involved in the arming of Sunni tribes in Anbar. The government’s newspaper [1] published several op-eds praising the tribes for their role in fighting al-Qa'ida, and al-Maliki made a visit to Ramadi in order to meet with the leaders of the tribal “Anbar Salvation Council” to express his support for their efforts. However, al-Maliki’s posture changed with his realization that the Sunni tribes are intent on using US support to build their own militias, following the model of pro-government Shi'a organizations, which could produce severe “unintended consequences” for the government in the future. Al-Maliki said that any arming of the tribes should be done with the supervision of the government, and that efforts should be made to ascertain that those receiving weapons and support are not linked to insurgents.

Poor M. al-Málikí can only request, you see. Of course the GOP geniuses both can and will ignore such know-nothing requests. The UN Security Council ventured to make a somewhat similar request of them immediately before the Boy-'n'-Party "Iraq" caper began at all, and they ignored Dr. Blix and world opinion and Rulalaw and all such contemptible fetters on their free spirits with glee. Judging from mere practical outcomes, the geniuses' anti-request policy may not seem the wisest available, yet perhaps it is incumbent upon them dogmatically all the same. For consider, is it not the proper rôle of Big Management to make requests rather than entertain then? Occasional exceptions may be not only admissible but productive, yet surely such occasions must remain exceptional and preferably markedly so. Otherwise the Lone Ranger will be degraded from HVS superhero to a sort of public utility, therby shaming the glorious private sector and possibly even opening the door to evil socialism! [2]

To be sure, poor M. al-Málikí does seem to be getting a bit uppity: who is he to profess to be able to identify "insurgents" better than Big Management can? One is not to side with him just because he is a neoliberated underdog, after all. The geniuses will automatically suspect some low "sectarian" motive behind this request, making it even easier for them to disregard it.

From ten thousand kilometers distance one hesitates to pronounce about which crew possesses the better insurgency detectors. It would be desirable to have a great deal of very local knowledge before venturing upon that. And even if one had such knowledge, what if these "Sunni tribes in Anbar" are not themselves altogether sure what they are up to? Might they not be behaving as Big Management has behaved on the USA domestic front ever since the Pentagon/WTC attacks, heaping up as much power as possible for themselves without possessing any clear idea what they will use it for? Anybody who's anybody in "Iraq" nowadays has some sort of armed band at her beck and call: the Crawfordites have the biggest, SCIRI has one, the Sadriyya have one, the Kurds enjoy their pershmerga. Even poor M. al-Málikí commands an armed band, sort of. No doubt it would be more philosophical and judicious of tribal chieftains in al-’Anbár not to run off after the latest fashionable status symbol like witless Gadarene swine, yet surely all those "Arab mind" deepthinkers at Wingnut City can not have misjudged the Bedouin mentality altogether? They assure us that such a temptation is bound to be especially tempting to these people, that the particular sort of status that possessing a militia can bestow is the nomadic Bedouins' very favorite sort and always has been. "Philosophical and judicious" is not how the Arab mind gets portrayed very often, not even the post-tribal Arab mind, supposing such a thing exists.

Certain features of the Big Picture do not depend on accurate and current HUMINT about the boondocks, however, nor upon ArabMind-reading, and among these is the plain fact that poor M. al-Málikí and his HVS MBA friends down at Rancho Crawford are not exactly in cordial agreement about such a matter as this one. The disarray constitutes a significant problem of success in itself, especially from the BM side. After the great March of Milestones that has constituted Karl Rove's war, the geniuses have arrived at nothing better than this, that their fifth, and nominally final, invasion-based neorégime in "Iraq" [2] makes an obstacle of itself like this, or at least attempts to interfere impertinently with its betters' conduct of operations. Why, one might almost joke "Not milestones, but millstones"!

Speaking of jokes, how about Dr. Gen. Petraeus of Princeton and Proconsul R. Crocker of Crawford giving poor M. al-Málikí a shocked and dismayed glance: "Why, to think that anybody should ever mention "unintended consequences" in conjunction with us!"




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[1] Picking on Harvard is always fun, and Father Zeus knows the Party base and vile like to engage in it also!

One really knows better, of course, and imagines the MBA-mongers over on the right wing of the Charles biting their fingernails with chagrin at certain alumnuses' doings and doo-doo. Little Brother's "business career" is also not something the Harvard case method is confidently to be recommended by. It might be kindest to assume that he slept through all his lectures, or rather, all his case studiments, except that the assumption would cast some doubt on the Victory School's quality controls in the matter of awarding degrees. So let us, in charity to all, conjecture that George XLIII learned all the authentic victory stuff throroughly and then forgot it instantly after his last examination. This is psychologically possible, or anyway, it happens in fiction.

A different sort of dogmatist from the HVS / AEI / GOP sort would wish us to reflect seriously whether the Party of Grant's preëmptive retaliation and invasion-basing (and request-ignoring) are not in very fact consequences of what some used to call "late capitalism." On the whole I think not, because the analytical category of Big Management is radically not conceived along their lines. Socialists, and especially scientistic socialists, take for granted that economics trumps everything, whereas I stand with the late M. Maurras for Politique d'abord!

The original hint for "Big Management" came from Prof. Robert Paul Wolff, if I can reconstruct my own thinking correctly. He observed about American "pluralism" that management and labor are both regarded as equally valid "interest groups" despite gross numerical disproportion. Since Wingnut City had long since already devised "Big Labor" to gnash its partisan fangs against, it seemed easy and obvious to come back at them with "Big Management." The fact that Citizen Wolff had pointed out that in a mechanical nose-counting sense BM is not so big only adds charm and sarcasm to sober political investigation. Alternatively, one might take the figure of rhetoric slightly more seriously and argue that since ex hypothesis labor and management are exactly the same size, each individual Manageritarian must be very gross indeed, each Laborite small and puny. It takes ninety-nine others to weigh as much as a single OnePercenter weighs. Wolff was no rightist, obviously, but he called himself an anarchist rather than any sort of socialist. The socialists presumably would not have admitted him to their club, because the whole affair (like most of RPW's other affairs) is about politics and political sociology or, at worst, about political psychology. Economics scarcely comes in at all.

A scientistic Marxian could maintain that Wolff in effect assumed that the USA had reached a posteconomic Nirvana that the palaeocomrades would of course consider entirely delusive. There is a little bit to that objection, but only a little. Think about how the Homeland of Father Zeus actually works. Dr. Limbaugh, who perverted years ago to OnePercenterism, is always attemptin' to discredit "the Democrat party" with charges of rousing the rabble to class war, a concept he understands more or less as Dr. Marx did, all envy and economics. Nothing could be less reality-based, although perhaps the honourable and gallant neocomrade is not simply the loudmouth and jerk he looks like being, because that stale Cold War tripe does distract his patients from the real case against Boy and Party. In the real world, Daddy Warbucks is not a problem because of his brandy and cigars, and only a containable problem nowadays, usually, because of how he runs his sweatshops. The chief trouble is Warbucks' OnePercenterism, his contempt for nose-counting, for (mere) democracy in the (trivial, unworthy!) sense of majoritarianism. Daddy's tank-thinkers, the AEIdeologues and Hoovervillains and Heritagitarians, are always trying to come up with an antimajoritarian "democracy" product that will blow "the Democrat party" out of the water once and for all, but they have yet to achieve their ambitions completely. I attribute this correlation of forces to the elementary historical fact that Democracy was here first, Capitalism only came in afterwards. Prof. Wolff did not, that I recall, attribute it to anything at all, he just took it for granted. A Marxist may argue that such a taking for granted is disastrous, but she is asking for difficulties by adopting that view: she is likely to end up forced to maintain that not only do Wolff and McCloskey fail to understand America properly, America Herself fails to do so. (Socialists not only may so argue, they actually have and rather frequently: remember all the former rigmarole about "false consciousness" and 'alienation," deployed against the contemporary USA in a manner only superficially resembling Marx and Engels on nineteenth-century Europe?)


[3] Perhaps the brief sultanate of Gen. Garner need not be counted against the perps, in which case there have been only four (4) invasion-based neorégimes imposed upon Peaceful Freedumbia: the Bremer sultanate, the "interim government" under Dr. ‘Alláwí, the "transitional government" under Dr. Ja‘farí, and now at last the post-interim, post-transition whatchamacallit of poor M. al-Málikí.

One might suppose that it high time for the Big Managers to stop travelin' and announce that they have now definitively arrived. Surely poor M. al-Málikí himself must take that view!

Yet obviously it would be rash, or perhaps even absurd, to suppose anything of the sort. It is well known that Big Management wants its own colonial handiwork considerably retinkered: a petroleum law, a re-Ba‘thification law, local elections that it probably expects to use against its own Green Zone collaborationists, even amendments to Khalílzád Pasha's "constitution"! Any talk of definitive arrival is manifestly premature.

Not Quite Lyndon LaRouche!

It's generous of Señorito Michael Rubin to award four stars to a book so hostile to his peculiar subfaction of GOP extremism. M. al-‘Alláwí does not like anybody very much, but he only lets himself off the leash in three cases: (1) Sultan Jerry Bremer, (2) Dr. ’Ayad ‘Alláwí, the Secularist Strongman (no relation), and (3) the "neoconservatives", Rubin's crew. Being rather a para-British gentleman than anything else, M. al-‘Alláwí does not have much feeling for cowpoker culture, and really should have spared us his notions about Prof. Bernard Lewis and Prof. Leo Strauss.

His emphasis on the influence of political philosopher Leo Strauss is both bizarre and cheapens Allawi's works. Certain passages read [like] a highbrow version of Lyndon LaRouche or other conspiracy theorists. His footnotes enhance such inaccuracies, often expanding tangential narrative rather than providing source material. He disparages both Iraqi and U.S. officials--often without self-criticism or introspection--and warns that time is running out.

Authentic LeoStraussianity is so exceedin'ly high-falutin' that it can't exactly "cheapen" anybody's narrative. But it does tend to leave monkeys who borrow it to adorn a tale without understanding it looking very like monkeys. A reviewer who wants to be helpful to readers rather than neocomrades would have observed more generally that M. al-‘Alláwí pays a good deal of attention to Washington and Crawford up to September 2003, when he returned to "Iraq" himself, but after that essentially none at all. Karl Rove's War, probably the most important campaign of all for grasping the Big Picture, is scarcely present. Acordingly this can not be the definitive account of the aggression and occupation, no matter how good it is on those human events that it does not leave out.

The AEI señorito complains with justice about M. ‘A's footnotes, but should have added that when one really wonders "How does he know that?" or even "Did that ever happen at all?" even the nearest tangential footnote tends to be several paragraphs removed. The work is readable -- though not 100% proofread, O Yale! -- but it is certainly not citable. If M. al-‘Alláwí wants future historians to rever his name, he should prepare a shorter account, perhaps one hundred pages, strictly in the first person singular, so there is never any doubt what authority is being invoked.

"He disparages both Iraqi and U.S. officials--often without self-criticism or introspection"? Indeed he does, indeed he does. That M. al-‘Alláwí does not like anybody very much is the first thing any reviewer ought to mention. However there are a few faint traces of self-criticism and introspection and there might have been more in a first-person account. The para-British gentleman is quite capable of mumbling, "Well, actually, I don't like myself all that much either." His censoriousness about his partial namesake, Dr. ’Ayád the Interim Government quasipremier, looks like a case of two of a trade failing to agree. Their common trade, however, is not what the AEIdeologues would prefer, since neither of them has much use for "democracy," let alone democracy.

He "warns that time is running out"? Actually he doesn't. Having no crank panacea to vend, there would be no point in his doing so. The observation is interesting from the señoritoly side, however. Evidently the neocomrades are not to believe that time is running out, and indeed, perhaps it isn't, as viewed from the editorial offices of The Weekly Standard and the ramparts of AEI. However if the day is saved from that point of view, there will be no reason for mere neo-Iraqi subjects to take an interest in a salvation that won't be theirs. M. al-‘Alláwí writes as if "neo-conservatism" has had a stake driven through its heart and can never rise from the crypt to make still more trouble. This matter is located west of the Atlantic where his expertise is inadequate, though, and the señorito faction may have the last laugh yet, which would certainly be no joke for wretched "Iraq." Notice that all three of the victims he really dumps on are presumed to be gone forever, a presumption which seems entirely safe only in the case of Neocomrade P. Bremer. (As I recall, M. Rubin has dumped on P. Bremer himself, which may help explain the four stars. Like me, the señorito prefers in general not to waste time talking about what he agrees with already.)

Like me, the señorito finds that the book suddenly gets better once Sultan Jerry has vamoosed:

Allawi is at his best on coverage of events during his ministerial tenure with valuable perspective about Iraq's reconstruction, the April and November 2004 battles against Sunni insurgents and Shi'i militias, the debate over elections, and the growth of corruption networks. Juxtaposing his account with U.S. newspaper coverage underlines the superficiality of the New York Times and Washington Post.

As often, there is some question exactly whom the neocomrades chiefly crave to be at "war" against. Part of the four star award must be due to M. al-‘Alláwí's providing handy ammo like this against the intellectually respectable press. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." In fact, though, the former quasiminister is not especially hostile to the NYT and WP; he cites them frequently without any lamentations about superficiality. The closest he comes to MSM-bashing is not very close:

The New York Times in a vitriolic editorial [of 2 April 2006] demanded that Jaafari be driven out of office. [p. 443 and fn. 21]

Aunt Nitsy's best friends can occasionally be troubled by that editorial vitriol of hers, and in any case editorials are licensed to be superficial, unlike news stories. Presumably the señoritos agreed with her on this particular occasion. Like the NYTC, but unlike M. al-‘Alláwí, they wanted M. ‘Abd al-Mahdí of SCIRI as quasipremier of the fourth or "permanent" invasion-based neorégime. I believe that pol was regarded as especially in line with economic AEI-think. Instead we all got poor M. al-Málikí of Da‘wa, but the consequences of that curious affair fall outside the chronological scope of the book.

As one would expect, Neocomrade M. Rubin reads the work omphaloscopically, so there are large swaths of it that simply do not interest him. Among these is what I should account the theme of the whole pudding, namely that "sectariarianism" is no delusive appearance, but a real thing not to be explained away by handwavers and bullshit artists and partisan Scandanavian academics. Enough time has now passed since the GOP aggression for M. al-‘Alláwí to be able to offer a sort of developmental theory of sectarianism, a move which must be sound conceptually and in general even if the details need to be revised. He dates the trend towards neoreligionizing in the former Iraq well back into the days of the Ba‘th, and that, too, can scarcely be a total mistake. Naturally he has no truck with Sunnintern fantasies that the paleface invasionites somehow introduced sectarianism along with their bayonets and Humvees into provinces that were entirely innocent of it before.

Equally naturally, the para-British gentleman does not care for sectarianism at all personally, and one supposes that as "senior adviser to the Prime Minister of Iraq" (cf. the book jacket) he endeavours to woo poor M. al-Málikí, and perhaps Da‘wa as well, away from the poison as much as he can. His exact political identity is never made clear, but most likely he considers himself an independent and a technocrat, so that even Da‘wa is rather "they" than "we." His use of that antecedently dubious word "Islamist" is especially hard to pin down: my best guess is that he regards at least some of the adherents to the U.I.A. caucus as non-Islamists, therein disagreeing with the consensus of paleface analysis. (Speaking of which, it's a wonder that Señorito Rubin passes over how often M. al-‘Alláwí refers to Prof. Juan Cole, sometimes with verbal incense burned to him as well. To be sure, most of these references are of the Schlesinger Minor sort, "As Plato once observed, the sun rises in the east." He who omits footnotes where they are needed sticks them in where they aren't, and that makes a certain kind of sense, I suppose.)

There is more solid information about (Twelver) Islamism in this book than in any other invasion-language work available, but M. al-‘Alláwí's exact relationship to his knowledge demands attention. He seems to have learned almost all of it since September 2003. [1] Before that date he no doubt thought of himself as an ’Imámí Shí‘í but cannot have been much interested in marji‘iyya and wiláyat al-faqíh and so forth. He was perhaps even vaguely antagonistic to such seminary stuff, for he remains a (mild) political Iranophobe still. There probably is not anything in Twelverdom that warrants being called anticlericalism, but if there was, M. ‘Alí A. al-‘Alláwí would subscribe to it at once. This has a bearing on his attitude towards the Damascus Da‘wa, so to call it, which resolutely refused to allow the mullahs a big political role. The consensus and I would regard the Málikí-Ja‘farí Da‘wa as "Islamist" all the same, but it is possible that M. al-‘Alláwí disagrees.

Señorito Rubin at AEI is not interested in any of this, which is perhaps no surprise, but it seems a bit curious that he does not mention M. al-‘Alláwí's sui generis account of the Rev. al-Sístání's political gamesmanship. Such a writer cannot criticize the marji‘iyya directly, and he does not, yet he makes it plain enough that he thinks Najaf more part of the "Iraq" problem than of the solution. On the other hand, the Rev. al-Sístání and Dr. Chelabí are the only two native pols he attributes any political talent to. He greatly exaggerates the former's supposed wheeling-and-dealing in my judgment. His Eminence just happens to find himself in a structural situation where a basically very simple policy -- let all the Twelvers stick together, and then they will rule after the militant Republicans finally go away! -- can be perceived as fiendishly crafty. The al-‘Alláwí account is mostly just a mare's nest. (One might speculate that there were objections from the direction of Najaf about the "technocratic" conduct of M. al-‘Alláwí's various quasiministries that he prefers not to mention explicitly. But God knows best.)

Returning to the theme of the pudding, it appears that the sad reality of "sectarianism" is properly appreciated by one very exceptional Iraqi in every generation, by Faisal I of the Mecca monarchy [p. 17 and 21f.], by the off-beat sociologist ‘Alí al-Wardí [p. 12ff.], and now in the fullness of time by former quasiminister ‘Alí al-‘Alláwí [passim]. Mild-mannered is the last named, yet far from modest! The GOP's invasion-based "Iraq" would be a sad disappointment to him even without its more obvious troubles and problems-of-success. This gentleman gives the impression of having attended his thirtieth or fortieth class reunion only to discover for the first time that he is the graduate of an idiot school.

Under the circumstances he has no positive program to recommend to anybody, neither to the idiots nor to to the invasionites. One could hardly expect him to.



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[1] One might even speculate that he was still learning the lore as he wrote about it, although this guess is risky as well as unimportant. Certainly there is a howler on page 27 that never recurs subsequently:

At the age of eleven, [Muhammad Báqir al-Sadr] left Kadhimiyya for Najaf, where he joined the hawza (the Islamic study circles) of several leading mujtahids, especially the circle associated with Ayatollah Muhammad Rouhani. He later moved to the hawza of the Grand Ayatollah Abu al-Qasim al-Khoei ....

The quasiminister is also strangely unwilling to translate the Sadrist antithesis of "speaking Hawza" and "silent Hawza" literally, although this may have to do with his determination to make the Rev. al-Sístání out no "quietist." At page 111, he mistakenly claims that the Rev. Muhammad Báqir al-Hakím invented the peculiar SCIRI dogma of marji‘iyya siyásiyya only after returning to "Iraq" in 2003. It is older than that, and originally featured the Rev. Khamene’í, not al-Sístání, as the nonpolitical recursion-point.

The View from Camp V

The View from Camp V

Let's start with the view proper, the status of the occupation of "Iraq" as GOP extremism officially conceives it:

. . . Mr. Gates disagreed with recent assessments by Democratic Party leaders in Washington, who said that senior American officers had not accurately described the true, and chaotic, state of affairs in Iraq. Mr. Gates said the generals he met “have been very realistic,” and he characterized Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior American commander in Iraq, as one who “has not pulled his punches” and has the “ability and willingness to call it like he sees it.”

Well, actually, Neocomrade Gates does not disclose the official Party view, does he? He lets "chaotic" pass uncontradicted, no more than that. We are informed yet again what a genius their Dr. Gen. Petraeus of Princeton is, and now we learn that he is Honest Abe as well, but unfortunately "chaotic" comes from somebody else's honesty than Abe's.

But what did you expect? The authentic Petraean Blick ins Chaos comes with TOP SECRET stamped at the top and bottom of every page, and so it does not come to us humble at all. We know that the sage in armour considers in the abstract that neocolonialism ("counterinsurgency") requires full and accurate information ("intelligence") about its patients, so we presume the Prof. Gen. is trying to collect it as best he can amidst conditions of (alleged) chaos, but to be allowed to visit the Wunderkammer? Naturally not. Despite all their shared Honest Abery, the chickenhawk Big Manager from Crawford Enterprises Inc. may not have seen the full collection either.

However we have already learned that this Big Management crew doesn't mind workin' blind, and there they appear to be goin' again:

Although Mr. Gates described his goal as encouraging efforts by the Maliki government in Baghdad, he also expressed a desire to increase cooperation with provincial political leaders and local tribal sheiks. He said that “perhaps we have gotten too focused on the central government, and not enough on the provinces, and on the tribes and what is happening in those areas.” He said he hoped to spark greater attention to this “ground-up effort.”

The public prints are adequate background for this latest BigManagerial swerve, no matter what may be locked up in the Petreaean curiosity cabinet. It's not exactly a question of "focus," though, for focus implies nonblindness. Surely the case is rather that Boy and Party have lately found it more rewardin' to buy up Bedouin retail than to keep on with their wholesale bullyin' of poor M. al-Málikí, and now that that trend has been in existence for thirty minutes straight, why of course it was what they oughta been doin' all along! Ah, Ground-Up Effort, why didn't Honest Abery think of it sooner?

(If you remember back enough thrilling chapters, perhaps Honest Abery once did think of it: before the actual aggression there were a number of attempts to get the future neoliberateds to remove Saddam and destroy all the forty-five-minute terror-tipped specials and thus presumably obviate the necessity of the aggression altogether. However since one would have had to be an indig major, at least, to effect a coup, and probably an indig colonel or a general, "ground-up" may be a bit misleading description. On the other hand, one is to recall that Big Management's executive suite is located so far up the skyscraper that its denizens may pardonably be rather vague at times on exactly where the ground is located. And even now, it is of course sheikhs and tribes that they want to buy, not individual enemy combatants.)

Militant GOP gentry like this R. Gates specimen probably think poor M. al-Málikí is no brighter than they are, and indeed, perhaps he is not, generally speaking. However in this case he is hardly to be bluffed with instant paleface neobaloney like "We don't need you and your 'sky down' Green Zone any more, little man, not when we've got all the 'ground up' sheiks and tribes that taxpayers' money can buy!" Poor M. al-Málikí may presume a bit too much on how badly the big foreign friends that first created him need him still, but he has a great deal of neoimperialist capital to draw on all the same. The threat of an ‘Alláwí Restoration at New Baghdad Centre might be really fearsome to Núrí Kamál Jawád, but "perhaps we have gotten too focused on the central government, and not enough on the provinces, and on the tribes and what is happening in those areas" is transparently mere tripe and baloney. The object of any sane invasion strategy and occupation policy must be that all the outlying yokels shall tremble at and, trembling, OBEY New Baghdad Centre. To provide the Party's neoliberated yokels with independent means of support that are potentially independent of NBC is mere quackery that West Point and the Harvard Victory School would blush to be associated with. Poor M. al-Málikí is far from safe absolutely, but he is safe from that.

The Gates specimen of extremist GOP Big Management has not lost all its patience quite yet, of course:

Mr. Gates said he would discuss with the Iraqis how to make certain that the bombing of a revered mosque in Samarra — and a feared round of reprisals — “won’t further disrupt or delay the process” of political reconciliation. He acknowledged that Mr. Maliki and his government were facing “enormous obstacles,” but he said that the prime minister must do more to demonstrate to the Iraqi people that his government would “lay the groundwork for a future Iraqi state in which all of the different elements can live in peace with one another." “I think the prime minister is trying to address that challenge as well as he can, and I think he deserves our support,” Mr. Gates said.

Does the Gates specimen have either West Point or an HVS MBA on its resumé? Perhaps one individual does not much matter in so great a discrimination of things, however. Elementary MacNamarianity itself has become problematical in neo-Iraq, at this point the imediate reputations of both Big Management and Big Strategy are at risk. Which cause is to triumph in Peaceful Freedumbia, paleface Invasionism or swarthy Chaos? Which crew is to esconce itself in the genuine "Camp Victory" at the end of the day, West Point alumni and Harvard Victory School MBA's, or some pullullatin' mob of trailer-trash local yokels? (Over in the e-gutter with the Bani Horowitz and the jihád careerists, do we not hear this same dichotomy expressly spoken of as if it were Civilisation vs. Barbarism?)

The Gates specimen might perhaps appeal to fas est et ab hoste doceri. "Why should not our sky-down GOP Big Management learn a few peripheral "ground-up" technical lessons from native devotees of Chaos?" Evidently the Doctor General from Princeton thinks so about Big Stategy as well, and doubtless he is more konsequent, as well becomes a violence pro compared to a chickenhawk pol, even if the latter be SECDEF.

The maxim deserves its proverbial standing, I'd say, and yet perhaps it is only secundam quid and not absolutely simpliciter. Obviously if our Sky-Down GOP extremists ever perverted into believers in "ground-up" altogether, that would the last word anybody would hear of them. There is a limit to what the neo-gentry of 2007 can learn from those whom they declare "war" upon, and it is quite a different limit from anything that Rome and Carthage ever had to consider. The palaeo-gentry used to allow that even Carthaginians were more or less human too, sort of, whereas nowadays Boy-'n'-Party Big Management only too obviously wants to be at "war" with mere cockroaches in human form. After they've unilaterally and preëmptively upped the ante like that, fas est et ab hoste doceri probably ought to be revisited. To learn lessons from babykiller Carthaginians may or may not be the same thing as to study with terrorist cockroaches. I shan't pronounce either way, only suggest that the matter merits looking into.


Returning to the individual Gates specimen, "“I think the prime minister is trying to address that challenge as well as he can, and I think he deserves our support." Even a thorough Boy-'n'-Party neocomrade might find that weasel word "support" slightly feeble! Is it to be only "support," then, that poor M. al-Málikí is to be vouchsafed by his Big Paleface Friends? Couldn't the proud possessers of West Point hyperstrategy and the Harvard Victory School 's masterful business administration (plus also in a pinch Princeton University) share at least a little of their Big Managerial and Big Strategic expertise with him also? Did not the Gates specimen itself recognize "enormous obstacles"?

The fate of poor M. al-Málikí is that of Tantalus, ever doomed to these Big Paleface Friends of his who could do everything in "Iraq" for themselves so easily with all their toplofty expertises and all their Sole Remaining Hyperpowers -- except that the BPF refuse to do so many easy-for-them-to-do things, they insist that au contraire it is rather poor M. al-Málikí who must do all the heavy lifting for the extremist GOP, offerrin' no more than this wretched Gatesian "support" of theirs, a "support" evidently consistent with former (and maybe future) ‘Alláwí intrigues, and now with sheikhly tribal intrigues as well.

Tantalus fares better in Hell, where at least there's no question of Father Zeus replacing him and then announcing to a press conference that Tantalus was dismissed because he never tried hard enough.

[Gates] acknowledged that Mr. Maliki and his government were facing “enormous obstacles,” but he said that the prime minister must do more to demonstrate to the Iraqi people that his government would 'lay the groundwork for a future Iraqi state in which all of the different elements can live in peace with one another.'"

Here is the crownin' insufferable insolence of militant extremist Boy and Party, as it seems to me: after denyin' poor M. al-Málikí all the top secret or unclassified Big Expertises of West Point and Princeton and the HVS MBA's, after denyin' him most of their more physical Sole Remaining Hyperpowers, after hintin' unmistakably that if the invasionite GOP's ideal Peaceful Freedumbia never does work out as originally expected it will be the fault of indig ratfinks like him, Boy and Party now suggest through the Gates specimen that poor M. al-Málikí's basic problem has nothing at all to do with his Big Paleface Friends at Rancho Crawford, it's only that he has failed "to demonstrate to the Iraqi people that his government would 'lay the groundwork for a future Iraqi state in which all of the different elements can live in peace with one another.'"

Had sky-downwards Big Management and Big Strategy spoken a bit less imperiously, had they allowed that although BM and BS can pull off many applause-worthy tricks, "to demonstrate to the Iraqi people" happens unfortunately not among them, the insolence would not have become insufferable. And even for shameless sky-downers charitable allowances must be made when possible, although what kind of an allowance is it, really, to grant that exotic invasion-crazed bozos can seriously account themselves more in touch with "the Iraqi people" and "a future Iraqi state" than poor M. al-Málikí is?

The real Gatesian obstacle at the moment seems to be that poor M. al-Málikí innocently or slyly supposes his own neo-régime to be the "future Iraqi state" now already instantiated. No more Karl Rove "milestones," no more Nancy Pelosi "benchmarks," this is IT, guys. We have ARRIVED. Maliki Station, end of the line, everybody out of the bus!

Is not poor M. al-Málikí's "government" to be accounted "sovereign" and "independent" and "democratic" and perhaps even maybe "constitutional"? Well, no, of course it ain't, exactly (?), but Boy-'n'-Party militant Big Management and extremist Big Strategy have fibbed to the contrary so often and so consistently that it's hard to avoid a certain Schadenfreude looking at them in this uncomfy corner they've ingeniously painted themselves into stroke by stroke. Poor M. al-Málikí is more than a Diem to be casually shoved aside by Big Managers and Big Strategists who undoubtedly sympathized far more profoundly with "the Vietnamese people" than any Vietnamese neo-régime ever could have. Maliki is a more serious obtacle than Diem, because Big Management and Big Strategy and GOP genius contributed to set Maliki up in the first place, whereas Diem was basically there already even in advance of the invasionites.

But let's not rush to judgment:

The defense secretary cautioned that an official assessment on the impact of the troop increase due in September and ordered by Congress might not present a full picture of the situation in Iraq. “There still will be a lot of uncertainty,” he said. “But I think we will have some sense of direction and trends.” (...) He agreed that the security situation is “a very mixed picture.” He urged patience until the fifth and final Army brigade ordered by President Bush to bolster forces in Iraq could begin full operations. That brigade arrived this month.

Do the Party hopes of the Gates specimen-- SECDEF to USA! -- now hinge on single brigades, then? After we have laughed at that absurdity, we may set it aside and forget it forever, I trust.

"Some sense of directions and trends" would do none of us any harm, but that's rather a vague formulation, and perhaps not Imposition's best guide to Chaos. And what is to be said of a Big Managerial Impositionizer who does not just buy "The Exiled Insider's Guide to Indig Chaos" by Ahmad Chelabi, Ph.D. et al., as a curiosity, but actually attempts to invasionize and occupate other people's countries by a manual like that?

Predictions about the future are almost impossibly difficult, and what prediction I have to offer is the very cheapest and shoddiest: the Big Strategy and Big Managment neo-future is here already, Maliki Station really is the end of your Party line, O Boy-'n'-Party thugs. If you choose not to rally around Maliki Station as the definitive Success and Victory that your Karl Roves have always panted after, that's your affair, but if you seek farther, you'll fare much, much worse and find no better product than this product to rally around at last

In another post I may attempt to explain why poor M. al-Málikí is not really quite as bad as the invasionite neo-gentry despise him, but that explanation is optional and extra. The immediate point is only that all the Big Bignesses should see that he's the best they're likely to get and therefore immediately stop knockin' and start boostin'. And I mean really boostin' and not just some wishy-washy Gates creature's kind of "support." Maliki Station is the end of the line, a veritable terminus. No more casually switchin' trains any time you choose, O gentlecreeps! You must either defend your Maliki Station or abandon it -- weaselin' your way around as usual happens to be impossible. (You can't weasel your way around the end of the line, not on a railroad!)

Let Big Management and Big Strategy now do their utmost for poor M. al-Málikí, always tryin' to uphold the client, never even for an instant doin' anythin' to undermine, never even for an instant flirtin' with the notion that some other client might be better upholdable! Let all the secrets of how Big Management and Big Strategy would solve neo-Iraq be communicated to poor M. al-Málikí forthwith! He's bound to think most of it misguided paleface sky-down rubbish, but perhaps it is not all entirely rubbish, perhaps if it was raked through carefully a gold ring or two might turn up.

The Rally for ‘Alí

Has there ever been anything like it, Mr. Bones? The whole "Iraq" aviary loves Mr. ‘Alí al-‘Alláwí; chickens and hawks and chickenhawks and vultures and doves and buzzards and dodos and bulbulshit-artists unite to warble his praises!

That's the invasion-language aviary that I speak of, to be sure. If he had had the bad taste to write such a book in Arabic, things would be rather different. Fortunately his taste is exquisite. He's such a perfect facsimile of Ayatollah J. H. Newman's British gentleman that the genuine article might as well withdraw from the unequal contest at once. Anyway, ‘Alí has definitively mastered the lesson about never offending anybody unintentionally.

Before we get to those whom Mr. A. offends deliberately, we need a little OB, however:

[1] ‘Alláwí, ’Ayad (not "Iyad", no article on the surname) is the former caudillo

[2] al-‘Alláwí, ‘Alí is today's hero, author of The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace

[3] al-‘Alláwí, Hasan wrote Al-Shí‘a wa l-Dawlat al-Qawmiyya fi-l-‘Iráq.

[2] must assume either that [1] is not going to prove a once and future caudillo, or else that [2] will be well out of New Baghdad when the [1] coup happens. Ali's almost as deliberately offensive about no-relation Ayad as he is about the late Sultan Jerry, who is definitely never coming back to do more damage, as well as treated with deliberate offensiveness by a number of his Party co-conspirators against peace. Being nasty about the GOP's Neocomrade Paul Bremer is so safe and easy that it is scarcely worth the effort, but painting a moustache on Dr. Ayad Allawi's posters and posturings takes a bit of nerve. Yet needless to say the pluperfect replica of a Anglo-Saxon gentleman cannot be an effete wimp! The claws may be velveted, but they are there all the time. All our paleface planmongers for the provinces of the former Iraq had better keep a careful eye on this guy, at least if there is some slight chance that their preferred occupation policies will actually be attempted to be implemented. Ali stopped taking notes for the book about a year ago when he will have started writing it, but now the book is written and its author can pay full attention to all the latest neostumblebumisms. Rear-Col. Freddy Kagan, among others, should consider himself hereby caveated.

Back on the literary side, it seems pretty clear why all the birds and all the bird-brains swoon over Ali. He does not, at bottom, like anybody very much, but he is also very circumspect about his disrelishments except in a few special cases like Jerry and Ayad, where he lets himself go. The doves perceive that Ali doesn't much care for the chickenhawks, but the idea that anybody might disrelish the doves is so alien and offensive (to the doves), that they manage to overlook certain pretty plain tip-offs. And of course over there down across the road a piece in Chickenhawk City, it's the same contract, only doubled, redoubled and vulnerable: eight times the self-autonarcissism means eight times as much unattentive reading. Bremer the invasionites no longer care about, and apart from Bremer, Republican Party extremism is handled very gently and gentlemanlike indeed. Ali usually just refers to "the superpower," which Godzilla of Yale is bound to take as a compliment. I shouldn't go quite so far as to maintain that Ali means "the superpower" only as a sneer -- "Look what an almighty pigsty of an 'Iraq' you have created for yourself to wallow in, Mme. Superpower. (And now you say you want to wallow for fifty years, as if in South Korea? Wow!) Golly, it must be nice to be omnipotent like you are! Could you maybe give a humble beginner like me some pointers about how you did it, ma'am?" --, yet if you don't appreciate that sneering is ONE of the active ingredients in this panaviary-acclaimed intellectual cocktail, you are not doing Gentleman Ali full justice for his mixological skills. (Plus furthermore you miss most of the available fun for yourself.)

If this pluperfect facsimulation of a Newmanoid English gentleman is as good as I confidently expect it to be, it will extend as far as "Actually, I don't really like myself that much either," the utterance being perfectly sincere and maybe even heartfelt. Unfortunately one cannot judge of this matter from the book. Gentleman Ali is not so vulgar as to write in the first person, nor yet quite so imperious and _systematisch durchgeführt_ as Julius Caesar when he writes in the third. Yale University Press prints Ali more suo with lots and lots of footnotes. Although of course Gentleman Ali is a gentleman rather than some tertiary-educationalist pedant, nevertheless, or maybe accordingly, whenever one seriously wonders "How could Gentleman Ali know that?" or even "Did that ever really happen?", the nearest footnote seems always to be eight paragraphs back or six paragraphs ahead. In a very few cases there is no doubt at all, however. Consider page 211:

In a conversation with Bremer about the significance of the Sadrists as an expression of the disempowerment of the Shí‘a poor, Bremer angrily retorted that he 'didn't care a damn about the underclass and what they [the Sadrists] represented!'[14]

Note [14] to page 211 reads

Bremer exclaimed this to the author during the April 2004 crisis with Moqtada.

It takes a little working-out that we are in First Personal Singular country here, but proceding via back-of-the-book detours we do eventually arrive at last. Unfortunately this exception only goes to illustrate what seems to be Gentleman Ali's general rule. Only flagrant jerks abandoned to their flagrant jerkishness require that Gentleman Ali be fully present, if only in an endnote, to officially announce the abandonment. That faint cloud of disrelishment that lingers over pretty well everybody else involved in or about the provinces of the former Iraq is to linger still, it seems. Perhaps they -- any "they" you like, O aviary! -- have not YET revealed that they are only so many flamin' jerks, but the revelation is expected to come at any moment, and so please stay tuned!

On the back flap of its momentary masterpiece YUP scribbles

Ali A. Allawi is senior advisor to the Prime Minister of Iraq. Since the Coalition's invasion of Iraq, he has served as his country's first post-war civilian Minister of Defence, was elected to the Transitional National Assembly as a member of the United Iraqi Alliance, and was appointed Minister of Finance under Dr. Ibrahim al-Jaffari. He divides his time between London and Baghdad."

Gentleman Ali must find that stereotypical claptrap quite as funny as I do, although our exact occasions of mirth may not overlap altogether.

The "Minister of Finance" angle I have indeed overlooked. Once Gentleman Ali is off and running in THAT technical direction, as he is for brief spurts in the masterpiece in question, he leaves you and me in the dust instantly, Mr. Bones. Yet why should not the pluperfect Brit facsimile be that of J. M. Keynes, after all? ("What do you want instead, a xeroX of Enoch Powell?")

Between London and Baghdad he divides his time, then, Gentleman Ali does. Can a time divided ever hope to stand?

But seriously, Mr. Bones, the pathos of this _shtik_ is that Gentleman Ali is both far too Baghdad for London and yet . . ..

Who shall explain to thee, O Bones, what Gentleman Ali, this Yalie-published Newmanoid facsimile, encountered when it first went "back home"? Allow me to attempt an analogy, sir: suppose you had graduated from some no-'count wannabe prep school (much like our own LFA, Bones) years ago and never thought of secondary educationalizing again until you began to grow old and sentimental and attended "your" fortieth or fiftieth reunion and then suddenly discovered that it is now more like an idiot school that you've been a lauded alumnus of all these years.

The facsimile returned to its "native" neo-Iraq far better equipped than we might return to our neo-LFA, hopeless to think that after so many years we should become at once "minister" of this, or "elected to" that, nominally Headmaster or Overseer or Corporaton Member whatever. (OK, sure, sir, I conflate my tertiary Harvard with my secondary LFA! You wanna make somethng about that?)

The facsimile returned, 11 September 2003, to its native Mesopotamia as recently neo-Crawfordated and was appalled by pretty nearly everthing in sight, as well it might be. "THIS is HOME? HERE is the _marji‘_ ever to be returned unto?"

What a hero was the JHNewmanoid facsimile, our "Gentleman Ali," that it did not just puke and flee the Shock-'n'-Aweful spectacle of the militant GOP's Peaceful Freedumbia instantly, but actually attended his umpteenth class reunion and really tried to make the idiots act more like proper alumnuses and less like idiots. _Niyya_ is ever precious, no doubt about it! And other people's _niyya_ is never to be hastily inferred from what Yale University Press is pleased to print on book jackets. Yet is even that the whole story?


God knows best.

Not Exactly An Autoleak

Students of Crawfordology may have trouble classifying this attempt to advance Big Management's special interests.

It would have been unconventional already to dispatch one of the military hired hands to intimidate a political associate like poor M. al-Málikí. "Ambassador" R. Crocker must seem considerably less lordly and proconsular and cowboy-connected than Khalílzád Pasha used to, and so perhaps the new operative really does need to bring along an enforcer when he tries to collect debts to Boy and Party. Unlike the former "Zal," this Crocker person is by way of being only a hired hand himself. There is no possibility whatever that this guy makes the Party's occupation policy for it the way His Excellency of AEI used to.

Personalities apart, and categorically considered as hired hands, violence pros are much more congenial to extremist GOP circles than career diplomats. The former recommend themselves ideologically, if that's the proper word, because Force looks like Big Management in action, whereas negotiation looks as if the omnipotent executive were seriously considering sharing its potency, in patent violation of the Harvard Victory School guidelines for MBA's.[1] Violence pro hired hands recommend themselves more practically to Big Management as well, being a good deal more likely to shut up and do what they are told, however dumb and dubious: "Into the valley of death rode the six hundred . . . ." Whereas "arguing back" is almost the definition of what diplomacy pro hired hands do to earn their wages from the ever-august Meeters of Payrolls. (At a less exalted level of Parteigeistlichkeit, the Rio Limbaugh level, admirals are presumed to be heroes and ambassadors only wimps.)

Nevertheless, it is not customary, even in the Party of Lee Atwater, to deal with one's political friends by bringing big Bruno along to conferences in order to maybe break an arm or a leg or two, lest friendship waver. Probably it happens, but when it does, it happens in secrecy. The great oddity here is that perps have dispensed with secrecy, they clearly want the whole world to know that poor M. al-Málikí is potential Bruno-fodder, and accordingly they brought along Mr. Michael R. Gordon, an employee of the New York Times Company, as well:

This reporter, who is accompanying Admiral Fallon on his trip to Iraq, was allowed into the meeting. It was only at the end of the meeting that American officials agreed that it could be on the record.

Mr. Gordon presumably means us to understand that if the encounter had gone less satisfactorily from the Boy-'n'-Party standpoint, we consumers of the New York Times would not be reading about it this morning. That raises the material question of why Big Management should find the meeting particularly successful. What did poor M. al-Málikí say that especially pleased them? Alternatively, what might the little foreign friend of GOP invasionism have said different that would have caused a blackout to be imposed?

These are not easy questions, at least for one who does not instinctively sympathize with Big Management. There does not seem to be anything outstanding here. It is only a curiosity, at best, that Bruno should ignorantly lecture the patient about native politics:

“You have the power,” Admiral Fallon said. “You should take the initiative.”

Needless to say, Khalílzád Pasha's "constitution" has made quite sure that poor M. al-Málikí does not have any such power as the enforcer speaks of. The patient responds as he can scarcely avoid:

"The admiral’s appeal . . . elicited an assurance from Mr. Maliki that he hoped to make some progress over the coming weeks. But he also offered a lengthy account of all the tribulations facing the Iraqi government, including tenuous security, distrustful neighboring Sunni states and a complex legal agenda. “There are lots of difficulties that are not well understood from outside,” Mr. Maliki said. “Still, we’re trying hard.”

What could be less remarkable than that? Poor M. al-Málikí did not rudely reply that his buddies of the militant GOP must be the world champion misunderstanders from the outside. Compliant Mr. Gordon does not bore NYTC customers with any details of the patient's "lengthy account" of his latest symptoms, and especially not of any "complex legal agenda." It sounds as if there might be something interesting lurking in that second thicket, but probably there is not: the indig pol will have only been alluding, as delicately as possible, to obstacles imposed by the Khalílzád Konstitution, without having developed any particular "agenda" of his own to work around them.

The closest the worm comes to actually turning is as follows:

The instability the Iranian arms shipments are fueling, Admiral Fallon said, is diverting American forces from vital security tasks. That prompted Mr. Maliki to ask what the Americans were doing to persuade Syria to stop the flow of foreign fighters, which have included suicide bombers, across the border. Ambassador Crocker said that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had raised the matter with her Syrian counterpart. But so far there has been no resolution. “We need the cooperation of Iran and Syria,” Mr. Maliki said. Sunni Arab states, he added, needed to be reassured that a Shiite-dominated Iraq would not be a threat. “We won’t allow the Iranians in,” he said. “Nor will we allow it to become a safe haven for terrorists.”

Surely that is not very close? Poor M. al-Málikí did not dispute Bruno the enforcer's Party excuse-mongering about supposed interferences by (non-Crawfordite) foreigners , he only tried to play the same card a little bit for himself. And he did not try very hard. The most notable thing about this tepid non-clash is how wimpy Neocomrade R. Crocker ends up looking, and that subtle shading must be due rather to Mr. Gordon's reportorial pencil than to any mischievous intent on the part of the Chairman of the Council of Quasiministers.

Frankness between him and his Boy-'n'-Party pals is fundamentally impossible, so one cannot judge whether he seriously believes that a Twelver Ascendancy is threatened only the Sunnintern from the outside and not by TwentyPercenters native to the colony as well. The man's plight is pathetic, but naturally it would not follow from that that his judgments must be good, even should one be able to discern with certainty what his judgments are. Only Dr. Chelabí and the Rev. ‘Abd al-‘Azíz al-Hakím have yet evinced any clear signs of what an American would regard as political talent, which means, if you like, that the neoliberateds have no unfair advantage over Rancho Crawford in the brains department.

Perhaps it is as well they do not, because otherwise they'd been even more pitiful, always attempting in vain to get the Big Managers to do something smart that mere natives recommend rather than some comfy HVS MBA stumblebummery of their own. I suspect the only thing worse than hired hands usurping the prerogatives of their Executive betters would be for lowly indigs to do so. (These two cases could be reconciled on the supposition that everything the neoliberateds know about "their" neo-Iraq that Boy and Party are not interested in hearing about is to count as "technical," even though a great deal of it is mere common knowledge out there in the boondocks, obviously.)

==

What the Ryan and Bruno Show was really all about is not impossible to guess, but it is disagreeable to talk about a matter that tends to reflect discredit upon the Democratic Party. The perps down at the ranch suppose that being seen to push poor M. al-Málikí around like this will appeal to their domestic opposition, which has been getting uppity of late, and I'm sorry to say they are probably right. Viewed from the perspective of a Karl Rove rather than a Rear-Col. Freddy Kagan, the only slight miscalculation was perhaps to single out the petroleum bill:

In the meeting, Admiral Fallon focused on Iraq’s oil law, assuming it was closest to completion. “Is it reasonable to expect it to be completed in July?” he asked. “We have to show some progress in July for the upcoming report.” Mr. Maliki said that the Kurds had raised concerns about revenue sharing arrangements, but he indicated that some progress on the oil law would be made. Ambassador Crocker pointed out that it was important that progress include the resolution of that thorny issue. At one point, Mr. Maliki wondered aloud whether Congress would really give the Iraqis credit for tackling tough issues if they completed the oil law. Admiral Fallon reassured him that most Americans wanted the Iraqi government to succeed.

Bruno's briefers might have reflected that Oil Law Success in particular tends to appeal to only a certain segment of Americans, rather unfortunately that segment which least needs to be persuaded to grant the Big Party a few more decades to muck about in its Peaceful Freedumbia. Actually resolving Kirkuk, for instance, or revision of the Khalílzád Konstitution to include lots of yummy affirmative action for all those oppressed Arab Sunnis are (even) less likely to actually happen, I suppose, but factual improbability is rather beside the immediate point, which is to try to get Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi and their troops to put up with the Crawford stumblebumism as long as possible. (While Dr. Gen. Petraeus of Princeton somehow saves the day, presumably, but that's another story.) For Rovean purposes, a "success" rather more democratic and less capitalistic would have made a more suitable carrot to lure the jackasses with.

Naturally this is only my own view of the case, and I have already admitted that I have no special insight into the secrets of Big Management, being inclined to doubt that such secrets even exist. I therefore do not at all insist on my guesses about what the cowpoker vigilantes are really up to. God knows best about that.


_____
[1] My comparison assumes that both the Force and the negotiating are technically successful. When they are not, the relationship is perhaps reversed from the congenital HVS point of view, with the bigmanagerial apprentice who can't get her way with Force accounted even klutzier than her colleague who failed to make the diplomacy thing work for him.

However this is a tricky Party-spiritual matter, because under no circumstances that have ever come to my attention was a GOP Big Manager ever admired for diplomatic success in the spirit of a sportsman who takes a large fish with a light line (instead of tossing dynamite into the Tigris à la Saddam Hussein, don't you know?) That is the safer end for the Crawfordologist to begin from, because the imagined show-off's successful angling would undoubtedly a matter of technique, and technicalities are automatically -- axiomatically, even -- the province of mere hired hands, not of Party gentlepersons.

This, too, is one of Mr. Whitehead's "footnotes to Plato." Like their distant and unacknowledged ancestor, Harvard Victory School alumni are in mild perplexity if Socrates pesters them to find out whether "Big Management" is or is not itself the name of a technique. Plato decided that it was not, or at any rate, whoever wrote Epistle VII decided that that was what Plato finally decided. The epigones of Grant's Old Party show no sign of agreeing, for is not Big Management "taught" in "schools," not to mention hawked to the audodidact mob in millions of copies of The Dummies' Guide to Management Secrets? If there can be schools and teaching and (conveyable) secrets of it, how shall Big Management be other than a mere banausic skill or technique?

'Tis basically their class problem, not ours, but probably the explanation is to be sought in history and bunk: until about a century ago, the Big Managers really were only hired hands, owners and shareholders and directors still counted for something more than they did, and that in fact and not in word alone. Our current OnePercenters are thus rather like the ministeriales of mediaeval Germany, except that those neo-gentry never entirely got rid of their former betters. In this light it seems odd that none of the cultivated despisers of the GOP who write political books against the Big Party's "imperial presidency" have distinctly noticed that the executive perps are only trying to treat the United States of America the same way they treated the Ford Motor Company, which was perhaps the last significant fortress of the older economic order that held out against them.

Feldman's Folly

One of the foremost experts on what he refers to as Islamic democracy, Noah Feldman, explains in his book After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy how the Western paradigm has focused on two diametrically opposed models of government, each tracing its origin to one of two ancient cities: Jerusalem, the birthplace of Christianity, and Athens, the birthplace of democracy. In broad strokes, Jerusalem represents a model in which religion is dominant, there is no separation between church and state, and is characterized by near-absolute rule by an emperor who is also the head of the church. Athens, in contrast, represents reason, where religion is strictly "privatized," the god of science is dominant, and the people have a direct say in who is to lead them. Western history is characterized by a dynamic tension between these two cities. This leads to the assumption that if a society's conception of an ideal government does not fit neatly into the secular Athens model, it must of necessity be opting for the Jerusalem model. In this binary paradigm, no third choice exists. However, Feldman asserts, Islam's political history originates in another city altogether, Medina, the place of origin for both Islam's spiritual and democratic tradition. A recent Gallup survey shows that while there is a great deal of diversity among Muslim nations, some salient themes emerge which fly in the face of conventional wisdom. One of these findings is Muslims' widespread support for Sharia - Islamic religious principles that are widely seen as governing all aspects of life, from the mundane to the complex.

The Herr Professor Doktor disappears abruptly and mysteriously as soon as Gallup shows up. Are we to suppose his drool about Western Civ. is in agreement with conventional wisdom or in contradiction of it? For that matter, is Ms. Sapientia Conventionalis really still unaware that Muslims and neo-Muslims think highly of sharí‘a? Poor Sappy is always getting picked on, and perhaps she only exists to be picked on, but still . . . .

And the antithesis of "mundane" and "complex" is quaint, if not illuminating.

Often assumed in the West to be an oppressive corpus of law supported by only a small handful of fanatics (and especially detested by women), the incorporation of Sharia as one source of legislation enjoys the support of a majority in the eight Muslim-majority nations surveyed. Perhaps more surprising is the general absence of any large difference between men and women regarding their support for the incorporation of Sharia into governance. The only outlier is Turkey, where 57 percent say that Sharia should not be a source of legislation. But how is Sharia understood by the majority of Muslims? Does its inclusion mean a rejection of democratic values and a call for the absolute rule of an infallible clergy? The findings suggest that this is not the case. The vast majority of those surveyed, in addition to expressing their admiration for political freedom in the West, say they support freedoms of speech, religion and assembly, as well as a woman's right to vote, drive and work outside the home. Indeed, majorities in every nation surveyed except for Saudi Arabia (where the number is 40 percent) also believe it appropriate for women to serve at the highest levels of government in their nation's Cabinet and National Council. In addition, a mean of 60 percent say they would want religious leaders to play no direct role in drafting a country's constitution (and even among those who take the contrary view, most would want clerics limited to an advisory function). Should the West be surprised by this response? Richard Bulliet, in his book The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization, explains that Sharia traditionally acted as a limit on the power of government. He writes, "All that restrained rulers from acting as tyrants was Islamic law, Sharia. Since the law was based on divine rather then human principles, no ruler could change it to serve his own interests." To use more familiar language, Sharia in Muslim understanding represents those inalienable rights each person is endowed with by their creator. Government's role therefore should be to protect those rights. Thus, complete secularism can mean for many the lifting of all constraints on the tyranny of government - in fact taking away people's God-given rights. That most Muslims support an approach that refuses to exclude God from the governmental sphere even as they embrace democratic values may bewilder many who can only fathom a secular democracy. However, what is surprising is how many Americans may embrace a similar model. In a recent Gallup poll of American households, 46 percent say the Bible should be a source, but not the only source, of legislation, while 9 percent more say it should be the only source of legislation.

[sigh] "To use more familiar language" to say something rather different from the text one is supposed to be translating! After nine minutes of spinach about unshirkable duties, perhaps one minute of dessert about inalienable rights would be admissible, but no more.

However, a majority of Americans, like Muslims, does not favor handing control over to religious leaders. Interestingly, American views of the role of religious leaders almost exactly parallels those in Iran, with 55 percent of Americans and Iranians saying religious leaders should have no part in drafting a constitution for a new country, while the balance believes they should have at least some role. Understanding this third model of government, one embracing both religious principles and democratic values, may be America's key to helping build authentic, popularly supported democracy in the Middle East.

Poor Neocomrade N. Feldman never does get found, then. A pity, of course, but no great loss.

Meanwhile, what on earth is Dr. Gallup up to? I hadn't heard that either the Islamic Republic or the Homeland of Father Zeus is planning to assemble a constitutional convention any time soon. Are they speaking of the former Iraq when they say "drafting a constitution for a NEW country"? What's it all about, Alfie?

Out in the GOP's Peaceful Freedumbia, it would seem a bit harsh, possibly even "undemocratic," not to let the turbans vote at all. Yet what's for anybody to vote about? Have not Khalílzád Pasha and the aforementioned Feldman graciously bestowed a "constitution" upon their Party's neo-liberateds already?


"Dalia Mogahed is an author and director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies." What's to be said, except that obviously she shouldn't be? Couldn't they find somebody who actually knows a little bit about it?

Tiger Timmy's America

Mr. T. G. Ash was educated at sufficient expense to make one expect something more than he brings to market this morning. He, if anybody, ought to be able to pull off the act that Buckley Minor and General Lord George Will never get altogether right. Mr. Ash does have the Sir Oracle side of their common business down pat: "This is not good for US policy," "This long limbo is not good for the world." 'Tis a pity the man did not go on to alert us against something that would be bad for the whole universe!

From the way the editors at The Guardian caption his piece, one might suppose that "not good for the cosmos" is more or less Mr. Ash's estimate of le religionisme en Amérique, but probably that would be only the estimate of his editors. Mr. Ash is a Hoovervillain now, even if only an honourary and exotic sort of one, so he is not permitted to say anything that smacks too much of M. Voltaire and Col. Ingersoll. The flaming walls of the tank-thinkers' world are located somewhere around "Jesus - I found myself inwardly exclaiming, as a post-Christian European - Jesus, what century are we in?" Mr. Ash can get away with more than any native of Wingnut City would be allowed, but that sentence is about as far as even a post-Christian Old Euro can safely go. I doubt that the Thought Police would have passed the sentence itself, did it not bear that explicit warning label that Timothy Garton Ash is not exactly a regular guy, which means that allowances must be made.

I'm not entirely sure I can read the minds of the Thought Police, however. It is possible that they would be influenced by the musty stereotype according to which expensively educated Brits must be eccentrics of one kind or another, with this one specializing in the flagrant dottiness of questioning whether the Homeland of Father Zeus is really "on the cutting edge of societal evolution" -- as Dr. Limbaugh likes to say a bit too often about Dr. Limbaugh. In that case, the audience response required would be "Ain't he cute?" rather than "Almost all of 'em think like that over there." Either way, though, the neocomrades are not to take this performer altogether seriously.

Not surprisingly, there is no sign that Mr. Ash does not take Mr. Ash with perfect solemnity. If he didn't, he would not be playing the same game as his neocomrades Buckley and Will. To set up as Sir Oracle for a joke is fun too, but that is not what we have here. I'm afraid TGA is really trying to be the Alexis de Tocqueville of the tank-thinker epoch, and it takes a bit of work to unearth the funny side of the original M. de T. Should you care to attempt the exercise, read the august masterpiece in conjunction with Mrs. Trollope, who is almost all funny side. At least she is funny now, although a lot of postcolonials in the 1830's were very earnestly annoyed by what she wrote about them. Anyhow, read her Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832) side by side with the Titan of Right-Wing Intellect, who visited in 1831, and ask yourself which of the two gives you a clearer notion of what General Jackson'a USA was really like.

Mr. Ash's worst fit of detocquevillizing I take to be the paragraph that begins "Saint Anselm's most famous formula was . . . ." Especially the first half of it, since after all there may be something to be said for "seeking to understand what this religiosity actually implies for Democrat or Republican policies in the world." (There is, however, nothing to be said for, or even simply about, "Democrat policies" except that Mr. Ash is a Hoovervillain, which we have noticed already. I doubt the Thought Police would have red-penciled "Democratic policies," especially coming from the keyboard of the exotic Mr. Ash, whose mandatory eccentricity might easily take the form of referring to us donkeys the way we refer to ourselves rather than Dr. Limbaugh's way.)

Since poor St. Anselm does not belong in this performance at all, we need not discuss him any more than Mr. Ash discusses that "deeply reasonable argument" of his, whatever it may consist in. Anselm and argument are only icing on the cake, ornamental rather than functional. The literary fault, the detocquevillizing, is to apply such high-class icing to rather commonplace cake.

It is a different sort of fault that after announcing the grand program of "seeking to understand what this religiosity actually implies" &c., Mr. Ash supplies no follow-through beyond telling us that even the Devil and Bill Clinton can quote Scripture with fluency. Not exactly news, that.

At the end of the day, or rather, the end of the scribble, it is not just difficult to take Mr. Ash as seriously as he'd like to be taken, it is impossible. He does not give us enough to go on. For example, it would be natural to wonder whether he supposes that the religiosity of extremist Republicans is different from the religiosity of Democrats. It's quite true that both can pick out congenial passages from the Vetus and the Novum, but that well known fact does not even begin to address the question. Do they treat their pet passages differently, or don't they? Mr. Ash makes us want to know what he thinks about it, but he declines to tell us. Assuming that there are some differences in the application as well as the selection of prooftexts, which I suppose off-hand a competent sociologist or journalist could probably establish to be the case, what implications do these differences have for the policy of the Big Management Party as opposed to that of us donkeys? Mr. Ash may or may not think he knows, but he certainly is not telling, even though he's the one that raised the question.

Perhaps the editors of the Guardian did not feel slightly swindled after reading the piece as I do. If so, they will have taken Mr. Ash to agree with them that Yank religionism is little more than local colour, a sort of folk-dancing equivalent. Mr. Ash did not say that, and of course the Thought Police would never allow any Hoovervillain, however exotic and quaintly eccentric, to say such a thing. If the "deeply reasonable argument" rigmarole means anything to him -- which there is no way to decide, but also no reason to doubt -- Mr. Ash must in fact regard Yank religionism as being of considerable significance. Unfortunately he refuses to reveal to us exactly what it is significant of. At the Guardian they seem to have decided from Mr. Ash's saying nothing about its significance that he considers it to be of zero significance -- a non sequitur if ever there was one. Nevertheless, Mr. Ash did rather ask to be misread that way. A bottom line like "The candidates' professions of faith merely tell you they are American politicians. Everything else depends on which of God's messengers you get," especially if taken in isolation, might not unreasonably be understood to mean that one can know everything one needs to about American politics without paying any attention to the religionizing. Or if not that, then at least that Yank religionizing is an optional icing on the political cake: everybody (in the USA) would notice at once if it wasn't there, but given that it is present, the exact colour and flavour and texture of it are not worth investigating, because such an investigation would turn up nothing that could not be learned from other sources. Mr. Ash did not say that, and I doubt he believes it.

Actually I am more confident that he does not believe it than that it is not in fact more or less how America works. Even granting that religionistical elephants and religionistical donkeys select different prooftexts, deploy them differently, and deploy them differently towards different goals, it remains entirely possible, for all I can see to the contrary, that the whole prooftext business is a peripheral and redundant sideshow, at least from a strictly political standpoint. It would be interesting to see a sociologist or journalist or perhaps a Church historian actually do the work that Mr. Ash proposes and then shirks, yet after the data have been collected and analyzed and published, perhaps one would read the study through without learning anything new or remarkable about US politics. It does tend to be the case that competent sociology ends up providing firm tertiary-educational and scientistic proof of what everybody knew already. And that's perfectly OK, because if we had a Copernican Revolution in social studies every six weeks, the implication would be that we radically do not understand our own society, a proposition that is improbable as well as repugnant.

Mr. Ash and M. de Tocqueville are not exactly "our society," to be sure, but the proposition that such toney outsiders are likely to understand us better than we understand ourselves has an unpleasantly Copernican air about it, as far as I am concerned. On the other hand, "understand" is an ambiguous word. I should say that all Americans understand what's going on when our pols start laying on the God stuff with a trowel or a dumptruck, but that does not mean that we can all write down a good account of what they are up to. It does mean, maybe, that we don't really need a good written account of it, and in that case we should not feel too swindled when Mr. Timothy Garton Ash fails to deliver the goods he promised. It would have been nice to have them, but we can do without.

=====

There's one thing the US presidential contenders all have in common: God With 17 months to go, the 2008 race is already well under way, and the first signs are of a resentful, defensive America Timothy Garton Ash in New York Thursday June 7, 2007 The Guardian We all know Christmas begins earlier every year, but imagine if it were to begin in May. And that's May the year before. This is what's happening with the presidential elections in the US. There are another 17 months until the actual vote next November, but the campaign is well under way. On Tuesday, I watched a television debate between 10 Republican contenders, following a similar one between the Democratic hopefuls last Sunday. At this rate, election fatigue will set in before we've even reached election year. Candidates are not merely nailing their colours to the mast; under media interrogation, they are compelled to take up detailed positions that they'll then find difficult to shift. This is not good for US policy. Meanwhile, the inhabitant of the White House is, in an important sense, already ex-president Bush. As a key former vice-presidential aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, goes to jail for perjury, the Bush administration increasingly resembles a badly shot-up, heavily listing aircraft carrier, limping towards port with, still faintly visible on the bridge, the tattered remnants of a sign proclaiming "Mission Accomplished". Even the Republican candidates in Tuesday's debate either damned Bush with faint praise or praised him with faint damns. Or not so faint. Asked by CNN's Wolf Blitzer what use he would make of ex-president Bush if he became president, congressman Tom Tancredo of Colorado said Mr Bush would never darken the doorstep of the White House again. Yet for another year-and-a-half, Bush will be the most powerful man in the world, invested with the powers needed to block a G8 initiative on climate change, push through an irrelevant and divisive antiballistic missile shield and order a tactical nuclear strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. The one thing he'll find it difficult to do is to put together international coalitions for action based on trust in current US leadership. Apart from anything else, everyone will be looking to his potential successors. This long limbo is not good for the world. The post-2009 US one begins to glimpse in these early pre-presidential debates is a defensive, resentful, slightly truculent place. Although leading Republican candidates such as John McCain will not accept this, the American people have basically decided that the Iraq war is over and the mission has not been accomplished. It's not a matter of when but how the US withdraws militarily, even if that withdrawal is, in the first instance, only to a few fortified camps and a fortress embassy in the green zone in Baghdad while the carnage and ethnic cleansing continues all around. The lesson that most Americans seem to have drawn is that the US should have less of these foreign entanglements in future, and look to its own. Both on trade and on immigration, the atmosphere is increasingly protectionist. The fiercest clashes in the Republican debate were about immigration. Partly this was internal politics. Because leading candidate John McCain is co-sponsor of a bill that could have the effect of legalising some 12 million illegal immigrants, other candidates had a chance to score off him. Rudy Giuliani described the bill as "a typical Washington mess". But there's something deeper going on here as well. The undertones of panic recall nothing so much as Europeans agonising about Muslim immigrants in their midst, despite the fact that the majority of migrants here come from a western cultural background, being mainly Spanish-speaking and Christian. "We are becoming a bilingual nation," said one of the candidates, "and that is not good". A sentiment that would be entirely at home on the French or German right. What remains fundamentally different from the old continent is the way American politicians not merely have religion but wear it on their sleeve. An extreme example is former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Answering a question about evolution versus so-called intelligent design, Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister before he became a politician, said simply: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth." He didn't know when or how exactly God did the business, but do it He certainly did. To say you didn't believe that, he added, was in effect to say that you didn't believe in God. Then he quoted Martin Luther: Here I stand, I can do no other. And he earned, from the audience at St Anselm College, a Catholic liberal arts college in Manchester, New Hampshire, a fair round of applause. In answer to a follow-up question, he said: "If anybody wants to believe that they are the descendants of a primate, they are welcome to do it." Jesus - I found myself inwardly exclaiming, as a post-Christian European - Jesus, what century are we in? Yet other candidates hastened to second him, albeit in more elliptical ways. John McCain praised the eloquence of "Pastor Huckabee" and went on to say he had no doubt God played some part in "the time before time". (Code-phrase for the Christian right. Decoded: this speaker is one of us, you can give him your vote.) Senator Sam Brownback assured us that "there's a God of the universe that loves us very much and had a part in the process". Well, that's all right then. But don't think this religiosity is confined to Republican candidates. In an earlier debate, organised by a left-liberal Evangelical group called Sojourners, the three leading Democrat contenders, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barrack Obama, vied with each other in testifying to the importance of their faith. Edwards did say firmly "I believe in evolution", but he quickly added that "the hand of God today is in every step of what happens with me and every human being that exists on this planet". Asked a painful question about how she coped with Bill's infidelity, Hillary Clinton said she was sustained by "my faith and the support of my extended faith family, people whom I knew who were literally praying for me in prayer chains, who were prayer warriors for me". Angela Merkel, who chairs this week's G8 summit, comes from a party described as Christian Democrats and a church called Evangelical, but I don't think you'd ever catch her talking about prayer warriors. Next to the Atlantic ocean, this is perhaps the greatest European-American divide. On reflection, I realise I was wrong about Christmas. Over here, it doesn't merely start in May the previous year. In US politics, every day is Christmas. Saint Anselm's most famous formula was "faith seeking understanding". There is a deeply reasonable argument to be had - and many secular rationalists are conducting it - about the basic claims of this faith. But since religion is not going to disappear from US politics any time soon, there is an equally important exercise which consists of seeking to understand what this religiosity actually implies for Democrat or Republican policies in the world. That is a very different question. Religious American politicians who may seem to secular Europeans to be irrational in one area of their being can be reasonable, rational and liberal in their policies in the world - more so, on occasion, than some secular European leaders. For proof positive, you need look no further than another Clinton, Bill. The candidates' professions of faith merely tell you they are American politicians. Everything else depends on which of God's messengers you get.

(( Hmm, no Middle East at all, Mr. Bones. Well, we never actually promised, did we? not even implicitly like Timmy. ))

Concerning a Certain Highjackin'

Let Rio Limbaugh, and all free-lance downdumbees and neo-wombscholars whatsoever, take notice in advance that this is only a figurative or metaphorical highjackin' that Mr. McCloskey uncharitably and impatiently goes on about. We "Reagan Democrats" were of course never a properly highjackable entity to begin with. We had no formal organization at all, let alone anything for hostile takeover artists to take over with glee and malice. If I hadn't been there myself, I might very well now suppose that "Reagan Democrats" was only a slogan of journalists, a phantom.

Thus to reflect is at once to wonder whether I have not been rather unfair myself in supposing, for instance, that the "Velvet Revolution" in the former People's Czechoslovakia consisted of nothing more than M. Václav Havel's impeccable Commencement Day windbaggeries. Perhaps there were more decent and sensible folks than he further down in the Bohemian ranks who cared, and care, about "Velvet Revolution" the way I cared and care about "Reagan Democrats"? If so, I daresay they probably feel about as highjacked as I do. But naturally that must be their story to tell, not mine.

The villain of my own tale is not M. Havel, but Mlle. Piggy Noonan, who does not much resemble M. Havel. The trouble with Miss Piggy is that she has become the alone icon of a "Reagan Democrat," which, to be scrupulously fair, is perhaps more lazy journalism's fault than Piggy's own innate piggishness. Nevertheless there it is is, and here we are: a "Reagan Democrat" in 2007, if ever alluded to at all, is a former New Deal fan who went Miss Piggy's way, the way of total perversion and reversal of one's traditional régime preference, a really lusty apostasy all the way over to militant OnePercenterism and Wall Street Jingoes and the Big Management Party. We donkeys who decided to stick with Democracy when there was no longer a pretty decent and adult St. Ronald over across the aisle to have truck with might as well not exist, compared to the paradigmatic Miss Piggy.

Nobody is all bad, of course, and Miss Piggy undoubtedly tried to mitigate the barbarism of the barbarians she had lewdly and lasciviously defected to, especially at first, when she agitpropized for George XLI about "kinder and gentler" and "a thousand points of light." But then OnePercenterism swallowed her up altogether, and she became a fixed star in the firmament of the Wall Street Jingo op-ed world, where of course she was on as tight a Boy-'n'-Party tether as all the rest of the hired help. (The Rev. Torquemada must admire the consistency and stability of the WSJ opinion pages from down there in the Hot Below! Why couldn't he ever manage to do the same for Castilla and Aragón?)

Rumors have reached us lately that Miss Piggy Noonan has now broken with her Kennebunkport-Crawford Dynasty Little Brother. We're sorry to have to report that the emotion this rather peripheral human event wakes in us is technically called Schadenfreude. Philosophical indifference or Christojudaean Charity™ would become us far better, yet Lady Veritas forbids us not to report that what we really think runs more like "About time! And serves Piggy [exp. del.] right!"

To add to this, admittedly rather spiteful and unworthy fun, the rumors say that Miss Piggy Noonan and her apostasized-to Little Brother have quarreled at last about xenophobia, with Little Brother holdin' by and large the "kinder and gentler" position. We acknowledge, of course, that Miss Piggy Noonan has thereby put herself at odds with her Wall Street Jingo employers, as well as with her new-found ideobuddies of Grant's Old Party. Such a step as that demands courage, and far be it from us to think that courage is not a genuine Pagan Virtue or seek to avoid applauding any exhibition of it!

Nevertheless let the record show fair and square that ""About time! And serves Piggy [exp. del.] right!" was what we thought instantly and, as it were, "instinctively," whereas caveats about Pagan Virtues and 'a that and a' that were only secondary.

At a tertiary level, how comes it that we are so upset about the GOP's and WSJ's Noonan? She has never done us any actual and demonstrable injury, if "actual" means actionable. Fancy trying to persuade a jury that it's some sort of felony for Miss Piggy to "highjack" the "Reagan Democrat Movement" and hog it all to herself! Perry Mason would chop that nonsense to bits in a flash.

Fourth level down: perhaps we might not unreasonably be indignant about a Miss Piggy Noonan the same way we are indignant about Massachusetts motorists? It can't REALLY be the case that they are all secretly in league to exterminate the whole race of pedestrians, ourselves included, yet for practical purposes of self-protection and avoidance it seems sensible to assume what we know to be theoretically or academically false. I think that will do provisionally, given the obvious parallel between Piggy's adopted Little Brother's Big Management Party's Shock-'n'-Awe and the unwitting (?) arrogance of the progressive motorist vis-à-vis the residual pedestrian: pedestrians and Democrats are not yet extinct, and one doesn't quite exactly want to help make make them become extinct, but . . . .

Somethin' like that, maybe.

At Last A Consistent Wingnut!

One of the great puzzles of this Epoch of Preëmptive Retaliation that we live in is how often Republican Party extremists are deliriously in favor of bestowin' boons on their little foreign friends that they have always stoutly resisted for themselves back in God's Homeland. The folks who killed the Equal Rights Amendment solemnly advise us that among the very worst sins of Islamophalangitarianism is the shabby way females get treated. The folks who can't speak badly enough of Affirmative Action insofar as it may impact brain-dead white males at home are quite sure that special panderin' to Arab Sunnis in the former Iraq is bound to work wonders.

Havin' once conquered the provinces of the former Iraq, did the militant GOP try to bring their most recent conquests up to the Kansas City level by inflictin' the Kansas City sort of governance on the neo-liberateds? Did they insist on a strong central Fedguv of the sort that has engendered their own George XLIII Bush? Did they insist on "first past the post" and "winner take all" in the spirit of Floridagate 2000? Of course not, what a silly idea! What Khalílzád Pasha and Prof. Dr. Noah Feldman (&c. &c.) did was to give their subject indigs a "constitution" that reads like a hostile travesty of proportional representation -- that Old Euro system so utterly un-American that we have adopted it here in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (We alone in all of Greater Texas, or so I'm told.)

Even the Big Management Party's holy of holies -- which is of course what I'd call "Political Capitalism" and which pious OnePercenter devotees account far too sacred ever to be named at all -- turns out not to be an export product, although to be sure in this case the Boy-'n'-Party stumblebums did at least take a whack at exportin' it. For a brief season of carnival under Sultan Jerry Bremer, New Baghdad was overrun with the nephews and nieces of AEIdeologues and Heritagitarians and Hoovervillains who attempted to drum elementary AdamSmithism into their Party's alien and bewildered neoliberateds. There has been nothing quite like that show since the Russian intelligentsia condescended to "go to the people" back in eighteen seventy-whatever. In both instances, however, the OnePercenter señoritos and señoritas got bored very rapidly when it turned out that there would be serious sales resistance to the ideoproducts that they hawked. Neoliberatin' individual peasants or indigs face-to-face turned out to cost far more than it brought in, and it is therefore in strictest accord with the Big Management Party orthodoxy of 1869-2007 that it should be dropped. (Russian Populist orthodoxy of 187? had perhaps not the same excuse available, but that's their problem, not America's or neo-Iraq's. Anyway, they're all long since safely extinct, Russian Populists are.)

Clearly there is a pattern here, a systematic discrepancy. Sooner or later somebody over across the aisle in the Stupid Party was bound to notice it and write it up from the extremist GOP standpoint.

So, then, without further preliminary ado, I give you

Reagan Could Save Iraq / By Bill Steigerwald What would Ronald Reagan do -- with Iraq? President Reagan was way too wise to have gone to Mesopotamia in the first place. But what if he had to extract us from Iraq today? And what if he wanted to make sure Iraq had a chance of becoming a functioning, semi-civilized country after we left? The Gipper probably would be in favor of doing something the Bush administration won't do -- decentralize and federalize Iraq’s government. As is documented in the new book The Reagan Diaries, Reagan understood the value of a weak central government in countries boiling with ethnic, religious and political hatred and violence. On July 2, 1986, he wrote in his diary that one way to solve the tricky transition of power in South Africa from 5 million whites to 26 million blacks might be to set up “something like Switzerland's ‘Canton’ type of govt.” A lot of smart folks -- conservatives, liberals and libertarians -- have always argued that decentralization is exactly what Iraq needs to avoid total meltdown. Some have proposed a three-part split of Iraq -- a partition that gives the Kurds, Sunni and Shia control of their own turf. Republican 2008 presidential dreamer Tommy Thompson has mentioned a vague plan to create 18 provinces ruled by Iraq’s main Muslim sects. But Democrat 2008 presidential dreamer Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, with the help of Leslie Gelb of the Council on Foreign Relations, has proposed a more detailed scheme. Under Biden's plan, a unified Iraq would be maintained but government power would be seriously decentralized. Oil money would be shared proportionately among the Kurds, Sunni and Shia. Baghdad’s mixed population would become a federal city protected by international peacekeepers. The Biden plan, Biden's presidential Web site says, is not a partition and it is consistent with the Iraq Constitution. Biden, like many others, believes that giving Kurds, Sunni and Shia their own territories is the only way to ensure that their militias don’t slaughter each other trying to get sole control of the central government. Overall, Biden contends, his plan is in the self-interest of the Kurds, Sunni and Shia -- as well as Iran. Ivan Eland of the Independent Institute, who discounts fears that federalizing Iraq will bring even worse chaos and instability or result in meddling by Iraq’s neighbors, believes decentralizing power in Iraq is still the best -- and last -- hope for saving it from “going up in smoke” after we leave. Biden's Web site lists nearly 40 people or editorial boards that support his idea or want to pursue it -- including Henry Kissinger, Republican Sens. Richard Lugar and Sam Brownback and Bill O'Reilly. Unfortunately, the idea of formally decentralizing Iraq's government -- which is already occurring neighborhood by neighborhood on its bloody own -- is going nowhere. The idea barely registers on the mainstream media's radar screen. It has not been seriously addressed in the presidential soundbite-trading "debates." And the Bush administration still isn't interested in it. Ronald Reagan would not have been so stupid. He obviously understood that Switzerland’s Frenchmen, Germans and Italians lived in peace and prosperity in part because of their loose confederation of 26 highly autonomous cantons. But unfortunately Reagan’s not coming back from heaven to fix Iraq or anything else the Bush Republicans have broken -- no matter how hard the GOP's faithful pray.

Quite a strong performance for a OnePercenter fan, is it not?

A severe critic might criticize that the moral for the Stupid Party is not pointed absolutely unmistakably with some language like "Look, guys, if we are for states' rights and not any kind of Fedguv supporters at all here at home in Greater Texas, as of course we are, shouldn't we back states' rights out in our Party's newly conquered boondocks as well?"

Such criticism strikes me as way too harsh. Beyond a certain point the stupidity of the stupid is inexpugnable, so to subtract points from anybody's score because she declines even to attempt the impossible is unreasonable and unjust. If the Elephant People cannot make out their own Neocomrade W. Steigerwald's meaning from his scribble, that will be their fault, not Bill's.

Prescinding from any narrow Big Management Party context and speaking absolutely, it is perhaps not very impressive that Bill should need to take refuge with "nearly 40 people or editorial boards that support." If Mr. Bones and I send in our names, that will make it nearly forty-two, but even so . . . .

Which brings us to St. Ronald: would he really agree to up the ante to nearly forty-three if he was still with us in the same way Jimmy Carter is still with us? I suppose I ought to know as well as anybody, having voted for the man three times, though the third time he was somewhat disguised as "George Herbert Walker Bush." But in fact I have no idea at all. Certainly Mr. Reagan thought it an excellent idea that the Soviet Union ought to be decentralized and Swiss-cantonized even to the point of partition, but that was about somebody else's conquests, not about the militant GOP's conquests, and thus it is a very dubious parallelism indeed.

Neocomrade Steigerwald should perhaps reflect that St. Ronald was always basically on the defensive, still always engaged in Mister X's "containment" exercise dating from 1947. Now that Republican Party extremism can safely be a hyperpowerful Godzilla if it chooses, a terrifyin' menace to every ninety-pound weaklin' in sight with a changeable regime, the fundamental parameters of Weltpolitik are become so different that it would probably be better to just let Ronald Reagan go in peace and not speculate about what he might have done, had he ever been in a position to aggress and invasionize with the Kennebunkport-Crawford Dynasty impunity.

The Dick and Hillary Show

Tricky Dickie reduces the idea of political technology or insider expertise to absurdity. How did this clown ever get a reputation in the first place? It's not as if Mr. Morris ever knew all the electoral results in Sangamore County back to the Flood in the manner of Kevin Philips and Pat Caddell. Can it be that he is so thoroughly mediocre and unoriginal that his instincts match those of many swing voters by dumb luck rather than by skill and diligence? It is easy enough to find human barometers like that amongst committed partisans, as for instance Mr. Bill Moyers, who can always give us the latest trendy American liberalism entirely untouched by human thought. Naturally Wingnut City and Rio Limbaugh are full of anti-Moyerses. There are so many of them that no individual specimen is of much value.

A specimen that is not up to "ideology" and also lacks any faintest sense of loyalty, yet somehow swerves and twists exactly like the political undistributed middle, might be well worth investing in. (That canary down the mineshaft is useful even though nobody ever dreams of asking for her bird-brained opinions.) Still, how did anybody first notice that Neocomrade R. Morris, as he now is, possesses his uncanny knack of divining what Americans who "hate politics" -- that's Dr. Dionne's diagnosis from the late 1990's -- want from their politicians? Any single banality would only be what millions of other politics-haters think also at such-and-such a point in time; what makes Tricky Dickie special is that he has embraced a long series of banalities that is the same, or close to the same, as those chosen by the unaccountable fickleness of Ms. Swing Voter. The peculiar nature of this talent makes it very difficult to detect, surely?

Once detected, the talent remains almost impossible to discuss critically, because nobody has the faintest notion how it works. It might as well be witchcraft. Should Tricky Dickie someday wander off in a direction diametrically opposite to that of Ms. Swing Voter, presumably that would be the end of him, yet his termination would be as mysterious as his commencement. In between, how is one to judge whether Dickie deploys his trickiness well or badly? The obstacle is not merely that one cannot performs this man's tricks oneself, as Dr. Johnson observed about the violinist, it is that one can't begin to imagine how anybody can perform them.

Nevertheless I'll venture upon a small bit of criticism, basing myself upon a negative conjecture about how Mr. Morris does not do his magic. It cannot be important, as I guess, that Mr. Morris is a political insider in the sense of knowin' lots of pols personally. If he lived in a yurt in Central Tibet (a yurt with good Internet service, naturally), Dickie could do his characteristic shtik just as well.

The substance of my criticism is that probably he could do it even better from Tibet. That is to say, knowin' pols and polesses personally probably degrades Dickie's performance, at least a little. After all, Ms. Swing Voter has no such acquaintance with them, although very likely as a faithful subject of Televisionland, she kids herself that she does. (Dr. MacLuhan has much to answer for! But that's another scribble.) Admittedly one does not understand either the lady's fickleness or the clown's, but surely it is unlikely that the clown bein' in a radically different situation from the lady helps him read her mind better?

Which brings us to Dickie's Other Lady, the junior Senator from New York. Dickie detests her. So far, so good, considering that the pollmongers inform us that quite a number of Americans detest her also. The trouble is that Dickie detests Mizz Hillary personally, which only a tiny percentage of Americans are in a position to do, even if having shaken her hand once is to count as personal acquaintance. One can't really say "Visceral loathing might warp Mr. Morris's political judgment," for the shtik in question cannot possibly be judgment-based. If it was, the audience would not be completely in the dark as to how the tricks are done. All the same, it seems reasonable to speculate that havin' all his hormones run berserk at the very thought of Senator Clinton might interfere with the clown's performances somehow. (Who would care to engage a mine canary that nurses a bitter, and perforce a bird-brained, grudge against the Warbucks Coal and Smog Trust LLC in particular?)

And now, perhaps we may begin:

Iraq will become Hillary’s war / By Dick Morris It’s a good time to read Robert Dallek’s new book, Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power, an agonizing presentation of the difficulty the two men had in figuring out how to pull out of Vietnam and end the war “honorably.” Their problem was familiar to anyone who has been following the war in Iraq: we were losing. Any move to pull out American troops would inevitably be followed (as it was) by a collapse of the South Vietnamese military resistance. Impaled on the horns of their own indecision, Nixon and Kissinger kept troops in Vietnam for the administration’s entire first term and only pulled them out five years after inheriting the war from Lyndon Johnson. If she is elected president, Hillary Clinton will probably have to follow the same trajectory whether she wants to or not. What she called “Bush’s war” in the televised debate on Sunday night in New Hampshire will inevitably become Hillary’s war before her first term in office is over. No American president will be able to pull our troops out and watch the Iraqi government dissolve in chaos, only to be taken over by the very terrorists who are planting IEDs to kill our troops. And if a male American president can’t do so, a female president certainly cannot.

Dick Canary may know by knack how Televisionland and the electorate would react to his proposed scenario, but his qualifications to write scenarios about the former "Iraq" are nonexistent. If we politely attempt to take him seriously, "the very terrorists who are planting IEDs to kill our troops" must at least mean that it would be the natural masters, the Arabophone Sunnis, who prevail after the GOP extremists finally go away. Not entirely impossible, but not outstandingly likely either. But Dick Canary almost certainly means something far narrower than that, probably that al-Qá‘ida will hit the jackpot, and the odds against that are very high indeed. We might edge backwards into Mr. Morris's proper sphere and guess that his "expert" advice to whoever succeeds Little Brother would be to label whatever faction clearly triumphs in the GOP's Peaceful Freedumbia -- supposing that any one faction does so, itself a risky bet -- "al-Qá‘ida" without any regard to indig opinion about such things, without any feeble attempt at reality-basing. At the moment he is "advising" Sen. Clinton, however, and that plan would, by his own account, get her into the hottest hot water in sight. This may not be an accident.

As a woman, as a Democrat, from the first moment Hillary Clinton were to take office as president, she would face the task of proving herself tough enough for the job. Even if foreign leaders and our enemies do not doubt her on this score, she will feel the need to prove herself. Any signal of weakness, such as a withdrawal from Iraq, would embolden our enemies and weaken her credibility. Remember how President Eisenhower let Khrushchev threaten to “bury” the United States without pointing out our huge lead in missiles? As a former general with an illustrious past, he had no worries about his credibility on military issues. But former 2nd Lt. John F. Kennedy had reason to worry that his bona fides as a military leader might be questioned, and he hastened to tell the world that the U.S. had a huge lead in missiles (after winning the election of 1960 campaigning on the “missile gap”). The price for JFK’s insecurity was, ultimately, the Cuban Missile Crisis, as Khrushchev felt he had to close the gap Kennedy had publicized. Hillary Clinton will not be able to pull out of Iraq.

As always, Dick Canary's substantive view is a banality, something millions of good folks who are not paying much attention would assent to -- without paying much attention. Before his last turn of coat, he would doubtless have spun Ike and JFK quite differently, although that would have been banality too. Today's spin is a bit off the mark, insofar as Republican Party extremism does not have any candidate in sight with military credentials as good as Sen. Kennedy's, not to speak of Gen. Eisenhower's. (The Flyboy Hero from AZ does not count, since bein' a pilot scarcely made him a Clausewitz. It didn't even give him any command experience of the sort that JFK had at least a little of.)

Pay no attention to her politically motivated vote to “end” the war by cutting off funds or her support for a mandatory withdrawal schedule. Both votes were cast in the heat of a presidential race in which she cannot allow Edwards or Obama to flank her to the left. But do pay attention to her interview with The New York Times a few months ago in which she said that she would keep sufficient troops in Iraq to provide training, logistical support, air support and intelligence to Iraqi forces and to police the border with Iran to prevent infiltration and to hunt down al Qaeda operatives throughout the country. As much as she would like to, Hillary cannot back away from these missions.

It's quaint, if nothing better, to listen to Mr. Dick Morris pooh-pooh "politically motivated." That is as if Dr. Einstein had told the world that physics is not really so very important.

Apparently our mine canary does not detect anything "political" in that particular occupation policy, which is of course not peculiar to Sen. Clinton by any means. If being "bipartisan" after the fashion of the CFR and ISG gentry removes one from "politics," Dickie is quite right, although not very significantly right, because this is an issue of words rather than facts. Anyhow, what does Dick Canary want us to do, once we have paid attention to that article? Above all, what does he want us to do specifically because it was Mizz Hillary that wrote the article and not somebody else who happens to be running for President?

Remember how long it took Bill Clinton to withdraw even a token force from Somalia after the Mogadishu killings? It was almost six months before our forces pulled out. We couldn’t be seen to be fleeing after our troops were killed and their bodies dragged through the streets by the local warlords. A withdrawal from Iraq would be even more complicated. The most likely course of events is that Hillary will undertake a limited withdrawal (if Bush has not already done so) but will be forced either to keep a substantial force on the ground or to add to it if the military situation proves untenable.

Dick Canary is a little weak on logic, as well as Mil. Sci. How can the lady be "forced" to do what she herself has proposed doing? Has she changed her mind since writing what she wrote? Was she only kidding her readers in the first place? (Golly, what if the article was "politically motivated" after all!)

The Democratic left does not realize that simply pulling out is not a viable political or military option and that no president, of either party, is going to pursue it. And particularly not a woman with hawkish inclinations during her first year on the job. ,

Since you and I are no doubt part of Dick Canary's notion of "the Democratic left," Mr. Bones, let us engage in a moment of self-criticism. Do we, or do we not, "realize that simply pulling out is not a viable political or military option and that no president, of either party, is going to pursue it"? It looks like the answer has to be one of those shifty yes-and-no contraptions with subordinate clauses in it that arouse such suspicions in the honest breast of the wombscholar: "Yes, Mr. Canary, we understand that our irresponsible withdrawal is not likely to happen, but No, we cannot agree with you that the policy would necessarily not be "viable," should somebody competent undertake to pursue it from the White House."

Meanwhile, back in darkest Dickmorristan, what's "the Democratic left" doing in an anti-Clinton piece? Few of us unpatriotic fiends are going to vote for the lady in the primaries. Dick Canary probably wishes that more of us felt inclined to do so -- that way he could rub off a little of our fiendish unpatriotism on Sen. Clinton, who is pretty well dug in against that line of attack. Exactly why he, of all people, should take such trouble to point out how strongly defended she is in her bunker of Responsible Nonwithdrawal is mildly puzzling: this scribble would make more sense if Tricky Dickie himself preferred some other invasion and occupation policy, but there is no sign that he does.

It's also a puzzle why he allows himself to sound at some points as if the Senator's Presidency were a sure thing, everything already settled except the actual count of votes. Does Mr. Morris really and truly believe that? It seems unlikely. Certainly he can not want that. Maybe he's just havin' a nice comfy wallow in pessimism, hobgoblinizin' himself with the worst of all possible worlds. That seems a bit out of character, though, and if it is really the case, this guy's usefulness as a political mine canary ceases to exist at once.

Oh, well, although it is an important and interesting question exactly how the Responsible Nonwithdrawal marketing campaign is going to be conducted, the big push has not yet begun, and when it does begin, it will not be conducted on a level where Dick Canary's special knack is likely to be pertinent. The marketeers must begin with the assumption that what Televisionland and the electorate want in their ignorance is of no consequence. Ms. Swing Voter therefore does not matter, and if she doesn't matter, neither does Mr. Dick Morris, whose opinions are only of interest insofar as they cast light on hers. Q.E.D.

Freddy's Surge

Some kind invasionite friend should hand Rear-Corporal Freddy von Kagan an M-14 and ship him out to the Mesopotamian Front, where his youthful zeal and indiscretion might be of use. Keyboardin' like crazy on behalf of the Surge of '07™ does nothing at all towards makin' the world safe for Prëemptive Retaliations. Little Freddy is certainly never gointa change the minds of the liberal fiends at Times Square in Manhattan, and even if he did, he and his family and Kagan Family Surge Values would not thereby be significantly advanced.

Freddy's not an unintelligent lad, so I shan't accuse him of forgettin' exactly who it is that he and his family and their Boy and their Party profess to be at "war" with, only of openin' himself up to intellectual and moral corruption when he carries on like this.

"Beware of AEI! Be thou caveated, Freddie Kagan! AEI corrupts. Look what it has done quite recently to my Col. Spook (your ideobuddy R. M. Gerecht) and my Col. Blimp (your ideobuddy V. D. Hanson), both of them in close connection with the GOP Kiddie Krusade and a' that and a' that. The former started out with a questionable, but intellectually presentable-for-dsiputation, thesis about bringin' democracy to the backward indigs of the Levant. The latter started out with an even more questionable, yet formerly very traditional and still potentially pulse-quickenin' sentimentalism about Ares, the Father of all good things. The original Gerechtianity and the original Hanson product were certainly not the two best systems of thought and feelin' that anybody human ever came up with, even by Wingnut City standards, but nevertheless they had character, they had style, their schemes were to be praised as Goethe praised Bohemia: no Italy, obviously, yet still ein eigenes Land -- how you say in Greater Texan? -- "its own sort of land." Neocomrades Gerecht and Hanson are of "their own sort" no longer, unfortunately. Nowadays they are mostly of an AEI-corrupted sort. Not altogether, to be sure, for they remain far more worth reading than the hordes of mechanical wind-up-toy ideologues who were never at any point independently viable intellectual fetuses outside the para- or quasi- or pseudo-academic womb of tank thinkin'. All the same, most of the former Eigentümlichkeit has departed from both Spook and Blimp. A deplorable amount of their recent writing consists of Boy-'n'-Party agitprop that Dr. Limbaugh could probably have done rather better, things such as -- ahem! -- NewYorkTimes-bashin'.

"Don't ever let it happen to you, young Freddie!"

Misunderstanding the Surge The New York Times wrongly judges the plan and the commanders who are executing it. by Frederick W. Kagan 06/05/2007 12:48:00 AM Yesterday the New York Times published yet another article in an ongoing series that might be called "The Surge Has Failed." This one was titled "Commanders Say Push in Baghdad Is Short of Goal." The article reports on a one-page summary of a document the Times characterized only as an "internal military assessment." According to that document and interviews with some commanders, the paper argues that the Baghdad Security Plan is not meeting its goals in securing the population of Baghdad, largely because of sectarian bias within the Iraqi police. The article contains some important distortions. The authors state, "American commanders have also had to send troops outside the capital, to deal with a sharp rise in violence in Diyala Province and to search for American soldiers kidnapped south of the capital." In fact, Generals Raymond Odierno and David Petraeus decided from the outset to deploy additional U.S. forces to the "belts" around Baghdad, both south and north, in order to interdict the lines of communication used by both Sunni and Shiia terrorists to send weapons and fighters into Baghdad. Violence had been rising in Diyala since mid-2006, and the U.S. command decided to address it early this year because instability there contributes directly to violence in Baghdad. The southern belts house car-bomb factories and terrorist safe-havens, which is why MNF-I decided to clear them before attempting to secure Baghdad. The decisions to flow additional forces into these areas slowed the pace of clear-and-hold operations in Baghdad, but these operations will go a long way toward ensuring that peace established in the capital will be stable and durable. The decision to flow forces into the belts was a sensible adaptation to the reality on the ground at the start of the new plan. The problematic New York Times article elides two very different military plans into one. General George Casey began developing a new plan to stem the rising tide of violence at the end of 2006. Casey's plan was based on the same presuppositions that had guided the U.S. war effort in Iraq since late 2003. President Bush announced a new strategy on January 10, 2007, and he changed the command team in order to implement it. In mid-February General David Petraeus replaced General Casey as the commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. Since the change of command, Generals Petraeus and Odierno have made clear that they did not accept the rosy scenarios of security by summer that General Casey had been pushing. General Petraeus and General Casey differed in their assessments of what U.S. forces in Iraq could achieve by summer because they had different ideas about how to accomplish U.S. objectives in the country. Since taking command in mid-2004, Casey had been focused on using Iraqi forces to establish and maintain security throughout Iraq and on "transitioning" responsibility for security to those forces. He remained undaunted by reports that the Iraqi Security Forces were contributing to the violence by participating in sectarian cleansing. By the end of 2006, the National Police were particularly problematic in this regard. Nevertheless, at the turn of the new year General Casey still preferred a plan that would rely on overly-optimistic projections of the capabilities and performance of Iraqi Security Forces, just as the two failed attempts to clear Baghdad in 2006--Operations Together Forward I and II--had done. The Bush administration made a mistake by attempting to cast the new strategy that General Petraeus would ultimately design and execute as a minor modification of Casey's strategy, and by insisting that U.S. units would be partnered with Iraqi Army, National Police, and Iraqi Police units throughout Baghdad. But Generals Petraeus and Odierno learned the lessons of 2006 better than that. American forces in Baghdad are partnered with Iraqi units where possible, but are focused primarily on securing the Iraqi population rather than on pushing the Iraqi Security Forces into the lead, which had been Casey's primary focus. Petraeus and Odierno also knew that securing the population would take most of 2007, which is why they never predicted success by July, as Casey had done. Despite months of clear statements from the senior commanders in Baghdad to this effect, the New York Times has paid no heed, and is now trying to compare the progress of the actual, much more realistic, plan being conducted by American and Iraqi forces to the goals of the unrealistic plans developed by the now-departed commander. The paper's comparison is meaningless. Generals Petraeus and Odierno have made it clear that it is not possible to make even a preliminary assessment of whether their plans are working before September 2007, and they have indicated that operations and U.S. forces will need to be sustained at a high level into 2008. They are right.

Little Freddy Kagan, like almost everybody else, should always be accorded broad and generous leeway to expound her own argument -- or to expound AEI's tank-think argument, for that matter -- however vicious and sophistical the argumentation, without perpetual interruptions from the peanut gallery. I promise not to interrupt again, but kindly allow me to quote the quite short passage from this NYTC story that most struck me: ... The American assessment, completed in late May, found that American and Iraqi forces were able to “protect the population” and “maintain physical influence over” only 146 of the 457 Baghdad neighborhoods. In the remaining 311 neighborhoods, troops have either not begun operations aimed at rooting out insurgents or still face “resistance,” ....

Now back to Freddy. Onwards!

The discussion in the New York Times article about the involvement of Iraqi Police in sectarian killings and attacks against U.S. soldiers is portrayed as a major setback in the context of these elided plans. It is not. It is the same situation U.S. forces have been dealing with since early 2006, when sectarian violence began to rise in the first place. This is precisely why Congressional recommendations to accelerate the handover to Iraqi forces are mistaken. The current coalition plan--and the New York Times does not even note that General Petraeus has just completed a thorough review of the situation and developed a new campaign plan to guide coalition efforts henceforth--takes this situation into account much more thoroughly than the discredited and discarded approaches of 2004-2006. The appropriate adjustment of military strategy to reality on the ground has led to a more realistic appraisal of the time required for success, as well as an approach far more likely to lead to success. The details of the sectarian violence described in the Times article are not particularly instructive. The neighborhoods mentioned are among the very worst in Baghdad, and have been for some time. U.S. forces are just getting set in some of them and just beginning major clearing operations in others. As we have noted many times, when coalition forces begin clearing operations in areas the enemy had held for a long time, coalition casualties go up. The enemy fights U.S. forces in order to maintain their ability to pursue their ends. Defeating the enemy is necessary to provide basic security to the population, the essential precondition for any meaningful progress in Iraq. The causes of Iraqi civilian casualties, on the other hand, are the same as they have been for more than a year--al Qaeda attacks and attacks by rogue elements of the Jaysh al Mahdi. But overall sectarian violence remains at about half of the December level--a marked change considering that violence had been rising continuously since early 2006. Even with the increased al Qaeda violence added in, the level of violence remains stable--again, a positive change from a situation in which violence appeared to be rising uncontrollably. And it matters a great deal that the last U.S. units have just begun to arrive. We should note--as General Odierno did in a recent press conference--that it takes time for a unit newly arrived in theater to begin to operate effectively. It must develop an understanding of the neighborhood, an intelligence picture of the enemy, and build relationships with key local figures before it can even begin to start effective clear-and-hold operations. All that takes time--anywhere from 30 to 60 days, depending on the unit and the neighborhood. In the interim, violence increases as sectarian actors try to achieve their goals before the new unit can become effective, and as entrenched enemies make strenuous efforts to keep coalition forces out of areas that they control. After all, there are no coalition casualties in areas where there are no coalition forces--even areas that the enemy holds. Then U.S. forces must clear the enemy from these areas by engaging in major combat operations that often last for several weeks. And holding an area after it has been cleared takes even more time. This New York Times article and many people who favor shutting down the current strategy fail to understand or acknowledge how long large-scale counter-insurgency operations take or what they look like in their decisive stages. They also refuse to recognize that the current strategy is a departure from--and not a continuation of--the approach that had failed to control violence from 2004 to the end of 2006. Some opponents of the plan now propose returning to General Casey's failed strategy by focusing exclusively on the training of Iraqi security forces and using them instead of U.S. forces--the very strategy that had allowed violence to spiral out of control in the first place. There will be many difficult months to come, as our enemies attempt not only to make the strategy fail, but to convince Americans and Iraqis that it will fail. There is no guarantee that any military strategy will succeed, of course, which is why commanders should evaluate the progress of their strategy. But our new military commanders have understood the problems mentioned in the Times article for months, and they are actively working to solve them. The New York Times wrongly judges the current commanders by their predecessors' expectations. And it wrongly presents their efforts to solve legacy problems as evidence that the current effort has failed. It may be emotionally easier for some simply to convince themselves that the U.S. has already failed in Iraq. But success remains possible if we have the will to try to achieve it.

Well, maybe, but meanwhile it's hard for me not to notice that little Freddy Kagan of AEI never does quite come to grips with what would seem the most urgent enemy, "American and Iraqi forces [are] able to protect the population and maintain physical influence over only 146 of the 457 Baghdad neighborhoods." Freddy doesn't deny the NYTC/DOD numbers, Freddy doesn't confirm the NYTC/DOD numbers, Freddy just ignores 'em. Possibly we lay sheep are to infer that such discouraging numbers are all the fault of former GOP-anointed boobs like Casey and Abizaid, whereas our now GOP neo-anointeds, Petraeus and Odierno, will swiftly -- as swiftly as possible, anyway, though perhaps it may take fifty years, like in South Korea -- set all to right at last. (But little Freddy does not expressly say that.)

Are these bad numbers -- numbers not DOD-denied or AEI-denied or even denied by Freddie Kagan-- only a "legacy problem"? Did Casey and Abizaid suppose that the extremist GOP could somehow attain its Mr. Karl Rove's ever-hotly-panted-after public relations Success and Victory in the former "Iraq" without any population protection or neigborhood "physical influence" provided at New Baghdad? (But little Freddy does not expressly say that either.)

=====

All things considered, Mr. Bones, is it not, on the whole, a great pleasure not be some little para-academic tank-thinker like Rear-Corporal Frederick Kagan of AEI is?

WE are free to know what we want and complain when we don't get it, although perhaps our complaints will be ineffectual. Whereas poor Freddy . . . . What a dreadful lot is Señorito Freddy Kagan's, Mr. Bones! it boggles the mind and troubles the heart even to imagine such a lot as his. All one's valuables, one's individual careerist TankThink valuables and all one's Family Mars-not-Venus valuables and all one's Party or "conservative" "ideology" valuables, absolutely eveythin' one has spread out there on the table at the Casino of Human Events bettin' on Rancho Crawford's Surge of '07™, when one has no better notion than the Crawfordites themselves do exactly what anybody is surgin' for, no control over the Crawfordites, and no Plan B. Should _rouge_ come up rather than _noir_, Freddy is ruined.

And yet ...and yet .... Hath not gamblin' been acclaimed as if it were gallantry?

My dear and only Love, I pray
This noble world of thee
Be governed by no other sway
But purest monarchy;
For if confusion have a part,
Which virtuous souls abhor,
And hold a synod in thy heart,
I'll never love thee more.

Like Alexander I will reign,
And I will reign alone:
My thoughts shall evermore disdain
A rival on my throne.
He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
That puts it not unto the touch
To win or lose it all.

====

Poor Freddy Kagan has such a mountain of odds stacked up against him (and his Family and his ThinkTank and his Boy and his Party), that his success would be almost as antecedently improbable as Macedon's against Persia, and should, by some fluke, Rancho Crawford's Surge of '07™ actually "succeed,", probably the ensuin' Crawfordocracy would subsequently fall apart at least as quickly as Alexander's racket did.

This is all very well, Mr. Bones, and I agree with it. Nevertheless may I not romantically and, if you really must insist, even "unseriously" celebrate the GOP/AEI's poor corrupted Freddy Kagan the way their own "conservative" Sir Walter once celebrated poor (but not in the end seriously corrupted) Edward Waverley?

Try not to be such a Boston blue-nose, Bones! One can be símpatico with a Wingnut City specimen like this little Freddy Kagan of AEI without assenting in the slightest to any of its cheapjack ideological notions, no matter how relentlesly vociferated.

One Paragraph of 'Honesty' ...

... from Colonel V.D.H. Blimp of AEI and Hoover is about as much as anybody should be compelled to endure early in the morning.

The United States can usually win even postmodern wars abroad if it can play to its strengths — which are marshaling our enormous material, intelligence, and technological advantages to defeat the enemy before he inflicts enough casualties to convince an affluent and comfortable public at home that such losses are simply not worth the envisioned aims.

Not even a proper paragraph, is it? only a paragraph fragment. And yet it gives rise to so many questions that it goes on to beg! Let's turn over a few of the words and look at the scorpions underneath:


"Usually"

Why doesn't Col. Blimp name a few splendid triumphs (maybe Serbia 1998) and not so splendid ones (maybe Lebanon 1983) and merely ridiculous ones (Mexico 1914, Guatemala 1954, Grenada 1983) and then let his readers work out proportions and "usually"? He could even list all pertinent capers, back through Spain 1898 -- the first blooding of Grant's Old Party, and also the first US war that can be called "imperialist" in the current sense, the affairs of dishonour with Canada 1812 and Mexico 1847 having been aimed at grabbing the conquered land itself as well as control thereof.


"Win"

I seem to recall some rightist rhetor or geopol maintaining that, despite certain superficial appearances, the USA in fact won Secretary MacNamara's War. Doubtless the current crop of wombscholars are not led to believe that we failed to win the 1812 affair, despite not gaining a single square centimetre of Upper Canada. This little monosyllable can be pretty flexible, although presumably there are limits somewhere. Blimp probably would not agree with any German who claimed that his fatherland had won in 1945, although the Teutonic sophist could undoubtedly maintain a perfectly straight face while pointing out that almost everybody, Germans included, is better off that we would have been if the Hitlerites had had all the technical military successes. Blimp certainly would not agree that Jefferson Davis et al. were winners in or after 1865; that outcome involved an "existential" -- Blimp's own silly word later in this piece -- failure to win.

Or did it? A lot of the slaveocrats and their dupes survived individually, after all, and by the time McKinley sallied forth to settle the Dons' hash, many ex-Confederates actually did say, more or less, "We won too in 1865. Everybody in America won." So maybe they did win, but of course Blimp has not the slightest intention of settling for that kind of success and victory in advance. Neither did the not-yet-ex-Confederates while their rebellion was in progress. To settle, unilaterally and preëmptively, for a Jefferson Davis kind of "win" as regards the occupation of Peaceful Freedumbia and the GOP Kiddie Krusade in general would invite contradiction from Blimp and swiftboatin' from some of his crew's weaker brethren.

It would also, and more importantly, be in violation of ordinary language the same way ordinary language is violated whenever wicked liberals propose to classify goods like education or health care or racial reconciliation or regulation of OnePercenter capitalism under the rubric of National Defense. If words existed in a vacuum of connotations and sentimentalities, there would be no objection to talking that way, we could even Blimpishly call these goods "existential urgencies of national defense" without defying facts or logic. Nevertheless it is self-defeating to talk that way. Even though there was no intention to deceive, the folks at Rio Limbaugh and Wingnut City, who may not see anythin' especially good about such nonmilitary or antientepreneurial goods, will take the line that everybody, including Ms. Liberal, knows very well that schools and hospitals and trade unions are not really part of national defense, and so the lady is a liar. (Blimp, being a specialist in geistige Militärismus, will be more determined than ninenty-nine percent of the neocomrades to reject that particular patter. He is scarcely representative, though, or a suitable native speaker to be used as informant..)

Most importantly of all, to claim that Uncle Sam could "win" in Peaceful Freedumbia by withdrawing from it, or "win" the GOP Kiddie Krusade by relapsing into a wimpy law enforcement paradigm instead of the cowpokers' belovèd "war" paradigm undermines itself. The policy recommended consists in preferring long-term stability and reconciliation to immediate economic and ideological gratifications. The goal might be described as "nobody wins," or "everybody wins," but to market this product with a slogan about Uncle Sam in particular winning is likely to make foreigners worry about being swindled into ending up as losers. Blimp's own parade of supposed Yank supremacies reflects the present correlation of forces: our poor Sam is a sort of (unelected) global wheeler-dealer who wins all the ties, and also gets to define what counts as a tie. If there is anybody in sight who does need more winning than he's got already, it's Sam.



"Postmodern"

Coming from an AEIdeologue and a Hoovervillain, "postmodern" can only be a partisan insult of some sort, but exactly who it is calculated to annoy and why they should be annoyed, I have no clear idea. Probably Blimp counts the Second World War and the Korean "police action" as modern wars par excellance, but how far his "modern" stretches backwards and forwards unprefixed from the period 1941-1953, Blimp really ought to tell us, since there is no way to guess. Perhaps he intends his subsequent formula about "defeat the enemy before he inflicts enough casualties to convince an affluent and comfortable public at home that such losses are simply not worth the envisioned aims" is intended to be the definition of "postmodern warfare"? It wouldn't hurt if he said so. Decent political grown-ups could then wonder exactly what is postmodern -- or modern, or premodern, or calendar-connected at all -- about deciding the game is not worth the stakes. Prudence and rashness were not invented last Thursday afternoon, were they?

If that rigmarole is a definition, then Uncle Sam's wars will have became postmodern as soon as Sam's nephews and nieces became "affluent and comfortable" instead of poor and wretched. But when was that? Compared to most of our contemporaries at any given point in time, we've always been very well off in these parts, thank you very much! George III should have been able to keep us under his thumb if affluence and comfort are automatically conducive to defeat, those Highlanders raised after Culloden and the clearances should have ripped Gen. Washington to shreds single-handed. Trying to take Blimp seriously in this fashion leads straight to absurdity: King Philip's War was our most recent modern conflict, and indeed, our one and only modern conflict of any significance. (The French and Indian War might qualify, had the Indians and the French won it, but unfortunately for theoretical Blimpianity, they did not, comparatively underfinanced and uncosseted though they were.)

We had better stick to the first guess and confine Blimp's historical grotesqueries to the proposition that American affluence and comfort only set in after 1953 at earliest. That's ridiculous, but not so ridiculous as the other. The obvious question is whether the war that Sec. MacNamara and Dr. Kissinger jointly contrived to lose was a postmodern one or not. Probably Blimp thinks so, but it would have been a great kindness had he simply said so. Along those lines the colonel could gratify many kindred Party and factional spirits by discovering that affluence and comfort first got the whip hand of America precisely in February 1968, when, as every present-day wombscholar knows, that futile Tet Offensive of the black pajama guys was put down with ease, and yet for some obscure reason Mr. Johnson of Texas decided not to take the obvious view of what had happened, but its exact opposite.

It goes without saying, if you're an AEIdeologue and a Hoovervillain, that the "Democrat Party" must have presided over the ruinous Triumph of Affluence and Comfort, and LBJ looks to be the most eligible donkey to pin that shameful tail on. The traditional devotion of the militant GOP to poverty and discomfort -- and thus, teaches Blimp, to the warlike spirit -- for most Americans, though perhaps not altogether for themselves, has been maintained unswervingly from U.S. Grant to G.W. Bush. The only possible exception is Mr. Reagan's divagations into "voodoo economics," if harshly assessed. (You'll recall that the Party hero was once a donkey himself, though. Maybe poor Ronnie just couldn't help himself?)

"We hate '68" makes a suitable bumper sticker for the Boy-'n'-Party crowd of 2007, although most of their hatred has little to do with Col. Blimp's special concerns and a lot to do with affirmative action and Equal Rights Amendments and grade inflation and that complete collapse of highbrow culture that The New Criterion will be glad to measure and denounce for you on request. If geistige Militärismus, or the possibility for it, did in fact collapse at the same point as Kultur in general, presumably this was not an accident. Should V. D. H. Blimp ever think these matters through synoptically, perhaps he will find that High Culture is quite as inconsistent with affluence and comfort as his own pet notions are. For that matter, perhaps spiritual militarism is -- was -- itself a component of High Culture? It would be logical enough, in this outsider's opinion, that a nation grown too fat and happy to enjoy Arnold Schönberg's music or the verses of Mr. Eliot of St. Louis any more should have little use for General von Clausewitz either. Or if not exactly logical, at least natural, the sort of thing anybody might expect.

Attempting to invent or expand Blimpianity in advance of Blimp himself is a bit cheeky, I admit, but now that all standards have crumbled -- that being probably the core slur in "postmodern" as the word is customarily deployed by AEIdeologues and Hoovervillains and Weekly Standardizers and suchlike cattle --, what else is to be expected? Surely my insolence fits right in?

Blimping it is kind of fun, too, although perhaps too easy to be genuinely edifyin'. For consider, if all standards have crumbled, then the standard implied in "such losses are simply not worth the envisioned aims" must have crumbled as well. Prudence and rashness were indeed not invented last Thursday. What happened on the day in question is merely that all the yardsticks and balances and spectrometers for measuring prudence and rashness were smashed to smithereens by the affluent and comfortable mob. The Hansons and Kramers and Kimballs and Kristols, the whole host of "conservative" "intellectual" señoritos, often talk as if they had a private horde of measurement devices left over from before the flood of '68 stashed away somewhere, and perhaps they really do, but plainly the time is not yet ripe for these treasures to be made public. Why bring such precious antiques out into the daylight of Neocomrade R. Neuhaus's Naked Public Square™ and give the affluent and comfortable mob a chance to smash what they -- what we -- accidentally overlooked in 1968? Squirrel them away safe somewhere until absolutely sure that all danger has passed!

Meanwhile the señoritos are in a (suitably?) uncomfortable position. They dare not risk exposin' their pre-1968 instruments to the affluent and comfortable mob of 2007, but at the same time they keep makin' particular measurements down in their secret crypts or root cellars that they think everybody should know about, as notably that Peaceful Freedumbia must be successfully occupied and the GOP Kiddie Krusade pursued through all the windin's of a Long War. The "prudentiometer" that recorded these measurements cannot be risked, yet to present the measurements without presentin' the measurement device does not go over well with the affluent and comfortable mob. There is a certain ipse dixit flavour to that approach, don't you know? For us, that's a bit too like the lady's "Kindly allow me to know best!"

But maybe these "postmodern" trappings are more amusing than essential? It seems quite conceivable to me that Col. Blimp does not possess any prediluvian prudentiometer after all, and that he is in fact doin' business at a familiar old rightist stand. The señoritos of "conservatism" have traditionally been nothing if not elitist, frankly preferrin' their own judgments about prudence and rashness (and a lot else) to the mob's. One might say that the Little Friends of Eddie Burke don't need external prudentiometers, they are prudentiometers. When the gentry say a war is worth fightin' and the mob disagrees, why, so much the worse for the mob! It's as simple as that (?) and to drag in "postmodern" contributes nothing worthy of mention. It's also unimportant what the mob is moved by, maybe it's "affluence and comfort" today, maybe "Church and King" in the 1790's, maybe tomorrow "All power to the Soviets!" or "Islam is the Way!" Who cares? A mob is a mob is a mob. Period.

On the other hand, it was Blimp, not I, who dragged in "postmodern." Evidently he thinks it is important. Still, he might be mistaken in thinkin' so.

==

The scribble is long enough, but I did mean to quarrel with the colonel about "our enormous ... intelligence ... advantages." Who would deny that the noble GOP Godzilla utterly outclasses evil terrorist Bambi in material advantages and technological advantages, the two ellipses in that scrap of quotation? When it comes to intelligence advantages, though, I have my doubts, and that no matter whether Blimp refers to CIA intelligence, as he probably does, or IQ intelligence. Can he seriously consider that M. Bin Ládin of Khurasán is enormously worse equipped to detect (and to analyze) what Mr. Bush of TX is up to than the other way around? The proposition seemed dubious to me primâ facie, and it still looks pretty dubious now that I examine it again. But God knows best.


NB: I took "honesty" from the señoritos of National Review, who called Blimp's piece "Honesty about Iraq: How are we doing?" VDH himself only used the H-word once, at the very end, and when he did so he was not thinkin' of self-criticism at all, although what he says happens to condemn the P. R. behavior of Boy and Party:

So more explanation, less assertion; more debate with, rather than dismissal of, critics. And the final irony? The more brutal honesty, the less euphemism and generalities, the more Americans will accept the challenge.

The affluent and comfortable postmodern mob seems to have evaporated somehow: hey, presto, now Uncle Sam's nephews and nieces are poor and wretched and heroically belligerent again! Or anyway, we could be inspired to become so.

Karl Rove's pro judgment on such a question would be ten times more valuable than Blimp's amateur one. That neocomrade is never goin' to discuss his calculations in public, of course, but in practice it is plain that Rove's employer is not exactly headed towards a revival of Spiritual Militarism through "brutal honesty" at the moment, even though "euphemism and generalities" is not the best way to describe current Party agitprop either.

"What's The Rush, Major Leaker?"

"Haven't you heard that you are now permitted by your Little Brother to surge ever onwards until the year 1480/2057? 'Tis plenty of time that you have, sir."

But seriously, it appears that a certain disgruntlement has set in at the Green Zone Officers Club. Set in again, for the higher-salaried violence pros out in the occupied boondocks of Planet Crawford were leaking to this same tune six or eight months ago. They may have thought for a moment that their concerns were being addressed with the appointment of Dr. Gen. Petraeus of Princeton and the portentous unveiling of the Surge of '07™. Had the GZOC examined the panacea in question more closely, they might have expected less and avoided undue disappointment. On the other hand, the rest of the conventional wisdom crowd made essentially the same mistake, regardless of whether they thought Master Freddy's surgin' the greatest thing since sliced bread or only another stumblebumism from the same old Party of stumblebums.

Careful scrutiny would have revealed that none of the GOP geniuses involved in plannin' this ever memorable production ever made clear exactly whom or what they proposed to surge against. Considering their track record, one naturally supposes they had no clear and distinct idea themselves. Yet careless scrutinizers of every persuasion, hawks and doves and dodos and ostriches, have some excuse for assuming that whatever else the Surge of '07™ might do or attempt, it would at least clobber the Rev. Señorito Muqtadá al-Sadr. It's hard to avoid noticing that the lad remains unclobbered. Even at the Green Zone Officers Club, notice has begun to be taken, and therefore disgruntlement seeps in. The brassier violence pros really did want that particular coonskin nailed up on the wall over their fireplace. Like almost everybody else, they'd be much worse off at this point if they had got what they wanted. That point is more or less irrelevant, though, because GZOC cogitation procedes in a near total vacuum of information about native politics. Last fall, and now again, they got as far as bein' mad at poor M. al-Málikí because he doesn't want to give them M. al-Sadr's head, but of how the situation looks from Núrí Kamál Jawád's side, they know little and care less. The Chairman of the Council of Quasiministers can easily be pronounced "corrupt" or "sectarian" and that disposes of that, does it not?

At the level of colonels and generals and Majors Leaker, I think violence professionals ought to know and care about the indigs they conquer and occupy for Boy and Party more than they do, but perhaps that is an arbitrary and unreasonable demand? These folks are, of course, specialists, and the off-beat way I refer to them emphasizes that they are. Were they to take to studyin' their neo-Iraqi subjects' politics, would they not at once be reduced to the level of mere clumsy amateurs?

Probably we should disregard the fact that they have all learned by now to say Party line stuff like "Of course I realize that there can be no exclusively military solution . . . ." That's doubly disregardable: not only is it very doubtful that the GZOC gentry mean it seriously, even if they did, it would not follow that supplyin' the nonmilitary ingredients for GOP Success and Victory is their responsibility. Neocomrade R. Crocker or somebody is supposed to handle that end of occupation policy, no?

But then we come to Dr. Gen. Petraeus of Princeton, who can't be brushed aside so easily, especially not by his subordinates. The plain thrust of his neo-MacNamaran dogmas about counterinsurgency is that it is indeed their duty at the GZOC to worry about indig politics. Such worry is the professional duty of every armed invader and occupier down to 2LT at least, and perhaps of the other ranks as well. In the absence of such worry, conscientiously pursued at a high level of quality, Petraean counterinsurgency would (I presume) be doomed. (The extracts I read even suggested that Dr. P. might not much mind cuttin' the Crockers out of the loop, but he did not actually say that, of course, and perhaps I mistook his drift.)

As things now stand, after fifty months of Party stumblebumism, Petraean counterinsurgency may well be doomed in any case, as far as Peaceful Freedumbia is concerned, but the GZOC colonels and generals and Majors Leaker probably don't think so, and if they did, they'd have no business talkin' about their thoughts out loud. They would certainly have no business deployin' a general strategic pessimism to excuse themselves from the intellectual rigors of Petraean counterinsurgency.

From the outside there is no way to judge how well the Ivy League braniac gets along with rank-and-file colonels and generals, whether or not Dr. P. thinks the GZOC is full of mentally lazy slackers, while the accused think Dr. P. a pretentious and ambitious showboat and nuisance. That might well be the case, but if it is, the New York Times probably won't be reporting about it any time soon. Here is another detail of the Kiddie Krusade that we'll probably be sure about only when more of the perps have published their memoirs. Maybe even then we won't know for sure, because a circular firin'-squad formation of the various memoirists is not unlikely.

One may speak for oneself, though: if I was Dr. Gen. Petraeus of Princeton, this article would not please me. Those subordinates who allowed their identities to be disclosed were circumspect enough, but even they do not sound exactly enthusiastic about Master Freddy Kagan's Surge of '07™, or to claim that Success and Victory are now inevitable, given the bright new Leader as well as the brave new Strategy. (To be fair, perhaps the real Dr. P. called in Odierno and Brooks and ordered them to talk as quoted, the object being to help customers of the New York Times Company appreciate why the Surge of '07™ may require another fifty years or so to achieve all its objectives -- objectives which of course the real violence pros were too professional to expect to achieve instantly. But on the whole I'd guess that is not what happened.)

Major Leaker proper -- "several senior officers" &c. &c. -- is very displeasing indeed, and especially because he handed over a copy of that "one-page assessment" "completed in late May." It is not utterly inconceivable that Boy and Party might think an autoleakage of that sort advantageous, but if so, the event should happen at Crawford rather than New Baghdad, and perhaps the event should star Master Stephen Hadley, as in the case of last fall's "trip report." This morning's sort of thing won't do at all. The present can only be a hostile leak. Fort mauvais!, as Louis XIV used to say.

Being a towerin' neo-MacNamaran intellect, I -- that is to say, my notion of Dr. P. -- naturally regard it as more important to reflect on the sources of Maj. Leaker's bad attitude than to identify him and get rid of him. The latter is of some importance too, though, since it makes whizbang counterinsurgency more difficult than necessary to have to conduct it in a fishbowl. Indeed, if I can't even keep my own secrets safe, how shall I keep the native neosubjects entrusted to my care safe?

Nevertheless, it is a more serious matter that Leaker should think the counterinsurgent task hopeless, and most serious of all that Leaker should encourage the New York Times in its own already existing belief to that effect. Leaker doesn't actually say that he thinks the task hopeless, though. When he handed that damn paper over to the enemy, did he say something like "From these numbers you will see why we must have substantial reinforcements in order to reach our goals," something of that sort that the NYTC peaceniks would be bound to find unfit to print? If so, Leaker was very naïve about the MSM, and in any case he's guilty of a security violation and of forswearing himself, which ill becomes an officer and a gentleperson, yet possibly he's not quite such a completely treacherous ratfink as he looks to be at first.

Meanwhile, how to make lemonade from this regrettable lemon? That's mostly for the chickenhawks down at the ranch to decide, but they might ask my advice about how to handle it. Can I think of something even better than "From these numbers you will see why we must have substantial reinforcements in order to reach our goals"? How about . . . ?

At this point I shall desist, because imagining the attitudes of a Dr. Gen. Petraeus of Princeton is within the scope of my imagination or anybody's, whereas his detailed ingenuities of Mil. Sci. and neo-MacNamaran counterinsurgency obviously are not.

Speaking again from the outside, I think he personally is smarter than to share the "Clobber Muqtadá" tomfoolery, although there are also possible counterindications. If he really lived up to the advance billing, though, Dr. P. would not have countenanced the mural madness, knowin' in advance that the vast majority of indigs would think at once of East Palestine rather than of M. Maginot or ancient China or Hadrian or Offa's dike. There was also that nonsense from his Number Two Braniac about the Arabs lacking any word equivalent to "reconciliation," the flub I was happy to see Dr. Cobban pick up on. If that reflects the actual level of appreciation of the native neo-subject viewpoint -- and after fifteen hundred days of Party stumblebumism, too! -- the best thing would be for the GOP geniuses to abandon Peaceful Freedumbia at once and then spend five or ten years gettin' up to speed about the next sovereign state that they propose to invasionize and regimechange -- before they actually march in and take the joint over.

That last brings within sight of Neocomrade B. West's interesting suggestion that Dr. Gen. Petraeus of Princeton will have achieved sufficient Success and Victory if he manages to come up with a wonder drug that is bound to work wonders next time, even though neo-Iraq is too far gone to save. Rear-Col. West seems to have changed his own mind subsequently and decided that the Kaganiyya's Surge of '07™ may pull it off after all, but his older idea is more interesting. One trouble with it, though, is that such Success and Victory as that would be far more satisfactory viewed from West Point than from Rancho Crawford.

The GOP geniuses and Party base and vile seem to have lost sight of the forest for the trees. They are no longer concerned about vindicating the general proposition that lawless unilateral aggressions can work, only about savin' face and coverin' ass as regards the one immediate quagmire. The latest trial balloon about a South Korea Paradigm suggests that some of the perps, at least, have abandoned their minds to legacy-seekin' altogether. If Uncle Sam still has forces and fortresses in Peaceful Freedumbia in the year 1480/2057, why then surely nobody sane can say that the Titan of Crawford TX was ignominiously pushed out of the place!

Bush's War, Pelosi's Purse

Not to wrangle with anybody whose feathers might get ruffled and then the ruffling get blamed on me, I'll pick on Michael Kinsley and the Wall Street Jingos instead:


A confused Wall Street Journal editorial last week seemed to be addressing this question of how an elected representative might legitimately oppose a war in our democracy. It began by accusing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of cowardice. They "claim to oppose the war and want it to end, yet they refused to use their power of the purse to end it."

How that automatically adds up to "cowardice," I dunno, although of course that's the kind of charge the WSJ crew like to bring. Nothing if not macho are they.

So there is a "power of the purse," you see. Congress can cut off funds for a war that people don't like. In this connection, older readers might recall the Iran-contra affair, in which sources of money were found to keep the contra war going in Nicaragua without Congress's even knowing about it. This met with the enthusiastic approval of the Wall Street Journal, even though funds you do not know about are hard to cut off.

That's a palpable hit, I'd say. By the way, have the Bushies perhaps flirted a little with the idea that they might get money out of Sa‘údiyya and the Gulfie dwarfs easier than out of the Congress of the United States? The Party of Ollie North ought to be willing to look at such a plan, it seems to me. But back to Kinsley:

But what happens if you, as a member of Congress, do attempt to use the power of the purse? Sens. Clinton, Obama and Chris Dodd (also running for president) voted against the final Iraq funding bill because all meaningful deadlines and timetables had been stripped out so that President Bush would sign it. That Wall Street Journal editorial accuses these three Democratic senators of "vot[ing] to undermine U.S. troops in the middle of a difficult mission." If this is true of last week's vote, it will always be true of any attempt to cut off a war by cutting off funds. Unless the Journal is in favor of undermining U.S. troops, this makes the alleged "power of the purse" unusable.

Not quite. It really only means you can't use purse power without annoying the WSJ gentry and positively inviting them to swiftboat you. Our pols are not all paragons of fortitude, but under certain circumstances they might brave that danger, at least. Though if they had to take on Murdoch too . . . .

Advocates of the current war who enjoy the spectacle of war opponents caught in this trap of laws and logic had better hope that every military action a president chooses to engage in from here on out is as wonderful to them as is the war in Iraq. Because there is nothing war-specific about this line of argument. It would work just as well on an invasion of Canada or an aerial bombardment of Portugal. The president can do it if he wants to, and no one can legitimately stop him.

Logic and law are perhaps not quite the essence of the matter from the jingo perspective. They certainly are not going to swiftboat themselves next time some contemptible Democrat wants to muck about in the Balkans or wherever, but they'd rather not.


Of course, the president is elected, and in that sense he is acting as proxy for the citizens when he decides to take our country into a war. Right? Well, not quite. Let's leave aside the voting anomalies of the 2000 election. When this president first ran for national office, he campaigned on a platform of criticizing his predecessor for engaging in military action (in Kosovo and Somalia) without an exit strategy. He mocked the notion of trying to establish democracy in distant lands. He denounced the use of American soldiers for 'nation-building.' In 2000, if you were looking for a way to express your disapproval of the policies and prejudices that later got us into Iraq, your obvious answer would have been to vote for George W. Bush.

Check and mate.

Mr. Kinsley of course wants everybody to carefully remember all about the GOP's Floridagate 2000 before we set it all aside -- which looks a bit like trying to have things both ways.

More seriously, Mr. Kinsley has not really quite altogether checkmated George XLIII with his professional rhetoric and dialectic and logic, plus a bit of amateur lawyering. I'm not even too sure about Mr. Kinsley's facts: I recall the candidate's Philistine sneers at "nation building," but his insistence on exit strategies? (How could anybody criticize Secretary Albright's War about "exit strategies" when the whole Kosova shebang was conducted from 30,000 feet without even any proper entrance strategy?)

But the main reason Kinsley misses his mate is that defendant Dubya never claimed that if only Congressional purse power had been properly deployed, Bill and Madeleine would have been restrained from committing all their exitless abominations. Even Mr. George Walker Bush of Andover and Yale and HBS and TX is not quite that dumb.

That's MY main reason. At Wingnut City and Rio Limbaugh they'll have a different main reason why Kinsley is wrong, one in which the blessèd and mysterious expression "9/11" figures prominently. "We live in a whole new world, the world of M. Bin Ládin, a world in which the former Colin Powell wimpisms about exit strategies is obsolete and out of place altogether. What we need now is quagmirization strategies, plans for plunging always deeper and deeper into our own doo-doo. And curst be she that first shall cry, 'Withdraw!'"

(Not altogether a joke, unfortunately.)

The present Crisis -- the crisis that stars Dr. Gen. Petrolaeus of Princeton and the Surge of '07™, not to mention the supportin' cast of tens of thousands of units of IED fodder -- puts the extremism of the extremist GOP to the test. Wall Street Jingoes are, as Mr. Kinsley accurately warns us, prepared to go very, very far indeed, but will the Party base and vile follow such leadership as that reliably? These WSJ editorial folks are, after all, not even the official Boy-'n'-Party leadership. By high-and-dry AEIdeological standards, they perhaps ought to be the "conservative" leadership, for if private sectorianism always beats the Public Trough, WSJ (plus or minus AEI) really ought to trump GOP. However in practice, that's only so much baloney.

Mr. Kinsley fails to see the baloney aspect, I'm afraid. He takes the hyperextreme journalistic jingoes at their own estimation without waiting to learn exactly what Rupert Pressbaron Murdoch thinks such cattle are worth in pounds and shillin's and pence. MK even supposes that these crafty spiders have woven a "trap of laws and logic." Oh, what a silly fly is Mr. Michael Kinsley, to be trapped or trappable as easily as that!

"[T]his question of how an elected representative might legitimately oppose a war in our democracy" must be about the easiest question ever asked. What you should do, as a decent political grown-up, not to mention an elected representative, is say "I'm against this war! It's a dumb idea! Stop it RIGHT NOW!" To suppose that there could be any possible LEGITIMACY problem about that approach in the USA is politically and structurally absurd. Morally, it is worse than absurd, insofar as it reveals one as a dimwit fly very easily to be trapped, or at least intimidated, by crafty right-wing spiders themselves actin' ultra vires.

If that advice does not resolve Mr. Kinsley's perplexities -- although it certainly ought to -- how about "Jesuitism for Dummies," so to call it, featurin' the SJs' renowned and ever formidable Double Effect Principle: "I don't dissupport the GOP's 'war' because I want to hurt our troops, I only dissupport this Party 'war' of theirs because I happen to think it detestably wrong in principle and in practice disastrous."

A really scrupulous adult decency might worry about this approach because "collateral damage" has become such a monopoly of the Boy-'n'-Party crew that even to touch it with an eleven-foot-pole or an SJ-warranted Double Effect Principle infringes and encroaches and touches pitch and gets defiled.

'Tis a matter of conscience at bottom, and if Mr. Kinsley's tender conscience and alert conscientiouness can't put up with "Jesuitism for Dummies" and Double Effectiveness, well, that's that. If I slink away privately thinking Mr. Michael Kinsley a bit too high-minded for THIS world, well, that's my problem, not his.

The Striped Pants Menace

Colonel Spook gives us rather more than usual of the Big Picture. That title that the Weekly Standardizers have picked for the article sounds unpromising, [*] but perhaps it is not mere Boy-'n'-Party agitprop, a genre Spook does not much condescend to work in.

Dangerous Illusions / Peace-processing our way to disaster. by Reuel Marc Gerecht American foreign policy in the Middle East can produce severe cognitive dissonance. Take Palestine and Iran. The White House's evolving policies toward the Palestinians and the clerical regime in Tehran show how easy it is for history to take a back seat to process, for reality to give way to illusions, and for hope in diplomacy to obscure the need to make serious decisions. The difficulties in Iraq can be blamed for much of this: The administration has been reeling since 2005, first crippled by the hapless strategy and tactics of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and General John Abizaid, and now plagued by self-doubt about the war itself and the possibility of maintaining political support at home. Former Democratic senator Bob Kerrey, a member of the 9/11 Commission, made the case for the Iraq war simply and eloquently in the Wall Street Journal. Yet the new secretary of defense, Robert Gates, a member of the Iraq Study Group, increasingly reveals that he cannot argue for wars--the one in Iraq and the broader one against jihadism--that he does not appear to understand or believe in.

Would Col. Spook approve of Sec. Gates more if that neocomrade did run around arguing for the incomprehensible and the incredible? The charge against him is framed along "When did you stop beating your wife lines?" -- the defendant is guilty no matter what. But presumably Spook wil tell us what Gates ought to be understandin' and believin'.

Meanwhile, consider that paragraph again. Did you "take Palestine and Iran" like me and then find yourself at a loss to decide what to do with them? Apparently they both illustrate that Little Brother and his merry men are out of touch with Reality and History. (So what else is new?) Apparently the reason for their out-of-touchness is the state of the neo-Iraqi aggression.

Well, I suppose that last bit is new, but unfortunately it does not seem to make sense. The Palestine Puzzle dates from 1947 at latest, sixty years ago. The evil Qommies have been in business for twenty-eight years, since 1979. How can the Big Management Party's quagmirization policy for "Iraq," a policy that is much younger and pertains to entirely different provinces, be significantly to blame for whatever Spook dislikes in Palestine and Persia? Even further around the bend, how could the Hambakerites have screwed up Palestine and Persia, when the only made suggestions, not policies, and those suggestions were about "Iraq"? If poor Gates could get his head screwed on right and become as gung-ho about the Kiddie Krusade as Sen. Kerrey seems to be, I can understand why Spook would feel gratified, but what does my taking Palestine and Iran have to do with that?

The administration is tired. Arguments for the war on terror and Iraq that once came easily (if seldom eloquently) are rarely heard now. So we are left to parse the administration's actions for thematic content. It's not a happy task. We'll take the depressing first, leaving Iran, which is with the possible exception of Sunni jihadism the greatest menace confronting the United States, for last. The West Bank and Gaza are increasingly convulsed by civil strife--in Iraq such violence is sometimes called "civil war"--yet many people, in government and out, think that an Israeli-Palestinian deal is still possible, provided Washington has the will to force Jerusalem to make concessions. Yet the Islamic fundamentalist movement Hamas has grown powerful electorally and militarily by advancing an uncompromising hostility to the existence of Israel. Fatah, the backbone of the now-defunct Palestine Liberation Organization and the political base on which the Bush administration and the Europeans want to build a Palestinian state living in peace with its Jewish neighbor, has grown noticeably more anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic. Competition with Hamas, more popular and more religious, now defines Fatah's themes. Not just on the West Bank and in Gaza, but throughout the Sunni Muslim world, fundamentalism has eclipsed virtually every other rallying cry. Born in anger at the unstoppable bulldozer of the West's seductive and deracinating modernity, Islamic fundamentalism shows no signs of receding in Sunni lands, let alone in Palestine, where the faithful live right next to rich, technically accomplished, and militarily powerful Westerners.

I believe these facts are well known. Have the natives of East Palestine taken to militant neo-Islam, then, because Mr. Robert Gates is a bit wobbly (maybe) as regards Responsible Nonwithdrawal from "Iraq"?

More important, the good colonel seems to be dodging his own spookiness just a bit. I recall that he advised us that the indigs should be allowed to have their "political Islam" even though things might be a bit messy for a while and the process might not lead them straight to Republican Party values. Is Spook now gettin' tired of that line?

Peace-processing has become an institution in Washington. Among many Democrats and Republicans, it's a reflex. Normally historically sensitive people will quickly affirm the centrality of the Israeli-Palestinian imbroglio to the spread of religious radicalism in the Islamic world and its now nervous offshoot, Europe. Yet the dynamic unfolding in Palestine--Islamic fundamentalism gobbling up the decaying corpse of secular dictatorship--is what we've seen almost everywhere in the Arab world. In Algeria, Syria, and Iraq, the process has been even more violent than in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel is basically irrelevant to this ongoing collision of modernity and Islam. Still, it is entirely likely that a majority of Palestinians, perhaps a decisive majority, do not want to live peacefully next to a "Western, Jewish-colonial settler state." There is a reason Fatah has moved closer to Hamas ideologically. Religious Muslims, let alone fundamentalists, loathe the idea of a Western, Jewish state in what they see as the Muslim Middle East. As fundamentalism has gained strength in the region, the U.S.-backed dictators and their clientele--the Middle East's peace-processing establishment--have become an ever smaller minority among a more politically faithful majority who are deeply offended by the idea of Israel. What the Bush administration is now halfheartedly and wearily trying to do is restore the ancien régime after 1789.

Again, the facts are familiar, and the interpretations are not outrageously tendentious in the AEIdeological direction. Perhaps there is a faint glimmer of what Spook is really up to. Though he repeats proposition P the same as always -- "Israel is basically irrelevant" -- he seems to be comin' arount to not-P all the same. That is to say, the Spook Doctrine, as originally proclaimed, is now to be reworked so as to take more account of Jewish Statism. To capitalize on this faint hink unilaterally and preëmptively, let us leap to the conclusion that Spook Doctrine II, when beta-testing is over and the product is released, will contain a restrictive clause about exactly what neo-Islamic political messinesses can be tolerated. In particular, faith-crazed native pols are not ever to mess about with interests really vital to the Tel Aviv statelet.

Spook knows enough about the Middle East that he really ought to have thought of it on the first pass. I recall, however, a vague impression from the AEI leaflet in which Spook Doctrine I was revealed to the world that the colonel had Algeria in the 1990's on his mind. Those provinces are far enough removed from Palestine to make it likely that if the faith-crazies ever actually took over, their anti-Zionism would be all bark and no bite. (Unless, to be sure, they were to as much interests in obtaining nukes as the evil Qommies do.)

Fortunately, with the Palestinians, the administration's search for a new policy can't be too detrimental to the United States. The Palestinians have enthusiastically rejoined the mad rush of modern Islamic history. They are no longer a separate, special people. The Palestinians are in the early stages of their "civil war," and it's impossible to know where it will finish--though one could make a decent guess that in these early rounds, Hamas will win and the illusion of a Palestinian partner for peace will end, even for the most committed Americans and Europeans. What America can actually do in the Israeli-Palestinian imbroglio is now irrelevant. What is sad, however, and worrisome, is the extent to which the administration's actions reveal its philosophical crack-up. Where once the administration tried to understand the spread of Islamic radicalism (the president's vivid allusions to American support of autocracy in the Middle East were path-breaking), the administration is now defaulting to language and priorities typical of the decades that the president once criticized. The State Department, a profoundly conservative and cautious institution that, like all foreign ministries, exists to fortify government-to-government relations, has always been waiting to bring back the familiar, comparatively manageable world of Israeli-Fatah negotiations.

Gloatin' "Aha! Now they are going to kill one another off, so we won't have to" is not very becoming. AEI corrupts, no doubt about it. Still, even a tarnished Spook remains interesting (though scarcely important). From what point of view is, or was, it a grave threat that East or Gentile Palestinians should be accounted "a special, separate people"? The answer seems plain, but the analysis Spook implies is not very persuasive. Is Jewish Statism really better off to be opposed by "only" all of political Islam, and not those special, separate West Bank pests?

This product definitely needs further beta-testing. Factoring in Zionism and Hyperzionism and Counterzionism is a sensible idea, but the geopoliticsitarian chef has not worked out exactly how much of that ingredient will work best. He's just, so to speak, tossed three tablespoons of salt-of-the-earth into his new pottage when something like half a teaspoon of it would be much tastier.

The White House, under fewer illusions, may simply want to maintain the appearance of peace-processing for the benefit of transatlantic ties. There is an argument for this, given the essential European role in imposing serious sanctions against an Iran that is pursuing nuclear weaponry. Just a little sop to keep the Palestinian-focused BBC and Bundestag happy. And the Europeans don't require much since the undeniable popular power of Hamas, its hard-to-conceal ugly ethics, and its blatant revulsion for Israel have severely tarnished the once romantic Palestinian cause. But no more than a sop is justified. The sooner Washington gets beyond the peace process, the sooner both Democrats and Republicans can think more seriously about how to deal with rising Islamic radicalism in the Middle East and the threat it poses to the West. Returning to the pre-9/11 preference for stable Muslim autocracies and the peace process is a dangerous cul-de-sac.

Spook has no better credentials to practice Crawfordology than anybody else. Like thee and me, he's obviously only guessin' what his Little Brother might do next and what the rationale for it will be. Reading the first paragraph backhandedly, though, we perceive that Spook is really, really worried about the evil Qommies.

The second paragraph is more interesting. The corruption of AEI extends to Spook's not wantin' to make any serious concessions to the Old Euros. The corruption may even include thinkin' those folks rather less intelligent than they actually are, as well as, obviously, thinkin' them less significant. Lone Rangerism lives! Only now Lone Rangerism, rather oddly, has started poundin' the table about "the threat ... to the West." We've already had the Tel Aviv statelet presented as "Western" par excellance, which is paradoxical in itself, but it is difficult to imagine that Spook has been corrupted to the point where Charlemagne country is to be excommunicated from Westistan altogether. That sort of ideoproduct is readily available elsewhere, but I had thought Col. Spook a couple of links higher up the great chain of wingnuttery than to deal in such trashy wares.

In any case, here is a fine example of why I react to "the West" from the likes of Spook much as Prince Bismarck did to an earlier and similar buzzword: "I always find the word 'Europe' in the mouthes of statesman who are afraid to ask for what they want in their own name." (Quoted from memory) A Lone Rangerism that dare not speak its name?

Then there is final sentence, which is of course a covert advertisement for the Spook Doctrine. Whether additionally restricted in the interests of Jewish Statism or not, the product remains, according to its manufacturer, clearly better than all the competition, and far, far better than "preference for stable Muslim autocracies ." On Pass One, I don't think Spook would have dragged in "the peace process" as an inferior alternative to his own stuff. More likely he'd simply have ignored it. He really ought to think things out a little and write them down for us to pick holes in. Does Spook now suppose that "the peace process" has always been -- or at one point was, or conceivably might be -- a behavior directed at ensuring the survival of the cardboard kingdoms and the barracks-based republics? If so, I'd venture to say that he is mistaken, that he should take a WYSIWYG or Aristotelian view of it and regard the peace process as having been aimed at obtaining peace by solving the Palestine Puzzle. That may be very boring and conventional, but Lady Veritas never promised us that she would never get a bit tiresome and eye-glazing at times.

The mess in Iraq has also allowed the idea of possibly productive negotiations with Iran's mullahs to take hold in Washington. However, only staunch doves and "realists" who are blind to the reality of power politics in the region can look optimistically upon the negotiations between the United States and Iran. We have a clerical regime that has aided and abetted virulently anti-American, radical Iraqi groups, exported to Iraq sophisticated automatic explosive devices designed to kill American and British soldiers, pushed forward defiantly its construction of uranium-enriching centrifuges, and kidnapped at least five American citizens in Iran, four of them Iranian-American dual-nationals. Utterly bogus espionage charges have been hurled at three, including Haleh Esfandiari, the director of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center in Washington. Like her boss, former congressman Lee Hamilton, a chairman of the Iraq Study Group, Ms. Esfandiari has been an advocate of reconciliation between the United States and her homeland. Note: The espionage charges were thrown at these Americans, who had absolutely nothing to do with U.S. intelligence and would have recoiled from any advocacy of "regime change," a day after the May 28 meeting between the Americans and Iranians in Baghdad. This isn't rocket science. We have a meeting, and the regime in Tehran wants to make crystal clear its contempt for any suggestion that the mullahs might want to build a bridge or two. The clerical regime hasn't been killing American and British soldiers in Iraq because they think it's counterproductive. They haven't been aiding radical Shiite groups because it's counterproductive. It looks increasingly likely that Iran has also aided Sunni insurgents--which the mullahs apparently don't think is counterproductive. The truth about Iran's revolutionary elite is that they have little regard for the Iraqi Shia, whom they blame for failing to rise against Saddam Hussein during the 1980-'88 Iran-Iraq war. Compromising the Iraqi Shia for the greater goal of hurting the United States and radicalizing the Iraqi Shiite community is undoubtedly seen in Tehran as a price worth paying.

Ah, here's the red meat at last! Spook should have written his anti-Qommie tirade separately so as to have more room to arrange his ideas in. Notice how in the first couple of sentences he makes plain, but without ever actually sayin' so explicitly, that he thinks Little Brother and the rest of the Party cowpokers are doin' everythin' about as wrong as wrong can be. AEI corrupts: the neocomrade has been reduced to this tactic before, and no doubt will be again. Considering that Spook is much more intelligent and far less ignorant than your average GOP genius, let alone the Party base and vile, I once again find myself wondering if the geniuses realize that the scribbler they are reading does not at all support what Big Management has been doin'. The camouflage gets pretty thin, I should think, when Spook is reduced to stickin' pins in a wax image of the SECDEF.

The main thing is that Little Brother and Associates are now supposed to perceive how the evil Qommies toy with them. Obviously Spook is perfectly sure that they have yet to perceive it. Since the camouflage is so thin, perhaps the allusion to rocket science might have been dispensed with: that sounds dangerously like lesé majesté. Dale Carnegie or somebody might advise him that it does not often help to make the sale to begin by calling the customer a blind moron. On the other hand, the chances that the Crawfordites were goin'ta buy anythin' from Spook were negligible to begin with, so there is no practical effect. (In that case, though, what would he have to lose by sayin' in so many words that he thinks their latest aggression and occupation policies are mistaken and dangerous? Not only does AEI corrupt, AEI corrupts pointlessly!)

Spook would probably claim a special expertise in Qommie Studies, but is he in fact any better at that parlor game than at Crawfordology? There is no way to judge from a popular and polemical scribble like this one, where he, quite reasonably, does not explain how he knows interesting things like "Iran's revolutionary elite ... have little regard for the Iraqi Shia, whom they blame for failing to rise against Saddam Hussein during the 1980-'88 Iran-Iraq war. Compromising the Iraqi Shia for the greater goal of hurting the United States and radicalizing the Iraqi Shiite community is undoubtedly seen in Tehran as a price worth paying."

"Compromising" the Iraqi Shia pretty clearly means (allegedly) furnishing arms to non-Twelvers as well as Twelvers, but I could do with more evidence to decide exactly what Spook means when he talks about "radicalizing" them. Does that only mean encouraging them to rid "Iraq" of extremist GOP palefaces, or is there some broader and more durable radicalization to be feared? Probably the latter, since Spook exhorts to the Kiddie Krusade, against "rising Islamic radicalism in the Middle East and the threat it poses to the West" &c. &c. Unfortunately he has not allowed himself sufficient space to explain these things adequately.

As to mind-readin' the mullahs, Spook seems to think, but does not plainly say, that they regard chaos in the former Iraq as a good in itself. There is no way to argue with him about it, though, since there is no clue what his guesswork is based on. The idea is antecedently imporobable, however, and would therefore require quite a lot of evidence to support it. The only evidence Spook sticks in is about the arrested Americans, which has no discernible bearing on evil Qommie schemes to compromise and radicalize the Shia of "Iraq."

An assumption of the Iraq Study Group was that the clerical regime wants stability next door in Iraq. Hence it might be willing to work with Americans. Yet Iran has benefited enormously from Iraqi instability. Traditional, moderate clerics like Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who have been willing to work with Americans, have been battered and bruised by the violence. The radical Moktada al-Sadr, a little-known and little-admired scion of a famous clerical family, skyrocketed to prominence because of the strife and thanks to critical Iranian aid to him. The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and its more radical military wing, the Badr Organization, has also benefited enormously from the violence. SCIRI is a key Iraqi player that has received substantial assistance from Tehran. What is particularly regrettable about SCIRI is that the bloodletting has made life more difficult for moderates within the organization. And the violence has made it harder for SCIRI to pull away from Iranian patronage.

Applying my Leo Strauss Brand™ Secret Decoder Ring to that bit of evidence-unbuttressed guesswork, I gather that Spook thinks the evil Qommies want to destabilize and compromise and radicalize the former "Iraq" so as to discredit Cardinal al-Sístání and the Najaf Hawza and the so-called "quietist" strain of the ’Ímámiyya. The Hambakers were blind morons not to appreciate so perspicuous and luminous a truth of Area Studies! (I fear I may be a blind moron too.) Be that as it may, one does still wonder exactly what the evil Qommies can see in that program for themselves. If one were told that they want to put SCIRI in power, or something of that sort, that would be different, but the Spook theory of them seems to be that of certain Saturday-morning cartoon "mad scientists determined to destroy the Universe for ends of their own."

Does Iran want to stop this process? Iraq's Arab Sunni community--detested by the Iranians--has been routed from much of Baghdad, badly bloodied, and put to flight by the hundreds of thousands. This is a bad thing in the eyes of Tehran? Where does Iran have the most influence in Iraq? In Basra, where Shiite-versus-Shiite violence is at its worst. This is not a coincidence. Tehran has benefited massively from Iraqi Shiite division and internecine strife. What the United States should expect from Iran is that it will continue to ship its deadly explosives to Iraq and, through violence, feed the radicalization of the Shiite community. Success through Hezbollah in civil-war-torn Lebanon is the model to remember. Until now, it's been Iran's only successful foray abroad. "Stability" in Iraq means only one thing to Tehran: an American success.

The AEIdeologue says " Tehran has benefited massively," but apart from suggesting that dead Sunnis are an obvious good thing, no questions asked, what this massive benefit consists in, who can guess? The success of Lebanon's God Party, such as it was, was attained chiefly at the expense of Jewish Statism and other factions inside the Beirut statelet, and how it parallels developments in "Iraq" I cannot begin to make out. Maybe if we turn the final fortune cookie inside out, however, we catch a glimpse of what Spook's glands teach him: any American, or militant GOP, success anywhere is eo ipso a grave setback for the evil Qommies. That would be AEI corruption run berserk, however, that Col. Spook has now been reduced to the level of a typical Boy-'n'-Party gland-baser. "Say it ain't so, Reuel!"

It should be clear that the clerical regime now believes it can move rapidly forward with its nuclear program without much fear of American preventive military strikes. The once palpable fear of George W. Bush seems to have dissipated as America has floundered in Mesopotamia. Everyone can see that Washington, not Tehran, was more desirous of the recent meeting (NSC spokesmen clearly signaled that we wanted this meeting because U.S. troops were dying in Iraq). Even the most inept power politician in Tehran saw that America was weak and on the run. What once provoked anxiety (American troops in Iraq) now whets the appetite. The failure of the United States to respond more forcefully to Iranian arms shipments to Iraq has reinforced the message. Ditto the low-volume response to the kidnapping of American citizens in Iran. The only good news here is that it will be difficult for the clerical regime to continue talks with the United States even though doing so is manifestly in its interest. When Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, recently said, "Those who imagine that the Islamic Republic of Iran will change its established, logical and defendable policy of forswearing negotiations and relations with the United States are seriously in error," he was being understated. It wouldn't be the first time that clerical Iran had refrained from doing what was in its best interests. But it probably wouldn't take much to tie America up in negotiations--or the hope of negotiations--with Iran over Iraq. And the more America is wedded to talks, the smaller the possibility that it will effectively counter Iran's nuclear-weapons program--the ultimate objective guiding the mullahs' foreign policy. What Tehran would surely like to do is convert its discussions with the European Union over its nuclear program from negotiations about stopping the enrichment of uranium to negotiations about managing an actual nuclear-weapons capacity. Iranians know the North Korean model well. It's a good one. Keep America talking on Iraq, and press ahead for the nuclear prize. Does President Bush understand all this? Probably. Does his administration? The wish to disbelieve the obvious remains great, particularly as Iraq becomes more violent, which will happen this summer even if the surge is working. And although some might still want to put faith in the CIA's estimate that Iran will make a nuclear bomb in 10 years, it's a better bet that Iranians are significantly increasing centrifuge production because they have figured out how to make it work. Most likely, the time for diplomacy and sanctions is shrinking fast. Since the alternatives aren't easy--blockading Iranian oil exports through the Gulf or preventive military strikes--the Bush administration will be tempted to believe in the illusion of negotiations. We can raise the white flag, and call it victory.

Should anybody care to take the RMG camouflage shtik seriously, she would learn that Little Brother has now lost control of his own Administration -- which is not a very nice or loyal thing to say about His Nibs, surely, although perhaps not quite as bad as "blind moron" would be.

Then there is the "wish to disbelieve the obvious" shtik, which needs some work before it is ready for rhetorical prime time. The way it is deployed here it amounts to certain blind morons wishin' to disbelieve what is obvious to Col. Spook, perhaps to Col. Spook alone, rather than obvious to themselves. That's not really much of a club to hit one's Party enemies over the head with. It is unlikely that poor Neocomrade R. Gates will delegate some underlin' the task of respondin' to Spook, but if he did, the obvious line of attack would be to maintain that the honourable and gallant is in most cases seein' only mirages and turnip ghosts, then dismiss him more in sorrow than in anger.

It's doubtful that the vigilante cowpokers have any clear and distinct ideas behind their current aggression and occupation policies, so it would be wiser not to try to tackle Spook's unclarities and indistinctions and mind-readin's head-on. They might, though, point out Spook's irresponsibility. THEY have to worry about payin' for their Party's aggressions and occupations, and findin' enough warm uniformed bodies for them, and persuadin' Televisionland and the electorate to put up with them, even ideally to "support" these capers. Col. Spook is not required to worry about such matters, and he does not worry about them. To point this fact out would not really address any of Spook's concerns, but it would tend to discredit him before an audience of GOP geniuses all the same. As I said, though, Spook is probably not important enough to need to be discredited, and even if he was, his own camoflage shtik would allow them to pretend not to have noticed his assaults.

As regards the biggest turnip ghost of all, perhaps the perps down at the ranch might mercifully inform Neocomrade R. M. Gerecht of AEI, in strictest secrecy, that they have no more intention of seriously negotiatin' with the evil Qommies than he attributes to the evil Qommies of negotiating with the GOP. That way Spook can stop chewin' his nails about Dubya gettin' duped and move on to, hopefully, some more profitable hobbyhorse.

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[*] The Weekly Standard señoritos did indeed mistitle the scribble. It is not "the peace process," but rather his private mirage of George XLIII duped by the mullahs, that the writer expects "disaster" to come from. Perhaps that discrepancy means that Kristol Minor's crew are more fixated on Jewish Statism than even the Mark II Spook Doctrine. Or perhaps it means nothing at all.