"the real shape of the debate to come"

Comrade M. Yglesias understands how to make life very easy for himself and the doves and the donkeys:

On a schedule, the goal of our Iraq policy is to find a reasonable means of extricating ourselves from an awful position and leaving Iraq's fate in Iraq's hands. Without a schedule, the goal of our Iraq policy is to stay in Iraq indefinitely in defiance of the wishes of the American and Iraqi people alike. Both Obama and Maliki understand this distinction. (...) The real post-surge shape of the political debate [is] a tug-o-war between the imperial fantasies of the American right, and the joint desire of the Iraqi and American people to end U.S. military involvement in Iraq.

Nevertheless, life after Rancho Crawford may not be perfectly easy:

The Bush administration's success in getting Maliki to back away from his own policies shows that a President McCain could probably prevail upon Maliki to accept indefinite occupation.

It is an interesting scribble, Mr. Bones, though more informative about the l*b*r*l mindset than about colonial and imperial policy. You can see from what I quote, and even better from the whole megillah, that M. Yglesias treats poor M. al-Málikí as a wholly owned subsidiary of B. Hussein Obama Enterprises LLC. He acknowledges with his keyboard, to be sure, that he is not authorized to announce any such virtual incorporation:

For the Iraqis the indefinite presence on their soil of a foreign army unaccountable to Iraqi law is a recipe for an open-ended occupation and a neocolonial relationship with the United States. The solution, from an Iraqi perspective, is a fixed schedule for withdrawal that will buy the Iraq government continued military support ... while also asserting Iraqi sovereignty.

But the acknowledgment is in words alone -- and some of the words are pretty dubious as well, notably "on terms that are acceptable to the Pentagon," the contents of that little ellipsis that I stuck in. Also the words "For the Iraqis" at the beginning, which give the impression that to be invaded and semiconquered and occupied and neocolonialised happens chiefly in the mind of the patient, like a Phil Gramm economic collapse. Comrade Yglesias does not want to keep rudely reminding poor M. al-Málikí about the true Correlation of Farces, which is pro tanto a significant improvement over how Boy and Party and Ideology have been behavin’ since they first aggressed. But it is plain that this is good manners on the part of Obama Enterprises rather than serious analysis. For his own part, Comrade Yglesias does not object to "the indefinite presence on their soil of a foreign army unaccountable to Iraqi law." He leaves it to the violence professionals to insist on extraterritoriality and thus does not have to come out for it frankly himself:

[The "Prime Minister" of "Iraq"] would like some measure of continued American military support. But the American military doesn't want to give that support without an agreement with Iraq that continues to grant our forces broad immunity from Iraqi law and discretion in their conduct. Both are understandable positions ....

I daresay the holy Homeland's colonels and generals do not find M. Yglesias being able to understand their position much more satisfactory than the I. Z. collaborationist politicians do. Conventionally wise l*b*r*l*sm does have a broader tendency to fall between two stools like that, does it not, Mr. Bones? Comrade Yglesias, or Mrs. Roosevelt, can understand one's position, but she makes plain that he knows of other positions that are to be preferred. "Damning with faint praise," I believe this ploy is called. It may, on occasion, influence people, but I doubt it wins friends often. [1]

As you would naturally infer from the way our protagonist frames these things, Mr. Bones, on Planet Yglesias one also runs across positions that are NOT understandable. We have already passed by one of these, namely "the goal of our Iraq policy is to stay in Iraq indefinitely in defiance of the wishes of the American and Iraqi people alike." That might make sense if one took the object of the exercise to be to put Ms. Vox Populi firmly in her place and monopolize policy and power under the thumbs of Those Who Know Best®. In the absence of any positive sign that Comrade Yglesias meant it that way, however, I can only guess he thinks that the militant extremist Republicans are nuts on the subject of the former Iraq.

That is what I complain of by saying that M. Yglesias has a tendency to make political life too easy for himself. He’s prepared to damn the torpedoes and steam ahead without possessing any theory worthy of the name about what makes the perps perpetrate. Incidentally, this insouciance aggravates the problem about getting patted on the head and informed that M. Y. finds one's position understandable (though of course he must reject it). That shtik is bound to seem even more patronizing after the client learns how little importance Don Matteo in fact attaches to understanding other folks’ positions. Unless the patient is desperately eager to be reassured that she is not crazy, -- quite a rare condition! -- there is not much to be said for Yglesian assurances of understandability.

Finally, consider the case of the understandability of poor M. al-Málikí in particular. We have seen that Don Matteo can not only understand the quasipremier's recently attested conduct but also a different hypothetical future conduct, that implied by "President McCain could probably prevail upon Maliki to accept indefinite occupation." As I said above, this conventionally l*b*r*l scribbler certainly does not intend to be rude to NKaM, or rude about him either, yet he manages to give the impression that the quasipremier might be prevailed upon to do pretty well anything. Very likely that is an accurate analysis, and it would be an intellectually respectable analysis as well if it were spelled out in crude correlation-of-forces terms. Instead of that, though, we get the Yglesian understandability stuff, which may be warm and cuddly but is not much more. Anybody and her brother-in-law understands already why weakness caves: one need not subscribe to the The American Prospect to learn about that, for Pete's sake!

But God knows best. Happy days.


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[1] Some of our less unintelligent wingnuts have speculated that B. Hussein Obama Enterprises LLC may disappoint certain foreigners, mostly Old Euros, who at the moment expect to be friends with it. Should they discover that Himself consistently pronounces their positions ‘understandable’ but has hyperpowerfully resolved to do something quite different, they may not remain Obama groupies long. Mais nous verrons.