# Posted 2:14 AM by Ariel David Adesnik  

HARD NEWS: Once in a while, all y'all may want to hear about OxBlog's shopping habits and long-awaited reunions. But our bread and butter is politics. We made our name by telling you what we think about the news, and we intend to build on that foundation.

So let's talk about the WaPo. Thanks to the 3 1/2 hour train ride from DC to New York, I had my first chance in almost two years to sit down with an actual print edition of the WaPo. It felt good, but don't even think for a second that I'm going to go soft on Don Graham's crew. When you're #1, you have to prove it day in and day out.

While the lead story for the day was Sharon's victory in persuading Likud to accept the roadmap, the Post devoted far more column inches to the situation in Iraq. Not a bad choice.

The front page led off with features on both Iraqi entrepreneurs in the Kurdish north and tough living conditions for occupation forces. But far more interesting was the Post's decision to head up its "World News" section with an extremely flattering profile of Paul Bremer.

While its nice to see that the mainstream media aren't wedded to their inveterate critcism of the occupation, I have to wonder if this positive coverage of Bremer's efforts reflects his savvy courting of the media as opposed to his actual record on the ground. According to the Post,

Bremer has been in Iraq less than two weeks, but he has already changed the tone and character of the U.S. effort here.

That conclusion seems premature. Consider this: the focus of the WaPo profile is Bremer's trip to Umm Qasr to celebrate the unloading of 28,000 tons of rice donated by the United States to the people of Iraq. Given that importing massive amounts of food aid has been an American objective since the beginning of the war, Bremer's visit to Umm Qasr actually highlights the continuity of US efforts rather than Bremer's innovative approach.

In fact, OxBlog has made a consistent point of emphasizing the magnitude of American nutritional aid to occupied Afghanistan, which was the basis of our confidence that the US would do everything in its power to defy critcis' predictions of massive starvation in postwar Iraq. During the war, we devoted constant attention to the status of Umm Qasr and its readiness to receive aid shipments. While Bremer deserves credit for making sure things have worked out over the past couple of weeks, he has hardly changed the "character" of the occupation.

The WaPo is on more solid ground when it talks about Bremer's change of tone. Whereas "the term 'occupation' was taboo" while Jay Garner was in charge, Bremer has come straight out and said that

Occupation is an ugly word, not one Americans feel comfortable with, but it is a fact.

Absolutely. America now has its reputation on the line. The Security Council has backed off and decided to let us take responsibility for Iraq.

But to give Bremer sole credit for this change of tone is somewhat misleading. As if to mock his superiors' intense unilateralism, Jay Garner spent his tenure as governor of Iraq fretting that the people of Iraq and Europe would perceive the United States as imperalistic. You have to wonder if Garner really is a Republican.

In light of Garner's preemptive liberal guilt, it isn't all that surprising that American occupation policy became far too laissez faire. Predictably, this led to reporters to criticise the occupation effort while columnists (fairly) called for a more profound commitment to rebuilding Iraq. Moreover, I suspect that widespread emphasis on the chaos in Baghdad persuaded the Security Council to abandon its initial efforts to demand a more substantive role in the occupation. Better to let the US take responsibility for it, after all.

To those conspiracy buffs obsessed with the Straussian domination of American foreign policy, it must seem that the Bush administration wanted there to be just enough chaos in Iraq to ensure that everyone would demand a stronger American hand in Baghdad rather than an immediate withdrawal.

While no one in their right mind should believe that, it is important to recognize that the initial confusion in Iraq entirely defused potential criticism of the occupation as just another manifestation of this administration's supposedly mindless unilateralism. If Donald Rumsfeld actually considered promoting democracy in Iraq a priority, he would now be in a perfect position to pursue that objective with the full support of both the reading public and the journalists who inform it.

But regardless of what Rumsfeld thinks, Paul Bremer may now have the perfect chance to establish his reputation as a kinder, gentler, postmodern incarnation of Douglas MacArthur.

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