# Posted 1:24 AM by David Adesnik  

IRAQ -- LOOKING BACK AT THE DOG DAYS OF SUMMER: In yesterday's posts on the occupation, I set out for the record those positions which both OxBlog and its critics had taken vis-a-vis the occupation of Iraq during the months of April, May and June. This post will pick up where the last one left off. (If you want to know why I am investing so much time and effort in this project, click here.)

In the last days of June, I elaborated at length on my argument that the American media had become fixated on the superficial resemblance of the occupation of Iraq to the war in Vietnam. Surprisingly, certain liberals agreed with my conclusions as much as did conservatives.

In July, the big news in Iraq was the death of Uday and Qusay Hussein. To my surprise, even those invested in demonstrating the existence of a quagmire recognized an American victory when the saw one.

In August, it was all quiet on the Middle Eastern front until the double bombing of Jerusalem and Baghdad. Then I put up this post which led to an avalanche of criticism followed by this four-part series on the state of the occupation as it is right now.

So there you go. Thankfully, this post has turned out to be shorter than expected. So now I can stop navel-gazing and get back to current events. TTFN.



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# Posted 12:52 AM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG -- INTROSPECTION AND HISTORY: What began as a response to my critics became an unexpected exploration of my intellectual development over the past five months.

While compiling material for yesterday's posts on the occupation of Iraq, I became more aware than ever of how blogging enhances one's self-awareness and forces one to take responsibility for one's thoughts and actions.

For dedicated historians of the self, it has always been possible to gather together journal entries, personal correspondence and other documents in order to assemble an intellectual self-portrait. However, thanks to blogging, the investment of time and effort necessary to become aware of one's own political development has fallen to the point where it has actually become an inviting prospect.

In our heads, we tend to keep an informal score of our own rights and wrongs on the issues of the day. Unsurprisingly, such informal scores tend to ignore losses and emphasize wins, thus suggesting to ourselves that we have far more insight and credibility than we actually do.

At the same time, such informal scores tend to reduce the value of actual wins, since all one can to say to one's opponents long afterward is "I'm usually right and you're usually wrong." And they can say the same thing right back. Or just make fun of you for your groundless self-confidence.

However, in the blogosphere, one must hand over to the reading public the right to measure the worth of your latest post against the value of your older ones. If a blogger is not consistent in his or her views, the reading public (especially other bloggers) will impose consistency from without.

Even professional journalists rarely have to endure this sort of scrutiny. While a record of their work is available in every public library, who actually spends their spare time burrowing through stacks of old newspapers? (Nexis-Lexis is beginning to change all that, but subscriptions are not yet priced for the general public.)

In the process of compiling material for yesterday's posts on Iraq, I found it disturbing to read hundreds of paragraphs that I myself had written but whose contents I would not have recognized in the absence of a byline. Thus, to take either the credit or the blame for the contents of those paragraphs seems rather strange.

At the same time, there were discernible patterns of thought that gave a distinct personality to what I had written. On the other hand, I would not have recognized such patterns if not for the convenience of the OxBlog archive.

In my next post, I will finish off the project that I began yesterday. Yes, it is a response to my critics. But much more importantly, it is a process of learning about myself. And it enables me to recognize that which is so distinctive about belonging to a community of individuals -- a.k.a. the blogosphere -- that has made a similar commitment, more or less formal, to learning about themselves.

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# Posted 12:05 AM by David Adesnik  

AFTER CHAFETZ EXPOSE, HEADS ROLL AT BBC: Andrew Gilligan will no longer be reporting for the network. Instapundit has more. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:04 PM by Patrick Belton  

THREE NOT-SO-EASY PIECES, CONT'D: This month's issue of the RAND Review includes pieces by senior RAND analysts James Dobbins and James Quinlivan.

Dobbins's piece extracts lessons from the U.S. experience in building democratic nations after wars, from Germany on. The most pertinent:

"Unity of command is as essential in peace operations as it is in war. This unity of command can be achieved even in operations with broad multilateral participation when the major participants share a common vision and tailor the response of international institutions accordingly."

"There is no quick fix for nation-building. None of our cases was successfully completed in less than seven years."

"Multilateral nation-building is more complex and time-consuming than a unilateral approach. But the multilateral approach is considerably less expensive for individual participants.

"Multilateral nation-building can produce more thorough transformations and greater regional reconciliation than can unilateral efforts."

"There appears to be an inverse correlation between the size of the military stabilization force and the level of casualties. The higher the proportion of troops relative to the resident population, the lower the number of casualties suffered and inflicted. Indeed, most of the post-conflict operations that were generously manned suffered no casualties at all."

And as though the point weren't driven home yet: "Many factors—such as prior democratic experience, level of economic development, and social homogeneity—can influence the ease or difficulty of nation-building, but the single most important controllable determinant seems to be the level of effort, as measured in troops, money, and time" (emphasis added).

Quinlivan focuses more on the ratio of policing officers to residents in historical experience:

"Peaceful populations require force ratios of somewhere between one and four police officers per thousand residents. The United States as a whole has about 2.3 sworn police officers per thousand residents. Larger cities tend to have higher ratios of police to population."

"Although numbers alone do not constitute a security strategy, successful strategies for population security and control have required force ratios either as large as or larger than 20 security personnel (troops and police combined) per thousand inhabitants. This figure is roughly 10 times the ratio required for simple policing of a tranquil population."

" The British are acknowledged as the most experienced practitioners of the stabilization art. To maintain stability in Northern Ireland, the British deployed a security force (consisting of British army troops plus police from the Royal Ulster Constabulary) at a ratio of about 20 per thousand inhabitants. This is about the same force ratio that the British deployed during the Malayan counterinsurgency in the middle of the 20th century.

More recently, successful multinational operations have used initial force ratios as large as the British examples or larger. In its initial entry into Bosnia in 1995, the NATO Implementation Force brought in multinational forces corresponding to more than 20 soldiers per thousand inhabitants. After five years, the successor Stabilization Force finally fell below 10 per thousand. Operations in Kosovo during 2000 showed the same pattern; the initial forces were sized at somewhat above 20 per thousand."

"The population of Iraq today is nearly 25 million. That population would require 500,000 foreign troops on the ground to meet a standard of 20 troops per thousand residents. This number is more than three times the number of foreign troops now deployed to Iraq.... For a sustainable stabilization force on a 24-month rotation cycle, the international community would need to draw on a troop base of 2.5 million troops. Such numbers are clearly not feasible and emphasize the need for the rapid creation of indigenous security forces even while foreign troops continue to be deployed."

Quinlivan's implication is that the U.S. should draw as much as practicable on an indigenous policing force, which would require a smaller footprint (instead of, i.e., the five nondeployed uniformed soldiers required for each soldier in theatre). Both authors' arguments conduice too towards bringing foreign troops onto the ground in Iraq - but under unified, U.S.-led command and control, and a clear commitment by the U.S.'s partners to establishing a democracy in Iraq and staying for as much time as that takes. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:59 PM by Patrick Belton  

A SAD DAY IN INDIA: Two powerful car bombs exploded today in Bombay, killing 46 and injuring over 115, with initial suspicion resting on the Kashmiri separatist group Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Students' Islamic Movement of India. This is the fifth bombing in Bombay since December 2002. See CNN, Times of India, BBC. Hawken Blog has thoughts and is paying an eye to developments.

According to the Times of India, the bombs exploded in the boots of two taxis, one near Mumbadevi temple in Bombay's jewellery district, and the other in a parking lot near the Gateway of India. The bombs occasioned immediate calls from the BJP and Shiv Sena for the resignation of the Congress-led state government. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:38 PM by Patrick Belton  

SCOTS GAELIC FOR VIETNAMESE SPEAKERS: and you think I'm joking.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:46 AM by Patrick Belton  

L'HOMME NIKITA: Writing in the pages of the LRB, Neal Ascherson gives us a remarkably well-rounded portrait of a remarkably complex man, Nikita Krushchev:

His personality was horribly deformed; his crimes were unforgivable. And yet his lust for the new was disarming. I will never forget a story Taubman tells about his London visit in 1956. What, he asked his Foreign Office escort, was that odd 'oo, oo!' noise coming from the back of the crowd? The diplomat explained that people were booing, an expression of disapproval. Khrushchev grew thoughtful. In the back of the car, he said experimentally to himself: 'Boo!' And then again: 'Boo!' He liked it. For the rest of the day, he went around exclaiming 'Boo!' to all kinds of puzzled people. He had learned something.

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# Posted 11:11 AM by Patrick Belton  

THREE NOT-SO-EASY PIECES: This Weekly Standard piece by Bob Kagan and William Kristol is worth noting. The authors begin by repeating - correctly - that "American ideals and American interests converge ... a more democratic Middle East will both improve the lives of long-suffering peoples and enhance America's national security." They then applaud statements to that effect by Condoleezza Rice and President Bush calling for a "generational commitment" to Iraq and the Middle East comparable to the U.S.'s commitment to Western Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War. And in this, the security advisor and the president are also indeed applauseworthy: the intertwined task of promoting democracy and pursuing counterterror in the Middle East is as obviously central to U.S. security today as creating a secure, commercially prosperous free Europe was then.

Rather than basking solely in admiration for the president's bold, long-term vision, however, the authors are quick to measure current performance in Iraq up to its metric. They point to the successful performance of the U.S.'s mission at hand requiring two more divisions in Iraq - divisions which, thanks to the prior administration's short-sightedness, the nation simply does not have. But most interestingly, they then offer these two criticisms:

[Show me the money:] There has also been a stunning shortage of democracy assistance, at a time when, according to surveys taken by the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, Iraqis undergoing an explosion of political activity.... The price tag [for everything], which may be close to $60 billion, will provide fodder for opportunistic Democratic presidential hopefuls who are already complaining that money spent inIraqwould be better spent in theUnited States. But, again, the time to bite the bullet is now, not six months from now when Iraq turns to crisis and the American campaign season is fully underway

[And show me the diplomats:] Until recently, only a handful of State Department employees have been at work in Iraq. The State Department, we gather, has had a difficult time attracting volunteers to work in Iraq. This is understandable. But it is unacceptable. If the administration is serious about drawing an analogy with the early Cold War years, it should remember that the entire U.S.government oriented itself then to the new challenge. We need to do the same now. The administration must insist that the State Department pull its weight.

This paragraph, though, seems both their most stirring and their most correct:

Make no mistake: The president's vision will, in the coming months, either be launched successfully in Iraq, or it will die in Iraq. Indeed, there is more at stake in Iraq than even this vision of a better, safer Middle East. The future course of American foreign policy, American world leadership, and American security is at stake. Failure in Iraq would be a devastating blow to everything the United States hopes to accomplish, and must accomplish, in the decades ahead.

I could not agree more completely, and endorse everything that I have quoted, as far as the authors go. However - and although they are two writers I respect deeply on the subject - I think they might be too quick to reject out of hand the prospect of looking overseas for soldiers. The authors seem to think of the matter as a choice between two options: simply asking our dedicated soldiers to do more of what they have been doing so well, or giving the entire enterprise over to the internationals - in which case either Kofi and Jacques Chirac will be the ones to determine the pace of Iraq's democratization, or still worse, we may suffer "the possibly unfortunate effects of turning over the security of Iraqis to a patchwork of ill-prepared forces from elsewhere in the world."

Hmmm. Though I agree with Kagan and Kristol on their other points, this particular bit seems a bit of a false dichotomy. Without doubt, the army's current deployed force is woefully insufficient for the task (this in numbers alone, not training or personal devotion). But first of all, we can't simply send more U.S. troops over, because we don't have them. A friend in the Office of the Secretary of Defense told me over lunch last week that bringing additional divisions online - as are indisputedly needed at the moment - would take five to ten years, with emphasis more on the ten than the five. (An important lesson from U.S. history: don't throw your armies away. you might need that.) As far as extending the current pace of deployment - anyone considering this as a viable notion should flip back a few issues in one of my favorite magazines to a piece by another talented Kagan who writes on national security matters (this time Fred). Kagan begins by noting that of the 495,000 troops in the U.S. Army, 370,000 are deployed at the moment. And this already represents a substantial overdeployment relative to the normal requirement to have two units at home in "yellow" and "red" stages - training, tending to base duties, recovering psychologically from overseas service in a combat zone, and rescuing families from divorce - for every one unit serving overseas. At the army's current size, following this rule would allow us to sustain an indefinite deployment of three and two-thirds divisions between different theatres. At present, we have the equivalent of over five out, in Iraq alone, and they aren't enough. Equally seriously, massive overdeployment of the reserve component has ceased to make service in the Reserves any longer an attractive path for amateur patriotic professionals with families and civilian careers. Speaking personally, I know at least several OxBloggers were giving serious consideration to service in the Reserves after 9/11 - but at the current deployment pattern, the price would simply have been too high to balance with beginning families and civilian national security careers. The damage this may have inflicted on the reserve component may in fact be incalculable.

On the other hand, bringing in Allied forces does not mean surrendering U.S. command and control, or democracy promotion aims. Indeed, both would be strengthened by having more feet on the ground to further consolidate security in Iraq. This is not to underestimate interoperability problems with even NATO allies, or the caution that we should take in the drafting of a UN resolution to permit the entry into theatre of peacekeepers from other democracies, like India. And a careful balance will have to be struck, between giving countries sufficient operational control over their own forces to secure their deployment of those forces, while retaining a preeminent role for U.S. leadership in the theatre to make sure that democracy promotion and order is what in the end results. But such complexities must be dealt with, as it is the path which must be taken.

That bit excepted, I heartily endorse everything Kagan and Kristol have said. More, please. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:33 AM by David Adesnik  

RESPONSE TO MARSHALL, PART TWO: (Part one is here.) In early May, I confessed that contradictory coverage of the situation in Iraq made it hard to know whether the occupation was head for success or failure. Since then, my confusion in the face of conflicting press reports has been a running theme of my commentary on Iraq.

While confident that the pessimists consistently get the story wrong, I haven't been willing to say that things in Iraq are necessarily going right. The point? That even in the midst of this extended I-told-you-so, I'm not willing to say that Iraq will become known as an American success story anytime soon. But I am very sure that the pessimists Cassandran pronouncements reflect fundamental misperceptions rather than a balanced assessment of the evidence at hand.

Of course, OxBlog gets things wrong as well. I really didbelieve that American negligence led to the sack of Baghdad's National Museum. Then again, the pessimists didn't exactly get that one right...

It may also be worth noting that I have criticized the US occupation policy at times, even if I haven't pronounced it a failure. Examples of such criticism include my response to rumors of the US implementing a shoot-on-sight policy to deal with looters, my criticism of a US ceasefire with the Mujahedeen e-Khalq, and my blasting of ignorant comments made by Donald Rumsfeld. I admit that I'm an optimist, but I'm sure as hell no Republican cheerleader.

Moving on, OxBlog continued in late May to argue that American GIs were up to the task of befriending the Iraqi people and serving as the embodiment of the United States' democratic values. While there seem to be serious morale problems inside the American camp, I think it is fair to say that the soldiers have still done an admirable job of interacting with those around them. I can't think of any reports of serious misconduct, and even the NYT is getting all teary-eyed about the GIs reaching out to appreciative locals.

In mid-June, OxBlog was gratified to see both the NYT and the WaPo running stories on the restoration of order and basic services in Baghdad. While things are still not great on this front, it might be worth noting that criticism on this front tends to ignore just how far things have come since the end of the war.

Mid-June also marked the beginning of the quagmire debate that has raged on ever since Ba'athist insurgents began to pick-off American soldiers in Baghdad. OxBlog's comments at the time remain surprisingly valid two and a half months later:

I see no evidence of a self-sufficient resistance movement which can survive independent of Ba'athist ties. Nor does Tacitus provide any. Besides, the fact that almost all of the attacks on US soldiers have been in the former Ba'athist strongholds of Tikrit and Falluja demonstrates just how closely tied the attacks are to the fallen dictatorship.

Now here's some food thought: Remember the good old days when our big concern about postwar Iraq was the potential for Shi'ite resistance to the occupation?
Well, even back then OxBlog was pointing out that anti-American violence was coming from the Sunni community, not the Shi'ites. So? The bottom line is that only that small minority who benefited from Saddam's rule seems interested in resisting the occupation.

If resistance had spread outside the Baghdad triangle, I would gladly accept that this prediction was wrong. But it hasn't so I won't.

Early on in the quagmire debate, OxBlog also pointed to one clear empirical indicator of whether or not the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people were on the American or the Ba'athist side. That standard was to judge whether or not the people were protecting the 55 men on the Pentagon's most wanted list. My answer then was no and my answer now is still no. 38 of the 55 are dead or in prison because the Iraqi people are helping us find them.

To Be Continued...
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# Posted 1:23 AM by David Adesnik  

MARSHALL CALLS OUT OXBLOG: In response to the comments that Ralph Peters and I made after the bombing of UN headquarters in Baghdad, Josh Marshall wrote that

There's a basic principle in scientific theory: an hypothesis, to be a real hypothesis, must be capable of disproof. In other words, for an hypothesis to be a valid basis for research, there must be some data which, if found to be true, would prove the hypothesis was false. Otherwise, there's no way to test it.

Now, foreign policy is no science. But some looser version of this principle must apply here as well. To be a policy, as opposed to a theological position, there must be some potential results that would show the policy was not working. The proponents of the policy should be able to say ahead of time that if this or that result happens, the policy has failed...

So I think it's time for the hawks to give us a few examples of events that would show that our policy was not working or at least facing setbacks. You know, just so we can put down some benchmarks, so we can know what we're working with...

If Josh Marshall had been paying closer attention to my constant stream of writing on the occupation of Iraq, he would know that I have held to a single, observable standard for measuring the success or failure of the occupation. Instead of spending his time in the OxBlog archives, Josh chose to direct a small-minded accusation at my work: that it is a product of ideological blindness.

Given that caustic condescension is one of Mr. Marshall's trademarks, I'm not going to take his comments personally (even though I may hit back once in a while.) In fact, since I know that Josh meant well, I will do his homework for him and evaluate the evidence at hand according to my standard for measuring success and failure in Iraq.

In short, I want to know one thing about Iraq: Who is winning its hearts and minds? Strictly speaking, one cannot provide a definitive answer to such a question. Thus, one has to search for proximate indicators from which one can infer a defensible answer. In the following paragraphs, I focus in greater detail on the indicators I have chosen and evaluate the degree to which their reliability has held up over time.

In the opening days of the occupation, I spent a good amount of time asking what standard foreign observers should rely on during the course of the occupation to measure its success. In Foreign Policy, a pair of top-flight scholars argued that the struggle for women's rights would become the decisive front in the democratization process. I disagreed.

In fact, the standard I chose -- that of hearts and minds -- reflected a continuation of my prior interest in the Arab world's reaction to the invasion of Iraq. Most experts predicted a widespread backlash against American imperialism throughout the Arab world.

However, OxBlog insisted firmly and explicitly that the popular reaction in the Arab world would amount to nothing more than scattered and short-lived protests. Exactly as Josh Marshall would've wanted, this site laid out explicit criteria for what sort of evidence would confirm its interpretation. As a result, OxBlog took home all the bragging rights when its prediction turned out to be right.

Anyhow, the real point here is that OxBlog chose the hearts-and-minds standard because of my initial conclusion that the United States' reservoir of good will on the Arab street was far greater than most talking heads cared to believe. While critics mocked the phrase "liberation" during the opening weeks of the war, those who had faith in Iraq resentment of Saddam Hussein ultimately had the final say on the matter. (For those keeping score, Josh Marshall was on the losing side of that one, too.)

During the second week of the occupation, I had an extended discussion with Kevin Drum about whether or not the United States needed to enhance the legitimacy of the occupation by granting a leadership role to the UN. As I saw it, Iraqis wouldn't care about whether the US or the UN were in charge, but rather about whether the US lived up to its promise of letting Iraqi citizens have a taste of the freedom and prosperity that Saddam denied them. Given that opposition to the US occupation consists of Ba'ath loyalists and migrant Islamists, I think it's fair to say that I laid out a clear standard for judging this one and that the evidence came down on my side.

Also during the second week I reviewed the state of homefront support for the United States' occupation policy. While American citizens haven't shown much enthusiasm for the occupation, they haven't come across as resentful either. So let's call this one a tie and take a rain check.

In week three, the first signs of Shi'ite unrest led pundits to speculate that the euphoria of liberation had worn off and that the US would not be welcome in Iraq for long. Ever the dissident, OxBlog responded that

Thankfully, US officials don't seem prone to rush to conclusions as fast as the media has. As Jay Garner said,

"I think the bulk of the Shia, the majority of the Shia, are very glad they are where they are right now...Two weeks ago they wouldn't have been able to demonstrate."

Exactly. There is every reason to believe that most Iraqi Shi'ites are greatful for their liberation. In fact, many indigenous Shi'ite clerics are open to working with the United States. What we have to watch out for are the ambitious men with friends in Teheran.

Given that Sunnis have been responsible for almost every attack on US forces since the occupation began, I think it's fair to say: Score for one for OxBlog. (So now it's three-zip. But who's counting?)

Week four was marred by a disturbing event that led some critics to assert that American soldiers were too violent to win over Iraqi hearts and minds. The event in question was the death of Fallujah-based protesters at the hands of American G.I.s. While dismayed, OxBlog insisted that "peaceful co-existence is possible with all those except the remaining partisans of Saddam." Make that four-zip.

To Be Continued...
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# Posted 7:15 PM by David Adesnik  

A LESS-TOLD STORY: Click here for an interesting article about CIA operations in Iraq. It's from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and was written by an old friend of mine who is well on the road to establishing himself as a foreign correspondent. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:05 PM by Daniel  

MR. SUMMERS, DON'T TEAR DOWN THAT SNOW PENIS. You'll see what I mean when you read this highly enjoyable piece about Larry Summers and his time as President of Harvard. Read to the end and find out why Summers and Al Gore have more in common than one might assume. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:46 PM by David Adesnik  

HEARTS AND MINDS AND BOMBS: As mentioned before, I have come under attack from a wide array of critics for arguing that this week's bombing of UN headquarters was not a triumph for anti-American forces, but a sign of their desperation.

Especially noteworthy is the fact that my critics include the blogosphere's entire center-left brain trust, i.e. Josh Marshall, Matt Yglesias and Kevin Drum. Gentlemen, it's an honor. Now let's get down to business.

There are two principal lines of attack against the 'desperation thesis': First, that Islamic fundamentalists rather than Ba'athist renegades were responsible for the attack. Second, that "conservative columnists" have been so blinded by their partisan and ideological commitments to success in Iraq that they are incapable of acknowledging any sort of setback for American interests.

I'm going to address the first point first since it is a more direct and factual objection to my analysis. Pointing out that no one knows the true identity of the bombers, Matt Yglesias writes that

Maybe all the various attacks we've seen in Iraq were organized by a single, loosely-affiliated group of people. Maybe these people really are deeply unpopular Ba'ath Party remnants. Maybe they've started targeting infrastructure because they're on their last legs and no longer capable of targeting US soldiers. Honestly, though, I just don't see how anyone could know these things.

While Matt never explicitly states why it is important whether Ba'athists or Islamists were responsible for the attack, I think his implicit logic is fairly clear: that if Islamists are responsible, one cannot conclude that the UN attack represents a failure of the Ba'athists initial strategy of focusing their attacks on American forces. Rather, the UN attack may represent one of the first blows in an entirely new insurgency against the occupation government. By extension, there is no reason to believe that the attack represents any sort of desperation.

This assertion begs two questions: First, what do we actually know about the identity of the bombers? Second, must one believe that the appearence of an independent Islamist force in Iraq represents a success for anti-American forces?

The first question is basically matter of evidence and still has no clear answer. I admit that in my initial post on the UN bombing I did not give sufficient consideration to the possibility of Islamists being responsible for it. For a forceful argument in favor of Islamist responsibility, take a look at Michael Ledeen's recent column in the Telegraph. (Also, special thanks to Michael for taking the time to send in his thoughts on my original post.)

While Michael makes some good points, his argument is basically contextual and doesn't establish whether or not Islamists were responsible for this specific attack. The evidence against Islamist responsibility consists of two main facts: First, that the explosives used in the attack were standard components of Saddam's military arsenal. Second, that the former Iraqi secret service agents guarding the UN compound may have been complicit in the attack.

While US officials think that the Ba'athist hypothesis is much more plausible, they haven't ruled out the possibility of the attack being authored by Islamists. There are also those individuals who suspect that the Ba'athists and Islamists are working together, but there isn't any solid evidence to back that up just yet.

Now on to the second question: So what if Islamists were responsible for the attack rather than Ba'athists? I wrote yesterday that evidence of Islamic responsibility

hardly contradicts my main point: that if our enemies are attacking the UN, they have no hope of winning the minds and hearts of the people of Iraq.

Let me elaborate on that a bit. Liberal critics have been arguing from the moment the occupation began that the key to success would be to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, both by restoring basic services and delivering on our promise of democratic self-rule. That, after all, was the lesson of Vietnam: that no amount of firepower can win a guerrilla if the people are on the guerrilla's side.

Thus, I find it rather ironic that they see the UN bombing as a setback. I think the most straightforward version of the liberal argument has been made by blogopshere newcomer Jon Gradowski, who writes that the UN attack was a show of force which may well scare Iraqi citiznes into abandoning their (temporary) support for the occupation government. In short, hearts and minds don't matter.

Yet why should a handful of car bombs lead the people of Iraq to abandon their aspiration of a establishing a democratic, non-Ba'athist order? Especially when the United States has more than a 120,000 troops on the ground and continues to apprehend leading Ba'athist figures such as Chemical Ali and former Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan?

(If you are a fan of Vietnam comparisons, you might ask why a handful of car bombs would terrorize the people of Iraq into submission if hundreds of thousands of tons of high explosives couldn't terrorize the people of Vietnam into abandoning their hopes of soveriegnty and independence?)

If Islamists were responsible for the attack instead of Ba'athists, one has to modify this argument somewhat. If this were a wholly Islamist operation, it may represent the first (second, actually -- see "Jordanian Embassy") in the wave of devastating suicide attacks. But how many attacks will it take to persuade the average Iraqi citizen that he or she is better off without American forces on the ground?

In answering this question, it is important to consider the nature of the target in the UN attack. Ralph Peters writes that

for al Qaeda and associated terrorists, the United Nations is a Western-dominated tool of Christians and Zionists - despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

But the people of Iraq are not al Qaeda. According to the Deputy Director of Physicians for Human Rights,

In the aftermath of the tragic bombing in Baghdad...many have speculated that Iraqis do not welcome United Nations involvement in reconstruction.

Physicians for Human Rights recently asked Iraqis about the United Nations' role there in a population-based survey of more than 2,000 households.

When asked if the United Nations should play a lead role in the reconstruction process, more than 85 percent said that it should play the lead role, and close to 90 percent felt that international assistance in reconstruction was very important.

The Iraqi people are the ones who suffer the most from acts of terror like the bombing in Baghdad. These attacks only set back delivery of basic needs and rights like electricity, clean water, food, health and the development of civil society in Iraq.

The American-led coalition should allow the United Nations a stronger and more independent role in Iraq.

Given that PHR is hardly a pro-Bush organization, I think its word carries a fair amount of weight. Besides, the people of Iraq would have to be ignoring all of the information now available to them in order to conclude that the UN is just a US henchman in disguise.

If you're still with me at this point, you might ask why Islamists would embark on a strategy that is so obviously self-defeating? The answer, of course, is that to them it isn't so obvious. As Peters observed, they are so blinded by ideology and by the Mogadishu analogy that they simply don't believe that either the US army or the people of Iraq are willing to fight for what they believe in.

As such, "desperate" may not be the best way to characterize the Islamist strategy if, in fact, Islamists were responsible for the UN attack. The Islamists are simply unable to switch gears despite the fact that up until know their suicide strategy has resulted in devastating failures, including the destruction of their base in Afghanistan and the apprehension of many Al Qaeda leadership figures.

Again you might ask, "Are the Islamists really that stupid or that unwilling to confront reality?" Well, the Americans were in Vietnam. The Soviets were in Eastern Europe. Further examples aren't hard to think of. Given the Islamists' extreme ideological commitments and the closed nature of their organizations, there is little reason to believe that they will prove any better at coming to grips with reality.

Alternately, the Islamists' may well recognize that they are losing their war against the United States but still have no idea how to win it and no ability to question their tactics. In essence, that was the situation of the United States in Vietnam. We simply didn't know how to win hearts and minds despite knowing that without hearts and minds we couldn't win the war. (It was more complex than that, but I'm not going to go into it here.)

In the final analysis, it is unlikely that Islamist terrorists in Iraq are as desperate as their Ba'athist counterparts, since the Islamists have an international support structure that the Ba'athists lack. Yet if the Islamists are responsible for attacking the UN (or worked in tandem with the Ba'athist underground to organize the attack) then they are strategically desperate and have no idea how to get the people of Iraq to join them in their crusade against the American Satan.

PS I know I didn't get to Josh Marshall's criticism. But it'll have to wait until I get back on Sunday. (1) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:35 AM by Patrick Belton  

OKAY, ONE MORE THING: This, incidentally, is a very, very good thing. Hade Soleimanpour - who served as Iran's ambassador in Buenos Aires in 1994 when Iranian intelligence conspired with Hizbullah to bomb the city's Jewish community center, an event which killed 85 members of the Argentine Jewish community and followed by a year the destruction of the Israeli embassy in that city by Iranian intelligence and Hizbullah - was served an extradition warrant yesterday in Durham, and will appear today before a magistrate in London. Menem and his cronies subsequently accepted a bribe of $10 million from Tehran to obscure judicial investigations of Iran's role in the bombings (the bribe was placed in Menem's personal bank account in Switzerland, and among other substantiating accounts, a defector from Iranian intelligence has testified profusely on the extent of collaboration between Menem's corrupt government and the secret arms of the Iranian mullahs). However, now that the Argentine judiciary is being swept clean of Menem's corrupt hacks, a judge issued a warrant last week for Soleimanpour and seven other Iranian intelligence and foreign ministry officials.

Justice, justice shall you pursue. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:22 AM by Patrick Belton  

THE EGYPTIANS WANT THEIR GOLD BACK: Make of this what you will. A group of Egyptian jurists, their tongues (hopefully) somewhat in cheek, discussed bringing suit against the Jews to recover the gold taken from the Pharoah at the time of the exodus. Some problems have reportedly been encountered with statutes of limitations.

And with that, I'm off for the week! I'll be in Princeton, humbly attempting to serve as a good best man by throwing the party of the century (it's a new century, so the bar's lower) for my good friend Vi. Details are classified at the moment, but look for a full account from David and me on Monday. Happy weekend! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:57 AM by David Adesnik  

PHIL CARTER IS FRIKKIN' AWESOME: While this post is especially excellent, everything Phil has put up the past few days has demonstrated once again what a superb blogger he is. Enjoy! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:54 AM by David Adesnik  

STAY ON THE LINE, WE WILL BE WITH YOU SHORTLY: I'm going to bed now. After I get up, I'll make good on my promise to respond to Josh Marshall's criticism of my original post on the UN attack. I will also respond to Matt Yglesias, Kevin Drum, Dan D. and John Gradowski.

In case you couldn't tell, no one seemed to like a single thing I had to say. However, Ralph Peters does have a column in the NY Post which he published at around the same time I put up my initial post. With the exception of Peters' comments about the flypaper theory, I think Peters' column is brilliant. (For more on flypaper, click here and here.)

As you can tell, I have a lot on my plate and need some time to digest it. But don't worry. Reverse peristalsis is imminent. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:40 AM by David Adesnik  

MINDBOGGLINGLY STUPID: No, that isn't a description of Bob Herbert's latest column. It's a description of the UN's faith in the willingness of former Iraqi secret service agents to provide "security" for their Baghdad headquarters.

Don't believe it? Well, I was surprised, too. I doubt that any Pentagon propagandist could've come up with a better way to demonstrate that the UN was (and is) embarrassingly unprepared to head up the occupation of Iraq. But that is exactly what Bob Herbert thinks should it should do. According to Bob,

As quickly as possible, we should turn the country over to a genuine international coalition, headed by the U.N. and supported in good faith by the U.S.

As far as I'm concerned, good faith support means not turning the future of Iraq over to an organization that trusts Saddam's henchmen to protect the lives of its employees. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:22 AM by David Adesnik  

SATAN GOES ICE SKATING: Hawken has the details. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:15 AM by David Adesnik  

SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET: A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far way, SH babysat for a future OxBlogger. The experience persuaded him not to have children of his own.

Moving on, SH responds to my recent post on Schwarzenegger and the Nazi past by noting that Arnold

ignor[ed] significant evidence of the complicity of Kurt Waldheim in war crimes (evidence significant enough for the US government to ban him from coming to the US while he was president of Austria), has been a staunch defender of Waldheim.  I have no reason to believe that Arnold hates Jews or subscribes to Nazi ideology -- although, you know, there is some of that in the Kennedy background -- Ambassador Kennedy was a well-known Naziphile -- in fact, I doubt that either is true, but I did think the Waldheim issue should be brought to your attention.

Interesting. I wonder what will come of it. I guess that if Arnold loses the recall election the President could always nominate him to be Secretary General of the United Nations. After all, the UN never seemed to have any problem with Waldheim's past. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:20 PM by Patrick Belton  

BEFORE THERE WERE UGLY AMERICANS...there were ugly Britons....

(For a kinder expression of transatlantic bonds, go see Mark Twain. He would have been a heck of a blogger.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:15 AM by Patrick Belton  

LEDEEN ON STAYING THE COURSE IN THE MIDDLE EAST: Michael Ledeen pens a superb piece in yesterday's Sun (another version of which appeared in the Telegraph), reminding his readers that the nation confronts a stark choice - between continuing to work, despite Tuesday's attack, to bring freedom to the Iranians, Syrians, and Saudis whose ruling elites are the paymasters of the region's terrorists; or demonstrating to the partisans of terror that those of freedom can always be sent home by a well-placed bomb of adequate size.

The entire piece is worth reading, but to highlight one favorite passage:

The U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and his British counterpart, Jack Straw, often speak as if they believe we could actually enlist Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran in the war against terror, which is rather like Roosevelt convincing himself that he could enlist Hitler and Mussolini in a war against Japan following Pearl Harbor.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:15 AM by Patrick Belton  

ERRR, he's from my side of the family..... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:01 AM by Patrick Belton  

WE'VE GOT CHEMICAL ALI: Ali Hassan al-Majid, Saddam Hussein's cousin and the officer who ordered a massive chemical weapons attack against Iraq's Kurds in 1988, has been taken into U.S. custody.

For an idea about what this means, read this Chemical Ali quote from Human Rights Watch's dossier: "I will kill them all with chemical weapons! Who is going to say anything? The international community? F_ck them! the international community, and those who listen to them!... I will not attack them with chemicals just one day, but I will continue to attack them with chemicals for fifteen days."

And more from that dossier:

Ali Hassan al-Majid, as secretary general of the Northern Bureau of Iraq's Ba'th Party, held authority over all agencies of the state in the Kurdish region from March 1987 to April 1989, including the 1st and 5th Corps of the army, the General Security Directorate, and Military Intelligence. This included the period of the "Anfal" genocide against the region's Kurdish residents. One of his orders, dated June 20, 1987, directed army commanders "to carry out special bombardments [a reference to chemical weapon use]...to kill the largest number of persons present in...prohibited zones."

Named after a Koranic verse, justifying pillage of properties of infidels, the "Anfal" campaign unfolded as the 1980-1988 Iran/Iraq war was winding down. The Anfal campaign, under al-Majid's command, resulted in the murder and "disappearance" of some 100,000 noncombatants, the use of chemical weapons against non-combatants in dozens of locations, and the near-total destruction of family and community assets, including agricultural and other infrastructure, throughout the rural Kurdish areas. Documents captured from Iraqi intelligence services demonstrate that the mass killings, "disappearances," forced displacement, and other crimes were carried out in a coherent and highly centralized manner under al-Majid's direct supervision. Ali Hassan al-Majid was subsequently in charge of Iraq's military occupation of Kuwait and led forces that suppressed the popular uprising in the south of the country in March 1991. All of these campaigns were marked by executions, arbitrary arrests, "disappearances," torture and other atrocities.

According to Iraqi opposition activists and refugee testimony, al-Majid also played a leading role in the campaign against Iraq's Marsh Arab population in the 1990s, a campaign that included the systematic bombardment of villages, torture, "disappearances," forced displacement, which reduced a community that once numbered over a quarter of a million people to less than 40,000 today.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:59 AM by David Adesnik  

SADDAM AND FRIENDS: Matt Yglesias suggests that I am being rather complacent in my assessment of the UN bombing in Baghdad. Matt is right that I didn't address the possibility that the UN bombing was the work of Islamic fundamentalists working independently of the Ba'ath underground. But that hardly contradicts my main point: that if our enemies are attacking the UN, they have no hope of winning the minds and hearts of the people of Iraq.

UPDATE: I just noticed that Josh Marshall is mocking my arguments as well. I will respond later on today. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:40 AM by David Adesnik  

DEFENDING THE BBC: Kevin Drum takes his best shot at Josh's cover story in the Standard but isn't all that convincing.

Kevin's tries to argue that Josh hasn't come up with anything more than a few trivial examples of the BBC's anti-war/anti-American bias. For a in-depth dismantling of Kevin's post, check out Bill Herbert's comments on COINTELPRO.

But first, you might want to give Josh's article another read. Frankly, Kevin seems to be ignoring all of the most compelling points Josh makes. For starters, Kevin acknowledges that the BBC

obviously lied to make it appear that their source [regarding the Blair dossier] was more highly placed than he was.

That alone is an extremely serious violation of journalistic ethics, especially considering that the BBC lied repeatedly and intentionally.

Next, Kevin dodges the fact that the BBC was patently wrong when it accused Blair advisor Alastair Campbell of being the individual responsible responsible for sexing-up the WMD dossier. Instead, he insists that the accusation was legitimate because BBC source David Kelly made it twice, in separate conversations with separate reporters. Yet Kevin also admits that one of those reporters ignored the accusation becuase she judged it to be nothing more than a "gossipy aside". And the Beeb went ahead with the story. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the BBC's standards, huh?

But what really seems to be behind Kevin's criticisms of Josh is Kevin's admission that

"I would be very cautious about accepting views of the BBC from American hawks, who seem to view any deviation from the war party line as an anti-American, pro-Saddam tirade."

In other words, since some American hawks are unfair to the BBC, Kevin assumes that Josh is being unfair as well. That kind of ad hominem logic is worthy of, well, the BBC.

The one good point Kevin makes is that Josh isn't suspicious enough about the veracity of statements made by now-dead weapons expert David Kelly. Kevin is right that Kelly had a strong incentive to lie about what he told the BBC in order to hide his own violation of his employers' trust. However, Kevin goes too far in describing Josh as "credulous". Rather thank simply taking Kelly at his word, Josh compares three versions of what Kelly allegedly said and then relies on his own judgment to decide which version was best.

While Kevin Drum almost always offers up thoughtful and balanced criticism from a liberal perspective, this time he has fallen far short of his usual high standards.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:05 AM by Daniel  

As I watched Gray Davis' speech at UCLA yesterday, I couldn't help but think: you aren't Bill, so stop trying to be. When Gray Davis adopts Clinton's tactics, especially when speaking about his Republican rivals, it's just....awkward. It is pretty hard to play the victim when your approval ratings are in the low 20's.

However, I do think the recall is ridiculous--voters had their chance to oust Davis last November. Dianne Feinstein may take the lead in reforming California's recall process.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:43 AM by David Adesnik  

HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE is the name of a gut-wrenchingly funny memoir by British expat Toby Young. I bought a copy at Heathrow Airport on my way back from the UK and had read 200+ pages by the time I got off of the plane.

While I had thought about quoting a few of the best passages here on OxBlog, I unfortunately decided to lend the book to a friend before I had a chance to do that. Rest assured, the quotes will appear sometime in the indefinite future.

Another gut-wrenchingly funny British book I've been busy with is Nice Work by David Lodge. An emeritus professor of English at the the University of Birmingham, Lodge has taken academic satire to new heights. He is also a prolific writer, with more than 10 novels to his name.

In addition to the providing the standard attributes of an outstanding novel, such as a compelling story and characters one actually cares about, Lodge's work stands out because of its unparalleled ability to hoist jargon-laden post-modern academe on its own petard.

The basic premise of Nice Work is that Robyn Penrose, an expert in the 19th Century British "industrial novel", has to confront the divide between theory and reality when she finds herself forced to work with Vic Wilcox, the managing director of a local factory. Now, while I would probably enjoy a novel that mercilessly satired post-modern thought without granting it any sort of redeeming characteristics, Lodge persuasively presents Dr. Penrose as a genuinely good human being who uses her theoretical knowledge in productive ways despite her often ridiculous behavior.

While I haven't yet lent my copy of Nice Work to anyone, I thought I'd pull out a quotation or two from another one of Lodge's novels instead, this one called Small World. On page 113, we learn that literary critic "Michel Tardieu sits at his desk and resumes work on a complex equation representing in algebraic terms the plot of War and Peace." The glorious absurdity of that one line had me in stitches.

Small World also happens to provide one of the the best descriptions of blogging I have ever come across, despite the fact that it was written in 1984. On page 99, Lodge comments as follows on the philosophy of undersexed Oxford don Rudyard Parkinson:

The highest form of writing is a book of one's own, something that has to be prepared with tact, subtlety and cunning and sustained over many months, like an affair. But one cannot always be writing books, and even while thus engaged there are pauses and lulls when one is merely reading secondary sources, and the need for some release of pent-up ego on to the printed page, however trivial and ephemeral the ocacasion, becomes urgent.

That is exactly the feeling I have when I go through the paper every morning. Nothing I say is going to be as well-thought out as what I put into my dissertation. But I just have to say something in response to all the ridiculous things I read, otherwise I'd go insane.

As an academic, one tends to think that one's life exists outside the reality which one writes about. One rarely considers the fact that the Ivory Tower is its own sort of reality, with customs and folkways that would befuddle the most conscientous anthropologist. In fact, one tends to assume that academic life is so boringly rational that it isn't worth commenting on. But after reading a novel by David Lodge, you won't make that mistake again.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:35 AM by Daniel  

FAT CHANCE. Martin Indyk outlines his idea for a trusteeship in Palestine, which is promising on paper. My bold prediction: not going to happen. Would we (would Bush?) actually commit forces to fight terrorists alongside Palestinian forces? Would Bush take on another nation-building effort? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:55 PM by Patrick Belton  

IT'S SO BIG: Get your mind out of the gutter, that's the name of the virus currently circulating - the one that's been declared fastest spreading virus of all time. One estimate is that right now the virus accounts for one out of every 17 e-mail messages being sent at the moment. And when combined with the Blaster and Nachi internet worms, it's slowed down the very backbone of the internet. (See, e.g., Reuters, WaPo, Bloomberg, Internetnews.com, The Register (UK), Market Wire)

But that's all beside the point. Which is, I've received 126 e-mails with this virus in the last two days. And even I'm starting to get a little ticked.

UPDATE: 128
UPDATE: 208 (9:00 am)
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:44 PM by Patrick Belton  

OOPS (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:36 PM by Patrick Belton  

THOSE RAMADAN NIGHTS: There's a lovely piece on Qur'anic exegesis in the August 7th LRB (registration or print ed., but well worth picking up a copy for).

Some favorite bits:

Faced with the challenge of modernity, many Muslims today, rather than accommodate themselves to the age-old fudges that have prevailed in so many Muslim societies, have resorted instead to a kind of textual Puritanism. Instead of referring to the way things were done in, say, colonial Morocco, or Ottoman Turkey, or, much further back, under the Abbasid caliphs, they prefer to return to the 'simple truths' of the Koran. The Koran, however, is not simple..... Naive literal readers are soldered onto modern preoccupations with the menaces of Zionism, globalisation and feminism, and this third-rate religious education is one of the things that fuels fundamentalist violence. I have a sense that for some hapless, underemployed and spiritually ill-schooled young Muslims, the Koran is a style accessory that goes hand in hand with martial arts training and watching videos of aeroplanes being blown up. On the other hand, there are those Western infidels, whose reading background is mostly in fiction, who pick up an English version of the Koran expecting to be shocked by its exotic barbarism. There have been many, like Fay Weldon at the time of the Rushdie affair, who...are just as shocked as they expected to be."

and

"Although Qutb was a fervent Muslim, he did not favour an unduly literalist reading of the text. Metaphors could be identified as such. Other Muslims, however, particularly those aligned with Wahhabism, have favoured a narrow, rather pharisaical adherence to surface meanings. Even so, a narrow reliance on the text is not without its problems. For example, Wahhabis and other Islamicists insist that the penalty for fornication is stoninng, even though the Koran prescribes no such penalty. (Flogging is ordained instead.) Again, the Koran does not actually prescribe the veiling of women's faces, it only ordains that their bosoms should be covered. (So the dress code is no more strict than that currently enforced at Harrods.)

and

"It is in (the translator) Arberry that one gets the strongest sense of something speaking to us from beyond the visible world--something transcendent, yet very near:

We indeed created man; and We know
what his soul whispers within him,
and We are nearer to him than the
jugular vein.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:29 PM by Patrick Belton  

TWO CUBAN ATHLETES DEFECT AT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: Even though large portions of the United States and our generation in particular may hold the dubious notion that Cuba represents a socialist paradise free from capitalist greed, borgeouis boredom, and noxious parental supervision, a different story comes across from actual Cubans who have lived in that unfortunate country under its police state. This was the case this weekend, when two Cuban athletes defected to the United States in the course of a world championships competition held in California. "We don't have a future there," said one of the two athletes to a reporter.

And, contra the half of the Yale junior class who go there each spring break, he adds: "and there's no way to have fun over there." (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:42 AM by Patrick Belton  

THE DAY AFTER: The Washington Post places yesterday's attack on the U.N. in historical context - except there've been few such attacks on senior U.N. personnel, and hardly any attacks of such significance against U.N. installations in the organization's history. A senior U.N. Middle East mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, was assassinated by the Stern group on September 17, 1948. (Bernadotte had advocated the disarmament of Jerusalem and the Palestinian right of return. The event led to the outlawing of the Stern organization by Israel, although the suspects in the murder were granted general amnesty on February 14, 1949.) (CNN covers past attacks on UN mission personnel, as well, and agrees that this attack against UN staff is unprecedented in magnitude.) The Post also memorializes the slain diplomat, Sergio Vieira de Mello. The NYT assesses the military munitions used in the attack. The UK press points to reports of thousands of Saudi militants crossing into Iraq (Scotsman), and suggests the coalition had done an insufficient job to protect the UN building (The Times). (And even the Guardian is calling for some sanity over the unfolding dossier brouhaha, saying the dossier's importance in Britain's decision to go to war has been far overrated, and the real reasons for entry into the war were a mixture of arguments, some good and some bad; the Guardian bemoans only the lack of a UN resolution.) (Fortunately, Fisk's Independent article saying the attack "underlines America's crumbling authority and shows it can guarantee the safety of no one" is pay-for-view, so many of you will be spared the pain of reading it.)

In Israel, Abu Mazen is attempting to salvage the peace process by cutting off all contacts with Islamist militant leaders and ordered the arrest by Palestinian security services of the perpretators of yesterday's bombing. Wounded, the usually pro-road map Ha'aretz runs pieces this morning on the failure of hudna, the government's impotence in dealing with terror, and proclaiming there is no right of return. Forced into a greater prudence, however, Israel's policy arms are holding off on a massive military response, permitting Abu Mazen some time to act against the perpetrators first.

In the blogosphere, Glenn links to a NY Post piece wondering whether the UN will take a stand against terror or retreat and take refuge in the comforts of anti-americanism; the Post piece concludes by saying "the lesson the U.N. must take away is that no one can be neutral in the struggle with evil." Salam Pax was there shortly after, and contributes a first-hand account. Matthew Yglesias urges caution in attributing the attack too quickly to Ba'athists or Islamic militants, and thus to drawing overly hasty conclusions from it. Dan Drezner suggests that in pushing the US and UN closer to one another (contra Fisk above), the attackers are tactically inept as well as morally nihilistic. Josh Marshall reflects on the images of the attack. Volokh's David Bernstein attempts to plot out a way forward from here, with effective PA action against Al-Aqsa and Hamas, and Israeli pulling back of settlers. (Bernstein's pragmatism and dedication to principle is touching, as his girlfriend, a U.S. official, was mere yards away from the bombing of the bus).

Slate reviews some of the press coverage of yesterday's bombings, noting that NYT did its best to keep them distinct, while USA Today and several others conflated them as one attack. As regards the culprit, attention is focusing principally on Ansar al-Islam (see profiles of the organization here, here, and here).

Other losses in yesterday's attack include the U.N.'s chief Arabist, Rick Hooper, roughly twenty members of Mr. Vieira de Mello's staff and other offices, and five members of the World Bank staff. In the think tank family, CFR's Arthur Helton was scheduled to meet with Mr. Vieira de Mello at the time of the bombing, and is missing. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:20 AM by David Adesnik  

DAY OF TERROR: In terms of moral depravity, there is no difference between the separate bombings that took place yesterday, one in Baghdad and one in Jerusalem. In political terms, however, the attacks bear little resemblance to one another.

The sensless destruction of UN headquarters in Baghdad demonstrates just how desperate the Ba'athist underground has become. For as long as the Ba'athist remnants held fast to their strategy of assassinating American soldiers, they could plausibly represent themselves as rebels against a foreign occupation.

Now, having murdered 17 representatives of the United Nations, the Ba'athists have made it clear to the people of Iraq that they are still the same brutal thugs who served as loyal enforcers of Saddam's dictatorship.

Unsurprisingly, no one at the New York Times seems to have noticed that the attack on UN headquarters is a sign of desperation rather than ingenuity. A masthead editorial entitled "A Mission Imperiled" argues that the attack is evidence of the United States' failure to restore in Iraq. Maureen Dowd makes the same misguided point, albeit with more of an anti-Bush spin.

Most disappointingly, Thomas Friedman writes that

The bad guys in Iraq have been gaining so much momentum in recent days -- with their attacks on pipelines, US forces, and UN headquarters -- that they are steadily eroding the sense of partnership between US forces and the Iraqi people.

That is absurd. By attacking the UN or even by attacking local infrastructure, Ba'athist forces demonstrate their total disregard for the welfare of the Iraqi people -- which isn't that surprising given that they have been practicing that sort of disregard for over thirty years. (A similar point is made by a security expert in the NYT's news analysis piece on the Baghdad attack.)

The one positive message sent by the NYT staff is that the only acceptable response to the attack in Baghdad is to increase the US commitment to rebuilding Iraq in both military and economic terms. Surprisingly, Dowd writes that "We can't leave, and we can't stay forever. We just have to slug it out."

What happened to "Bring Our Boys Home" or "Give Peace a Chance"? While leftist groups in NYC and San Francisco have been busy posting handbills and stickers which advocate a similar point of view, mainstream liberals will never be able to sympathize with such a point for as long as the US remains committed to promoting democracy in Iraq.

In short, the President has his critics in a rhetorical vise. There is no way they can advocate the abandonment of the Iraqi people without coming across as retrograde isolationists. On the downside, this situation also diminishes criticism of the Administration's lackluster effort to rebuild and democratize Iraq. But with enemies as incompetent as those who attacked the United Nations, the United States and the people of Iraq may succeed despite their unpreparedness to nation-build in the Middle East.

Now Israel. Regardless of whether it was Hamas, Islamic Jihad or both who were responsible for yesterday's attack, the bombing was not senseless from a political perspective. On the one hand, there is no question that the violent death of 18 Israeli civilians will force the terrorists to shoulder most of the blame for ending the ceasefire, assuming that Israel moves aggressively to retaliate against those responsible for the attack.

But Hamas and Islamic Jihad -- or at least their military commanders -- never had much to gain from the ceasefire. While it may have given them time to re-equip, it also gave Mahmoud Abbas time to prepare his strategy for consolidating power in the hands of the PA.

What is hard to know is why Hamas and/or Jihad attacked first, rather than waiting for Abbas to attack them. Had the Prime Minister done so, Hamas and/or Jihad would have been able to represent themselves as righteous victims of an Israeli errand boy.

One explanation for the decision to pre-empt Abbas is that Hamas and Jihad were afraid that they could not recover if Abbas had the opportunity to strike the first blow. But I doubt it. The greater threat may have been that Abbas would have done nothing at all for five or six months, maybe more. Each day without violence raised the political cost of breaking the ceasefire. If Abbas attacked his opponents five or six months from now, they may not have been able to mount the most effective possible response: killing Israelis.

Thus, recognizing that Sharon and Abbas actually were committed to peace and able to cooperate with one another, Hamas and/or Jihad decided that the optimal strategy available to them was to undermine the ceasefire before its roots took greater hold.

It is possible, of course, that this strategy will backfire. The desire for peace on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide may be too intense. But I am not going to get my hopes up. Unless Abbas is willing to move hard and fast against the terrorists, Israel will do it for him. Negotiations will break off and the people of Israel will inch ever closer to accepting that the closest they can come to achieving real peace is to build another Berlin Wall and hide behind it.

UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds says it's hard to know whether pro- or anti-Saddam forces are behind the UN attack. If it were the latter (which I doubt) my analysis above would be, well, wrong.

Matt Yglesias think the good Professor has his tongue buried well inside of his cheek, but I'm not so sure.

Also, Josh Marshall links to footage of the attack.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:13 PM by Patrick Belton  

WHAT NEXT FOR US POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST? Don't expect an answer (in this post, at least), but there's some thinking on this point in Foreign Policy. Contributors include Bob Kagan, Thomas Carothers, Marina Ottaway, Daniel Brumberg, and Vince Cannistrano. Other pieces deal with Iran and moderate Muslims. Kudos to Carnegie for their efforts in adding new meat to the conversation. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:17 PM by Patrick Belton  

AL QA'IDA CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE RECENT POWER OUTAGES: Here, in this piece from Dar al-Hayat. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:01 AM by Patrick Belton  

BURMA ROUNDUP: A flurry of events in support of the imprisoned democratic leader took place last Thursday, the 15th anniversary of a massacre of pro-democracy protesters in the Burmese capital of Rangoon, in which thousands were killed. The Japanese and Laotian foreign ministers expressed concern about Suu Kyi's release during a bilateral meeting they held that day. Meanwhile, Burmese students and sympathizers staged protests in New Delhi and Bangkok. The US and EU have announced sanctions. Slightly earlier (on June 28), the Burmese foreign minister said during a visit to Indonesia that his government did not intend to detain the pro-democracy leader indefinitely, but did not indicate when she might be released.

There has been some speculation that the intense criticism of Burma's ruling junta from neighboring Asia Pacific countries may result in Suu Kyi's release before a regional border committee meeting scheduled between Myanmar and Thailand on August 22.

At its summit ending June 17th, ASEAN issued a statement breaking with three decades of non-interference with member states' internal affairs and calling for Suu Kyi's release. Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad has since pressed farther, calling repeatedly for Burma's expulsion from ASEAN if Suu Kyi is not released.

Perhaps most important among regional condemnations of the SLORC has been that of Japan, previously Burma's chief donor (giving the country aid worth $17 million in 2002), which has frozen all aid to the country. Also expressing repeated disgust (and bringing rare credit on their institutions) has been Kofi Annan, who dispatched a special envoy to the country the week after Suu Kyi's imprisonment, and the EU, which responding to British pressure placed sanctions on the junta on June 16. Pepsi and other large corporations have also stopped doing business with the Burmese government in protest. Some corporations, however, have been less scrupulous - British American Tobacco, for one, which rejected calls by the UK government for the company to quit Burma, saying "We're not a government or an international statesman. We'll do business in countries if it's legal to do so." Not very praiseworthy, that.

On July 29, President Bush signed sanctions against Burma into law in the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act, which had been shepherded through Congress by Senators McConell and McCain and Reps. Jim Leach and Tom Lantos (only three legislators voted against the sanctions). The law, which enters into force at the end of August, bans all imports from Burma (its textiles trade is crucial in keeping that country's economy from collapse), freezes Burma's assets and property in the US, authorizes the president to aid Burmese democratic activists, and widens the visa ban on junta officials.

Aung San Suu Kyi has been detained since May 30. Among other groups working to keep the Burmese people's cause in the world's eye, worthy of mention are the Free Burma Coalition and the Burma Campaign UK. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:11 AM by Patrick Belton  

MORE BEEBISHNESS: Belgravia Dispatch takes on the BBC - but this time, for bad writing.

(Which, to think of it, is even worse...) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:32 PM by Patrick Belton  

ALSO IN MEXICO, an American bounty hunter .... jumps bail. Funny, they look a lot better in the movies. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:24 PM by Patrick Belton  

MEXICO WATCH: The center-left PRD has a new head, after the resignation of Lic. Rosario Robles, who as the former acting mayor of Mexico City attained the highest post attained by any female politician in Mexico. Lic. Robles was forced out of office amidst concerns of financial mismanagement, although the party doubled its parliamentary representation in the July Camera elections. (See Reforma and related) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:18 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE LIGHTS AIN'T JUST OUT IN GEORGIA: Nope, Vatican too. See, the whole world wants to be like New York.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:49 PM by Patrick Belton  

SHE'S BEEN TAKING WRITING LESSONS FROM THOMAS FRIEDMAN!: This latest from MoDo:

We have BlackBerrys that are also telephones and Palm Pilots that are also cameras and cellphones that also send text-message mash notes. We take it on faith that the power will come on when we switch on computers to send e-mail around the world instantaneously from our air-conditioned, well-lit, cable-TV-equipped, key-coded, A.T.M.-financed worlds, without ever knowing that our power might be originating in Canada — eh? — or looping eerily around Lake Erie. Now comes news that our foamy lattes are steamed by the antiquated, overloaded system at Niagara Mohawk? I thought we'd already seen the Last of the Mohicans.

Geesh. Even he does it better.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:18 AM by Patrick Belton  

THE LITTLE PAPER-CLIP GUY on Microsoft Word looks innocuous....but watch out, he's actually spying on you.....

(I always knew it - it was something about the way he blinks.....) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:24 PM by David Adesnik  

CHAFETZ IS #1: On Blogdex, that is. Josh's excellent analysis of the BBC has blown away the competition in terms of getting attention on the Net. OxBlog is now shepping infinite nachas. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:17 PM by David Adesnik  

BUSH: BIG GOVERNMENT CONSERVATIVE? That's what Fred Barnes says, though I'm not buying it. Bush may behave according to the principles Barnes describes, but I get the sense that the President does so as a matter of political expediency.

Barnes also goes to great lengths to contrast Bush to Reagan, the supposed paradigm of small government conservatism. But Reagan did all the same things then that Bush is doing now, albeit with greater pangs of conscience. The bottom line is that Republicans maintain a rhetorical commitment to small government but tacitly admit that their cause is hopeless.

Finally, Barnes makes the untenable statement that "Neocons tend to be big government conservatives." While I can't speak as a neo-con, I think it's fair to say that many neocons have strong libertarian leanings which go against the foundational tenet of big government conservatism, i.e. that

"using what would normally be seen as liberal means--activist government--for conservative ends. And [being] willing to spend more and increase the size of government in the process.

In the final analysis, I think Barnes' essay falls into a well-known genre of opinion journalism, specifcally the attribution of a coherent political philosophy to officeholders who have strong instincts but are unable to articulate a coherent philosophy on their own.

In general, this genre tends to be considerably more popular among conservative journalists, since Democrats have a habit of nominating and electing egg-headed Presidents who can speak for themselves, whereas Republicans prefer men such as Reagan and George W. Bush. In fact, Barnes essay reminds one of the endless battles of the Reagan years in which conservatives spent as much time claiming the President's loyalty for their own Republican faction as they did responding to Democratic broadsides against the GOP as a whole.

You see, in a democracy it's entirely possible to be a 'C' student and a 'A+' president...as well as vice versa. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:02 PM by David Adesnik  

MODO SAYS EUROPE WRONG: You thought it couldn't happen. The Immutable Laws insist that it cannot happen. But Maureen Dowd has decided that a European is wrong and that an American is right.

The European in question is none other than Austrian-born megastar Arnold Schwarzenegger. MoDo says that the California frontrunner

is running on pecs and running away from peccadilloes...he's smoked marijuana and his father was a Nazi...

First of all, the Nazi reference is just plain offensive. I have vague recollections of other journalists asking questions about the elder Mr. Schwarzenegger's politics, but unless his son has actually said something that demonstrates insensitivity to the plight of the Holocaust's victims, there is absolutely no reason to blacken Arnold's name by mentioning him in the same breath as the Third Reich.

On the other hand, the Nazis were Europeans, so perhaps I should compliment MoDo for recognizing that they were evil. Or is this just the exception that proves the rule?

Anyhow, one still has to ask how Ms. Dowd could turn her back on a European candidate for American political office, given her fondness for all things from the Continent. I think I have an answer for this one, and it entails laying out a corollary to the Fifth Immutable Law. It is as follows:

Whereas under normal circumstances Europeans are always right, a European abandons the privilege of automatic rightness if he or she shuns his or her superior cultural heritage by embracing American popular culture and/or taking on American citizenship.

Given Mr. Schwarzenegger titanic role as a worldwide ambassador for Hollywood action flicks, his sins against the Dowdian way of life are unforgivable. Or perhaps it would just be simpler to say that Europeans are never right if they decide to become Republicans.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:54 AM by Patrick Belton  

AND WHO SAID THE UN TRUSTEESHIP COUNCIL WAS DEAD? NYT reports on an idea to revive it to govern Liberia..... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:42 PM by David Adesnik  

A MODEL IDIOT? Yes, another Zoolander reference. No OxPoints up for grabs, though.

For those of you who do not worship at the comedic altar, "A Model Idiot?" is the headline of Time Magazine's fictional cover story on Derek Zoolander. The purpose of that story was to demonstrate that a well-known and well-respected public figure was actually nothing more than a mindless hack with delusions of grandeur.

As you might have guessed, I am trying to suggest that Time's cover story was the inspiration for Josh's excellent, excellent cover story in this week's Weekly Standard. Its purpose, of course, is to demonstrate that a well-known and well-respected public institution, i.e. the BBC, is populated by mindless hacks with delusions of grandeur.

What is especially impressive about Josh's article is its ability to disentangle an extremely complex narrative and forcefully spell out its political implications. While most readers of this site may already have a negative view of the BBC, that is all the more reason to read Josh's article both carefully and thoroughly. Whereas quick posts here and elsewhere (for example, on Andrew Sullivan's site) often provide anecdotal evidence of the BBC's prejudice, Josh's article provides a in-depth portrait of the institution at work and play.

Finally, in case you were wondering, this is the same article Josh himself referred to earlier today. But he didn't play up it's importance nearly enough (or at all for that matter). If only the BBC were that modest...because in contrast to Josh, it has every reason to comport itself with greater humility. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:08 PM by Patrick Belton  

KRISTOF, VIRGIN BIRTH, AND THE INTELLECTUAL STATE OF AMERICAN RELIGIOSITY: Our close friend (and fellow Oxonian) Newman Nahas, in his inaugural post, disputes Nicholas Kristoff's argument this morning that American Catholic and Protestant intellectual traditions are withering at present. (For some reason, no one ever accuses Jewish or Orthodox intellectual traditions - the latter being Newman's denomination - of being in decline.) A very warm welcome to the blogosphere, Newman!

And it's fun to get to see two Arabic-speaking Rhodes scholars debate each other.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:39 PM by Patrick Belton  

REAL LIFE OR THE ONION: Actor Rob Lowe, who played a political operative on "The West Wing," has announced he will serve in an active capacity in the gubernatorial campaign of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who played a hero in "The Terminator" series, "Running Man," and "Conan the Barbarian."

Lowe, a television actor since the age of 8, has played the role on television of a Princeton graduate and White House Deputy Communications director. Lowe remarked, "my extensive experience playing a television character arguing for education reform has given me able preparation and great desire to take that message to the television audience of California." Schwarzenegger, for his part, responded by commenting "as I said in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, 'My CPU is a neural-net processor - a learning computer.' I look forward, with the help of the man who played Sam Seaborn in NBC's hit series The West Wing, to bringing those talents and desire to serve to the good people of California." (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:48 PM by Patrick Belton  

WANNA EMPIRE, II?: In a constructive piece, The Economist calls for greater U.S. investment of resources in what it impishly terms our dominion of "Iraqistan" - fair and good. While I don't necessarily subscribe to every claim in the article, sign me on the dotted line with regard to the conclusion:

In a paradox, those Americans now clamouring for an exit from Iraqistan should be pushing their government to do much more in its new dominions, not less.

America succeeded at “war lite”. But it would be an error to follow up with what a Canadian writer, Michael Ignatieff, has called “empire lite”. Even an unwanted empire is an empire, and hard to run on the cheap. Iraqistan requires the urgent application of more money, attention and ingenuity than America has invested so far. This need not mean staying for “the long haul”, as people say. It is possible that by doing more now, America may be able to pull out sooner. The key is to make enough of an effort now to ensure that these places will remain stable when the empire goes home.

The priorities for Iraq are to raise an effective local police force and put together a clear plan and timetable for a constitutional assembly and the election of a government that Iraqis will see as their own. Afghanistan needs more peacekeepers. In Bosnia in 1995, as soon as peace was agreed, America, Britain and France inserted 60,000 peacekeepers. By contrast, the whole of Afghanistan, a country 12 times the area with seven times the population, has only 5,000 or so troops providing security, plus another 12,000 or so mopping up the remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

For a superbly fleshed-out piece on this theme, see Dan Drezner's recent piece in TNR online. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:34 PM by Patrick Belton  

WANNA EMPIRE? Via today's Economist, print ed.: Londoners could do well to seek relief from the British summer in such cooler climes as Cairo (30C/86F at noon last Monday, compared with London's 38 C/100F) and Delhi (31C/87F). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:06 AM by Patrick Belton  

MORE PRESS COVERAGE OF THE HUNT FOR HAMBALI: NYT and WaPo (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:29 AM by David Adesnik  

PLAGIARISM PART THREE: Part one is here, part two here. Now here's the rest:

4) Constraints

a) Domestic Constraints:

i) First and foremost of all constraints is the 2004 election. At the moment, both polling data and a survey of the experts indicate that no Democratic candidate can come close to matching the President’s credibility on national security issues. Thus, the best hope of a Democratic victory may be a dramatic economic downturn similar to the one that unseated the President’s father. Alternately, a significant terrorist attack on US soil may destroy the President’s credibility and create an even playing field.

(1) Given the President’s credibility advantage, there is little reason to believe he will change much of his foreign policy in response to electoral pressure.

(2) While the media continues to highlight the prospect that increasing casualties in Iraq may provoke a public backlash, the polls show no indication of such a phenomenon, regardless of how many headlines each casualty gathers. In all likelihoood, cabinet infighting will have much more to say about the future of Iraq than electoral pressure.

(3) Even if a Democrat wins 2004, it is highly likely that the US will continue on the same basic course it has until now, albeit showing somewhat more deference to Europe.

(a) The one Democrat who may change US foreign policy considerably is former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. However, the chances of him winning the Democratic primary, let alone the general election are extremely remote.

ii) Congress: In the 1980’s, the Democratic-controlled Congress quickly became the President’s bete noir on all sorts of foreign policy issues. Two important changes have taken place since then, however:

(1) First is the return to Republican control.

(2) The second, and perhaps more important, is the reduction in partisan tension regarding foreign policy ever since the end of the Cold War. There are no longer any clear Democratic-Republican dividing lines, even if one can say that Republicans tend to be more hawkish. After all, it was Trent Lott who told Bill Clinton to "Give peace a chance."

(3) At the moment, Congressional criticism has focused on three main subjects: Homeland security, the State of the Union/uranium flap, and the occupation of Iraq. As mentioned above, Homeland security has not had much traction and will gain momentum unless another attack occurs. The uranium controversy is also dying out. With regard to Iraq, Congress mainly seems interested in ensuring a serious American commitment to rebuilding, rather than calling for a withdrawal as the media projected.

b) International constraints

i) Bush administration critics argued throughout the buildup to the invasion of Iraq that a unilateral policy would do lasting damage to transatlantic relations, the United Nations and the international system. Despite the continuing failure of the Administration to justify the invasion by locating any weapons of mass destruction, the US relationship with Europe and the UN seems reasonably stable.

(1) The main point of contention seems to be the occupation of Iraq, with most opponents of the war refusing to commit any forces to its reconstruction. On most other matters, cooperation is going ahead as usual.

ii) There has also been little reaction in the Arab world to the US occupation of Iraq, despite widespread predictions of a regional upheaval driven by anti-imperialist Islamic fundamentalism By and large, the United States authoritarian allies in the region have begun to spin out a new reformist rhetoric while giving few indications they intend to carry through on its implications.

5) Scenarios:

a) "Pax Americana" – Probability: 40%

i) As specified in your initial comments this scenario would entail significant success in Iraq and Afghanistan. Conventional wisdom suggests that neither is probable.

(1) However, I believe that assessments of the situation in Iraq have been marred by an instinctive pessimism. Thus, I consider it extremely likely that there will be an elected, civilian government within 24 months and that the overall state structure (police, judiciary, legislature, armed forces, etc.) will be at least as resilient as some of the relatively stable Latin American democracies.

(2) In contrast, Afghanistan cannot hope for much more than a continuation of the status quo, excepting the validation of the current government by reasonably democratic elections in the near future.

(3) An optimistic yet still realistic scenario for the Middle East should also include internally-driven regime change in Iran and a reduction of tension in the Israeli-Palestinian relationship.

ii) The Pax scenario might also include a multilateral resolution of the North Korean nuclear crisis, with the North trading its nuclear program for a combination of aid and security guarantees.

iii) The absence of any further attacks on American soil is critical to this scenario.

iv) The re-election of President Bush is NOT essential to this scenario. If the US economy falls into recession once again, Bush’s successor may be a centrist Democrat with a foreign policy that emphasizes the status quo of rebuilding Iraq and negotiating with North Korea.

(1) If President Bush is re-elected, the rise of any given faction within his cabinet may not have great significance, since the positive trend in world events will reinforce the current ideological course.

b) "Manning the Barricades" – Probability: 40% The US suffers no major setbacks, but nor does the war on terror progress.

i) A new Iraqi state emerges but has its legitimacy called into question by a one-sided constitution, a failure to provide basic services, ethno-religious tensions or all of the above. Reform does not advance in neighboring countries. The Israeli-Palestinian peace process stalls.

ii) The Karzai government accepts de facto warlord rule outside the capital.

iii) There is no resolution of the North Korean crisis. New rounds of talks alternate with rhetorical escalation.

iv) Al Qaeda or other terrorist forces attack US military installations in the Middle East, inflicting moderate casualties. Small attacks on US soil also possible.

v) The outcome of the 2004 will probably have little impact on this scenario. However, if the President is re-elected, enough delay may enable realists in the administration to reduce the US commitment to Iraq and Afghanistan, thus increasing the possibility of major failure 5-8 years from now.

c) "Retreat and Rentrenchment" – Probability: 20%

i) As a stillborn Iraqi state begins to decay, realists and non-ideological hawks take control of the administration agenda. After a single flawed election, the US declares the occupation successful and withdraws. A similar scenario plays out in Afghanistan. Reform stalls throughout the Middle East and Israeli-Palestinian fighting flares.

ii) North Korea, possibly joined by a reinvigorated Iranian theocracy, mounts a serious challenge to the nuclear non-proliferation regime and returns the world to the brink of war.

iii) Al Qaeda launches a successful attack on American soil, with hundreds of casualties. Other smaller scale attacks take place regularly around the globe.

iv) The push for retrenchment at home is led either by newly-empowered realists in a second Bush administration, or Vietnam-era liberals in a leftward tilting Democratic administration.

v) Come 2008, America finds itself sharply divided between those who believe that the cause of the current chaos is the Administration’s timidity and those who believe that the sins of the first Bush administration are still provoking a violent backlash across the globe.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:26 PM by David Adesnik  

PLAGIARISM PART DEUX: Here's the next section of my comments (see below):

2) Objectives:
Given the absence of a coherent strategic vision, the best approach to assessing American objectives may be to look at the top issues on the agenda and examine how competing factions within the cabinet want to address them.

a) Iraq

i) Ever since his February speech on postwar Iraq, the President has maintained a firm rhetorical commitment to nation-building and democracy promotion in the Middle East. However, there has been little evidence that any part of the administration made much of an effort – either before, during, or after the invasion – to seriously explore how best to rebuild and democratize Iraq.

(1) Unsurprisingly, the firmest commitment to reconstruction has come from those with an ideological commitment such as Paul Wolfowitz.

(2) Rumsfeld and Cheney seem to have minimal interest in the topic, preferring to delegate authority to others with greater interest.

(3) Powell seems disinterested as well, given that Iraq was never his cause.

(4) Rice appears more concerned with defending her reputation from allegations of her responsibility for allowing misleading statements about Saddam’s nuclear program into the State of the Union address.

(5) All in all, there is fairly widespread concern among Iraq watchers that the President’s interest is too superficial to maintain much of a commitment to rebuilding Iraq should that task become much more daunting than it now is. On the other hand, if the President’s interest is more than passing, he may demonstrate the same stubbornness with regard to rebuilding Iraq as he did to invading it.

b) Afghanistan

i) Neither the President nor any of his advisers has shown much interest in this subject, even ideologues such as Paul Wolfowitz. As best as this analyst can tell, the strong international and domestic consensus behind the war on Afghanistan has given the administration a free pass on its responsibility to rebuild.

ii) The unknown in the Afghanistan equation concerns possible negative outcomes in the 2003 election, such as the installation of a warlord president or even rigged elections that destroy the credibility of the US backed government. In such an instance, the US response is very hard to predict, although one can expect the usual factions to advocate their preferred solutions.

c) North Korea

i) While you didn’t mention North Korea in your brief discussion of the three scenarios, I imagine it is very high on your list of concerns. Yet given the almost total lack of transparency of the North Korean regime, prediction is almost impossible.

ii) One of the few simplifying factors in the North Korean equation is that there is no real hawkish option for the US. It is simply not possible to sustain a get-tough approach when tens of thousands of South Korean and Japanese lives can be lost in a matter of moments. Moreover, there would be no easy win for the US armed forces regardless of US sensitivity to allied civilian casualties
.
iii) Of course, Pyongyang may make war inevitable. Similarly, a combination of North Korea recklessness and US confusion may result in war.

iv) Ideally, the North Korean situation will become a mini-Cold War, in which both sides eye other nervously, occasionally negotiate, and ultimately avoid serious provocation. Yet as the Cuban Missile Crisis showed, one can never truly be secure when there are fingers on the button.

d) Homeland Security

i) Sadly, Homeland security has had about as little prominence on the US agenda as the rebuilding of Afghanistan.

ii) The best way to approach this may be to consider the Administration’s neglect as a sort of strategic risk:

(1) If there are no further attacks on American soil, the Administration will continue to get a free pass on this issue.

(2) On the other hand, an Al Qaeda attack that takes hundreds or even just dozens of American lives may cause serious damage to the President’s re-election prospects. The electorate may even come to see the Iraq war a dangerous diversion that – as critics have long alleged – prevented the US from fighting the real war against terror.

3) Capabilities

a) Given the increasing length of these comments, I am going to try and be somewhat brief from now on!

b) As a percentage of GDP, US military expenditure is still far below its Cold War peak. Thus, in the face of a serious threat, there is almost unlimited potential for expansion.

c) If the threat level does not increase dramatically, however, it will be hard to secure funding for a major expansion of the armed forces, especially if the Administration persists with its deficit-inducing tax cut plans.

d) Thinking in terms of possible scenarios, the real nightmare concerns what might happen if the US had to fight North Korea or even just pursue a major buildup on the peninsula, as it did in Saudi Arabia before the invasion of Iraq.

i) In such a situation, one has to wonder how it would be possible to maintain significant forces in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else.

To Be Continued... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:19 PM by David Adesnik  

SHAMELESS SELF-PLAGIARISM: A friend of mine at a consulting firm asked for my thoughts on his firm's projections regarding the development of US foreign policy over the course of the next 2-5 years. Since I spent a good amount of time on it and actually had fun doing it, I thought I'd reproduce my comments here on OxBlog.

While I can't republish my friend's remarks, you don't need to know exactly what he said in order to understand what I'm saying. If something doesn't make sense at first glance, just read a few more lines and I'm sure you'll pick it up from the context. So here goes:

1) Grand Strategy: [Defined as] Objectives, Capabilities, [and] Constraints

a) I think this is a very solid overall framework. Of course, given that it strongly resembles the approach to strategic thinking I worked on with John Gaddis and laid out in my [earlier paper], my comfort with this approach isn’t all that suprising. ;)

b) I think it is very important that you distinguish between domestic and international constraints and take the latter very seriously, since traditional strategists often dismiss the former, especially the role of Congress, the media and public opinion.

c) In your comments, you raise the question of strategic coherence. I agree that this is an extremely important question. I suggest, however, that you approach it in terms of cabinet infighting and not just in terms of pure theoretical consistency.

i) In terms of both objectives as well [as] policy process, there is a strong resemblance between the current administration and that of Ronald Reagan. In fact, the current administration resembles that of President Reagan much more than it does that of the President’s own father.

ii) Above all, this similarity rests on the presence of a president with basically hawkish instincts but few fixed ideas about foreign policy. (Reagan partsians tend to insist [that] the 40th president had a very developed strategy, but it is hard to know what that consisted of beyond forceful anti-Communism. By the same token, the current President is an uncompromising opponent of terrorism, broadly defined.)

iii) Given the President’s lack of fixed ideas, he is extremely susceptible both to arguments presented by his advisers as well as arguments suggested by sudden upheavals in world politics.

(1) As is well known, the administration pursued a firm "realist" policy before Sept. 11th, with "realism" being defined as a focus on "great" powers and firm opposition to nation-building or other humanitarian projects. Then, as a result of the WTC and Pentagon attacks, there was a dramatic change in both the President’s world view and the influence of certain factions within his cabinet.

iv) ONE CANNOT SEPARATE THE INFLUENCE OF EVENTS AND THE INFLUENCE OF ADVISORS. While Condoleeza Rice retained considerable influence even after Sept. 11th, her foreign policy agenda was shunted aside and has not even begun its return to center stage. She has retained influence by virtue of her personal connection to the President and willingness to abandon her prior agenda. In contrast, world events validated the world view of men such as Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, thus increasing their influence with the President.

(1) It is extremely important to keep in mind the differences between those like Rumsfeld and those like Wolfowitz, in spite of the fact that the media tends to label them [jointly] as either hawks or neo-conservatives or both.

(a) Wolfowitz has a much clearer agenda as well a fierce ideological commitment to it. Wolfowitz believes in the inherent superiority of American democracy and the possibility/obligation of transforming the Middle East by introducing it to a democratic way of life. This principled ideological commitment ensures that Wolfowitz and his associates have both a comprehensive as well as a somewhat inflexible approach to foreign affairs.

(b) Rumsfeld and others like him (especially Cheney) are hawks rather than ideologues. They believe in the efficacy of force but seem to have few clear principles that indicate where and when force should be used (although international approval of such force seems essentially irrelevant). Thus, their reaction are much harder predict. Thus, they tend to have a much shorter attention and be much more susceptible to the pressures of electoral politics. Finally, Rumsfeld & Co. tend to share Rice’s aversion to nation-building and humanitarian action.

(c) The Powell wing of the administration tends to be extremely skeptical of both Wolfowitz’s ideological vision and the Rumsfeld/Cheney camp’s instinctive hawkishness. While Powell & Co. seem reliably committed to building international consensus, they do not seem to have any clear agenda beyond a desire to moderate the ambitions of the Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld camps. Again, this frustrates prediction and creates susceptibility to electoral politics.

(d) In sum, it might be said that whereas the Wolfowitz camp has a fixed agenda, the Rumsfel/Cheney and Powell camps have fixed tactics and an agenda dictated by unexpected events.

To Be Continued...
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:03 PM by Patrick Belton  

BRINGING BACK SCOOP JACKSON: Michael O'Hanlon, one of the smarter kids kicking around the Massachusetts Avenue think-tanks, has a piece arguing the Dems should work to make themselves more credible on national security. Hear, hear.

More on this topic shortly. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:56 PM by Patrick Belton  

EVER WONDER what it's like to be stuck on the Q train for two hours? (and not even get all the way to Brighton Beach?) Amy Langfield clues us in (via InstaPundit). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:36 PM by Patrick Belton  

BRINGING C-SPAN TO IRAQ: Or D-SPAN, perhaps, in honor of its portion of the Syrian desert, and lack of sea other than a few kilometers of the Gulf... At any rate, Claudia Winkler presents an excellent argument in the Standard that the U.S. needs to pay more attention to creating a credible mass media presence oriented around spreading support for democracy - an argument which Max Kampelman made last week as well in an (offline) letter to the Washington Post.

The travails of the Iraqi media, both independent and U.S.-backed, have been covered in depth in pieces by Netherlands Radio, a report by the BBC World Service Trust (also this), and the Guardian; excerpts from the indigenous press are regularly catalogued here by MEMRI.

The Beltway received wisdom, at the moment, lays a fair portion of blame for the weakness of the US-backed media presence at the feet (or postal drops) of paralyzing bureaucratic battles between the government bureaucracies involved. Winkler and Kampelman couldn't be more right on, in saying that Washington must find a way to provide a media presence for the interim government, and that the focus of that media's broadcasting should be strongly on democracy - in Iraq, and in other democracies around the world. This isn't too much to ask for, and it's keenly needed. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:11 PM by Patrick Belton  

CHINA AND GEORGIA: PNAC published two statements today, criticizing Boeing for caving into Chinese pressure by rescinding an invitation the company had extended to Taiwan's vice president, and also reprimanding Georgia's Schevardnadze for giving signs he will back down on his promises to the U.S. to hold free and fair parliamentary elections.

The event in Georgia which PNAC is criticizing is this event, from two weeks ago, in which President Schevardnadze's faction in parliament voted down an election law that had been based on the U.S.-proposed "Baker Plan" - an event which receives excellent and more expansive analysis here by Eurasia Insight.

As regards Annette Lu's cancelled visit to Boeing, other versions of the story are circulating - most notably, in the China Post and Taipei Times, both of which allude to versions in which it was not Boeing or Beijing but rather Washington, annoyed by Taiwan's unilateral disclosure of Vice President Lu's travel plans, which vetoed the visit.

PNAC is a wonderfully talented organization, but still seems to be searching for a way to bring its weekly statements up to the high level of the group's letters and statements of principles. I, for one, will be watching and encouraging from the sidelines. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:06 PM by David Adesnik  

THE FILES ARE INSIDE THE COMPUTER: Until just a few minutes ago, I was cut off from the outside world. But now I'm back, and have to take care of all of the s*** I was supposed to take care of before the blackout happened. On the bright side, now I can have pizza. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:18 PM by Patrick Belton  

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST: Many victories in the war on terror are quiet, and will never be known outside the corridors of Langley and the NSC.

This is not one of them.

In an unnamed country (reportedly Thailand, according to Fox and other sources), key terrormaster Riduan Isamuddin was taken into custody earlier this week, where he is undergoing interrogation. Isamuddin, whose nom de guerre was Hambali, may well have been the mastermind behind the infamous attacks of September 11th which reminded our country that evil in the world did not die with the Soviet Union. Isamuddin is one of the faces of that evil: he was the principal operational commander in Jemaah Islamiyah, and the principal liason point between that organization and Al Qa'ida.

For coverage: CNN, SITE Institute, MSNBC, FOX, Washington Times.

And for those who must labor in quiet to protect freedom from doers of evil: we congratulate you, even though we will never know your names. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:43 PM by David Adesnik  

AND THE AWARD GOES TO...Hansel! No, actually not. The winner is GB, who correctly identified Jacobim Mugatu (played by Will Ferrell) as the man who felt like he was taking crazy pills in Zoolander.

Boomshock also had the correct answer, as did RP and BS. I have decided to award each of them three OxPoints for effort. And I've also decided to award GB five bonus OxPoints for having a subject line that read "That David Adesnik is so hot right now".

Moreover, I'd like to address GB's contention that OxPoints "don't actually exist". In point of fact, they are no less real than Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Actually, I'm still trying to decide what OxPoints are good for. I was thinking that each one could be traded in for ten words on OxBlog, e.g. GB now has the right to post an 100-word message saying whatever.

Of course, there would have to be better prizes for those who save their points for a rainy day. 100 points could get any photo of your choice on OxBlog (since, after all, a picture is worth a thousand words.) And 1000 OxPoints could be traded in for sexual favors (not from me, though, I'm a prude. But Chafetz may be able to work something out with his OxBlog groupies...) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:11 AM by David Adesnik  

I FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS!!! So I come back from San Francisco and the world has turned completely upside down. Maureen Dowd is praising all those blogs not published by candidates for the Democratic nomination. If you ask me, that sound like an implicit endorsement of the Immutable Laws...

Meanwhile, Tom Friedman is waxing Krugmanesque with ridiculous statements such as

To wait in line for 30 minutes and then be told you have to go across [Baghdad] to a different gate produces humiliation and rage, and eventually grenades tossed at Americans. I saw it in the eyes of those Iraqi women and their husbands as they drove away.

I guess Iraqis are less patient than Russians, since the latter stood on line for several decades without ever managing to throw grenades at the local commissar. Then again, I wouldn't exactly want Iraq to turn out like the Soviet Union (a position that puts me at odds with most San Franciscans!)

Perhaps more shocking than the turnaround on the op-ed page was the objectively pro-Israel coverage provided by the lead story on the NYT front page. After reading this article, it's hard not to come to the conclusion that Israelis are the victims of Palestinian terror (and not vice versa). Multiple anti-Palestinian quotations from Israeli citizens as well as officials (including Arik Sharon himself) pass by without any sort of critical response.

The Times' token effort at balanced reporting consists of a ridiculous bit of invective from Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi that does more to undermine his credibility than advance his cause. The Times doesn't even mention that Rantisi was the victim of an internationally condemned (and sadly unsuccessful) targeted Israeli killing.

However, there is a catch. The Times reported that

By tonight the Israeli military had not retaliated, as it often has after suicide bombings in nearly three years of renewed fighting here.

You see, if Israel wants favorable coverage, it has to let its citizens get killed. In contrast, the PA and Hamas get favorable coverage so long as Israel responds to terrorism the same way that the US, the UK, Germany and France always have: with force.

Moving on, the Times has also bothered to put some relatively favorable coverage of Iraq on the front page. The principal subject of the article is the obsession of Islamic militants with derailing the occupation of Iraq. While that sort of angle suggests a quagmire motif, the actual contents of the article come across as an accidental instance of patriotic cheerleading.

The case for promoting democracy in Iraq gets made by Kurdish leader Barham Saleh, who inspiringly observes that

Iraq is the nexus where many issues are coming together — Islam versus democracy, the West versus the axis of evil, Arab nationalism versus some different types of political culture...If the Americans succeed here, this will be a monumental blow to everything the terrorists stand for.

Then, the Times lets the local terrorists undermine their own credibility the same way it let Rantisi embarrass Hamas. According to the head of Ansar al-Islam

The resistance is not only a reaction to the American invasion, it is part of the continuous Islamic struggle since the collapse of the caliphate...All Islamic struggles since then are part of one organized effort to bring back the caliphate.

Talk about two birds with one stone. Not only does the Ansar spokesman makes himself look ridiculous, but he argues that American aggression isn't the real cause of Arab anger!

If this kind of coverage keeps up, I may actually subscribe to the paper edition of the New York Times!

PS Ten OxPoints to the first person (other than Chafetz) who e-mails in the name of the character who said "I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!"

CORRECTION: Make that five OxPoints, since I just discovered you can identify the quotation with just one try at Google.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:48 PM by Patrick Belton  

ON THAT NOTE, here are a few favorite selections out of The Jokes of Oppression.....

Question: What is the necessary transitional stage between socialism and Communism?
Answer: Alcoholism.

Question: What's meant by an exchange opinions in the Communist party of the Soviet Union?
Answer: It's when I come to a party meeting with my own opinion, and I leave with the party's.

During the period of Stalin's Great Terror in the 1930s, this scenario was frequently heard.
"How long are you here for?" the prison guard asked the newly arrived inmate.
"Ten Years," the prisoner replied.
"What did you do?" asked the guard.
"Nothing," came the reply.
"That's not possible," said the guard. "For nothing, they give you
five years, not ten."

Question: What does friendship among Soviet nationalities mean?
Answer: It means that the Armenians take the Russians by the hand; the Russians take the Ukrainians by the hand; the Ukranians take the Uzbeks by the hand; and they all go and beat up the Jews.

And this one putatively actually happened: "At a political agitation meeting at government store that my grandma worked at in the 50s ... one of the shop-hands stood up and asked in complete sincerity the speaker "So are we in 'communism yet, or is it going to get worse?" ... Everyone tried to keep from laughing and the dumbfounded speaker at first tried to give an answer and then just went to the next question."

Find more here. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:24 PM by Patrick Belton  

ANYBODY RECEIVING the LRB in their mailboxes today can look for my (and Rachel's) personal. No, no, not that kind of personal, we were looking for a bike.... Lookie, mommy, I've made it onto the LRB's personals page! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:36 PM by Patrick Belton  

CENTRAL ASIA is too often a neglected front both in counterterrorism and in democracy promotion, but my two favorite print magazines (and not just 'cause they employ Josh) are giving attention this week to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Ami Horowitz, however, treats Kazakhstan's choice between orienting itself with the democracies or with Iran as though it were a foreign policy matter that could be accomplished without actually making Kazakhstan a democracy - which seems to me fairly short-sighted. Looking across the region, it's precisely the Central Asian countries where autocratic capitals have oppressed all dissent - think Uzbekistan and its portion of the Ferghana Valley - where Islam has become most radicalized. In countries like Tajikistan (though it unfortunately, at the moment, lacks an economy - a real bummer), Islamist parties have been drawn into a comparatively more democratic government, with the result that they're now among the most moderate Muslim religious parties in the world. And this in a country that weathered a civil war through most of the last decade in which the Islamist party was one of the principal combatants, and which drew roving Islamist operatives from Iran, Chechnya, and Afghanistan. Not a bad record - and not a bad lesson to learn from Central Asia. One only hopes the administration is listening.

UPDATE: Matthew Yglesias has a thoughtful post up on the topic as well. While I'm not sure I'd want to agree that Karimov makes radical Islamists look good comparison, I strongly agree that Karimov's religious policy has driven a naturally moderate Central Asian religiosity into a radical path. More importantly, I fully subscribe to his point that neo-cons should take equal interest in the promotion of democratic freedoms and forms of governance in Central Asia as well as the Middle East. Along the other path lies short-sighted policy conduicing to worldwide cynicism about U.S. motives, and spawning radical religious oppositions which are much more of a security threat to U.S. interests than the temporary security alliances of despots could ever make up for. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:27 PM by Patrick Belton  

ON THE OTHER HAND, "Liebererman" (thus spake TNR's Jason Zengerle) is leading the TNR primary, racking up A grades in intellectual honesty (which seems more of a courage metric to me), foreign policy (though for resisting protectionism, not for a strong national security posture), and domestic policy (though for grilling - or promising to grill - Bush's EPA appointee, not for the proposals on the economy or measures to expand opportunity). Not sure I agree with the TNR staff's bases for arriving at these grades, but I do think he's the best of the lot. Call it a concurring opinion (even though that's admittedly mixing metaphors....). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:24 AM by Patrick Belton  

BLOGGING FROM THE SANDBOX: Lt. Smash provides a compelling round-up of U.S. military bloggers posting from Iraq (via InstaPundit). I've really enjoyed reading through their posts, particularly those of the ChromeDomeZone and Will. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:55 PM by Patrick Belton  

ABDOMINAL SNOWMEN (HAVE HAIRY ABS): A team of Japanese explorers are heading out to scour the Himalayas for Yeti, the abominable snowman of some fame. People have tried this before.

But why wait? You can have a conversation with him now here. Heck, I did:

Patrick: Yeti, how's it going, man?
The Abominable Snowman: Are you really interested? Why?
Patrick: Errr, because you're the abominable snowman.....
The Abominable Snowman: Is that the real reason?
Patrick: umm, yes....
The Abominable Snomwan: Why do you think so?
Patrick: Why does that interest you?
The Abominable Snowman: Why do you ask?
Patrick: Why do you think?
The Abominable Snowman: Does that question interest you?
Patrick: Yeti, you are a bad, bad snowman.
The Abominable Snowman: What makes you think I am a bad, bad snowman?
Patrick: What is your sex life like, Yeti?
The Abominable Snowman: What is the best thing about your love life?
Patrick: Umm, sleeping with people who aren't snowpersons. Also, just having other members of my species to be romantically involved with is nice too.
The Abominable Snowman: (stumped)

Maybe you'll hit it off better than me. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:33 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE THIRD ID CAME HOME today! We're glad you're back - welcome home. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:55 PM by Patrick Belton  

BYE, BYE, PRESIDENT TAYLOR: So the world is finally free of Charles Taylor, at least in his pitiful and bloody-handed incarnation as a head of state. After formally handing over power this afternoon to vice president Moses Blah, the Liberian ex-president arrived in Nigeria where he will live in exile, albeit palatial exile. Critics continue to call for his prosecution for war crimes by an international tribunal. Three Navy ships - the amphibious assault vessel Iwo Jima, the dock landing ship Carter Hall, and the amphibious transport dock Nashville - with 3,000 Marines on board have moved within sight of the Liberian coast; this showing-the-flag action is intended to send a signal to the warring factions to adhere to the cease-fire as efforts continue to open the port of Monrovia to relief shipments. MGEN Thomas Turner came ashore to coordinate actions necessary to open Monrovia's port to permit aid shipments to enter. Liberia's largest rebel group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, has declared their war to be over. LURD and other rebel groups have said, however, that they would not permit Blah to remain in office for longer than seven weeks. Several names for a longer-lasting interim head of government are floating at the peace talks in Accra.

The people of Liberia, though, and not Taylor, remain the principal losers of their nation's conflict. Water supplies are nonexistent, and aid workers fear a cholera epidemic. One million Liberians are internally displaced, and malnutrition is widespread.

Reuters, characteristically, writes an oddly poignant piece about Taylor's last moments in office:

On his last day in office, Liberian President Charles Taylor prayed, sang hymns, joked, defended his record and boarded a Nigerian plane to exile under a grey sky.

A besuited man wept openly, scrubbing his eyes with crumpled tissue. "I don't want you to go. I don't want you to go," he cried, stumbling to keep up with Taylor's muscled entourage as they swept down the red carpet.

"I don't know about politics but I just know he was very nice to me," she [i.e., Liberia's other Taylor supporter] sobbed.

Compared to them, Guardian comes off disconcertingly sensibly in printing the AP's review of Charles Taylor's regrettable public life and bio of his hand-picked successor-for-now, and its history of Liberia. MSNBC also has a chronology of events in Liberia since Taylor's accession to power. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:32 PM by Patrick Belton  

ON CONSERVING FREEDOMS: Peter Berkowitz gives a good rendition in Policy Review of the arguments that liberalism contains in itself the seeds of its destruction, by abolishing the preconditions which permit and constitute it. In his summative paragraph:

Our freedom encourages us to cast aside arbitrary authority and topple unjust hierarchy, but it also undermines the just claims of political order and moral excellence. It severs onerous bonds of association, but it also separates and isolates. It is the touchstone of our equality, yet it permits and indeed encourages competition, which results in vast disparities in wealth, power, and glory. It makes us responsible for ourselves and infuses us with a sense of the humanity and rights that we share with all people on the planet while loosening the claims of duty. It is bound up with the realization of our most cherished hopes while putting awkward pressure on and destabilizing them. It eloquently exalts choice and then falls crushingly silent concerning what actions and ends are choiceworthy, leaving it perilously close to teaching that the choice is all.

The promise and the dangers of our era are indissolubly connected. The more freedom we have, the more we want. And the more we get, the more we weaken freedom’s foundations in moral and political life.

His arguments are even on his own admission half of a larger dichotomy - but Peter is always readable, and a beautiful stylist. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:51 PM by Patrick Belton  

HIZBULLAH WATCH: As the situation tenses up across Israel's northern border, Haaretz presents a good analysis of the elements of brinksmanship involved on all sides. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:37 PM by Patrick Belton  

HEAR YE, HEAR YE: For you law buffs in the audience (and there may be one or two of you out there), the OYEZ project has just gotten a website running with the recordings and transcripts of oral arguments for important Supreme Court decisions (with unimportant Supreme Court decisions coming shortly too). (Some particular favorites: U.S. v. Nixon, Roe, Miranda, Bakke, and, for you readers surfing in from foreignaffairs.com, Hustler v. Falwell and US v. Playboy).

And Josh, you'll be happy that they've also included Oyez Baseball, which combines your two (non-blogging) hobbies so that you can "build Supreme Court knowledge through America's favorite pastime." Fun. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:19 PM by Patrick Belton  

JOIN US FOR PIZZA AND ANTI-MULLAH PLOTTING: Our little Nathan Hale foreign policy society's D.C. chapter will be meeting up tomorrow, to discuss U.S. policies toward democracy promotion in Iran. Please feel free to come out and join us!

We're meeting at the Bertucci's restaurant by the Clarendon metro stop at 8:00 pm, and we've assembled some readings on the subject (together with a few current foreign policy openings in Washington and abroad) here. (Also, we've got chapters opening up soon in New York, New Haven, Boston, Chicago, and Oxford, so please let me know if you'd like to join up or start up a chapter near you.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:27 AM by Patrick Belton  

HEIL FASHION: OxBlog's "too stupid to remain in the market economy" award goes to Izzue's Deborah Cheng, of Hong Kong. Ms. Cheng's company has drawn the strong complaints of Israeli and German diplomats recently for the minor bad taste of featuring in her store a line of Nazi-themed decorations and clothes.

In her defense, Cheng said the designer "wanted the clothes to have a military theme and did not realize that the Nazi symbols would be considered offensive."

Fortunately, though, where the company had lacked acumen about the quaint delicacies of public taste, it is making up for it with firm and decisive action now. Sort of. Ms. Cheng said the Nazi-themed line of decorations and clothes "may" be withdrawn. "We're seriously considering removing the displays. But before we take them off, we have to find a replacement," she said.

Good for her. Someone should give her an award. That is, like this one. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:14 PM by David Adesnik  

MY DOG ATE THE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION: Who says liberal bumper stickers aren't funny? Ah, San Francisco... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:47 PM by Patrick Belton  

HAPPY BLOGIVERSARY, GLENN! We're all in your debt - thank you. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:34 PM by Patrick Belton  

ARE YOU ADDICTED TO YOUR OXBLOG? Do you experience excessive anxiety or depression when you're away from our site? Well, that's okay, because CNN is all over internet addiction (with cute acronyms to boot....). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:33 PM by Patrick Belton  

HEADLINE OF THE DAY: The Three Tenors take Bath (CNN) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:19 AM by Patrick Belton  

CALPUNDIT FOR GOVERNOR: "So one of my friends said to me, 'Are you a convicted felon?' " punk rocker Jack Grisham recounts. "I said, 'No, not convicted,' and he said, 'Well, then you can run for governor.'" So he is, along with apparently most of the other Californians who have 65 friends.

These include at the moment the Terminator, the Porno King, a fellow accidentally (his parents may differ on the point) named Michael Jackson, and Georgy - who, barring CalPundit's entry, we along with the WaPo are rooting for.

Somewhere, Tocqueville's loving this. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:45 AM by Patrick Belton  

IN NEW YORK THIS MONTH? Well, lucky you. Because one of my favorite quirky little cultural traditions, the New York Fringe Festival, is starting up again. (I have multiple fond personal connections to the annual LES festival; my bro-in-law, playwright and director Daniel Kleinfeld, sported one of the best-received plays on the Fringe stage two years ago, and the OxWife was present at a party in the Village a few years ago when a young excited guy burst in talking in quick staccato sentences about this idea he'd just had for Urinetown.)

The NYT focuses on the Festival's supposed fall from fringe-theater innocence: "The festival's opening party...was held in Plaid, on East 13th Street, a swanky new club whose ideal clientele is probably more likely to be Britney Spears than the experimental director Richard Foreman." The Daily News beats on the same drum.

But hey, this is still some of the quirkiest, most creative theater to be seen anywhere, and good, clean fun (if at times also saran-wrapped and naked). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:53 AM by Patrick Belton  

FRIENDS IN UNUSUAL PLACES, I: The editor-in-chief of the Syrian Ba'ath party newspaper is now calling for political reform in Syria. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:52 AM by Patrick Belton  

FRIENDS IN UNUSUAL PLACES, II: The Ayatollah Khomeni's grandson is in Najaf, calling for democracy and the separation of religion and state in Iran. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:39 PM by Daniel  

ANOTHER ARNOLD IS RUNNING. Well, Gary Coleman played one on TV. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:33 PM by Daniel  

ARNOLD IS RUNNING. Details on Leno tonight. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:20 PM by Patrick Belton  

NOTE TO SELF: Whenever I happen to win the Powerball, remind me not to leave a half million dollars in my car outside a strip club to get stolen....

UPDATE - which occasioned the following riposte from one of our friends,

Dear Patrick:

       Now that you have pledged NOT to leave half-a-million dollars of your Powerball winnings in a parked car in front of strip in order to be stolen, for what purpose WILL you leave half-a-million dollars in your Powerball winnings in a parked car in front of a strip club?

       All the best,

       Lester Czukor

       P.S.  My favorite example of the above question is (supposedly) due to Abraham Lincoln.  During the Civil War military officers from a variety of European countries came to America to observe the carnage.  Most were deeply impressed and frightened as to what would happen if the United States were to use such power against others than their fellow citizens.  A group of British officers had done the tour and were invitied to have lunch with the President at the White House (no record of whether they had to contribute to Lincoln's re-election campaign).  Lincoln asked them whether they had any observations they wished to report to him.  One of the British officers said:  "In the British Army generals do not polish their own boots."  To which the 16th President reponded:  "Really? Whose boots DO British generals polish?  In a similar vein there is the line attributed to, among others, Milton Friedman who once asked:  "If the ends don't justify the means, what does justify the means."

Lester then poses the question about whether there is a technical name for the rhetorical devise there applied. Readers?

UPDATE 2: Answering my plea, Tom Comerford suggests "squelch," "similitude," or the plain-vanilla "retort" - but also suggests a contest for the best rhetorical coinage. What's more, he offers up another one:

A, who never went to Oxford on finding out that B is an Oxford grad, says to B: "You don't look like an Oxford man."
 
B replies: "Funny, neither do you." (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:02 PM by Patrick Belton  

LETTER FROM SAO PAULO: A friend of OxBlog's, UPI Latin American correspondent Carmen Gentile, sent us a letter recently from Sao Paulo in which she writes about the human cost of Ivory Coast's civil war, as viewed through one refugee journalist now in Brazil. It's movingly written, so I'll post it in its entirety.

Talk of his capture and torture sets Bob Deenee's fingers into jagged arcs that clutch the edge of the table. He looks away, silent for a moment, then recounts the weeks of darkness and pain administered by hard-nosed soldiers.
"They took me from my home and imprisoned me in one detention center after another, constantly moving me around," said the 38-year-old former journalist for an opposition newspaper in the Ivory Coast, who now trolls the streets of Brazil's economic capital searching for work and purpose.
Deenee never learned exactly why he was picked up and detained, but he suspects it had something to do with his ongoing investigation into the government's use of South African mercenaries during its more than 10-month battle with rebel forces that aimed to topple the government of President Laurent Gbagbo.
"We were all 'captured' by what was going on," he exclaimed metaphorically, referring to his fellow reporters' examination of the killings and abductions by both sides of the civil war.
To Ivorians and resident journalists, the Sept. 19, 2002, coup attempt and subsequent outbreak of violence seemed a most unlikely scenario for a nation that was a relative model of civility in the region since its independence from France in 1960.
For the next 40 years, there was almost no political bloodshed in the West African nation, which is slightly larger than New Mexico. But the elections in 2000 that excluded an opposition leader from the majority-Muslim north sparked outrage and a subsequent backlash from Gbagbo's mainly southern Christian supporters.
And with that, the Ivory Coast had joined the world ranks of nations spilling blood along religious lines.
Resentment for the president simmered among the opposition until it exploded last September with the coup attempt, ratcheting up the danger factor for journalists such as Deenee who write for publications suspected of aiding rebels with information.
"I was asked what I had told the rebels, but when I said I hadn't said anything, they tortured me anyway," said Deenee, recalling how his captors administered electric shocks through his fingers, followed by long bouts of isolation in total darkness.
"Of course we (journalists) communicated with the rebels," he acknowledged, "we were trying to the whole story."
Government officials, however, suspected that Deenee was more than just field reporting, as he hails from the north, though denies ever aiding the rebels in their cause.
During his detainment, Deenee never knew what became of his home and family, a wife and their three children. Only later did he learn his house had been looted and his family had fled the country with the help of some friends.
His own fate was decidedly uncertain. Reporters are routinely taken into federal custody and beaten, their offices raided for signs of collusion with the rebels, according to international media watchdogs such as the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Deenee's newspaper Le Patriot was apparently on the government's list of suspected subversives bent on undermining its effort against the rebels. As a veteran reporter who'd covered conflicts in Angola, Congo and Rwanda, his profile loomed large in their sights.
Just when it seemed there was no end in sight, Deenee received a reprieve. The only catch: he was leaving the country, no questions asked. A military escort placed him on a ship that he was told would take him to Canada, where he had studied years before and had met his wife. There he hoped we would be reunited with his family and perhaps start anew.
But after three weeks afloat, Deenee landed on Brazilian shores in mid-February, a stranger in a strange land plunked down in the port city of Santos. It seemed the trip ended here, his family nowhere in sight.
Later he would learn they had fled with the help of some friends to Haiti where they stayed for a few weeks before heading to the Dominican Republic. Deenee's own saviors -- those that had arranged his passage -- remained a mystery until recently. While he wouldn't divulge their identities, he did acknowledge it was an opposition group that managed to win his freedom on the condition he leave the country.
That's about all the wiry Ivorian with no place to call home knows these days. His thin, sinewy frame is a testimony to his inability to earn a decent wage. He makes ends barely meet by teaching English to a handful of students and received the occasional donation for a local media union and foreign correspondents.
He's searching for a way to bring his family here, but with his bank accounts frozen at home and incoming barely enough to feed and shelter himself, Deenee fears it may be years before he can realize his goal.
"Now I'm 38 and in the middle of nowhere -- what am I going to do now?" he asks.
Back at home, the decision earlier this month by both sides to bring an end to hostilities provides Deenee with a glimmer of hope for his return, though he isn't certain he can. The government that detained and tortured him is still in control and the threat of renewed violence continues to loom.
And still there is the matter of earning enough to pay for passage home, send for his family, and in the meantime, ensure their well being.
"My dream is to go back ... but not until it is safe," he says. Until then, Deenee will remain stranded in Sao Paulo.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:50 PM by Patrick Belton  

GET LEGAL: Hey, I'm only in Washington for a few more weeks, so I'm not exactly going to burn myself out if I do a goings-on about town column for the remainder of my time here in the federal city. So today's going-on: William Taft, the Department of State's Legal Advisor (and Yale '66, incidentally), will be speaking on Thursday from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the American Society of International Law's Tillar House, located at 2223 Massachusetts Avenue in Washington D.C. (I have the dubious honor of having woken up his predecessor at 4:00 am one morning.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:58 PM by Patrick Belton  

READERS IN HIGH PLACES: Did you miss OxBlog's coverage of the BBC's distortion of Tony Blair's comment last week about his "undiminished appetite" for serving in office? Well, lucky for you - now you can read about it in Andrew Sullivan's weekly WashTimes op-ed here. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:13 PM by Patrick Belton  

WANT TO DRAFT WESLEY CLARK? (Question: He wouldn't have to go to boot camp, right?) The good folks in the Draft Wesley Clark movement have just let us know that they will be having a meet-up in Washington tonight at 7 pm at Stetson's Bar and Restaurant at 1610 U. Street. I won't be able to make it, but would be interested in hearing from anyone who goes. (Not to be outdone in the hierarchy of Democratic hawk cred, Rachel and I will be having dinner then with a Reagan DOD appointee.....)

UPDATE: The WashPost went. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:22 AM by Patrick Belton  

NAME THAT NGO: So, being back in Washington (and more on this later – I flew back to the sunny Potomac last week and will be on stateside leave a month; after that, look for Rachel and me to be hanging our laptops in Oxford….), over the weekend I settled myself back into the federal city by strolling around Eastern Market and DuPont Circle with Rachel on Sunday. As pleasant and relaxing as our sunny strollings were, I couldn’t help noticing that for a city with very large white and black communities, how rare it was to see groups of whites and blacks walking down the street together or sharing meals as friends.

So I started wondering – what if you had an organization, springboarding perhaps off of churches, community organizations, and youth and professional groups - in which participating whites and blacks of roughly the same age would agree to spend time with each other socially and one-on-one, at least once every month? We already have Big Brothers/Big Sisters to pair up older and younger people , and help foster friendships between adolescents and adults - why not have an organization devoted to fostering friendships between race and ethnic communities? There are many ways a group like this could be structured - one might be to begin with mixing people who’d have more to talk about – i.e., evangelicals with evangelicals, dentists with dentists, plumbers with plumbers, English majors with other English majors. And a group like this wouldn't have to limit itself to forming friendships between white and blacks, either – though that might be a more common framework for the northeast and southeast, in the southwest, it might involve more of pairing Latinos and native Americans with members of other races; in metropolitan Detroit, Arab Americans; and so forth.

I would be very interested in moving forward with this, and would very much like to invite your comments, to hear from you if you might be interested, and your ideas – among other things, about what to call it. Any suggestions? Let me know! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:47 AM by Patrick Belton  

SECRETARY WOLFOWITZ?: Sergeant Chafetz has recalled me to post (quite literally) after a lovely weekend leave of being reunited with my wife. Expect OxBlog restaurant reviews for the D.C. area to follow, but first off, keeping with the martial motif, let's look at personnel switch-ups contemplated for the administration’s national security team….

The New York Times speculates this morning about the positions of Secretary of State, Deputy Secretary, and DCI coming vacant in a second Bush term. Powell attributes this to a promise to his wife, and Armitage to his desire only to serve under his close friend the current secretary. The current horse race? It's Condi vs. Wolfowitz for Secretary, with Wolfowitz having short odds on National Security Advisor if Condi moves out of the Old Executive Office Building and into Foggy Bottom. Lugar and Gingrich round out the long list to be signing SecState on the cable traffic. For DCI, Rep. Porter Goss, a former case officer, is being batted around, along with DOD intelligence officials Stephen Cambone and Richard Haver, and the omnipresent Wolfowitz. Also being mentioned for Langley are current NSA director LTG Michael Hayden (USAF), former NSA director and Agency deputy director Adm. William Studeman, along with retired senators Warren Rudman and Fred Thompson - Thompson, incidentally, played DCI in a 1987 film, No Way Out. (I'm not a DCI, but I do play one on tv…) While the prospects of a Condian elevation to the seventh floor do make one’s pulse race, her writings do display a bent slightly more Kissingerian than idealistic; for my part, I'll be cheering in the peanut gallery for Wolfowitz, Lugar, and Goss.

UPDATE: Greg casts his ballot over at Belgravia Dispatch. (And whoever said you couldn't vote for appointed officials?) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:31 PM by Patrick Belton  

HOPE STREET GROUP: The web page is up and running for The Hope Street Group, an exciting new non-partisan think tank that's dedicated to coming up with policy recommendations that further the ideal of equality of opportunity. The organization was begun by a group of my friends, mostly Yalies and McKinseyites, all of them idealistic, centrist, and pragmatic. Look for good things to come out of them. They've already come up with publications on the idea of opportunity, on reducing both corporate welfare and corporate tax rates, on repairing capital markets, increasing homeownership, and on improving education and retirement security. And much more to come.

UPDATE: Our friend Armed Liberal at Winds of Change comes up with some useful responses to Hope Street's first batch of white papers. The folks at Hope are serious, dedicated, good folks, and I'm sure they'll appreciate and take constructively all the thoughts and suggestions our readers want to lob their way. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:06 PM by Patrick Belton  

MOROCCO THE BRAVE: (OR, HAVA-NARGILA….) On a personal note, courtesy of a fellow OxBlogger I seem to be the proud if temporary new owner of a hubbly bubbly (a.k.a. nargila - I would say hookah as well, except my wife and in-laws read this and I wouldn't want them to get any of the wrong ideas....). I'm not quite sure how it works, but after looking at the parts, I strongly suspect that once assembled I should be able to play bagpipes on it (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:05 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE BBC - NICE TO TYRANTS, NASTY TO DEMOCRATS: So, here's what Tony Blair said (as he responded to a question asking whether he would continue to serve as prime minister in a third Labour term in government): "There is a big job of work to do - my appetite for doing it is undiminished."

And here's what the BBC reported in its lede: "Mr Blair, who said his appetite for power remained 'undiminished'...."

And not to let a good distortion go, the website then links to the story thusly: "Tony Blair sidesteps questions on the David Kelly affair - but says his appetite for power is "undiminished"."

The Beeb: the (kind of) grown-up version of telephone. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:14 PM by Patrick Belton  

BUT THEN AGAIN, the OED did take five years just to get to "ant"..... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:13 AM by David Adesnik  

OFFICIALLY ON VACATION: I ship out tonight for the West Coast, San Francisco to be exact. I've actually never been there before. While I may check in on OxBlog once in a while, my only substantive posts will address the subject of "medical" marijuana. Or if I happen to run into Mr. Schwarzenegger on the campaign trail, steroid abuse.

Hail and farewell! I'll be back on August 12th.
-David (0) opinions -- Add your opinion