# Posted 4:16 PM by Taylor Owen  

OXBLOG SENTENCE OF THE YEAR?: I just wanted to make sure everyone notes Dr. Porter's awe inspiring sentence. If it takes a two month posting hiatus to produce such crackers, then see you in March my good friend:

If Kenneth Anderson’s writings are the vintage Pinot Noir of the neocon vinyard, Podhoretz’s manifesto is the rancid two-dollar Spumante.

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# Posted 1:53 PM by Patrick Porter  

'STAY ON OFFENCE' IS NOT A STRATEGY: Happy holidays everyone! Sorry its been so long between posts, but this is the closest I've ever been to being busy.

Over Christmas, I had a read through 'World War IV', culture warrior Norman Podhoretz's latest call to arms. And just in time for Christmas, its an awful turkey of a thing.

But before dissecting it, its worth making some observations about the broad political philosophy ‘neo-conservatism.’ Thanks to the horrific loss of life and anarchy in Iraq especially in late 2006, the word ‘neocon’, like the word ‘liberal’ in US domestic politics, has degenerated into an empty and lazy word for anything in foreign policy that is undesirable.

So in some quarters both right and left, to believe in containing Iranian nuclear ambitions through sanctions and a global alliance, or to enjoy the film ‘300′, or even to favour continued in-principle support for Israel’s existence, is to be hyper-aggressive, irresponsible and naive.

In fact, neoconservatism is a school of thought with defenders who vary wildly in their intellectual calibre. One of its more powerful spokesmen is Kenneth Anderson, whose overall appraisal of the failures and insights of neocons is one I share:

In the case of Iraq, neoconservatives preferred war. Their search for a quick and painless democratic transformation, which they did not find, was a naive one. But their other belief was not so naive: this is the belief that over the long run, the realist strategy of accommodation and containment of execrable regimes – the pursuit of stability at all moral costs practised by the West for thirty years – would only serve to feed the beast.

In other words, neoconservatism is a form of tough democratic idealism, and it has its strengths and weaknesses. Its strength is to go beyond amoral and short-sighted policies of backing friendly dictatorships no matter how reprehensible, to see the linkages between long-term security and political liberalisation, and to seek some alignment between liberal values and foreign policy beyond the paralysing ineffectuality of liberal internationalism.

It has also contributed to serious foreign policy failure. Needless to say, so has so-called realism. President Jimmy Carter and Brent Scowcroft, quick to point to Iraq as a vindication of their world view, may be reminded that it was ‘realist’ counsel that led Carter to encourage Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran in 1980, a catastrophic attack that became the longest conventional war of the past century, beggared two countries, killed millions, involved chemical warfare and ‘human wave’ slaughters. Its unfortunate that so much foreign policy debate and analysis of the crises in the Arab-Islamic world is carried on as though ‘neocons’ are the only ones with any explaining to do.

But if neoconservatism has an ideational value, its failures also need to be recognised and explained. One of those failures is the underlying and misplaced confidence that if the ideology and policy is correct, execution and detail don't matter that much. This can be done with the aid of Podhoretz’s book. If Kenneth Anderson’s writings are the vintage Pinot Noir of the neocon vinyard, Podhoretz’s manifesto is the rancid two-dollar Spumante.

‘World War IV’ is written primarily to endorse the ’Bush Doctrine’ (the need to spread democratic freedom to ensure US security) and from a hugely partisan standpoint to defend Bush against any and all charges. Most importantly, his argument is strong on belligerent rhetoric and the need for resolution and a historic sense of mission. We must awaken and realise the threat, Podhoretz argues, and mobilise together against the foe.

But it is strategically illiterate. The will to prevail in a vital struggle is not a strategy. Churchill’s soaring speeches used to end with a call to solidarity and common purpose, but this call would be preceded with an outline and strategic vision of the conflict. By contrast, the relationship between ends, ways and means, the search for achievable goals, the direction of resources towards a goal, the development of more astute strategy from inevitable and avoidable mistakes, none of this is considered in any depth by Podhoretz. Instead, we get a morality tale containing only a plea for greater willpower and a resentment of people who disagree. Capacity or competence is barely considered.

Disturbingly, Presidential candidate Rudi Guliani has appointed Podhoretz as an advisor and has identified himself with this book. Rudi’s continual claim about foreign policy is that he will ’stay on offence’ against Islamic terrorists. What does this mean? I would assume that any responsible US President would continue to pursue, arrest, capture and kill AQ agents, and there is little there that even the far left wing of the Democratic Party would dispute. Beyond that, is he saying he would like to stay in Iraq for thirty years, expand the war in Afghanistan to Pakistan, bomb Iran, or dismantle civil liberties or legal obstructions at home? The point is, we don’t really know, and maybe neither does he. Podhoretz takes rather longer to say roughly the same thing, and without much idea of any policy content. It would just read as a silly manifesto, were it not being taken seriously in some influential quarters.

An aggressive rhetorical posture is not a strategy. It is a sound-bite. And his book has a few other dragons.

Podhoretz is a conservative cultural critic ever mindful of the 1960’s, and he also launches attacks on a host of enemies in the US, from extremist campus professors to hippies revisiting the glory days of Vietnam war protests, from the Clinton Administration who apparently with AQ deserve all of the blame for 9/11, to conservative isolationists. But its not sufficient to criticise their positions. If Podhoretz wishes to mobilise all of America for a global struggle against militant jihadism, he needs to make a substantive case for how this might be done. Instead, much of the book is a lament that the 1950’s are over and won’t be coming back.

Beneath the surface of much of this debate, between those who argue that America has isolated itself and those who argue that the world has abandoned America, there is a more interesting story. France and Germany have politically evolved into pretty close Atlantic partners. The Bush administration has managed over a few years to craft a diverse coalition of partners with an interest in containing or at least counterbalancing Tehran with its regimes existential hatred of Israel. America rates very highly in polls of Indian opinion, and even the countries most vocally critical of American unilateralism continue to track down, round up and pursue wanted terrorists. Sunni insurgents of 2003-5 have turned on their predatory guests AQI, who are now reeling from the Anbar awakening. The long project of containing AQ is unspectacularly working, without a need to silence dissent or unify America behind Podhoretz’s world war.

But this complexity is often lost in the polarising rhetoric of the ‘neocon’ debate, a debate that has suffered a bit at the hands of Podhoretz’s strange screed.

Labels: War on Terror

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# Posted 12:22 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

TWO KINDS OF ANONYMITY: The purpose of this post is to announce a policy change on OxBlog. From this point onward, readers will need a Blogger/Gmail or similar account in order to leave comments on one of our posts. In other words, no more "anonymous" posts will be allowed.

Before laying out the rationale for this decision, I would just like to point out that there are two kinds of anonymity in the comment section. One is the ability to post as "anonymous", indistinguishable from any other anonymous reader. Yet even if you have a login, no one else has access to any information about your true identity, place of residence, or other personal information (unless you choose to share it). That is a kind of anonymity we value and are not asking any of our readers to compromise.

Up to this point, an overwhelming majority of posts left by "anonymous" have contributed to a vigorous debate in the comments section, mostly civil and mostly substantive. However, a very small number of individuals have abused their anonymity by launching repeated ad hominem attacks against one of the authors on this site or even trying to intimidate one of the authors in a personal manner. We think you will agree that this is completely unacceptable.

In addition, we regret that many of those who post anonymously in a responsible manner will have to go to the trouble of establishing a login in order to comment further. However, given that logins are cost free and require minimal effort to establish, we believe that this is a reasonable request to make in exchange for the right to post.

Finally, we would like to express our belief that requiring a login will in no way restrict the substance of debate on this site. For quite some time now, named commenters have argued for positions that range all the way across the political spectrum. (Well, maybe a little further to the right.) In addition, named commenters have vigorously, but fairly, attacked the positions advocated by this blog's authors, again from both the left and the right. If you don't already have one, we hope you'll get yourself a nom de plume or nom de guerre and continue commenting on this site. (2) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:09 AM by Taylor Owen  

Posted for David by Taylor

David Adesnik (5) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:07 AM by Taylor Owen  

POSTED FOR DAVID BY TAYLOR

BEWARE OF GLOBAL WARMING COOLING! Thirty years ago, prominent men of both science and journalism expressed great concern about the potential for a dangerous freefall of global temperatures. As one of them wrote:

Since the 1940's the northern half of our planet has been cooling rapidly. Already the effect in the United States is the same as if every city had been picked up by giant hands and set down more than 100 miles closer to the North Pole. If the cooling continues, warned the National Academy of Sciences in 1975, we could possibly witness the beginning of the next great Ice Age. Conceivably, some of us might live to see huge snowfields remaining year-round in northern regions of the United States and Europe. Probably, we would see mass global famine in our lifetimes, perhaps even within a decade. Since 1970, half a million human beings in North Africa and Asia have starved because of floods and droughts caused by the cooling climate.

I came across this quote, attributed to Lowell Ponte, while reading Global Warming: A Very Short Introduction, written by Mark Maslin and published by Oxford University Press. The author's self-avowed objective is to persuade his readers to adopt a more "collectivized" and "egalitarian" approach to the threat of global warming, or to affirm such an approach if they already favor it. ( pp.40-42) Maslin teaches geography at University College of London. Although Americans associate "geography" with the memorization of state capitals, in British English it refers to a discipline that we might call environmental studies, broadly defined.

Given Maslin's agenda, I think it's fair to say that his inclusion of Ponte's quote shouldn't be taken as a crude effort to discredit today's warnings of environmental disaster. Rather, Maslin approaches the global cooling myths of the 70s as an example of how scientists can make seriously mistakes, but ultimately correct themselves by virtue of their dedication to finding and analyzing new evidence.

In spite of this admirable self-awareness, Maslin doesn't really take a balanced approach to the politics of global warming, at least so far. (I'm halfway through the book right now.) For example, Maslin describes those who discount the threat of global warming as "individualists…Their success is often measured by their wealth and the number of followers they can command. Victorian mill owners or self-made oil barons are good representatives of this category." (pp.38-39) Maslin may as well add that skeptics of global warming like to kick puppies and hunt endangered species for sport.

In spite of such excesses, Maslin does cover a fair amount of basic science that places the global warming debate in a much more useful context than, say, the polemics of Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth. For example Maslin describes how, from a truly long-term perspective, the earth is in a period of relatively low temperatures. 100 million years ago, in the age of dinosaurs, the earth was far warmer than it is today. Over the past million years, there have been Ice Ages at regular intervals. Over the past 10,000 years, the earth's temperature has risen consistently as it emerged from the most recent Ice Age.

What does all of this mean for the debate about global warming? I'm not sure. I started reading Maslin's book precisely because I don't know much about climate change (or to be more precise, I've forgotten what I learned when I sophomore in college back in the spring of '97.) Unlike almost any other scientific issue, global warming is water cooler talk just about everywhere. If it 80 degrees one day in October, people casually talk about global warming. I'd like to know a little more.

In contrast, more liberal writers, such as this one, consider references to Ponte argument to be deeply flawed, because scientists never took himseriously, in spite of his popularity and high profile in the mainstream media at the time. In their view, any serious effort to use Ponte's work to discredit global warming amounts to an unintended statement of an author's ignorance.

David Adesnik

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# Posted 11:45 AM by Taylor Owen  

Labels: Afghanistan, Iraq, Timelines

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# Posted 8:04 PM by Taylor Owen  

FRUMLAND: Frum quotes a defense for Rudy, whom he is supporting:

Rudy is: Bush + fiscal conservatism + more brains + better communications skills + more experience + an ability to bang heads as necessary. I think Amerians would vote for that in large numbers.

There is something a little precious about a Bush supporter telling Americans not to worry because this new and improved Bush (Rudy), is far better than the last Bush, whom they supported as well, twice. How about someone who is not at all like Bush? I think Americans are going to vote for someone like that in large numbers. (11) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:58 PM by Taylor Owen  

ARE THE ODDS IN FAVOR OF A THIRD PARTY RUN FROM THE RIGHT? If Huckabee wins, McCain goes independent. If McCain wins, Huckabee goes independent. If Romney or Giuliani win, Paul goes independent. What other options does this leave? Are all of these scenarios good news for the dems?
For my money, Obama wins in any scenario, and Hillary beats everyone (just) but McCain head on. If McCain is the independent and Huckabee is the GOP, all bets are off.

UPDATE: And then there is the wild card. (4) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:57 AM by Taylor Owen  

I think GOP primary voters may want a candidate who has nothing to with Iraq, and that kind of gamble may seem worthwhile as things on the ground are getting better and better. But I agree that national security has to be the core of any winning strategy in 2008. Then again, what real credentials do Romney or Thompson have in that regard? Or even Giuliani, who's great "foreign" policy moment took place in his own back yard. I think you can see where I'm going with this. Ron Paul in 2008! (Just for the record, that was a joke. Also for the record, if you are a Ron Paul supporter who didn't think that was funny, please be nice.)

Posted by David (10) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:58 PM by Taylor Owen  

PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE JOURNALISM: A classic example from the front page of the WaPo. The story is entitled In Iowa, a Scrambling Lesson for Clinton and here's how it begins:

DES MOINES, Dec. 12 -- When senior advisers to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton awakened to the fact that they faced a serious problem in Iowa, they knew they needed a summit. For the divided staff, the question was where.

It made sense to fly to Iowa, where support for Clinton (N.Y.) was flagging and her aides were scrambling to make up ground. But a key member of her inner circle, Harold Ickes, warned that a crowd of Arlington-based operatives descending on the Plains en masse might set off alarm bells, triggering "campaign in panic mode" stories, according to two people with inside knowledge of the Clinton operation.

A journalists finds out that political operatives are afraid of stories about panic. So what does she do? She writes a story about it. It's amazing how journalists pretend to be observers, rather than participants, in the political process.

On Iowa, I also recommend taking a look at Joe Gandelman's comments on the cocaine issue. Hillary -- the one woman who can bring together Republicans and Obama supporters. As the saying goes, she's a uniter, not a divider.

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# Posted 11:22 AM by Taylor Owen  

RADIO SILENCE: A brief word of explanation for my extended absence. I have been traveling extensively for work in parts of the world with limited or no internet access. I've only read OxBlog twice over the past several weeks, let alone found an opportunity to post. At present, I expect my business travel to keep me on the road for at least two more months. For various technical reasons, Taylor will be putting up my posts until I find a way to do so myself. However, I do believe I will be have more opportunities to blog via proxy, as I am now. My apologies to those who enjoyed my absence.
Cheers,
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# Posted 9:20 AM by Taylor Owen  

Labels: Afghanistan, Opium

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# Posted 9:39 AM by Taylor Owen  

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# Posted 10:43 AM by Taylor Owen  

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