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Funny Comment of the Day

Heard on the Howard Stern Show this morning: A caller remarked that "Fox News is like America's al Jazeera!"

Heh. Funny 'cause it's true...

Who Is Michael Rubin?

Well, he's the buzz of the Washington foreign policy community. The Reliable Source says that he's the leaker/author of this memo that claims, among other things, that:

Despite the progress evident in the streets of Baghdad, much of which happens despite us rather than because of us, Baghdadis have an uneasy sense that they are heading toward civil war. Sunnis, Shi’a, and Kurds professionals have say that they themselves, friends, and associates are buying weapons fearing for the future. CPA is ironically driving the weapons market: Iraqi police sell their “lost” U.S.-supplied weapons on the black market; they are promptly re-supplied. Interior ministry weapons buy-backs keep the price of arms high.

and

The interim constitution has been quite a success. I can be quite cynical about most Iraqi politicians, but I do think that it’s hard to not give Ahmed Chalabi credit for getting the deal we got. When I see the results of his maneuvering and coalition building, I wonder how much farther we could have gotten if so many in the U.S. government had not sought to undermine him at every possible opportunity. Of course we could have gotten a better deal had we come in and used our momentum, but the importance of momentum in international relations is something neither the interagency process, nor the CPA, nor the Pentagon fully grasps. If they did, we would not waste time changing “happy” to “glad” oblivious to the fact that Iraq does not operate on Washington time.

and

A real problem remains the lack of security over Iraq’s borders. I do not believe those up high fully understand the problem. When I first returned to the Defense Department in November, the first assignment I had was to answer a snowflake about how we are securing Iraq’s borders. It came less than two weeks after I was stopped by an illegal PKK checkpoint about 20 kilometers from the Iranian border. I answered the snowflake honestly, but was told to elaborate on the procedures in place. The problem was that no one was following procedures. That CPA had a Border Enforcement policy is completely irrelevant. It is too easy to say the borders are indefensible...

Apparently, Mr. Rubin is now at AEI, which does not yet have a photo of him on its bio page for him. (There's one on the Reliable Source site.)

The memo is overall optimistic, in an ideologically-driven sort of way, yet it laments drunken CPA officials and the complete insulation of the CPA inside the Green Zone in Baghdad. The paeans to Chalabi seem to positively implicate him as being from Defense, and sure enough, his AEI bio lists him as a staff assistant in OSD from 2002-2004.

So it's him. So what? Well, what the Reliable Source misses is that Michael Rubin also penned this piece (you have to be a subscriber) for The New Republic regarding the elections in Iraq. That piece was incredibly pessimistic. Here's a sample:

Decentralizing Iraq's political system may be the only way to prevent the country from falling apart. Fear of future disenfranchisement at the hands of a Shia majority contributes to anger and violence in Sunni cities like Baquba, Falluja, and Tikrit. "The Shia can live as they want in Najaf and Karbala," one Baquba businessman told me, "but we don't need them telling us how to live here."

Unfortunately, a single national poll, while easier to administer, will only contribute to this disenfranchisement. Shia Islamists understand the idea of the tyranny of the majority: "The first article in a democracy is the rule of the majority over the minority," influential Karbala cleric Sayyid Hadi Al Modarresi told Al Hayat in March. It's surprising that Brahimi, who hails from Algeria, where Islamists tried to use an election to create a dictatorship, doesn't understand that, too.

The bottom line of what Rubin writes in TNR is that we're supporting national, party-slate elections in which the most popular parties "do not at present share a fundamental commitment to the kind of political system that would be defined as 'democratic' in the West." The reason we're doing so, in Rubin's words? "...Bremer buckled to pressure from Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani for direct elections, even as Islamist politicians' statements, banners, and slogans hinted at the radicalism of Iraqi Islamist leaders." Hmm, sounds like a mess to me.

On a related note, in the current issue of the American Conservative (not yet online), Jim Pinkerton writes that

[A] strong Iraqi leader who built his career fostering secular Iraqi nationalism would come in handy right about now...In 1729, Jonathan Swift issued his famous "Modest Proposal": the Irish should eat one another's babies as a way of reducing the population of the unwanted poor. So here's my Modest Proposal: bring back Saddam Hussein in 2004. I don't know if he's tanned, but after a year out of power, surely he's rested and ready. Only Saddam, guns and machismo and all, could solve the bevy of problems the Bush Doctrinaires have created in Iraq.

A little tongue in cheek, sure, but I've heard some not-quite-jokes on this same score come out of the pro-war camp lately.

The Peril of Anti-Partisanship

...is that everybody ends up hating you at some point. The thought struck me as I set out on the block-and-a-half walk to the deli for lunch and found myself swimming upstream in a sea of mostly female twentysomethings schlepping "Pro-Kerry, Pro-Choice" signs, presumably somehow involved with this event.

It would be much better for my sanity if I stayed out of abortion discussions and discussions of the Israel-Palestine conflict, because everyone else is a partisan. Everyone. The girls who've come down for the march from Colubmia and NYU have their Planned Parenthood talking points ready, and no doubt there'll be an equally vigorous counter-protest at some point. Same thing with Israel-Palestine.

My question is, though: Do people really think that these issues are so simple that they can be defined by such strident, extreme positions? I mean, I'm not one to talk about being strident (I'm Irish, and just get me started on the War...), but do both sides really believe that they're 100% right, and the other side 100% wrong? Is a stem cell morally equivalent to a human being and that's the fucking end of it? Can the pro-choicers effectively counter the logical extension of many of their arguments? And again, do Israeli partisans really think that the Israeli government never does stupid, immoral things that only contribute to their problems? The Palestinians?

I'm not so sure either way on these either of issues, but their partisans are so militant and closed-off from intellectual investigation that it completely precludes undecideds' getting anything out of a political discussion with them. All I know is that in my own life, I'd love it if more people entered political discussions in good faith, trying to find a position for themselves. It seems like on some issues, though, there's no room for that.

Givin' 'Em What They Want

Hey, it's been a while since I've blogged about Moldova. Dmitrii Chubashenko flogs away at the Moldovan government. Dig it:

European bodies are now debating what kind of attitude to adopt toward Moldova and its leadership, especially in light of our upcoming parliamentary elections.

On one hand, Brussels and Strasbourg understand that PCRM leaders are by no means Europeans. Both the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the Europarliament have passed several resolutions criticizing the violations of democracy in Moldova. (The fact that Chisinau simply ignored all these resolutions is another matter.)

On the other hand, Europe is worried that if it leaves Moldova to its own fate—and boycotted or sanctioned—it could devolve into a Belarus-style dictatorship.

As things stand now, it seems Europe will try to find a balanced approach. It will encourage, even if only via declarations, Moldova’s desire to move closer to Europe, but it will also disabuse PCRM leaders of the notion that such encouragement is carte blanche for them to continue their antidemocratic policies.

Whole thing here.

Wine Blog

How pathetic is it that my first wine blog is about a bottle I got for $6? Seriously, though, keep reading.

It's a white wine, actually, called Domaine de Pouy. (French embargo types can stop reading now.) It's made from an esoteric grape called Ugni Blanc, from which they make a lot of cheap sparkling wines in the South of France. I had the 2003, and Robert Parker gave the 2002 88 points.

This wine has serious candied citrus fruit on both the nose and palate, with a certain peary quality on the palate as well. It has a nice viscosity and roundness that makes you not want to drink it too cold. It'd be a bit much for shellfish, but it could do extremely well with sushi or other full-bodied fish dishes. It has the kind of prickly effervessence that a good Muscadet or other wine aged on the lees would have. I really went out on a limb with it, but I highly recommend it for the price. It's $6 right now at Calvert-Woodley for those in DC. Pick up a couple of bottles.

Cut Government Spending: Vote Kerry

Doug Bandow picks up on the "divide and prosper" meme in Fortune. Dig it.

A Moral Policy For Iraq?

My friend and estimable colleague Tom Palmer penned a blog post criticizing the notion that we should cut and run from Iraq. While I share some of Tom's concerns, I think the conclusion he reaches is at least partly wrong.

First, I think Tom's use of the notions of "adultish" and "childish" are unfair and overwrought. There is a growing though not yet universal consensus that there is no "good" option for our occupation or evacuation of Iraq. Therefore, it's not as though there is a demonstrably "good" option that opponents of occupation are just missing or refusing to see. That would be childish. Objecting to the continuation of a policy that one believes (not unreasonably) is destined for slow bleeding and tragic death isn't childish.

Second, Tom claims that "more coalition soldiers would be killed in a rout [if we withdraw] than would be killed even in a prolonged occupation." Tom provides no evidence for this assertion, and it is completely speculative. Indeed, there is no way to prove (or disprove) this claim. However, it does seem to me just as much intuitively unlikely as it seems intuitively likely to Tom.

Tom also claims at once that withdrawal would be an "encouragement to further attacks on the U.S. and U.S. allies" and that "withdrawal would not satisfy them; what they seek is the extermination of the unbelievers." I disagree with the notion that all of those who are attacking us "hate us because we're free," or would come across thousands of miles to attack us, so it's easy for me to reject Tom's latter claim. Certainly some of them are dead-enders who can't be deterred, but as Jim Henley's pointed out, "they may hate us because we're free, but very, very, very few people can get worked up enough about our freedom to dedicate themselves to ending it - absent concrete American interference in their business. There's a big difference between hating someone and troubling to cross the world to try to kick their ass."

Moreover, though, Tom's two claims are mutually exclusive and logically inconsistent. If they can't be satisfied, if what they truly seek is the extermination of the unbelievers, then we cannot "encourage" them. If Tom's latter claim is true, his former claim is necessarily untrue.

Tom further objects that pulling out would "provide perfect conditions for the reestablishment of al-Qaeda recruitment and training camps." First, there is no evidence that I've seen of al-Qaeda training camps in Iraq. Second, the Ansar al-Islam organization, which is still operating effectively in Iraq, was operating out of the Kurdish-controlled, No-Fly-Zone patrolled North -- it was the Kurds, who are now our allies, that refused to eradicate it. But more substantively, this is a job for human intelligence. If we haven't cultivated a cadre of intelligence operatives in Iraq already, then we've already lost. Our driving around the Green Zone in armored Humvees is doing nothing to prevent the spread of terrorism into Iraq.

Tom raises the "you break it, you buy it" moral qualms about cutting and running, as well. I share Tom's concerns. However, above Tom's objections, I would argue that Iraq commentators should have raised this concern as an objection to the war in the first place. I know that I say so at the risk of being labeled "childish," but it seems to me the right objection at the wrong time. If one assumes (as I do) that we can't effectively force liberalism on 100% of Iraqis, then there is no hope that all Hell isn't going to break loose whether we leave now or 10 years from now. As I've said incessantly in expressing my despair over the Israel-Palestine problem, the only relevant people are the marginal actors -- very marginal. Think of it this way: if .5% of Iraqis reject liberalism and liberal politics 10 years from now, the shit's going to hit the fan anyway! The inability to control the marginal dead-enders is what will be our inevitable downfall in Iraq. Or, take the analogy back to Israel: If 99% of Israelis and 99% of Palestinians support any given settlement, does it matter at all? Once one side lashes out, doesn't the whole thing deteriorate? The same thing is the case in Iraq. All of the good-hearted people, the centrists in Iraq, don't matter at all, because the power of the actions of crazed minorities is what will move public opinion away from liberalism and towards tyranny, massacre, and coercion.

In response, and in order to clarify my own views, I would ask Tom two questions:

1. What would it take for Tom to advocate pulling out? Is there any cost that would convince him that the elusive benefits aren't worth holding out hope for?

2. What is "the course" that should be stayed in Iraq? What we're doing now is clearly not working. Does Tom believe that we can subdue, kill, capture, or otherwise incapacitate all those who would wreak havoc upon our departure? If not, aren't we destined for failure? Does he think that we can outlast them, oozing blood slowly while hoping that as old dead-enders die off, no more will be born?

I should be clear that I take very seriously the moral problems involved in the Iraqi mess, and have experienced deep sadness, rage, and everything in between because of them. But until I'm presented with any hope for a less-than-terrible outcome for America, I'll keep advocating cutting our losses, bringing our noble troops home, and hoping for the best (or least bad) in Iraq.

"Iraq Should Firebomb the Offices of NRO"

...or so goes the logic of John Derbyshire, who reaches deep down into his heart and finds bloodlust, genocide, and barbarism. He'd do well to brush up on his Augustine.

Sort of reminds one of when he advocated sexually assaulting Iraqi women. A real class act.

Market Saturation

Dig the leak on Bob Woodward's new book:

Woodward says Bush pulled Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld aside Nov. 21, 2001 — when U.S. forces and allies were in control of about half of Afghanistan — and asked him what kind of war plan he had on Iraq. When Rumsfeld said it was outdated, Bush told him to get started on a fresh one.

The book says Bush told Rumsfeld to keep quiet about it and when the defense secretary asked to bring CIA Director George Tenet into the planning at some point, the president said not to do so yet...The book says Gen. Tommy Franks, who was in charge of the Afghan war as head of Central Command, uttered a string of obscenities when the Pentagon told him to come up with an Iraq war plan in the midst of fighting another conflict.

The Evil Party and the Stupid Party on Iraq

Evil Party: Michael Ledeen, who at the WSJ today (registration required) writes:

"Americans must understand that the war in Iraq is in reality a regional war which unites religious fanatics like the Iranians and radical secularists like the Syrians and Saddam's Iraqi supporters. The terrorists include Shiites like Sadr and murderous Sunnis like al Qaeda leader Abu Musab Zarqawi (who, despite his celebrated contempt for Shiites, has openly proclaimed common cause with Sadr).

Iraq cannot be peaceful and secure so long as Tehran sends its terrorist cadres across the border. Naturally, our troops will engage -- and kill -- any infiltrators they encounter. But we can be sure that there will be others to take their place. The only way to end Tehran's continual sponsorship of terror is to bring about the demise of the present Iranian regime. And as it happens, we have an excellent opportunity to achieve this objective, without the direct use of military power against Iran. There is a critical mass of pro-democracy citizens there, who would like nothing more than to rid themselves of their oppressors. They need help, but they neither need nor desire to be liberated by force of arms." Great. So he wants to parlay (er, bolster) our resounding success in building liberal democracy in Iraq by bumping off the Iranian regime and then hoping that something better, or even something stable emerges there so that we can save our asses in Iraq. F him.

Stupid Party: The editors at NRO. In their obligatory "we should lower our goals" piece, they write that they supported the war because it was "broadly supported by the Right as a war of national interest. The primary purpose of the war was always to protect U.S. national security, by removing a destabilizing and radical influence in the strategically crucial Persian Gulf and eliminating a potential threat to the United States" Wow. Thanks. That makes me feel a lot better. Oh, and the claim that it was "always...[promoted as] eliminating a potential threat to the United States" is a bald lie. It was a "grave" threat, in administration rhetoric, not a "potential" threat. Language police on the case.