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6.4.08

The SCOTT MCCLELLAN REVELATIONS are a real surprise.  Why savage the people that gave you your career?  Why depict yourself as a coward and a dupe?  Bob Dole was certainly taken aback by the book, as reported by Politico.com:

Bob Dole yesterday sent a scalding e-mail to Scott McClellan, excoriating the former White House spokesman as a "miserable creature" who greedily betrayed his former patron for a fast buck.

"There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don’t have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues," Dole wrote in a message sent yesterday morning. "No, your type soaks up the benefits of power, revels in the limelight for years, then quits and, spurred on by greed, cashes in with a scathing critique." 

"In my nearly 36 years of public service I've known of a few like you," Dole writes, recounting his years representing Kansas in the House and Senate.  "No doubt you will 'clean up' as the liberal anti-Bush press will promote your belated concerns with wild enthusiasm. When the money starts rolling in you should donate it to a worthy cause, something like, 'Biting The Hand That Fed Me.' Another thought is to weasel your way back into the White House if a Democrat is elected. That would provide a good set up for a second book deal in a few years"

Dole assures McClellan that he won't read the book — "because if all these awful things were happening, and perhaps some may have been, you should have spoken up publicly like a man, or quit your cushy, high-profile job. That would have taken integrity and courage but then you would have had credibility and your complaints could have been aired objectively," Dole concludes. "You’re a hot ticket now, but don’t you, deep down, feel like a total ingrate?"

As if we didn't know it already, something has gone deeply awry at the White House.  McClellan's actions don't make sense.  Could the Administration be so incompetent as to fail to secure the support and good will of high level appointees or at least to protect themselves from this kind of a hatchet job?  As for McClellan himself, he can't be eyeing a job in a Democratic White House as Dole suggests.  No Democrat will give him a second thought. 

It can only be that McClellan was one among many Bush appointees who did not possess even a rudimentary understanding of his position.  He is now describing himself as young and inexperienced at the time he became Press Secretary.  That's fine, but it in no way absolves him of blame for the role he played, and it just raises more questions about who was doing the hiring at the White House.

4.11.08

IRAN IN IRAQ:  If there is an American attack on Iran, it will not be because the Iranians are undermining US efforts in Iraq.  It will be because Iran is benefiting from US efforts in Iraq.  Iran is doing its best to enjoy the spoils of a war that the US his unintentionally waged for their benefit.  The US is doing its best to make sure that this does not happen 

The US invasion and occupation in Iraq has advanced Iranian ambitions in Iraq and the region more generally.  As far as I can tell, there is only one exception--the possibility that the United States will expand its influence in the Middle East.  Iranian and American goals are approximately the same in Iraq:  a Shia-dominated regime that does not constitute a threat to its neighbors.  The only difference is that the U.S. hopes that this Shia-dominated regime will be friendly to the West, while Iran hopes that it will stay close to its natural, historical ally.  Iran and the US have many common allies in Iraq, but the Iranians also support anti-American groups, in an attempt to make this as unpleasant as possible for the United States.  Their hope is that, having installed a Shia-dominated regime in Iraq, the US will be forced to withdraw and leave the Iranians with an expanded sphere of influence.  

The Iranians are not so much trying to frustrate US ambitions in Iraq as they are trying to prevent the US from accruing the benefits that are likely to follow from the realization of the those ambitions.

4.8.08

IRAQ CORRECTIVE.  Both critics and proponents of the 'surge' have been distinguishing between political and military progress.  Opponents have tended to concede that, while military progress has been made, it has been accompanied by little or no political progress.  Since the whole purpose of the surge was to create a safe space for political reconciliation, they have deemed the surge a failure despite decreases in the overall level of violence.

We are now beginning to hear defenders of the war claiming that political progress has indeed been made.  Frederick Kagan, for instance, was both quoted in the LA Times yesterday and interviewed on the PBS News Hour last night.  His argument is that the Iraqi government is beginning to meet several of the 'benchmarks' outlined by the Bush Administration.

Here' s the problem:  As the recent activity in Basra suggests, the Iraqi government is not sovereign over the territory it purportedly controls.  In other words, reconciliation within the Iraqi government's extremely circumscribed sphere of influence cannot be taken as an indicator of political reconciliation in Iraq more generally. 

The terrain of the conflict in Iraq has changed.  Minorities within the Sunni and Shia communities have joined forces with the U.S., first to fight al Qaeda and, more recently, to attack Moqtada al-Sadr's militia.  This has had the effect of somewhat broadening the coalition of forces willing to work in concert with US forces. 

Is this political progress?  If we accept the administration's account of what victory in Iraq would mean, I suppose it could be cast as an incremental success.  The coalition of groups with allegiance to the U.S. backed, Shia-dominated government of the Green Zone has grown slightly, though probably only temporarily.  The benchmarks that have been ostensibly met by this quasi-sovereign political entity are highly precarious.  As soon as the Sunnis decide that it's time to reclaim the homes they were forced to flee during the civil war, that part of the fragile coalition will begin to crumble.  As for the Shia-dominated government, it will either have to incorporate the Sadrists and other anti-American groups into to the governing structure or defeat them militarily, the latter being, for all practical purposes, an impossibility.

No matter how it goes from here, there is one thing that we will not see in Iraq: a client regime of the United States.  Only a decades long occupation with Saddam-like levels of repression could impose such a regime on a country that is hostile to a U.S. presence and, for the most part, friendly toward Iran.

4.8.08

Come see SENIOR PROJECT PRESENTATIONS given by your fellow students, Tuesday evenings from April 15 through May 6.  Presentations will begin at 7:00 in Founders Hall 217. For a schedule, click here.

3.18.08

Curious about recent developments in the CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT? I'll be speaking on that topic in a forum on March 27 in the President's Dining Room from 11:30 to 1:00.

3.18.08

Has anyone told you that they won't support BARACK OBAMA for the Democratic nomination because he is black?  Of late, several Democrats have said to me that they cannot vote for Obama for this reason.  It's not that they are racist, they assure me; it's that other people are racist and will never vote for an African American in the general election.  So, in the end, what they end up doing is not supporting Obama because he is black.

Some say they won't vote for him because he's too easy to depict as a Muslim.  Again, they don't believe that he is a Muslim, or a Farrakhan supporter, but other people will fall for that, and so these folks end up not supporting Obama because he can be falsely accused of being a Muslim (the horror!) or a Farrakhan supporter.

In the end, these folks are allowing racism and fear-mongering to govern their votes.  And, there's no need for it.  It's all a self-fulfilling prophecy.  It only becomes true if it is acted upon.  If enough people think along these lines, however, the election will be decided by a tacit affirmation of racism and swiftboating by people who are supposedly against those things.