Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

This nation has had so many competent (or semi-competent) chief executives, that it is truly difficult to face the fact that we elected (excuse me, the Supreme Court selected) a truly incompetent one. One can look back on the what-if. What if the Supreme Court had kept its nose out of the Florida election and let the Constitutional Process play out in the House of Representatives, where it belonged? Just maybe (probabilities are low) there would have been some real vetting of a man who seems incapable of managing a gas station.

I have never been able to let go of the idea that going after Saddam was a personal thing. Making things right for daddy. This is consistent with the Bush family tradition of using the government to achieve personal goals.

Also, how come we never hear anything about the accomplishments of the Department of Fatherland, er uh, Homeland Security? Surely there must be something of note to show for all those taxpayer dollars hard at work.

I'm glad that Krugman is making this case. But why isn't Kerry?

1) Criticisms of Bush for failing to maintain the morale of our allies in the fight against Al Quaeda are perfectly legitimate. This has been a major stumbling block for the President, and he rightly deserves to be brought to task on it. I'm enough of a "Jacksonian" (If I'm getting my warblog terms correct) to think that we probably shouldn't give a shit what France thinks (The French being, throughout the last few years, a dubious friend at best), but Bush has treated Tony Blair, John Howard, and the Poles, Canadians and Italians shabbily at times. There's no excuse for that.

2) Criticisms of Bush for coddling Pakistan are, I think, silly. Pakistan has nuclear weapons and a strong Islamicist current in its people. Destabilizing Pakistan could result in people very closely alligned with Al Quaeda getting their hands on relatively well made nuclear weapons. The administration is playing a dangerous game in Pakistan, though it is being forced to by circumstances. I'm not happy with what's happening in pakistan either, though I'm not sure the US has any choice but to act as it is acting. And Musharraf is I think, in his heart of hearts, a friend to the US. he is also very concerned about his own survival, which gets more tenuous the more closely alligned his is with Bush. Musharraf occaisionally sells us out, but I'm not sure there are better options, from our perspective, to lead Pakistan right now. The days when Benazir Bhutto could hold power there are over.

3) Criticisms of Bush for coddling the Saudis are more tdifficult to evaluate. Certainly the Saudis are not our friends. And certainly the Bush family has longstanding ties to the House of Saud, which make Bush's lack of enthusiasm for pressuring the Saudis seem very suspicious (Though in fairness to Bush his family's longstanding ties are to the branches of the family clsutered around the realtively moderate and pro-Western King, now probably lying on his deathbed in all but word, not the branches of the family clustered around the relatively extermist and anti-Western brother of the King, who now more or less controls the country).

But like in Pakistan, destabilizing the current regime might not be the best of ideas in the short run. There's some reason to believe that the populace in Saudia Arabia is even more pro-Osama than the ruling family. I have no doubt that this is due to the fact that the US has propped up the oppressive Saudi regime for quite some time (much as it is the case in Egypt as well), but that's water under the bridge.

The much-malligned Iraq war will I think eventually yield fruit on this front. We've now moved almost all of our military forces out of Saudi Arabia, something that was simply not possible before. This removes a significant sore point for those Saudis who viewed the US presence in the "Kingdom" as a great afront. And it also means that US will not be in a position to defend the current regime in the event of an uprising. The US army is simply NOT going to allow the government in a country in which it is based to fall in a violent revolution. Not in this day and age. No matter how bad that government is.

So time will tell. If a working democracy is established in Iraq, and that later leads to the democritization of Iran and Saudi Arabia, then Bush will have been responsible for one of the greatest foreign policy triumphs in US history, and will have deflated much of the backing that terrorists rely on. If Iraq falls into chaos, and this chaos spreads into Saudi Arabia and results in the establishment of an Islamicist state there (Chaos in Iran would almost be a good thing - the hardliners control that country already and a popular uprising would probably result in a more pro-Western government), then Bush will have been responsible for one of the greatest foreign policy blunders in US history.

We can disagree on the likelihood of those two outcomes, and on the dsirability of taking the risk in the first place. Hopefully we can all agree though that Dennis Kucinich's "get out of Iraq now plan" was frightfully stupid and profoundly immoral.

So, the Krugman Doctrine calls for...? War in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia (our allies in the Cold War)? Boycott Saudi crude?

The damage that the Iraq war has done to the "real" war on terror is what we can see in the horible bombing in Spain. This was a well planned and coordinated attack yet apparently none of the worlds intelligence agencies had a clue. "Clueless in Madrid"

Juan Cole sums it up pretty well this morning:

"Let me repeat that. Maybe $1.3 billion for Afghanistan. $250 billion for Iraq. Bin Laden and his supporters are in Afghanistan. What is wrong with this picture?"

Many factors played a role in the rejection of the Anzar government, but it is
insulting for conservatives to claim that cowardice was one of them. The US
people were not cowards when they rejected Jimmy Carter in response to the
Iranian hostage crisis. The British were not cowards for replacing Chamberlin
with Churchill. Replacing a leader who failed at the time of need is a triumph
of the democratic process and not of terrorism.

The increased turnout and the widely held belief that the government was trying
to exploit the deaths were certainly factors in Anzar's defeat.

What may also have been a factor is the perception that much more effort has
gone into the hunt for Saddam than the hunt for Bin Laden. We now know how Bin
Laden and Al Zawahiri have been using the respite since his escape from the
caves of the Tora Bora over two years ago.

The Spanish people were looking for a leader who would act against the real
source of the attacks, and not as one US politician recently accused another,
"long on bluster, short on action".

Amen to Krugman. This level of incompentency and mendacity will forever lower the bar on what is acceptable in a president. Even Nixon wasn't this stupid. Dishonest, yes, but not stupid. I'm not sure why Kerry isn't going for the throat yet. I wish to hell he'd get out there now now now.

Smaller words and shorter sentences please. I only have 1 hour for this blog.
GWB

I would like to see some people on this blog state explicitly what our policy should be toward Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

The left's basic view, according to Berkeley professor George Lakoff, is "nurturant parent" morality. Clearly, what offends Lakoff and others is that Bush is a proponent of what Lakodf calls "strict-father" morality.

The left's instinct is to blame terrorism on inadequate "nurturance." So, you want to say that we should have nurtured the UN, or nurtured the Palestinians, or somesuch.

"Nurturant-parent" morality is instinctively nonconfrontational. Would you guys really confront Saudi Arabia and Pakistan? How? I'd like to hear about it.

I don't agree with the Cheney as puppeteer theory. Cheney is an enabler. Reasons for attacking Iraq- SH tried to kill GHW Bush. W is a vindictive guy. The US wanted Iraq for basing-is it strategically located! Iraq has been a thorn in the side of the Israelis. Israel bombed Iraq over nukes in the 80s. SH was paying families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Iraq was very high on Israel's list. Iraq has desireable geographic location for exporting oil. It made sense to get a more permanent solution to Iraq than sanctions and no fly zones. Maybe W had some push convincing him to go ahead, but he was already inclined to do Iraq before he was elected.

The big problem is that implementation has been deeply flawed. If the idea is to rebuild a country in your own image, then you need to take control of the institutions that are in place and reform them, not try to abolish them and start from scratch. The GOP ideologically does not believe in government. They underestimated what it would take to run Iraq. They still don't get it. The Iraqis had an army. That army was for sale. We missed the opportunity to buy it cheap. The Iraqis could have put together a constitution under protection of their own army instead of threat from insurgents. What were they thinking? It defies over 200 years of US military experience. In our own Civil War, many Union soldier were running Southern cities during and after the war. Sherman ran Memphis. Butler ran New Orleans. They were not allowed to devolve into chaos. We ran Cuba. We ran the Philipines. We ran Haiti several times. Did we get rid of the army in Panama?

The question that needs to be addressed is "Where do we go from here?" . Just pull out? Get UN help? Kerry needs an answer to this soon.

With this administration, you should never blame incompetence when malice is sufficient.

I think that it's quite likely that everyone from Bush on down realized that they weren't fighting terror, but so what? Terror is good for the GOP.

So, the Krugman Doctrine calls for...? War in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia (our allies in the Cold War)? Boycott Saudi crude?

Posted by Patrick R. Sullivan at March 16, 2004 08:00 AM

Er no. It calls for singleminded determination to complete the job of destroying Al-Queda and then use international pressure, coercion, and aid to foster change in the nations where Al-Queda is supported coupled with sincere efforts to resolve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

As he put it himself (to paraphrase):

1. Do not indulge regimes that are strongly implicated in terrorism

2. focusing on actual terrorist threats

Arnold Kling:

"I would like to see some people on this blog state explicitly what our policy should be toward Saudi Arabia and Pakistan."

I would like to see competant policy from our leadership.

"The left's basic view, according to Berkeley professor George Lakoff, is "nurturant parent" morality. Clearly, what offends Lakoff and others is that Bush is a proponent of what Lakodf calls "strict-father" morality."

Bullshit. What offends about 99% of the people on the 'left' is that Bush is incompetant. He's basically a spoiled brat.

"The left's instinct is to blame terrorism on inadequate "nurturance." So, you want to say that we should have nurtured the UN, or nurtured the Palestinians, or somesuch."

False, but thanks for playing.

"Nurturant-parent" morality is instinctively nonconfrontational. Would you guys really confront Saudi Arabia and Pakistan? How? I'd like to hear about it."

As I said above, how is Bush doing?

____

Someone should have Brooks respond to this article. At the least he owes the Spanish people or government an apology.

This morning he called the Spanish government some very bad things, including appearers for withdrawing from Iraq. But they did not withdraw from Afghanistan. They are remaining in the fight against terrorist, they are just withdrawing from Iraq, a war that had nothing to do with terroristism. Even Bush, finally had to admit in public that there was no evidence available showing significant ties between Sadam and Al Quada.

Maybe we should start a letter writing campaign for a public debate between Krugman and Brooks over this issue.

Interesting to note tht what Arnold accuses the left of proposing is just about exactly what W is doing: coddling the real sources of terror instead of confronting them.

Arnold, if you are honest, you will not back Bush. He's shown no strength where it was needed, and wasted much effort, life, and money where it was not needed.

SD -- I do not have the numbers at hand, but I do not believe the size of the US military presence in Saudia was ever significant.

I fully expect that we will continue to see chaos in Iraq and that it will spread and tie down the US military at very high cost for a very long time. Show me one reason why I sholud not give that outcome top probability.

Patrick R. Sullivan writes:
>
> So, the Krugman Doctrine calls for...? War in Pakistan and
> Saudi Arabia (our allies in the Cold War)? Boycott Saudi crude?

Well, one thing the KD clearly sugeests is: don't invade countries that are less important in achieving your objectives. In other words, if it is Al Qaeda you seek, and you know that most of them are *currently* not in the area of a country controlled by the Nasty Tyrant du Jour, then toppling said tyrant is not relevant to your goal of eliminating terrorist cells.

So let's consider the problem of facing Al Qaeda. What is the KD there? I think most agree that the unambiguous capture of Osama Bin Laden and others in his immediate circle would be a very valuable step, although it wouldn't completely solve the terrorism problem by a long shot. Our best shot at this was to do a complete and thorough job in our invasion of Afghanistan. He *was* there, and it was difficult for him to flee very far. Unfortunately, we really screwed up in Afghanistan after the initial success in taking control over major cities. Part of this is because the successful invasion and occupation of Afghanistan is NOT on the list of "Easy Military Objectives". But part of this is because we started pulling forces and money and attention out of Afghanistan *in order to fight the relatively useless war over Iraq*. This was a HUGE stategic error, and probably bad tactically as well. The KD here is: make sure your Afghan project suceeds before engaging in other foreign adventures.

Note that this piece of Krugman Doctrine has an impact on your Pakistan policy. The less help you need from Pakistan to capture Bin Laden, the better, since your top goal in Pakistan is first to eliminate their contribution to nuclear proliferation. This is neither a fun nor an easy project, but it is now not even our top priority in Pakistan. That top priority is to ignore the nuclear debacle in exchange for permission to mess around in tribal lands and capture Osama Bin Laden. Osama is clearly dangerous, but a government of grown-ups should be able to see that the bigger problem is Pakistan become NukesRUs to the rest of the world, including North Korea. I'm not sure there is any easy way to solve the proliferation problem, but putting it off while you look for a needle in a haystack seems pretty weird.

Which leaves us with the Saudis. I'm not sure what the KD would be here, but it's hard to imagine a policy that takes a softer line towards that corrupt ruling family than the Bush Doctrine. Saudi Arabia is an odd case because you absolutely *cannot* invade it (even though it's a much easier target than a lot of places). I think the only pressure you have there that could be effective is economic. The Saudis need our money, but all they have to give us is oil. So if you are going to tell the American people that they are at war with terrorists, you can follow through and announce a major war-time plan to reduce consumption of petroleum at home and fund your military efforts elsewhere. Just massively hike taxes on petroleum products (to European levels) and *threaten* a cut off of oil purchases from the Saudis. If high gas prices were what had to be paid to support a real and economic war on terror and terror-supporting states, I think patriotism in this country would support it in a gung-ho manner.

Now, the point is not that each and every idea above is the best policy (hey, I just made 'em up), only that the current Bush Doctrine *doesn't even address these issues*. If the war is on terror and against the proliferation of nuclear weapons (the ultimate WMD) then you need to address those concerns rather than invade Iraq. It's not that hard.

Almost everybody you talk to, but conservatives in particular, come back to this point of "state-sponsored terror." Well we need somebody to blame things on. But this may be a bit overblown, the result of the Administration's need to have bogeymen for the public to focus upon; part of the premise of the Iraq invasion.

Certainly the Saudis and others have funded fundamentalist religious schools (as do nuts in our own country) and no doubt some Saudis have sent money directly to terrorists (as do nuts in our own country).

Insofar as there may have been state sponsorship, it is perhaps smarter to leave these people in place, until all of the connections can be traced. Indeed following this logic further, you can see why state-sponsorship mostly would never exist: it is much easier to uncover--because officials cannot in principle disappear for periods of time without phone logs and so on--and then we could blow them to kingdom come. (This, for instance, would be the reason why Syria is probably not harboring Saddam's rusty old weapons. It would be just incredibly stupid to have received the shipment, considering the penetrative capabilities of U.S. satellites and Israeli intelligence. Yet you keep running into people foisting this canard.)

Considering incompetence: which American royal family has been in business with the Saudis for decades to the tune of billions? And they had no clue as to what was happening underfoot! This is consonant with their short-sightedness in all the many other regards, from foreign to environmental policies. --Which President sent $43 million to the Taliban, three months before 9/11?

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Krugman, as usual, has very little idea what he is talking about. I've been tracking anti-terror efforts and they have been pretty much full-bore since we invaded Afghanistan. Much of the work is not high-profile military operations, but low-level police and special forces operations, and not just in Afghanistan and Pakistan. For example, a lot of work is currently going on in parts of Africa, where a lot of terrorists are trying to regroup. And while Europe may not have backed our Iraq efforts, and often express hostility towards Bush and America, their work in stopping local terror operations, in cooperation with the U.S., has been excellent. This too, does not make the papers very often.

A large percentage of al Qaeda has been put out of business in the past year or so. The fact that one terrorist has not been captured yet is not going to change the big picture that much any more than the capture of Saddam suddenly resulted in instant cessation of violence in Iraq.

For a good time, watch all the leftists who are howling about how bin Laden hasn't been caught yet, and how we "let him go" (they're talking about Bush, not Clinton, just to keep it straight). The second bin Laden is caught, these same people will yawn and declare that it is not only unimportant, but never was important. Same as with the capture of Saddam.

Yes, let's invade Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam! That's sure to endear us to the world's muslims a whole lot more than dethroning Saddam Hussein! And while we're at it, let's attack the very nation helping us track down bin Laden and the Taliban, and a confirmed nuclear power at that! It all makes so much sense, doesn't it?

It's hot air like this that makes me think that George W. Bush, for all his manifold shortcomings, is a lot more serious about doing something about Islamic terrorism than his detractors. How is that obviously intelligent people are so amenable to checking their brains at the door when a chance to indulge their partisan instincts comes knocking? These criticisms of Krugman's are utterly worthless.

My strategy for Pakistan? I would "buy" the country. Start with the school system. Provide education and school lunch for all children. Hire Pakistani professionals to teach them western economics. Provide scholarships for gifted Pakistanis to study in the US. Work on economic development issues. Work to help resolve the dispute with India.

The US created huge problems in South Asia by their support and training of religious fundamentalists based in Pakistan to topple the Soviet supported secular government in Afghanistan. To reverse that, we now have to support the secular institutions in those countries.

Saudi Arabia is a difficult challenge. They need to develop an economic base in addition to exporting oil.

"SD -- I do not have the numbers at hand, but I do not believe the size of the US military presence in Saudia was ever significant. "

Significant to whom? Excerpting freely here:

"Did the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia cause the September 11 attacks?

The presence of about 5,000 U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's two holiest sites, is one of Osama bin Laden's bitterest grievances against America—both because he is offended by having "infidel troops" stand guard over Islam's holiest sites and because the U.S. presence makes it harder for him to topple the Saudi monarchy.

Why are U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia?

Their purpose is to deter Iraq from attacking Saudi Arabia and monitor the "no-fly" zones (which are off-limits to Iraqi planes), U.S. officials say.

Has bin Laden called for a U.S. withdrawal from Saudi Arabia?

Yes, repeatedly. In his writings and speeches, bin Laden has hotly argued that since at least 1991—the year of the Persian Gulf War, which was waged by a U.S.-led coalition with bases in Saudi Arabia—the United States has been "occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of its territories, Arabia, plundering its riches, overwhelming its rulers, humiliating its people, threatening its neighbors, and using its bases in the [Arabian] peninsula as a spearhead to fight against the neighboring Islamic peoples."

When did significant numbers of U.S. troops arrive in Saudi Arabia?

The Saudis invited in the U.S. military shortly after Saddam Hussein invaded Iraq's oil-rich neighbor Kuwait, on August 2, 1990...."

http://cfrterrorism.org/causes/saudiarabia.html

"A large percentage of al Qaeda has been put out of business in the past year or so."

Tell that to the Spaniards.

"Yes, let's invade Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam!"

Nah, let's just coddle them, pull out our troops (like Osama wanted), let bin Laden's relatives fly home w/o questioning them, increase our dependence on oil, and invade a secular country with no ties to aQ.

"George W. Bush, for all his manifold shortcomings, is a lot more serious about doing something about Islamic terrorism than his detractors."

Yeah, like invading the only secular country in the region. Or letting Iran go forward to nuclear power. Or cutting the budget for securing Russian nukes. Or only really going after ObL two plus years later. Or not giving Musharef the deal on textiles. Or really doing the job right in Afganistan. Or letting N. Korea become a nuclear power. Or alienating allies that are needed to truly root out aQ around the world.

My, I feel safer

"(b) To further this goal, Cheney or somebody else got to George W. Bush in September 2001 and convinced him that Saddam Hussein was closely aligned with Al Qaeda."

Maybe "somebody" was John Kerry, who said this in his Senate floor speech on Oct 9, 2002:

"The events of September 11 created new understanding of the terrorist threat and the degree to which every nation is vulnerable. That understanding enabled the administration to form a broad and impressive coalition against terrorism. Had the administration tried then to capitalize on this unity of spirit to build a coalition to disarm Iraq, we would not be here in the pressing days before an election, late in this year, debating this now. "

Allowing for a couple of months to deal with the Taliban, this suggests that in March of 2002, linking Saddam to terror made sense; by October 2002, the link had disappeared.

Other candidates for exerting this special influence on Bush include Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, and Dick Gephardt. Or, going back a bit, we can find Bill Clinton worrying about Saddam and terror.

Kerry's speech on the Iraq resolution:
http://www.independentsforkerry.org/uploads/media/kerry-iraq.html

Hillary's speech on same:

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. "

http://clinton.senate.gov/~clinton/speeches/iraq_101002.html

Oh, this is so sad. Some of you righty guys I actually enjoy reading, when you are on your game. Today"s take - not so much fun.

How to respond when Krugman's on target? Just demand that, rather than do the columnist's job of pointing out problems, he figure out a way to fix them as well. Interesting, then, that Krugman had pretty much already suggested a bunch of improvements to our foreign policy - the Krugman doctrine was in print before the demand for it.

Need a straw man? Reach for the old "leftist as nanny" bit and indignantly demand a response. Boldly assert that your opponents in the debate really are living characatures.

Don't like the way the discussion is going? Just drag a red herring across the discussion. "You lefties are gonna say bin Laden doesn't matter just as soon as he's caught...QED." Twaddle. Bin Laden doesn't seem to have been the mastermind of the Madrid bombings, nor do any of his more famous followers. The fight against terror is far beyond bin Laden even now. Saying so now, or after he's caught, doesn't change that.

If you want to be in this debate, the debate the point raised. If you don't, stop pretending.

Why are some people still puzzled about the reason for Iraq's invasion?

1. It has a huge amount of oil.
2. Inspections proven it had no nuclear weapons.
3. Its army was weakened by the sanctions.
4. US population and Congress, scared and angered by 9/11 was willing to support an attack.
5. US sole superpower status ensured it was not going to meet real international resistance (on the level of Cuban missile crisis) - some frustrated rumblings at worst.

So Iraq had something US mulitary-industrial complex wanted and could get relatively easily. Why search for some Freudian explanations about killing fathers and all?

Have any of the conservative/apologist commenters here offered anything resembling a serious critique of PK or a defense of Bush? Let's see:

Sullivan thinks that econ professors should only criticize manifest incompetence in foreign policy if they themselves could proffer a complete and unimpeachable foreign policy doctrine.

Kling proffers nauseating pop psychology to create liberal strawmen (or strawgirls).

tbrosz raises reasonable arguments that the war on terror hasn't been a 100% failure, but says not a word to suggest that it has been pursued with full dedication (which is PK's actual criticism). Also, liberals have always been in favor of "getting" ObL (politically feasible efforts to do so in 1998 were viciously attacked by those who now claim to be "serious" about the war on terror), while warning that doing so would not cause al Qaeda or terrorism to vanish. Liberals never thought that "getting" SH would make a difference in the war on terror; yawning at his capture was entirely appropriate, as the hundreds of Iraqi & American deaths since that event have proven. tbrosz seems to be lining up his strawmen in advance of an October Surprise.

Abiola is in his Mr. Hyde phase, in which he makes utterly asinine comments and then draws the conclusion he had before he started. Hint, Abiola: not a single person here, nor PK himself, has advocated invasion of SA. The fact that you raise the issue shows how desperately unserious you are.

Anything else, sycophants? Do you have any actual counters to PK's point that the war in Iraq has been a distraction from the war on terror, and that Bush's specific methods have done additional damage beyond the mere opportunity costs of the Iraq war?

Hey Bakho,

We really need to get you into a gov't position in charge of some large budget if you're not in charge of one already. School lunches for the jihadists. Brilliant. I'm switching to the Dem party. Republicans just cannot match the brainpower. While they're eating would you replace their copy of the Koran with a copy of the "Cat in the Hat".

Can any of you checker players see what a democracy in Iraq would do to put pressure on other non-democratic states like Iran, Egypt, SA, or Syria. How about our military presence? We no longer need SA as much as we did before and they know it although their oil protects them to some extent. Our power in the region is increased and that gives us options and influence not present before Iraqi Freedom. Anyone hear of the uprisings in Iran? We are next door to help if required. What if Islamists try to overthrow the House of Saud. We can seize the oil fields. How about a thriving Iraq reaping the benefits of political and economic liberty. I wonder what the "arab street" would think about that.

When we stick around militarily, good things happen. This bull about Bush being a moron is too much. Krugman couldn't win a grade school chess match with his grasp of power politics. He says "urgent pleas by departing Clinton officials to focus on the threat from Al Qaeda." His cheek is incredible after Clinton shrugged off '93 WTC, Cole, 2 destroyed embassies, Mogadishu... Clinton took no decisive action when the public's attention would have been keen for a strong response. Krugman has ZERO credibility. Go Fish Paul.

Bush's strategy may or may not work, but I see it as a sophisticated gambit which is going for the throat of the Islamists instead of just chasing shadows. This is a flanking maneuver on a grand scale. Its guys like Bakho and Krugman who really expose the left as the 2-D thinkers they really are.

Readers/Writers of this website have GOT to read Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum" [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345368754/qid=1079464722/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/103-8006272-3443065?v=glance&s=books&n=507846].

In it, as a lark, three people decide to invent a history. Becoming obsessed with their story, they dream up links between an imaginary secret order and nearly every “event” throughout history. The plan takes on a life of its own when oblivious masses want the “information” the trio has "discovered."

Just because people can suggest connection, doesn’t mean connection exists.

I don't see why so many people ignore the most straightforward reason the neocons have wanted to take on Iraq - an overconfident imperialistic desire to "clean up" the Middle East and get through to the Islamic militants that way. They've long figured that the way to get rid of terrorists is to put enough military threat against the Middle Eastern nations that the local governments can be forced to turn the screws on the radical movements. Afghanistan and Iraq simply happened to be the most convenient starting points for using military force to reshape the entire Middle East. After a short victorious war in Iraq followed by installing a compliant US puppet such as Chalabi in power, Iraq would be a handy sword of damocles over the heads of the other Middle Eastern nations. If they stepped out of line they would be next. They never believed Iraq was primarily responsible for terrorism, but neither did their aims have nothing to do with fighting terrorism. Iraq was supposed to be a crucial stepping-stone to US military domination of the Middle East, to showing that the US was willing to go into the Middle East and conquer enemies.

The problem with this is simply the classic failure of military imperialism in response to terrorist and guerilla movements - namely that it's extremely, extremely hard to pull off "right" and not create more resistance than you destroy. And you'll never succeed if your strategy is all stick and no carrot.

Sorry, Tom, didn't mean to skip you. I can't help but notice that Kerry is talking about a coalition (based on goodwill and cooperation, not sexed-up evidence) to disarm SH. Not invade, depose, or capture, but disarm. One definition of "disarm" might be "to make certain that there are no arms." How could that be achieved, I wonder? Perhaps invasive inspections backed with a credible threat of force. Would that work? Has there ever, anywhere, been a regime that possessed WMD and was developing more, and then was under a tough inspection regime (and some missile-borne force for good measure), after which they had no more arms?

We eagerly await your well-linked answer, Tom.

I'd like to think that Iam Montgomery's post was composed before he read Brian's smug little treatise. Because it exposes the real-world flaws of Brian's non "2-D" thinking. Yes, Brian, it would be wonderful if we could invade random countries, make them democracies, and then sit back as the dominoes fall. It would also be wonderful to have ponies for everyone.

Brian's thesis is one advanced by the same people who though that the Soviet Union in 1979 was a powerhouse whose economic and miliary might far outstripped that of the US. The same people who thought that Soviet soldiers would happily desert to the bloodthirsty mujahadeen if only they were promised freedom in America. In other words, clowns who couldn't handle the real world with an office-full of practical assistants. Clowns who think that Rube Goldbreg was a brilliant political theorist.

Oh, and Brian? I eagerly await all of your cites on conservatives who advocated serious military intevention in the aftermath of the attacks you list. You know, like DeLay and Lott suggesting that bombing Kenya and Afghanistan shouldn't be supported. Or like when Bush mocked the mere idea of attempting to assassinate ObL, preferring instead to.... Um. Go on vacation for a month. That'll show the Islamists who's serious about shutting them down. No wonder they were too frightened to attack the US. They knew that with Bush in charge, international terrorism was a thing of the past. Yup. No terrorism under Bush's watch, because, unlike Clinton, he was serious about fighting terror. Right from January 21, 2001. Yessir.

K Harris, you forgot the latest right-wing line, being rolled out about Spain, but certainly due for the US market before November:

A vote against incompetancy is a vote for terrorists. If countries discard screw-up
governments, then the terrorists have won.

Barry, does that comment actually mean that you're defending those Spaniards who changed their vote after the bombing in the hope that doing so would prevent any more terrorist attacks? The problem with what happened in Spain is not that the Socialists won. Had they been on track to win, and had the bombing had no effect on the election outcome, then no serious person would be troubled by what happened. The problem is that a small but significant minority of the Spanish electorate changed their vote because they believed that pulling troops out of Iraq would make Spain less of a terrorist target. That is appeasement, and you don't have to be a right-winger to recognize that. Stop arguing with straw men and engage with the real damage that that small group of Spanish voters has done.

One would think that bringing democracy, whatever that may be, to Iraq would have something to do with the will and consent of the Iraqi people. Of course, after decades of war, abject tyranny, and economic privation, it is perhaps understandable that those people are somewhat beaten down and deformed and can not respond to our generous offer with the full vigor and enthusiasm that the wonderful opportunities we bestow upon them should warrant. They are simply misinformed, operating on baseless suppositions and unduly suspicious.

Krugman--10,000 words, when only a few would do

He should have written, "Waking to a post-election headache, the soon to be former leader of Spain could mutter only a few English words, "With friends like this, who needs enemies. Bush spends $50 million dollars to prosecute Martha Stewart for the political crime of being a successful business woman who gave a few hundred thousands dollars to democrats, yet every time we asked for inceased cooperation and intelligence as the election posted we got a ear full of spin from Cheney et al (you got nothing to worrry, about) and a shoulder shrug--no mas, no money, no resources, ("It's the deficit stupid.").

Bush is so dumb he couldn't anticipate a covey rise on a bird hunt, with the dogs on point.

Seriously folks, Bush should have seen that Spain was exposed and should have protected this flank. The attack and loss of the election expose incompetency at the core.

Steve, those voters didn't change their minds about whether to vote for PP or the socialists, they either changed their vote from a farther left party to ensure the socialists' victory or they changed their minds about *not* voting at all. More voters participated than predicted and more younger voters than in the past in Spain. so you're saying participatory democracy is bad?

"The problem is that a small but significant minority of the Spanish electorate changed their vote because they believed that pulling troops out of Iraq would make Spain less of a terrorist target."

90% of Spainiards have always been opposed to the war in Iraq. They changed their voting intentions when the right-wingers opted for lying about the likely culprits of this massacre. Unless you are fine -if not happy- with governments making political cash on the back of dead people, you should actually welcome the Spanish electorate's reaction. But you surely must have read that and you must have simply decided to ignore that annoying fact. The funniest thing is that pretty soon Spanish people will be the object of the same prejudiced ignorant statements as the French were in the run-up to the war.

Wait, there is a pattern here. You can loose 3 limbs for your country, and be anti-partriotic. So, I guess you can be America's best friend and deeply engaged in the war on terrorism (the real one, that is) and be said to hand moral victories to terrorists. Suuuuure!

Steve Carr, Bush spin doctors writes:

"Stop arguing with straw men and engage with the real damage that that small group of Spanish voters has done."

The real damage was done by George Bush. Bush had a duty and obligation to lead and protect Spain, which he failed and refused to do. The vote is a
smart and sensible rejection of incompetency. When you don't protect your allies, this is what happens.

"Mattb's" criticism is best. The Bush Administration's overblown obsession with Iraq --and with the belief that it could very easily be turned into a peaceful pro-Western democracy that would be an attractive beacon for Moslems throughout the region -- has not only led them to weaken our military ability to chase terrorists around Pakistan and Afghanistan; it's massively decreased our ability to respond militarily to the very real threat of the imminent Iranian Bomb -- and to make any necessary conventional military response to any trouble North Korea kicks up, and to support the Russians in better guarding their own enormous and ill-guarded nuclear/biological arsenal, and to afford further necessary domestic security measures (including preventing large cargo planes from being used as weapons, about which shockingly few people anywhere are expressing proper concern except for the editorialists at "Aviation Week"). It was a bloody disastrous misjudgement by ANY criterion, whether you think sending US troops storming into Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is feasible or not:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2095671

Steve Carr writes: The problem is that a small but significant minority of the Spanish electorate changed their vote because they believed that pulling troops out of Iraq would make Spain less of a terrorist target. That is appeasement, and you don't have to be a right-winger to recognize that.

The goverment of Spain:
1. Sent the troops to Iraq against the will of the electorate.
2. Failed to protect the lives and property of Spanish people.
3. Tried to cover up its failure, blaiming ETA.

The lesson is that if you go around boasting of your fighting skills, be ready for a fight. And than you better back it up. And if you boast, get a black eye, claim that your brother given it to you and found lying, well, you won't get much respect - not enough to rule Spain.

"The problem is that a small but significant minority of the Spanish electorate changed their vote because they believed that pulling troops out of Iraq would make Spain less of a terrorist target."

Do you have any evidence for this, or are you just talking out of your ass?

JRoth,

I am only too glad to point out the inanity of Krugman's and some poster's comments. I reject your assertion that Clinton was tough on terrorism. I'll leave it there since the record is quite clear.

On to the thust of my previous post, how do you rate the success of our intervention in Germany, Japan, and S. Korea. All of which were long term military commitments in which we still maintain our presence. Success is not assured, but please don't say its a policy of sure failure. You're the smug one.

When have we been in a better position to act on Iran. We have Thousands of troops on the ground next door. JRoth, your childish rants may impress our lefty friends, but they do little to advance your argument. The nice thing is Kerry supports both our points of view in their entirety.

" This morning he called the Spanish government some very bad things, including appearers for withdrawing from Iraq. But they did not withdraw from Afghanistan. They are remaining in the fight against terrorist, they are just withdrawing from Iraq, a war that had nothing to do with terroristism."

So, let me get this straight; you are claiming that Al Qaeda DIDN'T plant bombs on Spanish trains because Spanish troops directly assisted in the campaign against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, but Al Qaeda DID plant the bombs because Spain sent troops into Iraq which has no connection to Al Qaeda?

Jean-Phillipe, Lou, and ogmb, here's an example of what I'm talking about, from the NYT, 3/15/04: "“A 26-year-old window frame maker, who identified himself only as David, said he had changed his vote from Popular Party to Socialist because of the bombings and the war in Iraq. “Maybe the Socialists will get our troops out of Iraq, and Al Qaeda will forget about Spain, so we will be less frightened,” he said. “A bit of us died in the train.”"

That doesn't fit any description you've offered. Maybe there really were very few voters like this guy. I doubt it. Judging from the press coverage, and the signs in the marches, and the comments from Spanish voters, it seems more likely that a significant minority did exactly what he did. (Lou's assertion that people didn't switch away from the PP makes no sense when you look at the polls, which suggest that the PP lost close to a million votes between the days before the bombing and election day.) There is no way you can spin that into being "deeply engaged in the war on terrorism." And there's no doubt that it was handing a moral victory to the terrorists.

" The funniest thing is that pretty soon Spanish people will be the object of the same prejudiced ignorant statements as the French were in the run-up to the war."

Oh, we've known about the Spanish for years (check out Whit Stillman's "Barcelona", on the AFL-CIA). But you're forgetting the Belgian chocolateers! We think they're pretty ridiculous too.

" How to respond when Krugman's on target? Just demand that, rather than do the columnist's job of pointing out problems, he figure out a way to fix them as well. "

Yes, that is the customary way to handle a mere critic. In this imperfect world, policies crafted by imperfect humans, will always be imperfect.

"Pointing out problems" is worse than useless, as it can paralyze us. What is useful is to propose alternative policies that would have a better chance of accomplishing our goals. So far none have been offered.

Steve Carr writes: And there's no doubt that it was handing a moral victory to the terrorists.

Don't worry about moral victories and sending messages. The first function of the goverment is to protect the life and property of its people. If the goverment claims that military actions abroad are essential for this protection, most of the people will let it get away with it. However if sending troops abroad provokes the terrorist attacks at home and the goverment fails to prevent them and lies to cover them up, the people will throw it out - exactly what happende in Spain.

To Brad, Liberals and Co.:

How many conspiracy theories are you going to have to believe? There are way too many hoops you are jumping through. Who got to Cheney, who got to Powell, who got to Rumsfeld?

And why are you fixated with getting bin Laden and only fighting terrorism in Afghanistan? There are many types of terrorists in many countries on many continents. You should not be so simple-minded in going after one man and his group.

Al-Qaeda isn't the only terrorist group, Osama isn't the only terrorist we must deal with. Simplifying the war on terror is pretty silly, guys.

http://www.dawn.com/2004/03/14/top12.htm

------------quote----------
KABUL, March 13: US-led forces have launched a sweeping new offensive in Afghanistan's remote southeastern mountains aimed at crushing the Taliban and Al Qaeda and trapping militant leaders including Osama bin Laden.

The operation, codenamed "Mountain Storm", began on March 7 and involves troops from the 13,500-strong US-led force backed by air support, US military spokesman Lt-Col Bryan Hilferty told a news briefing on Saturday.

[snip]

Hilferty said "Mountain Storm" was a continuation of previous operations and was intended to "destroy terrorist organisations and their infrastructure".

[snip]

SECRET FORCE: US officials said the secretive Task Force 121, a covert commando team of Special Operations troops and CIA personnel involved in the capture of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in December, has relocated people and equipment to the border region to search for Osama and other Al Qaeda and Taliban guerillas.

Pakistan has in recent weeks moved forces into tribal lands on its side of the Afghan border in the search for militants. Hilferty said the Pakistanis had done "a great job".

Lt-Gen David Barno, the top US general in Afghanistan, said last month the United States and Pakistan were moving toward coordinated operations along the border - "a hammer and anvil approach" - to prevent fleeing guerillas from escaping by crossing from one country to the other.-Reuters
----------endquote--------

This should please Krugman who just last week said Bush should be like FDR and try different policies.

Would you guys really confront Saudi Arabia and Pakistan? How? I'd like to hear about it.

Since our "strict-father" leader has said repeatedly in his "plain-spoken", "speaks with moral clarity", only "says what he believes and believes what he says" way....words which we are told we can "take to the bank" that "you're either with us or against us" and that "if you support a terrorist..." you'll be treated as "a hostile regime"......I think I'll wait and see how he is going to respond to them and see if it matxhes his tough talk.

Waiting.......waiting........waiting......

Patrick R. Sullivan writes: "Pointing out problems" is worse than useless, as it can paralyze us.

And if your wife tells you the toilet is leaking, you'd expect her to provide you with the plan, budget and schedule on how to fix it? Krugman is not US President, he never promised to lead the nation in solving its problems. He reported - you decide.

Actually, Patrick, Jonathan usefully proposed alternative policies at 9:24 this morning. And no one on your side has bothered to address them. Furthermore, you know damn well that PK has 700 words, and that to expect him to both debunk the CW and propose an alternate in that space is absurd; unserious, even. Unless your claim is that Bush's exact actions are the only possible serious response to terrorism, then it's obvious that showing up their fundamental flaws is far from useless. There are always alternate paths, but if no one points out that we are headed in the wrong direction, then they will remain unexplored. Right now, Americans need to be told that their steely-eyed rocket man may not, in fact, be taking the best steps to protect them.

As you may be aware, we are still scheduled for an election in November. At that time we will have a choice between someone who has shown that he will gladly ignore threats to America in pursuit of his own agenda (one he will not share with his electorate; I don't recall his big "We must invade Iraq to destabilize other ME states" speech, do you?) and someone who is aware that the world is a complicated place. The second choice seems to terrify conservatives, who regret the leadership of Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, and other "nuanced" thinkers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3514504.stm

-----------quote-----------
An opinion poll suggests most Iraqis feel their lives have improved since the war in Iraq began about a year ago.

The survey, carried out for the BBC and other broadcasters, also suggests many are optimistic about the next 12 months and opposed to violence.

[snip]

About 6,000 interviews were carried out in total, half in Autumn last year and half this Spring, in a project run by Oxford Research International.

Seventy per cent of people said that things were going well or quite well in their lives, while only 29% felt things were bad.

And 56% said that things were better now than they were before the war.
-----------quote-------------

"Abiola is in his Mr. Hyde phase, in which he makes utterly asinine comments and then draws the conclusion he had before he started. Hint, Abiola: not a single person here, nor PK himself, has advocated invasion of SA. The fact that you raise the issue shows how desperately unserious you are."

JRoth,

To put it bluntly, you are an obnoxious moron; your insistence on going on about "asinine comments" and "how desperately unserious" I am only goes to show that you don't have any serious counter to what I had to say. If we aren't supposed to be invading Saudi Arabia or overthrowing its monarchy, how exactly do we do something about "the terrorists who actually attacked America, or their backers in Saudi Arabia"? Many of those very backers are high up within the Saudi monarchy itself, so don't tell me we can just ask nicely and get our way. Sanctions against the world's biggest oil exporter aren't exactly on the cards either, and in any case, oil is a fungible commodity. Tell us what other alternatives there are then, o wise one.

"Anything else, sycophants?"

More loudmouthed nonsense.

"Do you have any actual counters to PK's point that the war in Iraq has been a distraction from the war on terror"

Do you have any actual counters to my point that pink invisible unicorns living on Pluto run the Federal Reserve? Hint: it isn't for *us* to disprove Krugman's "point", but for blowhards like you and Krugman to show that resources that could have been fruitfully devoted to hunting down al-Qaeda were used elsewhere. Proof by assertion doesn't wash with thinking people.

Eat shit, Mike! Yo mama!

Every time anyone suggests that we actually go to the source of terrorism (Saudi Arabia, Pakistan), the bloodthirsty hawks all immediately say "Oh, no! We couldn't do that! Something bad might happen!"

Bush-Saudi financial connections:

http://salon.com/books/feature/2004/03/12/unger_2/index1.html

Bush-Saudi

Not really a very good list -- it leaves off Neil Bush, and doesn't show the Bush family's personal take.

Sure, it's all irrelevant. Heard it all before. Tinfoil hat.

Brian -

Very cute calling my "rants" childish, then ending on a little RNC spin-point about a serious man who, literally, knows more about how the world works than Bush ever will. Your brilliant discourse has floored us all.

Anyway, I'm baffled at the examples you raise of the US spreading democracy. As any schoolchild understands, Japan & Germany were entirely different cases from Iraq - aggressor nations that had been entirely decimated by war, whose populations were complicit in the crimes of their regimes. South Korea is far from a shining example of democracy, as recent events attest. Not to mention that, um, we didn't invade them to bring democracy. You knew that, right? (Sorry to be so childish. I'll try to rise to your exalted level).

Besides, where are the dominoes? Where are all of the peaceful, democratic nations that followed from our interventions in those three places? Are you claiming Belgium? Micronesia? Indonesia? Actually, if you want to see what American intervention tends to look like, southeast Asia might be a decent place to start. I suppose autocrats willing to trade with us would be an improvement over SH.

You seem very smug about Clinton's (presumptively inadequate) actions on terror. But I called you on it, and you have nothing to say. What did Bush do in his first 8 months that compared to what Clinton did in his admin? Did he pursue ObL (as he said he would before inauguration, btw)? Did he cut off int'l financing for terror groups? Did he work to bring down the Taliban? Did he enact any of the recommendations of the Hart report? Did he take advantage of his personal & political ties to the Saudis to pressure them to reduce support for terrorism?

Meanwhile, Clinton addressed (not thoroughly enough, to be sure) terrorism foreign _and_ domestic (does the Bush admin even know that doemstic terrorism exists? If you think they do, then I've got a Texan cyanide bomb to sell you). The leaders of the '93 WTC bombing have all been brought to justice. Militia groups were monitored and largely defanged. Effort was expended to kill ObL (and, as I said, those efforts were opposed by your side - and not because they were inadequate). And the Millenium Bomber was intercepted. I can't recall - which terrorists did Bush catch before they attacked America?

Brian, your childish rants may impress your righty friends, but they do little to advance the discourse. Other than to insult me & Kerry (flattering company for me, I suppose), the only response you have made to me or Montgomery is to raise 3 almost entirely irrelevant examples of how, if the situation in Iraq were completely different, things could work out well.

One thing about Saudi Arabia -- as I understand, its military spending is tremendous but its military is very weak. (My guess is that they use the military to hide unemployment). Otherwise they could have fought the Gulf War themselves.

Have the Saudis stopped teaching jihad in their schools, stopped subsidizing jihadists abroad, and have they put in controls preventing private subsidies to jihadists? Have they cooperated with us fully in investigating the various Saudi-based attacks on the US (Cole, Riyadh, Beirut)? Have we demanded this? These questions should all have been put on the table on Sept. 12, 2001, and they just plain weren't. Where did Bush get his reputation for being tough on terror?

Paul Krugman:A tiger's waiting to be tamed..., speaking...

Abiola Lapite: To put it bluntly, you are an obnoxious moron ... blowhards like you and Krugman ...

How about increasing your medication? It does not seem to work anymore.

Oh, Abiola. PK made a simple statement of fact: In the spring of 2002, the US pulled forces out of Afghanistan in preparation for an attack on Iraq. Those forces in had been tracking ObL and other al Qaeda figures. Then they stopped. I would consider those troops to be "resources that could have been fruitfully devoted to hunting down al-Qaeda." It was in the news just last week that we have begun 24-7 monitoring of the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Now, why would that have begun in the spring of 2004, not of 2002? Could it be because the necessary resources were elsewhere? Thinking people know that these are facts, not "assertions."

If you think the only way to change a government's actions is to invade its land and depose it, then you are more stupid than I could have imagined. The most commonly suggested way to pressure the gov't of SA is to reduce US dependence on oil. It can be as fungible as you want, if we don't need it, then it doesn't matter. Starting from the much-maligned Carter administration, US economic output per unit of energy skyrocketed for over a decade, then levelled off as people like Dick Cheney sneered at conservation as mere "personal virtue." Could the US be energy independent in a decade? Probably not. But great strides could be taken in that direction, putting the writing on the wall for the Saudis.

Regardless, the US has influence in the governance of most gov'ts in the world, without invading any of them. Do you think that SA is uniquely immune to US influence? Must they remain forever untouched, acting as they will, threatening the US? And if so, is the proper response to ignore their fundamental, central role in US-targeting terrorism? Appeasement? Do you assert that the Saudis have carte blanche to do anything they want, including attacking the US, because they are so special?

Actually, your position exactly supports the somewhat nasty claim that the Bush admin, faced with a tough, intractable foe, looked around for someone easier to fight. Well, bravo. The Saudis are no less a problem than they were 3 years ago, the Taliban is running 1/3 of Afghanistan, al Qaeda can strike our allies at will, but at least we've beaten up on a poor dictatorship (and inherited a mess). With policies like these, who needs enemies?

What a debate:"Sullivan" vs. "Mike"!

Mike:

What are you trying to accomplish by spamming this forum - get banned?

There Patrick goes again:

"An opinion poll suggests most Iraqis feel their lives have improved since the war in Iraq began about a year ago.

"The survey, carried out for the BBC and other broadcasters, also suggests many are optimistic about the next 12 months and opposed to violence.

"About 6,000 interviews were carried out in total, half in Autumn last year and half this Spring, in a project run by Oxford Research International.

"Seventy per cent of people said that things were going well or quite well in their lives, while only 29% felt things were bad.

"And 56% said that things were better now than they were before the war."

Alas, Patrick's snips are as selective as ever. I saw that poll yesterday ( http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/GoodMorningAmerica/Iraq_anniversary_poll_040314.html ), and all its other aspects -- the ones Patrick carefully snipped out -- have been nicely summarized by Spencer Ackerman in "The New Republic" ( http://www.tnr.com/blog/iraqd?pid=1456). At the risk of emulating Mike, I feel obliged to quote it in toto:

"THE GREAT DIVIDE: ABC News recently led a coalition of willing news organizations from around the world to conduct a poll of 2,500 Iraqis a year after the war. Last night, ABC released the results. In its aggregated findings, the poll was hardly as 'groundbreaking' as ABC's political tip sheet The Note made it sound in a preview. According to the poll, 48 percent of Iraqis think the war was justified; 39 percent think it was wrong. Fifty-one percent oppose the presence of coalition forces; 39 percent support it. That about corresponds with the ambivalence that John Zogby found last August. Except that that's not the whole story.

"The only reason those anemic pro-U.S. numbers are as high as they are is because they incorporate the massively pro-war, pro-U.S. feelings of Iraqi Kurds. When the poll disaggregates how Iraqi Arabs feel, the numbers shift substantially against the U.S., something that 'World News Tonight' didn't mention in its coverage of the poll. That's not so surprising in itself, since Sunni and Shia Arabs in Iraq have spent the past year feeling a combination of awe, frustration, and humiliation toward their occupiers. But the depth of the split is breathtaking, and it carries two implications. First, with just over three months to go before the handover of power to an interim Iraqi government, it appears the United States has lost the battle for Iraqi hearts and minds. Second, the gulf between Iraqi Kurd opinion and Arab opinion presents a daunting challenge to creating a united country--particularly when the temporary constitution points the way toward balkanization.

"For instance, look at the numbers on support for the invasion. Iraqis as a whole split in favor of it by 48 to 39 percent. But factor out the Kurds--87 percent of whom back it--and the picture gets more complex. Iraqi Arabs are somewhat against the war: 40 percent say it was right, while 46 percent say it was wrong. There's no religious breakdown, so we don't know how many of those respondents are Shia and how many are Sunni, which would be very helpful information. But as it is, consider that in total, 42 percent say that the invasion 'liberated' Iraq, while 41 percent say it 'humiliated' the country. The Kurds split on that question 82-11; for Arabs, 33 percent consider the war a liberation, while 48 consider it humiliating. That's on top of the fact that across all regions of the country, people report that their personal lives are better now than before the war, and they expect them to improve--which suggests that regardless of how they personally feel affected by the war, Iraqi Arabs believe it was unfortunate for the nation as a whole.

"Security is overwhelmingly the highest priority among Iraqis. Sixty-four percent rank it as their top concern, with the next contender, holding elections, garnering 8 percent. Yet only 18 percent say coalition forces should remain 'until security is restored.' Thirty-six percent say they should only stay in Iraq 'until an Iraqi gov't is in place' --and the poll is painfully unclear on whether that means the interim government scheduled to take over July 1 or a permanent, elected government next year. On the question of U.S. troops, the ethnic breakdown is significant as well. Kurds support the presence of coalition forces by a margin of 82 percent to 12 percent. Only 30 percent of Arabs feel the same way--and 60 percent oppose the U.S. troop presence. No statistic here bodes particularly well for U.S. plans to negotiate an open-ended basing arrangement with a sovereign Iraqi government.

"Nowhere is the Arab-Kurdish split starker than on the question of Iraq's future political structure. The questions were not very nuanced: Respondents were offered the option of 'unified country, central government in Baghdad,' 'regional states with a federal government,' and 'divided into separate independent states.' That doesn't allow for evaluating the varieties of federalism available. But an overwhelming 90 percent of Arabs prefer a centralized model, with only 5 percent favoring a federal Iraq, which helps account for the anti-federalist protests among Iraqi Arabs this weekend. Among the Kurds, 26 percent want centralism. While that's certainly a vastly higher figure than I imagined--and only 12 percent opt for independence--Iraq's Kurds back the federal model by 58 percent.

"As for the kind of government Iraqis want: 48 percent desire democracy; 28 percent a strong leader 'for life'; and 21 percent an Islamic state. Broken down between one year and five years, the top preference--a massive 47 percent--is for a strong leader over the next year; this number drops to 35 percent after five years. Conversely, 28 percent want democracy in a year, but 42 percent want it in five. Not surprisingly, those who want an Islamic state, 10 percent, want it as strongly in one year as in five. No ethnic breakdown on these questions is available.

"There's a lot more in this poll than what's listed above. One surprising result: While only 2 percent want to see the Governing Council in place in a year's time, 39 percent express confidence in it. (By contrast, 'religious leaders' are trusted by 70 percent of Iraqis, and the CPA by 28 percent.) Yet the most important thing the poll tells us is that in our first year of control, we have resoundingly failed to live up to the expectations of the Iraqis. That's not to say we haven't helped, as the figures about Iraqis considering themselves better off than before the war demonstrate. But their sense of personal advancement has not translated into significant feelings of good will for the U.S., at least among Iraqi Arabs. And with only a few months before the transfer of power, there doesn't seem to be much we can do to turn that figure around.

"More ominous is the massive discrepancy between how Arabs and Kurds view their present political situation and their visions for the future. As I've written for the past week, the TAL sets the country on precisely the wrong course--heightening ethnic divisions rather than diminishing them. But even if the TAL opted for an administrative federalism, the psychic divide would still be present--and it would still be formidable. Overcoming this divide is the central question facing Iraqi politics."

In short, the Kurds adore us -- which is hardly news -- and both the Sunnis and Shiites dislike us, with the dislike very intense among the Sunnis. Moreover, only half of Iraqis even want democracy; the rest -- a solid majority among the Arabs -- want either secular or religious dictatorship "for life". (On top of that, as the ABC article makes clear, the Sunnis strongly dislike the "religious leaders" who are likely to come to power in the future Iraq, while the Shiites strongly like them. Again, big surprise.)

So: the place is still headed for a gory three-way civil war the instant we pull out. We COULD stay indefinitely in Kurdish Iraq -- indeed, we had better do so if we possibly can; they and israel may soon be the only parts of the Mideast where we're tolerated at all -- but if we do that, we will probably have to face the increasing anger of our dear ally Turkey.

OK, Mike, you've proved that you don't respond well to civility and you don't respond to incivlity either. What do you want? Nobody reads your cut-and-paste. Are you purely and simply trying to annoy us?

The real reason why The Republican Party is so weak on terror is that they don't understand it or care about it. ALL they care about is the domestic factional struggle. Insofar as global conditions or events provide them with wedges or allegories that are useful in the struggle against The Enemy Within, they will use them. The rest of the world does not exist for them, except as a collection of myths and mantras. The real moral horror of the war in Iraq is that it was undertaken purely and solely to fire a warning shot across the bow of American liberalism, and for no other reason.

Re Bruce's deconstruction of the Iraq poll, here's another in-depth survey of sentiments about Iraq 1 year later from Pew Research:

http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=206

Dolly wrote, "What a debate:'Sullivan' vs. 'Mike'!"

Bring it on! Sounds like a Godzilla movie!

" Actually, Patrick, Jonathan usefully proposed alternative policies at 9:24 this morning. "

No he didn't, he admitted he really didn't have any:

"I think most agree that the unambiguous capture of Osama Bin Laden and others in his immediate circle would be a very valuable step, although it wouldn't completely solve the terrorism problem by a long shot."

Then he went on to concede there really wasn't much we could do about Pakistan and its nuclear weapons. And, as for his:

" *threaten* a cut off of oil purchases from the Saudis."

That's actually MY idea of what Krugman is proposing. I find it risible and thought I made that obvious.

There is no evidence that Al-Qaeda had any state sponsorship other than by Sudan and Afghanistan.

Al-Qaeda is supported by private money, mosque money, money from Muslim NGO's and profits from various businesses.

Killing Osama will no longer kill Al-Qaeda. He has planned for it for a long time. It is necessary but not sufficient.

Bin Laden is now more than a man, he is a symbol - and killing him will not kill the symbol. It is almost certain that there are groups inspired by him who have never met an Al-Qaeda member.

Al-Qaeda is constituted in such a way as to survive a lot of losses. They are involved in at least four insurgencies I can think of offhand and have men in many Arab, Asian and African countries as well as interests in at least a dozen countries.

Their operations are largely independent as well, limiting the damage you can do by taking one out.

This isn't going to be an easy fight - and the first step to winning it is to stop underestimating our enemies.

Just a few thoughts.

Much of the discussion is this thread seems to be whether or not the US should take a harder line in dealing with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Neither Bush nor Kerry seem to be talking about doing that much, and there's a good reason: it's next to impossible.

One element that often gets forgotten by people when debating this is the domestic politics of these countries. Do we really want to force Pakistan to take a harder line against Islamic fundamentalists, when 65% of Pakistanis have a favorable opinion of bin Laden (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63816-2004Mar16.html), and Al Qaida has nearly succeeded in assassinating President Musharaf? I want no part in creating a nuclear-armed Islamic fundamentalist state.

Saudi Arabia is a similar case. The power in the government is precariously balanced between pro-Western and pro-Islamic princes. For now, the Saudi population generally falls somewhere in the middle. They don't like Bush, but they don't like bin Laden either.

The survey that came out today that the WaPost reported on (I blogged about this) is disturbing, because it suggests the Arab street has become more radicalized and opposed to American influence than they were before the war in Iraq. The survey found that large majorities in Jordan and Morocco thought that suicide attacks on American forces in Iraq were appropriate. Now, wasn't the entire point of the war to encourage liberal democratic reforms in the Middle East? And doesn't this survey suggest the exact opposite seems to be happening? Although it is probably too early to tell, it looks like the neocons had this one exactly wrong.

All this means the Arab world is in even a more precarious position that it has been in the past. Reforms risk creating a conservative backlash. Maintaining the status-quo risks allowing the terrorists to regroup and continue to organize and plot. I'm not sure either side of our political spectrum has a solution.

This isn't terribly relevant to the matter at hand, but...

Promoting "energy independence" as a means of gaining political leverage against the Saudis is highly unlikely to be successful because Saudi Arabian oil is very cheap to produce. Even if we reduced our oil consumption and our reduction wasn't offset by increases in consumption in other parts of the world, those hardest hit would be the many nations whose crude is more expensive to produce. The Saudis, meanwhile, would continue to enjoy profit margins that would be somewhat diminished, but still enormous. Moreover, the Saudis' standing among oil exporters would increase.

The Economist ran an article about this the last time crude pices were low, including, IIRC, a handy table showing which countries would be knocked out of the market at successively lower price levels. Saudi Arabia would be the last man standing.

Myself, I'm an unrepentant leftist. I think that the US uses far too much energy and that we should reduce our per-capita consumption for a variety of obvious reasons. However, attempting to influence the Saudis through energy policy is a nonstarter due to economic factors.

If we had spent the billions used (and to be used) in Iraq on a Manhattan project for alternative energy we could boycott the Saudis.

The US government can't be trusted.

The Karen Kwiatkowski piece is recommended.

The Estimable Mr. DeLong Notes:

"To further this goal, Cheney or somebody else got to George W. Bush in September 2001"

We should keep in mind that, among others, Jeb Bush and Dick Cheney were signatories on the PNAC "Statement of Principles."

I find it hard to believe that George W. Bush didn't get introduced to the idea of overthrowing Saddam even before he was anointed - at a family dinner, maybe?

How weakness on terrorism really looks like:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,2763,1170913,00.html

Prof. DeLong writes: "I think the most likely scenario is as follows: (a) Cheney, Rumsfeld, and company decided in 1994 or so that overthrowing Saddam Hussein by force should be a high priority..."
Could be. Very probably. BUT this is still no explanation (except for the obvous fact that George Bush is a stubborn moron). Why the heck did they decide just that? What's the reason for Cheney and company to invade Iraq instead of really going after terrorists? And don't tell me it is only because of oil & Halliburton, it can't be as simle as that!

Jroth

You write off Germany, Japan and S. Korea as different. You are too hasty though. The US military stuck around in each case. If we do in Iraq there is a chance for success. I do not say its assured. I respect people who say they do not think it will work because of the difficulties present. I do not respect those who say Bush is doing nothing and when confronted reject out of hand each strategy. Democracy threatens the Jihadists and the gov'ts that support and pay them off. Why is no one responding to the unrest in Iran. How about the Libya. Oh I know Kerry got the support of world leaders like Kim Jong Il but I think Bush will recover from that endorsement.

Presenting Clinton as terrorist hawk is quite bold. How many top Al Qaeda leadership did he have in custody? Do he overthrow a sponsoring gov't and replace it with a constitutional gov't. Did he get Pakistan to send 70,000 troops into the mountains after OBL. Come on JRoth do you really expect people to buy that BS.

All this Bush is a moron stuff I'm sure makes all the lefty intellectual light weights feel superior, but it just doesn't wash with voters in the middle as Kerry will find out. Why has he avoided the Spain bombing. The Dems can count on the college profs and high school dropouts who believe Clinton was tough on terrorism, but common sense types will vote Bush if they think terrorism is the most important issue.

You can count on Bush to take other people's ideas, garble them and then claim he invented the concept. He did it with tax cuts like he was the first person to think of stimulating an economy this way, not Keynes.

The war on terror is another con. People have been fighting terrorists for thousands of years, and have a fair idea of what works. Typically the conflict is in between two sides who act in well worn ways in the conflict. The idea of not negotiating with terrorists, appeasing them as bad, etc is as old as Methusaleh. Literally.

Right wing dictatorships have been doing exactly the same thing for decades, not surprisingly promoted by Poppy Bush back then.

There have always been WMD's in the sense a terrorist group could kill thousands of people in an attack. Mustard and nerve gas have been around since World War 1, and could have been used any time since then by terrorists. Nuclear devices and material could have been used as radiological weapons at least since the 60's as well as the chance to steal an atomic bomb.

The PLO hijacked plenty of airplanes and could have used them as projectiles if they wanted to.

The point is that Bush is not on the cutting edge of any new ideas at all in the so called war on terror. Everything he has done and Al Quaeda has done has been done over and over again through the centuries.

All Bush is doing is picking a tired old response that has been done millions of times before (including by Hitler against the partisans and resistence) and claiming it's some new doctrine.

Historically it works about as well as it's working now. There are two aspects to defeating terrorism, peace and security. In the first instance you defeat it by negotiating with the terrorists. To do that you have to give up the tired old excuse they are bloodythirsty murderers and fanatics who want nothing. That's the same excuse the British used against the IRA.

The second way to try and defeat terrorism is with security, to protect yourself against it and root out the terrorists. Again Bush didn't invent the tiniest part of this, it's the same tactic Colombia uses, Sri Lanka, India, Israel, Spain, etc.

It just goes to show how silly the argument is when Bush starts telling Spain how to fight terrorism, like they haven't found out from fighting ETA. Incredibly he's convinced Blair he has new ideas on the subject, even though they were all tried against the IRA. I think the Polish should have a better idea of how terrorism works than Bush, since they used it against Hitler and the Russians in WW2.

It reminds me of an old Microsoft joke. How do you make software user friendly? You print "user friendly" on the wrapper. How do you make a new policy for war on terrorism? You just tell everyone the old ways are new.

It doesn't work very well because there are too many vulnerable points. So the war on terror is promoted as something new when there is not the slightest thing new about it.

The question is whether there will be an attempt to make peace with Al Quaeda or to protect from them. Despite all the bluster the US moved out of Saudi Arabia to appease Al Quaeda and since then there have been no attacks on the US, it may have worked.

Bush seems to be what is known as a crank. He has lots of ideas but because he is so incurious and ignorant he doesn't realise those ideas are not new. He thinks he invented a new way to fight terror. That's why he gets away with so much on the issue against the Democrats, because he took some old ideas and called them the Bush Doctrine. Now he makes out he's a genius because he thought of them and the Democrats concede this by arguing against Bush's ideas.

What they need to do is show they aren't Bush's ideas at all and how these ideas have worked historically. It has nothing to do with Bush except he ripped off old strategies. Maybe he heard John Major talking about the IRA at the Carlysle Group.

I'm waiting for Bush to invent the wheel next and claim he was the first one.

Patrick Sullivan -- You must have done great in your high school debating team from the way you tried to change what I said into someting completely different.

I did not say a thing about why A. Q. planted bombs in Spain. But to follow up on the high school debating trick you tried to pull when AQ
planted bombs in Spain the Spanish had troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan. So your attempt to
make it look like I said something silly did not work.

Now how about a serious reply to my comments that Spain was going to continue to fight A.Q.
but were not going to stay in Iraq because they believed it had nothing to do with A.Q.

Brian:

"All this Bush is a moron stuff I'm sure makes all the lefty intellectual light weights feel superior, but it just doesn't wash with morons in the middle as Kerry will find out."

I fear you may be right on that.

"Democracy threatens the Jihadists and the gov'ts that support and pay them off."

Less than half true. In Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey more democracy might help the jihadists. At this point in Iraq, "democracy" seems to mean "American occupation government". Without the occupation forces, Iraq will go bad on us, and probably be divided up, but it will be powerless and maybe that was our real goal.

"Oh I know Kerry got the support of world leaders like Kim Jong Il but I think Bush will recover from that endorsement."

A stupid comment by a stupid person. It's not as if French or German support would have made you any happier. The North Korean support is imaginary anyway.

"Presenting Clinton as terrorist hawk is quite bold. How many top Al Qaeda leadership did he have in custody? Do he overthrow a sponsoring gov't and replace it with a constitutional gov't. Did he get Pakistan to send 70,000 troops into the mountains after OBL."

Another stupid comment by a stupid person. The Senator from Massachusetts does not lead a military force. To you I guess the incumbent is always right, at least if he is Bush (I doubt you felt that way about Clinton).

Just a quick comment on the comparisons between Iraq and Germany and Japan.

The real issue is the resources we are willing to committ to achieveing that goal and this admin is not even trying to spend enough money to make Iraq into a free democratic society.

I was in Germany in 1955 as a military dependent when the occupation ended and I remember a joke going around the US army community. the joke was what is the first thing the Germans will do after
the occupation is over. The answer was take the clorine out of their water because it ruined the taste of their beer. the point is that this shows the massive resources and nitty gritty detail that it required for a decade to prepare Japan and Germany to be free societies. And these were countries that had been democracies before.
The hope that we can make iraq into a western style democracy that will support US objectives
without a massve committment of resources
is a pipe dream. I believe we will end up with a civil war and two or three countires. One will be the Kurds that will make life difficult for the one true modern islamic country, Turkey. the second probably will end up being a fundamental islamic society very opposed to the US and aligned with Iran in its opposition to the US.

the neocon faith that the occupation of Iraq will end up with a democracy is unbelievable.

"(Lou's assertion that people didn't switch away from the PP makes no sense when you look at the polls, which suggest that the PP lost close to a million votes between the days before the bombing and election day.)"
No Steve, if you read the reports closely, about turnout was much higher than expected and experts say that is what made the difference...I want to say 3 million more because I don't have time to look up the exact number. And the party to the left of the socialists lost something like 7 percent of what polls indicated it was supposed to get.

Zizka,

I take no offense at your childish attacks. Its a common tactic of the left when their arguments bear no scrutiny like this passags of yours:

"Another stupid comment by a stupid person. The Senator from Massachusetts does not lead a military force. To you I guess the incumbent is always right, at least if he is Bush (I doubt you felt that way about Clinton)."

I was responding to another lefty lightweight assertion that CLINTON was ferocious on terrorism compared to Bush's record. And you call me "stupid" because Kerry doesn't control the military. HUH. Are you awake yet.

I do take offfense when a coward and lyer like you intentionally substitutes the word "moron" for "voter" in a quote attributed to me. Again you cannot overcome my argument so you lie.

Finally, its a good point elections may bring in more radical elements so why not make it without the fabrications. I admit Bush's policy is a gamble as you must a non-aggressive approach leaves bad gov'ts inplace to continue to radicalize their people. What about Iran. We are next door when a popular uprising is on the horizon.

When you wake up please resort to insult to make your point as its so effective. I just don't want you to embarass yourself.

" The British were not cowards for replacing Chamberlin with Churchill."

With respect, the British, as such, didn't replace Chamberlain with Churchill. A significantly large minority of Conservative MPs voted against Chamberlain in the parliamentary debate about the fall of Norway in May 1940 (I think it was only 21-22 MPs). This weakened Chamberlain to a sufficient degree that he was forced to look to a coalition govt. The Labour Party decided for Churchill over Halifax, a noted appeaser.

If there had been an electoral contest at the time, the probability is that the Labour party would have won as the Conservatives had become extremely unpopular in the country at large. Happily, the coalition govt that resulted was the finest single govt the UK has ever had.

However, at wars end, in the election of May 1945, when politics resumed to normal, the Conservative party, with Churchill at its head was booted out of office in a crushing defeat.

What's the deal with the Busheviks bringing up Japan and Germany all of the sudden? Look, Germany and Japan were utterly defeated nations whose government surrendered to our government. The day after Dougie Mac sailed up Tokyo Harbor and accepted the surrender on the Big Mo, he was esconsed in the sole remaining luxury hotel in Tokyo. Every day after that for the next two years he walked, UNESCORTED, a half mile from that hotel to the occupation headquarters across from the Imperial Palace. The Japanese people he met along the way either bowed or pretended not to see him, they did not try to kill him, unlike when Paul Wolfowitz visited Iraq (twice) and barely avoided being killed (twice -- once when a rocket fired at his hotel hit the floor below his, once when his convoy got ambushed as he visited troops in the countryside). When President Truman visited Macarthur in Tokyo a year after the war's end, he did so openly and with much publicity and spent days there inspecting progress amidst much fanfare, he didn't sneak in on a cargo plane in the dead of the night, pop in, say "Hi! Here's some turkee, fellers!", then pop right back out.

Not a single soldier died from hostile action in Japan after the surrender. (For that matter, from what we can tell from Army records only a few soldiers died from hostile action in Germany after their surrender, and all of those died within the first four months after the surrender). Either a) the current bunch of folks in the White House and Pentagon are utter incompetents who can't run an occupation right, unlike Dougie Mac and Ike, or b) Iraq isn't Japan or Germany. Which one is it?

And I won't even mention that both Japan and Germany had functioning democracies before the dictatorships (remember, Hitler was ELECTED), and thus all we had to do was restore the pre-dictatorship democracy, not institute democracy in a country that has never known one... don't want to confuse the poor propogandized Party apparatchniks, after all, who somehow seem to think we invented Japanese and German democracy (we didn't -- they had their own democracy long before we got there, thank you!).

Some folks here need to study their history, rather than accept Bushevik Party propoganda as truth. Remember: All politicians are liars. Until proven otherwise, assume that anything a politician says is a lie. If a politician starts talking about comparisons between Germany, Japan, and Iraq, don't believe a word he says until you go look at the historical record for Germany, Japan, and Iraq. If you don't have time to look at the historical record, assume he's lying until you have time to detirmine otherwise. When Rumsfeld compared the resistance situation in Iraq to the one in Germany after the war, he was lying, pure and simple. There was no large scale resistance in Germany. Period. Army records from the era back me up. The various Army units who were tasked with squashing resistance reported lots of grumbling and "bad feelings", and a few threatening notes from "Werewolves", but could not find any instances of soldiers in the American sector who were attacked by Germans in a post-war study that was done in 1948. They seemed a bit petulant about it, actually, they seemed to want an excuse to kill more Germans after seeing what the Germans had done in their slave labor camps and death camps.

"To further this goal, Cheney or somebody else got to George W. Bush in September 2001"

And, managed to persuade 7 out of 10 other Americans (according to Washington Post polling data the months following) that Saddam was likely to have been involved in 9-11?

I'm prepared to stipulate for the sake of recreational argument that Shrub was totally wrong about Saddam's threat to the U.S. and/or involvement in 9-11. But it appears that a majority of the population was LIKEWISE wrong. A represenative government is to be faulted for sharing in the mistakes of the voters and taxpayers? (Let alone for sharing in the mistakes of the previous administration who developed the policy of "regime change in Iraq" via bi-partisen majorities in Congress and Presidential signature.)

I'm still trying to figure out how all you economists would more rationally re-allocate limited military resources to achieve the ends you apparently desire.

Like last April when Brad was lamenting the fact that Rumsfeld had started the war without enough artillery... What did you want more cannons to blow up, Brad? Are those target still standing, today for lack of the extra artillery you wanted?

Like when Krugman claimed that our troops were getting only two liters of bottled water a day (having, otherwise, to make do with tap water from a bulk carrier...) So, every bottle of Evian sent to Ninevah was a bottle of Evian NOT sent to Peshawar? Is that the problem?

Are the Arabic and Kurdish translators now deployed in Mosul deprived of the opportunity to interrogate Pashtun-speaking prisoners in Kabul? Do you want, now and instead, artillery hauled up into the Khyber Pass to help shoot up bin Laden? Maybe an aircraft carrier or two ought to be deployed into the Caspian to support surveilance flights? What is IN Iraq that you believe SHOULD BE in Afghanistan?

I have the (no doubt mistaken) impression some people would like to see 100,000 troops, stretched out fingertip to fingertip, walking thru the mountains on the "mother of all police calls" to pick up cigarette butts, coke cans and al Qaeda corpses. Such grounds-keeping IS admittedly something the military is good at, and it DOES admittedly make the average military installation a tidier, neater, more attractive place to stroll than, say, the littered streets of San Francisco. But can we agree to consider the possibility that such an approach is not the best way to apprehend a felon -- much less kill an enemy?

Accusing the military of being "distracted" by Iraq from the hunt for bin Laden is like accusing a local police force of being unable to solve a murder and a burglary in the same week, or to accuse a fire department of being unable to both fight fires and detect arsonists. If the charge is true ... it represents a bigger, longer-term, problem than one murder, one fire, or one battle.

BadTux,

Again, A small band of terrorists may or may not derail democracy in Iraq but the ultimate future is yet to be written. Iraq is not Japan or Germany but a long military occupation was required to stabilize the situation in those past cases. Iraq is undoubtably a tougher nut to crack. I simply do not agree the strategy is to be dismissed out of hand. The gambit is bold and holds a tremendous upside.

For the Dem's aptitude in crushing terrorism, we must look to Clinton. His policy of rounding them up post attack is not acceptable to most Americans although I do admit the left seems to prefer this approach. Only innocents get killed and soveriegns like Sadaam Hussein and the Taliban retain the reins of power. We avoid the untidiness of constitutional conventions and visions of a real future for truly oppressed peoples.

Almost without exception, I read Bush is a moron, he's after the oil, he's settling a score for Bush I or it's simply a Halliburton make-work program. Everything except its a plan to stabilize the middle east and pull the rug from under the terrorists. Who are the "wingnuts".

Brian, it's an amazing thing, but no one I insult ever takes offense. They're all, without exception, above that. I never knew there were so many saints in this world. I'll just keep on insultin' away, though. It's fun.

Yes, Pouncer, the majority of the population was LIKEWISE wrong. They thought there were WMD, and there weren't. Most Americans aren't used to the idea that the government lies a lot. I am, though.

Bush defenders are now reduced to the Animal House "Otter Defense": "You fucked up! You trusted Bush!"

It's such a shame that the university system that is going to affix its name to the Economics diploma I will receive one day employs this hack.

Brad, you may know a thing or two about economic history. But if your blog has demonstrated one thing, it's that you know not a damn thing about terror. Facts is facts.

Pouncer: "A representative government is to be faulted for sharing in the mistakes of the voters and taxpayers?"

Why, yes. The purpose of a representative government is that its legislators are not supposed to blindly follow the will of the public at all times, since the average voter has his own private concerns to pay attention to most of the time and is thus spectacularly lousy at making any detailed policy decisions. (As my own state of California -- which has spent the past 26 years methodically ruining itself with a series of moronic and mutually contradictory public initiatives -- demonstrates in no uncertain terms, although the truth of the fact was obvious centuries ago. The Founders would have indignantly pointed out that fact to you at great length.)

We hire our officials to perform a full-time job of actually acquring information on the best way to run the country, and then thinking about how to do so. To the extent that they don't do the job we've hired them to do, they can and should be thrown out on their asses -- just as any incompetent CEO should be thrown out on his ass by the shareholders. (Not that we're seeing enough of that these days, either.)
______________________________

Pouncer: "(Let alone for sharing in the mistakes of the previous administration who developed the policy of "regime change in Iraq" via bi-partisan majorities in Congress and Presidential signature.)"

Er, Pounce. At the time Clinton was talking vaguely about doing that, it still seemed likely that Iraq was much closer to developing an atomic bomb than Iran was. The intelligence acquired by the CIA -- and (as Fareed Zakaria points out) by the highly competent International Atomic Energy Agency -- had made it clear by the time Bush started up his war that this was NOT the case. Which is precisely why Bush (and Cheney, and Rumsfeld, and Powell) had to methodically distort that intelligence to make it appear as though Iraq was still much closer to getting the Bomb than Iran.

Not that I propose to let Clinton off the hook -- he should have paid much more attention to North Korea's and Pakistan's nuclear efforts, and thus relatively less to Iraq's. Indeed, Clinton's unwillingness to take stronger action against the Pakistani and North Korean Bombs is the most appalling blunder he made.

DeLong: "I think the most likely scenario is as follows: (a) Cheney, Rumsfeld, and company decided in 1994 or so that overthrowing Saddam Hussein by force should be a high priority..."

Gerhard: "Could be. Very probably. BUT this is still no explanation (except for the obvious fact that George Bush is a stubborn moron). Why the heck did they decide just that? What's the reason for Cheney and company to invade Iraq instead of really going after terrorists? And don't tell me it is only because of oil & Halliburton, it can't be as simple as that!"

Right you are. It was motivated by the neocons' spectacularly naive (that's the polite word) confidence that Iraq could be occupied and politically reformed cheaply, easily and quickly. Remember Wolfowitz's Congressional testimony in February on how easy, quick and cheap it would be? Remember the guy in Bush's Iraqi reconstruction office who announced during a TV interview in March 2003 that it probably wouldn't cost more than $3 billion (a comment which has since been scrubbed from the White House website)?

That dumb overconfidence convinced them that they were completely morally justified in telling itsy-bitty fibbies to Congress and the public about the strength of the evidence for Saddam's WMDs -- and his ties to Al Qaida -- because they were absolutely certain that they were right and the skeptics were wrong about the advisibility of invading Iraq to turn it into a beckoning advertisement to the rest of the Moslem world for the wisdom of becoming pro-Western democracies. Why, they thought, should they further confuse those silly skeptics with the truth? (Including the truth that North Korea had restarted its own Bomb factory, which the White House discovered and then withheld from Congress for three weeks until the latter had passed the Iraq war resolution in October 2002 -- after which they revealed the news to Congress within hours.)

Stupid overconfidence -- and the willingness to use dishonesty to back it up -- is the oldest political story in the book. (Hell, it's described with breathtaking accuracy in the latest Harry Potter book.)

Brian: "Presenting Clinton as terrorist hawk is quite bold. How many top Al Qaeda leadership did he have in custody? Do he overthrow a sponsoring gov't and replace it with a constitutional gov't? Did he get Pakistan to send 70,000 troops into the mountains after OBL?"

Nope, for the obvious reason (as Peter Bergen says) that at the time there would have been absolutely no support from either the US public or from other nations for a flat-out invasion of Afghanistan just to get Bin Laden. Christ, do you actually think Clinton -- or, for that matter, God -- could have pushed the government of Pakistan into sending 70,000 troops after Bin Laden before the 9-11 massacre?

ABC News has now unveiled a few more delightful little tidbits from its poll of Iraqis ( http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/WorldNewsTonight/iraq_poll_040317.html ):

(1) Was the US right to invade Iraq?
Sunnis: "No", 63-24. Shiites: "Yes", 51-35.

(2) Did the invasion liberate or humiliate Iraq?
Sunnis: Humiliate", 66-21. Shiites, "Liberate", 43-35.

(3) Are attacks on Coalition forces morally acceptable? Sunnis: "No", 57-36. Shiites: "No", 85-12. (Sounds encouraging, until you consider that two-fifths of the Sunnis are willing to tell a pollster that they approve of attacks on US forces.)

(4) Preferred political system?
Sunnis: Democracy 35; secular dictator for life 35, Islamic state 15.
Shiites: Democracy 40, Islamic state 26, Secular dictator for life 23.
Kurds: Democracy 70; other two (combined) 14.

(5) Iraq's needs over the next year?
Sunnis: Secular dictator 65, democracy 14, Islamic state 5.
Shiites: Secular dictator 44, democracy 24, Islamic state 18.

(6) Iraq's needs in 5 years?
Sunnis: Secular dictator 49, democracy 31, Islamic state 6.
Shiites: Democracy 39, secular dictator 32, Islamic state 17.

In short, the Sunnis hate our guts -- DESPITE the fact that, by 50-25, they say life right now is better than a year ago. The Shiites don't actively dislike us, but are decidedly queasy about us -- and a solid majority of them oppose the idea of democracy, despite the fact that they would have majority control of it. (By the way, only 54% of Sunnis say they would even consider the idea of voting in any democratic elections in Iraq. Hardly surprising, since they know damn well that any real Iraqi democracy would be Shiite-run.)

Now, then. Ain't this promising fertile ground for peaceful Iraqi democracy in 4 months? May it not be time for us to stop fucking around and get on with the business of partitioning Iraq into three separate countries -- thereby leaving one of them solidly pro-American and the largest one at least willing to tolerate the US to some degree, instead of trying the hopeless task of keeping the damn country unified and thus tossing it into a witch's cauldron of bloody civil war before the end of this year? (Incidentally, the one definitely anti-American piece of a partitioned Iraq would -- by an agreeable coincidence -- also be the one with by far the smallest amount of oil, thereby both limiting their ability to buy more weapons and giving us considerable leverage in making them mind their manners.)

"(1) Was the US right to invade Iraq?
Sunnis: "No", 63-24. Shiites: "Yes", 51-35."

Say, that's a real news bulletin. The group that was displaced by our invasion--i.e. Saddam's group--didn't like it! Next; Nazi party members hated Eisenhower?

Bruce you say "Nope, for the obvious reason (as Peter Bergen says) that at the time there would have been absolutely no support from either the US public or from other nations for a flat-out invasion of Afghanistan just to get Bin Laden"

That's bull. If Clinton would have made the case right after the embassey bombings then the US public would have been with him. He passed on the opportunity. Its interesting a parallel exists in Iraq because Bush took the opportunity of 9/11 sentiment to go after Iraq. Waiting would have meant missing the window.

I hear Zawahiri is surrounded. To bad we're failing against Al Qaeda. Maybe the Spanish socialists are right. We should appease to obtain victory. I wonder what they think of Kerry's eccentric views of current issues. Of course Kerry is always right since he votes both ways on most issues. He's no dummy. He can pander to any audience.

Please, Patrick. The Bush Administration has been stolidly insisting that (to quote Tom Lehrer) they love us everywhere we go -- and that most of the Sunnis would love us too, once we had liberated them from Saddam. Indeed, they've always counted on that as a crucial part of their vision for a peaceful, democratic Iraq in which all three factions would march into the future together arm in arm, just like Dorothy and her friends in "The Wizard of Oz".

Well, one of those three factions hates our guts and furiously opposes the idea of a unified Iraq that isn't governed by them -- opposes it enough to be willing to shoot it out with the other two factions, and is already armed to the teeth. And another faction -- the majority one -- is extremely queasy about the idea of democracy (even one that they would be nominally in control of) and, by a 10-point margin, prefers the idea of some kind of dictatorship running Iraq -- either secular or religious, but in any case with them in charge of it. And, if they can't get help from any other outside source against the very well-armed Sunnis, they will be absolutely delighted to ask Iran for such help. Yessir, that's really promising turf for a peaceful, democratic Iraq during the second half of this year. (Just in time for the US election, in another agreeable coincidence.)

I continue to think we still have a real chance of pulling something positive out of this wreck if we:

(1) Stop screwing around and partition Iraq into three pieces -- right now, while it can still be done peacefully.

(2) Leave protective forces inside both Kurdish and Shiite Iraq to shield them from Sunni attacks -- if, of course, the Kurds and the Shiites want it.

(3) Make it publicly very clear that the continuing presence of our protective force in Shiite Iraq will depend on the Iraqi Shiites not engaging in any cute little collaborative games with Iran -- and also on their not brutalizing the Sunnis themselves. This would also shield us to some degree from the otherwise deadly accusation that we are on the side of Shiite Moslems worldwide and against Sunni Moslems worldwide.

Since Al Qaida is trying to win this ugly worldwide game with a Divide And Conquer strategy, it's time we started using one ourselves. (And despite all the yelling at the time when the Turks partitioned Cyprus, it virtually choked off all the bloodshed there -- so that, after decades, both sides are actually starting to admit that the other side might actually be human, and are making serious conciliatory noises about possible peaceful reunification.)