John Edwards, Iran, Israel and Memory Lane

Well, John Edwards, finding himself in plenty of hot water, is now denying a report by Variety magazine of a remark by Edwards that didn’t go over so well even before a Hollywood audience:

John Edwards was cruising along, detailing his litany of liberal causes last week until, during question time, he invoked the “I” word – Israel. Perhaps the greatest short-term threat to world peace, Edwards remarked, was the possibility that Israel would bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities.


(H/T Steven Foley). As well Edwards should distance himself from that remark – not just because it’s foolish but also because it would be quite a surprise to a certain then-U.S. Senator running for Vice President in 2004. Then, you will recall, Democrats wanted Iran to be dangerous so they could argue that the Iraq War was a distraction from the real security threat; in the service of that election-year talking point, Senator Edwards told the nation as follows in a nationally televised debate with Vice President Cheney:

The vice president just said that we should focus on state sponsors of terrorism. Iran has moved forward with its nuclear weapons program. They’re more dangerous today than they were four years ago.


+++

The reality about Iran is that Iran has moved forward with their nuclear weapons program on their watch.


And in response to a question about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

First, the Israeli people not only have the right to defend themselves, they should defend themselves. They have an obligation to defend themselves.
I mean, if I can, just for a moment, tell you a personal story. I was in Jerusalem a couple of years ago, actually three years ago, in August of 2001, staying at the King David Hotel.
We left in the morning, headed to the airport to leave, and later in the day I found out that that same day, not far from where we were staying, the Sbarro Pizzeria was hit by a suicide bomber in Jerusalem. Fifteen people were killed. Six children were killed.
What are the Israeli people supposed to do? How can they continue to watch Israeli children killed by suicide bombers, killed by terrorists?
They have not only the right to the obligation to defend themselves.
Now, we know that the prime minister has made a decision, a historic decision, to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza. It’s important for America to participate in helping with that process.
Now, if Gaza’s being used as a platform for attacking the Israeli people, that has to be stopped. And Israel has a right to defend itself. They don’t have a partner for peace right now. They certainly don’t have a partner in Arafat, and they need a legitimate partner for peace.
And I might add, it is very important for America to crack down on the Saudis who have not had a public prosecution for financing terrorism since 9/11.
And it’s important for America to confront the situation in Iran, because Iran is an enormous threat to Israel and to the Israeli people.


Of course, then, Senator Edwards was a member of, and at least theoretically entitled to attend sessions of, the Senate Intelligence Committee, whereas now, he presumably has access to a really big television. So maybe he’s better informed now. Or not; you see, Edwards also spoke at the AIPAC Policy Conference in May 2006:

During this difficult time, all Israelis should know that America stands with them, remaining committed to their security and their efforts to build a better and more peaceful future, and as we all wish the Prime Minister [Ariel Sharon] our love and affection for he and for his family, our thoughts and prayers are with him every day. More than anyone else, Prime Minister Sharon understood that a strong Israel is a safe Israel, and we need to remember, all of us need to remember the example that he set, especially as we consider the extraordinary security threats that Israel faces today.
Let’s start with Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which I believe is the single greatest security threat, not only to Israel, but to the United States. In fact today is a pivotal day with the IAEA meeting to send the matter to the U.N. Security Council to take action. It’s about time, is what I have to say about that. For years I have argued that the United States has not been doing enough to deal with the growing threat in Iran. While we’ve talked about the dangers of nuclear terrorism, we’ve largely stood on the sidelines and the problems got worse.
I believe that for far too long we’ve abdicated our responsibility to deal with the Iranian threat to the Europeans. That is not the way to deal with an unacceptable threat to America, and an unacceptable threat to Israel. Iran’s recent actions beginning with the reprocessing of uranium, refusing to cooperate with international inspections, makes clear that it intends to build nuclear weapons.
And the Iranian President’s statements such as the despicable description of the Holocaust as a myth or his ugly pledge to wipe Israel off the map, you know, when he says these kind of things, I take him at his word. And we need to treat it as a very serious statement.


You can read more ducking and weaving by Edwards in this interview with Ezra Klein following the AIPAC speech.

New Day, Same Spin

Today’s NY Times:

Senate Rejects Renewed Effort to Debate Iraq
The Senate on Saturday narrowly rejected an effort to force debate on a resolution opposing President Bush’s troop buildup in Iraq, but Republican defections emboldened Democrats to promise new attempts to influence the administration’s war policy.
The 56-to-34 vote in a rare Saturday session was the second time Republicans were able to deny opponents of the troop increase a debate on a resolution challenging Mr. Bush, and it came just a day after the House formally opposed his plan to increase the military presence in Iraq.
But the outcome, four votes short of the 60 needed to break a procedural stalemate, suggested that Democrats were slowly drawing support from Senate Republicans for what was shaping up to be a drawn-out fight between the Democrat-controlled Congress and Mr. Bush over his execution of the war.

Of course, this is Times-speak for the fact that Senate Democrats were unable to break a filibuster and force cloture and thus get a floor vote on their resolution. As you will recall, when Democrats use the filibuster to prevent Republicans from getting cloture, it’s called extending debate. After all, the vote doesn’t stop anybody from debating, it just prevents a vote.
I can’t say I’m surprised that the Democrats use different terms to describe the same procedure depending on who is doing the filibustering. But would it be so difficult for the Times to at least pretend to even-handedness on this sort of procedural point?

Sadr To See You Go

While the Democrats debate the wisdom of the surge and the lefty bloggers deny that Iran could have had anything to do with Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, events have overtaken them:

According to senior military officials al Sadr left Baghdad two to three weeks ago, and fled to Tehran, Iran, where he has family.
Al Sadr commands the Mahdi Army, one of the most formidable insurgent militias in Iraq, and his move coincides with the announced U.S. troop surge in Baghdad.
Sources believe al Sadr is worried about an increase of 20,000 U.S. troops in the Iraqi capital. One official told ABC News’ Martha Raddatz, “He is scared he will get a JDAM [bomb] dropped on his house.”
Sources say some of the Mahdi army leadership went with al Sadr.


I guess those talking points about Sadr not being an Iranian puppet have been rendered inoperative. [UPDATE: Sadr’s people say he hasn’t left.]
It’s almost academic now, but for those critics still obsessing over the fact that the intelligence officers who presented the weekend briefing on Iranian arming of Iraqi insurgents did not give their names or appear on camera, I present excerpts from yesterday’s White House press conference, featuring a “Mr. Snow”:

Continue reading Sadr To See You Go

Profiles in . . . Debatability

Tom Vilsack says the House Democrats lack the courage of their convictions for supporting only a non-binding resolution on Iraq – now, Vilsack, he would be the real deal:

In the shorter term, the nation must deal with its mess in Iraq, Vilsack said, and a nonbinding resolution opposing President Bush’s plan to send more troops — the sort of resolution Pelosi, D-San Francisco, began pushing through the House on Wednesday — simply won’t suffice.
“How many lives are going to be saved with a nonbinding resolution?” he asked rhetorically during a question-and-answer period after his speech. Facing reporters later, he said Congress has “a constitutional and moral responsibility to debate whether we should continue to fund this war.”


Yes sir, we have a moral obligation to go beyond non-binding resolutions and . . . debate. Strong stuff.

Stopping the Iranians

Mark I looks at the US military briefing laying out the evidence that Iranian-manufactured weapons have been provided to forces fighting the US in Iraq, principally Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army. There is fair debate about precisely how best to respond to this particular provocation. Certainly, full-scale war with Iran would be a bad thing for all concerned, and our policy for now should be aimed at raising the costs of this sort of thing to convince the Iranians that attacking U.S. troops is not in their interests. There are many different ways to do this, between overt and covert military actions and economic and to a lesser extent diplomatic screw-tightening; what we should be aiming for is reaching the point where Ahmadenijad and the other Iranian leaders wake up every morning saying to themselves “how do we get those ****** Americans to stop?” At the same time, the longstanding fact of military life is that when you hit the other guy back, you had better be prepared for him to escalate, and know how you respond next. So the next steps are perilous – but continuing to let them attack without consequence is perilous, too. Our guys in the field need to know that we don’t take this sitting down.
It’s been interesting to see the frantic responses from the Democrats and the left side of the blogosphere. Two of the complaints about the Iraq War, you will recall, are that (1) we have enabled the Iranians to gain undue influence in Iraq and (2) we should have dealt with Iran first. In fact, Iranian meddling in Iraq isn’t news to either side of the aisle. But then, those criticisms were leveled by the people who always want to deal with any problem except the one at hand, and they’ve gone much quieter lately.
First up, John Kerry:

Ultimately, they [Iran] want an Iraq that is stable. They want influence. They want to be players in the region. And we need to [recognize] that and engage in a kind of diplomacy that the Iraq Study Group recommended…


The idea that Iran wants a stable Iraq, at least in the sense that we would think of stability, is so delusional it’s not even worth discussing. What needs to be done is to force the Iranians to decide that a stable Iraq is in their interests – but you can’t just wave a magic wand and assume that the other side already agrees with you.
Then we have Sen. Jack Reed:

The question is: is this a deliberate policy of the Iranian government at the highest levels. Is it rogue elements within the government?” Mr Reed told Fox News. He added: “And then the other question is to what extent are there countervailing signals that the Iranians actually are trying to — not control, but not to further raise the stakes in Iraq,” he said.


At some level, the question of who authorized war against us is beside the point. Power in Iran is diffuse – Iran is a tyranny, but not a dictatorship. The mullahs are the principal power, but they may not be any more monolithic than the Saudi royal family; Ahmadenijad holds elected office only at their sufferance, but he’s not without influence. At the end of the day, though, this isn’t a criminal trial in which we are trying to affix individual punishment – it’s a matter of stopping something that’s emanating from the borders of a sovereign state. (And color me skeptical that munitions are manufactured and distributed without the government’s involvement). If we apply sufficient pressure on the regime, I have no doubt that the regime has the power to to make it stop, and if it doesn’t, well, then Iran has lost control over its own territory and we need to take matters into our own hands.
A number of left-leaning sources have cited comments by General Peter Pace as somehow undermining the contents of the briefing:

We know that the explosively formed projectiles are manufactured in Iran. What I would not say is that the Iranian government, per se [specifically], knows about this,” he said. “It is clear that Iranians are involved, and it’s clear that materials from Iran are involved, but I would not say by what I know that the Iranian government clearly knows or is complicit.”


In other words, Pace knows what is clear from Iraq – that Iranian-made stuff is being used against our guys. The sensitive intel part of this is tracing it to the regime, although as I said, on some level that’s beside the point. One of the central defenses of terror-sponsoring regimes has been deniability – hit first, deny responsibility later. Here, we can trace the source to inside Iran – that should be enough to make the Iranians take responsibility.
Then we have Juan Cole, who disputes the accounts of Iranian support almost entirely on the basis that Shi’ites don’t cooperate with Sunnis. Of course, that ignores not only the mounting problem of Shi’ite violence but also the fact that the Iranians have been supporting both sides. Which may make no sense if you are locked into academic categories, but makes eminent sense if you regard this as an exercise in power politics (after all, they are not the only ones meddling in Iraq).
Next up is Glenn Greenwald, who has a long post complaining about the lack of credibility of anonymous sources. Funny, Greenwald has very regularly relied on anonymously-sourced reports about US surveillance and detention policies and other issues that provide fodder for criticism of the Bush Administration. In fact, what is different here from the typical anonymously sourced report is that this is an official briefing with the imprimatur of the Administration, as opposed to an unknown axe-grinder. And note that the champions of Valerie Plame are suddenly unable to grasp that sensitive intelligence sources, including the identities of military intelligence personnel, are not well-served by the disclosure of their identities to the media.
The Iranian problem is indeed complex, presenting many different strands that need to be resolved. But sticking our heads in the sand while the regime that took 52 US hostages in 1979 and killed 240 Marines in the Beiruit bombing in 1983 does it again is not an answer.

2/12/07 Quick Links

*I’m not thrilled to see any foreign leader meddle in US domestic politics, but it is nonetheless heartening in John Howard’s war or words with Barack Obama to see a reminder that the “international community” is not as monolithically anti-American as sometimes portrayed. Powerline has some useful thoughts on why Obama’s response was so ham-handed. Of course, the Democrats are never as solicitous of countries that actually support our policies.
*An interesting analysis of the Hamas-Fatah accord. Via Frum. My guess as to the alternative explanations for Abbas’ behavior would be “all of the above.” I tend to think that the accords are a good thing simply for the fact of their existence, i.e., the fact that an Arab government sat down two warring Arab factions and got them to negotiate an agreement without the involvement of the US, the UN, Israel or financial or territorial concessions from any of the above. Hamas is still Hamas, but I still believe that while you can’t negotiate about terrorism, you sometimes need to negotiate with terrorists, and it’s not like there are other good alternatives. The best policy for the US is to avoid the situation as much as possible and play “show me” – i.e., make the Palestinian regime demonstrate its trustworthiness and peaceable nature before we give them anything. At least with Hamas in power, there is less pretense that they are actually peaceable or trustworthy unless they can genuinely demonstrate otherwise through deeds.
*There is little enough worth saying about the Anna Nicole Smith story; she rose to fame due to her natural physical gifts combined with tremendous ambition and a corresponding willingness to use and add to what she had, and she fell due to a lack of sense and even greater lack of discipline. A familiar Hollywood story. But Larry Miller has useful words on the litigation that will long outlive her:

Since yet another of the heart-broken offspring has gallantly appeared to pick up the cudgels and continue contesting it, I’d like to offer two choices of what I think is some pretty good advice: (1) Get a job. You didn’t earn that money and you don’t deserve it. And, by the way, every penny of it should go to Anna Nicole’s daughter. Or, (2) Try your best to get reincarnated as a sexy woman.


*Yes, CENTCOM is indeed engaged in the blogosphere.
*A statute beached by the tides of history: Y2K litigation reform.

AQIZ On The Run

It’s in the nature of wars against secretive underground organizations that they proceed fitfully. The death of Zarqawi and the capture of intelligence from his hideout last summer led to a massive roundup of his organization, featuring hundreds of arrests.
More recently, Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQIZ) has been increasingly active again in Al Anbar, mounting another challenge to US resolve to stay and clear Iraq of foreign terrorist influence. But the worm appears to be turning once again, with a series of US raids in recent days. Via Instapundit.

A Frenchman With Backbone

It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Nicholas Sarkozy not only knows which end of the whole right-wrong thing is up, but actually believes that there is some political benefit – in France! – to doing the right thing:

A French paper accused of insulting Muslims by printing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad surprised a court hearing on Wednesday with a letter of support from presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy.
“I prefer an excess of caricatures to an absence of caricatures,” Sarkozy, the conservative interior minister who helped launch the French Muslim Council, wrote in a letter read out by a lawyer for the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.
The letter from the presidential frontrunner, whose ministry is also responsible for religious affairs, drew an angry response from one of three Muslim groups suing the weekly.
“He should remain neutral,” Abdullah Zekri of the Paris Grand Mosque said at the court hearing the case on Wednesday and Thursday and due to deliver its decision at a later date.


What is more, he is apparently not the only one:

Charlie Hebdo has called more than a dozen politicians and intellectuals as witnesses, including Francois Bayrou, a centrist candidate in the presidential vote in April and May.
Its first witness, Paris University philosopher Abdel Wahhab Meddeb said he laughed when he saw Charlie Hebdo’s cartoon. “I urge Muslims to adapt to Europe and not the other way around. That would be catastrophic,” he told the court.
“The trial against Charlie Hebdo is one of a different age,” the daily Le Monde wrote in an editorial. “In a secular state, no religion and no ideology is above the law. Where religion makes the law, one is close to totalitarianism.”


There may be hope yet that the French state, so advanced in its decay from the days when Frenchmen had faith in God, country and their nation’s ability to stand up for itself, will at least recognize that it does not wish to sacrifice French national identity on the altar of multiculturalism.

Obama’s Trumpet

Redeploy%21.jpg
Redeploy!!!
You might have missed the news, in between media reports on Barack Obama’s wonderful fabulousness and media reports on Senator Obama’s fabulous wonderfulness, but on Tuesday, Illinois’ junior senator released his “responsible yet effective” plan for victory in withdrawal from Iraq. (I love the “yet” and its implication that we should be surprised that a responsible plan could be effective, or an effective plan responsible). We know the plan is a responsible one because the press release says so 8 times, and Senator Obama is a responsible man.
I’ll pass over the separation of powers problems in passing binding legislation; Obama is running for president, so this plan is best evaluated as what he would do in the big chair. How does the plan stack up?
The key element:

De-escalates the War with Phased Redeployment: Commences a phased redeployment of U.S. troops out of Iraq not later than May 1, 2007, with the goal that all combat brigades redeploy from Iraq by March 31, 2008, a date consistent with the expectation of the Iraq Study Group. This redeployment will be both substantial and gradual, and will be planned and implemented by military commanders. Makes clear that Congress believes troops should be redeployed to the United States; to Afghanistan; and to other points in the region. A residual U.S. presence may remain in Iraq for force protection, training of Iraqi security forces, and pursuit of international terrorists.

“Redeploy,” of course, has no meaning here other than withdrawal. The only ways to withdraw the troops without redeploying them would be to discharge them from the military or kill them. So let’s call this what Obama fears to say it is: withdrawal. Still, the “to the United States; to Afghanistan; and to other points in the region” language at least recognizes that he’s not talking about Okinawa.
Then there’s the word “De-escalates” – which implies that the current U.S. policy constitutes an escalation. Not only does this improperly blame the U.S. rather than the parties conducting the violence, it’s inconsistent with Obama’s assertion elsewhere in the press release that the current conflict constitutes “somebody else’s civil war.” Which is it – are we escalating the war, or is it somebody else’s fight we’re trying to stop?
Note also the effort to hide behind the ISG for withdrawal dates that look deliberately aimed at the expectation of Democratic primary voters.
Much of the rest of the plan rehashes the same things everyone wants (training, progress on security, economic and political issues) but congeals them into demands to be enforced by Congressional oversight. Then we get to the capper:

Regional Diplomacy: Launches a comprehensive regional and international diplomatic initiative – that includes key nations in the region – to help achieve a political settlement among the Iraqi people, end the civil war in Iraq, and prevent a humanitarian catastrophe and regional conflict. Recommends the President should appoint a Special Envoy for Iraq to carry out this diplomacy within 60 days. Mandates that the President submit a plan to prevent the war in Iraq from becoming a wider regional conflict.

Here is where Obama’s Kerryite streak really comes out: “key nations in the region” obviously refers to Iran and Syria, at a minimum, so already we’re talking about negotiating with these countries without openly admitting what they are doing that requires us to negotiate with them. Obama says that these foreign nations should be asked “to help achieve a political settlement among the Iraqi people,” so right there he’s admitting that foreign powers are going to be handed influence in domestic Iraqi affairs, the sort of cold-blooded realpolitik that Obama’s Kenyan ancestors were so frequently on the receiving end of and that any true liberal ought to find appalling. Now, diplomacy can work sometimes (and is preferable when it has a chance to do so) – if you have as much leverage as the other guy. Negotiations, after all, are war by other means. But what does Obama set as the conditions on negotiating? First, impose an arbitrary 60-day deadline (with unspecified consequences). Our adversaries, being subject to no such pressure and facing no consequences for delay, can be expected to do precisely that. Second, impose a mandate to avoid “a wider regional conflict,” presumably meaning war with Iran. In other words, take the threat of force against the people we are negotiating with off the table.
The best that can be said of this plan is that it is probably not meant to be taken literally, and that Senator Obama can be forgiven, as a foreign policy neophyte, for issuing such a hash. But that’s not much comfort to people who expect him to jog across the Potomac into the White House.

Quick Links 1/30/07

*The Schottenheimer Playoff Coaching Index!
*From the same source: Rick Mirer, the worst NFL QB ever. Note that the list also includes Danny Kanell, Scott Brunner, Kerry Collins, Dave Brown, and Kent Graham.
*Via Instapundit, the Top Ten Iraq War Myths.
*In one January strike, the Iraqis brought down the highest ranking casualties of the war. (Confirmed here). One hopes this was just a coincidence and not a sign of inflitration or other compromising of our operational intelligence.
*John Kerry finally gets good press – in Iran’s state-run media. I had more on his latest foot-in-mouth episode at RedState yesterday, including links to other sources. The most charitable reading of all this is that Kerry really is an idiot.
*Jimmy Carter backs off the implication that suicide bombing is a legitimate tactic that need not be stopped until the Israelis make certain concessions.
*Israeli PM Ehud Olmert on Iran. (A government that now includes a Muslim cabinet member – don’t hold your breath for a Christian or Jew in the regimes of Israel’s enemies).
*Did Barack Obama choose to run in 2008 rather than wait longer because a run now would be easier on his children, ages 5 and 8?
*Obi-Wan’s cloak for sale!

The Cultural Divide

Josh Trevino joins in the conservative pig-pile on the thesis of Dinesh D’Souza’s new book, which argues that the cultural Left in the U.S. is the source of Islamist rage at the U.S. – and, implicitly, that cultural conservatives should therefore see natural allies in the bin Ladenists of the world. It’s not hard to see why D’Souza’s thesis would be equally offensive to Left and Right. The point Trevino makes is that the baselines of Christian and Muslim cultural conservatism are quite different:

D’Souza and I almost certainly share a common assessment of what constitutes “pagan depravity” in American culture; and Osama bin Ladin and his fellow jihadists almost certainly agree “that the United States represents the pagan depravity that Muslims have a duty to resist.” It does not follow from this that my and D’Souza’s “pagan depravity” is the same as that of bin Laden or orthodox Muslims. Sexual morality in particular is rather different in the Muslim world, despite superficial similarities with the West which usually express themselves in procedural collaboration at international fora: the latter does not, as a rule of thumb, have an institutionalized “enjoyment marriage,” nor polygamy. Easy divorce is commonly cited as an example of Western moral decline – and it is – but divorce in Islamic law, especially for men, is ridiculously easy. Furthermore, in many areas of Muslim life that D’Souza rightly identifies as being threatened by Western cultural leftism, the threat would remain even with an ascendancy of the Western right. Browsing through the rulings of the Shi’a Ayatollah Sistani, whose co-religionists we are empowering in Iraq, one finds many things that American conservatism is unlikely to join Muslim orthodoxy in prohibiting: for example, kissing one’s fiance, the existence of male OB/GYNs, the existence of beer, chatting between men and women, the wearing of silk, and the pernicious phenomenon of married couples dancing. Were “pagan depravity” to be eradicated from American society by D’Souza’s and my lights, it would still be in full effect by the lights of Muslim orthodoxy.

Read the whole thing, which contains oodles of supporting links.

The Ray Gun Revolution

Coolness. This looks to be a sort of next-generation taser. But not quite a phaser. Of course, like all things military, the coolness is mainly in the practical applications:

Airman Blaine Pernell, 22, of suburban New Orleans, said he could have used the system during his four tours in Iraq, where he manned watchtowers around a base near Kirkuk. He said Iraqis constantly pulled up and faked car problems so they could scout out U.S. forces.
“All we could do is watch them,” he said. But if they had the ray gun, troops “could have dispersed them.”


My only question is whether “130 degree” heat would make much of a difference in Iraqi weather conditions.

The President And The Wider War

Undoubtedly the most important part of last night’s State of the Union speech – well, other than the section on Dikembe Mutombo; you can never get too much Dikembe Mutombo – was this:

In the last two years, we’ve seen the desire for liberty in the broader Middle East — and we have been sobered by the enemy’s fierce reaction. In 2005, the world watched as the citizens of Lebanon raised the banner of the Cedar Revolution, they drove out the Syrian occupiers and chose new leaders in free elections. In 2005, the people of Afghanistan defied the terrorists and elected a democratic legislature. And in 2005, the Iraqi people held three national elections, choosing a transitional government, adopting the most progressive, democratic constitution in the Arab world, and then electing a government under that constitution. Despite endless threats from the killers in their midst, nearly 12 million Iraqi citizens came out to vote in a show of hope and solidarity that we should never forget. (Applause.)
A thinking enemy watched all of these scenes, adjusted their tactics, and in 2006 they struck back. In Lebanon, assassins took the life of Pierre Gemayel, a prominent participant in the Cedar Revolution. Hezbollah terrorists, with support from Syria and Iran, sowed conflict in the region and are seeking to undermine Lebanon’s legitimately elected government. In Afghanistan, Taliban and al Qaeda fighters tried to regain power by regrouping and engaging Afghan and NATO forces. In Iraq, al Qaeda and other Sunni extremists blew up one of the most sacred places in Shia Islam — the Golden Mosque of Samarra. This atrocity, directed at a Muslim house of prayer, was designed to provoke retaliation from Iraqi Shia — and it succeeded. Radical Shia elements, some of whom receive support from Iran, formed death squads. The result was a tragic escalation of sectarian rage and reprisal that continues to this day.

It’s crucial to recognize that the battle to change the nature of government in the Muslim and Arab worlds is a regional battle and not simply a series of isolated struggles. President Bush has, in my view, not been detailed enough in making this point – he makes it in almost every speech, but specifics are crucial. The regional nature of the struggle is why, as the president noted, there are often repeat players in multiple theaters:

Al Qaeda and its followers are Sunni extremists, possessed by hatred and commanded by a harsh and narrow ideology. Take almost any principle of civilization, and their goal is the opposite. They preach with threats, instruct with bullets and bombs, and promise paradise for the murder of the innocent.
Our enemies are quite explicit about their intentions. They want to overthrow moderate governments, and establish safe havens from which to plan and carry out new attacks on our country. By killing and terrorizing Americans, they want to force our country to retreat from the world and abandon the cause of liberty. They would then be free to impose their will and spread their totalitarian ideology. Listen to this warning from the late terrorist Zarqawi: “We will sacrifice our blood and bodies to put an end to your dreams, and what is coming is even worse.” Osama bin Laden declared: “Death is better than living on this Earth with the unbelievers among us.”
These men are not given to idle words, and they are just one camp in the Islamist radical movement. In recent times, it has also become clear that we face an escalating danger from Shia extremists who are just as hostile to America, and are also determined to dominate the Middle East. Many are known to take direction from the regime in Iran, which is funding and arming terrorists like Hezbollah — a group second only to al Qaeda in the American lives it has taken.
The Shia and Sunni extremists are different faces of the same totalitarian threat.

One thing the Cold War taught us is that the “Domino Theory” is not just real – it works both ways. Societies that are democratic, respect basic liberties, or both are just as subversive of their tyrannical neighbors as those neighbors are aggressive. If democracy or a close approximation survives in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Authority (the latter obviously being the toughest case), we will see a belt of free societies north of the Arabian Peninsula and south of the old Soviet Union, stretching from the Agean Sea in the west to the Ganges River in the east, leaving four islands isolated in the stream – Iran, Syria, Pakistan and Jordan. The latter two nations’ governments have essentially accepted this trend, albeit while resisting its influence within their own borders. That leaves the Iranians, the Syrians, their Hezbollah proxies and the Sunni radicals in Al Qaeda and Hamas as the principal rejectionists. I am disinclined to support long-term policing of internal disputes in Iraq, let alone having any American set foot in the Palestinian territories or even Lebanon. But one way or another, we are in the center of this struggle, and Iraq is as important to the battle as, say, Poland and East Germany were in the Cold War. Which is why we can’t accept defeat there.
By the way, little though I am a fan of bipartisanship for its own sake, I liked this idea:

Both parties and both branches should work in close consultation. It’s why I propose to establish a special advisory council on the war on terror, made up of leaders in Congress from both political parties. We will share ideas for how to position America to meet every challenge that confronts us. We’ll show our enemies abroad that we are united in the goal of victory.

The Democrats were always going to flay Bush no matter what – because they are the opposition, because they are the Democrats, and especially because of how he came to office – but a lot of grief could have been averted if he had introduced a formalized bipartisan War Council much earlier to avoid endless claims that the Administration “lied” or failed to share information with Congressional leaders. Making a record on that front could have focused more debates on the merits. Similarly, the move to expand the size of the Armed Forces really should have been taken in the Fall of 2001.

Surging Forward

I can’t really disagree with Instapundit’s view of the “surge”. The key points:
+”I don’t think the number of troops is nearly as important as what we’re doing with them”
+”There’s room for optimism that we’re going to take a more aggressive line against insurgents in Iraq, and against Muqtada Al-Sadr in particular. There’s also some reason to think we’re putting the screws to Iran.”
+”I’ve been disappointed a number of times by the Bush Administration’s inexplicable unwillingness to deal with Iran’s fomenting of insurgency — it’s really a proxy war . . . ”
+”You win a war by making it too unpleasant for the other guy to keep fighting.”
+”Bush’s loss of support on the war stems from the loss of visible forward motion. The casualties per se aren’t the problem (we’ve lost fewer troops in nearly four years than we were expected to lose in the initial push to Baghdad), so much as the sense that we’re taking casualties and nothing is happening.”
Read the whole thing. I think as much as anything the key point is that we need to find ways to raise the cost to Iran of continuing to meddle in Iraq. As I have stressed repeatedly before, our main mission in Iraq since we succeeded in the original mission (i.e., toppling Saddam’s regime) has been to protect Iraq’s nascent democracy from outside interference. The Iraqis are responsible in the end for handling their own internal problems, but where the U.S. is still needed is in preventing hostile external powers and movements from strangling Iraqi democracy in its cradle. And that includes internal movements like al-Sadr’s that are substantially backed and armed by the Iranians.
Meanwhile, kudos to Tom Lantos, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, for rejecting the idea that Iran and Syria could be persuded to have anything like a positive influence in Iraq in hearings on the Iraq Study Group’s fatuous recommendation of negotiations with those two parties to stop doing things they won’t admit doing in the first place. Lantos, whatever else may be said of him, is one Democrat who has always understood tyranny.

Taking The Gloves Off

I pretty much missed out on blogging the president’s speech on Iraq, but the best news we’ve had is the suggestion that any restrictions imposed by Maliki on targeting and destroying the bad guys in Iraq (specifically, the Sadr-led bad guys who are part of Maliki’s own governing coalition) are being removed. The first sign of followup in this regard was the arrest of various Iranian agents in Iraq, and now we have a tangible move against Sadr:

US and Iraqi forces have arrested a key aide of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, as the Iraqi government prepares to launch a crackdown on militias accused of enflaming the sectarian violence which has plagued the country.


+++

Sheikh Abdul-Hadi al-Darraji, al-Sadr’s media director in Baghdad, was captured in the early hours in a mosque in the eastern neighbourhood of Baladiyat, according to the cleric’s aides, who said that a guard was killed in the raid and denounced it as a “cowardly act.”


+++

The suspect was detained “based on credible intelligence that he is the leader of illegal armed group punishment committee activity, involving the organised kidnapping, torture and murder of Iraqi civilians,” according to the military statement, which added that he was reportedly involved in the assassination of numerous Iraqi security forces and government officials.
“The suspect allegedly leads various illegal armed group operations and is affiliated with illegal armed group cells targeting Iraqi civilians for sectarian attacks and violence,” it said.

It’s a start.

Yes, It’s An Axis

The thin, mustachioed Jew-hating fanatic and the burly buffoon – haven’t we seen this movie before? Well, their axis has come out in the open:

Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday they would help finance investment projects in other countries seeking to thwart U.S. domination.
The two countries — whose fiery anti-American leaders’ moves to extend their influence have alarmed Washington — had previously revealed plans for a joint $2 billion US fund to finance investments in Venezuela and Iran.
But the leaders said Saturday the money would also be used for projects in friendly countries throughout the developing world.
“It will permit us to underpin investments … above all in those countries whose governments are making efforts to liberate themselves from the [U.S.] imperialist yoke,” Chavez said.
“This fund, my brother,” the Venezuelan president said, referring affectionately to Ahmadinejad, “will become a mechanism for liberation.”
“Death to U.S. imperialism!” he said.
Ahmadinejad, who is starting a tour of left-leaning countries in the region, called it a “very important” decision that would help promote “joint co-operation in third countries,” especially in Latin America and Africa.

At least our enemies don’t hide their enmity. The question is, what are we prepared to do about them?

Quick Links 1/11/07

*Mmmmmmm…..pitchers in mini-camp.
*I feel Milton Chappell’s pain. Those chances don’t come around very often, but the worst of it is having to sit silent while the other guy fails to make your best arguments.
*The real Muhammad. There are extremely good aspirational reasons why our government should continue to insist, however tendentiously, that the true and faithful interpretation of Islam does not include imitating the Prophet’s own 7th century behavior, but Andrew McCarthy draws a pretty bleak picture of what that behavior entailed and why Muslims today have difficulty separating it from their doctrinal canon.
*John Roberts on being the Chief. Via Bashman.
*Rudy on the Surge. And payback time for the Iranians. Time permitting, I’ll have more to come on this issue.
*Mitt Romney has some explaining to do, which he takes a not-quite-on-point crack at here.
*Amateur hour for the Democratic Senate caucus, while Harry Reid circles the wagons around his tribal benefactors. I’m not in favor of the current campaign finance laws, but David Vitter is 100% right that the tribes, now that they are in a major revenue-raising business subject to extensive low-profile federal regulation (and thus a honey pot for Congressional venality), should get the same treatment as corporations. Of course, on the cui bono? side, I assume that Vitter, as the sponsor of this measure, and Mary Landrieu, the lone Democrat to support it, both care about the fact that the tribes compete with Louisiana gambling interests.

Romney on Iraq

Mitt Romney’s statement in advance of tonight’s speech by the president mostly hits the right notes in supporting an increase in troops in Baghdad, although you can see him straining to both embrace and distance himself from the Bush Administration from the opening line: “I agree with the President: Our strategy in Iraq must change.” But it also includes this head-scratcher: “Our military mission, for the first time, must include securing the civilian population from violence and terror.”
Now, I understand the argument that we have not done that adequately, but does Romney really believe we have not even been trying to protect the civilian population of Iraq from violence and terror? What exactly does he think 130,000 soldiers have been doing there for three and a half years?

Total War?

An argument that American war-fighting doctrine has been on the wrong track since John F. Kennedy. I agree with the argument in theory; wars are about breaking the enemy’s capacity and will to fight, nothing more and nothing less (though I was wrong, I thought in 1991 that it was an acceptable outcome to wreck Saddam’s military, even though of course it would have been more satisfying to remove him from power; in retrospect it is clear that we can never again fight a war without removing the opposing regime). In practice, I’m not sure I agree that all of our military doctrines since 1961 have been quite as misguided as the author suggests, given the world political realities involved. But it’s a provocative argument.

Flipping the Calendar

As usual this time of year, I’m creating new categories for the new year. This is especially important for those of you who come here directly to the baseball category page, which should now be here. Update your bookmarks accordingly. Also note that posts about the 2008 presidential race will be in the Politics 2008 category.