Total Information Awareness

As any reader of this site knows, I have been actively rooting for success in these elections and beyond - even offering my humble suggestions when I see an opening. The Iraqi people deserve this and much more. So it was with some trepidation that I watched the coverage of the elections, waiting for the other shoe to drop so to speak. Thus, it was immensely relieving to see that things went off relatively peaceful (yes, there was violence, death, and bloodshed, but compared to the fears, and compared to the recent levels of each, it was peaceful by contrast).

Unfortunately, there is not much time to bask in the electoral afterglow. As a friend, whose opinion on foreign policy matters I respect, commented to me via e-mail late Sunday: "now comes the hard part." Indeed. I am hoping that these elections have created a certain nationalistic momentum, and an invigorated sense of cooperation that can buttress efforts to tack the Iraqi body politic towards the embrace of inclusiveness and enlightened governance. An entire olive tree needs to be felled and carved up for the number of branches that need to pass hands over the next couple of months in order to see Iraq through its ordeal of fragmentation. According to Publius, there should be some domestic transactions in wood-based currency as well (I really do recommend his take on the elections and the political ramifications both here and in Iraq).

While the results are being counted (it looks like an impressive 55-60% turnout overall), and the candidates selected, the Iraqi political machine must seek to address the many problems that lay before it. First, security must be restored and the insurgency quelled (easier said than done). Second, the new government must find a way to insure Sunni inclusion in the Constitution drafting assembly (this step could aid the first). The document that emerges from that process must take pains to grant enough autonomy to the Kurds in order to keep them in the fold, and must not become a vehicle for a "soft tyranny" of the Shiite majority (by granting too much power to majoritarian factions and including any sort of distinctly "Shiite" dogma into the laws). And as TIA reader Avedis is quick to point out, the nation's oil wealth must be distributed in a way that builds a strong middle class and a sense of fairness for the ordinary Iraqi. The eventual posture of the ruling regime vis-a-vis the continued presence of U.S. troops in the country will also be of the utmost importance - perhaps bearing on all the other choices, and the prospect for civil war and failed state-hood (both options that must be avoided at almost all cost).

With so many questions left unanswered, so many thorny issues to be smoothed out, and so many compromises needed to be struck, let's hope that these elections mark the beginning of an upward trend toward something positive and lasting. One small, but encouraging step.

[Update: Praktike summarizes some of the election results at Liberals Against Terrorism (one of my new homes away from home) but Praktike's summary is pedestrian compared to Nadezhda's opinion piece (not to denigrate Praktike's efforts, but I am confident he would agree that she has outshone us all with her rendition of events).]

Most regular TIA readers know that I don't do much blogging on the weekends, but I try to offer some parting shots on Friday to tide you over.

First, some business to attend to: let's get out the vote. Chez Nadezhda, which is the blogospheric domicile of the three-headed dynamo that is Nadezhda, Praktike, and MC MasterChef, is up for an award in the Best Non-European Blog category at Fistful of Euros. I love the name of that site by the way - I'm a sucker for any of the Sergio Leone westerns, especially those with Clint Eastwood starring. If I had to show someone the quintessential western by which the genre should be judged, it would be The Good, The Bad and The Ugly without a doubt. Pardon the cinematic tangent though. So, like I was saying, let's give Chez Nadezhda the TIA push they need to overcome their worthy competition.

More voting news: Wampum has some more categories up for the semi-finals (upper-left corner of the home page), including Best Series. My top picks in that category are, first, the talented Coturnix from Science and Politics (also of Circadiana fame), for his staggering 40 part series entitled "Building on Lakoff" (he also has a slightly more modest 5 part series nominated entitled "What Would Darwin Do" that is more than worthy of consideration). And of course, my favorite Aussie Tim Dunlop has an entry with his rolling review of "Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies" at the Road To Surfdom. You could never go wrong with a trip to the beach house where Dunlop plays host. I should remind the reader that TIA is still asking for votes in the Best New Blog and the Most Deserving Of Wider Recognition categories (Best Overall Blog too, but that is a longshot for a neophyte like TIA - that's two references to myself in the third person in one sentence, a sure sign of dementia).

Otherwise, I wanted to highlight some of the recent additions to the blogroll. First up, is the knowledgeable and witty Tim (make that the 891st "Tim" in the blogosphere - must be something about the name that facilitates computer interface) from Why Are All The Good Names Gone?. He offers a refreshing challenge to some of the echo-ish effects around these parts from an insider's perspective in many instances, and has been a force in the comments section as of late. Thanks for the contributions.

Also, Threading the Needle is a thoughtful blog that tries to tackle big issues with a balanced approach. Not just a partisan crusade, but a problem solver (both are needed though, and I ain't afraid to wear both hats depending on the weather - and neither is that site's author lest you think it's all middle of the road stuff). And last but not least, Arthur from Ad Populum (make that the 1,891st lawyer in the blogosphere - must be something about us liking to argue and hear ourselves speak or type). Arthur is a frequent sparrer on publius's site, which is now the every other Thursday home of TIA, so he is family by association.

As has become my custom, I try to point to a little levity on Fridays. In pursuit of that, I turn, once again, to the very capable RJ Eskow from Night Light. Check out his two part series on the SpongeBob fiasco (especially Part I which re-defines the parameters of "Gaydar" and the ability for cross dimensional travel - and then there's Part II).

And I've only recently discovered the slightly twisted but often humorous Norbizness. No particular post to point to, but browse away (at your own risk and with the usual caveats that I do not endorse the opinions expressed...yadda, yadda, yadda, legalism, jargon, formality, blah, blah, blah....).

On a more serious note, Praktike, guest blogging on Howard Dean's site, offers those readers a useful guide for what is, in my opinion, a very sensible approach to issues of foreign policy in the years of Bush the younger (despite a little good natured blue language that at least one reader took issue with - but hey, he was playing to the crowd). Someone should hire Praktike as a consultant or something.

Have a nice weekend. See you on Monday (man, even my wrap-ups are long winded).

In light of the expansive, and commendable, rhetoric regarding the concepts of freedom and liberty punctuating the Bush inaugural address (perhaps flawed in certain strategic respects like it's focus on "liberty" instead of "justice"), I wanted to challenge, or at least examine, some of the emerging conventional wisdom on the effects of "democratization" and how it relates to the containment, control, and spread of terrorism.

First, I want to say that I believe in promoting the spread of democracy throughout the world, allowing for slightly different manifestations depending on the locale. I believe that democracy, and the rule of law, are the best guarantors of human rights that humanity has come up with to date. Critics of democracy-philes are quick to point out its imperfections, and it is a system that is far from flawless, but I ask that such critics point to a better model. A theocracy? Totalitarianism? Monarchy? Oligarchy? Are any of those more desirable? Could and would the critic be willing to live under such a regime? Or is it an opinion, ripe with self-indulgent intellectualization, made possible only from the comfortable vantage point that living under a liberal democracy allows? As such, I believe that promoting democracy, and with it human rights and the rule of law, can be justified on moral and ethical grounds regardless of its utility from a foreign policy perspective.

Nevertheless, in a world of limited resources, and exigent problems, democratization must be looked at using cost-benefit models - saying nothing of the morality of the means by which we seek to promote democracy (as I have argued before, military conquest is not a particularly successful model for democracy promotion in practice, and it raises a whole slew of ethical questions to boot). This is a slightly touchy subject because democracy has been heralded as a cure to terrorism of panacean proportions. In fact, according to some in influential positions, all that is needed is for democracy to take root in the epicenter of Iraq, and it well spread outward in democratic shockwaves that will raze the jihadist mentality and ideology along with so many despots and dictators. Therefore, let's take a closer look at the ability of democracy to end terrorism as practiced by certain Muslim extremists, and how efficient the democratization model really is.

Is Middle East Democracy the Cure for Islamist Terrorism?

Your Right Hand Thief recently linked to an op-ed piece penned by Mark Halperin (himself a staunch supporter of the war in Iraq) appearing in the Wall Street Journal (no subscription required). In it, Halperin challenges the theory that democracy is an antidote to terrorism, and the likelihood of the "domino effect":

But no law of nature says a democracy is incapable of supporting terrorism, so even if every Islamic capital were to become a kind of Westminster with curlicues, the objective of suppressing terrorism might still find its death in the inadequacy of the premise. Even if all the Islamic states became democracies, the kind of democracies they might become might not be the kind of democracies wrongly presumed to be incapable of supporting terrorism. And if Iraq were to become the kind of democracy that is the kind wrongly presumed (and for more than a short period), there is no evidence whatsoever that other Arab or Islamic states, without benefit of occupying armies, would follow. And if they did, how long might it last? They do not need Iraq as an example, they have Britain and Denmark, and their problem is not that they require a demonstration, but rather their culture, history, and secret police.

That site's author, Mssr. Oyster, chimed in with an additional insight of no minor import:

And I'll add that even in a best case scenario, a "free" Iraq will work industriously to build or acquire WMD's. Just as Saddam cultivated the illusion of a WMD arsenal to make his "boxed in" country appear stronger, no Iraqi president will want to remain relatively defenseless between two nuclear neighbors, Israel and Iran-- both longtime enemies.

Considering the conclusions of the Duelfer Report, Oyster is probably correct when he suggests that even a democratic Iraq would want the security that nuclear weapons (or lesser WMD's) afford. Saddam realized their importance, and the reasons he had for acquiring them have only gotten more pressing, not less, through the recent passage of time. The Duelfer Report's assessment of Saddam's motive for acquiring WMD's:

Saddam recognized that the reconstitution of Iraqi WMD enhanced both his security and image...Iran was the pre-eminent motivator of this policy. All senior level Iraqi officials considered Iran to be Iraq's principal enemy in the region. The wish to balance Israel and acquire status and influence in the Arab world were also considerations, but secondary.

A very fine article in Foreign Policy magazine (now available online without a subscription!) also seeks to question the notion that democracy itself is the antidote to jihadism:

"Middle East Democracy Is the Cure for Islamist Terrorism"

No. This view is rooted in a simplistic assumption: Stagnant, repressive Arab regimes create positive conditions for the growth of radical Islamist groups, which turn their sights on the United States because it embodies the liberal sociopolitical values that radical Islamists oppose. More democracy, therefore, equals less extremism.

History tells a different story. Modern militant Islam developed with the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the 1920s, during the most democratic period in that country's history. Radical political Islam gains followers not only among repressed Saudis but also among some Muslims in Western democracies, especially in Europe. The emergence of radical Islamist groups determined to wreak violence on the United States is thus not only the consequence of Arab autocracy. It is a complex phenomenon with diverse roots, which include U.S. sponsorship of the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s (which only empowered Islamist militants); the Saudi government's promotion of radical Islamic educational programs worldwide; and anger at various U.S. policies, such as the country's stance on the Arab-Israeli conflict and the basing of military forces in the region....

The experience of countries in different regions makes clear that terrorist groups can operate for sustained periods even in successful democracies, whether it is the Irish Republican Army in Britain or the ETA (Basque separatists) in Spain. The ETA gained strength during the first two decades of Spain's democratization process, flourishing more than it had under the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco. In fragile democratic states - as new Arab democracies would likely be for years - radical groups committed to violence can do even more harm, often for long periods, as evidenced by the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, or the Maoist rebels in Nepal.

To the list of terrorist organizations that grew out of, and operated under, democratic regimes, we should also include the Red Brigades in Italy, the Baader Meinhof gang in Germany, the 17th of November in Greece, Aum Shinrikyo in Japan, Tupac Amaru/Shining Path in Peru, FARC in Colombia, etc. And of course, even the paragon of democracy, the United States, has produced various terrorist separatist militias or racist terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan. And Russia's move toward democratic reform has not lessened the terrorist threat emanating from Chechnyan rebels (in fact such terrorism is the pretext for Putin's repeal of democratic freedoms), nor has Turkey's openness helped to keep Kurdish terrorist groups at bay. Thus, the claim that democracy erodes terrorism is problematic if accepted outright. To quote a conversation on Matt Yglesias' site:

First Brian Ulrich:

...[P]eople turn to terrorism as a tactic because they can't achieve their goals through other means....By the same principle, the non-Muslims people like Bin Laden see as enemies can't be defeated by conventional military means. Therefore, people turn to terrorism. So there is something of a link. This does not mean that spreading democracy will end terrorism, because if the terrorists feel they still won't get their way, they'll continue to be terrorists. Abu Musab Zarqawi is making this point rather effectively in Iraq.

Then Matt Y:

...[P]eople with goals that cannot be achieved through the ballot box -- disputes involving ethnic or sectarian minorities figure prominently in this -- aren't going to be impressed by democracy. What I think it's important to emphasize, however, is...the simple fact that whatever forces of social alienation explain extremism's appeal, they're perfectly consistent with the existence of democracy as in France.

And Matt from a related post:

...[A] lot of your radicalized Arabs in the world are people of (mostly North African) Arab origin living in Europe and, especially, France with its large Muslim population. Whatever these people are so mad about, it's not that the country they live in isn't democratic. Many of them were born in Europe, or spent most of their lives there...

And this, after all, should come as no surprise. The terrorists of the IRA and the ETA (and whatever you call that Corsican terrorist group) live in democracies as well. The[y] object to the ground rules of democratic politics as practiced in Northern Ireland or Spain (or wherever) for what are basically unrelated reasons. Malaysia and Indonesia have given birth to more than there fair share of terrorists, and while neither quite counts as a fully paid-up member of the democratic brotherhood, both are far from being the most autocratic states in the Middle East. Indeed, harsh dictatorships like Syria and Iraq have barely generated any terrorists whatsoever, though the Syrian government maintains ties to Lebanese-born people involved in Hezbollah who retain a robust terrorism capacity. But the actual Hezbollah members are Lebanese, and while they certainly grew up under some adverse conditions (to offer and understatement) Lebanon has never been one of your more iron-fisted Arab dictatorships.

To make a long story short, the noteworthy and appalling lack of liberalism and democracy among Arab governments appears empirically to have only a tangential relationship to the actual psychology of jihad.

It is also worth mentioning that at the moment, direct elections in many nations in the Muslim world (such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt) might result in regimes that are far more hostile to our interests than the current incarnations. Simply put, unless we address the underlying sources of anger toward America (and this is not to suggest that they are all our fault - far from it - as we have become a convenient scapegoat and subject of many a an unfounded conspiracy theory in the region), democracy might unleash forces that are even more pernicious than what we are dealing with today.

From this, I argue that democracy is not the vanquisher of terrorism that some make it out to be, unfortunately. This does not mean that promoting democracy has no effect, or that it is futile. The spread of democracy will have an ameliorative effect, but we would be remiss if we did not also seek to address some of the underlying causes that exist outside of the nature of the prevailing political institutions. If those grievances are allowed to fester, democracy will not be able to put an end to terrorism on its own, and might even give rise to more problematic states in the short term.

Do Democratic Regimes Curtail Terrorist Activities Better Than Others?

Counter to the current group think, reality is also a mixed bag in this regard. Again from the Foreign Policy article:

Moreover, democracy is not a cure-all for terrorism. Like it or not, the most successful efforts to control radical Islamist political groups have been antidemocratic, repressive campaigns, such as those waged in Tunisia, Egypt, and Algeria in the 1990s. The notion that Arab governments would necessarily be more effective in fighting extremists is wishful thinking, no matter how valuable democratization might be for other reasons.

Ulrich argued that Syria and Iraq don't (or at least didn't in the case of Iraq before the invasion) produce domestic terrorists "because the level of state surveillance is so pervasive nothing could really get organized." Yglesias responded:

The best way to eradicate terrorism (construed as a non-state phenomenon) is to erect an all-pervasive semi-totalitarian dictatorship. Short of that, establishing true democracy undercuts some of terrorism's appeal by providing alternative methods of seeking political change.

Before you jump to conclusions, Yglesias and Ulrich were not advocating spreading the "Syria Model" of totalitarian repression. They were merely making the point, again, that our work does not end with the establishment of democracy even, as Halperin argued, if it were spread across the entire region in uninterrupted continuity. Ironically, the freedoms that democracy create can provide terrorists and radicals with more room to operate.

Limited Resources

As I argued above, promoting democracy is a worthy goal for moral and ethical reasons, and it does serve legitimate foreign policy objectives as well. Even if it not sufficient on its own to eradicate terrorism, it can and will help to relieve some of the pressures and frustrations that help to stoke the flames. I don't disagree with the message of Bush's inaugural in this regard - it really encapsulates everything I believe America does right (regardless of how well the rhetoric tracks our actions). But given the fact that invasions and nation building are so tremendously expensive from a fiscal point of view, and so costly in terms of strains on our alliances, negative impact on our image and popularity, and, relatedly, our ability to inspire the changes we are seeking to bring about, we need to really consider whether or not spreading democracy via military means is a feasible strategy - especially considering the fact that democracy itself will not, on its own, solve the intractable problems that lead to terrorist manifestations.

This is an especially acute concern when we factor in the effect that such war time spending (and tax cutting) is having on our economic stability, the value of the dollar, our ability to deal with the emergence of rivals such as China, and our financial capacity to address other equally pressing concerns such as homeland security and the disposal of loose nuclear material poorly secured in the former Soviet republics. Mark Halperin laments some of the lost opportunities:

An impressive civil-defense effort has been made [referring to the Dept. of Homeland Security], but only relative to the absence of anything before it. It isn't a question of gaps in the fence here and there, but of sections of the fence here and there. Four and a half years after September 11th, air cargo is still not x-rayed; illegal immigration and drug smuggling prove that the borders are porous; simulated attacks are almost always a walk-over for the red-teams; and the nature of chemical, nuclear, and biological terrorism remains such that merely rattling terrorist networks is insufficient.

Uneven and ineffective application of military power, vulnerability to mass terrorism and natural epidemics, blindness to the rise of a great competitor: matters like these, that may seem remote and abstract, are seldom as remote and abstract as they seem. A hundred years ago, our predecessors, unable to sense what had already begun, did not know the price they would pay as the century wore on. But, as the century wore on, that price was exacted without mercy.

In truth, democracy promotion should be married to other efforts, and the paradigm of spreading democracy through military campaign should be seriously re-thought before we begin parts two and three in Syria and Iran. There are other means to utilize in order to effect the desired outcome which have been grossly neglected due to the all-consuming demands of the military endeavor.

Assuming our President was sincere in his recitation of our nation's goals for the next four years, I hope that he applies a serious dose of realism and realignment of priorities, not to mention some non-bellicose measures, to the admirable idealistic message he put forth. In closing, I offer the sage advice of praktike writing at Liberals Against Terrorism (in the interest of full disclosure, I have recently joined the LAT team):

Untempered idealism is a wonderful thing in freshly minted college graduates. However, in a President, what you want is someone who can tell the difference between words and action, between rhetoric and reality. Personally, I don't care much for Kennedy as a President, although he was an excellent orator. His "pay any price, bear any burden" formulation was touching, but neither serious nor particularly useful. He showed admirable judgment during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but was an unimpresive leader otherwise. The Bay of Pigs and Vietnam come to mind.

Nathan...assumes that I'm talking about Uzbekistan when I refer to Dictatorship and Double Standards. Not really. Uzbekistan is a problem, but it is not the reason we were attacked on 9/11 and it is not a major threat to the United States today -- the legacy of the 80s Afghan War and the first Gulf War, the socio-political conditions in the Muslim World, particularly in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the 1979 Iranian revolution, the legacy of colonialism, the decline of Islam in contradistinction to the West, the failure of European states to successfully integrate their immigrant populations, and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict are probably the primary reasons. It begins to sound more complicated than Bush would have you believe, doesn't it?

For the third time this week I find myself drawn to yet another aspect of the prisoner abuse and torture story. Maybe that is because I have been on the sidelines for so long, waiting (in vain) for some type of positive resolution from some of this nation's leaders. All I have to show for my patience is seven courts martial, and a series of promotions and votes of confidence for the commanding officers, policy makers, and legal minds who, in one way or another, contributed to the conditions that led to the abuse in the first place. So now that I have been aroused from my slumber, I will be a little more tenacious in my coverage.

Today I want to focus on the revelations in an article in Tuesday's Washington Post (via Laura Rozen). The article's findings could probably be filed under the header It Was Only Seven Soldiers, And They Are Being Court Martialed as used in a prior post. The article is based on reports recently released from the Army which tell of detainee abuse and other illegal activities.

Army personnel have admitted to beating or threatening to kill Iraqi detainees and stealing money from Iraqi civilians but have not been charged with criminal conduct, according to newly released Army documents.

Only a handful of the 54 investigations of alleged detainee abuse and other illicit activities detailed in the documents led to recommended penalties as severe as a court-martial or discharge from military service. Most led to administrative fines or simply withered because investigators could not find victims or evidence.

The documents, which date from mid-2003 to mid-2004 and were obtained by five nongovernmental organizations through a joint lawsuit, suggest that the pursuit of military justice in Iraq has been hampered by the investigators' closure of many cases without reaching a determination of likely innocence or guilt...

The newly released reports detail allegations similar to those that surrounded the documented abuse at Abu Ghraib -- such as beatings with rifle butts, prolonged hooding, sodomy, electric shocks, stressful shackling, and the repeated withholding of clothing and food -- but they also encompass alleged offenses at military prisons and checkpoints elsewhere in Iraq.

Obviously, some of the investigations rightly exonerated the subjects of the inquiries, but others were dealt with in ways other than court martial. Some allegations were merely dismissed due to lack of evidence or other shortcomings such as incomplete record keeping, or what was termed insufficient "evidence to prove or disprove the allegations."

In the case of Hadi Abdul Hasson, an Iraqi who died in U.S. custody at a prison near the southern port of Umm Qasr, Army criminal investigators were unable to locate meaningful prison or military records on his capture or fate.

"Due to inadequate recordkeeping, this office could only estimate that Mr. Hasson possibly died between April-September 2003," and so the case was closed, the Army's Criminal Investigation Command said in October. Hasson's death was evidently not noticed until mid-2004, when disclosures of detainee abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad prompted a review of records and sparked many new abuse allegations by Iraqis.

There was also, according to the article, a perceptible delineation in terms of the punishments meted out depending on the nature of the infraction - whether or not it was a criminal act such as a robbery, or just mistreatment of detainees.

Many of the participants in such crimes were referred for courts-martial, while those who participated in beatings or abuse generally received lesser punishments, according to the documents.

For example:

An officer in the 20th Field Artillery Battalion deployed in Taji, for example, was given an unspecified nonjudicial punishment and fined $2,500 after he admitted to threatening to kill an Iraqi, firing a pistol next to the man's head, placing the man's head in a barrel, and watching as members of his unit pummeled the man's chest and face.

One of those who administered the beating told investigators that the officer "had given us a talk about how some circumstances bring about extra force." Another said the officer told them after it was over: "This night stays within" the unit. "We all gave a hooah" before parting, the soldier said. The document indicates that four soldiers received suspended nonjudicial punishments and small fines, while a decision on a fifth soldier was pending.

My point in drawing attention to these recently released reports is to further debunk the increasingly outlandish theory that all the prisoner abuse and torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay was the result of the seven soldiers making up the Graner and Frederick groups - and the related argument that everyone involved is being court martialed.

[Army spokesman] Dov Schwartz said that more than 300 criminal investigations so far have resulted in some type of action against more than 100 military personnel.

So, the number is more like 100 than 7, so far, and even then there is no way to be certain how many were ultimately involved because, as the article suggests, many of the investigations were concluded without an ultimate disposition of the allegations one way or the other. Furthermore, some of the findings remain classified, such as this particularly disturbing account:

Another case involved a 73-year-old Iraqi woman who was captured by members of the Delta Force special unit and alleged that she was robbed of money and jewels before being confined for days without food or water -- all in an effort to force her to disclose the location of her husband and son. Delta Force's Task Force 20 was assigned to capture senior Iraqi officials.

She said she was also stripped and humiliated by a man who "straddled her . . . and attempted to ride her like a horse" before hitting her with a stick and placing it in her anus. The case, which attracted the attention of senior Iraqi officials and led to an inquiry by an unnamed member of the White House staff, was closed without a conclusion.

The military eventually released her and reimbursed her "for all property and damage" after her complaints, the report said; details of the Delta Force investigation remain classified.

I am not trying to disparage the reputation of our men and women in uniform by focusing on these aspects of the story. Nor am I suggesting that these incidents were the result of direct orders given from up high - although some of the confusion as to the rules of treatment could be traced back to uncertainty created by the conflicting guidlines emanating from above. Nevertheless, if we do not attempt to make an unvarnished appraisal of the parameters of this problem, it is unlikely that we will come up with effective solutions going forward. Part of that reckoning means refuting the impossible storyline that this widespread pattern of behavior was really just seven soldiers behaving badly, and that all responsible parties are being court martialed.

No sooner did TIA issue its torture call to arms, than the blogosphere responded - sort of. My own deep-seated delusions of grandeur aside, there has been a recent uptick in some of the debate around this rather troubling topic, and today I wanted to highlight the direction in which some of the more productive discourse is heading. First of all, I recommend a review of the compilation of links assembled by Praktike at Liberals Against Terrorism. Since Praktike's ever vigilant eye probes every nook and cranny of the 'sphere, he is more than adept at producing such compendia (and if you aren't reading Liberals Against Terrorism on a daily basis, you are depriving yourself of one of the more thoughtful left-leaning approaches to US foreign policy that I have come across).

One of those links is to the most recent anti-torture post by the right-leaning Belgravia Dispatch (for the record, Greg Djerejian has been consistently principled in his opposition to torture and clear about this problem's parameters). In this post, Greg takes on Law Professor John Yoo's rather "expansive" definition of exactly which practices constitute "torture" under the prevailing legal definition. Greg is right to point out that Yoo was at least as involved as Jay Bybee, if not more so, in the preparation of the infamous torture memo that I criticized in my prior post. I was certainly remiss to leave Yoo out of the hall of shame that houses Gonzales and Bybee, amongst others. Greg also began probing another topic: the ticking time bomb conundrum.

This is the hypothetical scenario in which a captured terrorist knows of an impending nuclear attack, and thus the question emerges whether or not it would be right to torture the detainee in order to get information that could prevent the massive loss of life sure to follow. Leaving aside questions as to whether or not torture is likely to result in the revelation of the pertinent information (which I will take up below), Belle Waring at Crooked Timber wrote a pretty comical lampooning of this example in the extreme, and argues fairly persuasively that crafting policy to account for such exaggerated scenarios is not a process likely to yield favorable results in most real-life settings (her fictional Bruce Willis action movie montage is in itself worthy of a read).

Matthew Yglesias (via Praktike, though Greg has included a link in his update as well), takes Waring's farcical approach one step further. Yglesias posits that even in a world in which torture is strictly prohibited, the ticking time bomb scenario is not as problematic as some would make it out to be:

Knowing what we know about human behavior and the sort of people who make careers in the law enforcement and intelligence communities, it's a bit absurd to think that an interrogator would ever let, say, a nuclear bomb go off and destroy Chicago when he could have stopped it with a little torture, just because the Geneva Conventions said he shouldn't torture anyone. The world just doesn't work like that.

The real question is, what do you do after the disaster has been averted? Well, in a world where torture is illegal, your interrogator's probably going to have to be arrested. But he's also going to be a national hero, he'll plead his defense of necessity, and no jury in the country is going to unanimously convict him. And even if he somehow did wind up getting convicted, he could be pardoned. We have, in other words, several methods for making ad hoc, ex post facto exceptions to the rules in our common law system. And it's a good thing. It really would be silly to punish someone who'd just gone out and saved three million lives.

So in my opinion no real harm is done by maintaining a blanket legal rule that torture is always prohibited. No catastrophic nuclear attacks will go through thanks to this rule, and no great national heros will go to jail. Conversely, a clear rule does much good. It means that interrogators will only break the rules in the case of some genuine emergency.

Nothing against Chicago, but I was somewhat relieved to see that the Second City, not NYC, was the doomed municipality in Yglesias' version of events. Belle was not so New York-friendly in her rendition. Sorry jonnybutter, but as a resident of NYC, I'm just tired of all the talk about the many ways my City may be reduced to rubble in the near future. It's time you Chicagoans bore your share of the major metropolis-as-target burden. But I digress.

Greg's post also sparked a conversation about how and where the boundaries should be established in terms of what types of treatment are deemed legal methods of coercion (perhaps loud music), and which cross the line into the realm of illegal abuse or torture (beatings, sodomy, etc.). Greg appealed to the McCain-Lieberman formula:

Ultimately, I lean towards agreeing with McCain and Lieberman, that the standard for treatment of alien detainees should be that: "No prisoner shall be subject to torture or cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment that is prohibited by the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States."

That sounds about right. RJ Eskow, offers his own slightly less formal means for deducing the existence of torture or undesirable behavior:

If you're not a fan of international law, you can always conduct this simple experiment: How would you feel if you saw American soldiers being subjected to the practice? Would you consider it "abuse"? Would "waterboarding" be OK? How about being tormented with the threat of bites from a vicious dog, after which the dog was released and shredded a human leg? Would you be happy if you heard American Christians forced to thank Allah, or Buddha, or Shiva that they are still alive? When you heard that dozens of our men and women tried to kill themselves in captivity, would you feel anything? What would you think of a government that condones or encourages such practices? Now, take those feelings and imagine if you knew that many of the people being subjected to these practices are innocent civilians.

Both of these concepts provide useful guidance. By applying the standards of the Constitution, US laws and the treaties that we are a party to, we can establish that any interrogation tactic outside of our own legal framework is unacceptable, and this in turn would satisfy Eskow's standard by insuring that our techniques never exceed what we are comfortable with in our own prisons and police houses (note: this is not to say that many horrific abuses do not occur in our own prisons and in interrogations, but they are not legal per se, even if their practice is too common for comfort).

The conversation eventually turned to questions about the efficacy of torture as a means of gathering information. In response to questions regarding torture's utility, one of that site's smartest commenters, posting under the name "J Thomas," offered this seemingly informed and balanced explanation (J Thomas, a self described "radical centrist" also has a blog, though it is somewhat neglected - hey JT, why don't you write some of this stuff down in a post!?):

...I haven't seen any academic studies about what interrogation methods work. The CIA publishes such things inhouse but I haven't read them. A collection of people who claim to be experts say it doesn't work. But then a collection of people claim to have made it work....

I've listened to people who do that sort of thing though I haven't done it myself, and here's my understanding of what they say:

1. Two classes of prisoners [exist], those who'll say something and those who'll clam up and not say anything at all. If they refuse to say anything at all they can be persuaded to say something using either positive or negative reinforcement. Get them to talk about something -- anything -- and you have a start. If you torture them for not saying anything, they're likely to consider it a big defeat to say anything. It turns into a contest of wills at the start. So it's better to just do a little poking in the middle of other methods, keep them off balance and not sure what you'll do, and if possible get them interested in talking about something innocuous. If it's a contest of wills, every hour they say nothing is a victory for them and you feel like you're making no progress until they say something, so it's likely to be discouraging.

2. Prisoners who talk have an almost-infinite amount of garbage available to talk about. Ideally you want them to sort it out for you and tell you the things you're interested in. Drugs can eliminate their resistance to telling you stuff, but will also eliminate their ability to organise it for you. So if you know exactly what to ask, you can get something that way among a lot of garbage. It isn't a good way to get them to tell you things you don't already know to ask about. Similarly, if you get them exhausted enough and sleepless enough etc, you can basicly get them deranged to the point they lose all judgement and will tell you anything including whatever garbage they hallucinate. That can work if you already know precisely what to ask, just like the drugs.

3. If they're aware, they might tell you stuff for one reason or another, and they might lie. Ideally you'd like to know whether they're lying. Trained interrogators claim they can tell whether the interrogatee is thinking or remembering. If they just tell you what they remember without much thought then it's probably the truth. Torture that doesn't reduce them to babbling might persuade some people to tell the truth. The ones it's especially good for are the ones who'd like to talk to you but who need a good excuse. If you torture them enough that they think it's a good excuse then they'll talk.

4. People who believe that you'll kill them after they've told you all you want to know, have an incentive not to talk. If you torture them to the point they want to die, then they may talk to get you to go ahead and kill them. But they may find some crafty way to kill themselves too. For example, in one Russian prison each prisoner slept on a heavy oak shelf that was hinged to fold up against the wall. Suicidal prisoners found they could arrange things so the shelf would fall down and crush their skulls. In another prison the washbasins were a size and shape that let prisoners stick their heads in and slump to break their necks. Suicidal people can be very inventive.

5. Apparently people who did statistics found that they got results at least as often and as quickly by sitting the prisoner down and starting out "The war is over for you." If the prisoner accepts that the war is over for him, he's likely to talk about old campaigns as if it's 10 years later and the war is over and he's talking with a veteran from the other side. He might avoid recent stuff and stuff he thinks would help get people caught, but he might slip up and the old stuff is useful too.

Torture on average does no better and typically worse. But people who believe in torture only count the successes. I can't quote you the studies but it makes sense to me, and I hope the way I described it makes sense to you too.

So, according to the J Thomas explanation, torture has varying degrees of success and failure depending on the nature of the detainee, and the perceptions of that prisoner vis-a-vis his or her captors. That sounds about right. It would be hard to imagine someone contending that torture always works in every context, but it is also implausible to claim that torture never works in terms of information gathering. But, as J Thomas points out in this next excerpt, the overall success rate of information acquisition is far from the only factor to consider.

There's another issue. Whatever you do, word will get out to the enemy and also to the civilians. Possibly you can arrange that tortured prisoners get kept in solitary and nobody ever sees them before they're dead and buried, but that will get out too. What effect will torture have on the ones who haven't been caught? When I was a boy scout the scoutmaster was an old man who'd fought in Korea. Once he started to talk about it, and then he remembered some things he didn't want to talk about and he said "If you're fighting the Reds, whatever you do don't let them take you alive." If I ever fought the Reds I'd have followed his advice.

People who absolutely refuse to surrender even when they can't get away are a lot more trouble than people who'll surrender. They're likely to try to sucker some of you in close so they can take you with them. So you stand back and blow it up first, and you have a big mess -- when if they thought you'd treat them right and it would just be "The war is over for you" they'd surrender and maybe you'd have a building still standing and civilians alive and so on.

There was a time we said we were going to "kill or capture" Muqtada al Sadr, after Abu Ghraib had gotten publicised. What's the chance he'd surrender even if we had him surrounded? And yet if he thought we were honestly interested in giving him a fair trial for a crime he knew he was innocent of, he might possibly have set a good example and turned himself in.

Torture has to give results a lot better if it's going to balance out the problems it causes. Some experts say the statistics show it doesn't, that for a good interrogator it's no better than just talking, but I haven't heard of them making their data public.

In addition to the effect this has on the psyche of potential combatants, and their willingness to surrender, the use of torture will also impact the perception that the target population as a whole will have of the occupier/aggressor. In the case of Iraq and the broader Muslim world, this perception is of supreme importance. We cannot win over hearts and minds, and convince people to make radical changes in their political, religious, and societal structures if we are not held in high regard - or at least not openly reviled. The use of torture undermines our status and moral authority, especially when so many of the victims were innocent civilians released back into the population to tell their tales of horror. Therefore, torture has transactional costs in terms of democracy promotion as well, which must be included as a variable in any cost-benefit analysis of the utility of the use of torture. This of course says nothing about our own moral and ethical imperatives, and what affect it would have on American ideals if we so willingly cast off prohibitions on torture as "quaintisms," obsolete in their relevance.

It has long been the contention of TIA that the inadequately named "war on terror" is really a larger war for the hearts and mind of the Muslim world - operating much like a global counter-insurgency effort. In the current dynamic, we are pitted against propagandists like Bin Laden and other radical elements that seek to beat back the perceived aggression of the West and return the Muslim world to an idealized, mythical caliphate state (please note: Bin Laden is, unfortunately, not an indispensable figure but merely the current mouthpiece to a broader movement). To achieve these ends, they seek to weaken the West, and the United States in particular, which they see as an impediment to their overall mission. The good news is that Bin Laden's brand of ideology is relegated to the fringe of the nearly 1.3 billion Muslims worldwide, despite the fact that some who do not ascribe to his overall theory probably delight in his ability to lash out at the United States and the West in general - especially because dissatisfaction and anger over U.S. foreign policy runs in the high 80-95 percentiles through much of the region.

The bad news is, his ideology has appeared to be gaining in momentum and appeal. I recall the interpretation of CIA counter-terrorism expert Michael Scheuer, publishing under the pseudonym "Anonymous," when he wrote that Bin Laden had been disappointed with the reaction of Muslims to the toppling of the Taliban. Bin Laden had anticipated a public outcry, and a massive uprising. Instead, the Muslim world looked away, acceding, at least tacitly, to what was deemed a justifiable response by the United States. But then we invaded Iraq, and we gave Bin Laden much of what he sought to accomplish in provoking us in response to 9/11. In the words of Scheuer, "if Osama was a Christian, the invasion of Iraq would have been the Christmas present he long desired but never thought his parents would give him."

I return again to the words of Jason Burke, author of Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror, writing for Foreign Policy magazine (excellent summary of the issues and a recommended read):

Bin Laden is a propagandist, directing his efforts at attracting those Muslims who have hitherto shunned his extremist message. He knows that only through mass participation in his project will he have any chance of success. His worldview is receiving immeasurably more support around the globe than it was two years ago, let alone 15 years ago when he began serious campaigning. The objective of Western countries is to eliminate the threat of terror, or at least to manage it in a way that does not seriously impinge on the daily lives of its citizens. Bin Laden's aim is to radicalize and mobilize. He is closer to achieving his goals than the West is to deterring him.

But just as I believe the Bush team handed Bin Laden and his fellow travelers a favor in the invasion of Iraq, it appears that Bin Laden and his ilk may have been inspired by the season of gift-giving and are returning the kindness with bit of over-reaching hubris that some critics think is the sole purview of the Bush administration. I am referring to the two most recent videos released by Bin Laden and his erstwhile rival, and current ally, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

For his part, Bin Laden called on Iraqis to boycott the elections, and praised the efforts of Zarqawi. The language was actually quite strong:

"The constitution imposed by the American occupier (Paul) Bremer is blasphemous ... and anyone who takes part in this election consciously and willingly is an infidel," said the speaker, who sounded similar to previous bin Laden recordings.

"You have to be careful of those charlatans who, under the guise of Islamic parties, urge the people to take part in the election," he added. [emphasis added]

Zarqawi chimed in with his own declaration of war on the elections, calling the candidates "demi-idols" and those that participate "infidels" and threatening violence for all involved.

"We have declared a fierce war on this evil principle of democracy and those who follow this wrong ideology," said the speaker, who identified himself as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, head of the al-Qaida affiliate in Iraq. "Anyone who tries to help set up this system is part of it."

These bold and aggressive proclamations were, ultimately, a major strategic blunder, the likes of which comes as good news to an American side that must have been waiting for a moment like this - and I'll explain why. The daftness of Bin Laden and Zarqawi can be broken down into three major gaffes: First, by calling candidates and participants "infidels," Bin Laden and Zarqawi are insulting (very much an understatement) the entire Shiite population (including and especially their religious leadership) and those Sunnis that are complicit with the process. Second, by championing Zarqawi, and for Zarqawi to assert himself on this stage, Bin Laden risks angering Iraqis who resent the violence and terror sown by Zarqawi's network - which has disproportionately impacted Iraqis not American or coalition forces. Third, because Bin Laden and Zarqawi are foreigners, a Saudi and Jordanian respectively, their interference in the Iraqi elections is likely to rouse nationalistic sentiments provoked by the intrusion of these outsiders.

Juan Cole describes certain aspects of the relation of these statements to the Shiite population, and the wider Iraqi populace as a whole:

Bin Laden's intervention in Iraq was hamfisted and clumsy, and will benefit the United States and the Shiites enormously. Most Iraqi Muslims, Sunni or Shiite, dislike the Wahhabi branch of Islam prevalent in Saudi Arabia, and with which Bin Laden is associated. Nationalistic Iraqis will object to a foreigner interfering in their national affairs...

Bin Laden as much as declared Grand Ayatollah Sistani an infidel. But Sistani is almost universally loved by the 65% of Iraqis who are Shiites, and is widely respected among many Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen, as well. Bin Laden, the Saudi engineer, makes himself look ridiculous trying to give a fatwa against the Grand Ayatollah of Najaf. If anything, to have al-Qaeda menacing the Shiites in this way would tend to strengthen the American-Shiite alliance.

Cole on the involvement of Zarqawi in the process:

Zarqawi is widely hated in Iraq because the operations of his group often kill innocent Iraqis as opposed to American troops. The Shiites in particular despise Zarqawi, and are aware of his hopes of provoking a Sunni-Shiite bloodbath in Iraq. (The muted Shiite response to the US assault on Fallujah in November and December derived in large part from a conviction that the city had become a base for Zarqawi and like-minded Salafi terrorists). Zarqawi websites have claimed credit for the assassination in 2003 of Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, a respected Shiite leader, which involved desecrating the Shiite holy city of Najaf. The mainstream of the Kurds hates Zarqawi, because of his earlier association with the small Kurdish radical Muslim terrorist group, Ansar al-Islam, which targeted the two major Kurdish parties.

Cole goes on to conclude that Bin Laden's statements, by focusing only on a narrow sliver of Salafi jihadists and not couched in a way to appeal broader Sunni and/or Shiite elements, are a sign of his weakness.

If Bin Laden had been politically clever, he would have phrased his message in the terms of Iraqi nationalism. By siding with the narrowest sliver of Sunni extremists, he denied himself any real impact. By adopting Zarqawi, who has killed many more Iraqis (especially Shiites) than he has Americans, he simply tarnishes his own image inside Iraq.

It appears that Bin Laden is so weak now that he is forced to play to his own base, of Saudi and Salafi jihadists, some of whom are volunteer guerrillas in Iraq. They are the only ones in Iraq who would be happy to see this particular videotape.

I hope that Professor Cole is reading the tea leaves correctly in relation to this incident. Bin Laden's weakness could be a welcomed sign that the ideology of jihad is beginning to wane in its popularity. The irony would be delightfully sweet if Bin Laden and Zarqawi themselves provide an impetus for the emergence of a new Iraqi nationalism, an adherence to democratic institutions, and a mass refutation of the jihadist ideology. While optimistic in its predictions, I think this backlash is very possible, especially when you consider the fact that Iraq had no real home-grown fundamentalist movement before the invasion, as Saddam was not one to tolerate Wahhabists nor were Iraqi citizens known to populate the armies of Jihad in far off places like Chechnya, Afghanistan, Kosovo, and elsewhere. Although not a magic bullet, maybe Bin Laden and Zarqawi are clarifying the issues for Iraqis in a way that could breed cooperation and resolution. Perhaps we should consider providing them with more tape-making equipment, because the loaded video camera is aimed straight at their own two feet.

I generally try to maintain an even keel on this site. I have tried (sometimes in vain) to resist the temptation to take short cuts with the facts, and view the world through the "tinted lens" of partisanship - as a colleague so eloquently put it. I even dedicated an entire post to the defense of the dialectic. In pursuit of the dialectic, this site aspires to air both sides of a given debate and remain solicitous of dissenting opinions (not always achieving this paradigm, but moving in that direction). TIA operates under the assumption that it is better to foster dialogue and cooperation in such rabidly polarized times, because most Americans mean well, they just have different means to achieve their ends.

But lately I feel as though I am losing my ability to remain so magnanimous to the political opposition - and it's not for lack of patience. The source of my crisis of faith has to do with the issue of torture, and how the discussion of that practice has manifested in the American body politic over the past three years.

When the first pictures out of Abu Ghraib emerged, I remember feeling repulsed and angered, and I believe that this was a similar reaction for most Americans. When the more horrific details began flowing in, because the pictures from Abu Ghraib were only really a sanitized and limited depiction of the widespread scourge, I was curious to see how this issue would be handled by the political powers that be. In the subsequent hearings on the matter, I recall feeling reassured at the seemingly sincere and candid words of Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), himself an active Air Force reservist, when he said that he would not allow some low level soldiers to become scapegoats for the larger problem. He and other GOP lawmakers like John Warner (R-VA) and John McCain (R-AZ) appeared sober and determined in their desire to apportion blame to the appropriate parties. I believed that Graham, and the Republican Party, would not let those seven soldiers dangle in the wind - becoming the poster children for a policy gone awry.

And I thought that surely the conservatives in this country would see past partisan divides to insure that the reputation and ideals of America emerge intact from this ordeal. Even the Bush administration, notorious for circling the wagons, must see that the practitioners and architects of this policy must be punished in some way - or at the very least not rewarded.

Today I am left wondering what happened to Senator Graham's pledge? Where has Senator Warner's steely gaze been fixed as of late? What of the American people so willing to explain away the complexities of this issue by clinging to the delusional theory that seven soldiers are to blame for the entire scandal? What has the President done to address the perpetrators and the planners?

The answers to all of these questions is one long litany of disappointments. President Bush either promoted or retained every person involved in this debacle, and the lone dissenting voice, Colin Powell, has "retired" under pressure. Rumsfeld retained his post, Gonzales got promoted to Attorney General, Jay Bybee (the author of the most outrageous legal opinion re: torture) was promoted to a spot on the US Court of Appeals, Generals Sanchez and Abizaid retained their posts, etc. Conservative pundits, journalists, and bloggers have done slightly better, but even then, the number willing to condemn torture and provide an accurate appraisal of the parameters and quality of the problem are so few that they are noticeable by their uniqueness. Far more ubiquitous are the apologists with their series of excuses and explanations ranging from advocacy for torture, to denial that the events that transpired were actually torture or that any, other than the seven, are to blame.

As for the American people, as Frank Rich put it in his most recent column, the story has fallen out of favor with the 24-hour television media coverage, and so it has fallen off the radars of many Americans. There was a brief revival during the confirmation hearings of the torture-justifying Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, but even then we were warned by right-leaning voices like Glenn Reynolds to table the discussion because it was the wrong time and the wrong venue to raise such concerns. Glenn: I'm waiting for you to let us all know when it would be appropriate to broach the subject again - but I'm not holding my breath.

More disturbing still, it seems that the forces of revisionism in real-time have been encroaching on the story, creeping in like a cancer in order to distort the perception and understanding of this sordid episode. Today I want to look at some of the most common expressions of this real-time revisionism and compare them to what is in the public record courtesy of the US Army's own reports and investigations.

This Was Not Torture, Just Abuse

When Rush Limbaugh first made the absurd statement that the prisoner torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib was like frat hazing or initiation rites for the Skull and Bones, I thought that even the dittoheads must have done a double take. Reality, I naively believed, would deal a blow to the radio bloviatrix. Instead, I have seen this meme make a comeback. On more respectable venues it has morphed into a quasi-critique of "liberals" for their penchant to assign the term "torture" to all manner of activity, including the use of loud music and the placing of panties on the heads of prisoners. I am willing to concede that the term could be diluted by overuse, but is that really the burning issue in need of closer attention at this juncture with so many other questions left unanswered? I'm sorry, but I expect better from my right-of-center compatriots.

Another popular counter-argument is that Saddam was worse. This is without a doubt the truth. Abu Ghraib was far more vile a place when Saddam was in charge. But ultimately, I am left wondering what significance this has for the current discussion. Since when has Saddam Hussein become a moral reference point for American policy and morality? In truth, there is a wide gulf in between the actions of Saddam Hussein and what is acceptable under the American paradigm. I refuse to let us become simply better than Saddam. I love my country and I hold it to higher standards, and I still believe that most Americans agree that we can go above and beyond merely "better than Saddam." Those seem like red herrings and side issues that can be dealt with without much hand-wringing.

Worse than these examples, though, is their counterpart that no torture really occurred anyway. The group that promotes this theory is willfully ignorant of the vast amount of corroborated data encompassed in a series of government studies and reports on the subject. In a twist of irony, the photos from Abu Ghraib may have played a role in this. As Andrew Sullivan recently noted, the pictures themselves may have distorted public perception because they created the impression that nothing more nefarious than what was shown in the pictures occurred, and no other personnel than the ones in the pictures were involved.

With the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, the photographs, which have become iconic, created the context and the meaning of what took place. We think we know the contours of that story: a few soldiers on the night shift violated established military rules and subjected prisoners to humiliating abuse and terror. Chaos in the line of command, an overstretched military, a bewildering insurgency: all contributed to incidents that were alien to the values of the United States and its military. The scandal was an aberration. It was appalling. Responsibility was taken. Reports were issued. Hearings continue.

But the photographs lied. They told us a shard of the truth. In retrospect, they deflected us away from what was really going on, and what is still going on.

So for those Americans, both conservative and liberal alike, who might have gotten a false impression from the Abu Ghraib photographs, let's take a look at some (not all mind you) of the events that took place, and then I invite someone - anyone - to make the claim that this was the equivalent of frat hazing, and that our biggest concern should be overuse of the term "torture." From Andrew Sullivan's review of The Abu Ghraib Investigations by Steven Strasser, and Torture and Truth by Mark Danner (both compiled from official government reports):

According to the I.C.R.C., one prisoner "alleged that he had been hooded and cuffed with flexicuffs, threatened to be tortured and killed, urinated on, kicked in the head, lower back and groin, force-fed a baseball which was tied into the mouth using a scarf and deprived of sleep for four consecutive days. Interrogators would allegedly take turns ill-treating him. When he said he would complain to the I.C.R.C. he was allegedly beaten more. An I.C.R.C. medical examination revealed hematoma in the lower back, blood in urine, sensory loss in the right hand due to tight handcuffing with flexicuffs, and a broken rib"...

A detainee "had been hooded, handcuffed in the back, and made to lie face down, on a hot surface during transportation. This had caused severe skin burns that required three months' hospitalization. ...He had to undergo several skin grafts, the amputation of his right index finger, and suffered... extensive burns over the abdomen, anterior aspects of the outer extremities, the palm of his right hand and the sole of his left foot"...

And another, in a detainee's own words: "They threw pepper on my face and the beating started. This went on for a half hour. And then he started beating me with the chair until the chair was broken. After that they started choking me. At that time I thought I was going to die, but it's a miracle I lived. And then they started beating me again. They concentrated on beating me in my heart until they got tired from beating me. They took a little break and then they started kicking me very hard with their feet until I passed out"...

From the FBI memos:

[A] supervising special agent described abuses such as "strangulation, beatings, placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees' ear openings and unauthorized interrogations"....In other instances, a female prisoner "indicated she was hit with a stick," according to a memo from last May, and in July, Army criminal investigators were reviewing "the alleged rape of a juvenile male detainee at Abu Ghraib prison."

Here's another case from the Army's investigation into Abu Ghraib, led by Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones and Maj. Gen. George R. Fay:

"On another occasion DETAINEE-07 was forced to lie down while M.P.'s jumped onto his back and legs. He was beaten with a broom and a chemical light was broken and poured over his body.. ..During this abuse a police stick was used to sodomize DETAINEE-07 and two female M.P.'s were hitting him, throwing a ball at his penis, and taking photographs."

"An 18 November 2003 photograph depicts a detainee dressed in a shirt or blanket lying on the floor with a banana inserted into his anus. This as well as several others show the same detainee covered in feces, with his hands encased in sandbags, or tied in foam and between two stretchers."

As Sullivan notes in his article, "The Schlesinger panel has officially conceded...that American soldiers have tortured five inmates to death. Twenty-three other deaths that occurred during American custody had not been fully investigated by the time the panel issued its report in August."

Here's an excerpt from one article in the Army Times that discusses some of the findings of the Schlesinger Panel and other investigations into deaths of detainees:

Six prisoners died from "blunt force trauma" or excessive force on the part of captors or prison guards, including two within a week of one another at the same prison. Two prisoners at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, died of complications Dec. 3 and Dec. 10, 2002, after being struck forcefully on their legs by guards or interrogators, military records show. One death certificate said the leg beating "complicat(ed) coronary artery disease," and the other certificate said the beating led to a "pulmonary embolism," or a heart blockage that is often caused by a blood clot.

At least four prisoners died in Iraq from strangulation, asphyxia, smothering or "compromised respiration," including Abid Mowhosh, a major general who headed Iraq's air defenses, whose death certificate says he died from "asphyxia due to smothering and chest compression."

Sullivan comments on the nature of the evidence:

These are not allegations made by antiwar journalists. They are incidents reported within the confines of the United States government....Some of the techniques were simply brutal, like persistent vicious beatings to unconsciousness. Others were more inventive. In April 2004, according to internal Defense Department documents recently procured by the A.C.L.U., three marines in Mahmudiya used an electric transformer, forcing a detainee to "dance" as the electricity coursed through him. We also now know that in Guantánamo, burning cigarettes were placed in the ears of detainees.

Alright then, let's see what we have in summary from the government's own investigations: persistent vicious beatings, severe burns, electrical shocks, strangulation, asphixyation, sodomy, sexual abuse, possibly rape, and at least five deaths resulting from the beatings administered, with 23 or more to be investigated. Now I never pledged a fraternity in college, but I know a lot of people that did. They assured me that these are not typical of any fraternity they frequented or patronized. I believe them. Does anyone want to argue that these incidents are not torture but just garden variety abuse or the equivalent of frat hazing? If you want, I would be willing to publish your argument. If not, please stop saying there wasn't any torture. That is either a lie, or a misinformed opinion. Enough is enough.

It Was Only Seven Soldiers, And They Are Being Court Martialed

This position is slightly better than those who deny any torture occurred. For this group, they are willing to acknowledge (in most cases) that some acts were probably defined as torture (the deadly beatings and sodomy are sort of hard to explain away), but they cling to the belief that all guilty parties are being punished. In fact, they point to this as a testament to how abhorrent torture really is to all Americans, even and especially the administration.

On any type of scrutiny, this argument falls apart completely. For one, the geographic scope of the abuses extended well beyond Abu Ghraib. Sullivan:

What's notable about the incidents of torture and abuse is first, their common features, and second, their geographical reach. No one has any reason to believe any longer that these incidents were restricted to one prison near Baghdad. They were everywhere: from Guantánamo Bay to Afghanistan, Baghdad, Basra, Ramadi and Tikrit and, for all we know, in any number of hidden jails affecting "ghost detainees" kept from the purview of the Red Cross.

In addition, these acts were perpetrated by all manner of military apparatus, not to mention private contractors and other intelligence agencies:

They were committed by the Marines, the Army, the Military Police, Navy Seals, reservists, Special Forces and on and on.

And the tactics and methods showed an unsettling similarity in form and substance:

The use of hooding was ubiquitous; the same goes for forced nudity, sexual humiliation and brutal beatings; there are examples of rape and electric shocks. Many of the abuses seem specifically tailored to humiliate Arabs and Muslims, where horror at being exposed in public is a deep cultural artifact.

So let me get this straight: these seven Army reservists standing trial were allowed to change uniforms and branches between Army, Marines, Navy Seal, etc., even switching back and forth between the military and the private sector? I didn't know that was possible. And wearing these various uniforms, they were present at all those prisons in Iraq, whisked away to handle the detention and interrogation at multiple facilities in Afghanistan, then their passports were stamped and it was off to Guantanamo, and finally to the various locations holding ghost detainees. I don't suppose it matters that the abuse at Abu Ghraib was first chronicled many months before Graner's group even arrived at that prison. No, because every act of torture and abuse was the work of Charles Graner and his team of seven space/time continuum defying reservists, and they are being punished accordingly. America is showing the world how we deal with torturers.

It Goes No Higher Than Graner In The Chain Of Command

Whether or not the responsibility goes all the way up to the White House is debatable. Clearly the tone was set at the top in a series of memos that authorized the use of torture and the suspension of the Geneva Conventions and other treaties and laws the US was party to. These legal opinions argued the legality of torture - the most offensive being Bybee's which set up the preposterous test for what constitutes torture and what are acceptable defenses. It is also true that various expanded interrogation techniques were officially sanctioned, and then revoked, in a series of confusing orders and modifications. In fact, Alberto Gonzales is still arguing that certain groups of detainees and interrogators fall outside the purview of the Geneva Conventions and other US laws curtailing the use of agressive interrogation techniques, torture, and cruel and inhumane treatment.

What is not debatable, however, is that these seven soldiers were not the only ones involved, and no one of higher rank was implicated. The abuse that I documented above, occurring at that number of locales and venues, was the product of more than seven soldiers, and of higher rank than Graner's. Any claim otherwise is metaphysically impossible. In this sense, Senator Graham has let us all down, because we have accepted the scapegoating and so the lambs are being sacrificed to salve our collective consciences.

It is also not debatable that the dubious legal analysis and classifications emanating from the White House created a lack of certainty regarding the status of detainees and the methods deemed acceptable for interrogations.

Whether random bad apples had picked up these techniques from hearsay or whether these practices represented methods authorized by commanders grappling with ambiguous directions from Washington is hard to pin down from the official reports. But it is surely significant that very few abuses occurred in what the Red Cross calls "regular internment facilities." Almost all took place within prisons designed to collect intelligence, including, of course, Saddam Hussein's previous torture palace at Abu Ghraib and even the former Baathist secret police office in Basra.

An e-mail message recovered by Danner from a captain in military intelligence in August 2003 reveals the officer's desire to distinguish between genuine prisoners of war and "unlawful combatants." The president, of course, had endorsed that distinction in theory, although not in practice - even in Guantánamo, let alone Iraq. Somehow Bush's nuances never made it down the chain to this captain. In the message, he asked for advice from other intelligence officers on which illegal techniques work best: a "wish list" for interrogators. Then he wrote: "The gloves are coming off gentlemen regarding these detainees, Col. Boltz has made it clear that we want these individuals broken."

One sergeant who witnessed the torture thought Military Intelligence approved of all of it: "The M.I. staffs, to my understanding, have been giving Graner" - one of the chief torturers at Abu Ghraib - "compliments on the way he has been handling the M.I. holds [prisoners held by military intelligence]. Example being statements like 'Good job, they're breaking down real fast'; 'They answer every question'; 'They're giving out good information, finally'; and 'Keep up the good work' - stuff like that." At Guantánamo Bay, newly released documents show that some of the torturers felt they were acting on the basis of memos sent from Washington.

Al-Qaeda Deserves To Be Tortured, They Are Not A Party To The Geneva Conventions

I have seen this justification on more than one occasion to explain away the torture being perpetrated in Iraq. The problem is, Iraqi civilians are not al-Qaeda. President Bush is fond of saying that Iraq is the central front in the "war on terror" but that does not mean that Iraqi citizens should be viewed as al-Qaeda operatives, one and all, in terms of distinguishing between what legal standard applies to their treatment. In fact, according to Army Intelligence and the ICRC, 70-90% of all detainees at Abu Ghraib were deemed innocent of all transgressions and released - their initial detention being the product of wide-netted sweeps and/or informants settling scores with their neighbors.

In such a context, it is not enough to say that torturing al-Qaeda is right and productive (a controversial claim in its own right), and therefore that it is acceptable to subject any and all Iraqi civilians to such treatment. Of course, even at GITMO, there are innocent Afghanis who were caught in the net by similarly flawed procedures, so allowing torture at that facility is also problematic even using the "al-Qaeda" justification. The presumption of innocence is not a luxury in the American legal system, nor is it "quaint." I'm not saying, necessarily, that we should afford every detainee the full cadre of rights guaranteed to every US citizen, but I do think we should rule out torture - especially in contexts in which so many innocents are being detained.

Conclusion

For many of you, this post might not have contained any new information. For that, I apologize. Nevertheless, I hope that some of my right-leaning readers will reconsider their stances on the torture scandal if they find themselves in the uncomfortable position of defending torture, minimizing it, or rationalizing its practice. Our nation is exemplary in its capacity to enforce the rule of law and punish wrongdoers. That is what sets us apart from dictators and despots, and that is what infuses our message of liberty, freedom, and democracy with force and purpose. But that only works if we as a nation hold all the parties accountable. For now, we have settled on seven patsies designated as the fall-guys for an epidemic that involves dozens if not hundreds. The reaction from the White House has been even more perplexing: promoting and retaining each and every high level official that is in any way connected to this legal debasement.

If Bush wants to back up the grandiose rhetoric which permeated his inaugural address, his own house would be a good place to start. That right-leaning Americans do not see this, and are not clamoring for justice, is inexcusable. Listening to people I respect dissemble in plain view of the facts is a source of profound disappointment. Enough is enough.

It's outsourcing week at TIA. After my double-dip at Legal Fiction on Thursday (triple-dip if you throw in my short homage to Armitage - excuse the bad rhyme), I've developed a condition that cutting edge medical research has labeled blogging jetlag. Who knew that interblog travel would be this tiring?

I was planning on providing a Part II to my Seymour Hersh coverage, that would have focused on the covert ops angle of the story (as opposed to the Iran topics discussed in Part I) but I don't really have the time today. Besides, Tim from Good Names Gone has a post which tackles some of the important aspects of the infighting over who gets to run the covert ops show (complete with many helpful links), and Kevin Drum is on the case as well in his usual timely fashion. Coincidentally, both Tim and Kevin found their way to the same worthwhile article from the Spring 2004 edition of Foreign Affairs by Jennifer Kibbe (a must read).

So in my harried condition, it is much to my delight that Jonny from Crush All Boxes! (who is on temporary hiatus) has come to the rescue with a witty little rant on Bush's performance at the inauguration. Hey, if Legal Fiction can outsource, so can TIA. Don't get all protectionist on me now folks....


Woodrow W. Bush

Thank you Mister Bush. Now we move on to the Swimsuit competition....

To be fair to President Bush, an inaugural speech is a relatively pro forma affair (compared to, say, a State of the Union speech, one of which we will be graced with shortly). Few inaugural speeches have been really memorable, and despite what the spinners are poofing up, this one won't be either. You get the feeling that Bush and his guys decide on one key word or phrase for each of Bush's 'big gigs': today's 'freedom and liberty' are yesterday's 'hard work.' But an Inaugural is obviously not routine, either. So this speech must have meant something, right? But what?

It's always puzzled me that Richard Nixon was said to have particularly admired, of all Presidents, Woodrow Wilson (and even - purportedly - had a portrait of him in his Oval office). Nixon was rather more 'internationalist' and certainly more cynical, and/or 'realist', than Wilson ever dreamed of being (at least on purpose). Margaret MacMillan's excellent survey of the post-World War One negotiations, Paris 1919 , is replete with examples of Wilson's maddening combination of naivete, idealism, vagueness, peevishness, sanctimony, and plain stubbornness - and the unfortunate fallout therefrom. Take away Wilson's erudition and accomplishment, and that sounds less like Nixon and more like a certain contestant number 43....

America's idealism is both our curse and our gift. We haven't yet found a reliable way to be both idealistic and realistic (AKA 'wise') - it's that damned 'innocence' which keeps coming back no matter how many times we lose it! So we've had to make do with being awful and wonderful by turns. Even Nixon was able to project both qualities: his blackhearted policies in, among others, S.E. Asia and Latin America, are only a small part of his (and Kissinger's) shocking awfulness. But Nixon will and should be long-revered for going to China no matter why he did it. Good and bad. We muddle and blunder our way through history.

So, checks, balances and systems notwithstanding, leadership really does come down to....rather than 'character,' I would say personality, because character is a part of personality. Character might be what a person does when his back is absolutely against the wall; personality is that, plus experience, native intelligence, education, and subsequent proclivities and habits over a lifetime. Populism finds a certain comfort in the idea that a perfectly mediocre (as opposed to ordinary) person can lead - a dark side of democracy, pace DeTocqueville, et. al. This idea has not served us well in our post-war season of supremacy; willing or not, we haven't had the option of being a mediocre nation in the last 70 years. Mr Bush is the apotheosis of the negative meaning of that old saw: ANYONE can grow up to be President. He may be the last of a breed. We may, in our decline, find that we can't afford to 'wing it' this way anymore.

But, back to the speech.

What The Speech Didn't Mean

- Frum and Shrum were on MSNBC together Thursday night. David Frum tried to palm off the idea that the speech was, at least partially, a 'message' to our dictatorial allies in the Muslim world. I'm paraphrasing, but this is close: 'We won't invade you, or anything hard, but...you guys are on notice! Shape up!'. (Frum wrote the 'Axis of Evil' speech). Bob Shrum wasn't having any of it, and wedged in a retort (this was Chris Matthews' show!), saying, roughly: "Yeah, and tomorrow guys from the Carlisle Group will call the Saudis up and tell them 'it's just talk; don't get upset.'" A slightly cheap shot, but not altogether cheap. The Iraq Invasion was, to put it mildly, a 'message' to the Saudis, but this speech wasn't. Ditto Pakistan and the rest.

- This speech didn't mean unlimited commitment of American troops and money throughout the world forever. Its authors might like it to have meant that, but it didn't - because it couldn't. This speech was obviously crafted with Kennedy's in mind. This administration never passes up a chance to equate the 'war on terror' with the Cold War (and, incidentally, to associate themselves with popular figures of the past, like JFK, TR, etc.). They're very consistent about that. Terror War = Cold War. But, no cigar.

Some Things the Speech Did Mean

- It was a reaching-out to the people of Iran. This Administration knows they need both carrot and stick there, but the carrot happens to be nice and inexpensive: rhetoric. Cheney this morning on Imus (and Sy Hersh) waved the stick; Bush offered the carrot. America stands for freedom! You know you want it! Rise up! Bush is perfectly right, in this context, to send this message. The Neocons have a 'tourist's love' - genuine, in its way - for the Middle Eastern Muslim world. I'd be thrilled and proud if this rhetorical carrot 'worked'. Of course, it won't.

- The speech was an apology to Americans. It was a veiled plea for the American People to recognize that this administration 'means well.' Pat Buchanan couldn't help himself; he finally exploded last night on 'Hardball', declaring once and for all that: 'There is no conservative party in the United States today!' The idea of the folly - indeed the danger - of 'good intentions' is about as basic a tenet of conservative philosophy as there is. Bush offers a glistening, gooey, 'guilt-free', double-fudge liberalism with zero fat and zero carbs - but TONS of sugar. He'll be gone by the time the diabetes sets in.


Elsewhere: Nadezhda has a thought-provoking and intelligent post which takes on some of the issues that Jonny raised in his piece (She being inspired by the recent back and forth between Praktike and Matt Yglesias).

In the interest of balance, Greg Djerejian has a slightly different take on the speech, but one of his readers disagrees.

And in the interest of partisan satire, RJ Eskow imagines Eisenhower and Bush in a duel of speeches, think "Celebrity Death Match: The Presidential Edition" without the claymation, or the violence for that matter (though I suggested to RJ that if we wants to go commercial, he's going to have throw in something for the "extreme" crowd).

Publius at Legal Fiction has outsourced his Thursday duties to TIA so you can find me over at his plush abode today. My agent says I could use the added exposure, and in the end, the monetary enticement was too big to ignore (that's right, I have a blogger agent and there's nothing wrong with that).

Contractual stipulations forbid me from disclosing the size of the payment, but let's just say, TIA doesn't come cheap (but am always willing to negotiate).

I'll be back here on Friday. See you then. In the meantime, go take a look at my cameo appearance.

Seymour Hersh is at it again with another provocative piece in the New Yorker. This article raises two issues that are at least tangentially related, but which I will treat separately (unlike Tim at "All the Good Names..." who undertook to address each element in a comprehensive post with links). The most shocking revelation from Hersh's piece is the claim, supported by his array of sources, that some form of military intervention in Iran is a fait accompli, secured in large part by the re-election of President Bush and the perceived mandate this electoral approval has given the more hawkish elements in his administration. The second area of focus for Hersh has to do with the tension between the Department of Defense and the CIA for control over covert operations and how the resolution of this internecine conflict may impact the scope and nature of certain covert operations going forward.

The Iran Options

Hersh starts out the piece with an inflammatory quote from an unnamed high level intelligence official which seems to echo the call to World War IV issued and supported by Norman Podhoretz.

"This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone," the former high-level intelligence official told me. "Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign. We've declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is the last hurrah - we've got four years, and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism."

After grabbing the reader's attention, Hersh proceeds to lay out his case that the US is conducting ever more invasive intelligence forays into Iranian territory, as well as conducting war games and other internal planning exercises, in order to ready the military for the imminent and inevitable invasion. Despite these signals and signs, I am not quite certain they point as strongly in the direction that Hersh suggests, although even he concedes at one point that this posturing may end up being an elaborate form of saber rattling.

It is possible that some of the American officials who talk about the need to eliminate Iran's nuclear infrastructure are doing so as part of a propaganda campaign aimed at pressuring Iran to give up its weapons planning.

I believe, perhaps naively, that this is the case, and I will explain why. In the December issue of The Atlantic, James Fallows took part in an Iranian war game exercise featuring a cast of experts and analysts familiar with the terrain, conducted under the guidance of one of the discipline's preeminent practitioners, Sam Gardiner, a retired Air Force colonel:

Such simulations are Gardiner's specialty. For more than two decades he has conducted war games at the National War College and many other military institutions. Starting in 1989, two years before the Gulf War and fourteen years before Operation Iraqi Freedom, he created and ran at least fifty exercises involving an attack on Iraq. The light-force strategy that General Tommy Franks used to take Baghdad last year first surfaced in a war game Gardiner designed in the 1980s. In 2002, as the real invasion of Iraq drew near, Gardiner worked as a private citizen to develop nonclassified simulations of the situation that would follow the fall of Baghdad. These had little effect on U.S. policy, but proved to be prescient about the main challenges in restoring order to Iraq.

The exercise looked at four different options (analyzed by praktike here, a useful summary - especially for those without a subscription to The Atlantic, but not exclusively so): First, an Israeli led airstrike against Iranian nuclear facilities; Second, US led strikes against Iranian Republican Guard positions (seen more as a response to potential Iranian intervention in Iraq if options one, three, or four were pursued); Third, US airstrikes and commando raids on Iranian nuclear facilities; Fourth, an intensive military campaign aimed at toppling the regime (two versions of this were tested).

The conclusions from those exercises were pretty pessimistic regarding the efficacy of any form of military action. The Israeli option was tabled almost immediately due to the logistical problems of access to airspace and the obvious political ramifications - even by Reuel Marc Gerecht, the resident representative from the American Enterprise Institute. The regime change options proved risky for other reasons - especially the prospect that the preparations themselves could provoke Tehran to preemptively retaliate, and of course, the fact that logistical constraints on an overtaxed armed forces preclude subsequent nation building. The only hope would be to smash the regime to pieces, and hope that a somewhat more moderate force could emerge to put some semblance back together again. This has the potential for creating a vortex of violence and instability, and thus, any military campaign that would not at least attempt to establish order and nation build in its aftermath should be viewed as an option of last resort.

Even strikes on nuclear facilities had their drawbacks when teased out. The impression given from those involved is that strikes on facilities, although of low risk from a strictly military perspective, would only be partially successful due to incomplete intelligence on the number and location of facilities and the fact that many of these targets have been hardened through defensive measures like bunkers, and placements near major population centers. And of course, any such action would set off a diplomatic and strategic chain reaction.

Gardiner cautioned that any of the measures against Iran would carry strategic risks. The two major dangers were that Iran would use its influence to inflame anti-American violence in Iraq, and that it would use its leverage to jack up oil prices, hurting America's economy and the world's. In this sense option No. 2 - the pre-emptive air raid - would pose as much risk as the full assault, he said. In either case the Iranian regime would conclude that America was bent on its destruction, and it would have no reason to hold back on any tool of retaliation it could find. "The region is like a mobile," he said. "Once an element is set in motion, it is impossible to say where the whole thing will come to rest."

I think that some proponents of military action in Iran have been too quick to elide the threats that Iran could pose for our mission in Iraq. Voices such as Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, and Gerecht argue that the Shiite populations in each country are not close enough to act in accordance and, furthermore, there is even a good amount of suspicion between the two camps and an aversion to cross-border influence. As evidence of such attitudes, these pundits draw an analogy to the Iran/Iraq war in which Iraqi Shiites fought, in large numbers, against their Iranian Shiite counterparts.

This is true, but it is not analogous. A US or Israeli led military strike against Iran would inflame many Iraqi Shiites who would be unified with their Iranian brethren by the imposition of an outsider - and a Christian [or Jewish] one at that with a pretty bad reputation as is. It is no secret that the United States already is the object of rampant scapegoatism in the region and the subject of many bizarre conspiracy theories with little basis in fact. For example, many car bombs that target moderate Shiites are blamed, in the rumor mill, on US missile strikes - despite the illogic of the US targeting cooperative Shiite leaders. In that context, can it really be expected that the Iraqi Shiite population, especially that portion of it under the influence of firebrands like Moqtada al-Sadr, would react apathetically to a US strike on Shiite Iran? That is dangerous thinking.

In addition, if the limited airstrikes option were pursued, the regime in Tehran, fearing for its safety, would be even more determined to acquire nuclear weapons by rebuilding their capacity and less likely to come to the bargaining table at some point in the future - harboring doubts about American motives having suffered an attack.

Brinkmanship

So, assuming these war game exercises produced a result that was similar to the actual tests conducted within the Pentagon, the Bush administration is faced with a Catch-22 of sorts: it has no attractive military course of action for dealing with Iran, and therefore must pursue diplomatic solutions. Diplomatic solutions, however, are imprecise, imperfect, and indeterminate. They are made even less effectual by the fact that the US has no credible threat to go along with the carrots being offered by our European allies. In light of this, the Bush administration must not create the impression that there are no credible military options because the viability of that threat is necessary to achieve an optimal diplomatic solution, even though the diplomatic solution is mandated by the lack of military avenues.

Here is the conclusion to the Fallows piece.

So this is how the war game turned out: with a finding that the next American President must, through bluff and patience, change the actions of a government whose motives he does not understand well, and over which his influence is limited. "After all this effort, I am left with two simple sentences for policymakers," Sam Gardiner said of his exercise. "You have no military solution for the issues of Iran. And you have to make diplomacy work."

With that in mind, I would expect the Bush administration and its allies to make as much noise as possible regarding Iran, assuming as bellicose a position as can be maintained short of heading down the path to full blown war or armed conflict. I think Hersh might have picked up on some of this posturing - at least that is my hope because I, like the Fallows team, find little appealing about the Iranian options. The Hersh article echoes these conclusions:

There are many military and diplomatic experts who dispute the notion that military action, on whatever scale, is the right approach. Shahram Chubin, an Iranian scholar who is the director of research at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, told me, "It's a fantasy to think that there's a good American or Israeli military option in Iran." He went on, "The Israeli view is that this is an international problem. 'You do it,' they say to the West. 'Otherwise, our Air Force will take care of it.'" In 1981, the Israeli Air Force destroyed Iraq's Osirak reactor, setting its nuclear program back several years. But the situation now is both more complex and more dangerous, Chubin said. The Osirak bombing "drove the Iranian nuclear-weapons program underground, to hardened, dispersed sites," he said. "You can't be sure after an attack that you'll get away with it. The U.S. and Israel would not be certain whether all the sites had been hit, or how quickly they'd be rebuilt. Meanwhile, they'd be waiting for an Iranian counter-attack that could be military or terrorist or diplomatic. Iran has long-range missiles and ties to Hezbollah, which has drones - you can't begin to think of what they'd do in response."

Also, consider the fact that one of the participants in the Fallows exercise, Reuel Marc Gerecht, came to similar conclusions as his peers regarding the attractiveness of the options and the overall scenario. Yet a month after The Atlantic article was published, Gerecht published an article in the Weekly Standard (via Legal Fiction) calling for an airstrike on Iran's nuclear facilities or other more involved military intervention. Did he change his mind in a matter of weeks? Or, possibly, did he decide that this pro-war rhetoric must be whipped up regardless of the ultimate decision that the Bush team would make, especially if diplomacy were the path chosen - despite the dangerous nature of this game. One aspect of Gerecht's analysis appears particularly strained in its logic - perhaps indicating a weakness he is glossing over. First Gerecht acknowledges the popularity of the nuclear weapons program in Iran, and its ability to unite seemingly fractionalized and oppositional camps

It is also undoubtedly popular with many ordinary Iranians, who see the nuke as an expression of Iranian nationalism, not as an instrument of mass destruction in the hands of virulently anti-American clerics. The mullahs, who have alienated just about everyone in the country with their incompetence, corruption, and antidemocratic behavior, have accidentally discovered something that gives them prestige and nationalist credentials.

But just a few paragraphs later, Gerecht refutes claims that a series of strikes aimed at obliterating the Iranian nuclear program would give rise to greater anti-Americanism. If the nuclear program is the one thing that Iranians agree on no matter their political persuasion, it would seem likely that there would be a very powerful and unifying anti-American reaction to such a move. Acknowledging this as a possibility, he carves out a scenario by which an anti-American yet pro-democratic movement remains intact and empowered. This seems somewhat more likely than no anti-American reaction, though of little comfort to an American foreign policy apparatus that should be striving for better relations overall, not an acceptable political institution that exhibits the same hostilities. Hersh's article addresses these theories:

The immediate goals of the attacks would be to destroy, or at least temporarily derail, Iran’s ability to go nuclear. But there are other, equally purposeful, motives at work. The government consultant told me that the hawks in the Pentagon, in private discussions, have been urging a limited attack on Iran because they believe it could lead to a toppling of the religious leadership. "Within the soul of Iran there is a struggle between secular nationalists and reformers, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the fundamentalist Islamic movement," the consultant told me. "The minute the aura of invincibility which the mullahs enjoy is shattered, and with it the ability to hoodwink the West, the Iranian regime will collapse" - like the former Communist regimes in Romania, East Germany, and the Soviet Union. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz share that belief, he said.

"The idea that an American attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would produce a popular uprising is extremely ill informed," said Flynt Leverett, a Middle East scholar who worked on the National Security Council in the Bush Administration. "You have to understand that the nuclear ambition in Iran is supported across the political spectrum, and Iranians will perceive attacks on these sites as attacks on their ambitions to be a major regional player and a modern nation that's technologically sophisticated." Leverett, who is now a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, at the Brookings Institution, warned that an American attack, if it takes place, "will produce an Iranian backlash against the United States and a rallying around the regime."

Conclusion

While attempts at diplomatic solutions with a regime such as Iran's presents a host of problems, there are no advisable military solutions that would not compromise our efforts in Iraq, and blowback on us in other forms - making matters worse, no options show promise for success of any long lasting or significant nature. In order to induce Iran to offer concessions in any negotiating process, Tehran must perceive the willingness of the US to up the stakes if no acceptable solution is reached (regardless of the truth of this bluff). With this in mind, I am reluctant to take Hersh's warnings as anything but a part of the bluff. Of course, in this regard, I am giving the Bush administration a lot of credit and attributing to them a great deal of restraint that they have not necessarily proven worthy of in the past. The fears expressed by people like Tim Dunlop, which mirror the hopes of people like Norman Podhoretz, are very real and based on persuasive evidence. Nevertheless, I am hoping in the end that this turns out to be more subterfuge than Part II of World War IV.

It's Saturday and I'm reading Frank Rich's weekly column which appears in the Arts section of the New York Times (a regular ritual that I recommend to the fullest). The Rich article itself rests atop a pile of papers and other periodicals that were not given their due during the prior week. My day job only allows for so much extra-curricular reading after all. Rich's muse du jour is the Armstrong Williams propaganda scandal and the wider implications, because the story does not end there. Here is a relevant quote:

In communist East Berlin, one sign of the government's swollen self-regard was the cluttering of public spaces with propaganda banners by which the government praised itself for providing socialism. In Washington today, the Department of Education building is an advertisement for its occupants.

Eight entrances are framed by make-believe little red schoolhouses labeled "No Child Left Behind." High on the building's front are two other advertisements for that 2002 law: large banners hector passers-by to visit NoChildLeftBehind.gov.

This building-as-billboard is the workplace of those eager beavers who had this brainstorm: Let's pay a million taxpayer dollars to a public relations firm to manufacture enthusiasm for No Child Left Behind, including a $241,000 payment to columnist and television talk-show host Armstrong Williams for his praise of the legislation. The eager beavers are long on energy but short on judgment.

Actually, I think I may have gotten the papers and columnists confused. Forgive my misattribution, but it is Saturday and the labyrinth of newsprint is difficult to navigate. So before you dismiss those paragraphs as yet another hyperbolic screed by a leftist journalist in the hopelessly liberal New York Times, allow me to set the record straight. That rant was actually from conservative stalwart George Will and it appeared in none other than Rupert Murdoch's right wing tabloid flagship, the New York Post.

George Will is amongst a minority of bloggers, journalists, politicians and pundits on the right brave enough to criticize torture and principled enough to condemn government funded propaganda. Unfortunately, this group is so often drowned out by strident partisan voices who adhere to the black and white, with us or against us version of political discourse. It's as if their beliefs rest atop a teetering house of cards, so thinly supported that if even one plank were removed, the entire structure upon which they were built would come crashing down. So these partisans find themselves in what must be, at least on some level, the uncomfortable position of vigorously defending positions that seem incongruous to the core ideas and philosophical underpinnings of their supposed weltanschuaang - and indeed, the American credo.

George Will is more confident in his beliefs and convictions however. He is more comfortable calling them as he sees them.

When conservatives break with their principles, they seem to become casual about breaking the law, too. Last year the General Accounting Office accused the Department of Health and Human Services of illegal spending when it distributed fake "news" videos which were used by 40 local stations around the country. In them the many benefits of the new Medicare prescription drug entitlement were "reported" by a fake reporter whose actual status - an employee of an HHS subcontractor - was not revealed. The English language version of these "video news releases" concluded, "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting."

This scofflaw enterprise was an appropriate coda to the lawless making of this law. Republican leaders traduced House procedures by holding open the vote for three hours, giving them time to pressure sensibly reluctant legislators. And the Justice Department says the Bush administration broke no law when the Medicare program's chief actuary was told he would be fired if he gave Congress his estimate that the program's 10-year cost would be a third more than the $400 billion the administration claimed.

The GAO has frequently had occasion to insist that taxpayers' money cannot be used when the "obvious purpose is 'self-aggrandizement' or 'puffery.' " Last week it had another occasion, chastising the Office of National Drug Control Policy for also disseminating fake news videos.

Frank Rich, for his part, focuses on the short-shrift this story was given on the purportedly "liberal" CNN - especially on that station's reputed sparker of confrontation, the now defunct "Crossfire" (and good riddance pace Jon Stewart). When Armstrong Williams made an appearance on the show, rather than grilling Williams on his complicity in this perversion of the free press, the resident representative on the left, Paul Begala, seemed more interested in reassuring his guest than getting at the truth. Instead of probing the matter with any type of persistence, Begala thrice hailed Armstrong as a "stand up guy," praising the integrity of a man who contravened the most obvious and basic precepts of journalistic ethics.

Rich also examines the role Robert Novak played from the other side of the divide:

"On the right" was the columnist Robert Novak, who "in the interests of full disclosure" told the audience he is a "personal friend" of Mr. Williams, whom he "greatly" admires as "one of the foremost voices for conservatism in America." Needless to say, Mr. Novak didn't have any tough questions, either, but we should pause a moment to analyze this "Crossfire" co-host's disingenuous use of the term "full disclosure."

Last year Mr. Novak had failed to fully disclose - until others in the press called him on it - that his son is the director of marketing for Regnery, the company that published "Unfit for Command," the Swift boat veterans' anti-Kerry screed that Mr. Novak flogged relentlessly on CNN and elsewhere throughout the campaign. Nor had he fully disclosed, as Mary Jacoby of Salon reported, that Regnery's owner also publishes his subscription newsletter ($297 a year). Nor has Mr. Novak fully disclosed why he has so far eluded any censure in the federal investigation of his outing of a C.I.A. operative, Valerie Plame, while two other reporters, Judith Miller of The Times and Matt Cooper of Time, are facing possible prison terms in the same case. In this context, Mr. Novak's "full disclosure" of his friendship with Mr. Williams is so anomalous that it raised many more questions than it answers.

That he and Mr. Begala would be allowed to lob softballs at a man who may have been a cog in illegal government wrongdoing, on a show produced by television's self-proclaimed "most trusted" news network, is bad enough. That almost no one would notice, let alone protest, is a snapshot of our cultural moment, in which hidden agendas in the presentation of "news" metastasize daily into a Kafkaesque hall of mirrors that could drive even the most earnest American into abject cynicism. But the ugly bigger picture reaches well beyond "Crossfire" and CNN.

While the neutered Begala and the compromised Novak glossed over the details of Williams' role as one epicenter in a larger storm front of government funded information manipulation, for the sake of some sort of pundits code of solidarity perhaps, Rich offers no quarter (echoing the list of abuses cited by George Will and asking the necessary questions about other "Armstrongs").

But we now know that there have been at least three other cases in which federal agencies have succeeded in placing fake news reports on television during the Bush presidency. The Department of Health and Human Services, the Census Bureau and the Office of National Drug Control Policy have all sent out news "reports" in which, to take one example, fake newsmen purport to be "reporting" why the administration's Medicare prescription-drug policy is the best thing to come our way since the Salk vaccine. So far two Government Accountability Office investigations have found that these Orwellian stunts violated federal law that prohibits "covert propaganda" purchased with taxpayers' money. But the Williams case is the first one in which a well-known talking head has been recruited as the public face for the fake news instead of bogus correspondents (recruited from p.r. companies) with generic eyewitness-news team names like Karen Ryan and Mike Morris.

Or is Mr. Williams merely the first one of his ilk to be exposed? Every time this administration puts out fiction through the news media - the "Rambo" exploits of Jessica Lynch, the initial cover-up of Pat Tillman's death by friendly fire - it's assumed that a credulous and excessively deferential press was duped. But might there be more paid agents at loose in the media machine? In response to questions at the White House, Mr. McClellan has said that he is "not aware" of any other such case and that he hasn't "heard" whether the administration's senior staff knew of the Williams contract - nondenial denials with miles of wiggle room. Mr. Williams, meanwhile, has told both James Rainey of The Los Angeles Times and David Corn of The Nation that he has "no doubt" that there are "others" like him being paid for purveying administration propaganda and that "this happens all the time."

Rich also brings the journalism to the journalists, and peels off the thin layer of spin put up to satisfy the shallow delving of the major networks and the 24 hour cable venues.

Mr. Williams has repeatedly said in his damage-control press appearances that...he made the mistake of taking the payola because he wasn't part of the "media elite" and therefore didn't know "the rules and guidelines" of journalistic conflict-of-interest. His own public record tells us another story entirely....for a man who purports to have learned of media ethics only this month, Mr. Williams has spent an undue amount of time appearing as a media ethicist on both CNN and the cable news networks of NBC.

He took to CNN last October to give his own critique of the CBS News scandal, pointing out that the producer of the Bush-National Guard story, Mary Mapes, was guilty of a conflict of interest because she introduced her source, the anti-Bush partisan Bill Burkett, to a Kerry campaign operative, Joe Lockhart. In this Mr. Williams's judgment was correct, but grave as Ms. Mapes's infraction was, it isn't quite in the same league as receiving $240,000 from the United States Treasury to propagandize for the Bush campaign on camera. Mr. Williams also appeared with Alan Murray on CNBC to trash Kitty Kelley's book on the Bush family, on CNN to accuse the media of being Michael Moore's "p.r. machine" and on Tina Brown's CNBC talk show to lambaste Mr. Stewart for doing a "puff interview" with John Kerry on "The Daily Show" (which Mr. Williams, unsurprisingly, seems to think is a real, not a fake, news program).

But perhaps the most fascinating Williams TV appearance took place in December 2003, the same month that he was first contracted by the government to receive his payoffs. At a time when no one in television news could get an interview with Dick Cheney, Mr. Williams, of all "journalists," was rewarded with an extended sit-down with the vice president for the Sinclair Broadcast Group, a nationwide owner of local stations affiliated with all the major networks. In that chat, Mr. Cheney criticized the press for its coverage of Halliburton and denounced "cheap shot journalism" in which "the press portray themselves as objective observers of the passing scene, when they obviously are not objective."

This is a scenario out of "The Manchurian Candidate." Here we find Mr. Cheney criticizing the press for a sin his own government was at that same moment signing up Mr. Williams to commit. The interview is broadcast by the same company that would later order its ABC affiliates to ban Ted Koppel's "Nightline" recitation of American casualties in Iraq and then propose showing an anti-Kerry documentary, "Stolen Honor," under the rubric of "news" in prime time just before Election Day. (After fierce criticism, Sinclair retreated from that plan.) Thus the Williams interview with the vice president, implicitly presented as an example of the kind of "objective" news Mr. Cheney endorses, was in reality a completely subjective, bought-and-paid-for fake news event for a broadcast company that barely bothers to fake objectivity and both of whose chief executives were major contributors to the Bush-Cheney campaign. The Soviets couldn't have constructed a more ingenious or insidious plot to bamboozle the citizenry.

In that final paragraph, at last, we see that the intractable right/left divide has once again reared its ugly head. Whereas George Will compared the Bush administration's tactics to the propaganda propagated under the East German communist regime, Rich likens the Bush team's approach to the Soviet method. So much for my paean to non-partisan concurrence and honest appraisals. I guess Will and Rich will just have to agree to disagree.

The recent three-day weekend bonanza continues with MLK day on Monday. I'm not sure if I'll be revisiting the keyboard until next week, but there is a good chance that I will be posting at least one piece that I have been kicking around between now and Tuesday. Return at your leisure (and for the record, whenever I say "leisure" it is with the proper British pronunciation, with a soft vowel sound.)

In the meantime, if the news has got you feeling half as distraught as me (or Praktike apparently), then you might be in need of some comic relief. Some suggestions:

Oyster at The Right Hand Thief says take two of these and call me in the morning offering a couple of true tales inspired by his adventures in parentdom. This is pure comedy, and this was nominated for funniest post in the Koufaxes for good reason. I laughed so hard I'm pretty sure some office mates who had been harboring doubts about my sanity thought their suspicions were confirmed. Thanks Oyster. If I get fired, I know where to come for a free lunch (jambalaya please). In the meantime, throw a vote his way. He might just earn a spot in the TIA administration yet.

RJ Eskow at Night Light is his usual self - and we're all the better for it. This guy is good, on a consistent basis. If it wasn't clear that TIA was more deserving of wider recognition, Night Light might merit a vote or two. But before you get all carried away, the operative word in that sentence was "if." What do you think this is, a charity.

Enjoy. See you on Tuesday or sooner...

I guess I'm not too busy to ask for votes - again. TIA made it into the semifinals of the 3rd Annual Koufax Awards in the category of "Most Deserving Of Wider Recognition" (hat tip to the ever vigilant Coturnix also known as the Circadianan One - and by the way, multiple blogs is a sure sign of conceit...or talent. Either one.).

This category always struck me as kind of odd since you need enough readership to prevail in the vote, but not so many that you would be disqualified from being described as deserving of more recognition. Hmmm, maybe a perfect fit for TIA. But only if you, the reader, vote by leaving a comment here.

Of course, I'm still accepting votes for Best New Blog and Best Overall Blog if you care to check the box. Think of it like an election where you vote for your preferred presidential candidate, and then keep pulling the levers down the line in mindless partisan uniformity.

In that sense, it's TIA for president. Hey, I like the sound of that....

I am slightly swamped at work today, and I don't have time to comment more substantively about a very serious report put out by the CIA's National Intelligence Council. The thrust of the study discusses the dynamic by which Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground, recruitment center, and networking hub of the next generation of jihadist terrorists. As al-Qaeda fades away, Iraq is spawning the raw materials, recruits, expertise, radicalized ideology and connections necessary to reinvigorate the movement and create myriad diffuse terrorist organizations that could wreak havoc in all corners of the globe over the next decade and beyond.

I'm waiting for someone on the Right to charge that this is George Tenet's "Leftist CIA" (isn't that an oxymoron by the way?) trying to sabotage Bush's reelection bid (Norm P.). Of course the election is over, and Tenet's CIA is now under the auspices of Porter Goss. Maybe now we can agree to look at the information and not the messenger? Time is of the essence after all.

The findings of this report confirm the main reason why I opposed the invasion of Iraq, and it is the one thing I hoped I was categorically wrong about (and continue to hope - though it is beginning to look grim). This is a nightmare scenario, but perhaps Praktike said it best with the title of his post on Liberals Against Terrorism. FCC decency laws forbid me from repeating it verbatim (Mr. Powell monitors TIA like a hawk), but I think it's safe to say Praktike isn't happy. Please check out his must read compilation of sources and analysis which provides a comprehensive view of the problem. He has relieved me of my duties today through his hard work.

Also, Tim Dunlop is on the case as always (he provided the link to the actual report). He kindly wades through the report to extract some important passages worthy of closer inspection.

The Glittering Eye chimes in with some commentary and a reiteration of a pledge that I think would be helpful to some on the Left since, like it or not, we are all a party to this mess and must try to be a part of the solution. The stakes are simply monumentally high.

From the Right, Marc Schulman at American Future dissects some other equally important aspects of the CIA report that have been overshadowed somewhat by the revelations on terrorism.

Nadezhda is keeping tabs on the three-way slugfest between James Wolcott, Roger Simon, and Norman Podhoretz over the ultimate fate of the version of the Bush Doctrine that aspires to the concept of "World War IV," as first enunciated by Podhoretz himself in an essay penned in September of 2004 (although the roots of this doctrine are found in the prior literature and rhetoric of Podhoretz's intellectual brethren). The latest exchange of volleys was prompted by Podhoretz's most recent effort, which is something of a sounding of the alarm for the defenders of World War IV which Podhoretz perceives as being under siege by the vast forces of the Left, as well as some on the wobbly Right; a summons which Simon answers in real time.

In terms of wit, Wolcott is besting his rivals, as he aptly proclaims, "I will be as civil as I can be with a knife permanently wedged between my teeth." A glimpse at his acerbic humor reveals the glint of a well positioned dagger or two. Podhoretz is doing the heavy lifting, though, with a lengthy polemic that is informative in some respects, but too replete with partisan snipes, blatant misinformation, and bias to accomplish its stated goal of persuasion - whereas Simon's is merely a brief offering of praise for Podhoretz's work. Then again, if the goal is simply to rally the troops around the doctrine of World War IV, then Podhoretz probably offers enough red meat to inspire the predisposed, as evidenced by Simon's hasty response.

Among Podhoretz's more egregious prevarications is a shoddy, revisionist look at the Vietnam war, and a steady drumb-beat of aspersions cast on almost all manner of liberal or left-of-center thinker - save Truman and LBJ who escape the falling axe of his judgment. There are many other points of contention in this piece, small and large, minor embellishments and grand distortions, a couple of which I will examine below. But first some background.

The World War IV characterization itself tracks nicely with the bellicose manifesto An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror penned by David Frum and Richard Perle (Pat Buchanon's take here), which was one of the most radical formulations of a solution to the Islamist terrorist threat to date. In that book, the authors advocate a series of invasions beginning with Iraq, and moving on to Syria, Iran, North Korea, and possibly Saudi Arabia, Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East (although I would presume Libya would be dropped from the list at this juncture due to recent developments). Along the way, according to the authors, the US should jettison the UN, and treat France as an open adversary.

Podhoretz's most recent version of this checklist of targets is slightly toned down, but problematic nonetheless. Praising Bush's resolve and tenacity, as well as interpreting signs from the Administration's recent cabinet shuffle (such as the ouster of Powell, the retention of Rumsfeld, and the transfer of Condoleeza Rice to State), Podhoretz offers his prediction for the next four years:

From this, as I see it, four things follow. The first is that Bush will do everything in his power to abide by his vow and to keep its ancillary promise by moving in due course and with all deliberate speed from Iraq to North Korea and Iran (with, it is to be hoped, a pit stop in Syria, which has been dispatching jihadi terrorists and weapons across the border into Iraq and which presents many fewer obstacles to military action). The second is that, with Iran as with Iraq before it, the issue of WMD is only the proximate or immediate casus belli. The strategic objective, as defined and mandated by the Bush Doctrine's prescription for the greater Middle East, is to drain yet another of the swamps in which Islamist terrorists are bred and nourished. [italics in original]

To Podhoretz, the prospects of the continuation of World War IV necessitates Bush "sticking to his guns" in relation to the doctrine of preventitive war by rejecting calls for caution and instead launching a series of military campaigns. While not every member of Bush's cabinet subscribes to such theories, Francis Fukuyama responded to Charles Krauthammer's call for World War IV with the following observation:

[Krauthammer's argument] is emblematic of a school of thought that has acquired strong influence inside the Bush Administration foreign policy team and beyond.

Others, such as William Kristol, have been shifting their focus to Syria, viewing that nation as a more plausible target than Iran or Saudi Arabia. This appears to be something of a compromise offered from the WW IV set.

Embrace of the World War IV concept turns on the premise that the US is currently engaged in an existential struggle with the Muslim world, a characterization that frequently fails to distinguish between the radicals and the moderates in any meaningful way. As such, the US has no option other than to lead a series of invasions against states that are seeking our annihilation, or are creating the conditions necessary for others to achieve such destruction. There is little distinction between nation state and trans-national terrorist group. They are treated as one and the same. Iraq was not the end of the campaign, but merely the beginning, and one which has taken more time and resources than anticipated. Here is Fukuyama on Krauthammer:

Krauthammer speaks of the United States as being in the midst of a bitter and remorseless war with an implacable enemy that is out to destroy Western civilization. This kind of language is appropriate as a description of Israel's strategic situation since the outbreak of the second intifada. The question is whether this accurately describes the position of the United States as well. Are we like Israel, locked in a remorseless struggle with a large part of the Arab and Muslim world, with few avenues open to us for dealing with them other than an iron fist? And in general, does a strategic doctrine developed by a small, vulnerable country surrounded by implacable enemies make sense when applied to the situation of the world's sole superpower, a country that spends as much on defense as the next 16 most powerful countries put together? I believe that there are real problems in transposing one situation to the other. While Israel's most immediate Arab interlocutors are indeed implacable enemies, the United States faces a much more complex situation. In Al-Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups, we do in fact confront an enemy that hates us for what we are rather than for what we do. For the reasons given above, I do not believe they are an existential threat to us, but they certainly would like to be, and it is hard to see how we can deal with them other than by killing, capturing or otherwise militarily neutralizing them.

On the nature of the threat:

This is not to say that Iraq and Al-Qaeda did not pose serious threats to American interests: the former was a very serious regional threat, and the latter succeeded in killing thousands of Americans on American soil. Use of WMD against the United States by a terrorist group would have terrible consequences, not just for the immediate victims but also for American freedoms in ways that could be construed as undermining our regime. But it is still of a lesser order of magnitude than earlier, state-based threats. The global Nazi and communist threats were existential both because their banner was carried by a great power, and because ideologically there were many people in the United States and throughout the Western world seduced by their vision. The Islamist threat has no such appeal, except perhaps in countries like France that have permitted high levels of immigration from Muslim countries.

Fukuyama's appraisal of the situation opens the door for approaches other than a series of invasions - an alternative approach that Podhoretz and his ilk reject outright. An indication of the path endorsed can be seen in an argument that Podhoretz raised in stating the case for Bush's unswerving commitment to the World War IV mindset. It was in response to an article by Edward Luttwak which predicted that the second Bush administration would follow the pattern of most second administrations in moving toward the middle.

In backing up this thesis, Luttwak notes that Ronald Reagan became less rather than more hawkish in his second term, while Bill Clinton, after neglecting foreign policy in his first term, immersed himself in it with a vengeance once he was reelected....

What we see here is yet another of those famous "misunderestimations" of George W. Bush. In common with almost every pundit and every inhabitant of every foreign ministry on the face of the earth, Luttwak fails to recognize the exceptionally strong leader America has found in this President, or to take the measure of his boldness, his determination, and his stamina. The poll-driven Bill Clinton may have reverted to "the moderate mean," but Bush, although an immensely skillful politician, is not nearly so poll-driven. And while the Bush Doctrine was certainly inspired and influenced by Ronald Reagan, Bush will just as certainly travel a different road from the one Reagan took in his second term. [emphasis added]

That is a very interesting statement. Consider, for a moment, what Reagan was able to achieve by taking the moderate "road" in his second term. It was nothing short of a tectonic watershed moment in history. Brilliant really. He played willing partner to Gorbachev's dance of glasnost and perestroika. Relations between the US and the USSR thawed as never before, paving the way for the eventual collapse of the Iron Curtain, and an era of American unipolarity. But Podhoretz assures us that Bush will not follow Reagan's lead. And this is supposed to comfort us somehow?

Clearly the situations are not completely analogous, but Reagan's approach provides a valuable lesson. Reagan staked out strong positions, made clear his forceful intentions, and then, when the opportunity was right, he played the moderate. Bush should do the same. After leading us into Iraq and Afghanistan, and establishing his hawkish bona fides, it would suit Bush now to cultivate the soft power options that have been neglected and overlooked thus far. Not with the jihadists mind you. They are not going to produce a Gorbachev-like figure. But there are other avenues and leaders through which Bush can seek to influence the Middle East, and improve the United States' relationship with the Muslim world. It is a perfect time to do as Reagan did.

The second portion of Podhoretz's essay which stood out to me, was his characterization of the CIA and the State Department:

First [Bush] sent Porter Goss to the CIA with a mandate to clean out the officials there who (apart from providing faulty intelligence) had been hell-bent on sabotaging the Bush Doctrine. And then he turned his attention to the State Department. Under Colin Powell, it, too, had been actively undermining the President's policy to the point where it came to be described by those in a position to know as the "most insubordinate" State Department in American history.

It is odd that he takes a swipe at the CIA for "faulty intelligence" and claiming it was "sabotaging" the Bush Doctrine. A closer look reveals the fact that the CIA was quite cooperative with the Bush administration in making the case for war with Iraq, at least in terms of coming up with what would eventually come to be known as "faulty intelligence." Compare the CIA's appraisal of Saddam's WMD capacity before the preparation of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), and the conclusions which that document came to, and it is clear that Tenet's CIA went out of its way to appease those in the Bush White House who were demanding proof. The NIE consistently painted the worst case scenario of the Iraqi threat, stretching the existing intelligence to its limites and beyond. Even then, that wasn't enough to forestall the creation of the Office of Special Plans set up in order to cherry pick unvetted intelligence that the CIA was too reluctant to use.

Within that context, his assault on the State Department seems even odder. The State Department consistently had the most accurate assessment of Saddam's WMD arsenal, including the prescient conclusion that Saddam had no nuclear program. State also was the most prophetic in its predictions regarding post-war Iraq. They compiled the Future of Iraq Project which warned of insurgencies, advised against disbanding the Army, cautioned against widespread de-Baathification, warned of looting, requested more troops, and planned for other peacekeeping functions. In Podhoretz's world though, these are the saboteurs and traitors. The people that advised the President to ignore this vast expanse of scholarship and who accepted the now discredited intelligence from Ahmad Chalabi's organization (Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith) are his allies. If the mission in Iraq is really a part of the Bush Doctrine and WW IV, wouldn't Bush be better served by honest advisors who deal in the truth rather than wishful thinking? Whose version of post-war Iraq would have been a better model to plan around? I think the answer is obvious.

In the sum of this piece, Podhoretz seems to be urging Bush to stay the course, despite the fact that he couches Bush's determination in terms of a fait accompli. One gets the impression that he is trying to convince Bush that he should be resolute as much as he is seeking to reassure the reader that Bush is firmly entrenched in the World War IV camp - a dual message that might be taking on a sense of urgency considering the recent momentum that the disengagement camp is building up. Throughout it all, is the meme of the defeatists threatening to erode the will of the World Warriors. Just as the mistakes of Vietnam were blamed on the anti-war movement, and not the fallacy of the strategy and policy, so too Podhoretz is laying the ground work for the blame-game should the Bush administration eventually decide that Iraq is unwinnable, and the cost too high. Perhaps we are witnessing the birth of an internet-driven phenomenon: revisionism in real time.

Belgravia Dispatch weighs in on the "Salvador Option" story which I discussed here. Djerejian believes the Newsweek article covering the story is largely "hyperbolic," and he may be right. I can't say that the story is authentic, but when the underlying coverage is about employing death squads, I believe in preemptive condemnations. Better to keep that unsavory option off the table, or even out of the realm of possibility, rather than hand wringing after the fact. If my outrage was much ado about nothing, all the better.

Djerejian also expresses his displeasure with Rumsfeld's evasive and vague answers to questions regarding the story. He's got a point. Rumsfeld denied the veracity of Newsweek's account, but repeatedly asserted that he hadn't read the story when probed on specifics. Considering the brevity of the actual article, the decision to hold a press briefing and field questions on the matter while claiming he hasn't read the story is either duplicity or negligence on Rumsfeld's part. Part of a pattern for him I suppose, like when he famously claimed not to have read Taguba's report when queried by the Senate looking into the Abu Ghraib incidents.

Because of Rumsfeld's repeated claim of a lack of first hand knowledge regardnig the details in the story, the forcefulness of his denial of the allegations was greatly undermined. Other portions of his responses seemed deliberately ambiguous as well, leaving open many avenues for speculation. Quoting BD:

3) by stating that the "Pentagon doesn't do things like are described in the reporting on the story [emphasis added]" he likely keeps the story alive by causing people to wonder if the CIA is spearheading the effort instead (from the Newsweek article: "Also being debated is which agency within the U.S. government - the Defense department or CIA - would take responsibility for such an operation.").

Matthew Yglesias disagrees and thinks the Rumsfeld press briefing "contains some pretty heavy denying of the Newsweek death squad story without much in the way of weasel words."

I tend to agree with Greg though. Regardless of the ultimate accuracy of the story, and especially if there is no truth to it, Rumsfeld could have simply handled this better by coming to the press conference having read the brief article, and, if false, being more categorical in his denials. Why leave the door ajar at all, and why go out of your way to proclaim ignorance of a topic you are going to discuss?

For the record, that's the second time I've sided with Djerejian over Yglesias. Honing my bi-partisan bona fides perhaps?

George Bush hasn't even been inaugurated yet, and the incipient rumblings that began when Bob Novak floated a trial balloon in September about the Bush administration pulling out of Iraq in 2005 have grown to a proverbial roar. Novak's allegations led one incredulous right-of-center blogger to proclaim:

I have grave doubts about the accuracy of Novak's story....[But if true] What a massive, breathtaking and morally defunct abdication of American leadership that would be! I would have to hold my head in deep shame for having supported this Administration's Iraq war. Say it ain't so!?!

The latest contribution to the cascading avalanche of disengagement endorsements came from the notoriously hawkish, and pro-Iraq war, think tank Stratfor (via Andrew Sullivan). Sullivan excerpts from the report which is only available via subscription:

The issue facing the Bush administration is simple. It can continue to fight the war as it has, hoping that a miracle will bring successes in 2005 that didn't happen in 2004. Alternatively, it can accept the reality that the guerrilla force is now self-sustaining and sufficiently large not to flicker out and face the fact that a U.S. conventional force of less than 150,000 is not likely to suppress the guerrillas. More to the point, it can recognize these facts: 1. The United States cannot re-engineer Iraq because the guerrillas will infiltrate every institution it creates. 2. That the United States by itself lacks the intelligence capabilities to fight an effective counterinsurgency. 3. That exposing U.S. forces to security responsibilities in this environment generates casualties without bringing the United States closer to the goal. 4. That the strain on the U.S. force is undermining its ability to react to opportunities and threats in the rest of the region. And that, therefore, this phase of the Iraq campaign must be halted as soon as possible.

That is strong language to say the least. This appraisal comes on the heels of a spate of pessimistic reports from Bush administration allies, as well as an attempt to begin spinning withdrawal as victory. Novak got the jump on the crowd with this bit:

This messy new Iraq is viewed by Bush officials as vastly preferable to Saddam's police state, threatening its neighbors and the West. In private, some officials believe the mistake was not in toppling Saddam but in staying there for nation building after the dictator was deposed.

Pundits like Charles Krauthammer have attempted to redefine success along similar lines, arguing that civil war in Iraq could be a useful tool. Others have begun to extol the virtues of splitting Iraq up into manageable mini-states along ethnic lines. Reuel Marc Gerecht even went as far as to suggest that Sunni and Shiite fundamentalists may hold the key to democratization in the Middle East. I expect we will be hearing other such rationales about how withdrawal equals success in some form or another.

These rationalizations ignore the very real possibility that counter-terrorism experts have warned about: Iraq becoming a haven for jihadists. A "messy" Iraq, or one engulfed in Civil War, will mean the existence of a failed state in the center of the Persian Gulf. What was, before the invasion, a nation with no connection to al-Qaeda and relatively no connection to fundamentalism, will become an ideal spawning ground and base of operations for al-Qaeda like terrorist organizations. The danger that Iraq was held out to be in the run-up to the invasion would become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Don't misunderstand me, I think that we should do everything in our power to try to hold Iraq together, including maintaining a military presence in Iraq in order to try to insure some modicum of stability and stave off a slide into sectarian violence. I think that a peaceful, democratic, and stable Iraq is in America's best interest, and the interest of most progressive nations and movements. The alternative, a failed state, is horrific. I have even attempted to offer some advice on how to best achieve this vis-a-vis the elections to be held later this month.

Nevertheless, I am struck by the apparent incongruity of the claims of many Bush supporters, and the reality that would ensue if Novak is right. Remember, the big fear amongst many conservatives was that Kerry, if elected, would "cut and run" from Iraq, abandoning the noble mission of democratization and the hapless Iraqi people. Somehow, this was conflated with the left's treasonous abandonment of the Vietnamese people (regardless of Nixon's involvement in the matter). This meme was hammered away at repeatedly by the media and punditry alike. Americans were warned, through accusation and insinuation, of Kerry's nefarious intentions.

What would those concerns mean in the face of a Bush administration withdrawal? Would the war's supporters hang their heads in shame? Maybe it is a fait accompli, as the Stratfor people argue, and the Bush administration has no choice but to begin the process of withdrawal. Maybe the only other path is the adoption of the "Salvador option" which could be worse than withdrawal, or too morally bankrupt to adopt.

At least in this regard, I am thankful that Kerry lost the election. If the US must pull out of Iraq in defeat and ignominy, let it be the Bush administration's legacy alone, because they are the rightful owners. Like McNamara was the father of the "Vietnam Syndrome," Rumsfeld's bequest would be the Iraq Syndrome. In some bizarre sense I am relieved by the fact that there will not be a liberal scapegoat in the White House to be held accountable for this failure in policy, if that is what the Iraq invasion turns out to be. I'm not sure how long it would take the Democrats, if ever, to live down the stigma attached to the party if President Kerry had to make such a decision. Maybe he would realize the strategic blow this would deal his compatriots and thus be inclined to remain in Iraq past the point of no return, in turn causing more harm. This is part of what I meant when I said back in August that if Bush wins, he loses. Let's hope it never comes to that.

Reader, and frequent commenter, Avedis has pointed to an article appearing in the most recent issue of Newsweek that has touched off a bit of controversy. The article claims that Bush administration officials and Pentagon insiders have been considering adopting a plan that has been termed "the Salvador option."

...the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration’s battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers....

Following that model, one Pentagon proposal would send Special Forces teams to advise, support and possibly train Iraqi squads, most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers, even across the border into Syria, according to military insiders familiar with the discussions. [emphasis added]

As the article notes, this strategy has increasingly been defended by conservative policy makers as an example of an effective means to employ when faced with a certain set of circumstances relating to insurgencies.

Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success—despite the deaths of innocent civilians and the subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal.

Predictably, Glenn Reynolds (via Kevin Drum) is rushing to the defense of the Bush administration - sort of. He starts off on a tangent criticizing Newsweek for conflating El Salvador with Nicaragua, even though he misses the connection between El Salvador and Iran-Contra that Kevin describes. Although Reynolds claims to find merit in arguments for and against the El Salvador model, he seems to be employing a legal device known to litigators as pleading in the alternative (which involves offering two seemingly contradictory defenses at once so that if one fails, there is another that can be employed in its stead).

In the updates, Reynolds approvingly links on the one hand to stories that seem to suggest that Newsweek got the story wrong, due to bias, and that the death squads in El Salvador received no real support from the Reagan administration (a dubious claim considering the CIA's tactics and methods elsewhere in Latin America, and the levels of financial and military support and coordination between the United States and El Salvador at the time, unless we are to assume that such aid was provided in willful ignorance and with no strings attached). In the alternative, he links to stories advocating the position that the El Salvador model was a successful strategy and the tactics, although unsavory, were actually more humane than other methods and weapons that would lead to more collateral damage. So, according to these seemingly conflicting accounts, we didn't support the counter-insurgency operations in El Salvador in the first place, and, at the same time, it was good that we did support them because our strategy worked and therefore we should employ a modified version in Iraq. They are stuck between taking credit and denial.

Aside from, and including, the internal contradictions on the Right, these revelations raise a series of questions and problems. First, if the Bush administration adopts or even discusses the adoption of the El Salvador model - employing paramilitary forces involved in assassinations and other military actions - does that mean that conservatives will finally admit that the death squads existed and were part of our foreign policy in the region in the first place? Or will the cognitive dissonance allow for the argument, described above, that we should adopt the El Salvador model because it was successful in certain regards, even though it never existed in the first place.

Second, unlike El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and other nations in Central America in the 1980s, the world will be watching Iraq intently with constant international scrutiny - particularly from areas that we consider extremely important from a strategic point of view (namely the Muslim world). In a war of ideas with propagandists like Bin Laden, this will not serve our side well. Much of what went on in Central America during the 1980s occurred under a relative state of darkness - able to be denied, spun, and dismissed (witness the current level of dissimulation and denial even now). There will be no such opportunity this time, at least beyond the higly polarized home front, and this could effect what some argue would be the efficacy of such operations.

If we are attempting to sell our values and our image to groups of people that we are simultaneously encouraging to undertake the daunting task of making wholesale changes in world view and societal alignment, we must approach them from a position that is admirable, enviable, and inspirational. It will not be enough to say that our paramilitaries are different than Saddam's Fedayeen because the groups we sponsor are trying to establish democracy. Such distinctions will be lost on the innocent civilians and observers impacted by these forces. We must act in a manner that is more exemplary if we want to usher in such monumental changes, especially when dealing with a population that is already resigned to a certain level of cynicism and anti-American bias.

Finally, and perhaps most problematic, is the fact that the paramilitary groups will be composed of Kurdish Peshmerga and fighters from Shiite militias, and they will be primarily employed in the terrorizing of the Sunni population. Although some have suggested that these operations would not target the Sunni population as a whole, that would appear to be contradicted by the stated purpose of the mission.

One military source involved in the Pentagon debate agrees that this is the crux of the problem, and he suggests that new offensive operations are needed that would create a fear of aiding the insurgency. "The Sunni population is paying no price for the support it is giving to the terrorists," he said. "From their point of view, it is cost-free. We have to change that equation." [emphasis added]

In addition, recent estimates of the level of support for the insurgency (200,000 which includes 25-50,000 active fighters and 150,000 or more supporters) suggest that any effort to dissuade this large a group would require large scale crackdowns that would inevitably, and somewhat intentionally, affect the Sunni population at large.

Even if the stated mission were narrow in scope, consider how hard it is to restrain the impulses of highly trained regular forces in the chaotic arena of conflict - let alone irregular militias. Some well-trained career soldiers inevitably lose control, commit atrocities, and go beyond the bounds of accepted behavior, allowing themselves to fall victim to the psychological pathologies of war. In the present context, we will be dealing with paramilitary organizations with less training, oversight, and restraint than proper forces. Add to that already volatile mixture the fact that they will be ethnically delineated: with Shiites and Kurds acting against a Sunni population whose leaders in the Baath Party were responsible for countless atrocities and brutalities against their own people just months earlier. That is a recipe for ethnic cleansing, atrocities, and large scale "reprisals" which could trigger a full blown outbreak of the nascent civil war already gathering steam.

If such ethnically charged violence were occurring under the watchful eye of Iraq's many Sunni neighbors, this would provoke an even increased level of foreign involvement from outraged Sunni emigres - not to mention an even greater level of anti-Americanism in a region of the world that we can ill afford such a trend. A regional crisis of this scale could have the potential for wider implications, triggering strife between Sunni and Shiite sects from Pakistan and Iran to Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Syria (some of which is already rearing its ugly head, as in Pakistan).

While we are debating the wisdom and efficacy of the El Salvador program, let us not forget about just how brutal and murderous this period was, lest we fall prey to the seductive appeal of euphoric recall. Speaking of the French Revolution, author Milan Kundera said that time mitigates all crimes, "For how can we condemn something that is ephemeral, in transit. In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine."

Billmon has broken his prolonged silence to provide a brief and partial list of some of the incidents that should add glint, sharpness, and blood to the proverbial "guillotine" which has grown increasingly alluring through the distant perspective time has afforded.

From US Immigration services:

During 1982 and 1983, approximately 8,000 civilians a year were being killed by government forces. Although the figure is less than in 1980 and 1981, targeted executions as well as indiscriminate killings nonetheless remained the policy of the military and internal security forces, part of what Professor William Stanley of the University of New Mexico has described as a "strategy of mass murder" designed to terrorize the civilian population as well as opponents of the government.

From the UN truth commission:

On the Afternoon of 10 December 1981, units of the Atlacal Rapid Deployment Infantry Battalion (BIRI) arrived in the village of El Mozote, Department of Morazan, after a clash with the guerrillas in the vicinity . . .

Early next morning, 11 December, the soldiers reassembled the entire population in the square. They separated the men from the women and children and locked everyone up in different groups in the church, the convent and various houses.

During the morning, they proceeded to interrogate, torture and execute the men in various locations. Around noon, they began taking the women in groups, separating them from their children and machine-gunning them. Finally, they killed the children. A group of children who had been locked in the convent were machine-gunned through the windows. After exterminating the entire population, the soldiers set fire to the buildings.

As recounted by globalsecurity.org:

On Monday, 24 March 1980, the Archbishop of San Salvador, Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez, was celebrating mass in the Chapel of the Hospital de la Divina Providencia when he was killed by a professional assassin who fired a single .22 or .223 calibre bullet from a red, four-door Volkswagen vehicle. The bullet hit its mark, causing the Archbishop's death from severe bleeding.

Former Major Roberto D'Aubuisson gave the order to assassinate the Archbishop and gave precise instructions to members of his security service, acting as a "death squad", to organize and supervise the assassination.

Also from the UN Truth Commission:

One especially horrid incident from one conflict involved the rape and murder of three US Roman Catholic nuns and a lay worker by National Guard troops in El Salvador in 1980. Last week, the New York Times reported that four Salvadoran troops, serving 30-year prison terms for the crime, have implicated top commanders of the Salvadoran Army as ordering the executions . . .

A New York-based human rights group is demanding the US government investigate the incident again, to determine why a former head of the Salvadoran National Guard, Colonel Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, was allowed to come to the United States and settle in Florida.

And another incident involving the clergy:

On the night of November 16, 1989, the unthinkable happened. Twenty six members of the Salvadoran military — nineteen of whom were trained at the U.S. Army School of the Americas — raided the Jesuit residence at the UCA, pulled Fr. Cortina's six Jesuit brothers and two women co-workers from their beds, and brutally murdered them in front of the rectory.

On the lighter side (though not Unbearably so), Tim Dunlop offers a witty recounting of the shifting goal posts and rationales for the invasion of Iraq in light of the El Salvador revelations - complete with Cliff Notes for those in need.

TIA has made it to the semifinals in at least two categories in the 3rd Annual Koufax Awards for left-leaning blogs. Somewhat improbably, TIA has moved on to the second round in the Best Blog by a Non-Professional/Sponsored Blog cateogry. Due to the fact that TIA is not as highly trafficked as some of the heavy hitters in that category, I don't think I have much of a shot, but hey, if you want to vote for me, you can leave a comment here or you can e-mail MB at (wampum at maine dot rr dot com). If not a vote for TIA, I would urge my readers to vote for either Legal Fiction or Road To Surfdom (I'm hunting other game anyway, as I'll explain below). Although there are many very worthy semi-finalists, and I can't say that I am familiar enough with most of them to pass judgment, for me personally those two are standouts (and from the look of things in the comments section, Legal Fiction is getting a good turnout, but hey, we haven't yet unleased the legion of the Totally Informed). In addition, Legal Fiction was nominated for Best Writing and Best Expert Blog (showoff).

In the category of Best Group Blog, the two deserving of a vote, for my money, are Liberals Against Terrorism and Obsidian Wings. There are other categories as well, and more that will be added in the upcoming days so give Wampum a thorough perusing (the categories are compiled in the upper left corner).

For TIA, I think the best shot is in the Best New Blog category. I only started in May of this year, so I'm a perfect fit for this event in Left Blogistan's Olympics. My interest is really in upping the profile over here a bit and attracting more readers and commenters. Improving on the visibility of the little community we have begun to form over here and at other related sites would be aided greatly by a spot in the finals. So venture forth Informationeers and spread the love here or to the e-mail address mentioned above.

It's Friday, so I slacked. What do you expect, a novella every day? Besides, I was busy composing important sounding quotes for Tim Dunlop. Enjoy the weekend. I'll see you on Monday. In the meantime, go and have a look at what Liberals Against Terrorism are doing (putting their money where Beinart ran his mouth - and praktike, nadezhda and MC MasterChef beat him to the punch to boot).

As an aside, I'm willing to take wagers on just how many of the seemingly ubiquitous "praktikes" there actually are in the blogosphere. The current estimate is 198, but you can bet over or under.

The game of hypothetical universes continues over at the Daily Demarche, with new versions profferred by the Glittering Eye and A Guy In Pajamas (love the name), as well as some reader commentary.

In furtherance of this effort, I suppose it is worth mentioning that this would probably not be happening in Bizarro TIA-ville.

The head of the Army Reserve has sent a sharply worded memo to other military leaders expressing "deepening concern" about the continued readiness of his troops, who have been used heavily in Iraq and Afghanistan, and warning that his branch of 200,000 soldiers "is rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force."...

The three-star general, who has a reputation for speaking bluntly, said the situation has reached a point at which the Army Reserve is "in grave danger of being unable to meet" its operational requirements if other national emergencies arise. Insistence on restrictive policies, he continued, "threatens to unhinge an already precariously balanced situation in which we are losing as many soldiers through no use as we are through the fear of overuse."...

His pointed remarks represent the latest in a chorus of warnings from military officers and civilian defense specialists that the strains of overseas missions are badly fraying the U.S. Army. The distress has appeared most evident in reservist ranks. Both the Army Reserve and the National Guard last month disclosed significant recruiting slumps...

"The purpose of this memorandum is to inform you of the Army Reserve's inability . . . to meet mission requirements" associated with Iraq and Afghanistan "and to reset and regenerate its forces for follow-on and future missions," he wrote.

"I do not wish to sound alarmist," he added. "I do wish to send a clear, distinctive signal of deepening concern."

Our men and women in the Reserves and National Guard deserve better. Let's support our troops both in name and deed.

Josh Marshall has a post about the breaking story of the leaked memo from Peter Wehner, the deputy to White House political director Karl Rove. The memo outlines the President's Social Security strategy detailing, among other things, the need to create the perception that the Social Security system is in crisis. Marshall quotes this passage from the memo:

Let me tell you first what our plans are in terms of sequencing and political strategy. We will focus on Social Security immediately in this new year. Our strategy will probably include speeches early this month to establish an important premise: the current system is heading for an iceberg. The notion that younger workers will receive anything like the benefits they have been promised is fiction, unless significant reforms are undertaken. We need to establish in the public mind a key fiscal fact: right now we are on an unsustainable course. That reality needs to be seared into the public consciousness; it is the pre-condition to authentic reform.

A bit suspicious looking, but still relatively benign, and easily explained away. But then, the following phrases are revealed:

For the first time in six decades, the Social Security battle is one we can win -- and in doing so, we can help transform the political and philosophical landscape of the country...[this is] one of the most important conservative undertakings of modern times. [emphasis added]

Marshall is right to conclude:

So now you can see from memos emerging from the White House itself that this isn't about 'saving' Social Security. If it were, what would that sentence mean -- ("For the first time in six decades, the Social Security battle is one we can win")? The first time in six decades they can save it?

Precisely. Social Security hasn't needed saving for six decades - although you couldn't tell from the frequent GOP scare tactics. On the contrary, it has been delivering a decent wage and a dignified existence, for most of the 20th century, to retired American's who have contributed, in their working lives and beyond, to the greatness and wealth of this country. Further, it is solvent, under even the most pessimistic prognostications, for at least the next fifty years. So let me get this straight, the GOP has been waging a battle dating back to the 1940's in order to "save" a system whose crisis would entail the need to pay out only 80% of the benefits promised in the far away time of 2050 (assuming no modifications and improvements)? If you believe that, there's this bridge about ten blocks from my apartment....

Marshall continues:

Clearly, this isn't about 'saving' Social Security. It is a battle to end Social Security and replace with something that Wehner clearly understands is very different, indeed the antithesis of Social Security.
This entire debate is about ideology -- between people who believe in the benefits Social Security has brought America in the last three-quarters of a century and those who think it was a bad idea from the start. There is an honest debate to have on this point, a values debate. Only, the White House understands that the belief that Social Security was always a bad program isn't widely shared by Americans. So they have to wrap their effort in a package of lies, harnessing Americans' desire to save Social Security in their own effort to destroy it.

We must understand that conservatives have, as a matter of principle, opposed the Social Security system since before it was enacted, and have many times in the past attempted to do away with it. This is not speculation, or some conspiracy theory, this is part of the conservative ethos and world view that they themselves have proudly and defiantly proclaimed in the movement's literature and mission statements. What they have learned though, often the hard way, is that it Social Security is the proverbial political "third rail," so they have had to modify their approach. Now they are using the current fiscal crisis, generated by their own profligate spending and massive tax cuts, as well as a healthy dose of duplicity concerning the solvency of Social Security in order to introduce a plan designed to sink the system and further grow the debt, and thus finally win a battle they have been waging for the past "six decades." That sounds an awful lot like the premise of a story I penned way back in August.

Here is the lead paragraph to that post:

It has been the stated and unstated goal of conservatives in America to undo the legacies of the liberal policies enacted under the rubric of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's visionary New Deal and Lyndon Johnson's bold Great Society. The elimination of these programs is a central tenet of the goal to shrink the size of the federal government, to "starve the beast" and usher in an era of truly small government. The two most prominent survivors of this siege, Social Security and Medicare, have been the nemeses of conservative lawmakers, almost since their inception, even displaying the resilience to withstand the power of Reagan's overwhelming legislative mandate. They represent the last vestige of the American voters' refusal to vote against their interest.

Any Democrat so craven as to go along with this nefarious charade deserves to be recalled or impeached - although in my imagination I could come up with far more draconian punishments. Note to the Party: get a spine already, this is your issue. If the GOP wants to kill Social Security, do not provide them the cover of bipartisanship. Make them own it. Let it be their legacy.

[Update: Josh Marshall has the full text of the Wehner memo available here. Peruse at your leisure.]

The good people at the Daily Demarche have invited TIA to partake in an extended discussion premised on the hypothetical posit, "What if we never invaded Iraq." The two denizens of the Daily Demarche, Smiley and Dr. Demarche, have already published their versions of events, as has Marc Schulman of American Future. In that sense, I perhaps have an unfair advantage in that I can respond to some of their postulations. I will try to keep that to a minimum, though, and offer as balanced and independent an appraisal as possible.

Afghanistan

The story begins in the months after 9/11 and with the invasion of Afghanistan which occurred in actual, not hypothetical, history. Immediately after the attacks of 9/11, contrary to the designs of Bin Laden, most Muslims were outraged, shocked, and disgusted by the violence and destruction perpetrated in their religion's name. The mayor of Teheran criticized the attacks, there were candlelight vigils across the country that regards the US as the "Great Satan," leaders of various nations, including our erstwhile foe Muammar Qaddafi, voiced stern condemnations, and there were outspoken denunciations from religious leaders of all faiths. Of note was the reaction at Cairo's Al Azhar mosque which is, as Spencer Ackerman noted, the "closest thing Sunni Islam has to a Vatican."

Days after September 11, 2001, Al Azhar's university rector, Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, issued a Koranic condemnation of the attacks: "Attacking innocent people is not courageous, it is stupid and will be punished on the Day of Judgment."

The rest of the world was taken with sympathy for America, and this afforded the Bush administration a rare position of strength, support, and leverage from which to undertake several bold new measures aimed at addressing many of the underlying problems behind the attacks and the ideology of jihad. The general perception was that the United States was justified, al-Qaeda needed to be dealt with, and the United States had no ulterior motives. In truth, the United States did have an ulterior motive of sorts, but it is one that was not unpopular: the concept that Afghanistan could be made more democratic, and through this, change the shape of the region. Senator Joe Biden famously remarked:

Remember all the talk that the Muslim street was going to rise up if we went into Afghanistan?" One reason it didn't was the near-unanimity of the international community in support of the invasion.

This lack of uprising and outrage was a great shock to Bin Laden. He was left somewhat demoralized and disillusioned by his failure to incite a widespread popular movement. He thought the invasion of Afghanistan would have been enough, but he had also anticipated and expected a disproportionate reprisal by the Americans, a wild lashing out at an unrelated Muslim nation that would provoke anger amongst Muslims and scorn from the international community. But the Bush administration had outsmarted him, instead opting for a popular effort to retaliate against the perpetrators of a near-universally recognized crime. For an example of what Bin Laden expected, look at what the reaction at the same mosque described above would have been had we invaded Iraq:

Yet fury over the invasion of Iraq turned Al Azhar's denouncement of Bin Laden into approval of his ideology. On the eve of the war, the mosque's scholars wrote, "According to Islamic law, if the enemy steps on Muslims' land, jihad becomes a duty on every male and female Muslim."

In this sense, Afghanistan did not hinder our efforts to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim population we are trying to influence in order to isolate and marginalize the radicals. Still, the democracy promotion part of the equation was not so clear a victory.

Afghanistan was less than an ideal destination to attempt nation building and democracy promotion - and that is an understatement. The country had been racked by decades of conflict, the economy was in shambles (which many who believe that certain economic preconditions are necessary for the birth of democracy warned was a non-starter), the population consists of myriad disparate ethnicities with competing interests, armed militias and warlords controlled various fiefdoms within the borders, there were none of the attendant democratic institutions or even precursors, and many other reasons to boot. Given the size of the task, success would require sustained effort on the part of the United States and the international community. Decades of dedication, nurturing, aid, security personnel, focus and attention were needed to midwife this long suffering nation into modernity and democracy.

That being said, the stakes were high and the outcome was worth fighting for. If the US could pull this off, the world - and most importantly the Muslim world - would be changed forever. This would serve to restore the image and credibility of the US in the region of the world where our image was most in need of rehabilitation. We could erase the bitter memories of abandonment that many Afghanis and other Muslims harbor following our withdrawal from our first stint in Afghanistan during that nation's revolt against the Soviets. It would go a long way toward undercutting the ideological appeal of al-Qaeda and for many the US would be seen as a force for good again.

Thankfully, due to the lack of competition from Iraq, the Bush administration was able to maintain a robust military and intelligence detail trained squarely on Afghanistan, which also monopolized the bulk of the money, resources, and other nation building assets in our arsenal. Although the road was bumpy, and the process resulted in many setbacks, the Taliban was nearly eradicated, opium production was severely curtailed, the war lords were brought to the table (sometimes forcibly), President Karzai's influence extended well beyond Kabul, and Afghan's had a cause for hope and optimism beyond any Afghan's recollection. In addition, rumors abounded that Bin Laden perished either in the fierce siege of Tora Bora, or the related flanking maneuvers undertaken at the Pakistani border by a large US military presence that was never diverted to Iraq.

Even if he survived the campaign, it was argued, his operations had been decimated, many members killed or captured, and his ideology was waning in its appeal and luster. This was due in large part to the intensive US military conduct, the subsequent nation building in Afghanistan, the other bold strategies outlined below, and the lack of the type of response anticipated by Bin Laden.

A Shift In Strategy

Seizing on the momentum from Afghanistan, and the buttressed popular opinion lingering from 9/11 sentimentalities, the Bush administration began a visionary task of realigning our priorities in the Middle East. Realizing the urgency of the matter in the grand context, the Bush administration followed the proposal of the 9/11 Commission and engaged the Islamic world in a "true battle of ideas." The administration wisely eschewed rhetoric that cast the war on terror as a new "Crusade" or as a struggle of good vs. evil, and this assuaged fears of a clash of civilizations or American imperialism. The Bush team quickly realized that "attempts to change Islamic opinion with an Arabic-language satellite-television news station and an Arabic radio station carrying rock music were simply not enough."

Instead, the administration began funding a program to replace the hate-fostering madrassahs with modern educational programs, and provided resources for other pro-democracy and reform movements which had themselves been gaining momentum following the soul searching introspection that had occurred in the Muslim world in the wake of 9/11. We promoted democracy using strategies narrowly tailored on a country-by-country basis or "provided practical steps for moving theocracies and autocracies in that direction." Our pro-democratic efforts was perceived as sincere because our exhortations were not seen as hypocritical in view of our bombing, torture, and occupation tactics in Iraq. We began to "successfully work behind the scenes with our Muslim friends to create an ideological counterweight to the jihadis."

In this sense, the Bush administration adroitly averted the strategic blunder in the war of ideas that an invasion of Iraq would have led to. Although he supported the invasion of Iraq, Fareed Zakaria never uttered these words:

Bush does not seem aware that the intense hostility toward him in every country in the world (save Israel) has made it very difficult for the United States to be the agent of freedom. In every Arab country that I have been to in the last two years, the liberals, reformers and businessmen say, "Please don't support us. American support today is the kiss of death."

Encouraged by the improved rapport, and strengthened by the active US involvement, reform movements and pro-democracy efforts began gaining momentum on their own, resulting in a domino effect of change in the region. This evolution closely resembled the international spread of one-time internal movements that took place in the vast majority of regions that had chosen democracy in areas as diverse as Eastern Europe, Russia, Mexico, South and Central America, and Asia. Though the process was gradual, progress was apparent early on, and continues to this day.

These developments caught Bin Laden, and like minded jihadists, off guard. His propaganda about an American led crusade appeared hollow. There was no "war on Islam." America was, after all, working with Muslims, and had not extended aggressions beyond Afghanistan. The wellspring from which they sought to recruit new martyrs was not as fertile as it would have been had America reacted as Bin Laden wanted and expected. While anti-Americanism was not extinguished overnight, nor did terrorism cease to be a threat, the Muslim culture developed less tolerance for such actions and began to closer resemble Western societies like Spain, England, and America - plagued with less virulent domestic terrorist problems. Aid, support, and reverence for the jihadists began to recede, and their were not a myriad of copycat organizations that sprouted up in the wake of the Iraq campaign. Most importantly from a logistical perspective, the jihadists would be denied a new training ground and central hub now that their Afghan base was destroyed. As described by Matt Yglesias:

...denying al-Qaeda its Afghan sanctuary has done more than many appreciate to screw up its operations. Even with many leading personnel still at large, without even a vague address to report to, would-be jihadis couldn't really sign up. Thus, despite rising anti-Americanism and the continuing appeal of the Salafi jihad in principle, it was hard for the network to gain new nodes and grow new cells.

But now we need to add the growth of the Iraqi insurgency into the equation. Once again, as during al-Qaeda's Afghan period, a would-be jihadi knows where he needs to go. He knows -- as I know and as you, the gentle reader knows -- that you can fight Americans in Iraq. He knows that the jihad takes place primarily in the "Sunni triangle" and the "triangle of death" both in the vicinity of Baghdad. He knows that the Syrian border is said to be the source of most of the insurgency's external inputs of manpower, money, and materiel. In other words, once again if you want to join the jihad, you know what to do. But of course once you get to Iraq, if you do make contact with someone, he'll want you to fight in Iraq not in the USA. Thus, having created a new global locus for the jihad as part of the strategic error that was the Iraq War, we also get the side benefit of "flypaper." Basically, US civilian casualties are displaced onto US military personnel and Iraqis of various stripes.

So far, so good (or so bad). The real question, however, is what happens if the jihad in Iraq ends? It would be remarkably odd if we wind up killing every single jihadi before going home. Either we'll need to start pulling troops out with many jihadis still in the field, or else we'll start gaining the upper hand and many jihadis will make themselves scarce. Either way, a new generation of recruits will have signed up, new networks will have been formed, and when people depart Iraq (either because we've won, or else because we've lost) they'll go somewhere else and start waging jihad there. Most of the native-born Iraqis who've joined up for the fight against America will probably stay put in Iraq, but not all of them will. You still won't be talking about a huge number of people, but the flipside of the insight that al-Qaeda was never a particularly large organization is that al-Qaeda never needed to be a particularly large institution to mount attacks on the scale of WTC, Bali, Madrid, etc.

Foreign and Domestic Policy

Recognizing this unique moment in history, with the will of the world behind us, the Bush administration took a pro-active approach to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Realizing that this conflict was the fount of much anti-American zealotry, the Bush team took an even-handed, no-excuses, hard-line approach with both Sharon and Arafat, crafting something along the lines of the Oslo land for peace arrangement - but with teeth. Capitalizing on the spirit of cooperation fostered amongst our European allies in the Afghanistan campaign, European peacekeepers were introduced into the region, and the CIA once again resumed its counter-terrorism tripartite cooperation with the Israelis and the Palestinians. There was zero tolerance for terrorist organizations, and through concerted diplomatic effort, Sharon was prevented from heavy-handed reprisals. Though the process is ongoing and punctuated by frequent setbacks, as extremists try to derail the effort, the sheer will of the Bush administration, the perceived urgency of the situation, and the fortuity of Arafat's death, helped to start the long march toward peace.

Released from the need to court Russian cooperation in Iraq, the Bush team was also able to keep the pressure on Putin in Chechnya, and rebuke him for other anti-democratic tendencies and changes in the Russian political structure. Bush never claimed to have looked into the soul of Putin, instead taking a slightly sterner stance with the worrisome Russian leader. Putin has been more cautious in his embrace of totalitarianism, and has cooperated more with the international community regarding Chechnya, though much work remains.

Without the need to commit massive amounts of money to Iraq ($200 billion and counting), the Bush team initiated a comprehensive overhaul of the nation's internal defenses. Targets were hardened, points of entry secured, the borders monitored, and in general, America was made a less hospitable target for would be terrorists. For example, when Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham requested $379.7 million to protect various Energy Department facilities where nuclear weapons are designed, manufactured, and stockpiled, the White House wisely approved the full amount rather than the scaled down sum of $26.4 million they would have been forced to sign off on had they been contending with the resource drain of Iraq.

In addition, rather than cutting funding for the Nunn-Lugar programs for securing the hundreds of tons of poorly guarded loose nuclear material in the former Soviet republics, President Bush vastly ramped up these efforts, which resulted in an impressive network of security precautions and destruction of vast quantities of dangerous materials that had previously been ripe for the picking by terrorists.

Fresh from the resounding military victory in Afghanistan, while fear of the impressive US military might was at its apex, not yet diminished by the apparent struggles in occupying another nation such as Iraq, the Bush administration used credible threats of force to induce Iran and North Korea to relinquish their nuclear weapons production activities. Hailing the strategies employed in gaining the cooperation of Libya, the Bush team offered an elaborate array of carrots and sticks, including the alternate threats of massive sanctions and promises of economic development - with the whole of Europe on board (despite the often contrarian France). Like Libya, the sanctions/incentives model, backed up by the very real threat of force as exemplified by the Afghan campaign still fresh in the mind of many, led to a series of breakthroughs on non-proliferation.

Iraq

Having taken a balanced and engaged approach to the two members of the "axis of evil" most advanced in nuclear capacity (North Korea and Iran), the Bush administration now turned to Iraq. The administration began to use threatening rhetoric and posturing in order to get access for UN weapons inspectors. While the inspectors were doing their work, the Bush team kept the heat on Iraq, provoking unease in some of Europe's capitals. While the inspectors did not locate any weapons, the US did learn of rampant corruption in the UN's Oil for Food program. Capitalizing on the outrage over the incident, and using its threatening posture and belligerence, the US was able to strengthen the sanctions and inspections regime that had proven so successful, despite the graft, up to this point. In addition, some of the sanctions were "smartened" so as to soften the blow on the Iraqi population.

Although some countries, like France, were hesitant, it was decided that stronger sanctions was the best way to avoid an all out war, and since they had been so successful in maintaining a WMD-free Iraq, they should be continued. By averting war, the US was able to save $200-300 billion (maybe more), the lives of between 1,500-3,000 troops, 200-300 independent contractors, as well as hundreds of coalition forces (again, maybe more).

Saddam continued to pen romance novels and harbor desires for WMDs, but he lacked the means to acquire them, and realized that if his efforts were discovered, he would bear the brunt of even more punitive measures. In the words of the Duelfer report:

The former Regime had no formal written strategy or plan for the revival of WMD after sanctions. Neither was there an identifiable group of WMD policy makers or planners separate from Saddam. Instead, his lieutenants understood WMD revival was his goal from their long association with Saddam and his infrequent, but firm, verbal comments and directions to them.

Although his regime was a source of concern for many years to come, he remained effectively boxed up and contained. In the event that Saddam somehow managed to acquire nuclear weapons, he would have selfishly hoarded them to himself, using their power to raise his prestige and balance out Iran and Israel which he perceived as his biggest threats and primary motivation for acquiring nuclear weapons. Also from the Duelfer report:

Iran was the pre-eminent motivator of this policy. All senior level Iraqi officials considered Iran to be Iraq’s principal enemy in the region. The wish to balance Israel and acquire status and influence in the Arab world were also considerations, but secondary...

Iraq Survey Group (ISG) judges that events in the 1980s and early 1990s shaped Saddam's belief in the value of WMD. In Saddam’s view, WMD helped to save the Regime multiple times. He believed that during the Iran-Iraq war chemical weapons had halted Iranian ground offensives and that ballistic missile attacks on Tehran had broken its political will. Similarly, during Desert Storm, Saddam believed WMD had deterred Coalition Forces from pressing their attack beyond the goal of freeing Kuwait. WMD had even played a role in crushing the Shi'a revolt in the south following the 1991 cease-fire.

In the meantime, the Kurdish north continued in its de facto independence and thrived as a self-styled democratic society. Other less fortunate Iraqis continued to suffer under the repressive measures of the Baath party. Political dissidents and religious leaders seen as hostile and threatening to Hussein were routinely tortured, brutalized and frequently murdered. Security and order for the average Iraqi, however, were maintained more or less uninterrupted. The continued hardship of the Iraqi people, like so many others living under brutal dictators in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere, was seen as an unfortunate reality that few remedies could address without making matters worse and destabilizing the region.

It is hard to predict when, but at some future point, as Francis Fukuyama prophesied, the inevitable befell Iraq. Like most democratic transformations in the history of humanity, Iraqis themselves rose up to usurp the Baath Party's despotism and democratic reform overcame Iraq. It is not clear if Iraq was able to settle its domestic and ethnic differences peacefully, but the process was not as influenced by foreign actors pulling in different directions, so peaceful cooperation was more likely.

Much credit went to the Bush administration's visionary program of democratic impetus and cooperation started in the years after 9/11. President Bush's Middle East policy is regarded as the greatest success in American foreign policy since the Marshall Plan. As an aside, TIA never came into existence, and one left-leaning blogger continued to pursue his legal career in anonymity, less roiled by what he perceived as a very misguided foreign policy and an administration that had deviated from common sense and empiricism.

In my previous post, I attempted to offer some realistic policy prescriptions that would, hopefully, improve the chances for success in the upcoming January 30th elections in Iraq, and their immediate aftermath - operating under the premise that success in those elections is in everyone's best interest, regardless of your support for the Iraq invasion and subsequent occupation. In staking out this position, I rejected the proposal of neoconservative pundit Charles Krauthammer, who suggested that civil war in Iraq might play out to our advantage, as well as the recent statements by foreign policy experts Leslie Gelb and Peter Galbraith, who seem to be leaning in favor of breaking up Iraq into separate, ethnically delineated, enclaves.

In a post today, Juan Cole offers a disturbing glimpse at what a fragmented Iraq might look like, and why such an outcome should be avoided if possible and practical. First and foremost, Cole is correct to point out that Iraq's population is not as neatly segmented as the proponents of fragmentation have claimed. There is a good deal of intermingling in major cities and regions, especially the ethnically diverse areas of Baghdad and Kirkuk. In addition, many aspects of Iraqi society are ethnically intertwined, as exemplified by President Ghazi Yawir.

He is from the Sunni Arab branch of the Shamar tribe. But some Shamar are Shiites. One of his wives is Nasrin Barwari, a Kurdish cabinet minister. What would partition do to the Yawirs?

Beyond those logistical concerns, the story takes a turn for the worse, with fragmentation potentially creating the precursors for terrorist proliferation and regional destabilization:

Then, how do you split up the resources? If the Sunni Arabs don't get Kirkuk, then they will be poorer than Jordan. Don't you think they will fight for it? The Kurds would fight to the last man for the oil-rich city of Kirkuk if it was a matter of determining in which country it ended up.

If the Kurds got Kirkuk and the Sunni Arabs became a poor cousin to Jordan, the Sunni Arabs would almost certainly turn to al-Qaeda in large numbers. Some Iraqi guerrillas are already talking about hitting back at the US mainland. And, Fallujah is not that far from Saudi Arabia, which Bin Laden wants to hit, as well, especially at the oil. Fallujah Salafis would hook up with those in Jordan and Gaza to establish a radical Sunni arc that would destabilize the entire region.

Divorced from the Sunnis, the Shiites of the south would no longer have any counterweight to religious currents like al-Dawa, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and the Sadrists. The rump Shiite state would be rich, with the Rumayla and other fields, and might well declare a Shiite Islamic republic. It is being coupled with the Sunnis that mainly keeps them from going down that road. A Shiite South Iraq might make a claim on Shiite Eastern Arabia in Saudi Arabia, or stir up trouble there. The Eastern Province can pump as much as 11% of the world's petroleum.

So Americans would like this scenario why? [emphasis added]

In another post, Cole points to a disturbing number being bandied about by the national intelligence chief of Iraq.

General Muhammad Abdullah Shahwani, head of Iraqi intelligence, estimated on Monday that the force strength of the guerrilla insurgency was about 200,000 men. My own estimate had been 100,000. The US military used to say 5,000, then started saying 20,000- 25,000, but frankly I don't think they have any idea. My colleague, military historian Tom Collier, suggested at a panel we were on that you can usually safely triple the US military estimate of the numbers of the enemy in a guerrilla conflict.

But Shahwani's estimate would make a lot of sense. Surely it is obvious that the US is at least evenly matched with the guerrillas for person-power, and maybe outgunned. The US assault on Fallujah may as well not have been mounted for all the dent it has made in the guerrilla war. If you can put 3,000 guerrillas out of commission and capture a major base and that makes no difference, then you are not dealing with a force of 25,000, now are you?

The TurkishPress.com carried an AFP story on the matter:

Shahwani said the number includes at least 40,000 hardcore fighters but rises to more than 200,000 members counting part-time fighters and volunteers who provide rebels everything from intelligence and logistics to shelter....

"I believe General Shahwani's estimation, given that he is referring predominantly to active sympathizers and supporters and to part-time as well as full-time active insurgents, may not be completely out of the ballpark," said defense analyst Bruce Hoffman who served as an advisor to the US occupation in Iraq and now works for US-based think-tank RAND Corporation.

Compared to the coalition's figure, he said: "General Shahwani's -- however possibly high it may be, might well give a more accurate picture of the situation."

Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq analyst with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, put Shahwani's estimates on an equal footing with the American's.

"The Iraqi figures do... recognize the reality that the insurgency in Iraq has broad support in Sunni areas while the US figures down play this to the point of denial."

Perhaps the strength of the insurgency explains the grim assessment of the counter-insurgency operations as recounted in a recent article in the Economist, as discussed by Belgravia Dispatch (note: the article is available by subscription only, but you may be able to obtain a free one day pass. If not, and even if so, I urge you to read Belgravia's post which kindly excerpts key paragraphs from the article). Djerejian notes that despite the inclination by some on the Right to disregard media reports from the region chalking them up to liberal bias, "the Economist, of course, is an Americophile publication of high repute."

The article tells how heavy-handed tactics employed by American forces, who find themselves increasingly under siege from insurgents and reacting accordingly, may be increasing the level of animosity toward the US presence and, conversely, augmenting support, both active and tacit, for the insurgents. It has reached the level that American military leaders on the ground are abandoning the pretense of winning over the Iraqi populace in favor of providing security, assuming, perhaps erroneously, that the two are not mutually exclusive.

Thus harried, American commanders have abandoned the pretence of winning the love of Iraqis ahead of the scheduled vote. "Our broad intent is to keep pressure on the insurgents as we head into elections," says General Casey. "This is not about winning hearts and minds; we're not going to do that here in Iraq. It's about giving Iraqis the opportunity to govern themselves."

The increasingly hostile situation has made it difficult to get a grasp on the size and nature of the insurgency, which, as mentioned above, the Iraqi intelligence chief put at 200,000 strong.

Whether or not the insurgency is fuelled by American clumsiness, it has deepened and spread almost every month since the occupation began. In mid-2003, Donald Rumsfeld, America's defence secretary, felt able to dismiss the insurgents as "a few dead-enders". Shortly after, official estimates put their number at 5,000 men, including many foreign Islamic extremists. That figure has been revised to 20,000, including perhaps 2,000 foreigners, not counting the thousands of hostile fighters American and British troops have killed; these are the crudest of estimates...

American military-intelligence officers admit their assessments are often little better than guesses. They have but a hazy idea of when and by whom the insurgency was planned, how many dedicated fighters and foreign fighters it involves, who they are, or how much support they command. The scores of terrorists who have blown themselves up in Iraq over the past year are invariably said to be foreign fanatics. But this has almost never been proved.

In bold contrast to his masters in Washington, General George W. Casey Jr, the commander-in-chief of coalition forces in Iraq, credits foreigners with a minimal role in the insurgency. Of over 2,000 men detained during the fighting in Fallujah, fewer than 30 turned out to be non-Iraqi.

The rest of the article is well worth the read, if a bit disturbing in its account of the tactics the US military feels compelled to utilize by the exigencies of combating a spirited insurgency. Suffice it to say, that many innocent civilians are being killed in the crossfire, amidst the ambiguity of guerilla warfare in urban settings. There are few easy answers for the military or political leadership at this juncture, and there is no course of action that is not fraught with its own unique dangers and risks.

Barring a last minute delay or other unexpected postponement, later this month Iraq will bear witness to a watershed moment in that nation's history: a free election. Many Iraqis may not go to the polls out of security concerns or disenchantment with the process, and others may feel compelled to take part in elections that they perceive as somewhat dubious in their fairness of administration - with an occupying army on their doorstep. Still, these are the elections we have, if not the ones we want, so it is in all of our best interest to insure that they are designed and carried out in a way that is most conducive to the formation of a stable, peaceful, and democratic Iraq.

Somewhat surprisingly, Adnan Pachachi, a prominent Sunni member of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, and erstwhile supporter of the January 30th date set aside for elections, has called for the elections to be put off for a few months so that Iraq can improve the security situation and better communicate the parameters and characteristics of the upcoming electoral event to a population that remains relatively ignorant of democratic niceties and nuances (via Laura Rozen).

Pachachi makes a compelling case (if not for improved security which is unlikely in a matter of months, at least for better informing the public and fostering greater inclusion), and given our decision, which looks wise in retrospect, to delay elections in Afghanistan until the situation was more stable, there appears to be a precedent worth following. Unfortunately, the man who seemingly guides Iraq's fate as much as any other at this point in time, the senior Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has dug in his heels and is resolute that January 30th will be the day for elections - no questions. Unless we can somehow convince Sistani to alter his course slightly, an unlikely scenario given the momentum behind the January 30th date, it is time to plan accordingly.

The Daily Demarche (a blog run by two Foreign Service Officers which has recently been the locus of a certain back and forth between yours truly and the thoughtful Mssr. Smiley - although in the process, one commenter said TIA was "boring" - ouch!), has cited an article by Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli which holds El Salvador up as a model for Iraq, at least in terms of conducting an election in times of intra-national conflict and unrest. This article does provide hope that elections could survive the expected violence and disruptions on election day, but even the author admits, as Dr. Demarche points out, "the elections are not a magic wand that will solve the country's burning security issues and they will not necessarily lead quickly to democratic and stable government."

I have contended on numerous occasions that the elections themselves, far from a panacea for Iraq's ills, will bring to a head many of the simmering ethnic tensions and competing interests that could themselves prove the undoing of a unified Iraq. Most prominently, the Kurds must be satisfied with their level of autonomy in order to forestall their secession from greater Iraq, but the Shiites seem to be balking at the degree of control granted the Kurds in the Transitional Administrative Law which the Kurds view as a base point for negotiation.

Separately, the Sunni population must somehow be led to accept their diminished role as the majority Shiites claim power after decades of Sunni dominated Baath governance - replete with the many privileges and boons granted the ruling Sunnis. Further, the distinctly religious character of the Shiite candidate slate has raised the specter of sectarian upheaval if Shiite spiritual doctrine is incorporated into Iraqi law - an outcome that many Sunnis would view as blasphemous and wholly unacceptable.

The Raphaeli piece also discusses a new twist in the internecine tug of war being played out in the run-up to the 30th: now the Kurds have threatened to boycott the elections if the government follows through with its plan to allow Arab emigres in Kirkuk to vote in that city (under Saddam's leadership, Arabs were imported to Kirkuk to dilute the Kurdish population in that oil rich metropolis). Raphaeli noted that: "It is too soon to discount the possibility that the Kurds may boycott the elections if their demands to declare Kirkuk as a Kurdish city do not materialize." Kirkuk's wealth and strategic importance will not be ceded by any party easily and without some lingering grievance.

Since I, unlike Charles Krauthammer, do not believe that civil war in Iraq could be a "useful tool," nor do I subscribe to the Les Gelb/Peter Galbraith theory embracing fragmentation as a long term solution for Iraq, it is imperative that we come up with solutions to these problems in order to hold Iraq together and attempt to aid the precarious transition to democracy.

First, we must come to grips with the fact that the elections might result in a representative government that suits the tastes of a majority of Iraqis, but which runs counter to our democratic sensibilities and at least some of our stated goals and purposes in the region. Juan Cole has noted some of the characteristics of the United Iraqi Alliance, the predominately Shiite coalition sponsored by the aforementioned Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

As to the platform itself, it has two parts, basic principles and vision of Iraq's polity, and then specific areas of endeavor. As for basic principles:

First, the Iraq that we want:

1. A united Iraq - land and people - with full national sovereignty.

2. A timetable for the withdrawal of the multinational forces from Iraq.

3. A constitutional, pluralistic, democratic and federally united Iraq.

4. Iraq that respects the Islamic identity of the Iraqi people. The state religion is Islam.

5. Iraq that respects human rights, that does not discriminate on the grounds of sects, religions, or ethnicities, and that preserves the rights of religious and ethnic minorities and protects them against persecution and marginalization.

6. Iraq that provides a climate of peaceful coexistence among Iraqis without preferential treatment for any group.

7. Iraq in which the judiciary is independent and in which justice and equality prevail.

I'm not sure most Americans realize that the biggest and most important party coalition in Iraq, which will almost certainly form the next government, has explicitly stated in its platform that it wants a specific timetable announced for withdrawal of US troops from the country.

The rest of the statement promises security, fighting terrorism, a depoliticized military; a state guarantee of a job to every Iraqi, social security and workmen's compensation, state support for the building of houses for homeowners; providing health services and medicine and health insurance; supporting women's participation in politics, the economy and social life; support for youth and for families; developing industry and agriculture and the provision of basic services; education; etc.

An independent foreign policy is promised, as is membership in the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference. [This plank implies non-recognition of Israel until there is a global peace settlement accepted by these two organizations).

I think we are looking at the policies of the new Iraq. They aren't what Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Wolfowitz imagined. [emphasis added]

If a government is formed in Iraq post-election that stakes out a position of measured hostility to Israel, embraces some form of religiosity, and/or demands an imminent withdrawal of US troops, the Bush administration will be faced with several difficult choices. Perhaps this will serve as a lesson to the limits of immediate and ad hoc transitioning to representative democracy - especially in regions where the population at large is not entirely amenable to our government and its policies. Without the underlying civic society, elections themselves might not spawn what we would recognize as "democracy" per se, and even if that, the resulting government may not find common cause with many of our foreign policy objectives. It will be interesting to witness how an administration that is accustomed to discipline, loyalty, and complete control handles a situation that is dictated more by a Shiite cleric than a coterie of close knit allies, dutifully staying on message. Although the temptation to manipulate the outcome and influence the eventual leadership will be great, that road is fraught with danger and must be navigated deftly and with a soft touch - not a skill set that would necessarily be attributed to Condoleeza Rice and others in charge of the Bush administration's diplomatic entourage. Perhaps we should abstain from the more heavy-handed tactics, preferring instead to dialogue with our Iraqi counterparts.

Interfering directly in the affairs of state via coup or other destabilization methodologies (as in Iran, Guatemala, Chile and other 20th century excursions discussed here), would be a catastrophic error that could have far reaching repercussions. The population in Iraq is already prone to cynicism and suspicion of our motives. Unsubstantiated and often bizarre anti-American rumors circulate at the speed of sound to widespread approval from the masses. If we were to create a situation in which these rumors were in some way given a touch of credence, and in the process alienate the Shiite majority or Sistani, Iraq as a nation would turn against us. Furthermore, the perception of subservience to US interests is already a rather unpopular stigma for any would-be leader, so compelling such a rigid stance would undermine our potential allies. Instead, we must be willing to accept a less than perfect outcome on many fronts.

I think one of the peripheral goals of the invasion of Iraq was to neutralize an enemy of Israel (Saddam) and possibly establish an ally (perhaps under the leadership of Ahmed Chalabi). Whatever the value of such a dynamic, we must not advocate for this diplomatic detente too strenuously. If the new government chooses such a route, all the better. If not, we must not let that become a pretext for action. Regarding Israel vis-a-vis the new Iraqi government, we must let the chips fall where they may because the stakes in Iraq supersede the benefit of Israel having an ally in the Gulf. Looking on the bright side, there is at least hope that whatever regime emerges will not be as hostile as Saddam's.

While I think it would be better for Iraq if the US could maintain a troop presence in the country for at least a few years until Iraq can stand up a qualified, competent, and non-partisan military and security detail (although like Djerejian, I think a decade might be more suitable), a demand for our ouster made by the Shiites would be difficult to ignore. We must try to convince the Shiite leadership that our presence is crucial for maintaining some semblance of security - at least precluding ethnic and sectarian violence that could morph into full blown civil war. If Sistani is unreceptive to such entreaties, however, there is little we can do. Whereas now we are confronting a largely Sunni insurgency, if Sistani mobilizes, even tacitly, the Shiite population against our efforts, our position would be untenable. Nevertheless, hope remains that Sistani recognizes our importance in maintaining order and relative peace, and there is even the possibility that we can leverage this role in negotiating other aspects of the political dynamic that Sistani and other Shiite leaders might be inclined to enact against our advice.

In order to guarantee a more inclusive government, we should stress to the Shiite leadership that they should take an enlightened approach to dealing with the Kurds, religious freedoms, and other basic rights in general. Fusing Shiite dogma with Iraqi law would unnecessarily alienate the Sunni minority, and possibly send Iraq down a path to civil war. Denying Kurds a comfortable level of autonomy, which they have grown accustomed to over the past decade, could also lead to disastrous outcomes - igniting long held Kurdish dreams of sovereignty. Again, if the Shiites refuse our counsel, there is little we can do to compel compliance.

Underlying these already troublesome realities is the fact that the level of Sunni participation in the election is uncertain at this point. This scenario is a source of great concern because it is Iraq's first election and legitimacy in the eyes of the Iraqi people is so vital. Of no less importance, however, is the fact that the legislature elected on the 30th will also be selecting an assembly that will draft Iraq's permanent constitution. This election will dictate the future of Iraq's entire political structure. An article in the New York Times (via Juan Cole), discusses some of the potential effects of a Sunni boycott.

The [US] diplomat said even some Shiite politicians who were followers of Ayatollah Sistani were concerned that a Pyrrhic victory by Shiites, effectively shutting Sunni Arabs out of power, could alienate Sunnis and lead to more internal strife. Shiites make up about 60 percent of Iraqis and were generally denied power under Saddam Hussein.

"You do the math," said Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a former adviser to the American occupation in Baghdad. "Iraq's population is about 60 percent Shiite, 20 percent Sunni and 20 percent Kurds. But if Sunnis don't vote, they could become only 5 percent of the electorate." Iraqis are to choose among 107 slates and 7,000 candidates.

If Sunnis are marginalized in that fashion, Mr. Diamond said, it could lead to further alienation, an increased insurgency and possibly a civil war, especially if the Kurdish and Shiite victors try to write a constitution that favors their interests over the Sunnis'.

Professor Juan Cole has come up with a solution to this conundrum that appears to be gaining some traction in diplomatic circles: a one-time set aside of seats in the legislature for Sunni candidates (proportional to the population ratio) should Sunnis fail to turn out on election day. This would insure that there would be ample Sunni representation in the nascent government regardless of turnout and, more importantly, a Sunni voice in the framing and drafting of the permanent constitution. From the above cited Times article:

The Bush administration is talking to Iraqi leaders about guaranteeing Sunni Arabs a certain number of ministries or high-level jobs in the future Iraqi government if, as is widely predicted, Sunni candidates fail to do well in Iraq's elections.

An even more radical step, one that a Western diplomat said was raised already with an aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric, is the possibility of adding some of the top vote-getters among the Sunni candidates to the 275-member legislature, even if they lose to non-Sunni candidates.

And from Juan Cole:

Secretary of State Colin Powell said the US would "urge" Iraqi Sunnis to turn out to vote. He also said that any post-election scheme for ensuring proper Sunni participation, such as increasing the number of seats in parliament and awarding the extra ones to Sunnis as a quota, would have to await the election of the Iraqi parliament itself, since only it could make such new rules. Powell at one point seemed to me to suggest that ensuring Sunni representation at the cabinet level in the executive of the new government would be a sufficient step. But that is simply not true. Since parliament will craft the new permanent constitution, it is essential that Sunni Arabs have a proportionate role in drafting it.

Cole is right to note that the other solution being discussed, the Lebanese model of a power sharing arrangement amongst competing interests that apportions cabinet ministries and government offices to the disparate ethnic groups, would be less than desirable. As Cole points out, it would do nothing to ensure a Sunni voice in the new constitution, but it is also a system with structural weaknesses that I discussed at length here

Andrew Arato, a guest editorialist on Informed Comment, offers another possible solution: instead of insuring seats in the parliament, the new government should guarantee representation proportional to population in the constitution drafting assembly - as well as some other mechanisms that give weight to minority concerns.

Changing the mistaken, single district electoral law might have been the most useful suggestion for avoiding catastrophe, but it is now unfortunately too late. There are, however, alternatives once a constitutional National Assembly is elected that would deal with the same problem of regional or ethnic or party-political under-representation as long as that representation does not drop to zero. The most obvious one is setting up a constitution drafting committee based on party parity, and a qualified majority rule. Constitutions are not actually drafted by plenary sessions, here the probable locus of misrepresentation, but parliamentary committees where that representation can be corrected. I worked on constitution-making in Hungary 1994-96, and in particular on a scheme by which a 75% governmental majority was greatly reduced to give real participation rights to the opposition, on the drafting committee level. Parliament could only vote on drafts that came out of a committee in which there was almost parity among 5-6 parties. Something like this, less formally but more successfully was done in Spain in 1977.

Let us assume for the sake of argument a National Assembly with 60% for the Shi'ite led block (The Iraqi United Alliance), 20% for the Kurdistan List and 10% for a combination of various authentic Sunni Arab lists, 5% for the governmental list of Allawi, and 5% for various other groupings. In this case, a 15-person committee could be set up having 3 expert members for each of these groupings, with the requirement that positive decisions (preferably on single clauses) be taken by 12 out of 15 members. The majority would still be protected, since nothing could be adopted without its plenary votes. The Kurdish minority could be protected too if in addition the rule were adopted that a final draft requires the support of 80% of the members of the National Assembly.

The combination of these provisions would be preferable even for the Kurds to the three-province veto available in the current interim constitution, the Temporary Administrative Law. As that poorly drafted and hastily imposed document is written, a simple parliamentary majority can apparently adopt a new constitution, while the negative vote of 2/3 of merely three provinces--hence possibly as few as 1/10 of the population--can block ratification. This arrangement is entirely unstable, and the leaders of the Shi'ite majority have never accepted it. They could very well repudiate it along with all other restrictions originally imposed by the occupying power.

Colin Powell and the Bush administration are right to press for Sunni participation right up to the elections, as that would be the best possible outcome, making Cole's plan unnecessary. Openly embracing such a plan prematurely could depress Sunni turnout as they may actually gain more by staying home (depending on the number of seats guaranteed). If the Sunnis fail to turn out in adequate numbers, however, then I think the Bush administration should exert diplomatic pressure to accomplish either Cole's or Arato's solutions - or both. Without either of these systems in place, a Sunni boycott could have long term detrimental effects on the peace, stability, and prosperity in Iraq. Even in the event of solid Sunni participation, Arato's plan deserves closer consideration as it would do much to assuage the fears of both the Kurds and the Sunnis, and could compel the cooperation of the Shiites on a broad range of issues without the unseemly interference of the United States government on an issue by issue basis. While support for Israel may not materialize, and the US military may still be asked to withdraw (perhaps less likely if the Kurds are given more voice), a constitutional committee such as the one Arato described could tone down the Shiite religious influence in Iraqi law, guarantee a certain level of Kurdish autonomy, and otherwise reassure the Sunni minority that they will have access to power and the leadership of the new Iraq. That could help to make these elections as important a moment in the history of the region as some Americans predicted before the war, and all Americans should hope for at this juncture.