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Monthly Archives: April 2008

Gun Jumping

“Sure, it’s not 1985 right now, but who knows what tomorrow will bring?” – Homer Simpson

Despite this week’s rejuvenation of Reverend Wright mania there really is very little left to be said about either the Democratic or Republican presidential nominating contests.  On the Blue side Hillary Clinton continues to roll the dice on long odds but it almost certainly isn’t going to matter; the hole she dug for herself in February is just too deep.  On the Red side John McCain has the whole world at his feet and owes Mike Huckabee a great big “Thank You” kiss just as soon as they get a private moment.  With that in mind, let’s play “Jump the Gun” and ask some questions that aren’t on the minds of most folk yet, but soon could be.

The John Nance Garner Sweepstakes – Speculation has already begun as to who the undercards are going to be.  McCain has a list already and despite the media’s fascination with an Obama/Clinton or Clinton/Obama ticket (which makes no sense for either of them) I’m sure each of them has one as well.  The bottom half of the ticket will get more attention than usual this year because of McCain’s age as well and the fact that Dick Cheney has done remarkable things with his pitcher of warm piss.  But in the end the Vice-Presidential nominees really only need to not do anything embarrassing or have any unknown embarrassments in their past.

The political press, bored out of their minds in June and July, will make a big fuss over both picks but the odds of either tilting the election one way or the other are really remote.  While we’re on the topic, no John McCain is not going to select Condoleezza Rice.  Not gonna happen.  I could list a dozen reasons but two will be sufficient: 1) McCain is going to have a hard enough time distancing himself from the current Administration without selecting one of its most prominent members as his running mate, and 2) she’s black.  There’s no sense in confusing the racist assholes whose votes McCain will need by putting melanin on both sides of the ballot.

Senior Moments – This one is a little speculative on my part, but I can’t resist.  Everyone knows John McCain is old; half of the jokes at his expense make fun of him for it.  But there are going to be moments in the campaign, on the stump, at a debate, basically any time McCain is live in front of a camera, where he’s going to forget something critical or misspeak badly.  The trick isn’t to get people to understand that he’s old; it’s to show them that there may be real disadvantages to electing someone of that age.  With any luck, McCain will do a lot of the work for them.

Racist Bullshit Ain’t Nothin’ New – The last couple of Republican conventions have been widely mocked for having a disproportionate number of black faces on the screen compared to the number of black keisters in the seats.  This naked attempt at colorization reached its apotheosis at the 2004 convention when they had a gospel choir perform for a faithful but monochromatic audience.

This year, of course, we have the twist of the Democrats actually nominating a black guy.  I, for one, am excited to see what effect (if any) this has on the presentation of the Republican national convention.  Token symbolism from the right is one thing when the contest still boils down to White Guy #1 versus White Guy #2, it’s quite another when the other party is actually running a minority.  Will they up the number of on-screen minorities?  Increase the number of Latinos on the theory that they don’t like Obama?  Or will they just abandon all pretense and have the lily-white convention they’ve always wanted?

Bring Out Your Dead – I’ll freely admit that I’m engaging in wishful thinking on this one, but I think there’s a real possibility that McCain is going to fall behind in the national polls over the summer and never recover.  The thinking goes something like this, McCain and Obama are roughly on a par in most national polls at the moment – a moment when both McCain and Hillary Clinton are bad mouthing Obama and almost no one is bad mouthing McCain.  In a year that looks to be have a pronounced Blue tint (Mississippi?!) it stands to reason that Obama should open up a lead on McCain within just a few weeks of Hillary’s removal from the scene.  That may not happen, of course, but if it does, and if Obama’s lead holds up over time (and through the Republican convention), McCain and his surrogates are going to start getting questions about being behind and the whole stinkin’ election being a foregone conclusion.  It will be high comedy.

Bush the Younger on the Trail – I am eagerly looking forward to this.  Once the Democratic nomination finally ends, the biggest question in terms of campaign strategy is going to be the relationship between Bush and McCain.  How will the McCain campaign deploy him?  They literally can’t afford to just ignore him a la what Al Gore did to Bill Clinton in 2000; McCain is going to need the money that only Bush will be able to bring in from the crazies.  With a disapproval rating above 70%, can McCain afford to be seen in public and on camera with Bush?

Then again, can he afford not to?  That remaining thirty percent, many of whom have a longstanding dislike of the Senator, is absolutely necessary for a McCain victory.  The convention ought to be entertaining.  Will Bush give a speech on Day 1 and then vanish back to D.C., or will McCain need him there in the hall throughout?  Keeping the Bush loyalists on board while still appealing to everyone else is the single toughest thing McCain is going to need to do.  I am of the opinion that it is all but impossible, but watching them try ought to be one of the dominant themes of the campaign.

This list is by no means complete, and as always there are a lot of unknowns that no one is talking about at the moment.  It’s just a few things to look for as we get into summer and the real and true silly season begins.

I Trust Hillary Clinton

“Stewie, uh, any parting words?” – Ed McMahon
“Um, you know I . . . I got beat, pure and simple.” – Stewie Griffin

The hand wringing and teeth gnashing that followed Hillary Clinton’s victory in Pennsylvania last week was as predictable as it was pointless. Take a look at the headlines (you don’t need to actually read the articles) from RealClearPolitics for the last couple of days (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday). You’ll be treated to a vocabulary smorgasbord of “Dilemma”, “Low Road”, “Negative”, “Bitter” and the like. It’s enough to make you think it’s some kind of soap opera or fraudulent Zimbabwean election. But it’s all water under the bridge. Barack Obama will almost certainly be the nominee, he’ll be confirmed as such long before the convention, and Hillary Clinton will be a smiling and happy soldier raising money for Democratic candidates up and down the line.

Hillary Clinton isn’t stupid. She’s a stalwart Democrat and she badly wants that big blue airplane, but she isn’t a megalomaniac hell bent on acquiring the nomination at any cost. She can certainly seem that way, but she isn’t. I’ll change my tune on that if we’re still having this argument in the middle of June, but we won’t be. She is a practical and pragmatic person and will not risk her future in the Senate by running the Democratic Party into the ground.

Consider things from her point of view. She spent most of last year as the front runner, the press all but anointing her before even a single vote was cast. Combine that with the fact that as First Lady for eight years she saw, up close and personal, the power which she and many others so desire. Losing the nomination to Barack Obama is a lot of dead hope for her, on a simple human level that’s got to be tough to shake off.

In 2004 her name was bandied about before John Kerry’s corpse was even cold. 2008 was going to be her year, but now it’s suddenly dawned on everyone that 2008 was her only year. Consider, if Obama wins in November there won’t be an open Democratic nomination until 2016. And if Obama makes it two full terms he’ll likely have a designated successor and she’ll be nearly seventy. If Obama loses in November there will be an open nomination in four years but it comes with two huge disadvantages for Hillary. First, her Senate seat is up for grabs in 2012. It’s one thing to run for President when you’ve got your powerful and cushy legislative job to fall back upon, but working without a net would be a lot less attractive to someone who is clearly both very cautious and very interested in seeing her policy ideas put into action. Second, if Obama does lose in November there are going to be a lot of people within the Democratic Party who will place a lot of blame, justifiably or not, on her and her husband. That alone might be enough to keep her from getting this close again.

For Hillary it really is now or never, and even for a seasoned politician with skin as thick as an elephant accepting that kind of loss isn’t easy. The fact that she still has a small chance at the nomination is enough to impel her forward and no amount of op-ed articles or talking head shows are going to convince her otherwise. That is quite understandable, even commendable in a “never say die” kind of way. But the idea that this contest is going to go to the convention, that the fight over Michigan and Florida will poison both states for the Blues in November, is just plain silly.

The simple fact is that while Obama cannot win enough pledged delegates to sew up the nomination outright, he can – and probably will – win enough delegates and votes in the remaining nine contests to irrevocably seal his lead in both. Maybe that happens on May 6, maybe it doesn’t happen until June 3, but it is going to happen. That’s when Hillary’s cell phone is going to ring, and it might be Bill on the other end, it might be Howard Dean, it might be someone from her campaign, but whoever it is will tell her that it’s all over and she’ll accept it.

She’ll accept it because she knows that there’s a difference between playing hard until the clock runs out, no matter what the scoreboard says, and refusing to leave the field after the referee has blown the whistle. She isn’t going to risk making herself a pariah for half the Democratic Party. She’s still a Senator, and while she’s more famous than most of her Senate colleagues, she needs to get along with them if she wants to see her ideas translated into action.

Hillary Clinton is very clearly willing to fight for this nomination, but there just isn’t any real, solid evidence to support the idea that she’s willing to destroy the party to win. If she’s still at it in the middle of June it’ll be a different matter, but for right now she hasn’t done anything wrong. If she’s still behind when the voting is done, and it sure looks like she will be, I trust her to congratulate Obama and then do her best to make it a Blue November.

Denver: City of Love

“Victory party under the slide!” – Bart Simpson

And just like that, the long awaited Pennsylvania primary ends not in a bang, but in a whimper. Much like March 4 and then Super Tuesday before it, both sides can crow about last nights results. And like those previous Tuesdays the Clinton camp may feel the need to crow a little louder because their underlying case remains fundamentally weaker. Unlike those previous two Tuesdays, however, this time around the conventional wisdom is that the Clinton bid is all but dead and last nights results will do little to blunt that storyline. Still, she won and so, for two more weeks at least, the show will continue!

It’s time to start thinking about the end of this thing though. Barack Obama looks to have a chance to finally finish off the Clinton campaign two weeks from now in North Carolina and Indiana. Otherwise it’ll likely drag into June, though even in that scenario the adults in charge of the Democratic Party will likely force a conclusion long before the convention. In either case, the outcome should be finalized at least six or seven weeks before the balloons drop in Denver.

During those six or seven weeks Obama and John McCain will be exchanging speeches and sound bites on a near daily basis. Would the Democratic Party be wise to then have a convention that simply emphasizes McCain bashing and Obama fellating? Or, will the convention need to be a big intra-Party hug to bring all the Hillary Clinton supporters enthusiastically back into the fold? It all depends on how long Hillary wants to keep stringing things along.

One way or another all the Blues really want to do is make sure that in the fall it’s all about “McCain vs Obama”, not bitter memories and lingering tiffs over “Clinton vs Obama”. If Hillary is still a major part of the story through June it might take something as shiny and contrived as the convention to finally push her out of the mainstream news. If Hillary’s story ends before June, the “Obama vs McCain” story will already be entrenched and delving too deep back into the primary, even under the auspices of “unity” or “healing”, would be a mistake.

It really doesn’t matter though; Obama all but assured himself the nomination back on March 4th. The real election, the one in November, will be decided in September and October and all this springtime piffle won’t matter in the least, unless Obama loses and fingers need pointing. Of course if that happens there will be other, much bigger, problems at hand.

A Semi-Serious Question

“Marge, you being a cop makes you the man, which makes me the woman!  And I have no interest in that, besides occasionally wearing the underwear, which, as we discussed, is strictly a comfort thing.” – Homer Simpson

Deep down in his heart of hearts, does Bill Clinton want his wife to be President?  I’ve never met the man and I doubt there’s a way to get a truly honest answer either way, but it’s interesting enough that I think it’s worth asking.  The question doesn’t arise out of any criticism or praise of Bill’s actions on the campaign trail, whether he’s been an asset or a liability to Hillary’s campaign is one of those pesky known unknowns.  Rather, on a personal level, would he really want to be the first First Gentlemen after having been President?

Bill Clinton has been so famous for so long that it’s hard to know what really makes the man tick.  We know that he’s an extremely talented politician; we know that he’s a gash hound; we know that he’s a policy wonk; we know that he’s got a big but not entirely unjustified ego.  It had to have killed him not to be able to run in 2000.  A victory, which he was popular enough to think would’ve been probable, would’ve erased the stain on the blue dress far better than any dry cleaning.  Instead he had to sit on the sidelines and watch Al Gore’s weak campaign and the fiasco in Florida.

As a matter of simple marital decency he has to support his wife’s candidacy.  (Though apparently the same stricture didn’t apply to Bob Dole.)  But I wonder how enthusiastic he is about it.  The role of the political spouse doesn’t suit him.

Most political spouses, on just about every level of American politics, are ignored.  All they need to do is smile and wave and not get caught doing anything illegal or tawdry.  It’s usually the wife in the sidecar, but it’s true no matter which member of the marriage is the actual candidate.  Bill Clinton, on the other hand, has been the undisputed center of attention in every room he’s been in for the last thirty years, even a sitting U.S. Senator is still second banana to an ex-President.  All that changed when Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign got started.

The fishbowl life began anew and Bill knows from experience that it will only get worse if Hillary becomes the nominee and then the President.  Even the biggest Hollywood celebrities don’t know the kind of media scrutiny that’s on a President.  For Hillary there’s an upside to once again submitting to the strict brackets the attention would impose on life.  After all, she’d get to be President.  For Bill, what’s the upside?

Everything I’ve read about him these past few years seems to suggest that he spends a great deal of his time traveling abroad and giving speeches.  All of that would come crashing to a halt if his wife became the President of the United States.  Sure, he’d still be able to attend conferences about AIDS in Africa, but everywhere he went would become an unofficial state visit.  He probably wouldn’t even be able to travel in privacy on the airplanes of his wealthy friends anymore.

The inversion that becoming the First Gentlemen would entail is almost unimaginable.  Would be happily get on board that great big airplane to fly to some summit meeting and then be content talking to the other spouses?  Does he really want to be sitting upstairs at 1600 Pennsylvania while Hillary is downstairs in the bunker deciding whether or not to attack Iran?  Does he want to again see his every movement become a news item?

We don’t know what the power structure would be like inside a second Clinton White House.  We don’t even know, nor do we want to know, what the power structure is like inside the Clinton’s marriage.  Certainly Bill would be more visible than an ordinary First Lady, but the Presidential spouse doesn’t technically have a title.  He’d be a uniquely positioned special envoy but he knows, better than anyone, that the Executive Branch is a one person show.  Maybe he’s made his peace with all this, but it’s a question that just gets deeper the more one thinks about it.  Even if he believes unequivocally that Hillary would make a better president than Barack Obama, I’ll bet that some part of him feels a tiny bit relieved if/when she finally suspends her campaign.

Come to think of it, when that does happen, and it almost certainly will, somebody, either in a prominent position on-line or in a newspaper or magazine, is going to ask this same question except it will be framed in terms of, “Did Bill Clinton sabotage his wife’s campaign once it became clear that Obama could win?”  Ought to be entertaining.

Pour Some ’Tussin on It

“Thirty cases of cough syrup, sign here.” – Delivery Man
“Ah, ha ha, I got hooked on the stuff in the service.” – Moe the Bartender

Nobody really knows what’s going on with the economy but there have been enough scary signs lately that it is a focus of concern for a lot of people.  Consequently, our presidential aspirants have felt to need to opine and emote on economic issues – nevermind that the office of President doesn’t have all that much power to affect the cycles of the economy.

John McCain gave a big economic speech yesterday.  On his website you can read the text but, near as I can tell, cannot watch the video.  It’s a pretty standard political speech.  Open with an anecdote about how tough things are for ordinary people, take a quick but toothless swipe at executive pay, talk about how the Republicans will once again be the party of fiscal restraint, take a couple of swings at the Blues and eventually get around to the list of policy proposals that will never be enacted.  There really isn’t much in it.

The reason for that light touch is simple and obvious but largely unmentioned: the federal budget and the tax code that supports it are, as presently constructed, profoundly Republican.  The series of tax cuts enacted by Bush the Younger when he still had a Republican Congress to work with have transformed the federal budget.  Even as they’ve lead to record deficits, formerly the bane of fiscal conservatives, these policies have remained overwhelming popular as Republican campaign points.  What, really, is left for John McCain to say about them?

All McCain really has are largely empty promises to help “hardworking” homeowners and the usual pap about rejecting earmarks (a tiny portion of the budget) and making tax cuts permanent (and nevermind that he opposed them in the first place.)  He can’t say much in the way of promising new things because it is his party that put in place all of the elements that are now crashing down around us.  That’s true of a lot of things, most notably the wars, but on economic issues and tax policy there really isn’t anywhere for him to go.

When it comes to Afghanistan and, especially, Iraq McCain’s position is all but lockstep with the current Administration.  He goes to markets in Baghdad and tries to say things aren’t that bad.  But on the economy he can’t say that up is down and black is white because the overwhelming consensus is that down is down and black is black.  Nobody is in favor of waves of foreclosures and a recession.

Instead McCain is left with nibbling around the edges.  More tax cuts!  Less waste!  Uh . . more tax cuts!  These are the same talking points that we’ve been hearing for the last eight years.  The problem is that the public is extremely dissatisfied with the way things are going.  81% dissatisfied according to that New York Times/CBS poll from a couple of weeks ago.  That article also contains a paragraph that ought to scare the hell out of any candidate promising to engrave the Bush tax policy in stone:

“Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they would support raising taxes on households making more than $250,000 to pay for tax cuts or government programs for people making less than that amount. Only 38 percent called it a bad idea.”

Knowing that the minority who lust after permanent tax cuts are absolutely vital to his election, what else can McCain say?  Economy collapsing?  Rub some ‘Tussin on it!  Lost your house?  Rub some ‘Tussin on it!  Financial system in chaos?  Pour the ‘Tussin right on that motherfucker!

1901: An Oil Odyssey

“Boss, I had an idea to lighten up my image.  A special feature: Films I Have Loved.” – Jay Sherman
“Okay, but this better not be a list of arty foreign films that nobody gives a crap about.” – Duke Phillips

Smiting their enemies the old fashioned way.

On Tuesday There Will Be Blood was released for home video.  That sentence is becoming something of an anachronism thanks to the internet but it’s still a decent enough excuse to talk about one of the most original and memorable movies I’ve seen in a long time.  It is, to say the least, an odd picture, but to my mind it is the first movie I’ve ever seen that invites honest comparison to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

One was made in the past about a time in the future which is now also the past, the other was made in the present about the past, so it’s not an immediately obvious comparison, but I think it’s valid.  I was thinking this in the theater in fact.  The very opening scene of Blood is a dialogue free exercise in human will.  Daniel Plainview, our anti-hero, scratches his living from the dirt in an anarchic and – forgive me – Hobbesian world.  As the mining sequence continued I was instantly reminded of the “Dawn of Man” opening to 2001.  Both Plainview and our primitive ape-ancestors (who, like most movie apes look suspiciously like guys in costumes) are alone in a harsh environment and speaking is neither necessary nor useful.  It is man against nature, struggling to establish some kind of control over a hostile world.

The structures of the movies are similar as well.  Both lurch forward in time when it suits the story’s purpose and the onus is on the viewer to have seen everything worthwhile.  Strauss’s “Blue Danube” would not have been out of place with the haunting imagery of the flaming oil gusher sequence.  Though I’ll admit I’m stretching my comparison a little here, both films end with the protagonist alone, having mastered the world that had been so hostile to them at the beginning of the film.  There are, obviously, big differences between isolating oneself in a mansion and floating above the Earth as the star-baby, but at the conclusion of both films the mastery of the main character cannot be denied.

This is certainly not a precise comparison, There Will Be Blood takes us into the Earth while 2001: A Space Odyssey doesn’t even use the Earth as a setting for most of its runtime.  But in the way both movies conserve their dialogue, in the way both movies linger over beautiful but terrifying images, in the way both movies show human will pushing the limits of technology, there are similarities that are too striking to be ignored.  Deliberate storytelling is a rarity; it can seem slow but it also dares you never to look away lest you miss something as important as it is fleeting.  While life would suck if all movies were like that, There Will Be Blood was a refreshing and stunning movie worthy of being talked about for decades, just like 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Questions, Quandaries and Quagmires

“Chat away, I’ll just amuse myself with some pornographic playing cards.” – Mayor Quimby

General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker testified before the Senate yesterday.  Today they’re going to the other side of Capitol Hill for a similarly pointless day of trying to say as little as possible.  Petraeus and Crocker are up on the Hill as the Administration’s point men.  Like any members of the Administration they are required to hew closely to the Administration’s official position and the only unknown is whether or not one of them will flub a line.  Last September they were up there in the midst of a potentially serious budget debate.  This time around the election is looming and the prospect of any serious conflict between Congress and the White House is close to nil.

The Administration is paralyzed in Iraq; all the brouhaha with Petraeus and Crocker in Congress is a red herring.  If we could’ve brought about an end the violence in Iraq through the application of American military force it would’ve happened by now.  Similarly, if the political opposition to the war had the power to force the President’s hand, they would’ve done so by now.  Instead, both sides, while constantly professing the utmost care for the troops, have more or less agreed to run out the clock on the current president.

Bush the Younger has a little more than nine months of his presidency remaining and barring a truly spectacular disaster (think Green Zone overrun by militants) there will be little to no change in our Iraq policy between now and inauguration day.  Maybe Congress could’ve pushed harder on Iraq last year and maybe they did all that was possible, at the moment it is irrelevant.

The current situation is a political stalemate and neither side will have the strength to change anything until after November.  (No one in a position of authority cares in the least what the actual Iraqis think or want.)  While there is at least a small chance that something newsworthy enough to affect the election will happen during the testimony of Crocker and Petraeus, it is very unlikely.  Even if Petraeus declared all was lost in Iraq, tore the plastic thing from his chest and stormed from the room it wouldn’t make a lick of difference.  The pro-war people would simply dismiss him and continue defending the progress that they keep insisting we’re making.

Even the question of whether or not significant troop withdrawals will be possible is utterly unimportant at the present time.  If the orders to start drawing down were issued tomorrow there would still be a huge number of American troops in country on November 4th.  Moreover, those troops are still going to be coming under attack and suffering casualties, no matter what is said in Washington D.C. or Baghdad.

Besides all that there is one other indisputable tip off that these hearings are pointless: they’re occurring during business hours.  If they were really important they’d be on in primetime.  The presidential debates this fall will be on in primetime though, and they will matter a hell of a lot more than any testimony given on the Hill in April.

Iraq, Episode XI: A Failure by any Other Name

“Rocky “V”, that was the fifth one! So Rocky five, plus Rocky two, equals Rocky seven, Adrian’s Revenge!” – Bart Simpson

As with most things Iraq related, the reaction to the recent fighting in Basra would be extremely funny if it was just another domestic American political soap opera instead of a war that kills and maims people. The story arc is so familiar that it’s become boring. Something bad happens; the White House and its cadre of fanatics declare the disaster a sign of progress; the lie eventually becomes inoperable; the war continues. The links below are to stories from The New York Times.

Wednesday – 26 March – Headline: Iraqi Crackdown on Shiite Forces Sets Off Fighting

4th paragraph: In Basra, American and British jets roared through the skies, providing air support for the Iraqi military. A British Army spokesman for southern Iraq, Maj. Tom Holloway, said that while Western forces had not entered Basra, the operation already involved nearly 30,000 Iraqi troops and police forces, with more arriving. “They are clearing the city block by block,” Major Holloway said.

Thursday – 27 March – Headline: Iraqi Army’s Assault on Militias in Basra Stalls

2nd paragraph: American officials have presented the Iraqi Army’s attempts to secure the port city as an example of its ability to carry out a major operation against the insurgency on its own. A failure there would be a serious embarrassment for the Iraqi government and for the army, as well as for American forces eager to demonstrate that the Iraqi units they have trained can fight effectively on their own.

Friday – 28 March – Headline: Assault by Iraq on Shiite Forces Stalls in Basra

1st paragraph: American-trained Iraqi security forces failed for a third straight day to oust Shiite militias from the southern city of Basra on Thursday, even as President Bush hailed the operation as a sign of the growing strength of Iraq’s federal government.

Saturday – 29 March – Headline: U.S. Airstrikes Aid Iraqi Army in Basra

2nd & 3rd paragraphs: Although American officials have emphasized that the campaign in the southern port city of Basra is directed by Iraqi forces, the Iraqis have failed so far to wrest control of neighborhoods in Basra from Shiite militias and asked the Americans and British to step in. The Iraqi military does not have jet fighters.

In Baghdad, American helicopters exchanged fire with Mahdi Army militia members in the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City, and rockets crashed into the office of Iraq’s Sunni vice president in the heavily fortified Green Zone, killing a security guard.

Sunday – 30 March – Headline: Shiite Militias Cling to Swaths of Basra and Stage Raids

1st paragraph: Shiite militiamen in Basra openly controlled wide swaths of the city on Saturday and staged increasingly bold raids on Iraqi government forces sent five days ago to wrest control from the gunmen, witnesses said, as Iraqi political leaders grew increasingly critical of the stalled assault.

Monday – 31 March – Headline: Cleric Suspends Battle in Basra by Shiite Militia

1st paragraph: The Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr on Sunday called for his followers to stop fighting in Basra and in turn demanded concessions from Iraq’s government, after six days in which his Mahdi Army militia has held off an American-supported Iraqi assault on the southern port city.
The substance of Mr. Sadr’s statement, released Sunday afternoon, was hammered out in elaborate negotiations over the past few days with senior Iraqi officials, some of whom traveled to Iran to meet with Mr. Sadr, according to several officials involved in the discussions.

Tuesday – 1 April – Headline: Iraq Seems Calmer After Cleric Halts Fighting

4th paragraph: The uncertainty over Mr. Sadr’s statements was underlined at a news briefing in Baghdad on Monday, where Ali al-Dabbagh, a government spokesman, dodged questions about whether Mr. Maliki would honor Mr. Sadr’s demands. When asked if the government would release Mahdi Army detainees who had not been accused of a crime, for instance, Mr. Dabbagh said there had long been plans to let some of them go.
He said the government would “look into” Mr. Sadr’s concerns.

Wednesday – 2 April – Headline: Britain Puts Troop Drawdown on Hold

6th paragraph: [British defense secretary Desmond Browne] said the use of British ground troops in the fighting was ordered “in extremis,” suggesting that the deployment of forces from the British base at Basra was a last-ditch measure to save Iraqi troops.

Thursday – 3 April – Headline: U.S. Cites Planning Gaps in Iraqi Assault on Basra

5th paragraph: The Bush administration has portrayed the Iraqi offensive in Basra as a “defining moment” – a compelling demonstration that an Iraqi government that has long been criticized for inaction has both the will and means to take on renegade militias.

Friday – 4 April – Headline: More Than 1,000 in Iraq’s Forces Quit Basra Fight

1st & 2nd paragraphs: More than 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen either refused to fight or simply abandoned their posts during the inconclusive assault against Shiite militias in Basra last week, a senior Iraqi government official said Thursday. Iraqi military officials said the group included dozens of officers, including at least two senior field commanders in the battle.
The desertions in the heat of a major battle cast fresh doubt on the effectiveness of the American-trained Iraqi security forces. The White House has conditioned further withdrawals of American troops on the readiness of the Iraqi military and police.

That’s a pretty neat little summation of the Basra affair. It also serves as a scale model of our entire Mesopotamian adventure, including the usual denouement where the Iraqis and the Iraqi government are cited as the root of the problem. As though, to paraphrase the evil king in Braveheart, the only trouble with Iraq is that it’s full of Iraqis. The real trouble with Iraq is that it is under an unpopular and ineffective foreign occupation.

Recall that the – ahem – surge was the government’s response to the 2006 elections, Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation and the Baker-Hamilton report. The rational was that the occupation of Iraq could be made to work with better leadership and strategy. Yet here we are a year later and very little has changed. The war continues to go downhill and whatever fresh bullshit is trotted out by those who defend its continuation cannot long conceal that simple and immutable fact.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

“I now call to order the first meeting of the ancient mystic society of . . . No Homers.” – Number One

Bush the Younger was in Ukraine yesterday and he was extending his support to the idea that Ukraine (and Georgia) should be permitted to begin joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.  I have no idea how serious Bush is in his desire to see Ukraine put on the path to membership, other NATO members are less than enthusiastic.  For all I know he was just saying nice things while he was a guest in their country and has no intention of following up in the least, but I am in complete agreement.  NATO should be expanded to include Ukraine and Georgia.

NATO was created, more or less, to ensure that in the event of a Soviet attack on Western Europe the United States would have no choice but to commit immediately and totally to the fight.  Before the alliance was founded the United States had twice tried to stay out of European continental wars and twice failed to do so.  NATO recognized the reality that Europe and America are, both culturally and economically, bound much closer than most places separated by 3,000 miles of ocean.

The Soviet Union hasn’t existed for seventeen years and that has naturally raised questions about the purpose of NATO.  In a world that remains conflict ridden and unstable an alliance as successful as the one between the North Americans and the Western Europeans was not to be casually discarded, whatever its original justification.  NATO is comprised of countries that no longer have any significant territorial or security disagreements (Cyprus and Gibraltar being two prominent but manageable examples to the contrary) and share a devotion to representative government and liberal society.  They make natural allies.

After the Berlin Wall fell and the two Germanys reunited, the NATO membership of the newly reunited country endured.  Nine years ago NATO was expanded again, with quite a bit of controversy, to three former members of the Warsaw Pact.  Four years ago a slew of former Eastern Bloc states and three (3!) former Soviet Socialist Republics were brought in as well.  In the new world the threat of invasion was less than the threat of instability.  NATO remained a defensive alliance, but it also became a way to bind the new democracies (where a slide back to totalitarian government was not out of the question) to the older and more established ones.  These were precedented moves; Spain joined the alliance in 1982 after it emerged from the dictatorship of General Franco.

Expanding NATO is not altruism on the part of America, Britain, France, Germany or any of the older members.  Saying to countries like Poland, the Baltic republics, or even Ukraine that they are not welcome at the Atlantic table because they’re just too close to Russia is the worst kind of short sighted realpolitik.  The article in this morning’s New York Times quotes the French prime minister thusly, “We are opposed to the entry of Georgia and Ukraine because we think that it is not a good answer to the balance of power within Europe and between Europe and Russia.”  That’s an awful lot of words to basically say, “Please don’t turn off our natural gas.”

It’s unfortunate if the Russians are antagonized by expansion, but they need the cooperation of Europe (as a market for natural gas and for other economic reasons) just as much as the Europeans need them.  The last time I checked one sovereign nation does not have the right to tell another, no matter their history together, what groups it may and may not join and what policies it may and may not pursue.

The point is to tie North America and Europe that much closer because together we are all stronger.  At the moment Ukraine may not have much to directly contribute to the security of the United States, but that may not be the case twenty years from now.  It’s a country of 45 million people and while it is neither rich nor strong today, a few decades down the road it very well could be both.  Would the French Prime Minister prefer the Ukraine become a strong and wealthy country with close ties to Russia?  Or to Western Europe?

In the more immediate future the newer NATO members have proven eager to contribute troops to peacekeeping missions and generally done what they can to prove that they belong as well.  In an effort to pad its application Ukraine is already supporting NATO missions around the globe.  A little fresh blood in the club from time to time is a healthy thing.

Let’s also not forget that the attacks of 11 September 01 caused NATO to invoke Article 5 (the one that stipulates that an attack on one member is considered an attack on them all) for the first time.  That means that the war everyone wishes got more attention was a NATO war, while the Iraq war is not.  Anyone who would like to remind the Russians that NATO is not an American led gang of international vigilantes can point to the lack of NATO sanction for the 2003 invasion of Iraq as proof positive.

The trans-Atlantic alliance remains the defining security arrangement of the world.  As much blood as has been spilled in all the regional and ethnic conflicts, most of which sprung up after the Cold War, the terrible specter of a real World War III has never been more remote.  This is the kind of democracy promotion that the United States and friends can and should be doing.  A democratically elected and legitimate government is asking to join the premier club of democratic governments.  The right answer, in all kinds of ways, is “Yes”.

Brief Note:  At the moment Greece is unhappy with Macedonia’s application to NATO because it doesn’t want the country of Macedonia, which it refers to as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, to have exclusive rights to the term “Macedonia”.  There was even a full page ad in today’s New York Times (page A15) detailing how much of historical Macedonia is in modern day Greece.  I do not know the details of the grudge or how it got started, my guess is pride and money are at stake somehow, but I find this whole thing hilarious.

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