Incompetence, even in faux pas.



Much has been made about Kendall Myers' comments on the U.S.-U.K. 'special relationship' at SAIS recently. Of the Brits, he said “We (the U.S.) typically ignore them and take no notice - it's a sad business.” The London papers naturally are having a field day.

For those of us who have known him (caveat, the Stiftung directly and indirectly has been familiar with him for 30 + years), the immediate reaction was “Well, it had to be Myers.” Myers truly is not a 'senior State Department official' and would not portray himself as such to the press.

He's a long standing area study specialist with an expertise in Western Europe and the U.K. He, like many mid level area study types, carved out a decent living combining gigs in the Imperial City, supplementing his State Department salary with the modest bump SAIS provides to career functionaries who moonlight as adjunct faculty. Most of the “faculty” at SAIS are adjunct types and paid accordingly - the inherently salaried Johns Hopkins faculty are fairly few, the tenured ones even fewer.

Myers has been at SAIS as an adjunct for decades. He began when he was an area studies lecturer at the State Department Foreign Service Institute and now continues (for the moment) from a niche at the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR).

In Myers' defence, alot of things get said at various SAIS functions that could easily be turned into media firecrackers. Sometimes over drinks when policy wonks are surrounded by young students and bask in the feeble glow akin to a Holiday Inn lounge rock star, sometimes in more formal settings where scores are settled in front of peers, etc. Internal politics at SAIS (and other similar programs at Georgetown, etc.) can be exceedingly vicious, following Kissinger's famous dictum that academic politics are so savage because the stakes are so low. But here, it seems Myers took the question from the Times' reporter and shot himself in the foot on his own.

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Anyone seeking to understand what has become the central conundrum of the Iraq war - how it is that so many highly accomplished, experienced and intelligent officials came together to make such monumental, consequential, and, above all, obvious mistakes, mistakes that much of the government knew very well at the time were mistakes - must see beyond what seems to be a simple rhetoric of self-justification and follow it where it leads: toward the war of imagination that senior officials decided to fight in the spring and summer of 2002 and to whose image they clung long after reality had taken a sharply separate turn.

THE WAR OF THE IMAGINATION, Part 1
How a war of fantasies happened
By Mark Danner

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.

Antoine de Saint Exupery



One tragedy out of thousands arising from Iraq is the inevitable corruption of the U.S. military. Their goal-oriented ethos of honor, duty and achievement predictably was contaminated by their National Command Authority's dishonest cynicism and ineptitude. We predicted this would happen in 2002 during the ramp up over a lunch with a pundit friend. When the first military briefings began from Baghdad chaperoned by Neocon Political Commissar Dan Senor one could only wince.

The Marines however retain much of their distinctive culture and ethos. It is no accident, as they say, that Japanese Nationalist and critic of American power Shintaro Ishihara makes an exception by his admiration for the Marines and their competence. Their casualty absorption ratio fighting in Anbar is far higher than other services. Their Anbar engagements have been the most intensive. We have no doubt that a future Marine Expeditionary Unit will have an “Anbar Province” to join the “Chosin Resevoir” or “Tarawa”, etc.

Back in early August 2006, Colonel Pete Devlin, the chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq filed an unusual secret report. It was honest.

He concluded that the prospects for securing that country's western Anbar province were almost zero and that there was almost nothing the U.S. military could do to improve the political and social situation there. According to the WaPo's Tom Ricks, “officials described Col. Pete Devlin's classified assessment of the dire state of Anbar as the first time that a senior U.S. military officer has filed so negative a report from Iraq.”

Devlin's honesty was not appreciated by much of CENTCOM and DoD even in late 2006, let alone those elsewhere in DC still sipping Kool Aid. But it had an impact. Just two weeks ago, 2,200 Marines were slated to be added to Anbar in a last effort to shore up the collapsing effort. Now comes word that the U.S. essentially is prepared to write off the entire province, pulling the 30,000 troops out of Anbar, sending them to Baghdad.

A final decision to abandon Anbar awaits Gates' swearing in. The writing is on the wall for Maliki's Purple Finger regime. Meeting in Amman with Dubya or not. The Kurds are sitting intact in the North. The Shia and Sadr hold Baghdad. And doubtless Martin van Creveld is preparing his deserved “Told you so.”

Tags: Iraq, Neocons, War

Who's zooming who?

In Latvia today, Dubya declares “There's one thing I'm not going to do, I'm not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete.” And then promptly declared Al Qaeda the true engine of violence.

James Baker, who knows Junior well, took the job chairing his Deus Ex Machina commission initially on the condition of free inquiry and scope of recommendations. It didn't last long.

The White House soon realized the Commission might amount to more than an election year political sham. First, Junior began referring to “Jimmy”. Then Hadley's NSC began their own internal review of options. And as Tom Ricks reports, the Pentagon leaked their own pre-determined outcome. They quaintly used the classic bureaucratic gambit of unacceptable alternatives on each side of their desired result: go home, go long, go big.




The existing War Apparat in short said “No, no, we won't go.” And Baker et al? Apparently message received.

Numerous leaks from the Baker Commission indicate we will get a conference for all their efforts.

A draft report on strategies for Iraq, which will be debated here by a bipartisan commission beginning Monday (yesterday), urges an aggressive regional diplomatic initiative that includes direct talks with Iran and Syria but sets no timetables for a military withdrawal, according to officials who have seen all or parts of the document.

While the diplomatic strategy appears likely to be accepted, with some amendments, by the 10-member Iraq Study Group, members of the commission and outsiders involved in its work said they expected a potentially divisive debate about timetables for beginning an American withdrawal.

As reported earlier in our Comments section today, Newt is also gaming the policy recommendations. We had to chuckle reading this. The piece is classic Newt in so many ways, including the compulsive use of labels like “amazing” (he also likes to use “revolutionary”, “transformational”, etc.) Newt's contribution is to tart up the Ralph Peters/VDH seductive appeal to instinctive violence in Toffler-esque verbalisms. He still sings the old Woolsey song of World War IV from late 2001. Note that Newt immediately presents the false binary to the reader, “victory or death” (wrapped in patriotic bunting). Such forward or back binary cant informs most “Movement” rhetoric throughout history in Europe and elsewhere. Ideologues use it as an AgitProp tool because the goal is to foreclose options and discourse and force commitment to a pre-determined course of action.

What we find so amusing is how predictable Newt remains. Little has changed. He used to react this way to everything. Entitlement reform? Same. The digital economy? Same. Health care? Same. Someone should make some Mad Libs.

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La plus ca change . . .



Washington foreign policy pundits and wonks even this late in the Age of Bush still play two different games — baseball and Arena football. Two different objectives, two different audiences and two different sets of rules. As you might guess, much of the Imperial City is now in full throated baseball-boosterism mode.

Our friends at New America Foundation offer some of the more finely crafted gameplay. Their memes articulating the parameters of post-Bush realism may well become standard bromides for the chattering classes over reception cocktails and finger food. New America institutionally has positioned itself quite well substantively and as a brand. It eschews the searing edge of topical meme polarization and cultivates both relevancy and an iPod-esque sensibility — not too stridently muscular, and no tofu-thank-you-very-much. Common sense with some designer flair. Many other think tanks and 501(c)(3) or (c)(6) entities would do well to study their institutional positioning.

An item from Steve Clemons today sums up their various strands of realist memes. We happen to support and applaud the nuanced work of Anatol Lieven and his meme of 'Ethical Realism'. It is a pleasure to see both him and his organizational platform thrive. Michael Lind, also at New America, has made perhaps the most intriguing intellectual metamorphosis, beginning with his Neocon L'enfant Terrible days in the 1980s and 1990s and moving towards his current Oppositionist posture. The reviews of his latest book suggest that he still is working through and internalizing that journey. (We haven't read it yet but plan to over the holidays).

All in all, thoughtful and earnest efforts to integrate the world as it is with the inherently conflicting impulses in the American character of idealism and self-interest. Very much in the tradition of Robert Osgood, perhaps. New America is well positioned to play an important role in the new Democractic Congress.

In contrast, we see two items from the Neocon highlights reel. Messrs. Kristol and Kaplan blitz nuance or even pretenses of deliberation and simply declare realism is defeatism.

Foreign policy realism is ascendant these days, we are told. This would be encouraging if true, because our foreign policy must indeed be realistic. But what passes for “realism” today has very little to do with reality. Indeed, if you look at some of the “realist” proposals on the table, “realism” has come to be a kind of code word for surrendering American interests and American allies, as well as American principles, in the Middle East . . .

So let's add up the “realist” proposals: We must retreat from Iraq, and thus abandon all those Iraqis--Shiite, Sunni, Kurd, and others--who have depended on the United States for safety and the promise of a better future. We must abandon our allies in Lebanon and the very idea of an independent Lebanon in order to win Syria's support for our retreat from Iraq. We must abandon our opposition to Iran's nuclear program in order to convince Iran to help us abandon Iraq. And we must pressure our ally, Israel, to accommodate a violent Hamas in order to gain radical Arab support for our retreat from Iraq.

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Hello again, Dear Readers.

We have been waylayed. First by tryptophan and then by an unknown malady. We were worried at first. A few days ago we did venture to a chi-chi (is there any other kind?) sushi restaurant. And met a business associate. But so far no geiger counters are involved.



From our sick bed we decided to dabble. Herewith is a first stab at re-imagining the main Stiftung Leo Strauss site. That site, written when Dubya, Cheney and the Gang were still tall in the saddle, needs to reflect the altered AgitProp landscape after November 7th.

Be gentle in your criticism. It's a work in progress. Nyquil, tea and fruit juice twists perspective — that toxic cocktail tells me it is possibly entertaining. It's about 1.1 megabytes and even as a one off needs tweaking. Whether it survives sober appraisal after the weekend, who knows.



Tags: Neocons, Iraq, Bush, Cheney, War, AgitProp

Hitch. On Baker. 'Nuff said.

Tags: Neocons, Iraq

A truism is that an animal is most dangerous when cornered.


We see two aspects of the run or fight paradigm at work today. In the Weekly Standard, good ol' Irwin Stelzer offers his evidence that the United States is no longer a great power. The despair and angst is really quite amusing. Stelzer is ready to throw in the towel. Why? It begins with his being searched like others in Heathrow.

AMERICA IS FINISHED as a great power. Not because it no longer possesses the resources, but because it has lost the will. That was brought home to me on both ends of a recent trip through London's Heathrow airport en route to Phoenix . . .There's more. But you get the idea. Travel the world with your eyes open and you will see that America is no longer a great power. Not that it can't still be one--with our astonishingly lethal soldiers, our daring entrepreneurs, our workers willing to put in long hours, and a productive economy that is still the envy of the world.

But so long as we prefer to fund shopping sprees rather than a military adequate to meet the challenges of our era, and so long as we allow uncertainty about our virtues as a nation to swamp our good judgment, we will continue to doff our jackets obligingly to security personnel who are surprised--just ask them--that we allow our people to suffer such indignities.

A self-inflated Hudson Institute functionary searched! Oh the humanity! But the article is instructive beyond its brevity. Its emphasis on status, hierarchy, deference due the “Master Ra — er, Country” and emphasis on macht and “astonishingly lethal soldiers” tells all. That, Dear Reader, is a glimpse into the sordid id of your typical AEI/Hudson Neocon.

Sy Hersh on the other hand shows that David Wurmser and others are still on the case, pushing the bomb Iran case inside the Administration. We knew Wurmser when he first started out as a very nice (he is still a very nice person interpersonally) policy wonk. Yet there is no question that in one sense the debate within the Neocon camp over the value of academic pursuits versus operational government service has been resolved. Their best guns now remain those functionaries still embedded within the Administration apparat. A pale echo of the awesome machine in place 2002-2004. Muravchik is alone carrying the external AgitProp burden. A new SecDef of uncertain loyalty to the Agenda is coming in. Body bags still come home. Stelzer has alot more to be depressed about than the indignity of even a well-deserved cavity search.

Tags: Neocons, Iraq

Sometimes they don't go quietly into the night.



Muravchik's rallying cry for Neoconism is not particularly memorable. On the one hand, we see his benchwarmer's excitement of getting playing time after the rout is beyond repair. Muravchik can get away with this silliness only because the public does not yet associate his name with the disaster. Perle and Adelman et al. quite sensibly are beginning their Self Criticism turn and leave such boosterism for the “B Team”. Muravchick's “Did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?” moment will fall on deaf ears from his own bench at the moment. But he is planting a flag (possibly sacrificially), as he does his current Foreign Policy piece advocating bombing Iran.

As badly as things have gone in Iraq, the war has not disproved neoconservative ideas. Iraq is a mess, and the U.S. mission there may fail. If that happens, neocons deserve blame because we were key supporters of the war. But American woes in Iraq may be traced to the conduct of the war rather than the decision to undertake it. In fact, despite the alarming spike of anti-Americanism worldwide, the political space in many Middle Eastern countries — such as Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco and most of the Persian Gulf nations — has widened appreciably in response to Bush's pressure and advocacy.

In recent weeks, hopes have risen that Baker and the Iraq Study Group will devise an alternative approach to neoconservatism, one more in the mode of traditional conservatism. Rumor has it that this will rest on courting Iran. But why would a country whose president proclaims his goal to be “a world without America” pull our chestnuts out of the fire? Others suggest that Baker will link Iraq to an Israeli-Palestinian settlement, but this has been sought for decades without success. Even if achieved, why and how would it make Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites stop slaughtering each other?

Until someone comes up with better ideas than these, the neocon strategy of trying to transform the Middle East, however blemished, remains without alternative. No doubt, the results of the midterm elections will produce some course corrections (as Rumsfeld has discovered). But neocon ideas are unlikely to be jettisoned — either by Bush or his successor — until a viable replacement is found. So far, there is none.

Profoundly misleading. Muravchik is intellectually and factually dishonest. Neoconism was not really about reform in the region. It was and remains an argument for “regime change” via force of arms, coercion or covert action. And Iraq was to be beginning of a process that Perle and others have said in front of this writer was to end with the overthrow of the House of Saud. The reason the term “regime change” became part of the American lexicon was the Neocon conceit that societies adopt and cohere to the form of government given them — a top down approach rather than an organic, bottom up vision ala America circa 1776.

Under this formulation, simply changing the regime and imposing “democratic” process such as elections would, the theory goes, mould and shape the New Iraqi Man. This is the theoretical underpinning for the Administration's argument that formulaic electoral processes would yield success. Contra Muravchik, the Neocon top down model of imposed societal engineering via military force or covert action lies shattered in pieces.

Imposed leadership lobotomies and hastily concocted new political orders via a “dictatorship of the transient and foreign electoral process” was and clearly is shown by Iraq to be impractical and dangerously delusional. (Even the Israelis backed away from American Neocon efforts to begin efforts to foment a coup in Syria).

Of course, that Neocon argument about top down social engineering was itself a distraction and an illusion. All of this was and is about harnessing American power, wealth and blood for other reasons. We must remain vigilant against future Trotskyite “infiltration” (Trotskyites call it “entrism” ) of our policy discourse (see this entertaining contortion by Trotskyite and Neocon Stephen Schwartz in NRO on the subject). And Muravchik's false dichotmy of their “New Islamic Democratic Man” and the strawman of 'militant status quo' can be ignored.

Societal reform in the region and policies to address and contain the demographic/educational bubble in the Islamic ecumenae will be needed. Now, perhaps we have a chance to do so on a rational basis based on American national interest.



Tags: Neocons, Iraq

Nutrasweet, Splenda, saccharine, Neosweet and Condi Rice.

Prepare for another Supersized (tm) helping, beginning with a piece in Salon. Gushing in the WaPo Style section fluffing tradition, Mark Benjamin enthuses:

The three men [Hamre, Solomon, Abshire], to their surprise, were asked to attend a meeting on Nov. 29, 2005, with Rice, who had been among the core defenders of the Bush administration's war in Iraq. At the end of that meeting, Rice agreed to the idea for the panel and pledged to take the case directly to President Bush. At Rice's urging, Bush embraced what would become the Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker.

“It was remarkable that Condi Rice took the lead,” said David Abshire, president of the Center for the Study of the Presidency in Washington, and one of four people in the November meeting, including Rice. The Iraq Study Group, he said, “happened with her going to the president.”

All well and good, and doubtlessly true. But the essential premise is the depressing Imperial City herd mentality that the Baker Commission will somehow deliver us from the Inferno of the Iraqi Pocket. And in this narrative, as started here by Benjamin, Cher Condi is the authoress, radiating that special Condi Fabulousity.



Benjamin would be more sober-minded perhaps if he knew more about Condi. Condi acting in public as one of the most ardent proponents of the Administration's AgitProp acting differently when no one is looking? Vintage. It is no accident, as our old Soviet adversaries used to say, that Condi while on the NSC staff for 41 managed to convince all factions she was one of them. Gorbachev engagers? She signalled to them she was on their team. Hard liners? Condi told them she was really secretly one of them. Classic staffer mentality, no different today.

The fundemental strut of this AgitProp meme is that the Baker Commission tastes like the real thing (actual policy making) but with less carbs and bad cholesterol from EOVP. Yet consider what Dubya is saying, blinking without irony in Hanoi of all places. “In his first day in the capital of a country that was America’s wartime enemy during his youth, President Bush said today that the American experience in Vietnam contained lessons for the war in Iraq. Chief among them, he said, was that 'we’ll succeed unless we quit.' ” Condi also chirps in, adding her expert advice that Vietnam and Iraq are not to be compared. What does this have to do with Baker? Our friends at Unqualified Offerings offer a sorbet to clear off the bitter aftertaste of Benjamin's serving, citing this item from the Guardian:

President George Bush has told senior advisers that the US and its allies must make “a last big push” to win the war in Iraq and that instead of beginning a troop withdrawal next year, he may increase US forces by up to 20,000 soldiers, according to sources familiar with the administration’s internal deliberations.

Mr Bush’s refusal to give ground, coming in the teeth of growing calls in the US and Britain for a radical rethink or a swift exit, is having a decisive impact on the policy review being conducted by the Iraq Study Group chaired by Bush family loyalist James Baker, the sources said.

What has been accomplished by Condi's “end run” to Dubya celebrated by Benjamin? Beyond announcing it in the hopes (now revealed as misplaced) of papering over the 2006 elections? Unqualified Offerings' frankly much needed corrective rebuts the rising chorus heralding the Baker report. In the end, Global Paradigms notes that Baker may only nudge the Administration into a process-related path such as another Madrid type conference and continued conversations that Baker began in October 2006 with Syria and Iran. Neither see any indication that Dubya is prepared to move off his intrasingent refusal to reconsider the conceptual foundations of his war. We agree. Benjamin's enthusiams in Salon for Cher Condi are in the end likey overwrought. Her “end run” to Dubya is much like a harried waiter who pours some more sweetner on a dessert before slapping it down on the table. It may mask but can never change the flawed recipe.

Tags: Baker, Iraq, Condi

See how they run!

That didn't take long. Peter Rodman, longtime accomplice in the debacle of 2001-2006, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, resigned. The looming shadow of a Gates-ian housecleaning proved too much for the nerves, perhaps; he jumps before pushed. Rodman is an Imperial City veteran of many years and began his ascent with Kissinger and Scowcroft NSC. Notwithstanding his training and solid academic background, Rodman went off the rails under Dubya and with the purview for the Middle East at ISA helped create and then steer the car wreck. A 2006 appearance at AEI continued to exort Iraqi Victory strategy in a surreal disregard for ground truth.

Cambone's days are numbered as well. The euphoria in the building should not be underestimated. We remember leaving a very small dinner with Cambone near the Pentagon back in the day. Rumstud was the media persona and Cambone known as the E-Ring Enforcer. 'Transformation' had yet to become a joke ('But Sir! This stapler's ability to work with 10 pages at a time is truly transformational!'). The loathing was already visceral. A retired Air Force Lt. General turned to me and asked, “Why did you invite me to sit through dinner with that sunovabitch??” And the AF was the favored service at the time. We always felt some of the criticism he received was unfair. But not all or even most.



Making things even more inevitable, Cambone is the point man for OSD further encroachment on the diminished Agency's special activity turf. Gates, for practical and institutional loyalty reasons, will scale this trend back. Many viewed the dramatic expansion of DoD presence in this sphere through the prism of Rumsfeldian 'Type A' bureaucratic turf mentality. The real reason, of course, is more Cheney-esque. DoD special activity the Administration (especially Addington) argued was outside the legal framework of the 1980 Intelligence Oversight Act which required notification to Congress of what the public calls “covert action”. In effect, Rumsfeld and Cambone got in open sight what Casey and others tried to do and thereby nearly crippled a presidency.

OSD also bullied the State Department to allow its operatives to move in and out of embassies without requiring operational sign off by the sitting ambassador, let alone the Agency Chief of Station. Not for nothing did wags point to the DoD swollen head count for special activity as Rumsfeld's 'Army of the Potomac'.

Democrat control of Congress adds further pressure to curtail things. A recent CRS report sets out for Congress the reasons DoD special activity in fact *should* be under the 1980 Act.

Some lawmakers fear that the Pentagon is creating a parallel and independent intelligence capability that encroaches on the CIA’s traditional role. Gen. Michael Hayden, director of Central Intelligence, has stated previously that conflicts resulting from overlapping missions exist and will be resolved on a “case-by-case basis.”

Expanding the size and scope of Pentagon intelligence activities was a top priority of Donald Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary, one that critics have portrayed as part of an effort to “marginalize” the CIA. In its hunt for Al Qaeda terrorists, the Pentagon has on many occasions deployed its own intelligence officers overseas on the types of operations once reserved for the CIA’s paramilitary arm.

Rumsfeld also created the position of undersecretary of defense for intelligence now held by Stephen Cambone, while launching the Counterintelligence Field Activity — an entirely new intelligence agency within the Defense Department, with a classified mission and “black” budget said to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

“The very existence of this kind of unit shows that things are a mess,” said retired Lt. Gen. William Odom, a defense analyst with the Hudson Institute who headed the National Security Agency during the Reagan administration. “The real question here is deciding whose troops are going to be responsible for paramilitary covert activity — the CIA’s or the Pentagon’s. I don’t see any resolution as long as Cambone is running an operation that ignores the D.O. [CIA directorate of operations] and State Department.”

All eyes are on Gates, who he will bring with him, who he will keep and who will be eased out, perhaps pour encourager les autres. Particularly interesting will be disposition of cells within OSD devoted to the Iranian threat that in many ways recreate the OSP Iraqi run-up.

Tags: OSD, Cambone, Gates, Rodman, covert action, oversight

Bloggers, unknown to most, are contractually bound to refer to one pre-fabricated mass-merchandized entertainment product once every six months. Appendix II to the main blogging contract sets out the stark terms --albeit in small print. Failure to comply can result in stiff penalties. Enforcement is spotty, mercifully.

Which brings us to the tired Bond media juggernaut. Eon and MGM share a unique honor along with Lucasfilm and a few other similar offenders. They flogged this franchise into profitable ubiquity and saturate our psycho-cultural ether. In so doing, Bond became largely an irrelevant abstraction. No one really watches Bond anymore because we have been imprinted indelibly with the imagery. Those such as Simon Winder who pretend that the franchise product has a grander sociological meaning just embarrass themselves. Bond simply IS.


We all know the general pattern of Bond and the Cold War. Initially set in a fairly concrete fictional universe featuring Soviet adversaries and SMERSH, the franchise evolved along with detente into the Roger Moore years of self aware camp and farce. Those Moore efforts also meshed perfectly with a post-Vietnam mood of sensation and diversion, disco and cocaine, etc. Late 70s Soviet adventurism kick started the Cold War again at the end of the Carter Administration. Moore's Bond followed, featuring the then-unique return to “Flemming-esque realism” in “For Your Eyes Only” and “Octopussy”. (Let's forget about “Moonraker's” attempt to cash in on Star Wars).

The Soviet Union's demise has been unkind to Bond. Each new product flailed around grasping for trendy geo-political relevance. Misfires included flirtations with the War on Drugs, arms merchants, a Rupert Murdoch-like figure, Oil Politics and finally North Koreans with father issues. Pierce Brosnan did deliver galactic bucks back to Eon. But the product became anchorless and generic. The last installments blur together in an unfortunate tableau of Denise Richards, Teri Hatcher, invisible cars and sputniks gone beserk. Matt Damion's outtings as Bourne were far superior even as merchandized franchise.



Our new Bond, Daniel Craig, allegedly returns the franchise back to its roots. His is a violent, nihilistic Bond. When asked if he prefers his martinis shaken, not stirred, Bond replies “Do I look like a give a damn?” Oh SUH-NAP. Such a self-aware diss of the product line is marketing genius. “Casino Royale” has been filmed twice before. The 1950s CBS TV portrayal starred Barry Nelson as James Bond in a live broadcast for an American audience. Bond is a CIA agent, Leiter is from MI6 and Peter Lorre plays villainous Le Chiffre. In the 60s, it returned as an intermittantly funny spoof with Peter Sellers, Woody Allen and Orson Welles (DVD of which has the B&W CBS show too).

Is the third time the charm? Anthony Lane's “Of Human Bondage” has the details on the lastest version. We agree that a departure from the video game mind set of the last outing is welcome. But we wonder if this Bond is really in sync with the times — or pehaps more in tune with the America of pre-Fallujah.

One concedes that the New Bond matches the 2001-2006 Age of Bush in one respect. Blondes now dominate our consciousness of Superior Political Phenotypes. We see it everyday from the botoxed lips of the blondinka Fox News fluffers (and their imitators) to the Natalie Holloway crisis du jour. Slate's Jack Shafer documents it all. It is only natural that Hollywood's exemplar of Man of Action molt as well.

Will this Bond's nihilism match the post 2006 epoch in American socio-political consciousness? We tend to think not. Certainly, after a few bottles of bourdeaux, Perle might feel simpatico with the violence. Clumsy imitators down-market in the pundit chain such as Peters and VDH are always on board for senseless violence. And the idea of an empty Bond being essentially an efficient “Hitter” bureaucratically at least fits the Administration's belief that kinetic wet work and snatch n' grabs will solve its problems. If Boykin et al. had their way, their Bond would find redemption in the second act through evangelical Bible study and emerge a vengeful servant of their Hulk Hogan-like God. But that's a quibble.

Curiosity will draw in crowds. We predict a solid open. A straight actioner will be easier to sell around a world still prone to reject American soft power cultural exports in the Age of Bush. Bond is out of sync with the prevailing American mood. We think it is one of cautious hope, not emptiness. We haven't looked at cross tabs on our friends' recent poll data; so more a surmise or SWAG. But Americans can see the reality of empty violence for free every night from Iraq. We suspect Craig's next Bond outing will have to catch up with the times.


Tags: James Bond, Bond, Casino Royale, Perle, EON, Simon Winder, Daniel Craig, New Yorker, Anthony Lane

Rudy's signal that he's running for '08 leaves us ambivalent. That may surprise you, Dear Reader, given our seemingly offhand inclusion of Rudy in warnings here about McCain, “National Greatness” and Neocon wars of civilizations. A simple search using 'Guiliani' to the right should call up a fair sampling.



The problem is that we like Rudy personally. Alot. We worked for him back in the day on a daily basis. The interaction was direct, although Denny Young was around and Rudy's secretary “BP”, of course, supervised all. But he used our first name and must have thought well enough that he found time personally to return our phone calls long after we moved on. One of our friends remains in very close contact with him and reports that Rudy remains, well, Rudy.

The Rudy you saw on 9/11 is the Rudy we remember, only writ large. He is an extraordinarily decent person. He could be and we are sure still is extremely tough minded and exacting. Yet he always demonstrated a persistent empathy to others — even when there was no one looking or to record it. His battle with illness has only sharpened that sensitivity. Not for nothing did he attend all those funeral services and console all those families and stay in touch with them. An interesting duality of focused toughness and genuine compassion.

Our sense of Guiliani as a political person is the same as the man. So it was never a surprise that he is a progressive libertarian on many social issues. Unlike many of national stature we never got a sense that Rudy believed his own hype or if he did he got over it a long time ago. He had a great sense of humor and could see silliness and process-minded tedium for what it is.

So here's the rub. We'll leave it to the pundits to opine on his chances in the primaries and with the Republican base. That the wingnuts have a problem with him is in many ways an endorsement for much of America. Our reservation about his candidacy is his embrace of the GWOT and by extension the radicalism of regime change in Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia. We have heard him recently on some campaign swings (while sitting in the back of a packed house of donors) and there is no question in our mind that his invocation of GWOT and further war is genuine. No one knows what '08 will look like now, but the inclination to view the world in those terms and his undeniable charisma and credibility are an alarming combination.

He personally was wise to side step the Homeland Security Department (although Bernie sure blew up). The country, however, is the worse for that. If any one person could have sorted out that mess and made something actually happen, it would have been Rudy kicking ass wearing golf shoes there. And we always felt that someone of that same drive, intelligence, zero tolerance for corruption and compassion could have transformed Katrina into a moment of national healing. But. GWOT. Endless war of civilizations. A big if not smothering shadow over all even assuming the wingnuts can be overcome.

Tags: Rudy, Guliani, 08, Election, Presidency

Battle for Rummy's legacy erupts while his political corpse is still room temperature. Roughly hewn, there appear to be three main narratives vying for quick historical primacy: (a) military reformer overshadowed by his Iraq failures; (b) a bureaucratic bully who got everything wrong; and (c) a traitor to the cause of Will and Power who single-handedly ushered back into influence the hated 'Realists“ with their pygmy vision of pragmatism.



Peter Boyer in the New Yorker sets out the first and best argument via ”How Donald Rumsfeld Transformed The Army And Lost Iraq“. Boyer correctly goes back to Andy Marshall and Soviet theoretical writings from the 1980s and early 1990s to show how serious military thinkers (including the late Art Cebrowski remembered here) understood the need for military transformation long before Donald Rumseld arrived on the scene. We can attest to all of the above as being personally familiar with the original writings and some of the personalities Boyer describes there.

While it is true that ONA (the Office of Net Assessment) under Marshall after 2001 came to harbour some Neocon agitators and Feith allies such as Harold Rhode (who at least speaks several relevant languages), Marshall and ONA's commitment to creative strategic thought transcends Neoconism across the decades. Boyer's analysis tracks our experiences with OSD, the military transformation personalities and the Neocons. In truth, the Joint Staff had become too powerful and bureaucratically inert. And the Army did need reform. We recommend Boyer's piece as a relatively solid and incisive first cut at the Rumseld/transformation narrative.

As for the second line, as much as it pains us to say it, Woodward's State of Denial probably remains the single best source integrating Rumseld's dysfunctional personality and events on the ground in Iraq. Woodward also shows how Rumsfeld's almost sociopathic need for control undermined his own transformation and reform agenda. Screeds like Kwiatkowsky's ”Rumsfeld's Legacy“ while entertaining in a rile up the base sort of way are just Kool Aid of a different flavor In the end, the problem with this line of analysis is that for all of his obvious blundering and destructive impact on policy formulation and execution, the President tolerated it. So in the end, the entire critique by necessity must arrive back at the Oval Office.

And the third narrative is the one probably most familiar to you, Dear Reader, because we have enjoyed following it here so closely. Indeed quotes recently submitted here from Adelman, Perle, Ledeen and Dector and now part of the SLS blog are priceless. Neocon youngling Michael Rubin adds his own beginner's take in the WSJ as well. Rubin interestingly now seeks to link Rumsfeld to the despised 'Realism.' Jim Hoagland also lashes out at 'Realism” in the WaPo as he bitterly complains that the wreckage of the Neocon Will to Power is the triumph of their hated enemy, pragmatism.

President Bush lost more than a midterm election and a cantankerous defense secretary last week. He also abandoned any lingering chance of remaking U.S. foreign policy into a radical force for democratic change in the Middle East and elsewhere . . .But Bush's going on the defensive does not mean that the radical positive changes he had hoped for cannot come about on their own, even if on a different timetable and with much greater costs than he ever imagined. True realism lies in recognizing that his diagnosis of a crumbling order in the Middle East was sound, even if his prescriptions were not.

Perversely, one can imagine Krauthammer hunched over one of his no doubt tedious chess games, invoking Teddy — “the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”

Tags: Rumsfeld, OSD, transformation, Perle, Adelman, Neocons, Iraq, Rubin, Hoagland, New Yorker, Boyle

The vaunted Iraq Study Group (sans Gates now because of his nomination) meets with Dubya and Cheney on Monday. Oh to be a fly on the wall.

We wouldn't be surprised at an initial round of defensiveness beneath the faux receptivity. Who can blame Dubya and Cheney? A World Historical CF doesn't get created every day.



Will they have a new slogan to trot out for the ISG? One that they will claim always represented their thinking? There are no more process gimmicks for them like elections or other empty ceremonies. No more cheap stunts left. Will the duo be more truthful with the ISG than they were with the 9/11 Commission? How will Cheney recall this meeting for his serial fabricator Stephen Hayes?

Baker the cold fixer is on the last great mission of life, perhaps. We always thought he never got the props he deserved for the swift and painless unification of Germany into NATO. That was a diplomatic coup de main beyond even Talleyrand at the height of his influence. Hamilton, the solid voice of the eviscerated Establishment, serves as a Banquo's Ghost come back to haunt the tattered remnants of the “Endless War for Freedom” regime.

Individual interviews are also planned for Negroponte, fresh back from a tour of the chaos in Iraq. As well as a sit down with Cher Condi.
Condi can be counted to tack with the prevailing winds and embrace the new Realist line as dutifully as she ordered a 2005 senior State Dept. retreat at the Greenbrier to chart how “transformational diplomacy” presented the greatest chance to reshape the international order since the Treaty of Westphalia.

Her fans choose to ignore these and other inconvenient realities. Instead these toadies, apologists, sycophants and self-promoters still seek to attach themselves to her media persona. (At least they did when she represented their only access to influence in a One Party State).

Conveniently they all chose to forget that she was right in there from 2001-2005 pitching in with the loathesome radicals and their coercive philosophy. That even Cheney was too dark and misanthropic even for her light mental capacity and better interpersonal skills is no excuse. The reckoning on her disasterous contributions to our strategic predicament only has been delayed, not obviated.

With the liberation of the HIll there are now multiple avenues to advance agendas, personal marketing schitcks and settle old scores without needing Cher Condi. It would be a disservice to history if Cher Condi's tragic incompetence and support for the past 6 years gets forgotten in the rush to pragmatism and Realism.

Tags: Iraq, Baker, Neocons, Condi, Bush, Cheney

Watching Imperial City political and media orcs reel from the unaccustomed loss of guidance from the Great Eye is a lovely thing. How many “journalists” will actually have to work now to replace a newly irrelevant rolodex? And how many will now molt before our eyes, protesting that they were always part of the Resistance in spirit if not in fact? We know who the Collaborators were.

Amidst all the joy, promise of a better tomorrow and partial relief from the Shadow, we stop to remember our old friend, Jim Baen. As we wrote earlier, he passed away this summer. I know from our conversations during earlier political earthquakes in the 1980s and 1990s, including 1992 and 1994, Jim would have welcomed Tuesday. Jim was part of Newt's kitchen cabinet, true. But corruption, incompetence and hypocrisy were anathema to him. The system still works, Jim.

Today,David Drake has a list on Amazon of the Top Ten science fiction books he and Jim discussed before his passing. They are:

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

Dune by Frank Herbert

Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague deCamp

Against the Fall of Night by Arthur C. Clarke

Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert A. Heinlein

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

This list is not unrelated to Tuesday and our predicament of a failed presidency and a catastrophe in Iraq. As David notes on the Amazon link, when he and Jim discussed Foundation, for example, Foundation was an important literary effort to show that understanding human nature was more important than sheer military force. Much food for thought.


A good list. Well done old friend.


Tags: Jim Baen, Newt Gingrich, elections, sci fi, science fiction

With the unceremonious dumping of Rummy today, Bush gave a public shove to the tottering edifice of Cheney-ism. Already gravely undermined by Scooter's indictment, bizarre public utterances and lawyer-hunting, Cheney is now truly isolated, without allies. As reported today on several cable channels, the White House was leaking that Bush resisted Cheney's advice to retain Rumsfeld or replace him with a Neocon Kool Aider.

Our contemporary but considerably darker Jules Mazarin, Cheney potentially is left dangling in the bureaucratic shadows, raging at the dawn. (This was unexpected today — see our 'Dead Enders' item here a few days ago).



Gates' arrival to OSD while welcome is not wholly the complete 'Realist“ restoration that some banal talking heads suggest. This is beyond just recycling tired recollections of Mel Goodman and Agency analysts who charged 20 years ago that Gates slanted intelligence for the White House.

The more important political fact is that Gates was very much a Casey loyalist with all that implies, including the temptation to invoke national security imperatives to trump inconveniences such as legislation (the Boland Amendment) or the Constitution. Gates is certainly less a firebrand and not even close to the manic bureaucratic infighter as David Addington (who was at CIA and later HPSCI during the Casey era). Gates is also an ”Organization Man“ in the 1950s sense of the word, so radicalism is not his inclination. But some of the ”National Security State as prima inter pares DNA“ definitely is not absent in him as well.

As important, Gates is susceptible to drinking prevailing ideological Kool Aid. The Stiftung has some personal experience with this, as Gates personally rejected warnings about the impending Soviet coup in 1991. He specifically refuted the possibility in July and ignored direct warning evidence. We have always been amused at Gates' (and the Agency's) subsequent efforts to cite strands of memos, cables, etc. in his memoirs to claim that he and the Agency were on top of the situation. Gates after the fact CYA is as contrived and false as much of the Administration's AgitProp is today. We wonder what kind of ”fresh eyes“ Dubya is bringing in.

The Neocons are truly in wretched state today. Rumsfeld's fall is a hollow achievement for them. No longer can they count on the SSCI and HSPCI to be fronts for their disinformation. Santorum, author of the Iran Liberation Act, is gone. So is the always entertaining but ”out there" Weldon. And so on. The Baker Commission will now get a respectful hearing on the Hill. And so will opening up dialogue with Iran, Syria and North Korea. Even if Israel were to launch another offensive in 2007 as predicted both by Israelis and even military historian John Keegan, it will no longer have the automatic AgitProp impact as before and likely will not be enough on its own to ignite military strikes on Iran.

Overall, this is a wonderful day for the Republic. Separation of Powers has a chance to live again. We may have accountability through oversight back. The divisive Christian Socialist-Authoritarianism of the last six years has been rocked back on its heels. Rove and Cheney's social darwinism may be arrested if not completely healed. And abroad, the Neocon policy of mindless embrace of Force and Will has been dealt a body blow.

The progressive blogosphere deserves a bow and our thanks. They took up this fight when the odds were so overwhelmingly against a day of rationality and sanity. Those of us in the Opposition who joined that fight owe them a debt of gratitude. Well done.

Remember, remember the 7th of November !

Tags: Cheney, Rumsfeld, OSD, Robert Gates, Elections, Neocons, OSD, Robert Gates

Woody Allen once said 90% of life is just showing up. But don't underestimate timing.

And woe be unto him who misjudges when to kiss off an ideological regime sinking in defeat. Too soon and one is still subject to “mobile courts” rendering summary executions for ideological desertion. Who doesn't remember the grainy black and white pictures of lifeless victims festooned with placards, except this time the signs would read “I am a defeatist and chose not to defend the [American] people.”

But jettisoning loyalties too late risks getting sucked down in the regime's undertow. What good is it to slink furtively out of the ruins of an undisclosed bunker or think tank and hop amidst the rubble? One risks not only being shot like a dog by the victors but perhaps the even more ignominous fate of passing away unremarked, becoming an un-person, forgotten. No book deals. No cable TV appearances. No directorships on companies.



So timing is key. And it looks like Perle et al. now regret theirs.

Not coincidentally, the political environment has changed the last 10 days or so. Confident predictions of a Democrat blow out are changing. The regime surprisingly succeeded re-energizing its ideological base. The tightening of the elections and possibility that the regime may retain Loyalists (even in a diminished state) makes perfidy especially tricky. In Vanity Fair the Neocons take shots at the Maximum Leader. Not only may he surivive November, astonishlingly his hard core ideological praetorians still march under his banner.

Reading the hastily cobbled together explanations for their turn in Vanity Fair, two things are clear: (a) none of them wanted their kiss off to appear in the heat of a rapidly narrowing election contest, allegedly claiming it would be improper; and (b) their real fear that in such a newly energized and polarized environment, they risk ideological explusion and political summary execution by the dreaded pundit “mobile courts” for desertion.

Deftly invoking the always reliable canard of “the liberal media”, Perle, Frum et al. blame Vanity Fair for printing accurate quotes. Most of them concede the quotes are nothing new and stuff they have been saying for years.

The Stiftung can verify that indeed several of the Neocons in the piece said much the same thing to us across the 2004-2005 time frame. In the link above, several of them point to earlier writings. Indeed, even those who are operationally more important to the Neocon cause than the pundit class such as David Wurmser on Cheney's staff (and a hoped for Dark Dauphin for the Future) privately rage at the Administration's incompetence (which sometimes is described in almost treasonous terms). So it is important to remember the crux of Perle, Frum et al.'s gripe — that these long held (and known) positions somehow are so highly charged and special that Vanity Fair broke faith by running the story before the election. Please.

The truth is that the Neocons now feel they miscalculated in the interviews — or worse, appear to have miscalculated. (Young ones like Michael Rubin can be excused because he is still a Padawan Learner).

They took shots at El Jeffe, the “Big Man”. And Dubya is not going quietly into the night. This regime is justly feared for its remorseless insistence on loyalty. The risk of reprisal and punishment from a wounded regime and its base is thus very real. Had the Neocons been wiser and confined their remarks just to Rumsfeld, they could bask in solidary with Gannett's Army/Navy/AF/Marine Times editorials.

But reading the prevailing political winds weeks ago when they gave the interviews, they thought they were wise to tack to the new wind. There was no sign that the base would come home. In their case, the die was cast. They crossed Massachusetts Avenue, so to speak. But turned and saw the army did not follow.

How odd this late in the game for them to lose their collective nerve. As Ledeen of all people knows, usually when you draw the pistol against the Prince, you must fire and hit. Or pay a terrible price.

Except in America, perhaps. Then one must write another item for The Corner.



Tags: Perle, Frum, Neocons, Iraq, War, Vanity Fair, Ledeen

And so it goes said Kurt Vonnegut.

Perle, Adelmen and Frum cut loose the President and the Administration.

The decisions did not get made that should have been. They didn't get made in a timely fashion, and the differences were argued out endlessly.… At the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible.… I don't think he realized the extent of the opposition within his own administration, and the disloyalty.

And how sharp the serpant's tooth said The Bard. But in this case, it would be how harsh the parasite's rejection of its sickly, spent Host, when it can no longer serve its function.

Existential despair, however, is not in their ouevre. Rehabilitation and fighting another day very much is.



Neocons don't have an Oprah. Leno is too plebian. So how to do the expected contrition and rehabilitation turn? No one really reads the policy journals any more beyond the people who write for them and their friends. Too small a platform. Other than an HBO miniseries and DVD merchandising blitz, Vanity Fair one supposes will have to do.

Ditching Bush for personal responsibility with botching their vision does two things. First, it ties the albatross of Iraq around the sinking Bush. Both disappear into the abyss of historical ignomy together . Make no mistake, however, that the true villian — Judas (if one may make that analogy) ? — is Donald Rumsfeld in this mythos.

Dubya's sin is the minor one of being too naive/nice/conflicted/loyal, etc. Well intentioned but weak. Cheney was too loyal to Rumsfeld as well. And all far too tolerant of Fifth Columnists in the Community and at State. As the Corporal once raged at the end, “I was too lenient”.

Secondly, and more importantly, this expitiation (expect more of it) and Self Criticism is an accepted mechanism for cleansing before a return to policy leadership. Unlike say Deng Tsaio Ping in the late 1970s, we don't have pig farms for them to spend 2 or 3 years of hard labor. Perhaps if there was any justice, the Neocons would be forced to star in a Survivor series. 2006 allows plenty of time for them to recant and emerge as senior members of the McCain, Guiliani or even Clinton campaigns. Adelman as always remains the dimmest of the bunch, more a pamphleteer than thought leader. He doesn't get the joke:

Fearing that worse is still to come, Adelman believes that neoconservatism itself—what he defines as “the idea of a tough foreign policy on behalf of morality, the idea of using our power for moral good in the world”—is dead, at least for a generation.

It of course was never about just that or even mostly that. As Perle, Ledeen, Kristol(s) all know.

The guppies like Beinhart and the rest who style themselves as Neoliberals are about to get bigfooted. By the A Team.

Tags: War, Perle, Iraq, Neocons, Iraq, Neoliberals, Adelman, Frum

Ralph Peters slinks away from his car wreck in Iraq hoping no one saw him help driving. He finally bows to consensus reality and concedes Iraq is 'unwinnable'. But oh the delusions that remain.

Those of us who hoped that the Iraqis could achieve democracy were wrong — and their failure has implications for the entire region . . . Iraq was the Arab world's last chance to board the train to modernity, to give the region a future, not just a bitter past. The violence staining Baghdad's streets with gore isn't only a symptom of the Iraqi government's incompetence, but of the comprehensive inability of the Arab world to progress in any sphere of organized human endeavor. We are witnessing the collapse of a civilization.

All those who rooted for Iraq to fail are going to be chastened by what follow. And contrary to the prophets of doom, the United States wouldn't be weakened by our withdrawal, should it come to that. Iraq was never our Vietnam. It's al-Qaeda's Vietnam. They're the ones who can't leave and who can't win.

So to be clear, Peters concedes the Administration was less than competent. But to him the Iraqis are the ones responsible for provoking the half assed OIF in the first place and then turning their nation into another Lebanon.



Peters remains deceitful to the last, shirking his responsibility as one of the coarse, third tier cheerleaders for violence and force. (He offers instead a Hastert-like hollow acknowledgement of responsibility that offers much but accepts nothing).

How he thinks Iraq a trifling failure not even on a Vietnam scale says alot. Vietnam was a minor geopolitical struggle on the periphery of the main contest to contain Soviet power. Pullout there left the central system strategic equation unaffected or any other core geostrategic interest. And within 10 years from that pullout we were on the cusp of winning the Cold War. We agree with Bill Odom (much as it surprises us, but that is a long story) that Iraq is the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history.

Failure in Iraq by contrast has pulverized the stability of the region that is vital to the global economy — but then hated stability and Realists were always the true enemies of Peters and Neocons when launching this absurd CF.

Iraq has stirred the passions and hatreds of an ecumenae numbering approximately 1 billion. The balance of power in the region is decisively against the U.S. and its non-radicalized allies. U.S. prestige, soft power and political capital has been depleted by the Administration's reckless policies and incompetence. Not to mention the treasure and blood lost.

But Peters goes one further. He claims somehow Iraq is actually a victory for the U.S. somehow because it is Al Qaeda's Vietnam. For real. Read his piece again. We normally “grok” Neocon Kool Aid trips but not this one.

How Peters' audience reacts to his volte face will be interesting. Many undoubtedly already knew Iraq was lost, and no longer believed in elections, purple digits, or Dubya's secret plans and wunderwaffen. Yet many also required Peters and others to continue to at least pretend to believe in Victory to assuage their own pain from cognitive dissonance. The penalty for Peters and others to peddle the Kool Aid is also high. Billmon's report that Fox News continues its ratings free fall shows how thin the triumphalist gruel has become. (MSNBC is enjoying a ratings increase)

Fox News's total audience fell 24 percent in the past year, to 1.3 million viewers from 1.7 million, and its key primetime audience, viewers ages 25-54, was down 7 percent in October on a year-to-year basis, to an average 363,000 viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research data. In third quarter, Fox News suffered a 38 percent decline in 25-54s, to 409,000.

A temporary blip, of course, until audience disenchantment, shame and anger is re-directed to the 'stab in the back' meme and then Iran.

Look for them beginning early Spring 2007.

Tags: Neocons, Iraq, Ralph, Peters, War, Vietnam

Dubya's warm embrace of Cheney and Rumsfeld today confirms the sour two years ahead of us. And effectively spikes Cher Condi's dreams of being more than a staffer and AgitProp queen.

We note with bemusement the recent and futile Imperial City parlour game played by some, breathlessly speculating on who might be Condi's deputy, etc. A pointless pursuit as Zoellick himself realized when he abandoned Condi and resigned in July. A fitting end to the tenure of a vacant mind and empty persona.

Instead, Cheney and Rumsfeld will remain in the saddle to the bitter end. This Administration, true, is not above political kabuki, and it is possible that with this affirmation, Rumsfeld could resign with political cover. But we don't think so. Conventional prefab wisdom believes Bush's actions are tied to protecting flanks on Iraq and other related decisions of the past. We believe it is really a prospective decision: i.e., about Iran.



Administration continued use of “unacceptable” to describe the Iranian nuclear program affirms it is a casus belli. Today Michael Ledeen argues that we are already at war with Iran anyway. And bemoans Bush's decision to not act immediately. Cheney and Rumsfeld will facilitate the implementation of actions in the remaining two years to make Ledeen's AgitProp a reality.

Whether Iraq is code orange or red in some CENTCOM PowerPoint presentation does not interest the Stiftung. The American force posture in theater, equipment burn rate and human capital depletion effectively removes a robust military threat against Tehran for the near and medium term. This is true whether Americans re-set the forces over the horizon or not.

Which leaves “precision” air/sea strike and integrated special forces action as the only remaining card to play. The naval exercises in the Gulf now would be an adjunct to any such unfolding campaign.

Lieberman as Minister of Strategic Threats in an Olmert Cabinet is a catalytic engine for those seeking to create the momentum of inevitability. Interestingly, as those who followed the Walt and Mearsheimer mau mau know, a Democratic House may also inadvertently assist. The Democratic Party is even more vulnerable to AgitProp from that direction arguably than the Republican from the Evangelical/Neocon axis. It would be nice to be surprised.

Tehran also would welcome this development. Riding out American airstrikes and transient force would do much to further Tehran's bid for leadership in the Islamic world and overcome the Persian/Sunni taint. If Israel could not locate and identify Hezbollah assets next door after years of intelligence activity, Tehran must like the odds of American ability in even locating the important nuclear program elements let along reaching them. In any event, strikes would delay not halt Iranian progress.

What a poisoned chalice to leave the American people in 2008. Iraq in chaos. Iran resurgent in the Islamic world (think Hezbollah's PR triumph after the Israeli foray into Lebanon but on steroids). And Neocons and Bush defenders pointing to the wreckage as affirmation that we are in the war of civilizations that they yearn for.

The utlimate in burned bridges. And the Dubya/Cheney/Rumsfeld troika determined to pull it all down around them and us. All setting the stage for McCain and “National Greatness”, Guiliani's Neocon “Resolve” . . . or?

A Democratic victory next week is merely the first step on a long road to stopping this. One hopes they are up to it.

Tags: Iran,, Iraq,, Neocons,, Rumsfeld