Buying Time For History
Is the U.S. sliding into war with Iran? Sy Hersh may be right.
What most Oppositionists and certainly the ‘Left’ [sic] in the U.S. fail to understand is that the EU behind the scenes is on board. Rumblings from Brussels (not just Carla Bruni’s beau) are clearly hawkish. In fact, EU blatantly public worries are that the Crowned One ironically may undercut the UN like the Warlord – here, seeking to use personal charm for engagement while ignoring UN sanctions and other action.
Zbig’s weighing in on all this is getting stale. He needs to retire. His son is a lobbyist and law partner. His daughter is now a blondika version of J Fred Muggs to Scarborough. More importantly, Zbig’s argument that the Iranians sought the bomb *because* of the Warlord is simply specious. (Zbig is often an ass when he writes about things outside the Polish-Great Russian geopolitical corridor — his immature writings on Japan back on the day merely one example). The Iranian program according to most honest observers began to take shape during their war with Iraq.
Interestingly, while this unfolds, a leading Neocon, Jim Hoagland in the WaPo advocates a backhand strategy for Russia. He argues that the Russians are feeling American weakness and are pushing for the rollback of American power across the board. Hoagland is at least sober about in old Sov speak the relative ‘correlation of forces’ and how depleted American assets are under Cher Condi and the Warlord. Instead of the typical cant one expects from Neocons (and Hoagland) of standing firm, promoting democracy, freedom, Georgia in NATO, etc. Hoagland says something different. He offers that we should let the Russians push, until they exhaust themselves. Then he envisions a new equillibrium of punched out American and Russian visions — sobered and weakened. Very much like Manstein at Kharkov in 1943 (hence the back hand label) — although as we all know, ‘that whole thing didn’t end so good’ as the kidz say.
Is Tehran vaut bien un Conférence sur la sécurité en Europe on Russian terms? Would it even buy Tehran? We think not. Yet, oddly, this notion of talking as a strategy — or even accomodating to a rollback — is not too far from what is emerging from the Crowned One’s camp as the framing architecture of his world view and policy.
One must ask therefore if the Crowned One and his retinue understand Power. Sentiments are fine. Lofty rhetoric is a nimbus and neither here nor there. He holds a bad hand thanks to the Warlord et al. But the world is still anarchical and Power still determines how international law, international institutions and international discourse function. How will he achieve U.S. goals balancing the UN, Brussels, Moscow and Beijing with Tehran? If Zbig and the crowd we know tossing themselves at at future Administration are any clue, we truly fear a calamitous Kennedy – Khruschev summit in Vienna. With all the potentially catastrophic misjudgments that ensued. And that is merely one small example of the larger question: what is Obama’s principle about the purpose and role of American power in the world?
That question of course cuts both ways. Domestically, forget for a moment whether he wears a flag pin, ‘she rocks’ or if he says love of America (Amerikuh?) is a given. He has yet to explain and demonstrate to the American voter his vision in practical terms. Similarly, abroad, it is not enough simply to say he will reverse the Warlord’s policies. Across the globe, everyone is asking the same question: does the Crowned One understand how to use and impose Power? Many of those flocking to the banner of Change for appointments do not, in our opinion. Talk as a strategy for buying temporal space can make sense — engagement — if part of a coherent framework that is strategic and furthers both American interests and power (not necessarily identical). Even provocations domestic and foreign (read recent choreographed exercises) can actually be used as tools to make engagement appealing. Nimble opportunism can be a plus if the goal does not get lost. But in the end, it is all about understanding the application of Power. We do not mean the Warlord’s ultimately nihilistic (behind the facade) machtpolitik. The Crowned One’s position is unenviable. So much frittered away thoughtlessly the last 8 years.
We just wonder.
The Dada President?
“C‘est le hystérie qui fait l’homme.” Perhaps.
All the swooning over the Crown Prince reveals to us a subliminal (and certainly not self aware) Dada-ism in the smug clique over at Huffington Post, etc. The words typed there and elsewhere made into analysis simply by assertion. It’s commentary and analysis because we say so. Such fevered adoration certainly demostrates embrace of irrationality. Moreover, finding suitability for global leadership in a laundry list of state bills can not be anything but diving for obscure meaning. Do we not have Dada in its most contemporary possibility?
Not to put to fine a point on it, but parallels between then and now are significant. if Dada could said to have its origins after the disaster of WWI, then our current political zeitgeist is mostly a rejection of the disasters of 2001-07. Leaders today are not artists and they do not completely embrace the provocative zany behavior of Dada. But why should they? It already is produced by our surrounding Kultur. They just need to flash a Jay Z. And even then like now, they are all actually closet aesthetes.
Back then, Dada stood for freedom: from war, from a lying press and government, etc. Today is simply one word, change.
Yes, we can. Indeed.
Holding The Line — For A Little While
We were a bit surprised the Crown Prince failed to win Texas as you know. His focus today on actual pledged delegates is not illegitimate. But as GHWB learned from Iowa, ‘Big Mo’ often can turn into nemesis in an eye blink.
So let’s sort out what really happened. MSNBCNNFOX drum into our eyeballs relentlessly that HRC won a disproportionate share of late deciders. The collected wisdom? These voters — we are told — were ‘exposed’ to the HRC telephone ads as if the ads themselves were a toxic bacilus. Are we all not weary of the same consensus 25 pundits basking in their moment in the sunshine (even if feigned as mere duty). Of course, calculated contrarian posing pops up for personal self-promotion or in marionette response to desperate producers. All essentially effluvium.
Let’s put aside their talk. You know, that the HRC campaign went ‘negative’ in a ‘classic Clinton machine’ sort of way. And the corollary that the Crown Prince must don (sadly) the boxing gloves he heretofore avoided as a creature more noble than mortal politicians. Additionally, despite his enthusiasm, Rush’s impact on events likely is less than a rounding error in a precinct or two. On the last we agree. Where does that leave us?
The Stiftung is pleased (and somewhat surprised) that the Crown Prince suffered reverses precisely because for the briefest of moments: (a) the press, waking from its narcotic state, actually asked some typical questions about the Crown Prince’s actual positions; (b)he, by responding, descended from the clouds and appeared as mere typical biped seeking office; (c) meanwhile, HRC managed by savvy use of free media (to offset the Crown Prince’s larger war chest) to use up oxygen; and thus (d) we sense the barest glimmer of legitimate sobriety about a campaign surging on diaphanous bloviation. But only a glimmer.
As mentioned, we expected the Crown Prince to take Texas and thereby make HRC’s rationale particularly untenable. Yet his perceived blow halts a surging offensive that rollled as inevitable like the tide. A riposte and a reverse. Much of the ‘consensus’ wisdom now is Pennsylvania. To us it is just the latest line in a situation marked by fluidity. The Corporal responded to Junker Field Marshals’ cries for permission to retreat outside Moscow in December 1941, ‘Retreat to where? Will it be any warmer 75 kilometers back?”. Oddly, this now applies to both campaigns now. Absent capitulation — or union — the last stand lies in reconsidering Michigan and Florida notwithstanding Dean’s insignificant current stature.
The bigger question will be by what means and tactics do the parties get there? The $85 million reservoir in cash on hand today ensures a temptation to both for a slug fest. Can the Crown Prince recover after a season, return to his Olympian perch and renew previously unstoppable surge? Fresh and recharged? Is that even wise at this juncture? Or will he be forced (willingly or unwilling) to slug it out in the low road of terra firma? Logistically, we wonder if HRC can capitalize meaningfully on the perception of momentum change necessary for creating new actual ground truth. We are reasonably sure that the path to ‘victory’ (or glory) will not lie with substance or improved political discourse. The Crown Prince’s halt in Texas (to our surprise) and Ohio now creates the vision of a grinding war of attrition. HRC has the experience and capacity for prevailing; she lacks the in depth resources. The Crown Prince is unprepared personally and in self image terms for such brutality (again in our view); he has resources in spades.
So it is no surprise HRC opens the door for a peace treaty in the form of a joint ticket. It’s the best play given her cards and the party may overall benefit concentrating on McCain rather self-immolation. We’ll see how that plays out.
All of the political theater makes McCain’s strategy for visibility particularly interesting. There are only so many times a man can be on Leno.
The Wave
One must tip the hat to the Crown Prince. For good (and we suspect) or for ill, empty phraseology of ‘change’ may well hynoptize the nation. So the pablum pendulum swings from ‘evil doers’ to ‘change and hope’. The only real significance the Stiftung can see is that it is now “our” empty suit without any real experience over “their empty suit smirking chimp”. Naturally, “our” empty suit is not inherently ignorant nor prone to malignant assistants like Cheney et. al.
What do the signs tell us? No good omens. The declining WaPo via Kurtz gives Tweety a get out of jail free pass at this critical juncture (and while David Shuster languishes in media limbo). Now empowered, today Tweety feels unleashed to re-assert his misogyny and low brow chauvanism at the same time. If one has not seen the mash note, voila.
Having said all of that, the Stiftung feels and sees the tide fleeing rapidly away from the shore. Look at all the shiny shells at the college rallies ! Out as far as the eye can see ! All labelled “change”. Only a few see the thin dark line looming on the horizon, accompanied with a deep rumble. As a tactical matter, we are not sure the HRC disavowal of rhetoric will yield success. At least enough to sustain her until March. Offering an uninspiring laundry list of policy depth is a hard sell in American Idol besotted nation.
She must be willing — however phrased, to let the gloves come off. The Crown Prince can not (nor should he) be allowed to ride into the White House without every really undergoing the fire of a contested election. No matter how much the netroots, some in the media and the Usual Gang wish it to be. All these fine sentiments count for nothing in Beijing, Moscow, Tehran and host of others; they could care less about his audacity. Unless HRC begins to counter punch beyond the delicate “we are substantive”, their stand in Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania will recede further into the dark line on the horizon.
Odd? We still think it will be unlikely. The Penn-Grunewald tension Tweety revels in discussed today a natural outgrowth of tension, long hours and different visions.
The American people embraced the empty, ill-defined Warlord to our mutual near destruction. He laughed well. Handled an awkward Gore at the debates. And did not, according to the press “claim to have invented the Internet”. Now Americans embrace empty rhetoric from the other side. Intentions may be well be different, but a calamitous outcome is by no means ruled out, by merely a different path.
Let’s be *audacious* and *hope* that we can survive an inexperienced law review geek as well.