domino theory

withdrawal symptoms

where most see the recent clash in basra between maliki's u.s.-backed forces and sadr's militiamen as a further slide into quicksand, bob wright @ bloggingheads.tv sees a bright red exit sign:

bob wright: well, let me tell you — get onto why i felt a little more sanguine after this, about the consequences of american withdrawal, or at least a little less concerned about the possibility of chaos engulfing the region if america withdraws. what you saw in this was that, contrary to some stereotypes, actually none of the parties involved are crazy, okay? maliki did miscalculate a little, but once he got himself into trouble, all of the parties saw that it was in their interest to work out a peaceful solution, and they did it. and they did it without any american help. they did with iranian help. we were not involved in the solution. they worked it out without us, okay? the only effect we may have had is by doing a little more — helping maliki inflict a little more damage than he would have otherwise. it may have weakened sadr's bargaining position a little, so maybe he got a little worse deal than he would have, but as you yourself said, it's far from clear whether it's better that sadr lose or that he prevail among the shiites. i mean, we don't even — we just don't know. the main thing is that first you get order on the shiite side, then you can proceed to hope for shiite-sunni reconciliation, and as far as the ordering process on the shiite side, i thought they passed the test. y'know, they worked it out. it's stable, it did not — all hell did not break loose. we had nothing to do with the solution. iran did, and that's just ... what we're stuck with is that iran is going to be the source of, a great source of power in the shiite south, and we insured that by invading iraq, and we gotta live with it.

unfortunately both pride and greed make it extremely unlikely that america will decide to "live with it", which guarantees that we'll continue to overstay our welcome in southern iran iraq ...

finally, flowers

then:

"think of the faces in afghanistan when the people were liberated, when they moved out in the streets and they started singing and flying kites and women went to school and people were able to function and other countries were able to start interacting with them. that's what would happen in iraq." — defense secretary donald rumsfeld, 9/13/02 "as i told the president on january 10th, i think they will be greeted with sweets and flowers in the first months and simply have very, very little doubts that that is the case." — iraqi exile kanan makiya, 3/17/03

now:

baghdad — pomp and ceremony greeted iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad on his arrival in iraq on sunday, the fanfare a stark contrast to the rushed and secretive visits of his bitter rival u.s. president george w. bush. ahmadinejad held hands with iraqi president jalal talabani as they walked down a red carpet to the tune of their countries' national anthems, his visit the first by an iranian president since the two neighbours fought a ruinous war in the 1980s. his warm reception, in which he was hugged and kissed by iraqi officials and presented with flowers by children, was iraq's first full state welcome for any leader since the u.s.-led invasion to topple saddam hussein in 2003. — reuters, 3/2/08

quote of the day

craigie @ sadly, no!:

i never get tired of reading how our beautiful, advanced civilization of love and fairness cannot survive unless we kill all the brown people while they sleep.

no more slam dunks

this week's news leak that bush has secretly signed

a "nonlethal presidential finding" [?!? 1] that puts into motion a cia plan that reportedly includes a coordinated campaign of propaganda, disinformation and manipulation of iran’s currency and international financial transactions.

... has the blogoshpere once again atwitter (as leaks about iran typically incite every few weeks) that all-out war with iran is just around the corner. even as the same article cautions that while

"vice president cheney helped to lead the side favoring a military strike," said former cia official riedel, "but i think they have come to the conclusion that a military strike has more downsides than upsides."

... many still see this as one more step down the road to armageddon:

"i think everybody in the region knows that there is a proxy war already afoot with the united states supporting anti-iranian elements in the region as well as opposition groups within iran," said vali nasr, adjunct senior fellow for mideast studies at the council on foreign relations. "and this covert action is now being escalated by the new u.s. directive, and that can very quickly lead to iranian retaliation and a cycle of escalation can follow," nasr said.

i've already touched on some of the reasons why war with iran will not be forthcoming, such as an increasingly hostile (to the neocons) political climate:

"... the trash talk in a street altercation escalates in proportion to the expanding distance between the two protagonists.... it's when the fist fight has been avoided (or tabled) and they're putting distance between each other that the taunting becomes louder and more florid.... ... they're waging rhetorical escalation because de-escalation is the unacknowledged order of the day, and there's nothing they can do about it." — james wolcott, 9/2/06

an increasingly recalcitrant military:

"with the encouragement of some still in positions of military leadership, i offer a challenge to those still in uniform: a leader's responsibility is to give voice to those who can't — or don't have the opportunity to — speak. enlisted members of the armed forces swear their oath to those appointed over them; an officer swears an oath not to a person but to the constitution. the distinction is important ..." — marine lieutenant general greg newbold, retired, 4/9/06

[admiral william] fallon’s refusal to support a further naval buildup in the gulf reflected his firm opposition to an attack on iran and an apparent readiness to put his career on the line to prevent it. a source who met privately with fallon around the time of his confirmation hearing and who insists on anonymity quoted fallon as saying that an attack on iran "will not happen on my watch". asked how he could be sure, the source says, fallon replied, "you know what choices i have. i’m a professional." fallon said that he was not alone, according to the source, adding, "there are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box."

and a more robust opponent:

... unlike iraq, iran boasts the capability of striking back at its attacker, both with and without warning. its long shadow across the straits of hormuz and its purported international network of sleeper cells have been thoroughly dissected in other publications, so suffice it here to say that most americans would prefer that iran's boasts remain untested.

but there is an overarching dimension to this ongoing melodrama that i haven't yet made crystal clear.

war with iran won't be a "slam dunk".

remember, when the white house and its neocon enablers first seduced america into abetting its invasion of iraq, the primary pitch they made that john q. public found so enticing was that "regime change" would be easy:

"i believe demolishing hussein's military power and liberating iraq would be a cakewalk. let me give simple, responsible reasons: (1) it was a cakewalk last time; (2) they've become much weaker; (3) we've become much stronger; and (4) now we're playing for keeps." — reagan arms control director ken adelman, 2/13/02 "five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that." — defense secretary donald rumsfeld, 11/15/02 "a slam-dunk case." — cia director george tenet, 12/12/02 "we will win this conflict. we will win it easily." — sen. john mccain, 1/22/03 "i think it will go relatively quickly, ... [in] weeks rather than months." — vice president dick cheney, 3/16/03 "major combat operations in iraq have ended." — president george bush, 5/1/03

and cheap:

"iraq, unlike afghanistan, is a rather wealthy country. iraq has tremendous resources that belong to the iraqi people. and so there are a variety of means that iraq has to be able to shoulder much of the burden for their own reconstruction." — white house spokesman ari fleischer, 2/18/03 "the oil revenues of iraq could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years ... we're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon." — deputy defense secretary paul wolfowitz, 3/27/03 "in terms of the american taxpayers contribution, [$1.7 billion] is it for the us. the rest of the rebuilding of iraq will be done by other countries and iraqi oil revenues ... the american part of this will be 1.7 billion. we have no plans for any further-on funding for this." — usaid director andrew natsios, 4/23/03

and we'd all be heroes:

"if we just let our own vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don't try to be clever and piece together clever diplomatic solutions to this thing, but just wage a total war against these tyrants, i think we will do very well and our children will sing great songs about us years from now." — michael leeden, american enterprise institute, 10/29/01 "i think that the people of iraq would welcome the u.s. force as liberators; they would not see us as oppressors, by any means." — vice president dick cheney, 9/9/02 "think of the faces in afghanistan when the people were liberated, when they moved out in the streets and they started singing and flying kites and women went to school and people were able to function and other countries were able to start interacting with them. that's what would happen in iraq." — defense secretary donald rumsfeld, 9/13/02 "the iraqi people understand what this crisis is about. like the people of france in the 1940s, they view us as their hoped-for liberator. they know that america will not come as a conqueror." — deputy defense secretary paul wolfowitz, 3/11/03 "as i told the president on january 10th, i think they will be greeted with sweets and flowers in the first months and simply have very, very little doubts that that is the case. this is a remarkable situation in which the population of a country that's about to have a war waged over its head positively wants the war while all kinds of other countries don't for one reason or another. that should tell us a lot about this war and about the future [inaudible] which i think is desufficiently emphasized." — iraqi exile kanan makiya, 3/17/03 "i think when the people of basra no longer feel the threat of that regime, you are going to see an explosion of joy and relief." — deputy defense secretary paul wolfowitz, 3/24/03

explosions, paul? most certainly, and to this very day. joy and relief? well .. not so much.

the collapse of the occupation and the clearly-forseen civil war unleashed amid the criminal lack of contingency planning for the invasion's aftermath painfully dramatized the dangers of huffing one's own propaganda, particularly propaganda laced with dubious intel cherry-picked and stove-piped from neocon hustlers and iraqi beat artists.

while it's tempting to believe (as many do) that a group of people so horribly misguided must be certifiably insane (and therefore capable of any utter lunacy the most ill-informed paranoiac can dream up), the iraq debacle only proves them to be self-deluding, greedy and morally bankrupt, even evil — but not insane.

because only an insane person launches a war that they don't believe they can easily win, and it was as true for adolf hitler before he invaded poland as it is for george bush before he invaded iraq.

and iran will be no cakewalk.

because thanks to an imploding middle east, a newly-combative congress, a collapsing military and increasingly resistant commanders, a disgusted electorate, a bursting budget, a resurgent taliban and a hezbollah-chastized israel, the war-mongers in washington — and the too-willing public — got a cruelly-needed splash of cold and bitter reality, and right in the kisser.

and while pride childishly demands that they continue rattling their tin swords, in the maddeningly elusive hope that they'll sucker iran into a "gotcha" moment and get them to finally cry "uncle" to prove once and for all america's total pwnage before they slink off into the pages of infamy, the war-mongers know too well that their cynical dream of *cough* "spreading peace and democracy" *cough* across the middle east has just gone up in smoke:

"we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield." — george orwell, 1946

---

¹ wtf ... ?!? is this supposed to be bush-speak for "no drive-bys"? are presidential "findings" ordinarily "lethal"? and just how many of these "findings" have left bush's desk anyway? there just isn't any end to this crew's thuggery ...

it won't be much longer now

because something tells me dubya's war doesn't have two years of steam left in it ...

for three years after the invasion of iraq, it was difficult to drive more than a few miles through middle america without seeing a car displaying a magnetic yellow ribbon. the magnets, bearing the slogan "support our troops", became a symbol of patriotism for millions of us motorists. but as support for the war fades, demand for yellow ribbons has collapsed. magnet america, the largest manufacturer of the product, has seen sales fall from a peak of 1.2m in august 2004 to about 4,000 a month and now has an unsold stockpile of about 1m magnets. "we have enough supplies to meet demand for years to come," said micah pattisall, director of operations. "every product has a lifespan and this one has run its course." at its peak, the north carolina-based company employed 180 people to handle sales, marketing and distribution. today, it employs 11 people. mr pattisall said declining support for the war was not the only reason for the slump. a flood of cheap imports from china also hurt the company, which has refused to shift production overseas even though it costs three times as much to manufacture in the us. only about half a dozen companies are still supplying the magnets compared with up to 200 at the height of the fad, according to mr pattisall. when the company was founded in april 2003, during the initial invasion of iraq, nearly all its revenues came from yellow ribbons. today, patriotic products account for only 6 per cent of sales. the yellow ribbon has been overtaken as the company's best-selling product by a wristband promoting chastity before marriage with the slogan "true love waits". "we are growing again and looking to hire additional staff," mr pattisall said. yellow ribbons were first displayed widely in support of kidnapped us diplomats during the iranian hostage crisis in 1979. some critics have condemned the magnets as a cheap and superficial way to honour the armed forces and highlighted the irony of placing them on gas-guzzling vehicles that deepen the us's dependence on middle eastern oil. resentful that the yellow ribbon has become associated with support for the president, george w. bush, opponents of the war have introduced their own car magnets emblazoned with anti-war statements. on ebay, the internet auction site, on thursday, a black and white ribbon bearing the slogan "out of iraq, bring 'em back" was priced at $5. traditional yellow ribbon magnets, in contrast, could be bought for one cent. "yellow ribbons dwindle with war support" andrew ward, the financial times

tough guys don't carry umbrellas

we can all sense that the war is coming. it is vital for america to seize the initiative and fight it on our terms, when we have the maximum advantage. it's five minutes to midnight. the time to strike iran is now. — robert tracinski, "five minutes to midnight: the war is coming, no matter how hard we try to evade it."

tracinski tries his level best to sound calming and reasoned, yet still strident and imperative — but james wolcott, left blogistan's resident ginsu expert, knows the sound of trash talk when he hears it:

i have a theory on why the war party rhetoric has gone skittish and skyhigh, a theory based on casual observation of new york streetfights (streetfights everywhere, really). what i've noticed is that the trash talk in a street altercation escalates in proportion to the expanding distance between the two protagonists. when two potential fighters are almost literally in each other's faces, their words are few, their expressions fierce. it's when the fist fight has been avoided (or tabled) and they're putting distance between each other that the taunting becomes louder and more florid. "get back in my face again, motherfucker, and i'll pound your face into hamburger meat, motherfucker." "come back and say that to my face, lame-ass motherfucker." etc. you can supply your own david mamet expletives and challenges. one of my favorite verbal showdowns occurred on 14th street one rainy day when two non-pugilists kept up the trash talk until one of them said, "you're carrying an umbrella, motherfucker — how tough can you be?" which i must say got quite a chortle from us idle bystanders. now what has this to do with the posings of our militaristic muscle mouths? this: it is an index of the frustration and impotence they're experiencing at not getting their way. they're waging rhetorical escalation because de-escalation is the unacknowledged order of the day, and there's nothing they can do about it. steve clemons published a dispatch from the nelson report indicating that despite all of the cheneyesque bluster, the bush administration is pursuing the diplomatic route with iran. to the dismay of the hard nosers, bush is also reeling back his use of "islamic fascists", which will be interpreted as a capitulation to political correctness. you even have rumself whining that his recent appeasement slur was taken "out of context," and calling for "constructive" dialogue regarding the situation in iraq. and then there's the happy novelty of rudy giuliani blowing the whistle and calling a foul on "partisan bickering", which will not endear him to the more strident dickheads in his party. there has been a major shift in the mood climate, one which the war party and its bloggers are resisting at the top of their lungs. but resistance is futile. as john robb writes in an important post at global guerrillas, "playing at war", we're not going to the get the grand, conclusive world war iii (or iv) that same [sic] neocon ideologues crave.

newt gingrich: look at all the different connectivity. you'd have to say to yourself, "this is in fact world war iii." john gibson: world war iii. bill o'reilly: world war iii, right? john gibson: this is world war iii. sean hannity: ... world war iii. the start of world war iii! michael leeden: more like world war iv ...

bloodsuckers

steven d at booman tribune on the neocons, their bottomless thirst for conquest, and its role in the coming midterm elections:

... a while ago i predicted we were in for a wild ride this summer in terms of a coordinated campaign by conservative supporters of president bush to generate support for war with iran, in part to bolster the republican party's prospects for the mid term elections this fall. yet even i didn't anticipate the bush administration letting israel slip off it's [sic] leash to attack both the palestinians in gaza and hizbollah in lebanon. mea culpa. i should have anticipated such murderous manipulation from the most immoral and deceitful administration in our history. if killing a few more arabs (and israelis) is what it takes to assure continued majorities in the house and senate for republicans, the bush team is more than happy to oblige. the fact that this approach has already failed miserably in iraq is of little consequence. retaining their power, and implementing the folly of an expanded war in the middle east is all that matters to them.

monstrous as this picture of the administration is, the reality may be even uglier. while steven portrays the israeli offensive merely as a means to an end — continued domestic political domination — the offensive may be an end in itself, as an irresistible incitement to war with the archnemesis iran.

the war trolls know that they're running out of time. they know that their clutch on the body politic may be significantly weakened come november. they know that they may never again in their lifetimes get another chance to dismember and resurrect a servile middle east — a chimera which never seemed more achingly close to birth.

this administration has only one modus: raising bogeymen. it has only one note: a shrill screech. it has only one concern: its own blasphemous survival. forget about acts of governance or evidence of accomplishment from these bloodthirsty maurauders. true leadership cannot hope to thrive as long as they remain battened onto a host as torpid and succulent as america. will the world will have strength enough left in 2008 to exorcise the vampires of vietnam for once and all?

i once called this administration a potemkin government, for its perverse devotion to pretense, but i was mistaken, because a potemkin government accomplishes nothing. as the bones, sucked dry, pile higher and higher in the desert, their leavings, their real achievement, can be seen for miles and miles: it is a charnel house.

painting by alex ross © 2004.

the joke is on us

from the daily papers juan cole brings us a taste of mideast humor. who knew the iranians were so damn funny?

[an official inside president mahmoud ahmadinejad's circle] joked that there was not [sic] need for the us to invade iran. he said that the us had invaded afghanistan and established an islamic republic there. then it had done the same thing in iraq. since iran has had an islamic republic for 27 years, he said, there really isn't a point in a us invasion.

impossible idiocy

physicist sean carroll of the blog cosmic variance reports the birth of a wrongness singularity in the blogiverse.

and just what is a wrongness singularity?

a statement is either wrong or it is not wrong ... by the conventional rules, n declarative statements can be wrong at most n times. by the pauli exclusion principle, you just can’t be more wrong than that!

to be wrong more than that should defy the laws of logic, but this is the right-wing blogiverse we're observing, so singularities are theoretically possible. carroll focuses his blogometer on reynolds' recent bloviations regarding u.s. energy policy in the middle east:

of course, if we seized the saudi and iranian oil fields and ran the pumps full speed, oil prices would plummet, dictators would be broke, and poor nations would benefit from cheap energy. but we’d be called imperialist oppressors, then.

four statements, four instances of preposterousness. (can we call these falsehoods prepostulates?):

prices would plummet — no, they wouldn’t. as it turns out, the saudi and iranian oil fields are running at very close to full capacity; any increase would be at most a perturbation. dictators would be broke — not sure which dictators we’re talking about here — the ones we just deposed? in fact, dictators have shown a remarkable ability to not be broke even in countries without vast stores of oil wealth. poor nations would benefit — because it’s really the poor countries that guzzle oil? this one baffles me. we’d be called imperialist oppressors — now, in a strict sense this is not wrong. we would be called that. because invading sovereign countries in order to take over their natural resources is more or less the definition of imperialist oppression. however, reynolds’ implication is clearly that we should not be called imperialist oppressors, that it would somehow be unfair. which is crazy. so can we count that as wrong? yes!

so far, a straightforward proof. now, onto the hidden fifth element:

as tim lambert points out, instapundit managed to be wrong yet another time, by begging a question and then getting the wrong answer! the subjunctive clause opening the first sentence cleverly slides from invading saudi arabia and iran to running pumps at full speed. actually not something that would happen in the reality-based world! as tim says, "yeah, because that’s pretty much the way it worked out in iraq." so in fact, reynolds has managed to fit five units of wrongness into only four declarative statements! this is the hackular equivalent of crossing the chandrasekhar limit, at which point your blog cannot help but collapse in on itself. it is unknown at this point whether the resulting end state will be an intermediate neutron-blog phase, or whether the collapse will proceed all the way to a singularity surrounded by a black hole event horizon. we may have to wait for the neutrino signal to be sure.

the right-wing blogiverse: an endlessly fascinating place to visit, but i can't see how intelligent life could exist there.

the only thing we have to fear

(cross-posted at daily kos)

less than 200 days before judgment, the state teeters on ruin. the masses, having reiterated their anemic approval — a glum 32% — begin to gather their pitchforks and torches. brass-plated generals, once dutifully mute, parade forth in open mutiny. on the hill and in the provinces, caesar's retinue draws fewer invitations. meanwhile his beleaguered aides, having retreated to their washington stronghold, resign themselves to a carefully stacked round of russian roulette.

yet the left, despite their opponent's pathetic flailing and reeling, insists on keeping a cautious distance, seemingly unable to cast off a debilitating malaise, born of fear of a regime cornered like an wounded animal. wary of a rove free of distracting policy tasks, the left waits transfixed in dread of what sorcery might spew from the white house belfry.

e. j. dionne: here's the real meaning of the white house shake-up and the redefinition of karl rove's role in the bush presidency: the administration's one and only domestic priority in 2006 is hanging on to control of congress. josh marshall: the key is subpoena power. little of what's happened in the last five years would have been possible were it not for the fact that there was no political institution with subpoena power in washington not under the control of the white house. ... the white house and the entire dc gop for that matter is just sitting on too many secrets and bad acts. the bogus investigations of the pre-war intel is just one example, if one of the most resonant and glaring. keeping control of the house and the senate is less a matter of conventional ideological and partisan politics as it is a simple matter of survival. they have too much to cover up. they could not survive sunlight.

yes, the left has ample real reasons to harbor such dread, having impotently and angrily watched it crystallize during the last five years. bush's judicial coronation, his reichstag legislations and congress' potemkin investigations have all sparked in the loyal opposition a host of stifling fears.

fear that the bush regime in its desperation will stop at nothing to abort its impending emasculation. fear that it will steal or suspend elections. fear that it will revoke the constitution in part or in whole. fear that it will exile dissenters to fema prison camps. fear that it will stage deadly terrorist attacks, unleash virulent plagues and launch global nuclear armageddon — all in the name of retaining its slipping grasp on power.

but the left should not let even legitimate reasons cloud its ability to follow its irrational fears to their logical conclusions. while any attempt by the bush regime to realize those fears of course cannot be completely discounted, the successful fulfillment of any one of these strategeries does not resound with any ring of plausibility:

the "october surprise"

as the reasoning goes, a message from bin laden or a terror alert or attack will rally the country back into the comforting arms of big brother. but more likely, it will blow away any dangling shreds of his mantle as the "great protector", especially if an attack is both destructive enough and dramatic enough to influence the voting of millions of people. bush will not have the benefit of doubt afforded him after 9-11 as a relatively new and untested leader; worse, he'll be forced to again defend a proven record of failure. fortunately, bin laden's april message gives us (and the white house?) an opportunity to test this theory. it could even inoculate the electorate against the impact of an october message. however, pulling bin laden himself out of a hat could have a beneficial effect on his slide, similar to the effect of saddam's capture. but if all the public gets out of it is osama, with no accompanying relief from the violence, then the slide will inevitably resume.

martial law

as the reasoning goes, suspending elections and/or revoking the 22nd amendment, especially in the wake of an attack or an outbreak of disease, will legally lock the regime's stranglehold on the body politic into the forseeable future. but more likely, further attempts to subvert the law will only further inflame the masses, who have grown tired of the rationalizations, which have now become either too convoluted ("i'm not the leaker 'cause it's not a leak 'cause already i declassified what i leaked.") or too childish ("i'm the decider!").

in the face of ever-restrictive inventions of law dispensed by the justice department, progressives have missed no opportunity to equate the regime with genuinely militant fascist dictatorships [guilty as charged!] and have made no secret of their dismay at the apparent passivity of the man on the street. but are we to believe that a nation of 300 million will meekly accept the yoke of an overt dictatorship? not bloody likely. the active-duty forces would finally have a justifiable reason to openly defy the regime and a citizenry indoctrinated from the cradle in the worship of the very concept of freedom will not greet such a naked theft of birthright without the kind of resistance many will argue is obligated under the declaration of independence, the 2nd amendment and the star spangled banner. rockets red glare indeed!

however, i forsee no kent states, especially if the regime loses the military; once directly challenged on its lawlessness — a situation that has not yet been permitted by bush's congress — the regime will sensibly retreat.

election fraud

as the reasoning goes, the republicans could steal the elections the old-fashioned way, and more efficiently than ever with their new-fangled machines. but more likely, any instances of significant fraud will be quickly unmasked. irregularities in each of the elections since 2000 have been followed by claims of fraud, but all kinds of fraud has dogged elections since the birth of the republic. however, dismissing such claims becomes much harder as the gap between the projected and actual results widens. election tampering that might survive a challenge over a 2% margin between candidates, as in 2004, would be impossible to explain over today's 10% margin. and a washington post - abc news poll puts the margin at 15% — reporting that 55% plan to vote democratic and only 40% republican — representing more than 18 million votes if the turnout matches 2004. moving this many ballots would require chicanery of truly herculean proportions.

imagine the scandal: systematic nationwide election tampering and vote supression favoring republicans in all instances. now imagine the reaction: not quiet acquiescence but seething outrage and chaos dwarfing that following the 2000 races. "republican culture of corruption" would emerge as the central recount (revote?) meme and republicans would lose even more the second time around.

war with iran

as the reasoning goes, military action against iran will serve to invigorate bush's grumbling base, which has been steadily suckled on the same twin teats of propaganda and hate that nourished them for the iraq invasion. but more likely, conventional action will only provide a reenactment of the deathtrap in iraq and the vastly more dire repercussions of nuclear action will quickly rebound out of anyone's control. in both cases, the longed-for instant telegenic panacea of righteous blitzkrieg will turn into the bitter wormwood of yet one more unholy quagmire. without a draft, for which no meaningful support exists, ground operations remain the stuff of chickenhawk wetdreams. convention air operations are at best a blunt club. nuclear weapons do not carry any guarantee of success but do carry the price of worldwide opprobrium; america would be branded an international criminal and any lingering vestige of moral authority would be swept offstage by a tall bright column of ash. even if the regime exhibits no interest in courting the admiration of the international community, the majority of the nation does care about its image in the world mirror.

and unlike iraq, iran boasts the capability of striking back at its attacker, both with and without warning. its long shadow across the straits of hormuz and its purported international network of sleeper cells have been thoroughly dissected in other publications, so suffice it here to say that most americans would prefer that iran's boasts remain untested.

---

it is already apparent to any member of the "reality-based" community that none of these gambits has any chance of success. but many still fear an attempt to implement them, convinced that the injured animal under the brush is both pained and crazed enough to risk a suicide bid. as loathsome as i find this regime, i remain unconvinced that they are possessed by some evangelical messianism or are otherwise insane. none of their actions cannot be explained by basic greed and cynicism and sheer venality. besides, in the end, as they walk out the door, to continue their larcenies in the private sector, they can simply sue to grant themselves pardons.

but it is far too late for this regime to save 2006 and 2008. bush's ratings have already dropped into the range of the worst presidents and the poisonous drip-drip-drip of scandal betrays no sign of abating. as long as the white house insists on treating its problems as a matter of perception, they will continue their pointless pantomine of leadership and never adopt the substantive remedies that might regain the public's trust. thus the drip-drip-drip will torment them to the bitter end.

josh bolten's new five-point "recovery plan" for the white house: deploy guns and badges: harass illegals make wall street happy: more tax cuts! brag more: more speeches! reclaim security credibility: harass iran court the press: rehire armstrong williams

what has wounded the regime the most is the exposure of its fundamental ineptitude. the king is naked and his reign is littered with tattered policies, discarded initiatives and, most odious of all, wasted sacrifices. if bush could do just one thing right he might win back some support, but that's the catch when it comes to incompetency. even if any of the desperate strategeries discussed had more than a snowball's chance of success, chances are more than certain this regime would blow it and blow it big. but today there aren't enough kool-aid drinkers left standing and the rest of the electorate is wary and suspicious but most of all very pissed.

unfortunately that anger extends to the other side of the aisle; progressives have grown weary of their leadership's aversion to confronting a political risk that diminishes with each day. against demonstrably corrupt opponents there is no danger in taking the high ground. while the pols have exhibited some ability to push back from behind the scenes, clearly the necessary tonic for the anxieties of their constituents is some grandstanding and good old-fashioned theater, at least until they regain some subpoena power. no one ever believes you have a spine when you refuse to exhibit it. the republicans know this too well.

booman tribune: if only we could trust the democrats to know how to take of advantage of the gop's obvious disarray. after all, we saw similar concerns back in the spring of 2004 with the torture scandal, yet come november somehow the evil empire pulled out another elctoral victory by hook or by crook. i'd like to believe this time will be different.

distrust of the democratic leadership only compounds the fear that the regime will escape unpunished for its sins. more medals than paddles have been dished out to its cronies. fatigued at seeing one unpunished crime follow another, the disenchanted become easily seduced by the fear that the theft of november is not beyond the republicans' reach. admittedly, to resist the fear and the fatigue, one must indulge in a little hope that the agents of justice will eventually catch up with the regime. i believe that the mechanisms of our legal system, the brazenness and incompetence of the criminals and the growing revulsion of the masses do warrant it. the only thing we really have to fear is that we stop trying.

groundhog day

yes, america, you can stop pinching yourself, this, unfortunately, is not a bad dream. as you know — to paraphrase secretary of defense donald rumsfeld — you get to relive the past you have, not the past you might want or wish to have at a later time.

april 11, 2003: rumsfeld addressing the press regarding the growing alarm over the continuing violence in iraq:

i picked up a newspaper today ... and i couldn't believe it. i read eight headlines that talked about "chaos!" "violence!" "unrest!" and it was just henny penny, "the sky is falling!" i've never seen anything like it ...

those pesky newspapers — just a bunch of noisy old ladies. chaos? violence? unrest? puh-leez!

and we all know how that so-called chaos, violence and unrest never materialized, don't we?

now fast forward three years later to the very same day ...

april 11, 2006: rumsfeld addressing the press regarding the growing alarm over a preemptive nuclear strike against iran:

you know, someone comes up with an idea ... runs it in a magazine or a paper, other papers pick it up and reprint it, editorialists then say: "oh, henny penny, the sky is falling!" and opine on this and opine on that ...

those pesky newspapers ...

i just can't wait for april 11, 2009. assuming we're all still here, of course.

hat tip to crooks and liars; video courtesy of jon stewart's the daily show.

seven days in may

(cross-posted at daily kos)

what if they had a war and nobody came?

in his recent post "does the debate over iran matter?", constitutional law litigator glenn greenwald points out that there is frankly nothing — no law, no political body — that might stand in the way should bush decide to launch the attack, whether conventional or nuclear, that he has been threatening over the past weeks.

bush's attorneys have argued that even if the president lacks the congressional authority for such an attack — a position that they do not concede — he does have the inherent constitutional authority under article ii to exercise, unilaterally, any force he deems necessary in the conduct of his global war on terror:

we conclude that the constitution vests the president with the plenary authority, as commander in chief and the sole organ of the nation in its foreign relations, to use military force abroad — especially in response to grave national emergencies created by sudden, unforeseen attacks on the people and territory of the united states. — "yoo memorandum", september 25, 2001

since congress has yet to formally challenge this assertion, and since congress has already demonstrated during the nsa hearings its fawning acquiescence to the white house's expanding exercises of power, we cannot expect any potent resistance from that quarter, certainly not while congress remains under the control of the president's party.

but even if congress were today populated entirely by jealous and power-hungry democrats hellbent on obstructing bush's tiniest move, there exists no legal or procedural mechanism it can invoke that would bar the chief executive from unilaterally dispatching any kind of military action anywhere in the world, especially when this particular chief executive is fiercely determined to demonstrate his authority and his ability to exercise it. congress may decide to punish him afterwards, in any number of ways, from defunding his operation all the way up to impeachment, but it has no means to preemptively block such an action. the world's "sole superpower" truly sits under the sword of damocles, now dangled by a man whose constituents deem an "incompetent", an "idiot" and a "liar". and no one can predict whether the threat of that sword will serve to prevent or precipitate its fall.

a curious development at this phase of what appears to be a somnambulant second act to the iraq war is the never-before-seen and growing number of senior military personnel now taking the stage — on television, the radio and in print — to voice opposition to its civilian leadership and to specifically demand the resignation of secretary of defense donald rumsfeld:

army lieutenant general john riggs, retired, former director, objective force task force:

everyone pretty much thinks rumsfeld and the bunch around him should be cleared out. [they] made fools of themselves.

army major general charles swannack, retired, former airborne commander in iraq:

i feel that he has micromanaged the generals who are leading our forces there to achieve our strategic objectives. i really believe that we need a new secretary of defense.

army major general john batiste, retired, former division commander in iraq:

i believe we need a fresh start in the pentagon. we need a leader who understands team work, a leader who knows how to build teams, a leader that does it without intimidation. a leader that conforms and practices the letter and the law of the goldwater-nichols act ... it speaks volumes that guys like me are speaking out from retirement about the leadership climate in the department of defense ... when decisions are made without taking into account sound military recommendations, sound military decision making, sound planning, then we're bound to make mistakes. when we violate the principles of war with mass and unity of command and unity of effort, we do that at our own peril.

army general george joulwan, retired, former nato supreme allied commander:

it's our responsibility as military leaders to stand up and be counted on tough issues ... i think we've got to get more officers to stand up and be counted at the table, when they're on active duty. i think you're going to see more of that because there is a degree of frustration with the way things are going ... blitzer: what are you hearing from your friends at the pentagon, the top three, four-star generals right now behind the scenes? how frustrated, how angry are they with rumsfeld? joulwan: many of them very much so, particularly the last two or three years. the issue was, they don't trust us. the team that secretary rumsfeld has surrounded himself with doesn't trust the military. blitzer: ... would the country be better off, would the u.s. military be better off right now if the president found a new defense secretary? joulwan: i'm going to leave that up to the president of the united states.

army major general paul eaton, retired, former office of security transition commander in iraq:

defense secretary donald rumsfeld is not competent to lead our armed forces. first, his failure to build coalitions with our allies from what he dismissively called “old europe” has imposed far greater demands and risks on our soldiers in iraq than necessary. second, he alienated his allies in our own military, ignoring the advice of seasoned officers and denying subordinates any chance for input. in sum, he has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone else responsible for what has happened to our important mission in iraq. mr. rumsfeld must step down. in the five years mr. rumsfeld has presided over the pentagon, i have seen a climate of groupthink become dominant and a growing reluctance by experienced military men and civilians to challenge the notions of the senior leadership ... donald rumsfeld demands more than loyalty. he wants fealty. and he has hired men who give it ... more vital in the longer term, congress must assert itself. too much power has shifted to the executive branch, not just in terms of waging war but also in planning the military of the future. congress should remember it still has the power of the purse ...

marine lieutenant general greg newbold, retired, director of operations, joint chiefs of staff:

i think i was outspoken enough to make those senior to me uncomfortable. but i now regret that i did not more openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat — al-qaeda. i retired from the military four months before the invasion, in part because of my opposition to those who had used 9/11's tragedy to hijack our security policy. until now, i have resisted speaking out in public. i've been silent long enough ... with the encouragement of some still in positions of military leadership, i offer a challenge to those still in uniform: a leader's responsibility is to give voice to those who can't — or don't have the opportunity to — speak. enlisted members of the armed forces swear their oath to those appointed over them; an officer swears an oath not to a person but to the constitution. the distinction is important ... the bush administration and senior military officials are not alone in their culpability. members of congress — from both parties — defaulted in fulfilling their constitutional responsibility for oversight. many in the media saw the warning signs and heard cautionary tales before the invasion from wise observers like former central command chiefs joe hoar and tony zinni but gave insufficient weight to their views ... we need fresh ideas and fresh faces. that means, as a first step, replacing rumsfeld and many others unwilling to fundamentally change their approach.

newbold's avowal that "an officer swears an oath not to a person but to the constitution" and joulwan's call for officers to speak out while on active duty are almost incendiary. active duty officers are rigidly constrained in the proper channels and activities available to them for voicing opposition to an order or program or policy. participating in any overtly political activity of any kind is all but entirely verboten. express obedience is not merely the norm but the heart and spine of any military organization. deference to civilian authority is a fundamental safeguard of our republic. the implications of congress' abdication of its constitutional responsibilities have not been lost on them, who now shoulder an unfair burden. just how much longer will the fighting men dutifully follow the orders of demonstrably inept flight-suited civilians who will not listen to them and who do not trust them? will they really follow them over the cliff and into iran?

in the quiet 1964 drama seven days in may, the joint chiefs of staff, fearing soviet treachery, conspire to take command of the government before an unpopular president can succeed in passing a nuclear disarmament treaty. in that tale, of course, the joint chiefs are the bad guys, representing the same sinister forces president eisenhower warned the nation against three years earlier, in the final days of his term. he had been the first president to negotiate strategies for disarmament with the soviets:

we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. we must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. we should take nothing for granted.

what rich irony then, that the world's only hope against an insatiable corporate-industrial complex, led by a saber-rattling president, just might depend upon a mutiny by a disaffected military establishment!

as extraordinary and momentous as it might be to actually witness, do not expect this revolution to be televised. the white house would never allow the public to learn of bush's emasculation, nor would the pentagon allow itself to be brought before congress for treason. instead, a quiet agreement would be reached under the cover of an announcement, with great fanfare, of a "breakthrough in secret talks" with iran.

unfortunately, it is, of course, far more likely that bush will be able to find a boykin or a bork ¹ to wage his iranian campaign. it is a big military, after all, with plenty of room for advancement. let us hope then, for the world's sake, that there is also plenty more room for dissent.

if there is any irony left to be had in this mad lurch towards nuclear armageddon, we shall know within the next few weeks.

---

¹ a "bork" is a subordinate called to fulfill a legally or morally questionable task that his superiors refuse to perform. the term comes from robert bork, who fired watergate special prosecutor archibald cox at president nixon's insistence, when he assumed the role of acting attorney general after his superior john ruckelshaus was fired and ruckelshaus' superior elliot richardson had resigned. this series of firings and resignations became known as the "saturday night massacre".