Iraqi oil production hits prewar levels

Put increased oil output down as yet another benefit of the improving security situation in Iraq.

The IEA said Iraqi crude production is now running at 2.3 million barrels per day, compared with 1.9 million barrels at the start of this year.

This could be a biggie, for two reasons.

1. Oil infrastructure -- consisting as it does of a lot of pipelines running through the middle of nowhere -- are particularly susceptible to sabotage. Security measures help, but a sustained decline in such sabotage only comes about when fewer people feel like sabotaging the equipment. So it's an indicator of changing attitudes among Iraqis, not just tighter security measures.

2. Increased production means increased oil revenue, which means increased revenue-sharing between Sunni, Shiite and Kurds. A sustained increase and equitable sharing would give all sides a big financial incentive to seek peace in order to keep the largesse flowing. And payments to Sunnis and Kurds help buy goodwill and give the minority groups -- particularly the Sunnis, who have few oil deposits in their territory -- incentive to remain a part of Iraq rather than attempt to go their own way.

As I've noted before, the improved security is only as strong as the allegiance of key Sunni tribal leaders. Recently discovered mass graves in former Al-Qaeda strongholds graphically demonstrate why those tribal leaders switched sides -- AQ is as self-destructively deadly as Ebola. But there's nothing keeping them from resuming their own insurgency if they are not satisfied with the benefits of cooperation. Keeping them on board remains the key task in Iraq.

oil, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Catching up

Some quick thoughts on current events:

IRAQ
The surge is working from a military perspective. With all due credit to our troops and Gen. Petraeus' solid planning and execution of a competent strategy, however, the turnaround is mostly due to thousands of Sunni tribesmen switching sides, joining the U.S. to fight Al-Qaeda militants.

The switch is partly due to AQ's self-destructive tendency to attack other Sunnis. When AQ stepped up attacks against fellow Sunnis, it marked the beginning of the end of their fall. Particularly because Iraqis are not, by and large, extremist material.

But because the improvement is largely based on a change of allegiance, the improvement is fragile: if the Sunni tribes switch back, the improvement could disappear as quickly as it appeared.

Which underscores the main challenge remaining in Iraq: achieving the political changes that will make the security improvements permanent. And progress there has been slow.

Whether the invasion, even in hindsight, was justified or worth the cost is not the question here; we're concerned only with achieving the best end we can now that we're in Iraq. In that context, Petraeus and Bush have achieved enough to stave off demands for withdrawal; they've earned a chance to demonstrate that they can make the changes stick. I hope they can, but it's way too early to declare victory.


IRAN
The CIA has thrown the administration's Iran rhetoric into disarray with a new intelligence estimate that indicates Iran's nuclear weapons program has been frozen since 2003.

Some blindsided neocons, like Norman Podhoretz, were reduced to floating conspiracy theories -- that the new NIE is an attempt by the CIA to undercut the administration for political purposes, as if the CIA is so politicized that they're willing to let Iran get nukes if it lets them make Bush look bad in the short run.

For my money, though, this doesn't really change things much. It's good news if true, and it certainly short-circuits the premature (and hopelessly naive) drumbeat for war that was being beaten in certain quarters. Fact is, thanks to the ongoing mess in Iraq, this country has no appetite for war with Iran unless and until they actually drop a bomb on somebody.

But Iran still has a program, even if it's in mothballs. And we still need an intrusive inspection regime and other concrete assurances that Iran cannot and will not develop a nuclear weapon. So all the NIE does is put the ball firmly in diplomacy's court, where it should have been all along. I support limited military action to avoid a Persian Bomb, but that necessity is still a long way off.

As an aside, I love watching how people accept or don't accept the NIE as credible based on its contents. Up until now, many administration critics have all but accused Bush and Cheney of making up the NIEs to support their policy -- while administration supporters pointed to the NIE as authoritative grounding for our Iran policy. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and the roles are reversed. Not everyone is playing that game, of course -- Hot Air is doing a pretty good job, for example, despite linking to lots of people who aren't. But those who do demonstrate that partisanship has pickled their brains.

THE ELECTION
I'm still not seeing anything to love. My biggest fear is that we'll get a Rudy-Hillary matchup in the general. On the one hand this wouldn't be too bad, because they're both basically centrists. On the other hand, they have the highest negatives of the candidates, and both can be fairly criticized for blowing with the political winds. So if they clinch the nominations, we will see perhaps the most negative presidential campaign in history, and the lowest voter turnout in decades.

Giuliani, Hillary, Iran, Iraq, politics, midtopia

The rhetorical war in Iraq

Last week, the administration released an intelligence summary that warns Al-Qaeda is getting stronger.

The president pointed to this as proof that Iraq is central to fighting AQ. Asked if the report actually demonstrates that Bush's efforts to defeat AQ aren't working, he replied that things would be far worse if he hadn't invaded Iraq.

Mull that over for a second. It's a rhetorical get-out-of-jail-free card. You're Bush, and six years later things are getting worse, not better. No problem! Just claim that things would really be dire if not for your brilliant leadership. It's a completely unrefutable claim, because you can't rewind history and try again.

Unfortunately for Bush, such a bald assertion relies heavily on his credibility on security matters. And he has (charitably) almost none left. He's made so many blithe assertions that have turned out to be flat wrong that nobody believes him anymore.

This ties in with Bush's continuing efforts to tie our opponents in Iraq to 9/11. During a speech at the end of June, he noted that the people we're fighting in Iraq "are the people that attacked us on September the 11th."

Except that for the most part, they aren't. Al Qaeda in Iraq is a mostly local group that arose in 2003 in response to our invasion of Iraq. It has established some contacts with AQ Central and pledged it's loyalty to AQ. But they are at best a local franchisee using the AQ brand name. They are not the people, or even the same group, that attacked us in 2001. Further, they represent only a small portion of the combatants in Iraq.

No matter how you slice it, painting Iraq as a war on Al-Qaeda is a flat lie. "War on Islamic extremism" might be closer to the truth, and even that doesn't encompass the growing, unrelated sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni.

As far as AQ goes, invading Iraq did nothing but help them. Sure, we're killing a few insurgents and jihadists, and some of them are truly bad people. But we haven't hurt AQ at all. Instead, we've given them a major recruiting tool and a place for jihadists of all stripes to hone their tactics -- tactics that are starting to show up in Afghanistan. AQ itself sits fat, happy and generally safe in the tribal regions of Pakistan.

Speaking of which, it was a hopeful sign when Pakistani troops stormed the Red Mosque in Islamabad. Any government that wants to be taken seriously simply cannot allow armed groups to challenge them, and the extremists in Pakistan have simply gotten bolder and louder in the absence of government pressure. Gen. Pervez Musharraf's born-of-necessity truce with extremists bought temporary stability in Pakistan, but it gave extremists a safe haven that has helped destabilize Afghanistan.

Now tribal leaders have renounced the truce, with accompanying violence, and Musharraf is moving thousands of troops into the region to try to keep order. Sucky as it is for him, it's good for us. Fighting with Pakistani troops diverts resources the Taliban would otherwise focus on Afghanistan; the military incursion disrupts their rest and training operations; and Musharraf's survival is increasingly tied to defeating the insurgents. All these things should help -- assuming Musharraf both survives and doesn't cut another deal.

On the downside, the fighting could spur more tribal members to join the fight against either us or Musharraf. But at least we're attacking a known insurgent stronghold, not galavanting off on a distracting adventure in, say, Iraq.

A fight like this -- against known extremists in known extremist areas -- is the kind of fight I and many others can support. It may be hard, it may be bloody, but there's no doubt about who the enemy is or why we're fighting them.

Which puts the lie to one final Bush rationalization. On Thursday he referred to the American people's "war fatigue", as if we're all wrung out by four years of fighting.

Maybe he just means people are tired of the war. But the "war fatigue" locution rings strongly of a paternalistic displacement of blame. The war's fine; people are just (understandably, but wrongly) getting "fatigued" by it.

Framed as such, the idea of "war fatigue" is nonsense. The term calls to mind a society stretched by privation, the way the French were wrung out by the end of World War I -- economy in shambles, bled white by the carnage at the front. But as far as Iraq goes, what's there to be fatigued about? The war simply doesn't impact your average citizen except as headlines and images on TV. Bush has borrowed the money to fight it; the war has been accompanied by tax cuts, not tax hikes. It's being fought with a volunteer military, and most Americans don't actually know anybody who has served, much less anyone who was killed or wounded. The military death toll, while the highest since Vietnam, is still pretty small measured by population or even a percentage of soldiers in theater.

People aren't tired of the war on terror; they are tired of the war in Iraq. But it's not because of the strain it has put on society. It's because the war has been shown to be a misbegotten idea badly executed, a mind-bogglingly expensive waste of resources, lives and national prestige.

While Al-Qaeda recovered and grew stronger. Nice work, Mr. President.

Iraq, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Good reads

A roundup of links worth clicking on:

1. A New York Times story on an Army platoon dealing with a Baquba neighborhood that is one big booby trap. They get through without a scratch.

2. The former chief judge of the FISA court, Royce C. Lambeth, reveals some details of the court's workings. His anecdotes are interesting, and provide yet another rebuke to the White House's contention that the court functions too slowly to combat modern terrorists.

3. The CIA continues to release once-secret documents detailing their most controversial activities from 1959 to the mid-1970s, including assassination plots and domestic surveillance. They serve as a reminder of why civil liberties and governmental openness are such crucial foundations of democracy. You can dig through the documents themselves at the CIA's Freedom of Information page.

4. The Washington Post's Dana Milbank writes a somewhat sardonic column about everything Cheney.

5. A few Democrats, going a bridge too far, aren't satisfied with leaving Iraq; they want us out of Afghanistan, too. They're wrong. Afghanistan has its problems, and the conflict is fueled by the Taliban safe haven in Pakistan. But our invasion was justified, the government legitimate, the enemy beatable, and we're not stuck in the middle of an ethnic and regional cauldron. As well, the troop demands and casualty rates are much lower, so our presence there is far more sustainable. And most importantly, Afghanistan is far more likely than Iraq to return to being a terror haven if we withdraw.


FISA, Cheney, CIA, Iraq, Afghanistan, politics, midtopia

Bush looks to his legacy

As President Bush's administration begins winding down to a much-anticipated close, we're starting to see some attempts at legacy burnishing. This is where presidents on the downslope of their time in office propose a series of ambitious or laudable initiatives that they hope will get them remembered as visionaries and big thinkers.

When a president is as weakened as Bush is, the burnishing takes the form of proposals that he never felt merited serious effort or political capital earlier in his administration, and that will not even be seriously considered until the next administration is in office. It's risk-free, pain-free posturing for the history books.

Thus we are treated to the following:

GLOBAL WARMING
Trying to get out in front of the global warming debate, Bush has proposed ambitious global talks to get the world's biggest polluters to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions (full text of his speech is here).

Sounds great. Except that the timeline is for the long-term reduction goal merely to be defined by the end of 2008 -- shortly before Bush exits the White House. The proposal has other weaknesses, but that's the biggie: there will be no pain incurred during Bush's watch, and implementation and enforcement will be the responsibility of his successor.

This is somehow supposed to overcome Bush's record on global warming, including the United States' continued rejection of European proposals to actually take action now and impose mandatory emission caps, his ignorance and dismissal of his own EPA's science, moving to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions only after losing a Supreme Court case (and once again, the regulation won't actually begin until the next administration), cutting back on efforts to monitor global warming, and so on.


AIDS PREVENTION
Next Bush has proposed doubling his program to combat AIDS, from $15 billion over five years to $30 billion. The original $15 billion, you may recall, partly involved shifting around money that had already been budgeted (cutting child-health programs, among other things) as well as a questionable focus on abstinence-only programs and efforts to undermine condom distributions. It was also slow to get going, with most of the spending budgeted (does this sound familiar?) for after the end of Bush's first term. But there was significant new money involved, and the plan did focus attention on the AIDS pandemic.

$30 billion is a real step forward (some quibbling over whether we're already spending that much anyway aside, as well as criticisms that the amount of money designated for HIV treatment is inadequate). But once again the five-year request -- if funded, as expected -- will not take effect until after he leaves office. So his successor will be responsible for coming up with the money to carry out his grand proposal. I think Bush's interest is genuine, but it's also not going to be his problem.

FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY
Bush's plan to balance the federal budget bears fruit in 2012 -- if all of his tax cuts are made permanent, optimistic economic growth projections are met, inflation is ignored and social programs are gutted. Then there are the other questionable assumptions, like relying on hefty revenues from the alternative minimum tax and expecting no Iraq war expenditures after 2009. Never mind the more than $2 trillion in debt he rang up -- if the budget isn't balanced in five years he'll shrug and say, "if only they had listened to me." This from the guy who routinely backloads the pain of his proposals, be they new spending or tax cuts.


IRAQ
Bush seeks to avoid any criticism for "losing" Iraq by giving the cleanup job to the next president -- or presidents, given his comparison of Iraq to Korea.

The gears of government can turn slowly, of course, and as 2009 gets closer, more and more Bush actions will see their launch points moved into the post-Bush era. And there's a legitimate use for the bully pulpit as the end draws near, to try to inspire and influence American policy long past 2008. But as the list above demonstrates, some of Bush's recent proposals are either a) pure fantasy, b) revisionist history or c) things that Bush was unwilling to tackle during his own terms.

Look for even grander proposals in the months ahead.

Bush, politics, midtopia

Zoellick named to head World Bank

The speculation is over: President Bush will nominate Robert Zoellick to succeed Paul Wolfowitz as the new head of the World Bank.

A seasoned veteran of politics both inside the Beltway and on the international stage, Zoellick, 53, has a knack for mastering intricate subject matter and translating it into policies. He is known for pulling facts and figures off the top of his head. He also has a reputation for being a demanding boss.

Bush's selection of Zoellick must be approved by the World Bank's 24-member board.

The White House expects Zoellick to gain the board's acceptance. The senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of Bush's announcement, said so far other nations have had a positive reaction.

Bush would have been stupid to pick a controversial nominee, and he didn't. Zoellick's got experience and international credentials. He helped push through CAFTA, which might be an issue here at home but doesn't bother other countries too much -- with the exception of health-related groups like the Global AIDS Alliance, which don't like the drug patent protections Zoellick helped negotiate. In fact, he was so noncontroversial that he was the only rumored candidate I failed to discuss in my previous post on potential nominees! (Well, okay, that was just a boneheaded oversight on my part.)

The more interesting question is whether he will try to continue Wolfowitz's anticorruption drive, which (along with his Iraq war baggage) is what generated such antipathy for Wolfowitz. I hope so: Wolfowitz aside, I'd like to see things cleaned up a bit in that regard, as long as moral purity doesn't end up actually hindering the bank's main goal of reducing poverty.

Finally, for those of you who like suspense and intrigue, consider this statement from the World Bank:

The bank's executive directors, in a statement late Tuesday that made no mention of Zoellick by name, said it is essential the next president have a proven track record of leadership, experience managing a large international organization, a willingness to tackle governance reform and political objectivity and independence. While it had been informed that the United States will be nominating a candidate, the board also noted that nominations may be made by any executive director.

Allowing the United States to nominate the head of the World Bank is tradition and good politics, because the United States is the bank's biggest financial backer. But it's not a rule or a right. It would be interesting (though highly unlikely) if the directors decided to reject Zoellick for one of their own. First, it would be intriguing to see who their choice would be. Second, what would Bush's reaction be> Would he accept it if the person chosen is ideologically acceptable? Would he attempt to slash World Bank funding or even withdraw altogether?

That uncertainty -- and the turmoil that would likely ensue -- are the main reason Zoellick or some other U.S. nominee is a safe bet to run the place. It would be indicative of great disrespect for the Bush administration if the Bank decided to flout him.

World Bank, Zoellick, politics, midtopia

Wolfowitz agrees to leave

Big surprise.... He leaves at the end of June. President Bush, meanwhile, has promised to move quickly on naming a successor.

Among those mentioned as a possible replacement for Wolfowitz were former Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, who was Bush's former trade chief; Robert Kimmitt, the No. 2 at the Treasury Department; Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson; former Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa; Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.,; Stanley Fischer, who once worked at the International Monetary Fund and is now with the Bank of Israel; and former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker.

That list seems filled with pure speculation. But let's go through them.

Volcker would be an interesting, noncontroversial pick, and likely to attract bipartisan support. And his experience investigating the United Nations oil-for-food scandal may indicate that he'll continue Wolfowitz's anti-corruption drive.

Paulson would be a mistake, unless Bush just likes playing "musical Treasury chairs". There's no real good reason to shake up Treasury one more time simply to fill a slot at the World Bank.

Kimmitt would be a solid choice. He's a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran, has ambassadorial and foreign policy experience and previously served on a World Bank arbitration panel. He's shown an ability to get along with other countries throughout a long career.

I'm not sure why Bush would consider Jim Leach, since he's a liberal Republican who opposed the 2002 Iraq war resolution and even opposed the president's 2003 tax cut. This sounds like a case of Leach supporters floating the name, not anything eminating from the White House.

Lugar would be a more business-as-usual pick for Bush -- a fiscal and social conservative who could probably be counted on to continue Wolfowitz's policies. There's also a bit of political calculation involved. Lugar is 75, and thus unlikely to run for the Senate again. Giving him another job would let the Republican governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, appoint a Republican replacement. Lugar just won re-election, so the successor would serve for nearly six years and have the advantage of incumbency when s/he stands for re-election in 2012 -- thus increasing the odds that the seat will stay in GOP hands.

Stanley Fischer I don't know much about. He's an economist, served as chief economist at the World Bank under Bush's dad before moving over to the International Monetary Fund. Sounds qualified, but I have no idea what his politics are.

Of course, I half expect Bush to nominate Harriet Miers just to prove he can....

World Bank, Wolfowitz, politics, midtopia

Administration departures continue, with no czar in sight

Back in April, the White House announced it was looking for a war czar -- someone to coordinate the government's efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The main goal was to find someone to replace deputy national security adviser Meghan O'Sullivan, who was stepping down.

They still haven't found anyone. And meanwhile the exodus of national security officials is increasing.

The most recent departure? Another deputy national security adviser, J.D. Crouch. He joins O'Sullivan and the administration's top policy people for Russia and Asia, among 20 top officials who have left in recent months.

Things like this are signs of an administration in neutral. However capable their replacements -- and highly capable people rarely sign on to join an administration in its last two years -- it's going to be hard to put any kind of energy or creativity into foreign policy. Beyond the normal "get up to speed" delays, other countries increasingly have an incentive to simply do nothing, and instead hope that Bush's successor will be more amenable to their specific concerns.

For all those reasons, it's normal for a president's foreign policy influence to decline near the end of his term -- and for ambitious people to start looking for new work as a result. But it's unusual for the process to start happening this soon.

Turnover is normal as an administration nears its end, but "this is a high number," said Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University and an expert on government.

"You would expect to see vacancies arise as things wind down, but it's about six months early for this kind of a mass exodus," he said.

All of which is one more reason Bush remains invested in Iraq: It's one of the few places in foreign policy where he still exerts sizable influence. Pulling out would leave him pretty much done as far as large-bore foreign policy initiatives, without the time, popularity or political capital to launch anything new. Iraq is more than a mission for him: It's a way to remain relevant.

The cost, of course, is measured in forgone opportunities, blood and Republican 2008 hopes.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

Iraq impasse

As a daylong battle raged in Baghdad's Sunni neighborhoods, President Bush invited Democrats to discuss war funding -- even while he was being pressured by a consortium of Republican legislators to reach a compromise.

For Bush, invitations to negotiate have historically been invitations to capitulate. And this time appears to be no different:

"We can discuss the way forward on a bill that is a clean bill — a bill that funds our troops without artificial timetables for withdrawal, and without handcuffing our generals on the ground," Bush said in a speech to an American Legion audience in nearby Fairfax, Va.

On the one hand, Bush extended an offer to meet with lawmakers Tuesday. On the other, the White House bluntly said it would not be a negotiating session.

What exactly is there to discuss, if the precondition is meeting all of the president's demands?

It bears an eery similarity to his diplomatic approach to Syria, Iran and North Korea, where he also demanded that the other side essentially surrender before talks could begin. That produced exactly zero results in those cases -- progress with North Korea was achieved only after the administration relented -- and isn't likely to go over big with Congress, so one is led to conclude that it is an approach carved into Bush's DNA, not one based on real-world experiences.

Indeed, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid quickly rejected the terms.

"What the president invited us to do was come to his office so that we could accept without any discussion the bill that he wants," Pelosi said at a news conference in San Francisco. "That's not worthy of the concerns of the American people, and I join with Senator Reid in rejecting an invitation of that kind."

The Republican delegation, meanwhile, throws an interesting wrench into the works by suggesting that Bush's Congressional support is not as strong as he thinks.

The group includes five Republicans, diverse in geography and ideology: Reps. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, Charles Boustany of Louisiana, Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska, Mac Thornberry of Texas and Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland. Of the five, only Gilchrest broke with his party to support a timeline for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

Now, Gilchrest says the group will encourage the White House to compromise on negotiations with Syria and Iran and on setting a date for withdrawal from Iraq. And the group has national security bona fides that will help it be taken seriously....

The GOP negotiating team's argument will start with Gen. David Petraeus' public assertion that the war in Iraq cannot be won militarily but requires a comprehensive political solution. Part of that includes letting Iraq know the American commitment isn't open-ended, Gilchrest said.

It's unclear how much support the five GOPers have from the rest of their caucus. Other than Gilchrest -- who, if you believe the National Journal rankings, is the fifth most liberal Republican in the House -- the group is moderately to solidly conservative, though they're notably more moderate on foreign policy.

Consider this simple analysis: Thornberry is ranked as more conservative on foreign policy than 73 percent of the House. If the group crafts a compromise that is acceptable to him, it could conceivably be acceptable to those of the same rank or lower -- meaning a veto-proof majority. That's a really simple analysis, of course. Support for timetables is lower than opposition to the war in general, and that doesn't even count the effect of party discipline on voting behavior. But if the group can show it has support among rank-and-file Republicans, Bush will be forced to listen if he doesn't want to suffer a humiliating foreign-policy defeat.

Iraq, Bush, politics, midtopia

Why all the handwringing over Britain and Iran?

The 15 captured British sailors and Royal Marines are home from Iran, and while many people are simply glad to have them back, already the blame and handwringing has begun.

I haven't written about this previously because I had limited time to post, and if there was one thing I was sure of it was that the Brits would be returned home unharmed sooner or later. Iran may be crazy, but they're not stupid. Or is that stupid, but not crazy? Anyway, there was no way they were going to hurt the prisoners, and the whole situation was just one more black eye for Iran, internationally speaking.

However, the reaction in some quarters now that the situation is over just ticks me off.

First, the blame.

Some commentators said the captured personnel must explain the apparently easygoing demeanor with which they admitted entering Iranian waters and made public, televised apologies after their March 23 detention by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

It's perfectly fine to ask questions about how the sailors came to be captured -- that's classic after-action review procedure. But it takes a lot of ignorance -- not to mention a complete lack of empathy -- to question what the prisoners did while in captivity.

During Vietnam, we had a hardline "name, rank and serial number" expectation of our POWs. What we discovered in the course of that conflict is that such an approach merely increased the psychological pressure on our captured soldiers, leading them to endure extremely harsh treatment for no good reason -- they had no sensitive information to protect -- and heaping guilt on them if and when they finally "broke." The result for many returning POWs: a lifetime of physical and psychological problems incurred for zero benefit to our war effort.

Based on those experiences, the U.S. military changed its mindset. When I was in the Army, the guidance was simple: If you find yourself in enemy hands, your sole duty is to survive and return home. Yes, if you have truly sensitive information then you have a duty not to divulge it if at all possible. Other than that, you simply do what you can to get through. If that means cooperating with your captors in transparently coerced dog-and-pony show, so be it. If that means signing "confessions" and telling them anything they want to hear, so be it. You do what you have to do.

There's an additional twist when you consider that the chain of command remains intact during imprisonment. The ranking officers or noncoms in a group are responsible for the well-being of everyone within that group. They set the standard for behavior, and as far as possible make decisions about when and how the group members will cooperate with their captors. That also, of course, makes them susceptible to psychological pressure that takes advantage of that responsibility. I may be quite willing to endure torture without cooperating. But am I willing to let them torture the 18-year-old gunner's mate who was captured along with me? And even if I am willing -- should I be?

As a general rule, no. My only responsibility in that situation is to get me and my troops back home in one piece, both mentally and physically.

So to those criticizing the British captives: knock it off. No harm was done, and be glad you didn't have to walk in their shoes.

Now, on to the handwringing, courtesy of Charles Krauthammer:

Iran has pulled off a tidy little success with its seizure and release of those 15 British sailors and marines: a pointed humiliation of Britain, with a bonus demonstration of Iran's intention to push back against coalition challenges to its assets in Iraq. All with total impunity. Further, it exposed the impotence of all those transnational institutions -- most prominently the European Union and the United Nations -- that pretend to maintain international order.

Okay, so he's not really wringing his hands -- though his main alternative would have been to immediately freeze European trade with Iran, a move that would have hurt Europe as well. But he's expressing the general sentiment of the handwringers. To which I have one response:

Give me a break.

This was not a "humiliation" of Britain. Iran seized sailors; Britain and the world denounced it; a few weeks later, Iran released them. Krauthammer sees a quid pro quo, but even if there is one -- and the evidence for that is so thin as to be ghostly -- it's incredibly tiny compared to the harm Iran caused to its own position with the seizure. So Iran proves it can defy the West -- whoop-de-do. Did anyone doubt that? Every time they do that they violate some norm of international behavior, which further isolates them and adds another ring to the target they're methodically painting on themselves.

Honestly, how is Iran stronger -- or Britain weaker -- for this event having happened? Self-serving neocons like Krauthammer claiming it is so does not make it true. With the dust settled, Iran is more isolated, not less. I fail to see how they benefited in any but the shortest of short terms.

So knock off the handwringing and the blame. This was a minor, if dramatic, event in a much larger dance, and it did nothing to change that dance in Iran's favor. It was a move that carried with it a whiff of desperation on Iran's part. The important thing now is to demonstrate how justified that desperation is, by keeping the screws on them to give up their enrichment program.

Iran, politics, midtopia

Bad news from Iraq

Boy, talk about a perennial headline. But this is noteworthy:

Shiite militants and police enraged by massive truck bombings in Tal Afar went on a revenge spree against Sunni residents in the northwestern town Wednesday, killing as many as 60 people, officials said.

The gunmen roamed Sunni neighborhoods in the city through the night, shooting at residents and homes, according to police and a local Sunni politician.

Witnesses said relatives of the Shiite victims in the truck bombings broke into the Sunni homes and killed the men inside or dragged them out and shot them in the streets.

Ali al-Talafari, a Sunni member of the local Turkomen Front Party, said the Iraqi army had arrested 18 policemen accused of being involved after they were identified by the Sunni families targeted. But he said the attackers included Shiite militiamen.

While not a direct reflection on Bush's surge, this is disheartening on three levels:

1. It's the sort of violence we are simply not equipped to stop. Incidents like this are why people say that we're not fighting insurgents, we're caught in the middle of a civil war.

2. It involves police massacring innocents -- demonstrating that, once again, the security forces are part of the problem.

3. It happened in Tal Afar, a city once held up as an example of a pacified city. I've written about it before (and may or may not have received a comment from Col. Sean MacFarland, then the commander in that area). Here's another take, with details on how we rooted the insurgents out of Tal Afar. If we can't pacify that city despite pouring troops in and surrounding it with sand berms, I don't hold out much hope for places like Baghdad.

If this isn't a sectarian civil war, what is it?

And this is just icing on the cake:

Saudi King Abdullah, whose country is a close US ally, on Wednesday slammed the "illegitimate foreign occupation" of Iraq in an opening speech to the annual Arab summit in Riyadh.

"In beloved Iraq, blood is being shed among brothers in the shadow of an illegitimate foreign occupation, and ugly sectarianism threatens civil war," Abdullah said.

He also said that Arab nations, which are planning to revive a five-year-old Middle East peace plan at the summit, would not allow any foreign force to decide the future of the region.

With friends like these....

Iraq, Tal Afar, politics, midtopia

House passes Iraq timetable

By a razor-thin margin -- 218-212 -- the House of Representatives passed a war funding bill that includes a hard deadline to end combat operations in Iraq: September 2008.

I've already opined that the timetable is reasonable, giving Bush a year and a half to show progress. And even if the deadlines were enforced, it's not like we would abandon Iraq as of then. We would simply shift from doing front-line work ourselves to providing aid and training for the Iraqi military. And if Bush does manage to show progress, I'm sure he would find that the deadline, to quote Captain Barbossa, "is more of what you might call guidelines than actual rules." What Congress passeth, Congress can changeth.

Bush, however, exploded.

Just over an hour later, an angry Bush accused Democrats of staging nothing more than political theater and said that if the spending bill is not approved and signed into law by April 15, troops and their families "will face significant disruptions."...

"A narrow majority in the House of Representatives abdicated its responsibility by passing a war spending bill that has no chance of becoming law and brings us no closer to getting the troops the resources they need to do their job.

"These Democrats believe that the longer they can delay funding for our troops, the more likely they are to force me to accept restrictions on our commanders, an artificial timetable for withdrawal and their pet spending projects. This is not going to happen."

Bush's rhetoric is self-serving, of course: Whatever you think of the wisdom of its chosen course, this is Congress asserting its responsibility, not abdicating it. Abdication is what the Republican-led Congress engaged in for three years.

And if funding the war is so important, he can simply sign the bill. The money is there, and the restrictions don't kick in for quite a while. Apparently the funding isn't critical enough to keep him from vetoing it.

As political theater, this cannot be beat. As a practical matter, though, the deadline is probably a goner. The first hurdle is the Senate, where it will have trouble passing. If the Senate passes a bill lacking the timetable, that will have to be resolved in conference committee. If the deadline survives that (and the conference version passes the Senate), it faces a likely Bush veto, which will almost certainly be sustained.

At that point -- or, more likely, much earlier -- Bush and Congress will have to sit down and hammer out what sort of funding bill both sides will accept. The politics are uncertain, because both sides can accuse the other of holding our troops hostage to politics. My gut says Bush will win that battle of perception by claiming the timetable provision does not belong in the funding bill. But Congress can argue that the timetable is directly relevant to the funding.

Further, they could make the point that the timetable is a limitation on Bush, so how much sense does it make to pass it as a standalone measure that Bush will simply veto? Attaching it to the funding bill is the only way Congress can exert meaningful pressure on the president.

Problem is, that would mean Congress is using a tactical argument to try to counter a moral and strategic one. And critics could plausibly point out that if Congress cannot muster enough votes to force the timetable on Bush straight up, perhaps it is still too early to be doing such forcing.

I don't buy that particular logic but I'm still somewhat in the latter camp, mostly because I believe we need to give the "surge" time to show results before we start imposing withdrawal deadlines. More on that in my next post.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

Rumors to the left of me, speculation to the right...

On the right, we have rumors that a retired Iranian general has gone missing and may have defected to the United States, an event that is reportedly sparking "panic" in Tehran.

The newspaper, al-Shark al-Awsat, cited "high-profile" sources saying former Iranian deputy defence minister and Revolutionary Guard commander Ali Reza Asghari had gone over to the West.

Reports from Istanbul that General Asghari's family had also disappeared in Turkey support the likelihood that he defected rather than was kidnapped by either the CIA or by Israel's Mossad, as has been speculated. The general went missing from his Istanbul hotel a month ago.

Iranian authorities, who have been silent on the disappearance until this week, claim he has been abducted.

Defections are good. As long as it's one of theirs. Why is this particularly important? Because of this:

General Asghari's crossing of the line, whether voluntary or not, is a resounding blow for the Iranian Government since he is privy to its most intimate secrets, particularly those concerning its nuclear capabilities and plans.

He served until two years ago as deputy defence minister, a post he held for eight years and which presumably offered an uninhibited view of virtually every aspect of Iran's security apparatus.

He was reportedly closely associated with Iran's activities in support of the Shi'ites in Iraq.

If true, this is a great big birthday present wrapped in ribbons and bows. But take it with a grain of salt for now. At the moment, it's just rumors and reports from unreliable sources.

On the left, Raw Story is claiming to have seen a memo confirming that one of the secret CIA prisons was at an intelligence training school in Poland. As an aside, it says its sources all say the CIA is no longer operating secret prisons -- and probably never had anything permanent, relying instead on a series of temporary, short-term facilities that it used as needed.

Take this one with a big grain of salt. It's plausible, but there is no independent confirmation of anything within it.

terrorism, Iran, politics, midtopia

Iran roundup

As expected, an IAEA report has declared that Iran is in violation of U.N. resolutions regarding its nuclear program, opening the way for more severe sanctions.

Despite uncertainty over Iran's actual capabilities, the report nonetheless said that Iran has or soon will have 1,000 centrifuges for purifying uranium -- short of the 3,000 it expected to have by now (enough to produce one bomb's worth of uranium a year), but more than most outside observers expected.

Update: Here's the report (pdf).

Most everybody, including U.S. officials, say military action isn't imminent. Israel's being a bit mum, but Tony Blair said yesterday that an attack would be a bad idea, finally saying publicly what British officials had been saying privately for some time.

Then there's this:

Senior British government sources have told The Times that they fear President Bush will seek to “settle the Iranian question through military means” next year, before the end of his second term if he concludes that diplomacy has failed. “He will not want to leave it unresolved for his successor,” said one.

That's speculation, of course. If true, I'm of two minds on it. It's good not to let the diplomatic dance drag on indefinitely without results. But the end of his term is a fairly arbitrary deadline, and military action might simply hand his successor an ongoing crisis instead of an unresolved dispute. If we have to bomb -- and I'm on record supporting such a move if it proves necessary -- it should be because the talks went nowhere, not because Bush is preparing to leave office.

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that our intelligence stinks...

Most of the tip-offs about supposed secret weapons sites provided by the CIA and other US intelligence agencies have led to dead ends when investigated by IAEA inspectors, according to informed sources in Vienna.

"Most of it has turned out to be incorrect," a diplomat at the IAEA with detailed knowledge of the agency's investigations said.

"They gave us a paper with a list of sites. [The inspectors] did some follow-up, they went to some military sites, but there was no sign of [banned nuclear] activities.

"Now [the inspectors] don't go in blindly. Only if it passes a credibility test."

...but Iran has some questions to answer.

One of the "outstanding issues" listed in yesterday's report involves a 15-page document that appears to have been handed to IAEA inspectors by mistake with a batch of unrelated paperwork in October 2005.

That document roughly describes how to make hemispheres of enriched uranium, for which the only known use is in nuclear warheads. Iran has yet to present a satisfactory explanation of how and why it has the document.

Whatever you think ought to be done about Iran's nuclear program, it seems beyond doubt that they are pursuing weaponry.

nuclear, Iran, politics, midtopia

Congress' next steps on Iraq

In preparation for the next confrontation over Iraq, Congressional Democrats are honing two different proposals that would start scaling back our activities there.

In the House, the plan is to require the military to meet established readiness and training standards that would essentially make a continued large-scale presence in Iraq impossible.

The Senate proposal is more direct, specifically restricting the allowable actions of U.S. troops in Iraq, limiting them to work related to a withdrawal of U.S. forces: direct attacks on Al-Qaeda, training Iraqi units and the like.

Of the two, the Senate has the better plan. The House approach is clever, as it neatly points up the unsustainability of our current troops levels. But it's a somewhat cowardly, back-door way to force a troop withdrawal, and seems to hold plenty of potential for unintended consequences by not forthrightly calling for -- and providing the resources for -- such a withdrawal.

The Senate approach, by contrast, simply commands an orderly end to our mission there. It's simple, direct and clear.

The chance of either plan actually taking effect is minimal. Democrats must overcome Republican opposition in Congress -- including a 60-vote margin in the Senate -- in order to pass them, and then they would face an almost certain veto from President Bush -- even if they are attached to some other piece of "must pass" legislation.

There's another risk for Democrats as well: loss of the Senate. Joe Lieberman is quietly suggesting that he might switch parties if they start pushing an Iraq policy he doesn't like. A lot of that might just be Joe posturing, taking advantage of his swing position to maximize his influence on both sides of the aisle. But he's enough of a true believer in the war that he could be serious. You can be sure any Democratic moves in the Senate will be weighed against the Joe Factor first.

Political machinations aside, are the Democrats doing the right thing by tying the President's hands?

In a general sense, there's nothing wrong with it. Congress has the sole power to declare war, the sole power to fund it and the sole power to truly end it. The President, as commander-in-chief, prosecutes the wars that Congress declares. There has been much blurring of that line over the centuries, but the thing to remember is that Congress, not the President, ultimately decides when and how long to fight. If the people (through Congress) decide they don't want to fight anymore, we should stop fighting.

But is it the right thing to do in Iraq?

Again, in a general sense, yes. The Iraq war was a mistake from the get-go, and incompetently managed besides. It has increased polarization, radicalization and terrorism in the Mideast and worldwide. It has cost a staggering amount of money, political capital, global influence and blood. It has tied up resources better used elsewhere, and divided the American electorate at a time when we needed unity to ensure continued support for the long struggle with terror. Correcting such a blunder is a good thing, and necessary.

"But that means the terrorists win!" I hear war supporters say. Nonsense. Iraq is one battle in a much larger war, and a smart general knows when to cut his losses. Leaving Iraq does not mean abandoning the fight against terror; it means redeploying our resources to more effective fronts, while removing our inflammatory presence from Iraqi soil.

Had war-supporter logic prevailed in World War I, they would have insisted we keep pouring troops into the Dardanelles campaign, lest we "let the Turks win" and show we can be beaten. In reality, of course, the Allies recognized the campaign as a disaster and pulled the plug -- and went on to win the war anyway.

So in a general sense, Congress needs to be prepared to bring our involvement in Iraq to an end. But in specific, their timing is a little premature. Bush's "surge" is just getting under way. He deserves a chance to show it can work, because all things being equal winning in Iraq is preferable to not winning. After all, the logic for withdrawal is not that we don't want to win; it's that winning in any sense meaningful to our national security appears unlikely and reinforcing failure is stupid.

So prepare the bills. But stay the hand until we see the results of the surge. And if it fails (as, alas, it probably will), then report out the Senate version. If we're going to pull the plug, do it responsibly, directly and openly.

terrorism, Iraq, politics, midtopia

The House passed it's anti-surge measure.

The vote was 246-182. In the end, despite fears of massive Republican defections, only 17 Republicans crossed over and voted for the resolution.

The Senate vote on an identical measure is scheduled for Saturday, but Senate Republicans have promised to block it until their alternative resolutions are considered.

Iraq, politics, midtopia

Backing off, a bit, on Iran

The White House is slowly backing away from some of the more pointed and explosive assertions it has made in recent days about Iran's involvement in Iraq.

On Sunday, U.S. officials in Baghdad who spoke on condition of anonymity alleged that Iranian officials at the "highest levels" of the government, including supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, were behind the smuggling of a deadly type of explosive device used against U.S. forces.

But during news conferences Wednesday in Washington and Baghdad, Bush and Army Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the chief military spokesman in Iraq, appeared to step back from that claim, just as Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did in interviews this week.

Further, the original claims about IEDs appear to be shakier than they looked at first:

Even the issue of where the weapons were manufactured is cloudy. A U.S. military explosives expert at the news conference in Baghdad acknowledged that there was no forensic evidence or labels linking the canister-shaped weapons to munitions plants in Iran.

Rather, Army Maj. Marty Weber said, the weapons were similar to those that the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia used against Israeli forces during Israel's late-1990s occupation of southern Lebanon.

That directly contradicts the statements made by the Pentagon on Sunday. What was presented as fact turns out to be a guess -- a reasonable and informed guess, but a guess nonetheless.

Keep in mind, the dispute over the data obscures some fundamental truths. Nobody seems to deny that Iranian weaponry is finding its way into Iraq. The core of the matter is precisely what weaponry, which groups they're being given to and whether the Iranian government is involved.

But the administration has overreached to justify a war before; this incident points out how important it is to make sure of what we actually know -- as opposed to merely suspect -- before formulating policy.

Interestingly, there has been no follow-up on what would be the most damning evidence of direct Iranian involvement -- the capture of .50-caliber sniper rifles in Iraq, although the Austrian gunmaker says nobody has contacted it in order to compare serial numbers -- which suggests that the connection is, once again, conjecture rather than established fact.

Iraq, Iran, politics, midtopia

Republicans come out against "surge"

The debate over a resolution opposing Bush's "surge" in Iraq has exposed some interesting and deep Republican divisions over the war.

On the second day of a four-day showdown over the nonbinding resolution, Democrats looked on as Republican dissidents denounced what they called Bush's ill-conceived plan to put 21,500 more combat troops in the middle of a sectarian civil war.

Some of the 11 Republicans who publicly broke with Bush were long-time opponents of the war, such as Reps. Walter B. Jones (N.C.) and Ron Paul (Tex.). But others, such as Reps. Fred Upton (Mich.) and Jim Ramstad (Minn.), had never sought the limelight and were almost apologetic in their speeches....

Those 11 could be just the tip of the iceberg. One Republican lawmaker close to the leadership, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said GOP leaders have 50 to 60 Republicans on their watch list, with between 40 and 60 expected to break with the White House tomorrow.

Wow.

The article goes on to say that while the resolution exposed deep divisions among Republicans, GOP leaders expect a debate over funding Iraq would rally their members while similarly exposing deep divisions among Democrats, some of whom want to shut down all funding for Iraq.

It also mentions Democratic plans to shut down the military prisons at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. Whether this is a good idea or not depends on what steps are actually taken. Given the notoriety of the two sites, Shutting them down is a smart PR move. But why are they notorious? Mostly because of how they have been used, not their mere existence.

So on the one hand, I'd be satisfied with simple reform: Treat it as a secure holding pen for dangerous people awaiting trial, rather than a legal black hole, and I'm fine with it.

On the other hand, shutting them down doesn't take away the need to put dangerous bad guys somewhere. So some of their functions will simply be transferred elsewhere. Thus unless the legal abuses that led to the notoriety are also remedied, closing them will simply move the same bad behavior elsewhere -- and possibly hide it from sight until, inevitably, it is discovered again in another spasm of bad press.

Should be an interesting month.

Update: The Senate has shelved its troubled version of the resolution and adopted the simpler House version, scheduling a vote for Saturday.

Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, surge, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Baghdad: A clean sweep, so far

The surge is on, and so far, not much.

The good news: U.S. forces sweeping Baghdad haven't encountered much resistance. The bad news: That's mostly because the sectarian fighters are lying low and waiting for us to leave. The sweep will only work if it is more than a sweep. It must be an actual occupation of ground, one that either flushes the insurgents out of hiding or forces them to remain there. Keep them lying low long enough, and actual security might be established.

So as long as we're planning to stay in the areas of Baghdad we've swept -- and that's the plan; follow the sweep with an occupation by Iraqi forces and the 82nd Airborne -- this doesn't bother me:

Iraq's Sunni vice president, Tariq al-Hashemi, warned that advance publicity on the security operation had given Shiite militias time to flee the city for bases elsewhere in the country.

"I have information that numerous of their leaders are now in Basra and other southern provinces in safe havens," he told Al-Arabiya television. "I believe that those who were behind the bloodshed and the chaos should be pursued and criminals must face justice."

Good. Let them flee. As long as we don't let them come back, we can slowly expand our militia-free zone across the country until they no longer have a place to flee to.

That's how occupation security works. And it's infuriating that it has taken more than three years for us to actually attempt it. But better late than never; if we can sustain this -- and the Iraqi government continues to be a serious partner -- Bush's "surge" will work.

Those are big ifs, especially because sustaining the surge will probably require more troops than we have committed. But for now, hope for the best.

surge, Iraq, politics, midtopia

More Iranian weaponry in Iraq?

Could be. But the evidence is far from conclusive.

Austrian sniper rifles that were exported to Iran have been discovered in the hands of Iraqi terrorists, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

More than 100 of the.50 calibre weapons, capable of penetrating body armour, have been discovered by American troops during raids.

The guns were part of a shipment of 800 rifles that the Austrian company, Steyr-Mannlicher, exported legally to Iran last year.

Here's the rifle in question, by the way.

Seems pretty clear, huh? Except that the story is extremely light on details. There is no comparison of serial numbers, for instance, to show that the rifles being captured are the same ones that were sent to Iran.

And as with yesterday's "Iranians supplying insurgents" story, there's an inexcusable fuzziness about who is being armed. We're mostly fighting Sunnis, not Shiites. So while I can see this weapon turning up in the armories of Shiite militias, I have a hard time believing it is being distributed to actual insurgents.

Further, the guns cost several thousand dollars apiece (Iran paid about $20,000 apiece) so they're not exactly flooding the market. It seems unlikely that Iran would provide such expensive and easily-traced weaponry to Iraqis.

Frankly, I have a hard time taking the London press as authoritative sources on anything. In my experience they're highly prone to reporting rumors or slanting stories -- whether out of ideology or sheer sloppiness I don't know. But if this story has legs, it will be a very strong indicator of Iranian government involvement.

I will be vastly unsurprised if it turns out Iran is arming various factions in Iraq. But I want solid evidence before we escalate against them.

iraq, Iran, politics, midtopia