Militant Moderates

Exaggerating Bush

It has become common in some quarters to view almost any pejorative as appropriate for application to George W. Bush. With his policies in shambles, his poll numbers at record low levels and legions of anti-Bush enforcers roaming every nook and cranny of what was once known as “civil society” to identify and smear anyone who might even vaguely be seen to be dissenting even in part from the drumbeat of hatred, defenders of the President are hard to find anywhere.

Of course, even those among the President’s critics who acknowledge the growing level of vitriol lay the blame squarely on the Bush administration and its supporters. The “neocons”, we are told, “started it” by labeling all those who dissented from their agenda as unpatriotic, etc. Polarization is, therefore, just another symptom of the disease with which the Bush administration has infected American politics. Even the abuses and excesses of the President’s enemies are thereby blamed on the President — the Devil made them do it.

Yet, stepping back from the hate and the partisan passions of the moment might reveal a more mixed picture of who and what is responsible. Economist and libertarian Arnold Kling — no “neocon” he — debunks some of the popular anti-Bush mythologies. His diagnosis is fairly dark and likely true — that the polarization and ideological hatred that now dominates American political discourse did not start with President Bush and will likely long outlive his Presidency.

Mirror, Mirror

Michael P. F. van der Galien has today published a couple of posts calling for a “reality check” on Iraq. Acknowledging that most of the world opposed American intervention in Iraq the first place, MvdG argues that now the world views debate in the U.S. over withdrawal with skepticism and alarm, believing that the resulting chaos will only deepen America’’s guilt. He calls on American analysts to “think outside the box” and come up with more creative solutions not grounded in American “exceptionalism”.

Now, I consider MvdG a friend and one of the best political analysts at TMV and in the moderate blogosphere. But on this one, I’m taking him to the woodshed. If MvdG’s analysis is typical of western European opinion, American interlocutors might be forgiven for responding only, “same to you”. To the charges of national arrogance and assuming American “exceptionalism”, Americans often can and should plead guilty. But the much more overlooked charges of “European arrogance” and “European exceptionalism” might be equally worthy. The standard European narrative of an unnecessary American intervention leading to failure in Iraq is valid, but glosses over Europe’s own role in setting the preconditions for that blunder. Contemporary analysts tend to emphasize the alleged “stability” of the pre-2003 situation in Iraq, where Saddam Hussein’s murderous regime was supposedly hemmed in by its own weakness and a global sanctions regime. They choose not to remember the involvement of many French and German companies and even governments in weakening those sanctions and trying to remove Saddam’s economic and military shackles. They also forget that the United States stood accused of causing hundreds of thousands of deaths under the sanctions regime as well. In short, they condemned U.S. policy then for the same policy of containment they now claim the U.S. should have stuck to while all the while ignoring their own governments' role in undermining that earlier policy.

Apart from the backward-looking issue of blame, Europeans have been equally hypocritical on the forward-looking issue of “what to do now”. In his post, MvdG condemns the United States for its failure to include other nations in its approach towards Iraq, overlooking the fact that those other (European) nations would, with only a few exceptions, refuse to participate anyway. In a remarkable move of rhetorical ju-jitsu, he exempts Europe from the demand he makes upon Americans to come up with better alternatives:

Two things:
- America did not want international organizations involved when the war started. Now, still, they do not want many countries involved, and if they do, they only want it because Americans are dying and its better for domestic purposes that foreign soldiers die (again, I’m not a politician)
- You started this war. What gives you the right to tell the world that it should send soldiers just because your refused to send enough / stay as long as it takes / work with other countries?

While denying all responsibility to actually participate in the debate over withdrawal other than by condemning whatever America may or may not do, MvdG still wants the United States to debate and to act alone:

Take it into account and then come up with a plan…
I am not offering a solution here - my goal is merely to make you all think of something, of a downside, that is being ignored in most American media.

So the bottom line is that MvdG — and if he he representative of them, then by extension western European public opinion generally — accepts the myth of American “exceptionalism” when it is convenient for them to maintain their own implicit myth of European exceptionalism. That myth is that Europe has some kind of right to participate as moral judge of the global order, but no obligation at any point to actually contribute anything themselves, either conceptually or materially. Apparently, Europeans’ claim on a special role on the global stage is that of heckler.

Let me be crystal clear on this point: Criticism of U.S. policy in Iraq is certainly well-justified. But the criticism of the U.S.-centric debate about the pros and cons of withdrawal is not, particularly from an “international community” that as yet appears to have nothing constructive of its own to offer to that debate. If Europe wants to be taken seriously in a demand that the U.S. expand the scope of its internal debate over Iraq, then Europe is going to need to have more to offer than just that demand itself.

UPDATE: It is apparent that some interpret my critique of MvdG’s argument as an endorsement of a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq. That is not correct. I believe that while withdrawal may inevitably prove necessary in the intermediate future, it would be unwise and even disastrous to withdraw immediately or totally. I agree with MvdG’s point that advocates of withdrawal should take into account world opinion when discussing withdrawal just as much as they claimed to take it into account when opposing the original invasion.  But I cannot agree that the reason for rejecting plans for immediate withdrawal should be that Europeans will condemn America for doing so since, as MvdG’s post itself and a broader look at history both demonstrate, many Europeans will condemn the U.S. for pretty much everything it does, no matter what. 

What is needed is change on both sides here -- Americans need to be more consistent about listening to world opinion instead of using it just when they agree with it and Europeans need to be less haughty and substantively non-responsive towards America's dilemma in Iraq.  Europeans need to also face up to their own errors in Iraq, including the establishment of an incoherent state in the first place (Britain) and the sabotage and corruption of the pre-invasion sanctions policy (France, Germany, and the UN).

America the Good

Because of the polarized political environment, many will use the occasion of the 4th of July for partisan ends.  The President will visit wounded veterans in an effort to breathe life into an Iraq policy fading on terminal life support and the President’s critics will proclaim the decline of the Republic with him as the proximate cause of the apocalypse.

Let the partisans have their fun, I guess. On this 231st birthday of the United States of America, I’d prefer to just state a brief list of the reasons that I believe the United States is, even in spite of all of its mistakes and blunders, one of the most influential forces for good in the history of the world.

I believe the United States is unique in the history of great powers in that it seeks to spread its values rather than its sphere of control. For all the talk of “empire”, even if you take that frame seriously, the American empire is, as Niall Ferguson and many others have noted, an unusually benign and non-intrusive type. The Marshall Plan was a uniquely American enterprise, one that we can do again if we remember and if we try.

I find the pure diversity of music available on iTunes to be an expression of the diversity that lies at the center of American culture. Even iTunes itself seems an expression of American vibrancy — innovative new technology that blends commerce with social connections in a way that avoids the cumbersome regulatory impulse that seems to stifle creativity in many other places in the world.

I enjoy being a jingoistic nationalist during Olympics and World Cups.  I regret that only the Olympics and the women’s World Cups really give very many opportunities to do this while seeing my side winning, though.

I admire the United States’ tradition of openness towards those seeking economic or political freedom. I would call upon today’s Americans to rediscover and honor that tradition and to avoid the emotional and political temptations of nativism.

I believe nothing quite captures the essence of American social fabric than a minor league baseball game — the Saint Paul Saints playing in an open-air ballpark situated in the middle of a functioning train yard where there are carnival games with fans in between innings and where the announcer calls “train” every time one rumbles past left field. And I don’t even like baseball very much.

I believe that the fact that domestic critics of the United States are allowed to complain about how oppressive their country is without any consequences disproves their criticism. You know, the U.S. often even rewards being anti-American and/or anti-government (not the same thing) with tenure at its elite universities, newspapers, and entertainment media. Nice work if you can get it, and in America, you can get it.

The Politics of Fear

A new study argues that Democrats lose elections because they appeal to reason rather than making more effective appeals to fear.  In short, Democrats lose because they are not mean and dishonest enough towards their opponents.

This study appears to be yet another iteration of what is becoming a cottage industry of advocates asserting that the only possible cause of their political defeats is that voters are dumb and that the only possible causes for political disagreements is that the other side is either dishonest or insane.  Little room is allowed for principled dissent in the minds of those who tend to dominate political debate forums and discussion threads.
Of course, the irony is that the advocates are guilty of the same crimes of which they convict others.  The author and promoters of this new "study" are clearly trying to provoke fear about Republicans as being vicious and hypocritical while casting Democrats as virtuous and motivated only by calm reasons.  It is just a somewhat more subtle reprise of the infamous "conservatives are crazy" pseudo-study which argued, in brief, that every characteristic usually thought of as negative, anti-social and repressive applied to conservatives while every personal characteristic thought of as positive, friendly, and creative was the domain of liberals.  Such techniques of equating political dissent with insanity used to be the exclusive hallmark of totalitarian communism, but they are becoming ever more commonplace from the politicized realms of academia and popular psychology in the United States now.

Casting politics in such terms only shuts down political debate and stifles any semblance of democracy.  Encouraging candidates and discussants to attack each other in order to be more "effective" produces exactly the effect that the authors claim to condemn -- the abolition of substantive content.  Demonization is cheap and easy, but unworthy.  And while some voters may be temporarily motivated by the "yay, us" aspects of the "politics of fear" gunfire directed towards the other side, the resulting bunker mentality eventually infests both sides, resulting in an intractable conflict with what author Orson Scott Card has called "incompatible epistemologies" leading towards outright political warfare.  Claims of "they started it" or "they are worse" only worsen the problem.

Is this really the right way to respond to deep political divisions and an unpopular, politically aggressive administration?  Because of the disarray in the Republican Party and the albatross of an unpopular Republican administration, Democrats seem likely to win in 2008.  It will be up to them to choose whether they want to become what they accuse the other side of being.

Over the Edge

Peter Mehlman on the Huffington Post takes ideological demonization to a new extreme.  In a new twist on Godwin's Law, Mehlman argues that the present administration is worse than Hitler or Stalin because at least the Nazis and the Stalinists meant well.

That's right.  He despises their methods, of course, but he endorses their motives.  Meanwhile, using his as-yet unpatented soul-reading machine, Mehlman finds with certainty that the President and anyone who agrees with him about anything simply has bad motives.  Reading through the comments to Mehlman's post only deepens the depression, as it rapidly becomes clear that emotional hatred is a powerful and influential theme that may be swamping intellectual debate completely in broad segments of the American polity.

Unfortunately, these problems are increasingly common on both left and right.  When confronted by disagreement, it isn't enough to refute the argument, it is seen as necessary to demonize anyone who would even attempt to make it.  Those who favor increased immigration are linked to Ted Kennedy, "liberals" and "multiculturalists" and are accused of supporting al-Qaeda infiltration.  Those who favor trying to rescue anything from the debacle in Iraq are linked to George W. Bush, "neocons", and "warmongers" and are accused of sponsoring genocide and empire.  So many are so busy labeling and hating pin-up images of pent-up rage that few seem even interested in debating actual issues any more.  It isn't just on blogs, it is also on talk radio, television commentary, newspaper op-ed pages, and even college classrooms.  Every day I read through the summary of commentary found on Memeorandum and it seems that more than 80% of it is red-hot, fueled by hatred and blind to even the slightest possibility of legitimate disagreement.  Comment threads are often even worse.

Meanwhile, while vast segments of the supposedly educated elite in this country is engaged full-time screaming vileness, vitriol, and vulgarities at each other, actual problems fester and the world continues to spiral.  Some profess depression and hopelessness, grasping as an excuse for their hateful behavior the claim that nothing can be done until 2008 anyway.  But even if that were true (which it is not) in the policymaking sense, what kind of polity will remain in two years if we keep this up?

Responses from the wings of "they started it" or "they are worse" are part of the problem, they are not responsive as to the cure.  It is past time that the seriousness of discussants in political debate be assessed not by the purity of their "passion" measured by the amount of demonic imagery they heap upon their opponents but rather by their ability to respectfully and honestly engage especially those arguments coming from persons they disagree with.

After all, the refusal to demonize is the only barrier in between debate and civil war.

The Missing Link Between Immigration and Terrorism

A report for the Heritage Foundation by law professor Kris Korbach argues that illegal immigration is a threat to national security.  Korbach argues, in short, that because illegal immigration allows a path of access for terrorists to insert operatives, all programs that he labels "amnesty" must be rejected as threats to national security.

Korbach's analysis, however, relies on a very troubling assumption hidden away at the bottom of his opening paragraphs:

It is a certainty that many more illegal alien terrorists are quietly at work in the United States. In fiscal year 2005, the Border Patrol apprehended 3,722 aliens from nations that are designated state sponsors of terrorism or places in which al-Qaeda has operated, and for every one alien whom the Border Patrol apprehended, there were likely three aliens who were not caught. If so, it is probable that more than 10,000 aliens from high-risk, terrorist-associated countries illegally entered the United States in fiscal year 2005 alone. Assuming conservatively that only one in 100 was an actual terrorist, that is still over 100 terrorists who snuck across the border in a single year.

Korbach takes pains to assert the reasonableness and even conservatism of this assumption, but is that really the case?  Can we assume that 1% of all people who entered from a "high-risk" (read: Muslim) country were al-Qaeda infiltrators bound for "sleeper cells"?

It is a basic feature of sound research that all assumptions must be clearly presented and justified.  Korbach clearly presents this assumption, but his justification for it is limited to a few incomplete glances at recent high-profile terrorism busts in which immigrants -- legal and illegal -- were involved.  While this may appear to provide limited support for his troubling assumption, however, it obscures a critical fact:  In nearly every case of immigrants becoming involved in terrorism plots -- including the 9/11 hijackers -- the immigrants became seduced by radical Islamic ideology after they had immigrated to the West.  Additional examples of American citizens like John Walker Lind and Jose Padilla who embraced radical Islamic extremism shows that the infiltration hypothesis does not appear to match actual patterns of the threat posed by militant Islamic groups like al-Qaeda.

There are, in fact, few if any examples of "sleeper cells" using the Mexican border to infiltrate the United States.   Yet the observation that a few Muslim immigrants and citizens embrace radical and militant ideologies after already here doesn't provide the answer why.  There remains, in short, a missing link.  Why do immigrant communities tend to provoke radicalization among some of their members?  After all, if the association between immigration and terrorism stands up even in this modified form, critics of immigration "amnesty" will certainly continue to cite it as justification for restrictive, anti-immigration policies and attitudes.

The problem is that it may precisely be anti-immigration policies and attitudes that cause the radicalization effect.  Immigrants who come to the West, and more specifically to the United States, almost always come seeking economic and political opportunities not available in their native lands.  But if they discover that their new homes deny them respect and opportunities for participation, they may become vulnerable to radical preachers who offer religious piety and political hatred of the West as a salve for their dashed hopes.  Hatred is often the consequence of lost love.

As the violence of radicalized Muslim youth in France has shown, the "missing link" between immigration and terrorism may lie in the denial of opportunities after the immigrants have arrived rather than in the allowance of access for shadowy groups of already-radicalized infiltrators.  In the case of the anti-immigration approach to "national security", it may well be not only that the cure is worse than the disease, the supposed cure might be part of the cause.

"Liberal Hawks", Moderates, Iraq, and Iran -- Oh, My!

Ezra Klein condemns what he calls "liberal hawks" for embracing vagueness in their desire to avoid responsibility for their pro-war stance on Iraq and their enabling rhetoric towards a potential showdown with Iran. I think, as the comedy line says, "I resemble that remark." Klein throws down a challenge for "liberal hawks" to "speak clearly" and stop hiding behind pretenses of "seriousness". I eagerly pick up the gauntlet that Klein throws down.

The first question, of course, is what is a "liberal hawk" anyway? Klein's definition suffers from a pejorative tautology. "Liberal hawks" to him are defined solely by their stances on the issues of Iraq and Iran -- favor towards the Iraq war then, embarrassment and avoidance of the Iraq issue now, and a vaguely noncommittal stance towards Iran. Klein's depiction of "liberal hawks" is thus not a description of a political philosophy or a foreign policy approach at all, but rather just a list of behaviors Klein doesn't like. Klein does not expound upon the underlying beliefs or theories that might give an understanding of how "liberal hawks" would approach a range of issues and he certainly does not allow the "liberal hawks" to speak for themselves on such points, he merely defines the concept in terms of his negative opinion regarding their outcomes on two specific issues.

It is possible, however, to more clearly understand what the "liberal hawk" is than the silent tautological strawman Klein provides. "Liberal hawks" are, in a word, moderates on foreign policy. They are moderates in the sense that they do not adhere to the rigid precepts that characterize the philosophical extremes of pacifism or militarism and they also eschew the emotional temptations of the obsessive political purisms that currently dominate political discourse in the United States. Instead, moderate "liberal hawks" see foreign policy options like diplomacy, economic pressures and, yes, military force as tools that can be used, not used, or partially used according to the situation.

Unlike the pacifists, moderates do not rule out use of force categorically. But unlike militarists, they do not seek it as a first or even intermediate resort, they see diplomacy as a tool of equal utility. And unlike political obsessives who fixate on the person who occupies the Oval Office at the time, moderates do not make their judgment of the wisdom of a particular approach contingent upon partisanship or dark theories about Machiavellian conspiracies by "neoconservatives". Instead, "liberal hawk" moderates try to take the best from both left and right, and to hell with worrying about who gets the credit.

In regards to Iraq, Klein's critique of "liberal hawks" seems an exercise in "playing gotcha" more than a serious argument. Klein's concern is that "liberal hawks" have failed to own up to their errors (and his side's correctness) in the disaster that has overtaken what Thomas Ricks has called the U.S. "military adventure" in Iraq. Well, allow me to say what Klein is begging to hear, "you were right and we were wrong".

In 2003, I was a supporter of the war in Iraq, however reluctantly. Hints of weapons programs featuring chemical and biological nightmares -- hints that Saddam Hussein himself later revealed to be intentionally misleading (he wanted to deter Iran) -- were only part of a tableau of monstrosities, including mass murders, ethnic cleansing and the cavalier use of Iraqi people by Saddam, his sons, and their cronies as playthings for their most debased and evil urges.

As the last four years have rolled on, however, it has become clear that at least some of the fearful predictions of anti-war critics in fact were correct. U.S. forces were not greeted by many Iraqis as liberators and the tribal and sectarian divisions in Iraq have frustrated any chance of rebuilding in the foreseeable future.

Yes, the anti-war critics were right and we "liberal hawk" moderates were wrong. But why must that be the entire focus of the conversation? Why must "liberal hawks" be required to limit their input to a shameful admission of error followed by a swift retreat from the public forum? Klein's demand that "liberal hawks" limit themselves only to talking about his sides' "win" about the correctness of the Iraq war serves only to plump his ego and stifle debate going forward. In fact, this is a common pathology in the current American political discourse -- reminding the other side that one's own side was right and theirs was wrong has come to shut out debate about what to do next.

Like it or not, the United States is now in Iraq and we have to deal with the situation as-is. The obsession of people like Klein with their own rightness in 2003 isn't responsive towards the problem of what to do in 2007 and 2008. Moderates should not be precluded from input in conversations about the practical problems that we now face. And before Klein or one of his supporters attempts to translate wrongness in 2003 into a total lack of credibility in 2007, I should point out that perhaps his own side of the political debate has also been grievously wrong in the past, such as in its romanticizing of communism in the 1930s and its opposition to the liberal anti-communist project during the Cold War. If Klein's or anyone else's goal in harping on "we were right and you were wrong" about Iraq is to silence "liberal hawks" in the current debate, it's both transparently self-serving and deeply hypocritical.

In regards to Iran, Klein's criticism of the moderate position relies on a failure common among ideological purists -- the inability to see anything other than purist options on the table. He casts the question entirely as about the use of force, as if the only available options are to bomb now or, as he prefers, to downplay the danger of Ahmedinejad and treat him instead as a man we can successfully work with. Klein fears that any recognition of Ahmedinejad's possibly genocidal and totalitarian agenda feeds a "pro-war narrative" that must be avoided at all costs. In doing so, he makes the classic error of the ideological purist in consciously setting aside a honest evaluation of the evidence for fear that it may lead to the "wrong" conclusions.

Klein need not be so fearful. "Liberal hawk" moderates do not long for war with Iran, nor are they so bereft of intelligence and reasoning powers as to be incapable of articulating alternative ideas in the aftermath of failure in Iraq. We can, in fact, identify a specific middle way that avoids the errors of Iraq without giving in to a weak approach towards Ahmedinejad now. Many elements of this approach can be seen in U.S. policy now, including support for diplomatic engagements with Iran seeking to provide incentives as well as punishments, economic and technological sanctions that serve to limit or at least slow the ability of Ahmedinejad's regime to pursue nuclear weapons, economic and cultural pressures that target his regime's political repression, and, yes, the maintenance of military options in the background for use if (and only if) all other pressures fail and Ahmedinejad actually moves to acquire nuclear warheads and the means to use them for fulfillment of his openly-stated goal of the genocidal destruction of Israel. Contrary to Klein's claims, planning for military action does not mean embrace of a "pro-war narrative".  The threat is real and serious and our tools are limited and fallible, but progress is possible, as prior success in South Africa and recent breakthroughs with North Korea have demonstrated.

This multifaceted approach is not vagueness, as Klein charges, but rather pragmatism matched with an appreciation for the complexity of the situation and the insufficiency of single tools or single ideologies operating alone. In his desire to "play gotcha", Klein has missed the point: The best approach is a moderate approach.

(This article is a response to Michael P. F. van der Galien.)

UPDATE:  The always thoughtful  puts forward a good example of a moderate approach, arguing against the use of force as a primary tool, but also acknowledging the necessity of containment:

Yet coexistence should not imply appeasement or passivity. Any plausible strategy will prescribe concrete and sustainable policies designed to contain the virulent strain of radicalism currently flourishing in parts of the Islamic world. The alternative to transformation is not surrender but quarantine.

Bacevich, of course, always opposed the Iraq war and has recently lost his son in service there.  But in his tone and the way in which he is willing to actually engage in substantive argument while avoiding the name-calling and insults that have come to dominate foreign policy discussions, Bacevich exemplifies a moderate approach.

(h/t Robert Stein at TMV)

Bloomberg/Schwarzenegger - the best use of their resources

This week Time Magazine is featuring a profile of the Centrist temperament of Mayor Bloomberg and Gov Schwarzenegger  http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1632736,00.html

Every article I read about these guys speculates on the their presidential aspirations. But for a fraction of the resources these two guys could easily and effectively lead the movement for more Centrists in Congress and in all other levels of city, state and federal government.

Rather than use a litmus test on controversial issues they could articulate a standard based on open mindedness, flexibility, cooperation, collaboration, support for public funding of campaigns and redistricting reform.  They could promote actual debates and publicly speak out if a candidate is inaccurate in facts or context.

Increasing the percentage of Centrists in government doesn't guarantee any particular ideology will prevail but it does increase the odds in the passage of pragmatic policy that benefits a larger fraction of the population.

What we have now only promotes increased extremism, and Bloomberg and Schwarzenegger are among the very few who could move the pendulum back towards the center.

The Logic of Missile Defense

The recent dust-up between the United States and Russia over plans to construct missile defense sites in Eastern Europe has renewed a debate that goes back more than two decades to President Reagan's proposal for a "Strategic Defense Initiative" (dubbed "Star Wars" by its critics, a moniker that stuck).  While the latest iteration of this debate involved a system that did not really affect Russia and appears to have been resolved with a clever bit of Russian diplomacy, the debate is likely to recur.

Usually missing from the debate, however, is a clear understanding of what missile defense is and how it would work, both technically and, more important, politically.

Much has been made by critics of missile defense about the ineffectiveness of the system.  In developmental tests, the interceptor missiles succeed in knocking down their targets less than a quarter of the time, perhaps as little as 10%.  What purpose could such a system serve except to enrich well-connected defense contractors?

We first have to recognize what the actual targets of such a system are likely to be.  In spite of the grandiose early visions of "Star Wars" with massive space-based lasers shooting down missiles like skeet, Russia holds far too many missiles to make a practical missile defense against Russia possible.  Additionally, Russian missile technology is advanced, including decoys and maneuvering characteristics that make its warheads all but impossible to intercept.  Similarly, China's missile force, though much less advanced than Russia's, is large enough and supported by an underlying technological base that makes it unlikely that a U.S. missile defense system could counter a determined attack. 

The real target of missile defense is "rogue" states like North Korea and Iran.  These states have now or will eventually have relatively few missiles with sufficient range to reach the U.S. or its allies, a dozen or so as most.  Missile defense planners calculate that even if each individual interceptor has only a 10% chance to destroy a missile launched from North Korea or Iran, that means that 10 such interceptors will have a nearly 100% chance.  Thus, even missile defense installations  that use interceptors of only 10% effectiveness can nonetheless be effective in blocking the attack.

The real heart of the argument for missile defense, however, lies in preventing the attack at all.  The mere existence of a missile defense system changes how an adversary in North Korea or Iran will calculate his chances against the United States.  Even if we assume that such leaders care nothing about the lives of their own people, we can probably safely assume that they seek their own personal survival and the survival of their regime.  Thus, they will be unlikely to attack if such an attack would result in their own destruction.

Missile defense opponents point out that this alone may be sufficient.  Since any missile launched from North Korea or Iran would be pinpointed instantly by U.S. launch detection satellites, the U.S. would be able to retaliate with utter devastation, and leaders in these countries surely know this.

But missile defense advocates respond with at least three alternative scenarios.  First, leaders in of such regimes often hold surprisingly weak control over their military and their territory, due to technological and political limitations.  It is not impossible that a launch could be undertaken without a leader's authorization by a faction or by some outside group (i.e. al-Qaeda) seeking to hide its own identity by launching a missile from within the territory of a state that the U.S. is already predisposed not to trust.  Missile defenses provide the only possible protection against such an undeterrable enemy.

Second, leaders of such regimes might calculate that the U.S. will be unable to respond massively to a single missile launch, thus raising the possibility that they could "get away with" an attack.  Even if such a calculation is wrong, missile defense offers the only way to hedge against such a miscalculation.

Third, the very assumption of rationality could be wrong.  Deterrence by the guarantee of retaliation assumes that the other leader at least cares about his own survival.  But the possibility of fanaticism, religious or ideological, makes this assumption at least somewhat open to question.  Leaders may come to believe that their own "sacrifice" might bring about a religious miracle or, at least, that it would be worthwhile in order to destroy the much greater evil they perceive in the United States.  Missile defense then becomes the only possible way to guard against such possibilities.

Missile defense is, of course, extremely expensive.  Development and deployment costs of "Star Wars" were estimated as high as $1 trillion.  And while the more modest systems that were actually developed were much less expensive, their costs are not insubstantial even within the context of a defense budget running close to three-quarters of a trillion dollars.  Also, as the problems with Russia have demonstrated, missile defense systems may carry significant political costs as well, especially given the decline in U.S. diplomatic and cultural clout in recent years.  Whether these costs are worth the benefits is a matter of legitimate debate, but the benefits do exist, even at a 10% success rate.

What is "the privileged"?

Who are "the privileged" and what do they deserve?

The recent high-profile travails of Scooter Libby and Paris Hilton have called up a very old meme, that rich and well-connected people get better treatment from our political and social institutions.  Evidence for these claims is easy to find.  On average, racial minorities and economically disadvantaged defendants experience harsher treatment from the criminal justice system.  These disparities are exacerbated by inexplicably skewed laws, such as sentencing rules that mandate far greater punishments for crack cocaine (consumed disproportionately by blacks) than for powder cocaine (consumed disproportionately by whites).   And disparities carry over into the economic realm, where minorities as well as women find less compensation and less job security. 

But the legal proceedings surrounding Libby and Hilton have also shown signs of a kind of backlash that holds troubling implications.  In the Libby trial, the judge derisively mocked letters of support from Libby's powerful friends, giving the impression that support from such people actually decreased the persuasiveness of Libby's argument regarding sentencing.  And the judge in Hilton's case took a variety of measures clearly designed to make the point that he was willing to be harsh on a rich and spoiled defendant.  In both cases, the defendant's wealth and status turned into a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, it bought the best lawyers and the most legal options.  On the other hand, it bought social resentment that the judges felt free to indulge in.

The problem with this, of course, isn't that Libby or Hilton themselves will suffer grievously.  Both retain all the advantages of wealth and connections and both will emerge from jail quite well off, thank you.   Libby may even enjoy the rare presidential pardon. 

The concern lies deeper, with the underlying resentment towards "privilege" found lurking beneath the judges' behavior in these cases.  This resentment has a surprisingly well-heeled pedigree, as it is very much in vogue in academia, the legal community, and the political system.  Certain groups are deemed to be "the privileged" and resentment against them is assumed to be justified.  Acting on that resentment, be it in classrooms, courtrooms, or the halls of Congress, is also assumed to be justified.  In short, "the privileged" are assumed to "deserve it" or, at least, to be under some historical obligation to accept it.

But who are "the privileged"?  Clearly, when dealing with wealthy, well-connected individuals like Libby or Hilton, this designation is relatively unproblematic.  But when the label "privileged" is applied to much broader groups like "whites" or "men", it instantly encapsulates millions of people without any regard to their individualized characteristics.  In a sense, they are no longer acknowledged as individuals at all, only representatives of a group -- "the privileged" -- who are resented and considered deserving of it.

It is this stripping away of individualism that risks compounding historical injustice with contemporary injustice.  For what if some of these individuals face barriers that don't fit in with the framework used in the application of the "privileged" label?  What if they are not, as individuals, "privileged" at all?  In such cases, application of the "privileged" label may layer on more barriers. 

Consider a common scenario -- the establishment of a scholarship that is only available to black students.  Founders of such a scholarship will no doubt cite its impact on helping the "historically underprivileged" minority student that receives it.  And there is certainly a reasonable logic to this -- racial discrimination in educational institutions as recently as a couple of decades ago has led to a chronic lack of education in some minority communities.  This has translated into a communal deficit of economic, political, and social status.  Targeted scholarships might seem a fantastic prescription to help alleviate these historical injustices.

But now consider the larger picture from the perspective of a "privileged" white male student -- John -- who, in spite of his "privileged" status, is from an economically humble background and desperately needs a scholarship to attend school.  While a similarly situated black female student will find herself able to compete for almost every scholarship out there, John will find he is excluded up front from competing for half or more of all the scholarships offered.  Furthermore, the minority students who receive the benefits of the targeted scholarship may actually come from financial situations substantially more "privileged" than John's.  On top of everything, if John expresses the slightest hint of distress, he will be reminded that he is "privileged" and that his complaints are therefore morally unacceptable.  Above and beyond the evident moral injustice of such treatment -- it is intensely dehumanizing to be stripped of individuality and treated only as a symbolic representative of a group -- the consequence of this is likely to be a buried but burning resentment within John that only perpetuates racial and other tensions in society.

A problem thus arises when the label "privileged" is applied to groups without regard to individual characteristics.  This problem is exacerbated when "privilege" is given an ideological tinge, carrying the accusation that certain political beliefs reflect "privilege" and should therefore be discounted or even excluded.  This is particularly a matter of concern in academia, where assessment of research can sometimes be tainted by ideological presumptions about what are the "right" questions and the "politically correct" answers.  More fundamentally, group-based ascriptions of "the privileged" can ignore the questions and answers entirely, focusing only on whether a candidate is "diverse" in terms of skin color, sex, or other nexus of ascribed "privilege".  And in the cloistered confines of a hiring committee or a tenure review, transparency and accountability are absent, allowing ideologues to indulge in whatever resentments about "privilege" they might feel like.

The fundamental challenge in defining "privilege" is therefore determining at what level to find it.  Identifying it solely on the basis of group membership risks imposing it on individuals who may not "deserve" it in the sense assumed by the group label.  A particular white male student cannot automatically be assumed to be less "privileged" than a specific black female student, even if in most cases he would be.  If individual rights and personal identity are to have any meaning at all, "privilege" simply cannot be assumed to exist in individual members of a group that historically or statistically tends above average.  Responsible advocates, analysts, and policymakers should take care to avoid ascribing "privilege" based solely on group membership and without regard to individual characteristics.

Of course, this does not and should not mean that legacies of discrimination are ignored.  Programs that seek to redress inequalities caused by racial, gender, or other types of discrimination remain important, and it may well be that the only way to design such programs is to use group membership as a proxy, if only temporary and conditional.  But it is critical that users and defenders of such programs be aware of the downside, and avoid the temptation to indulge in the kind of resentment-by-proxy attitude implied by the judges in the Hilton and Libby cases.

In the statue, Lady Justice holds the scales of equality, but she also wears a blindfold.  Being "privileged" should be a sword with no edges rather than two.

Public Campaign Finance - Path to Moderation

Thanks Jason for inviting me to participate as a Militant Moderate.

My current point of view is simple. I think that much of the potential for moderation and Centrism is lost when candidates have to spend so much time and effort pandering for campaign funds from special interests.  I prefer public campaign finance and redistricting reform, for all levels of government, that favors the influence of moderate and centrist voters rather than extremists.

Imagine if most of the prominent moderate leaders in politics today Schwarzenegger, Bloomberg, Crist, Danforth, Arlen Specter, Colin Powell, Members of the DLC and RLC, Public Citizen, Common Cause, League of Woman Voters, etc. joined together to promote change that anchored our government in the center.  Senator Dick Durbin has introduced this kind of legislation.

I would prefer to spend my time and resources on a fundamental change that would moderate all subsequent changes than to keep getting caught up in the controversy of the day.

Immigration: The New "Third Rail"

Negotiations between leaders of both parties in the Senate as well as the White House have produced an compromise proposal on immigration that is complex enough to at least try to address concerns from all sides.  Because it is a compromise, however, condemnations from anti-immigration purists on the right have already begun. Rumblings from purists on the left are softer, perhaps due to the holy imprimatur of Sen. Kennedy (D-MA), but slowly building.

The number of issues upon which compromise is intolerable to purists of right and left seems to be proliferating.  Middle ground on issues such as abortion dissolved long ago.   The "politics stops at the water's edge" consensus on American foreign policy eroded during the Reagan and Clinton administrations and has met a sticky end in Iraq.  Social Security reform proposals are infamous as political arsenic, guaranteed only to result in accusations that one is trying to force elderly indigents to live in ditches and eat (tainted) dog food. Now, immigration is quickly becoming yet another "third rail" of American politics, guaranteeing death to whomever touches it.

As the Senate compromise demonstrates, however, it need not be so. Immigration is an issue where moderate politics can win -- the center can hold.

Left and right have some legitimate points to make on the issue of immigration.  From the left comes a real concern with the economic plight of immigrants.  Illegal immigrants do not brave scorching deserts and predatory human traffickers because fruit-picking and meatpacking are such glamorous and rewarding careers.  They act out of desperation, seeking to survive and, yes, access what at least used to be known as the "land of opportunity".  Contrary to what some demagogues among the anti-immigration right say, there is no evidence that immigration generally -- even illegal immigration specifically -- leads to any general increase in crime.  Similarly, research has shown that immigration's economic benefits likely outweigh its costs, particularly through its promise of ameliorating the looming demographic crisis in Social Security and Medicare funding.

A legitimate concern of the right does remain, however.  Uncontrolled illegal immigration threatens to maintain and expand gaping security vulnerabilities, as a border so uncontrolled as to be incapable of stopping impoverished economic refugees is likely also not able to stop infiltration of drugs, weapons, or even al-Qaeda members.

Between these positions, however, there is room for middle ground.  Increased border security, improved documentation requirements, and greater resources for enforcement can address security concerns while at the same time allowing for a more reliable and comprehensible process for economic refugees to access a vibrant American economy on their northern border.  Yet, this middle ground is often flooded by extremist rhetoric, particularly from the right.  Any hint of accommodation towards the 11+ million illegal immigrants who are already living, working, and paying taxes in the United States is condemned as "amnesty".  Dark tales are circulated of predatory immigrants targeting American women and children.  And some even allege an intrinsic cultural incompatibility, casting Latino immigration as a threat to our very national identity.

It is time to recapture the center on the issue of immigration.  The Senate compromise proposal is a chance.  Immigration should be the ultimate moderate issue.  After all, the United States is a country built on, by, and for immigrants -- immigration has defined who we are today.  Many of them were illegal. Many of them came from radically different cultures than that which they found here.  All groups have assimilated and excelled, there is no reason to believe that Latino immigration is any different.   

Al-Qaeda's "Torture" Strategy

Allegations of torture of detainees by U.S. guards are matters of serious concern. Even most of those on the right wing who claim torture is necessary do so by concocting highly implausible hypothetical scenarios more in tune with an episode of 24 than anything likely to actually occur in the real world. But in spite of U.S. policies that ban the use of torture, reports continue to crop up on anti-war web sites and segments of the international media.

But a closer look reveals that at least some of these reports may be more contrived than real. In the process of repeating irresponsible allegations, those reporting them willingly support a strategy that al-Qaeda has openly published.

Without accompanying analysis or criticism, the BBC repeats allegations of "psychological torture" of a Pakistani detainee at Guantanamo Bay. The content of these allegations exposes the staggeringly low standard that some are willing to embrace when accusing the United States of "torture":

Mr Khan complained about how US guards had taken away pictures of his daughter, given him new glasses with the wrong prescription, shaved his beard off, forcibly fed him when he went on hunger strike, and denied him the opportunity for recreation.

Later, Mr Khan produced a list of further examples of psychological torture, which included the provision of "cheap, branded, unscented soap", the prison newsletter, noisy fans and half-inflated balls in the recreation room that "hardly bounce".                       

Shaving, wrong glasses, bad soap, bad fans, bad newsletters, and badly bouncing balls. Sounds like my house, not any reasonable standard of "torture". Yet, the BBC uncritically reports the allegation, adding to a long line of similar allegations from anti-war sources. Why? To taint the United States. Accusations of "torture" are powerful currency in global politics. The legitimate scandals arising from real instances of torture at Abu Ghraib showed the power that such charges carry in shaping public opinion. Some critics of U.S. policy have since seized on every chance available to allege "torture" again, even when doing so is absurd.

Such use of the media has long been an intentional part of al-Qaeda's plan for how to defeat the United States in the courts, both legal and of public opinion. Lesson 18 of an al-Qaeda training manual instructs trainees to make allegation of torture the first part of their strategy during detention and prosecution.

The reasons for al-Qaeda to embrace this strategy are obvious. Doing so inflames potential recruits and sympathizers to support al-Qaeda at the same time it undermines the ability of al-Qaeda's enemy to sustain their own public support and alliances. And certainly the U.S. own failures at Abu Ghraib and in the maintenance of a global network of secret prisons played right into al-Qaeda's hands. But even with all of that, the question is begged of why rafts of commentators throughout the anti-war blogosphere and even major media outlets like the BBC would so eagerly play along with al-Qaeda's strategy, even when allegations of torture are far from credible.

The only possible answer to this question is that at least some opponents of U.S. policy have prioritized the defeat of the United States above the defeat of al-Qaeda. Put simply, they are willing to "play along" with what they surely know is an al-Qaeda strategy because doing so might undermine the ability of the United States to continue policies that they believe are more dangerous than al-Qaeda.

I used to believe that right-wing allegations that those who criticize U.S. policy "want the terrorists to win" were just usual extremist bluster and blather. But when allegations of "torture" are brought by people that reasonably must know that the charge is both ridiculous and a part of an al-Qaeda strategy, there seems no choice but to conclude that some of the right-wing allegations might be true. Either that, or some of the opponents of U.S. policy have lost all sense of proportion and desperately need to be called to account.

Thanks to OpinionJournal's Best of the Web.

Creating "Plan B"

Anti-war critics have long faulted the Bush administration for its almost unbelievably overly optimistic approach to post-war planning for Iraq. Vice-President Cheney's infamous prediction that the United States Army would be greeted as liberators has found great currency as an ironic-age laugh line on the Daily Show and throughout the blogosphere. This critique has been renewed in the debate over "the surge". Even those who argue that the "surge" might be working concede that its chances are far from certain -- it is, quite simply, a last-ditch desperation move. And the silence of the administration (or anyone else, for that matter) in articulating a credible backup plan has been deafening.

As their political power becomes increasingly dominant, however, anti-war critics risk making the same mistakes themselves. Planning for withdrawal from Iraq will require the same effort that was lacking in the Bush administration's rush to go in. And doing so will require the oldest generation of anti-warriors to finally face up to their own ghosts from Vietnam.

Controversial political scientist and futurist Francis Fukuyama starkly outlines the challenge:

The questions we need to address include: How do we reconfigure our forces to provide advice, training and support, rather than engaging in combat? How we can withdraw safely without a serious Iraqi army to cover our retreat? How will we dismantle enormous bases like Camp Liberty or Camp Victory and protect the diminishing numbers of U.S. troops in the country? Do we trust the Iraqi military and police sufficiently to turn over our equipment to them? How do we protect the lives of those who collaborated with us? The images of South Vietnamese allies hanging to the skid pads of U.S. helicopters departing Saigon should be burned into our memories.

Far too many analysts that criticize the Iraq war invoke the analogy of Vietnam without even attempting to acknowledge the contributory errors the anti-war side made to the post-war disaster. By forcing an abrupt withdrawal without any care for the process of withdrawing and the aftermath, those who opposed the Vietnam war contributed their portion to the slaughter and the "re-education camps" that followed. And insofar as they recognize and endlessly use the parallels between Iraq and Vietnam, they accept an intellectual and moral obligation to recognize the full range of those parallels, including the obligation to avoid repeating the mistakes of their own political ancestors in the anti-war movement. Thus, just as those who oppose withdrawal have an obligation to outline a "Plan B" in the event tha the "surge" fails, so also do those who advocate withdrawal have an obligation to specify exactly how their plan will supposedly work. They should not pretend that this war will simply end when the champagne corks pop off at MoveOn.org after the Congress votes to terminate funding. Withdrawal will require planning for the military processes of extricating 150,000 U.S. troops, the contingency plans for dealing with humanitarian disasters and potential establishment of al-Qaeda bases in a "failed state" of Iraq, and for keeping our moral obligations to those who worked with the United States in Iraq as well as their families.

The first steps to constructing such a plan are, of course, military. We must plan for and secure routes to seaports in Kuwait for the extraction of U.S. troops from Iraq. This must take place in the aftermath of drastic British troop reductions in and around Basra and in the southern third of Iraq. Furthermore, military planning for withdrawal needs to take into account the time, expense, and transportation requirements of disassembling large military bases in Iraq, lest those bases and their associated material fall into the hands of jihadist insurgent groups.

Having seen to the military requirements for withdrawal, those who advocate this course of action need to spell out their political contingencies. They need to specify what they advocate as policy options if post-occupation Iraq should collapse into humanitarian disasters or if Iraq should begin to sprout al-Qaeda training camps for the exportation of jihad more broadly throughout the region and globally. If they plan to write off Iraq and simply blame it all on Bush, then they should be forced to admit explicitly to this as being their plan.

Finally, advocates of withdrawal should specify exactly how they plan to deal with those Iraqis who tied their star to the United States by working as cooks, janitors, guards, police, interpreters, and administrative clerks in U.S. facilities. To simply write them off as anti-Vietnam War withdrawal advocates did 40 years ago would be the height of inhumanity and historical blindness. Yet, to simply admit them all to the United States would be blind to the possibility that there may be many al-Qaeda sleeper agents embedded among them. Withdrawal advocates should struggle with these difficulties and tradeoffs alongside everyone else and should not undertake only the easy work of carping from the sidelines at whatever anyone else puts forward.

The presidential elections of 2008 loom earlier and larger than any previous presidential election. Those who advocate for withdrawal are clearly positioning themselves as the force to be reckoned with in the post-Bush era. Since the Bush administration is clearly not able or willing to step up a draw up a "Plan B", the challenge now falls to them.

Sustainably Developing the United Nations

Once again, the United Nations is in the air as a rhetorical football.  From the left, commentators concerned with a U.S. administration that they view as illegitimate and out-of-control look upon the United Nations as a key player in a vision of a multilateral world.  From the right, pundits point to rampant corruption and bald hypocrisy at the U.N., such as the appointment of representatives of repressive and genocidal regimes to human rights commissions and the appointment of the leader of an economic basket case to a U.N. committee on sustainable development.

Like on so many issues, both left and right are both right and wrong.  Both sides raise legitimate points but, in their purism and blindness towards each other, miss the boat in articulating a sustainable vision of the world's preeminent international institution. 

So, what good is the United Nations?

The most important step in assessing the current or future effectiveness of any institution is defining the core purpose of the institution.  What can the United Nations do?  Critics of the U.N. from both left and right tend to focus on failures that are inevitable -- things the U.N. could never be expected to do in the first place.

Critics from the right focus upon the inability of the U.N. to rein in rogue regimes like North Korea or Iran.  Because the U.N. cannot prevent such states from building nuclear weapons, abusing their population, or flaunting international borders, the right argues, the U.N. is little more than an internationalist delusion of grandeur.  This critique is actually shared on the left, differing only in the identification of the "rogue regime" that the U.N. is unable to control.  While the right complains about U.N. ineffectiveness in controlling Kim Jong Il  or Mahmood Ahmadinejad, the left complains about its inability to stop Bush and Cheney.

Both sides completely miss the point of the United Nations.  Lacking a military, a global political mandate, or a system for aggregating political power across states, the U.N. is institutionally incapable by design of coercing anyone or enforcing anything.  Enforcement of U.N. resolutions relies on the same tools that existed long before its foundation -- the unilateral application of state power.  Visions of multilateralism through the United Nations are just that -- visions.  Multilateralism in the U.N. rests on the application of unilateral power.

This does not mean, however, that the U.N. lacks any purpose.  Even in a unilateral world, the political forum provided by the United Nations serves a vital purpose -- to reveal information about the preferences and intentions of the governments of the world.  What the right states as a vice is actually a virtue -- the U.N. is a debating society, and that's a good thing.  And within those debates, governments discover information about each other's goals and intentions that might otherwise have formed the basis for conflict based on misunderstanding.  When those interests conflict, as in regards to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, at least policymakers on both sides have been able to verify that the conflict is real and been able to assess how other powerful states will line up on the issue.  When interests are compatible, as in response to the tsunami that devastated much of southeast Asia, U.N. agencies can help coordinate acts of cooperation.  Of course, misperception and miscalculation are inevitable in a world that remains complex and chaotic, but the core purpose of the U.N. as a debating forum remains a valuable tool for global policymakers.

This is not, however, to say that the U.N. is a healthy organization.  The debating forum provided by the U.N. remains underdeveloped and ossified by the legacy of the Cold War as well as by the limitations of a state-centered approach to international politics.   A moderate proposal for reforming the United Nations would focus not upon the delusion of creating a tool for controlling the world, but rather upon improving the ability of the organization to do the things that it can do -- revealing information and coordinating cooperation.

During both of the last two presidential administrations, the United States has largely focused upon the problems of corruption, nepotism, and bureaucratic inefficiency at the U.N.   These remain important issues, but not as important as those issues that have been ignored.  The foremost issue that has remained neglected among U.N. reformers lies in updating the organization's most influential body -- the Security Council -- to more accurately reflect the distribution of power in the post-Cold War international system.  Globally important states like Germany and Japan should be given a permanent membership status that reflects their actual capability.  Furthermore, regionally important states such as Brazil, India, and Nigeria should be more systematically included.  The sine qua non of permanent Security Council membership during the Cold War was the acquisition of nuclear weapons.  But in a world where the most common security threats arise from ethnic and religious conflicts, the United Nations should adopt a more comprehensive and inclusive system for recognizing the important players.

This implies the second major area of reform that has been neglected in the United Nations.  As an organization of nation-states, the U.N. has fallen behind the times as a plethora of non-state actors, from terrorist groups to huge international aid organizations to multinational corporations, have  begun to wield power that dwarfs actual many U.N. members.  Representatives from these groups need to be recognized directly by U.N. councils that deal with relevant areas.

These upgrades would enhance the ability of the United Nations to serve a functional purpose in an increasingly complex and interdependent global system.

The "Surge" is Working

This title makes no sense, does it?  After all, bombs are still going off, minority groups are still being targeted, and almost all the people in the media and the blogosphere are unified in their assessment of Iraq policy as a complete, unmitigated disaster.  Right?

Well, it all depends on what you mean by "working", doesn't it?

In spite of the unity among the growing mass of Iraq war critics in dismissing the effectiveness of the "surge", few on either side have bothered to ask what "working" would look like.  This ambiguity serves the interests of both critics and supporters of the Iraq war.  For supporters, particularly those within the Bush administration, remaining ambiguous about what "working" would look like allows them to keep their options open.  Come September -- high noon in the likeliest evolution of the political contest over the Iraq war -- they could seize on just about any isolated measurement and claim it as proof that their strategy is "working".  Ambiguity as to assessment criteria is an insurance policy for them, one that has worked relatively well for the last four years.

On the anti-war side, ambiguity is also useful.  Unless the violence in Iraq were to magically turn off like a switch and fields of daisies spontaneously sprout throughout the battle-worn streets of Baghdad, critics of the war can every single day find justification for their belief that the war in Iraq is hopelessly lost and that withdrawal is the only option (and who cares about the post-withdrawal consequences).  Come September, they remain confident that no matter what there will be enough continuing violence to avoid having to question their long-standing negative assessments of the war.

The last thing that either side wants is clear, achievable benchmarks.

But unless we want September to merely be a reprise of April/May (and January and November and, well, pretty much the last four years), benchmarks are necessary.  And the first step in any fair assessment of the "surge" strategy is to specify what the strategy actually is.  What does the "surge" actually seek to achieve?

This is necessary because the media and much of the blogosphere has done a hideously poor job of explaining the "surge" strategy in the first place.  It is not, as commonly assumed, the simply addition of a few tens of thousands of U.S. troops to directly secure Baghdad and the surrounding regions.  It would be ridiculous to believe that the mere temporary increase of U.S. forces by about 15% would be sufficient to resolve anything permanently.  Rather, the "surge" is the deployment of those few additional forces as "stiffeners" embedded with Iraqi units.  Gen. David Petreaus, the new U.S. commander in Iraq, spent the last several years analyzing what specific elements of anti-insurgency strategy have and have not worked in Iraq.  He found that the key to anti-insurgency strategy is to have Iraqi forces leading the way.  However, he also found that Iraqi forces were often unwilling to fight except when U.S. forces were present.  With the U.S. remaining secure in its role as the most effective fighting force in the world, Iraqi forces would seek to impress the U.S. counterparts with their own effectiveness but only when those U.S. forces were around to see it.  Thus, the key element of the "surge" strategy was to increase the effectiveness of Iraqi fighting forces by embedding U.S. troops alongside them for a period of time until the Iraqis could develop the skills and morale sufficient to operate more independently.

Those who might point out that this would have been a better place to start four years ago are no doubt correct in that criticism of the Bush administration.  But late remains better than never, given the catastrophic consequences that could result from complete U.S. failure in Iraq.

Measuring the success of such a strategy would thus not focus on whether bombs are still going off or insurgent groups still operating.  As U.S. commanders have noted, insurgents are strategic actors -- they are going to "surge" right along with the U.S. "surge".  If merely maintaining their own existence is assessed as a U.S. defeat, then we would be setting a far too easy bar for al-Qaeda and its allies to meet.  Rather, we must focus criteria on measuring the effectiveness and operating tempo of Iraqi forces.

Achieving greater operating tempo can be measured directly.  Criteria for continued U.S. support can be set to insist on continued growth of Iraqi forces in numerical terms as well as  a clearly identifiable record of growing independence of Iraqi operations.  Congress can write these benchmarks into law, conditioning continued U.S. financial and military support on the willingness and ability of the Iraqi government to show actual progress in expanding its own capabilities and reducing its direct reliance on U.S. forces.  While these figures cannot for obvious reasons be released to the blogosphere, Congress can and should insist that it receive clear reports in support of its oversight functions.  Failure to meet those benchmarks would force the United States to recognize that we have reached the limit of what we can or should do ourselves.  "Cut and run" would simply be a matter of cutting our losses at that point, having tried our last, best hope to recover from the mistakes of the past four years.

"Effectiveness" would require both a military and political dimension.  Militarily, the effectiveness of "surge" operations could be measured not in terms of number of bombs going off or the existence of continuing operations by insurgent groups (these will continue for a long time no matter what, given that Iraq is now a magnet for Islamic radicals spoiling for a fight), but rather on the growth (or not) of areas where security has been established.  Initial reports in this area are promising -- the surge can be tentatively seen to be "working" at least in this one area.  While violence has continued in the Baghdad area, it appears to be moving out of areas where "surge" forces have begun operating.  Additionally, Iraqi civilians and even some insurgents are beginning to join the effort, providing intelligence and support that allows secured areas to grow.  If Petreaus' "oil spot" approach continues to expand those areas where security has been achieved and maintained under control of Iraqi-led forces, Congress could measure that using specific benchmarks.  If those areas contract and the gains achieved turn out to be illusory, that also could be measured and there would be an objective basis to declare the strategy a failure in military terms.

Politically, "effectiveness" requires expanding the Shi'ite-dominated Iraqi government to include greater Sunni political participation.  If the government maintains a sectarian approach, no amount of "surge" could be sustained.  Sunni political leaders have openly stated the price of their participation -- guarantees against the partition of Iraq and a plan for sharing oil revenues among Iraq's ethnic regions.  Congress can and should establish requirements that any further U.S. aid packages for military assistance, financial support, or debt forgiveness, will be predicated upon the Iraqi government first enacting and implementing these basic steps for Sunni inclusion.

It is thus possible to conceive of benchmarks that Congress could write into bill authorizing Iraq funding for the next four months.  These benchmarks can be written in a way that makes them achievable but significant.  Even if the "surge" strategy takes longer to fully work, it would be possible to measure in September whether it was operating well enough to continue or not. Use of such benchmarks is the only way for Congress to find credibility on Iraq policy as anything other than a partisan football.  And the President's acceptance of such benchmarks is the only way for him to regain a small measure of "victory" for an otherwise failed endeavor.

A Moderate Iraq Policy

Iraq policy has become the poster child for the pathology that afflicts American politics.  Specifically, Iraq policy is the exclusive domain of extremists.  On the right, attempts to recognize any specific failures in Iraq policy are condemned as "undermining the troops" while all efforts to change strategy or put pressure our Iraqi allies are disdained as "cut and run" tactics.  The right's approach is pinup patriotism -- all flash, no substance.  The left is no better, smearing everyone that disagrees with them on any detail (no matter how small) as "Bush sycophants" or "neocons", all the while responding to any new information about incremental U.S. successes or diplomatic initiatives with behavior akin to a child sticking his fingers in his ears and screaming "la la la la la" in an effort to avoid hearing the intolerable.

Where are the moderates?  The answer is typical of moderates on many controversial issues.  Some have adopted the tempting "pox on both your houses" tactic, sitting on the sidelines and simply nay-saying whatever proposals might be put forward.  More have been verbally beaten into submission by the endless misrepresentations of extremists of both left and right who interpret all disagreement with them as an unqualified endorsement of their ideological enemies -- they simply avoid talking about Iraq and adopt a position of quiet alienation.  And still others have simply abandoned moderate politics, adopting an extremist agenda with the characteristic zealotry of converts.

Few, however, have undertaken the difficult work of identifying a middle way.  It is easy to simply bash the arrogant Bushies over and over again just as it is easy to simply mock the cartoonish excesses of anti-war protesters lost in a nostalgic 60s time warp.  Neither of these approaches, however, does anything productive to craft a meaningful contribution to the stunted and dysfunctional public non-debate about Iraq or to build a substantive moderate alternative to partisan politics dominated by intolerant purist bases.  Rather, most current moderate contributions to the Iraq debate have either explicitly or implicitly ceded to the extremists, giving them exclusive right to set the terms, limit the scope, and apply the labels.

Enough.  Moderates need to step up with ideas and stop being either intimidated or co-opted by extremist ideological projects.  A moderate way forward in Iraq requires, as do most issues in moderate politics, acknowledging legitimate points from both left and right while eschewing their accompanying extremist obsessions and idiocies.

From the right, a moderate approach to Iraq can acknowledge the importance of maintaining a focus on the U.S. national interest in Iraq.  Regardless of whether it is true or not that the war itself was originally a misguided diversion from the post-9/11 war on al-Qaeda, the political right has a legitimate point in stating that Iraq is now a central front in that war.  Abandonment of that front in the face of any other practical alternatives would constitute the granting of not only a major propaganda victory to al-Qaeda and its affiliates, but would also carry a serious risk of granting them a new base in Iraq far better technologically and financially than their earlier base in Afghanistan.  Even leaving aside "bring it on" bravado and "cut and run" baiting, moderates can share with the right the belief that it is vital to rescue whatever is possible from the Iraq debacle. 

Moderates can also share with the right an explicit recognition of the seriousness of the cultural and political threat of radical global Islamism.  (In spite of its greater exposure to the radical Islamists' cultural  critique, the left remains for some reason all but blind and mute on the subject.)  Radical Islam seeks more than just military victory against the Americans, it seeks to roll back by intimidation and by legal co-optation the expansion of a classically liberal view of human rights generally. 

From the left, a moderate approach to Iraq can acknowledge the significances of the setbacks that faulty choices of battlefield and alliances have imposed upon the United States going forward.  Even leaving aside the foaming leftist obsession against all things Bush, the left has valid points when it identifies the ways in which Bush administration foreign policy has needlessly undermined potential and actual alliances, has increased al-Qaeda's recruitment appeal, and has broken what was previously universally acknowledged to be the most powerful military in the world.

Moderates can also share with the left a preference for internationalism.  Leftists are correct to note that U.S. policies over the last 6 years have damaged the effectiveness of international institutions like the United Nations and NATO.  The right's contempt for these institutions is little more than an emotional tantrum -- its fails to recognize that even when these institutions frustrate short-term U.S. goals, they function over the long term to build and maintain a collective international identity that is hostile to the radical Islamists like al-Qaeda and which also serves to coordinate activities between anti-Islamist allies.  International institutions, for all their inefficiencies, are force multipliers in the unconventional war that is the only way to fight al-Qaeda and their fellow travelers.

So where does that leave us?  From the right, moderates can draw ideas about how best to situate our strategic and tactical goals while from the left, moderates can draw important insights about methods to achieve those goals and the constraints that now bind us.  Thus, a moderate policy for Iraq would be one that seeks to rescue whatever is possible in Iraq given remaining international resources and within the constraints imposed by previous errors.

Timing is also critical.  The so-called "surge" (actually better characterized as a reinforcement of Iraqi security forces) puts the maximum forces that will be available for the foreseeable future in Iraq.  Further, the change in the French government along with recent meetings between U.S., Syrian, and Iranian officials provides a rare, renewed opening for diplomatic initiatives.  Finally, the necessity for an Iraq funding bill and the post-veto political stalemate between the executive and legislative branchs places the issue inescapably on the U.S. domestic agenda, absolutely mandating that both left and right at least to some degree defy the extremists within their ideological bases.

A moderate way forward in Iraq can thus be seen in three steps:

1) Passage by Congress and signing by the President of an Iraq funding bill that explicitly conditions continued U.S. military and financial support for the Iraqi government on specific political and military benchmarks.  Such a bill would not be a "surrender" nor could it be accused of setting up a propaganda victory for al-Qaeda and its friends because it would not include a specific date for withdrawal.  It would, however, put the Iraqi government on unavoidable notice that U.S. support is not automatic or indefinite while also putting our shared enemies on notice that the U.S. stands firmly behind a specific set of political goals in Iraq.

2) Expanded negotiations with Syria and Iran to identify and build on common interests in regional security.  Such negotiations need not sacrifice U.S. interests, they need only be clear about identifying those interests.  Opponents of negotiation believe that giving any recognition or credibility to Iran and/or Syria is by definition hostile to U.S. interests.  Such beliefs are counterproductive, because they cede the diplomatic initiative and force an important all-or-nothing choice on two states that are regionally influential whether the U.S. likes it or not.

3) Expanded co-optation of Iraqi insurgent groups and implementation of other parts of the Petraeus anti-insurgency plan.  Regardless of whether it is true that the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq was killed recently, the fact that a firefight between insurgent groups occurred at all is a positive development.  Increased efforts to buy off Iraqi groups or even just to provide a modicum of amnesty will serve to undermine the influence of groups within Iraq that want to use Iraq as an arena full of cannon fodder for a proxy war  against the Americans.  Such co-optation along with continued training and stiffening of Iraqi forces will, over time, gradually reduce the need for direct involvement of U.S. forces, allowing a draw-down of those forces.

Adoption of this strategy requires a political defeat for extremists of both left and right.  It requires defeating the politically Luddite dominance of the right in casting Iran and Syria as implacable enemies rather than mere rivals.  And it requires defeating the shrill rhetorical dominance of the left that seeks to label any Iraq strategy other than immediate withdrawal as a de facto endorsement of the hated Bush administration.  Neither the left nor the right has a meaningful strategy nor an intellectually honest engagement with the full range of problems in U.S. policy towards Iraq.  Its time for moderates to get militant with our own.

Of course, other moderates may concoct somewhat different policy proposals.  They should.  What is (and should be) unique about moderate politics is the willingness to acknowledge valid principles from both left and right without getting drawn in to the  emotional-yet-anti-intellectual temptations of extremist projects.

Liberalize Me

Or, How I Became a Moderate

In a revealing and humanizing book, Conservatize Me, National Public Radio broadcaster John Moe undertakes an "experiment" akin to Morgan Sperlock's famous culinary misadventures of eating at McDonald's for a month.  While mental and emotional rather than physical, Moe's journey to inbibe conservative culture and seek political conversion proves just as disrupting to his health and stability.  He leaves his long-established liberal comfort zones in liberal Seattle and enforces upon himself a steady diet of right-wing talk radio, "neoconservative" reading lists, jingoistic Walmart wardrobe choices, and iPod playlists rife with country and Christian music. Moe learns that Lee Greenwood sucks, but that country music can be just as well-executed as its more pretentious counterparts on the "alternative" and "indy" scenes.  He drinks Coors, disastrously mixes "chaw" with beef jerky at a Toby Keith concert, and is even tempted by the dark charms of a hulking SUV.

Frequently funny and endearing, though sometimes overly reliant on smug, cardboard stereotypes of conservatives as wealthy and/or ignorant, Moe's book tears down the artificial, polarizing walls between right and left, revealing as many similarities as it does differences.  Importantly, Moe humanizes conservatives for a liberal audience, exposing a reality of individuals that are far more complex and conflicted than pundits' categories allow.

Moe's "experiment" does not result in a conservative epiphany as much as a moderate one.  At the end, when challenged by his four-year-old son to answer, "do you love George Bush?", Moe answers, "No.  But I don't hate him either.  I think he is just doing what he thinks is best."  (Liberals should rest assured, however.  Moe also reassures his son that he does love the animals in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge.)  Moe finds that he retains many, if not most of his original liberal views -- he cannot, for example, figure how "The Gay" threatens his conventional and dare-he-say-it conservative marriage in any way -- but he also discovers that those views were never, in fact, as completely liberal as stark purists would allow.  He finds ideas on the right -- even among the dreaded "neocons" -- that are persuasive and convincing.  In short, he finds the world to be complex, and challenges readers to consider whether acceptance of a multifaceted mix of perspectives from left and right might be more valid than ritualized condemnations of the other side's "talking points".

Listening to Moe's journey on audiobook during my own journey back and forth across the hills of western Iowa, I reflected on the way in which Moe's experiment at moving left-to-right drew a mirror image of my own real political journey from right-to-left.  While those who have read and argued with me online might find it hard to believe that anyone so long involved would not by now have developed a thicker skin, I have been in online political forums since 1987.  At the beginning of this period, I reliably reflected my strong religiously conservative upbringing.  The first real "flame war" I can remember being involved in was where I stridently and self-righteously pursued for weeks on the FidoNet POLITICS echomail conference the claim that a gay poster from New York was a malign threat to traditional, conservative, family-oriented values.  Now, nearly 20 years later, I don't actually have a "safe zone" pink triangle on my officer door, but there is no reason one would be either unwelcome or inappropriate.  On that issue I have, in short, been "liberalized".  My views on welfare, race, and taxes have followed a similar pattern.

On other issues, however, I have stayed closer to my conservative roots and determined to "have their backs", at least to some degree.  In regards to national security, for example, I retain a conservative view drawn from the Cold War era that a strong military is necessary, the United States' role in the world is on-balance positive even in spite of serious blunders that trip us up every few decades, and that war is justifiable and necessary at least in some cases.  Even though I see many of his policies as contrary to many of his own putatively conservative principles, I don't hate George W. Bush.  And even though I see many of their proclamations as intolerant and hurtful, I do not find that most everyday religious conservatives are "theocrats" that are willfully malicious.  I continue to strongly support free trade and free markets, though I reluctantly grant the legitimacy of concerns about what such policies can do to damage job and wage stability for generations of workers who, through no fault of their own, became dependent upon the "old economy" model.

In short, starting from the opposite end and taking a much longer real-world route, I wound up at a similar position as Moe, clinging to many of my original principles, changing a few, but doing both with a new understanding of complexity and the presumptive legitimacy of disagreement that is arrived at through serious thought and committed principles.   The world is complex and human experiences in that world are infinitely so.  Arguing about how to structure the world, make decisions and create policies requires a presumption of good faith and a constant battle against the impulse to merely stereotype, label, and condemn.

The last pillar of moderate politics is thus a recognition of complexity.  Riding alongside that recognition is a principle, a commitment to debate under a presumption of good will.  Pulling off these debates can be excruciatingly frustrating and difficult.  Error and backsliding will be common, as nearly everyone will occasionally succumb to the temptations of arrogance and shoddiness that we so easily attribute to others.  But for our own good -- individually and communally -- I think we have an obligation to try.

Plans vs. Intentions

Speculation is running hot that the dreaded "neocons" in the White House will attack Iran sooner rather than later.  The British Guardian newspaper reports today that plans are advanced and that an attack could be ready as soon as Spring, 2007.  And an L.A. Times op-ed piece calls for a preemptive political strike against the White House by Congress to check President Bush before he can stage a pretext for war.

What all the breathless reports lack, however, is a sober reading of the strategic situation untainted by assumptions about shadowy "neocons" plotting in a dark situation room aboard the Death Star.  The Guardian piece makes its error most glaringly:

Robert Gates, the new US defence secretary, said yesterday: "I don't know how many times the president, secretary [of state Condoleezza] Rice and I have had to repeat that we have no intention of attacking Iran."

But Vincent Cannistraro, a Washington-based intelligence analyst, shared the sources' assessment that Pentagon planning was well under way. "Planning is going on, in spite of public disavowals by Gates. Targets have been selected. For a bombing campaign against nuclear sites, it is quite advanced. The military assets to carry this out are being put in place."

He added: "We are planning for war. It is incredibly dangerous."

Note the conflation between "planning" and "intentions".  SECDEF Gates states that the U.S. has no intention to attack and the Guardian responds by quoting an analyst who cites advanced planning.

But planning for an eventuality of military action does not telegraph an actual intention to attack.  Conflation between the two is ignorant of analytical distinctions as well as historical facts.   Analytically, planning merely opens up the option for an action, it does not mandate that the plans be put into action.  Historically, the world is rife with examples of plans that remained on the shelf, up to an including U.S., Soviet, and British planning efforts for nuclear war.  Did the existence of the U.S. SIOP indicate an actual intention to carry it out?  Of course not.  In fact, the existence of the plan was intended specifically to prevent having to use it.

A similar situation is the more probable reading of current U.S. policy towards Iran.  The United States wishes to deter Iran from building nuclear weapons.  In order for deterrence to work, it is necessary to maintain a "credible threat" of something that you might do if the other side does that which you wish to prevent. In short, since the whole point of deterrence is to raise doubts in the mind of an adversary that a given course of action might be costly, it is necessary to demonstrate that you have the capability to carry out a threat of a military response.

In order to demonstrate that capability, the United States military would have to move assets around, make military plans, and hedge against responses, such as by stockpiling oil supplies.  In short, the United States would have to do everything it is doing right now.

None of those activities prove the existence of a cabal of "neocons" bent on opening "a new front" against Iran.  Indeed, they are better read as trying to prevent that from ever being necessary.

I would agree with critics who say that now is a bad time for the U.S. to attack Iran.  U.S. forces are stretched trying to deal with the situation in Iraq and U.S. diplomatic credibility around the world is at low ebb. Other options remain viable and the Bush administration appears to be pursuing those alternatives in both word and deed.  Their creation of a "credible threat" of military action should not be automatically read as a sign that Darth Cheney is off his leash.  Media analysts of Bush administration foreign policy should take a deep breath and examine the role that their own assumptions might be playing in skewing the public debate.