Is the Fed repeating FEMA's Katrina history?

Pundita is having a déjà vu feeling. Listening to President Bush assert that there will be no government bailouts in response to the widening credit crunch, I recall that awful photo of him surveying Katrina's damage from his jet window. Listening to assurances from the Fed that the markets are healthy enough to withstand the turmoil, I recall Michael Brown's assertion that FEMA was doing everything possible to bring relief to Katrina victims.

I have read the latest opinions of central bankers here and abroad; I understand their worries about inflation if interest rates are cut, and their determination to see less risk in credit markets. But one would think they were talking about speculating in pork belly futures. At the bottom of the investment and credit market turmoil is not a bunch of professional speculators or even lending sharks; it's Americans losing their homes.

So, for the US government, the key questions should be: How many Americans are holding adjustable rate mortgages? How many of those Americans can keep up with mortgage payments if the rates double or triple?

In short the Fed, the White House and Congress should be looking for an estimate of projected foreclosures within the coming six months, and basing intervention decisions on that.

If they can't do an estimate quickly, or if the estimate is very bad news, the Fed should err on the side of caution and not wait until September 18 to consider a rate cut. If they wait too long to act, the Fed can repeat FEMA's too-little too-late response to a disaster.

Hillary Clinton's coded message on US trade policy

Pundita did not watch the AFL-CIO sponsored Democratic presidential candidate debate at Soldier Field. So I turned to Dave Schuler's handy summary of what the candidates said about trade issues. Pundita perked to full attention at these words by Hillary Clinton:

I believe in smart trade. I’ve said that for years. Pro-American trade. Trade that has labor and environmental standards, that’s not a race to the bottom but tries to lift up not only American workers but also workers around the world.

Given the context in which she used the term, Clinton clearly intended "smart trade" to be coded language for the fair trade movement. So why didn't Clinton just say "fair trade?"

Probably because the fair trade movement has already been flagged as an attempt at globalizing anti- 'social dumping' measures in certain EU countries. Probably because the American rank-and-file union members that Clinton addressed didn't want to hear about some global movement; they wanted to hear about measures to protect American labor against foreign competition.

So who was Hillary Clinton really addressing with her coded message? She was specifically talking to US labor leaders who are working on bringing US unions into the globalized labor union movement.

What does the globalized union movement mean for the American rank and file? Read (or re-read) the Washington Post article I quoted in April to glean several details. But in one long sentence: it means that a US trade deal will be tied to demands made by labor unions in the country or countries that want to sign the deal with the USA, and that US labor unions must align their policy with the foreign labor demands.

It's a way for foreign unions to use American trade negotiations to pressure their government into accepting their labor demands. So, just as the WTO Doha round aimed to graft aid to developing countries onto trade deals, the global fair trade movement aims to graft environmental, standard of living, and a host of other non-trade issues onto trade deals. And the USA is the number one target of the global fair trade movement because of American trade clout.

Is there anything fundamentally wrong with the attempt to use US trade negotiations as a means to improve the lot of the world's downtrodden workers? Not if this were 1970. Today it goes against the American worker to tag US trade negotiations to the plight of workers in other countries. That's because the US worker is now in direct competition with governments, such as China's, that won't sign up for anti- social dumping measures.

I don't wish to single out Hillary Clinton as the only Democrat presidential candidate pushing the fair trade movement; a reading of Dave's list of candidate quotes suggests they're all pushing a US trade policy that gives precedence to fair trade issues in US trade negotiations.

However, Clinton doesn't want her position to be fully understood by the majority of her American audience. Yet you may trust that leaders of the anti- social dumping movement in the European Union and organizers for globalized unions had no problem decoding her message.

Now do you understand why Pundita dragged her readers through lectures on social dumping? If you yawned through the explanations in 2006 better go back and re-read:

Do you suffer from dandruff, halitosis or social dumping?

Run for your life! Social dumping arrives on American shores!

I note that labor rank and file aren't the only ones missing Hillary Clinton's message. Last night on his CNBC show, Kudlow & Co., Larry Kudlow -- a big defender of free trade -- introduced Joe Biden as a "conservative Democrat." When Kudlow asked Biden about his stand on free trade, Biden repeated Clinton's "Labor . . . that’s not a race to the bottom but tries to lift up not only American workers but also workers around the world," almost word for word -- and managed to pass it off to Kudlow as a support for free trade. Better learn the code, Mr Kudlow. Biden was talking about fair trade, not free trade.

Good points about Iraq political benchmarks set by US Congress

3:45 PM EDT Update
Lowry's points (see below) are relevant to this news passed along by one of Bill Roggio's readers:

"Just seen a [video] of CNN's interview with Senators Durbin and Casey from Baghdad. They now concede that the surge is making progress.

Not ready to concede defeat, Durbin and Casey assured us that the political process in Iraq has failed.

Inevitably, they reach the same conclusion: pull our troops out now.

Posted by Captain America" August 8, 2007 12:13 PM
* * * * *
Pundita needed a break from war news so I decided to answer a reader's question about the state of American politics. I'm still fiddling with the post so it won't be published until tomorrow morning. In the meantime I came across good points in a July 10 essay by Rich Lowry that shouldn't get lost in the shuffle of bad news about Maliki's government:

[...] The surge has succeeded in reducing sectarian killings in Baghdad and civilian casualties overall, but at the cost of increased U.S. casualties and without the Iraqi legislative accomplishments that were established as "political benchmarks."

Those benchmarks shouldn't be fetishized. The reason that they were considered so important is that they were thought necessary to entice Sunnis away from the insurgency. Instead, the Sunnis have swung our way anyway, in reaction to al-Qaida brutality and to our strength.

By any measure, this is significant political progress -- so significant, in fact, that no one even considered making it a "benchmark" at the beginning of the year. The U.S. political argument over benchmarks is shot through with bad faith anyway. Would the advocates of retreat really have a different position if the Iraqi parliament had managed to pass an oil-revenue-sharing law already? Unlikely.

There's no getting comfy in hell

"Pundita, after reading this report at Iraq Slogger I'm seeing why you called for prayers to ease Iraq's water crisis. There are water crises all over the world, but what's happening in Iraq right now is an outrage. The Iraqi thugs demanding sex from children in DP camps in return for clean drinking water are outright demons.
Jan in Reston"

Dear Jan:
Of course war brings demons out of the woodwork in large numbers. However, in Iraq there was a widescale, killer health disaster due to impure drinking water before the US arrived. It was democide in slow motion. The only way to stop the democide was to end the embargo, but the only way to end the embargo was to topple Saddam Hussein's regime. The die was cast for the Iraqi people on the day Saddam decided to invade Kuwait.

So for the vast majority of Iraqi people it was hell to the left, hell to the right. When you're stuck in hell there's no way out except through worse hell. So you can't blame people for trying to get comfy in hell. Pundita knows the drill backward and forward from personal experience, so I understand the Iraqis who tried to endure under Saddam.

But once you have no choice but to fight your way out of hell, the best you can do is tell yourself, "Now we come to the part in the play where we must really suffer."

And just keep going.

Oh please, Mr. Ricks, get another job!

Anything but reporting. It's come to this: Thomas Ricks and Karen De Young sat around reading a report by George Soros's brainchild, the International Crisis Group (aka Crisis Group) and then spun this analysis of how things went in Basra in the early days:

After Saddam Hussein was overthrown in April 2003, British forces took control of the region, and the cosmopolitan port city of Basra thrived with trade, arts and universities.

I have a different recollection: After they got to the south, the British troops invested a tremendous amount of energy in looking the other way, as Iran piled manpower and arms across the border into Iraq. The British were repeatedly warned that this method of peacekeeping would backfire.

But you wouldn't know any of that from reading today's front page Washington Post report by Ricks and De Young:

"The British have basically been defeated in the south," a senior U.S. intelligence official said recently in Baghdad. They are abandoning their former headquarters at Basra Palace, where a recent official visitor from London described them as "surrounded like cowboys and Indians" by militia fighters.

Yes yes all very tragic but the most the US could do was wait for the British to throw in the towel. There was no giving them orders -- and anyhow, I doubt the previous US commander would have read the riot act to the British under any circumstances.

General Petraeus's Hail Mary pass: start street fights

"Sometimes ad hoc armies are created by kicking open the back of a truck and handing out ammunition, food and medical supplies."

"Just one look at what we have wrought in Iraq brings back memories of Liberia or Albania. Ragged bands of oddly dressed civilians carrying brand new heavy machine guns, RPG’s and AK’s -- with nary a clue on how to use them other than they can now use them on full auto with impunity or concern for ammo costs."

"The good news is that we track these hometown Rambos with biometrics and insist that they will be integrated into the police or army but right now there is a free-for-all that is sending the most hardened insurgents scampering for cover."

Found! A rockin' analysis and summary from Iraq Slogger about one part of the Petraeus strategy -- and yes, I know the site is Eason Jordan's baby. I'd say he's doing a pretty good job at trying redeem himself. Remember that Jordan built up many contacts in Iraq during his years working there; that value shouldn't go down the tubes in a time of war.

Along with analysis the site carries a constantly updated roundup of important Iraq and US press stories on the Iraq campaign. So along with Bill Roggio's Fourth Rail, the Iraq Slogger is a must-read if you want to stay oriented to fast-moving events in Iraq. I'm adding the Slogger site to the Pundita blogroll. Okay, here's part of the Hail Mary piece by Robert Y. Pelton:

[...] under time pressures, Petraeus has chosen the Hail Mary or Gordian Knot solution: Cut through the complicated political and sectarian web we have spun ourselves into and start fresh -- and at ground level. Or in other words: Do the best you can with what you have within the time that you have.

His solution? Stick as many guns into as many hands as fast as possible appears to be the new ground strategy. Current US and Iraqi ground presence is not sustainable. So why not invite the spectators from the bleachers to play on your team as well? These new players are known as “Emergency Response Units” aka “Salvation Councils" aka "Legitimate Resistance Forces" aka local militias, mercenaries, armed gangs, tribal fighters or whatever.

The solution harks back to the most basic counterinsurgency strategy: Divide and conquer or “If everyone is fighting each other they won’t have time to fight us.”

The CIA and the military are now busy calving off more and more local fighting groups to create a bewildering mix of Shia, Sunni, tribal, regional and even neighborhood armies. As long as they aren’t “the bad guys” (not really a label used in counterinsurgency since technically they are all bad and good guys) then that leaves smaller and smaller groups of insurgents left to fight. Even if they were or are bad guys, keeping them inside the tent is still a better prospect than wondering what they are doing outside the tent.

Armies consisting of illiterates, criminals, drop-outs and former insurgents are being armed and trained and paid between $100 and $300 per mission to join the fray. ERU’s are created by large financial payments to sheikhs who must provide manpower for the free guns and training or through local power brokering to once terrified citizens is another and simple survivor-like “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” logic provides the rest.

Sometimes ad hoc armies are created by kicking open the back of a truck and handing out ammunition, food and medical supplies. These tribal, ethnic or local militias are in effect glorified death squads. Groups who use their newly-found violent powers with little restraint to push out what they believe are hostile elements.

Just one look at what we have wrought in Iraq brings back memories of Liberia or Albania. Ragged bands of oddly dressed civilians carrying brand new heavy machine guns, RPG’s and AK’s -- with nary a clue on how to use them other than they can now use them on full auto with impunity or concern for ammo costs.

You might notice that these homespun Iraqi militias are using identical weapons to those we gave the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan... and they are the same weapons we worked so hard to hand them back over when the fight was over. As one Iraqi politician Sami al-Askari commented in the CSN, "What the Americans are doing is very risky and unwise. They are planting the seeds for future wars."

The re-building of the Iraqi police and the Army was a great idea at the time but the concept of the Iraqi’s standing up so that we could stand down went out the window months ago.

Currently there are 346,000 Iraqi soldiers and police trained and in play, US troops can deliver around 150,000 men with about 10 to 15% being actually trigger pullers. The ERU’s supposedly number 25,000 which if the above tooth-to-tail ratio is considered is a pretty healthy number of armed men thrown into the fight. If the full head count of the ERU’s actually show up to fight, that’s an armed-on-the-street force equal to the US and half of the available Iraqi forces in raw manpower, if not skills.

The good news is that we track these hometown Rambos with biometrics and insist that they will be integrated into the police or army but right now there is a free-for-all that is sending the most hardened insurgents scampering for cover.

Barrier to Entry Lowered
The other bright spot is the impact that arming every Abdul, Omar and Harry will have when and if neighboring countries need to begin stabilization efforts. Having a menu of fractious easy-to-buy groups with pliant warlords makes Saudi, Syrian, Jordanian, Iranian and even tribal involvement easier and cheaper. The free-market/swarm concept of hundreds of regional militias may be exactly the grass roots stability solution we are looking for -- or our worst nightmare.

The new entreprenurialization of warfare on the streets of Iraq also puts extraordinary pressure on the sclerotic and ponderous Iraqi government to shore up their crumbling power bases. The U.S has effectively spent years centralizing power by disarming and is now rapidly decentralizing that power by arming locals. This new energy coupled with the diplomatic overtures being made by a once stone-faced administration means that the ball is being moved in the right direction and the Hail Mary move may be the one the administration was praying for and the Iraqis fear the most. Finally Special Forces teams are now shifting from being Big Army's 3am door knockers to doing what they do best. [...]

By any which way

"Pundita, I don't know why I decided to answer your call to pray for a quick resolution to Iraq's water problems. Anyhow, I decided to limit my prayer to the first item on your prayer list. So I prayed "with all my might" for "cloud cover, rain, and cooler temperatures" in Baghdad.

If you live in the District you know the heat has been blistering here for several days. An hour after praying I went outside and saw that heavy cloud cover had rolled in, the temperature had dropped markedly, and I smelled rain. Sunday's forecast had not called for rain, only the possibility of a thunder shower. This morning when I awoke I saw there had been heavy rain during the night.

I started laughing. It's going to be blistering again today but guess it doesn't cost me anything, so I'll keep praying for cooler temperatures in Baghdad.
Al in Washington, DC"

"Pundita, dear, re your Sunday post calling for prayer. Is this what American foreign policy has come down to? Are things in such disarray that all we can do is pray? Or are you suggesting that we incorporate prayer as a policy initiative?
Boris in Jackson Heights"

Dear Boris:
Well, we are doing foreign policy in a time of war and you have to be a damn fool not to pray during war. Prayer wasn't the only action I recommended. But right now we desperately need to extract ourselves from the vise of negative feelings. Prayer is an immediate help in that regard.

Even the staunchest supporters of the US effort in Iraq have become very negative in their thinking. They're angry at fellow Americans who call for immediate withdrawal. They're angry with Maliki's government for not doing more to heal the sectarian divide. They're angry about US mistakes in Iraq. They're angry with al Qaeda and Iran. They're angry at Iraqis for not doing more to help themselves. They're angry at the Europeans and the United Nations for not doing more.

Yet anger is anger. Anger, recrimination, frustration -- no matter whether it's for a just and reasonable cause, those emotions engender very negative feelings, which puts thinking in a box and cuts down on reaction time.

Right now, we are laboring under a mountain of negativity. So we need to go deep in ourselves and reestablish positive feelings. This doesn't mean blinding ourselves. It means finding ways to muster positive feelings.

Wishing the Iraqis well and praying for help with their electrical and water situation may or may not get immediate intended results; things have to play themselves out. But our actions fall back on us in some way or another. An inevitable byproduct of sincerely wishing others well is that we feel better.

By any which way, Boris, do we get through a long march.

Japan as US ace in the hole.

One reason the Bush Administration didn't rein in State's bullying of Russia is that they thought it would be Japan, not Russia, that would counterbalance China's rising power in Asia. Yesterday's Washington Post op-ed by Michael Zielenziger takes a clear-eyed look at Japan in the aftermath of the electoral rout of the Liberal Democratic Party. Zielenziger's concerns might be overblown. But his cautions, which I publish below in their entirety, are a good argument for State to radically alter their Russia policy.

US foreign policy is still in the grip of Cold War thinking, which looks at political situations in a country as relatively static and therefore predictable to a high degree. The pressures of globalized trade, the realities of democratic politics in so many countries today, and the fact of intelligence agencies overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data they must analyze, have converged to create a more fluid, unpredictable geopolitical landscape.

So it's not so much developing a Plan B, which might be outmoded by the time a fallback plan is needed; it's a matter of devising policies that spread around risk.

5 Myths About the Japan That Just Said No
By Michael Zielenziger
Sunday, August 5, 2007; The Washington Post

Just a few weeks ago, the Bush administration seemed convinced that it could rely on a newly assertive Japan to contain China's rise and help prosecute the global fight against terrorism. Then last weekend, Japan's voters just said "No." The stinging electoral rebuke to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (which lost control of the upper house of the Diet for the first time since the party was founded in 1955) does more than usher in a new era of drift and unpredictability in Japanese politics. Abe's drubbing should also dispel some dangerous misperceptions about today's Japan:

1. Japan is a strong, rising power, ready to assert new influence across Asia.
Even before the Bush administration came to power in 2001, many members of its kitchen cabinet were arguing that an assertive new Japan was ready to become the United States' chief surrogate in checking Chinese expansion. Japan would no longer be a "free rider," they said, in contrast with its behavior in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when Tokyo merely wrote a $9 billon check to help protect its oil supply.

Sure enough, after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi dispatched peacekeeping soldiers to southern Iraq, ostensibly to conduct "humanitarian relief," in defiance of Japan's pacifist constitution. Koizumi's hand-picked successor, Abe, went further still, pledging to revise the constitution to eliminate the clause renouncing Japan's willingness to wage war. He also promised to work ever more closely with the Pentagon on missile defense and logistical support for U.S. combat troops, and he toed a more strident line against North Korea.

But Abe's eagerness to draw closer to Washington and rewrite the constitution clashed with the will of the people. While most Japanese citizens tell pollsters that they believe the post-World War II constitution (written by U.S. occupation forces in 1946) ought to be updated, most also reject expanding the nation's military muscle. And a majority of voters older than 60 -- the aging nation's most important voting bloc -- say that the constitution's pacifist Article 9 remains the most important legacy from the debacle of World War II.

So while U.S. military planners want Tokyo to seize more responsibility as the U.S. military is stretched thin, Japan now seems likelier to back away. A counterterrorism measure that permits ships from the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force to refuel U.S. naval convoys is up for renewal this fall and may not pass. Don't be surprised if Ichiro Ozawa, the leader of the newly emboldened opposition Democratic Party of Japan, uses this as a lever to break up the Diet and force new elections.

2. Japan has shed its economic blues.
More than 15 years after its bubble economy burst, Japan may be groping its way back toward sustainable growth. But despite the stunning export success of carmakers such as Toyota and electronics firms such as Canon, the nation's domestic consumption remains anemic.In fact, anxious voters rebelled against the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in part because they believed Abe had put economic reforms on the back burner. (The fact that his government apparently lost 50 million pension records, and that three of his ministers faced campaign funding scandals, also didn't help.)

Today, most Japanese seek economic renewal, not military revival. The nation's giant banks still generate tiny profits, consumer prices continue to fall, domestic demand remains feeble, and real interest rates are nearly zero. The yen is weaker than even the U.S. dollar, and that's saying something. The nation's fiscal deficit tops 170 percent of gross domestic product, while the population is shrinking because women won't marry and bear children. That translates into a nation that will soon make South Florida look like a youth hostel.

Japan should be welcoming immigrants to nurse its elderly and wooing foreign investors to restructure its service economy, but it still can't muster the courage to see its culture altered by globalization.In fact, as a result of Abe's stumbles, Japan can no longer even be counted on to support a bilateral free trade agreement with the United States or help revive the Doha round of global trade talks; the weak domestic economy forces politicians to pander to local concerns.

3. Japan has reconciled with its neighbors.
Not quite.

Just a decade ago, economists and political theorists assumed Japan would become the central hub of "the Asian Century." But that assumed that Japan and its neighbors could finally address the issues still festering from World War II.

Japan has failed to emerge as Asia's main power, in no small part because it has yet to transcend the "history question." Unlike his predecessor, Abe did not raise hackles in China or Korea by visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, which houses the graves of several Japanese war criminals. But Japanese textbooks still do not adequately teach new generations such wartime horrors as the 1937 Nanking Massacre, the occupation of Korea or the forced recruitment of women to "service" Imperial soldiers.

Last Monday, the U.S. House passed a symbolic resolution urging the Japanese government to officially apologize for conscripting those "comfort women." The resolution barely merited notice in U.S. newspapers, but it dominated the front pages in Japan, where even some members of Abe's own party think Japan has already done too much apologizing. That doesn't bode well for a stable Asia.

4. Japan will help the United States solve the North Korean nuclear problem.
Abe's weakness makes this tough.The old game plan ran as follows: Washington and Pyongyang finally negotiate a deal that trades North Korea's nuclear weapons and technology for diplomatic recognition and a pledge not to wage war, then Tokyo writes the large check that helps isolated, bedraggled North Korea leap into the 21st century.But Abe and the Bush administration no longer see eye to eye here.

While Washington recognizes that the Iraq debacle heightens the need to cut a deal with Kim Jong Il, many Japanese leaders think Washington is eager to abandon Tokyo's quest for a fuller accounting of the civilians abducted by North Korean agents decades ago.

Pyongyang says it has returned all those it kidnapped and made a detailed accounting of its bizarre espionage campaign. Washington isn't clear what sort of "full accounting" Tokyo expects. But Abe first gained notoriety for his hard-line stance on the abduction question, and his electoral crash last weekend may convince him that he has to push harder, even to the point of incurring White House wrath.

5. Japan's government, like its corporate powerhouses, has a long-term strategy.
Guess again. Honda and Toyota actively think about how they'll survive the next century, but Japan itself hasn't figured out where it wants to go. Does it seek to endure as a quasi-socialist system that demands collectivism and obedience, or become more of a free-market society that rewards individual initiative? Does it want to remain reliant on Washington, or reemerge as a powerful independent actor? Does it want to open itself to the world, allowing immigration and investment, or be left to its splendid isolation?

Nearly half of the nation tells pollsters that it wants to shrink government and empower entrepreneurship; nearly half seeks to expand the welfare state. The rest don't know or don't care. "We've missed so many opportunities," a rising young leader of the LDP told me. "Right now, I'm afraid the best we can hope for is to simply survive."

Michael Zielenziger, a visiting scholar at Berkeley, is the author of "Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its OwnLost Generation."

Dawa party: Oh no! We're becoming our enemy!

"Americans know so little about the Middle East that few of us are even aware of one of the building blocks of Arab Muslim cultures -- cousin marriage. Not surprisingly, we are almost utterly innocent of any understanding of how much the high degree of inbreeding in Iraq could interfere with our nation building ambitions."
-- From Cousin Marriage Conundrum by Steven Sailer, January 2003

Sailer's 2003 piece is making the rounds again; I came across mention of his warning in the Culture section of Friday's Washington Times, which in turn quotes a current New Republic piece (Strangled by Roots) that makes reference to Sailer's essay.

Everyone should be aware of Sailer's writings, which deal with many important issues, such as race, that are virtually taboo in the mainstream media. And Sailer has developed a political theory that deserves attention. He calls his theory citizenism, which is based on the argument that national identity should take priority over race.

In short, Sailer's 2003 warning has some merit. Very definitely, Iraq's tribal/clan based social structure, which is based greatly on first- and second-cousin marriages, does present a challenge to US efforts of nation building and by implication the establishing of a modern democracy.

However comma the single overriding cause of Baghdad's failure to manage a nation-state has nothing to do with tribalism and clan-based society. The cause is childishly straightforward:

The members of Maliki's ruling Dawa party have no experience whatsoever in running a government -- any kind of government, not just a democracy. They don't know what the hell they're doing.

Maliki's critics say a key reason for Iraq's political woes is his reliance on Dawa party stalwarts selected more for loyalty than political experience.

"The problem is none of them have any sense of governance and how a government should function and run," said a senior Iraqi official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he works closely with Maliki. "They are mixing running a political party and running the government. They don't see the whole government as their government, only the people who they task, the people who they deputize."

Some Dawa party figures concede they are inexperienced. "None of us have run a government before," said Haider al-Abadi, an influential Dawa legislator. "We cannot deliver miracles."(1)

Well we're not asking for miracles, are we? We're just asking for a functioning government.

However, the Dawa party does have vast experience at conducting cell-based insurgency operations. Dawa was formed to resist Saddam Hussein's government. For decades Dawa waged an underground battle against Saddam. What that means for today is that while they are idiots at running a government, Dawa legislators are experts at being suspicious and thinking like secret police.

The upshot is that the Dawa party leadership are heading down the road of topping even Saddam Hussein's level of paranoia. Your attention always focuses on your area of expertise so quite naturally, Dawa leaders see plots against them wherever they look. Pundita is not pulling your leg:

At times consumed by conspiracy theories, Maliki and his Dawa party elite operate much as they did when they plotted to overthrow Saddam Hussein -- covertly and concerned more about their community's survival than with building consensus among Iraq's warring groups, say Iraqi politicians and analysts and Western diplomats.(1)

For how this situation is playing out see the following article. And for a rundown of how Iraq newspapers are viewing the political crisis right now, see the Iraq Slogger's Sunday entry.

1) Maliki's Impact Blunted By Own Party's Fears: Hussein-Era Secrecy Persists, Analysts Say, by Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post Foreign Service, August 3, 2007.

If we can put machines on Mars, we can halt Iraq's water shortage disaster

Before I start the discussion, three points:

Calling the Bush Administration and CENTCOM: Need I add that with the severe electricity shortage, Iraqis are also suffering from a news shortage? And yet this is the very worst time in Iraq for the war on insurgents and al Qaeda to be in a publicity blackout.

Second point: If the water disaster is not halted, Pundita will hold the World Bank personally responsible. Don't tell me I'm being irrational; this is not the time for red tape and reason.

By any which way, get all your power engineers to work on the situation. Forget loan-writing; just ask for volunteers among the engineers to work on the situation. Throw together a Power Point presentation, pile the engineers into an auditorium to watch it, and email the presentation to engineers in the field. The ones with the best ideas -- pass along the ideas and write leave, at full pay, for them to work with Iraqi and US engineers. You know all this can be done within 48 hours.

Third, for readers who are not engineers, is there is anything you can do at this terrible moment? Yes. Pray. If you are against the US presence in Iraq, leave aside for a few moments your stance. Leave aside for a few moments cynicism and naysaying. Be young at heart. Cry out to whatever you believe in to help the Iraqis. Here is Pundita's prayer; I hope you will join me in praying.

O God, please send cloud cover, rain, and cooler temperatures to the regions in Iraq that are suffering the most from the heat at this time.

O God, please open hearts and sharpen minds for dealing with the water disaster in Iraq.

O God, please stop the insurgents and al Qaeda from cutting the electrical power lines going into Baghdad.

O God, bring help to Iraqis who are suffering from water shortage. Please inspire the spirit of cooperation among Iraqi families who are using personal electricity generators.

Thank you, Lord.

Now to a discussion of the humanitarian disaster:

City dwellers going without electricity in 120 degree heat is one thing, but the lack of electricity is also cutting off water supplies and sewage treatment. The untreated sewage is seeping above ground because the pumping stations aren't working, which is contaminating crops. And because of no refrigeration, food is rotting. In the summer heat Iraq's humanitarian crisis has morphed into a disaster.

I understand that there are several complex and converging problems -- some of them long-standing -- causing the electricity shortages. The Associated Press reports that Iraq's power grid is on the brink of collapse because of "insurgent sabotage, rising demand, fuel shortages and provinces that are unplugging local power stations from the national grid."

But the problem-solution mindset is the wrong approach in a disaster situation. The US, the Iraqi government, and the international community need to think and act in terms of stopgap measures, not solutions to Iraq's electricity problems.

What's pushed the situation from crisis into the disaster zone is that the large number of Iraqis using small generators has skyrocketed in the summer heat. In Karbala, the price of fuel is nearly $5.00 a gallon, which means that only the wealthiest families can afford to run their generators.

Can't we ask our buddies in the Persian Gulf oil sheikdoms to donate fuel to Iraq's worst-hit provinces, at least for the duration of the summer?

If we can get more fuel to the provincial generators, then what about splicing the provinces away from the national grid so Baghdad can get more electricity during the summer? Or what about rationing the number of hours that each region is on the grid, instead of rationing the number of megawatts?

A power engineer would probably tell me that my suggestions are stupid but I'm trying to get the ball rolling. If we can get two rovers onto Mars, we should be able to concoct stopgap measures to deal with Iraq's drinking water shortage, and scare up enough electricity to get the sewage treatment stations working again.

Here is today's AP report, which gives a few details about the water disaster. For engineers who need some background quick on the electricity problems in Iraq, get hold of Rajiv Chandrasekaran's Imperial Life in the Emerald City and start reading at Chapter 8 -- page 148.

The $20b statement

So, what did we accomplish with $20b in arms sales to Saudi Arabia and five Persian Gulf sheikdoms, and a $13m, 10-year aid package to Egypt?

"We got a terrific statement. The key Arab states are now on the record on key issues, especially on Iran," said an unnamed State Department official.

The key countries issued a joint statement that moves beyond the usual concern about the goals of Iran's nuclear program and blames Iran for the region's troubles. According to today's Washington Post, the Arab leaders also backed Mahmoud Abbas, "in what U.S. officials say marks a move away from attempts to negotiate reconciliations between his Fatah faction and the armed Islamic movement Hamas."

I'm not sure it needed the US pledge of a huge arms sale to remind Saudi Arabia's king that his attempt to forge a Fatas-Hamas coalition failed in spectacular fashion.

Well, if his highness is in the right mood, we might also get a Saudi embassy in Baghdad out of the arms deal. And Saudi attendance at yet another planned Middle East peace conference.

If Pundita hears of one more peace conference, I will begin to worry that things are looking like the runup to World War One.

Iran's latest move on petrocurrency front

Further to my warning to State in today's earlier post, I note this World Net Daily report:

Iran has intensified pressure on the falling U.S. dollar by demanding that Japan begin paying for Iranian oil in yen, instead of dollars. Hojjatollah Ghanimifard, the head of the National Iranian Oil Company, or NIOC, has confirmed the company has asked Japan to open letters of credit in yen in preparation for NOIC issuing oil invoices in Japanese currency. In April, WND reported Iran successfully pressured China to begin paying for Iranian oil in euros, not dollars. [...]

Iran produces approximately 2.3 million barrels of crude oil per day, with approximately 65 percent of that volume headed for Asia, largely to China and Japan.

Read more of the report.

Bottom line: Today, countries rich in oil have many powerful means to fight US 'soft' attempts to overthrow their government.

Take up golf, Mr Soros

On May 23 The Christian Science Monitor published a summary of news stories about arrests of two Iranian-Americans in Iran on suspicion of trying to instigate a Soros-style "velvet revolution" in Iran.

One would hope that CS Monitor was not the only major media outlet to verify that both citizens are connected with a Soros-funded organization. However, the Monitor piece was the only one I could find, after a reasonable time searching, that did verify both connections.(1) Other major press and news wires mentioned only one or another of the connections, or simply stated Iran's accusations.

One of the organizations in question, the Woodrow Wilson Center, is indeed partly funded by George Soros. The Monitor piece mentioned that:

The Washington Post reports that Wilson Center director Lee H. Hamilton also denied the allegations against Esfandiari, saying: "Haleh was not engaged in any activities to undermine any government, including the Iranian government. Nor does the Wilson Center engage in such activities.... There is not one scintilla of evidence to support these outrageous claims."

Ah, but there's too much history built up. So you no longer need evidence to jump to the conclusion that wherever Soros and his money are found, you will also find an attempt to destabilize a government and balkanize a nation. That perception is now shared worldwide by every government.

So why would the US Department of State want to be involved in the slightest way with Mr Soros and his well-documented way of doing things? And in Iran, of all places?

Nobody believes Esfandiari's cover story about visiting her dear old sick mother and her excuse for overstaying her visa in Iran. (She said she lost her passport.) If you lose your US passport in Iran you ring up State and say, "Get me out of here yesterday."

So, while Esfandiari's confession was probably coerced, she did not make up the story out of whole cloth. More to the point, her association with a Soros funded organization is the kiss of death.

Mr Soros believes in abusing the strategy of soft power, and US interests have been paying the price since the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. State should not compound the error in Iran.

1) "Agence France-Presse reports that the Iranian ministry's statement also alleged that Ms. Esfandiari admitted in interrogations that the Soros Foundation, which partially funds the Woodrow Wilson Center, was "trying to create in Iran an official network and was trying to expand it to carry out an overthrow." AFP also writes that the ministry said that with Esfandiari's "cooperation," a Soros Foundation "representative" in Iran was being hunted by the police.

"The Financial Times writes that Kian Tajbakhsh, an Iranian-American social scientist, was also recently detained in Iran. Mr. Tajbakhsh is tied to the Open Society Institute, which is part of businessman-philanthropist George Soros' foundation, which an associate described to the Financial Times as involved with earthquake relief, health, and cultural exchanges."

Waziristan next

I see by the title of his Washington Post op-ed that David Ignatius is in fine fettle. Wonder who he's been talking with at State about Pakistan.

Sept. 10 in Waziristan

The National Intelligence Estimate released July 17 put the problem plainly enough: Al-Qaeda has "regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability" using a new haven in the lawless frontier area of northwest Pakistan known as Waziristan.

The question is: What is the United States going to do about it?

You're missing the fettle if you don't read the entire report but to skip to the juiciest part, Ignatius reports that Henry Crumpton has a plan:

The best answer I've heard comes from Henry Crumpton, a former CIA officer who was one of the heroes of the agency's campaign to destroy al-Qaeda's haven in Afghanistan in late 2001. [...] Crumpton argues that the United States must take preventive action but that it should do so carefully, through proxies wherever possible.

The right model for a Waziristan campaign is the CIA-led operation in Afghanistan, not the U.S. military invasion of Iraq. Teams of CIA officers and Special Forces soldiers are best suited to work with tribal leaders, providing them weapons and money to fight an al-Qaeda network that has implanted itself brutally in Waziristan through the assassination of more than 100 tribal leaders during the past six years.

It would be better to conduct such operations jointly with Pakistan, but if the government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf can't or won't cooperate, the United States should be prepared to go it alone, Crumpton argues.

"The United States has an obligation to defend itself and its citizens," says Crumpton. "We either do it now, or we do it after the next [9/11-style] attack."

Crumpton proposed a detailed plan last year for rolling up these sanctuaries, which he called the Regional Strategic Initiative. It would combine economic assistance and paramilitary operations in a broad counterinsurgency campaign. In Waziristan, U.S. and Pakistani operatives would give tribal warlords guns and money, to be sure, but they would coordinate this covert action with economic aid to help tribal leaders operate their local stone quarries more efficiently, say, or install windmills and solar panels to generate electricity for their remote mountain villages.Intervening in another Muslim country is risky, to put it mildly.

That's why a successful counterinsurgency program would need Pakistani support and why its economic and social development components would be critical. The concept should be President John F. Kennedy's "Alliance for Progress" to counter radicalism in Latin America, rather than "Operation Iraqi Freedom.

"The United States can begin to take action now against al-Qaeda's new haven. Or we can wait, and hope that we don't get hit again. The biggest danger in waiting is that if retaliation proves necessary later, it could be ill-planned and heavy-handed -- precisely what got us in trouble in Iraq.

Sounds like a good plan to me, if we start 'yesterday.' The plan has State Department written all over it. I believe the Pentagon plan calls for flattening several mountains.

Try on this image of defeat, Mr Fishman

Last Friday Bill Moyers invited one Mr Fishman on his PBS show to discuss the situation in Iraq. Moyers said, "Brian Fishman is part of a team at the U.S. Military Academy whose mission is to train young officers who may find themselves up against those Muslim militants. The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, where Brian Fishman is a senior associate, does just what its name implies. It was established to make sure cadets get the best possible education in global terrorism. [...] Assume I'm one of those cadets at West Point who may well be in Iraq a few months from now. What do you want me to know about al Qaeda in Iraq?"

Well, one thing Fishman wanted Bill to know is that the US has already been defeated:

BRIAN FISHMAN: With the cadets in class, we walk through some of the jihadi chat rooms that are used to spread propaganda against their fellow soldiers. And they need to understand -- there's a photo out there, a very famous photo that's on all of these chat rooms. It's a picture of a bunch of American soldiers taking a rest in a mosque with their boots on. And it's everywhere. And because it's just a symbol of sort of insult to Islam. And the cadets need to understand that even if they are doing something that they think is completely benign, that they don't mean any sort of insult, it can be used against them. And it's that kind of awareness that they need to get to the point where they understand that they could accidentally do something extraordinarily insulting. That photograph is more of the strategic defeat than any sort of tactical engagement on the battlefield. And we need to understand it and the cadets need to understand that.

If images create strategic defeat, I wonder what Mr Fishman would say about the image shown today of the US Secretary of State in the Middle East, in a meeting with Arab diplomats wearing traditional robes: Condi wearing a pantsuit, her African features framed by uncovered hair.

That image is also going all over the Muslim world, thanks to al Jazeera and several other satellite TV stations. And many millions of Muslim women are seeing it -- many more than will ever visit a terrorist chat room.

Here is Pundita's advice to Bill Moyers: Courage.

Best wishes, Prime Minister Brown

Pundita refuses to gush over a foreign dignitary but Gordon Brown's first State visit to the United States bowled me over. Of course there will be policy differences down the line, and Pundita is having conniptions about his giving Mark Malloch Brown a job, but nothing will dim the good impression the prime minister has made during his visit.

Al Qaeda death cult grosses out Afghan elders

Once the local insurgents in Iraq got to see Qaeda's tactics up close and personal, they balked at the level of brutality and turned against the cult. Now Qaeda's sadism is wearing out its welcome among Afghan tribes. How tragically odd and twisted that Afghanistan's remote regions are being introduced to globalization in horrific fashion. But then I recall the quaint local custom of Taliban stoning women to death in stadiums --

Taliban leaves tribal roots for Al Qaeda tactics
By Mark Sappenfield, staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor, August 1 edition
The Taliban has adopted more aggressive tactics – such as kidnappings and suicide bombings – imported directly from the Al Qaeda-led global jihad.:

[...] experts say that the Taliban's original reason for being – an intensely tribal brand of religious fundamentalism – has all but evaporated, as Muslims of all sects participate in a movement based less and less on traditional tribal values and increasingly on anti-Americanism and terrorism.

As a result, Pashtun tribal elders, long the best hope to negotiate the release of foreign hostages, including the Koreans, are increasingly being marginalized as the Taliban moves beyond its Afghan roots.

"This is a new strategy," says Ahmed Rashid, author of "Taliban." "There has been a progressive Al Qaeda-ization of tactics."

[...] During the [Korean hostage] crisis, Afghan leaders have repeatedly taken issue with the Taliban's shift in tactics. On Sunday, President Hamid Karzai denounced the kidnapping of women and "foreign guests" as unIslamic, and added: "This will have a shameful effect on the dignity of the Afghan people."

For Hajji Spandagul, a tribal elder from eastern Afghanistan, it is abhorrent. "This is not the culture of Afghanistan – to take women hostage, especially in the tribal culture," he says, waving his large, weathered hands forcefully. [...]

The goal [of the kidnappings of foreigners] is to spread fear among Afghanistan's international coalition, and the Taliban – like Al Qaeda in Iraq – has recognized the effectiveness of hostage-taking.

"NATO has said there has been no spring offensive," says Pakistani author Mr. Ahmed. "This is the offensive."

As with Al Qaeda's Madrid bombings, "the goal is to create opposition at home for some of these very fragile foreign governments that are facing opposition to their presence in Afghanistan," says Ahmed.

But it could also create problems for the Taliban in Afghanistan, where tribal leaders are still deeply respected.

"It was surprising to me that the Taliban did not accept the reasoning of the elders and important people of Ghazni," says Abdul Salam Raketi, a former member of the Taliban who is now a lawmaker, and was part of one of the government’s negotiating teams.

"It is really dangerous for the future of the Taliban," he says. "If people are supporting the Taliban a little, they won’t support them at all anymore because the Taliban did not listen to their elders in negotiations."

Elder Spandagul calls this the work of Chechens and Pakistanis who have come here to wage global jihad – and Afghan elders are powerless to stop them. In times past, tribes had their own militia, but these were disbanded with the establishment of the Western-backed government, and nothing has risen in their place. Many police patrols are unable to venture a mile from their posts.

Mr. Alizai of Kandahar recalls the day that a group of French soldiers came and asked why the Taliban were attacking from his district. "Because I have empty hands," he says. "If we don't have weapons how can we defend ourselves? They come and cut our necks."

It is the waning of a tribal culture that has governed the remotest corners of Afghanistan for generations, say elders. In areas so unconnected to the broader world, tribes still have a role to play in keeping order. But they are increasingly ground between a government seeking the trappings of a modern, centralized power structure and an insurgency seeking to further its own global ends. [...]

Democrats rethinking on Iraq?

I'm leading off this post with a discussion of a CNN interview yesterday about a Times op-ed piece because the implications of the interview are almost more important than the op-ed. If CNN -- known for their strong anti-Bush views -- chose not to ignore a positive report on the Iraq war, that is news in itself. It's a sign that the antiwar Democrats realize they can no longer ignore the changing situation on the ground in Iraq. I waited until this morning to mention the interview in hopes that CNN would publish the transcript but it didn't make the cut.

Last night Wolf Blitzer grilled Kenneth Pollack about the positive report he and Michael O'Hanlon filed for yesterday's New York Times about their latest trip in Iraq. I think the CNN Situation Room host can be forgiven for his extreme caution because Pollack has made several trips to Iraq and, by his own account, returned ever more depressed about the situation there. But this time Pollack found real cause for hope.

Blitzer pounced on the title of the Times op-ed, A War We Just Might Win , and asked Pollack whether he really believed the war was winnable. Pollack explained that the Times supplied the title for the op-ed, and that while he wouldn't commit to saying the war in Iraq could be won, he did find real progress there.

Blitzer also asked whether Pollack and O'Hanlon had traveled in Iraq on their own. Pollack replied that they were with the military most of the time but that was where they needed to be, because that's where all the action was happening.

Under Blitzer's questioning, Pollack made an observation that didn't show up in the Times piece. He said that the US government was putting too attention on the gridlocked political situation in Baghdad. He said that it was the outlying regions where political progress was happening. He recommended that the US take more advantage of the situation instead of waiting on Baghdad.

Blitzer finished the interview by asking Pollack what advice he would give the Democrats about their stance on the Iraq situation; Pollack replied, in essence, that he would urge them to be more cautious about seeing the war in Iraq as a failure.

For all my support of the Coalition effort I found the Pollack-O'Hanlon report terribly upsetting in one respect:

In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated — many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work.

The report goes on to give good news about present troop morale but if only we'd had the present war strategy in place three years ago. Well, war is not the time for recriminations and anyhow we can't put Donald Rumsfeld on trial; yet still, a very upsetting observation. Here's the report:

July 30, 2007, Washington
New York Times Op-Ed Contributor
A War We Just Might Win
By MICHAEL E. O’HANLON and KENNETH M. POLLACK

Viewed from Iraq, where we just spent eight days meeting with American and Iraqi military and civilian personnel, the political debate in Washington is surreal. The Bush administration has over four years lost essentially all credibility. Yet now the administration’s critics, in part as a result, seem unaware of the significant changes taking place.

Here is the most important thing Americans need to understand: We are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms. As two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq, we were surprised by the gains we saw and the potential to produce not necessarily “victory” but a sustainable stability that both we and the Iraqis could live with.

After the furnace-like heat, the first thing you notice when you land in Baghdad is the morale of our troops. In previous trips to Iraq we often found American troops angry and frustrated — many sensed they had the wrong strategy, were using the wrong tactics and were risking their lives in pursuit of an approach that could not work.

Today, morale is high. The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus; they are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.

Everywhere, Army and Marine units were focused on securing the Iraqi population, working with Iraqi security units, creating new political and economic arrangements at the local level and providing basic services — electricity, fuel, clean water and sanitation — to the people. Yet in each place, operations had been appropriately tailored to the specific needs of the community. As a result, civilian fatality rates are down roughly a third since the surge began — though they remain very high, underscoring how much more still needs to be done.

In Ramadi, for example, we talked with an outstanding Marine captain whose company was living in harmony in a complex with a (largely Sunni) Iraqi police company and a (largely Shiite) Iraqi Army unit. He and his men had built an Arab-style living room, where he met with the local Sunni sheiks — all formerly allies of Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups — who were now competing to secure his friendship.

In Baghdad’s Ghazaliya neighborhood, which has seen some of the worst sectarian combat, we walked a street slowly coming back to life with stores and shoppers. The Sunni residents were unhappy with the nearby police checkpoint, where Shiite officers reportedly abused them, but they seemed genuinely happy with the American soldiers and a mostly Kurdish Iraqi Army company patrolling the street. The local Sunni militia even had agreed to confine itself to its compound once the Americans and Iraqi units arrived.

We traveled to the northern cities of Tal Afar and Mosul. This is an ethnically rich area, with large numbers of Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens. American troop levels in both cities now number only in the hundreds because the Iraqis have stepped up to the plate. Reliable police officers man the checkpoints in the cities, while Iraqi Army troops cover the countryside. A local mayor told us his greatest fear was an overly rapid American departure from Iraq. All across the country, the dependability of Iraqi security forces over the long term remains a major question mark.

But for now, things look much better than before. American advisers told us that many of the corrupt and sectarian Iraqi commanders who once infested the force have been removed. The American high command assesses that more than three-quarters of the Iraqi Army battalion commanders in Baghdad are now reliable partners (at least for as long as American forces remain in Iraq).

In addition, far more Iraqi units are well integrated in terms of ethnicity and religion. The Iraqi Army’s highly effective Third Infantry Division started out as overwhelmingly Kurdish in 2005. Today, it is 45 percent Shiite, 28 percent Kurdish, and 27 percent Sunni Arab.

In the past, few Iraqi units could do more than provide a few “jundis” (soldiers) to put a thin Iraqi face on largely American operations. Today, in only a few sectors did we find American commanders complaining that their Iraqi formations were useless — something that was the rule, not the exception, on a previous trip to Iraq in late 2005.

The additional American military formations brought in as part of the surge, General Petraeus’s determination to hold areas until they are truly secure before redeploying units, and the increasing competence of the Iraqis has had another critical effect: no more whack-a-mole, with insurgents popping back up after the Americans leave.

In war, sometimes it’s important to pick the right adversary, and in Iraq we seem to have done so. A major factor in the sudden change in American fortunes has been the outpouring of popular animus against Al Qaeda and other Salafist groups, as well as (to a lesser extent) against Moktada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.

These groups have tried to impose Shariah law, brutalized average Iraqis to keep them in line, killed important local leaders and seized young women to marry off to their loyalists. The result has been that in the last six months Iraqis have begun to turn on the extremists and turn to the Americans for security and help. The most important and best-known example of this is in Anbar Province, which in less than six months has gone from the worst part of Iraq to the best (outside the Kurdish areas). Today the Sunni sheiks there are close to crippling Al Qaeda and its Salafist allies. Just a few months ago, American marines were fighting for every yard of Ramadi; last week we strolled down its streets without body armor.

Another surprise was how well the coalition’s new Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams are working. Wherever we found a fully staffed team, we also found local Iraqi leaders and businessmen cooperating with it to revive the local economy and build new political structures. Although much more needs to be done to create jobs, a new emphasis on microloans and small-scale projects was having some success where the previous aid programs often built white elephants.

In some places where we have failed to provide the civilian manpower to fill out the reconstruction teams, the surge has still allowed the military to fashion its own advisory groups from battalion, brigade and division staffs. We talked to dozens of military officers who before the war had known little about governance or business but were now ably immersing themselves in projects to provide the average Iraqi with a decent life.

Outside Baghdad, one of the biggest factors in the progress so far has been the efforts to decentralize power to the provinces and local governments. But more must be done. For example, the Iraqi National Police, which are controlled by the Interior Ministry, remain mostly a disaster. In response, many towns and neighborhoods are standing up local police forces, which generally prove more effective, less corrupt and less sectarian. The coalition has to force the warlords in Baghdad to allow the creation of neutral security forces beyond their control.

In the end, the situation in Iraq remains grave. In particular, we still face huge hurdles on the political front. Iraqi politicians of all stripes continue to dawdle and maneuver for position against one another when major steps towards reconciliation — or at least accommodation — are needed. This cannot continue indefinitely. Otherwise, once we begin to downsize, important communities may not feel committed to the status quo, and Iraqi security forces may splinter along ethnic and religious lines.

How much longer should American troops keep fighting and dying to build a new Iraq while Iraqi leaders fail to do their part? And how much longer can we wear down our forces in this mission? These haunting questions underscore the reality that the surge cannot go on forever. But there is enough good happening on the battlefields of Iraq today that Congress should plan on sustaining the effort at least into 2008.

Michael E. O’Hanlon is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Kenneth M. Pollack is the director of research at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings.

11:15 Update
I just visited Riehl World View and saw there's more good news about Democrat perceptions of the new Coalition strategy in Iraq. One correction to the report that Dan Riehl highlights: Rep. Ellison is quoted by USA Today as saying there are "150,000" American soldiers in Iraq. There are about 160,000 US troops in Iraq.
2:30 PM Update
July 30 seems to have been the day of a sea change in the mainstream media coverage of the Surge and the Democrat position on the Iraq war: Dave Schuler at The Glittering Eye reported on a conversation among David Ignatius of The Washington Post; Time Magazine’s Michael Duffy; NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell; and US News and World Report’s Gloria Borger on Chris Matthews’s show on NBC.

Dave writes, "All four spoke against withdrawing our forces from Iraq, largely on the same grounds that I’ve argued ..." Read On. The panelists lean toward the Democrat view and they're all very influential in both the US and international press. So, if they are urging the Democrats to rethink, their opinion carries clout.

How much does piracy threaten democracy in the globalized era?

"In Kosovo [George Soros] has invested $50m in an attempt to gain control of the Trepca mine complex, where there are vast reserves of gold, silver, lead and other minerals estimated to be worth in the region of $5bn. He thus copied a pattern he has deployed to great effect over the whole of eastern Europe: of advocating "shock therapy" and "economic reform", then swooping in with his associates to buy valuable state assets at knock-down prices."(1)(2)

"Most Serbian politicians are [...] still beholden to a US private citizen, financier George Soros, who, in a deal struck in the Budapest Hilton Hotel in 1999, paid some $250-million to the leaders of what became the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) to help in the overthrow of the Serbian Milosevic Government. These parties — unlike the Serbian Radical Party, which did not receive Soros funding — sold their soul (and subsequently gave commercial concessions in Serbia proper and Kosovo) — to Soros who now, through various front groups such as his International Crisis Group (ICG), demands the independence of Kosovo from Serbia." (3)

" ... for all his liberal quoting of Popper, Soros deems a society "open" not if it respects human rights and basic freedoms, but if it is "open" for him and his associates to make money."(1)

"Hi Miss P:
I would not have paid much attention to the Swedish Meatballs Confidential blog except it came recommended by [two knowledgeable friends]. Plus the topic here is the authenticity of the color revolutions; you were far ahead of your time so you should enjoy the transcripts:

Nato Stooges Unplugged: Georgian President Praises Financial Times’s Role In Propaganda War

Mark Safranski
ZenPundit "

Dear Mark:
Thank you for passing along the Meatballs post; no surprises there and some of the analysis is skewed but it's a hoot. Yes, by now many Americans who follow such events have caught up; i.e., they are aware that the Color Revolutions were not revolutions at all, and were staged by the US State Department and West European governments, notably the British Foreign Office, and with help from George Soros.

But I also think the majority who comment on the fact are still unwilling to acknowledge that Vladimir Putin's clamp on freedoms and re-nationalizing of key Russian industries has been the only way to prevent Soros, and the non-Russian government actors and industrialists he represents, from taking over Russia and picking it clean.

So we have reached a conundrum. Do you have to sacrifice democracy to protect your nation against pirates? Pirates who have developed a huge arsenal of financial tools in the globalized era, and who work hand-in-glove with governments trying to take over your nation? I don't have the answer, Mark, but the question costs me sleep.

By the way, the Financial Times also played a big role in ejecting Paul Wolfowitz from the World Bank. To be more precise, the Times made a lot of hay from Wolfowitz's mistakes at the Bank.

He might have been getting close to opening the Bank's Pandora's Box on Eastern Europe and Russia. Vladimir Putin learned the hard way that if you want to take on Mordor, you need to pick your battles and have a ruthless gang behind you. It's a lesson that Wolfowitz seems incapable of absorbing.

Wolfy wasn't even working with support from State or the White House. But if you start asking questions about what happened to all the Bank money poured into former Soviet countries, that leads to great embarrassment for the US and our oldest NATO allies.

1) George Soros profile, Neil Clark, New Statesman, June 2003

2) Not all the mines and factories in the Trepca conglomerate are located in Kosovo but most are, including one of the richest mines in Europe and the richest in the Balkans. For eye-popping background on the Soros/Nato machinations, read Diana Johnstone's 2000 How it is Done: Taking over the Trepca Mines.

3) The Road to Peace in the Balkans is Paved With Bad Intentions by Gregory R. Copley.

China hawks, pick your fights with Russia wisely.

China hawks spend oceans of time discussing the need to offset China's rising influence. The consensus emerging from the discussion is that the US needs to make stronger alliances in China's region.

Sounds good on paper but if you want to go with this plan, you need to make up your mind about Russia. That's because you are dreaming if you think India will risk isolation in the region.

Pundita assures you there will be no Ganges Alliance with the United States of America. But if New Delhi sees Washington maintaining good relations with Moscow, this will go a long way toward help India stick out their neck when it comes to dealing with China.

So you have a choice: You can continue being the European Union's lackey when it comes to all European issues involving Russia. Or you can push the boundaries of the NATO alliance by making case-by-case decisions on when the US should sit back and let the EU fight their own battles with Moscow.

Your choice would be easier if you keep in mind that individual European governments don't hesitate to cut deals with Moscow when it suits them. When it doesn't suit them, they run to Washington and complain that Moscow is kicking sand in their face.

You might also want to consider that we wouldn't be having this discussion, if Russia did as much trade with the US as China. If that were the case, you would be willing to overlook many Russian failings. But you can't fashion a defense strategy for the United States out of balance of trade figures. You have to think first in terms of geography.

I note that Russia's President Vladimir Putin is enjoying a good month. First there was the success of the Lobster Summit; you wouldn't know it from the mainstream media's analyses, but the casualness of the setting tended to mask the crucial and historic US-Russia summit on nuclear issues.(1)

Then, last week, Putin got the Kosovo issue removed from the U.N. Security Council table after Russia threatened to veto any solution Serbia opposes. As Bloomberg News noted today:

Romania, Slovakia, Spain and Cyprus are among European countries leery of turning Kosovo into a nation without UN approval, out of concern that this would lead to agitation by minorities inside their own borders.

By using the veto threat, Putin has maneuvered the situation away from the United Nations venue.

Yesterday was the cherry on top of Putin's sundae:

George Bush's plans to establish a European missile defence system suffered a big setback yesterday when a Congressional committee slashed the funding. The House appropriations committee cut $139m (£69.5m) from the $310m the Bush administration wants for preparatory work on the missile project in Europe. It approved funds for a radar system in the Czech Republic but cut the $139m Mr Bush requested to establish a missile interception system in Poland, the most controversial part of the defence system.

That doesn't mean the project is dead but the setback encourages Putin to keep drumming up opposition to the system and gives him more time to push his own plan for a joint Russia-NATO missile interceptor system.

Even if Putin's plan of basing the interceptors in Russia doesn't work to stop missiles from Iran, the United States should agree to the system as an adjunct to the one now on the table. If Washington had done this at the beginning -- strongly encouraged Russia to participate in the interceptor plan instead of only informing Russia of what we had already decided -- we would have avoided an unnecessary confrontation.

And by considering that partition could be the only workable plan to solve the Kosovo problem, the US would have avoided another unnecessary confrontation with Russia at the United Nations.

Think. Don't let Brussels and the Wall Street Journal crowd run US defense policy, if you want better US policy on dealing with China's rising military influence.

1) This is the only informative analysis of the Lobster Summit I was able to find:

July 3, 2007 (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) -- There were smiles and sunshine and seacoast, but what exactly did the Bush-Putin summit succeed at, and fail at? RFE/RL correspondent Heather Maher asks James Collins -- the U.S. ambassador to Russia from 1997-2001, and now the director of the Russian and Eurasian program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington -- to tally the wins and losses.

RFE/RL: Many of the post-summit press reports said that Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin basically had a great time, and enjoyed good talks, but no major agreements were announced. Is that your impression?

James Collins: Well, I don't think that's quite correct. First of all, they completed negotiations and completed, or signed, depending on how you put it, a "Section 1-2-3 Agreement" on Friday [June 29]. Now, this is a big deal.

RFE/RL: How important is it?

Collins: The 1-2-3 Agreement is a framework agreement under which any U.S. cooperation on civilian nuclear matters takes place with another country. And to have this agreement means that we now have open the opportunity for our whole civilian nuclear communities in both countries to work together. And that has not been the case up till now.

There have been all kinds of restrictions and caveats and problems on information sharing, how information is handled, what can be disclosed, etc., etc., etc. And so what this means, it looks like we are really taking a major step ahead in the area of civilian nuclear cooperation.

RFE/RL: Can you put the significance of that "major step" into some kind of historical context?

Collins: My view of this is that it is the nuclear equivalent of what we did in space at the beginning of the '90s, when we broke down the barriers and got our two space communities into the same tent, and were able to produce the space station and a whole host of other things in civilian space cooperation.

It was very, very significant. And here's the context: there is going to come a large expansion of nuclear power generation, globally. If we don't have a new international framework for that, we're all going to have problems with proliferation, how do we manage the spent nuclear fuel, etc.

This is going to make it possible to get serious people to sit down and talk about how to deal with this. And that's going to be essential if you're going to have an international framework for the next generation of nuclear power.

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