Golden Oldie: Lost in Translation: President Putin's history lecture to President Bush

Pundita is on vacation until September 16. The following essay was originally published February 2005.

Peter Lavelle's latest commentary Putin's "authoritarianism" vs. the 'commentariat' sent Pundita to Wikipedia for a crash history and overview of modern Russian politics. This still left us experiencing cognitive dissonance regarding the word "governor" in point #3 of Lavelle's discussion.

Appointment of governors is part of Putin's “vertical power” agenda to strengthen Russian sovereignty and against internal (oligarchs and corruption) and foreign (governors making foreign policy) threats..."

I tried and failed to imagine the governors of Rhode Island, Alabama, New York, Iowa and all the other US governors making up their own foreign policy for the United States. In that event, there would be no United States of America, there would be no country.

So what kind of democracy did Vladimir Putin inherit from Boris Yeltsin? How could you have a democracy, of the kind America represents, if there was no real sovereign nation? Seeking illumination, Pundita wrote Peter Lavelle. He responded:

Regional governors experienced enormous independence from the Kremlin for years because there was little the Kremlin could do about it during the Yeltsin years. For a decade Russia's regions were run as private fiefdoms -- with little pretense supporting democracy. Many of Russia's governors ruled poorly with self interest in mind and in the service of oligarchs. This is something that the Kremlin can no longer tolerate. To modernize the economy, strengthen sovereignty, and serve the interests of citizens living in the regions the Kremlin had to do something. While most of the Western world doesn't agree with the
Kremlin's move [to appoint governors], most citizens in Russia's regions accept that they deserve better governance.

Lavelle's clarification puts an exchange between Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush in a new light. In November 2004, at an economic summit luncheon, Bush questioned Putin's decision to eliminate direct elections for regional governors.

"Mr. Putin responded by launching into a 20-minute discourse on the history of Russian federalism from the tsars to Josef Stalin, and Mr. Bush didn't pursue the issue, according to both U.S. and Russian officials." *

Now to an American who is not knowledgeable about Russia, Putin's answer showed no understanding of Bush's question. But once you understand the Russian form of government, Bush's question showed no understanding of the situation in Russia.

Bush is famous for being a fast eater, even at state dinners hosted at the White House, so I suppose if he'd chewed more slowly or dawdled over dessert Putin could have extended the history lesson to include Yeltsin's era. However, I don't think Bush missed too much by leaving off at Stalin's era, at least in terms of governing structure.

As the Soviet Communist party spread from the sophisticated Russian cities, it met with tribal societies and clan governments, which the imperial Russian government had kept at bay with much the same tactics Saddam Hussein deployed in dealing with Iraqi tribes and clans.

Saddam did not remain in power by brute force alone. The Iraqi Baathist knockoff of a centralized western fascist government was window dressing. Behind the trappings was a nomadic tribal society meshed with a traditional decentralized clan society. Thus, Saddam relied on judicious application of bribes and a carefully tended alliances with chieftains.

The Soviet Communist government followed much the same tactic; thus, when the Soviet Union collapsed, so did the window dressing. The aftermath form of government is confusing to an outsider, if you apply the American concepts of nation, governors, democracy, government, etc., to Russia. Yeltsin's "democratic" reforms were more window dressing than democratic government. Another stage show, only this time a democracy stage show. Behind the stage paint was the same old clan system that pre-Revolutionary Russian imperial government had to deal with.

So it's jumping the gun for the Bush administration to launch "a high-level review of relations with Russia in the wake of Kremlin curbs on democracy..." *

First there has to be a sovereign nation, with only one administrative body setting foreign policy. Then there needs to be a national democratic government. Then is the time to start worrying about any perceived curbs on democracy.

All this helps explain an observation under #8 in Lavelle's commentary: "Putin is not a democrat. Putin is a reformer." But still seeking illumination, Pundita asked Lavelle to elaborate. His response:

Putin is not a democrat recognizable to the West. He is primarily interested in creating an economy in which the average Russian voter has the means and interest to participate in politics. After a decade of "oligarch" rule and misguided reforms imported from the West, Putin realizes the only way Russia can be a democracy is when living standards increase significantly--and quickly. He also understands that tough and unpopular social reforms face resistance, but must be passed into law to create a modern Russian economy. Putin, incorrectly called a dictator, is using his personal popularity and control of the legislature to create the foundations of a meaningful democracy--and it won't happen tomorrow.

I think the key concept is "foundations of a meaningful democracy."

It's a shame Putin's work to create the foundations for modern government in Russia has been greatly ignored by Washington policymakers. The struggles to reform Russian government from the ground up are very valuable lessons and with application to many societies struggling toward democracy

* From "Bush Reviews Ties to Russia Amid Rising Tensions" 01/26/2005, The Wall Street Journal

"Why was John Batchelor dropped by WABC Radio?"

UPDATE November 2, 2010
Oh gee; I just received a comment from someone who read this post and didn't know that John had been back on WABC for years now. Here was my reply:

Gloria! My dear, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?? John has been back on the air for years now! WABC re-hired him, and his 4 hour show is 7 nights a week on WABC (starting at 9 PM ET) and at affiliate stations. You can listen online, and the show now has podcasts. And John's website is GREAT! He even has a schedule for each show.

Google WABC and Google John Batchelor Show to get the urls.

Meanwhile, I'd better update this old post in case anyone else thinks his show is still off the air.
Best,
Pundita
*********************************************
Update - 11:00 PM ET September 6
See following for explanation but you can also send a email expressing support for Batchelor to the programmer at Citadel: Brian.Jennings@citcomm.com
* * * * * * * * * *
"Pundita:
Why was John Batchelor dropped by WABC Radio? Is Laura Ingraham [whose show replaces John's] really more interesting to the radio audience? I'm puzzled. I find it hard to believe that this is going to get them better ratings.
Elliot Gordon, New York"

Dear Mr Gordon:
Pundita's crystal ball is in the repair shop again. But thanks to the research of industrious reader Michael Miller, we were able to gather enough pieces of the puzzle from the Internet to hazard something approaching a reply to your question.

First, John Batchelor was fired by ABC Radio, not by WABC-AM Radio. Of course WABC is owned by ABC Radio. And WABC's program director Phil Boyce is also Vice President of news/talk programming for ABC Radio. According Wikipedia:

Boyce programs WABC Radio programs as well as nationally syndicated ABC Radio shows, including The Sean Hannity Show and The Mark Levin Show.

Boyce handles programming at all ABC Radio news/talk stations, including KABC-AM in Los Angeles, WLS-AM in [Chicago] and WMAL-AM in Washington, D.C. He reports to general manager Timothy McCarthy at WABC, as well as to Mitch Dolan, president of the ABC Radio Station Group on the corporate level.

So, it's likely that the decision by ABC Radio to drop John Batchelor's show came from Mr Boyce and/or Messrs Dolan and McCarthy.

What's certain is that Batchelor's firing was not based on his ratings, which are phenomenally good. (An old mystery is why ABC Radio never publicized John's very high ratings; perhaps they didn't want to embarrass other ABC Radio stars.)

And we can surmise this much from Batchelor's comments to his audience about his leave-taking: his firing was not precipitated by unreasonable demands on his part.

So we are left with what seems a needless and foolishly self-destructive programming decision, until we study ABC Radio's current situation. According to the Wikipedia article on ABC:

In 2005, Disney CEO Bob Iger decided to embark upon a sale of the ABC Radio division, having declared it a "non-core asset."

On February 6, 2006, Disney announced ABC Radio would be spun off and merged with Citadel Broadcasting Corporation to form a new company named Citadel Communications. Once the $2.7 billion merger is completed by the end of 2006, Disney shareholders would own a majority of the new radio company's stock, but ABC/Disney would have no control over its operations.

To put it another way, ABC Radio is in the process of being merged out of existence. The person overseeing the merger from the Citadel side is none other than Farid Suleman, who is sort of a Superman Numbers Cruncher and whose tolerance for fools in the radio business is notoriously short. Mr Suleman has spelled out in the clearest language how he does things when he is put in charge of herding cats:

Interviewer: How did you go about identifying the culture that you wanted to bring to the company?

Farid Suleman: The corporate staff at Citadel was bigger than I had at Infinity, so I had to streamline it. The first three months, I visited every market, holding “town hall” meetings at every station and telling everybody the same thing: “This is the way it’s going to be: You’re either with me or you’re not. If you’re not, we’ll work it out now, because you’ll get a good severance and you can leave.” And people wanted to stay.

I tried to create my own version of the Infinity culture by taking the best of everything. It was amazing how quickly the company was transformed. Within a year, we repositioned the company, eliminated a lot of the regional managers and made everybody hands-on accountable for what they did. We created an entrepreneurial environment. What was amazing was the way a majority of the managers responded. They liked it.

Interviewer: There had to be some people who resented change.

Suleman: There were, but I gave everybody a chance to perform or they were out. My line was: “If people had arrived at work this morning and weren’t sure that they wanted to work at Citadel or the DMV, they should leave now.”

Those comments, taken with Mr Suleman's love of gorgeous numbers, makes one wonder why ABC Radio's current management would want to clearly signal that they preferred working at the Department of Motor Vehicles rather than under Mr Suleman's leadership.

Pundita does not have the answer, but I muse that some employees who know they are not long for a job have the rude habit of smashing as much as they can of value to the company.

Even if the above observation applies to the fools who fired Batchelor, the knowledge would be small comfort to the millions of people who depend on his show for superlative reporting on key issues in American and world politics.

And even if Batchelor returns to the air this December via the Hoover Institution, that doesn't help his audience wend their way through the runup to the November elections.

So I am left with the feeling that whatever the internal upheavals caused by the Citadel-ABC merger, millions among the radio-listening public have suffered for it. That doesn't seem right to Pundita, so I decided to pen a complaint to Citadel and request that Mr Suleman move heaven and earth to immediately reinstate John Batchelor's show at WABC and WMAL.

Accordingly, I decided to email Citadel but learned from their website that their corporate headquarters only provided an email address for their media contact. A request to the contact elicited this reply, which I just received:

"The [email] address you just used is generally used for everything, it gets sent to the office manager's email account (which is me). [...] I will send your email to the appropriate person.
Amber Pierce"

Wilco and thank you, Ms Pierce. The email address is media@citcomm.com

Readers who decide to follow my lead might want to copy their letter to ABC Radio Customer Service at: customerservice@abc.com
and John Batchelor at: john@johnbatchelorshow.com
* * * * * * * *
Midnight Update: See the second post on Tuesday for another contact at Citadel and an announcement from Batchelor's website.

Golden Oldie: No tyrant left behind -- Bush Democracy Doctrine, simply explained

Pundita is on vacation and will return to blogging on September 16; in the meantime (excepting on Sundays) the blog will reprise some of her earlier essays. The following Golden Oldie was originally published (as The Bush Doctrine, simply explained) in January 2005.

"Dear Pundita,
I liked Bush's speech at the inaugural but I'm a little confused by it. I wonder if he's talking in general terms and how he intends to implement the ideas, which are very ambitious. Also, didn't you love the white coat Laura wore for the inaugural?
Claudia in Taos"

Dear Claudia:
There is no mystery about the Democracy Doctrine; the ideas Bush sketched in his inaugural speech are already in effect although it's early days. His remarks are confusing only if you depend on secondary sources for understanding. If you go to the White House website and study the Millennium Challenge Account and the No Child Left Behind Act, you won't be confused.

You'll see that the ideas expressed in the inaugural speech reflect a typically Bushian approach to solving a systemic problem. The Democracy Doctrine is strong on accountability, standards setting, achievement tests, and performance review. It's results oriented.

In fact, Bush could make this easy for the commentariat if he directed them to study his No Child Left Behind Act. If you substitute "tyrant" for "child" and make a few other simple word substitutes, you're an instant expert on the Bush Democracy Doctrine. Let's try it with the first portion of the Act's executive summary, with the substitutions shown in boldface:

As the world enters the 21st Century full of hope and promise, too many of our tyrants are being left behind. Today, nearly 100 percent of the world's tyrants are unable to understand democracy ....

Although education is primarily a state and local responsibility, democratic governments are partly at fault for tolerating these abysmal results. Democratic governments currently do not do enough to reward success and sanction failure in our education system

Over the decades the American government and other governments in developed countries have created thousands of programs intended to address problems in tyrant education without asking whether or not the programs produce results or knowing their impact on local needs.

This "program for every problem" solution has begun to add up -- so much so that there are thousands of aid/low-cost loan programs spread across God Only Knows how many agencies at a cost of billions of US dollars a year.

Yet, after spending trillions and probably even zillions of dollars on tyrant education, we have fallen short in meeting our goals for educational excellence. The academic achievement gap between tyrants and elected leaders is not only wide, but in some cases is growing wider still.

In reaction to these disappointing results, some have decided that there should be no direct involvement in democracy education for tyrants . Others suggest we merely add new programs into the old system. Surely, there must be another way, a way that points to a more effective developed world role.

The priorities that follow are based on the fundamental notion that an enterprise works best when responsibility is placed closest to the most important activity of the enterprise, when those responsible are given greatest latitude and support, and when those responsible are held accountable for producing results. This education blueprint will:

--Increase Accountability for Tyrant Performance:

Tyrants who improve achievement in democracy measures will be rewarded. Failure will be sanctioned. American agencies/foreign policy instruments will know how well the tyrant is learning and that they are held accountable for their effectiveness with annual assessments.

--Focus on What Works:

US tax dollars will be spent on effective, research-based programs and practices. Funds will be targeted to improve tyrant education and enhance teacher quality.

--Reduce Bureaucracy and Increase Flexibility:

Additional flexibility will be provided to American agencies, and flexible funding will be increased at the local level.

--Empower Governments of the Developed World:

Said governments will have more information about the quality of the tyrant's schooling in democracy. Tyrants in persistently low-performing schools will be given choice.

At this point the Bush Democracy Doctrine diverges from the No Child Left Behind Act. Lagging tyrants will not be given the same choice that say, sixth graders receive if they don't buckle down to math. But as you can see there is no mystery about how the doctrine is to work out in practice.

Will the No Tyrant Left Behind initiative work? Of course. Mortals can't rid the world of evil but we can rectify mistakes that set the modern world's tyrants in place and keep them in place. Today's batch are not conquerors. And almost none are products of real revolution or internal coup. The majority came to power on the back of skimmed aid/loan money from the big Western nations and/or big-nation machinations.

So today's batch are as much Frankensteins as tyrants. Today's tyrants didn't get to be tyrants without a lot of help from the world's most powerful countries, including the USA. So the Bush doctrine is aimed as much at NATO countries and China and Russia as at Iran, North Korea, and Syria.

I interject that's why I made such a fuss about the US machinations in Ukraine, which began before Bush came to office. If we want other governments to get serious about the Democracy Doctrine, US foreign policy must strive hard to keep its hem clean. Things we could get away with during the Cold War -- no more, if we want other governments to raise their bar.

However, if you substitute "developed world governments" for the public school system, you can understand why several countries (and even some representatives of the American government) are putting up so much resistance to Bush's doctrine. They've had pretty much the same reaction as public school administrators on first hearing about the No Child Left Behind Act. These governments aren't used to being held accountable in their dealings with despots.

However, if the NATO 'school system' cranked out tinhorn despots who refused to democratize their countries, that's a measure of how much the world's most powerful governments have held themselves to account, in their dealings with despots. So we all need to improve our performance.

Blaming only the tyrants is akin to blaming only the child, if he graduates high school unable to spell cat. The question is how he got that far, after generations of adults poured billions into the school system that was supposed to educate him to deal with the modern world.

Laura's inaugural coat and the matching suit are to die for. Pundita wants the knockoffs as soon as they're available.

Golden Oldie: The OK Corral is thataway

Pundita is on vacation and will return to blogging on September 16; in the meantime (excepting on Sundays) the blog will reprise some of her earlier essays. The following Golden Oldie was originally published in January 2005.

"Thank you for introducing me to Peter Lavelle's writings. It's a lot to absorb. From what I'm learning it's evident the media are doing a really bad job keeping Americans informed about Russia. Lavelle writes for UPI so there is good reporting available but it doesn't seem to get featured in the mainstream media, at least not in this country.

However, America is at war. Russia's recent negotiations with Syria and Iran are potentially damaging to the US war effort. Given Putin's lack of support for the US invasion of Iraq, I think he would have gone ahead with the negotiations no matter how fairly the US media might have treated him, and even if there had been no US involvement in Ukraine. There has been talk of imposing sanctions on Russia, so I think the situation is becoming serious.
[Signed] Jan in Reston"

Dear Jan:
The situation will become serious when there is talk of imposing sanctions on Germany, France, and Britain for their deals with Syria and Iran. Then we'll know the Bush administration is getting down to brass tacks.

Russia is not an ally of the United States; they're a trading partner. It's the NATO countries that are supposed to be our allies. So it's during discussion with our dear allies about their actions in the Middle East that the United States should be making demands. Until we do this, why should Putin or any other non-NATO national leader join the United States in upholding a double standard?

I don't like Putin's negotiations with Syria and Iran but he's following the approach of the EU Three (Germany, France and UK), who dominate the European Union's approach to foreign relations. And if he stops following the E3 and sides with the United States--Bingo! he's made even more enemies in the EU than he did when launching the anti-corruption drive in Russia. Keep in mind Russia has to live on the same continent as the European Union.

If the State Department would not deploy a double standard with regard to NATO allies, if they adopted a position of integrity, as Bush did by refusing to deal with Arafat, then Putin and other non-NATO national leaders would be looking at a different ball game. How they might react, don't know, but integrity is catching--particularly when it's practiced by the world's leading nation.

Now that we have that off our chest, Pundita takes your point. If we study the Bush war plan, we see that Syria is the next weakest spoke in the Axis of Evil. So Putin's negotiations with Assad, and Russian sales of military equipment to Syria, are of grave concern to the US.

But again, the negotiations of our allies with Syria and Iran are of greater concern at this time. They've already told us to go sit on a tack, if we want military help in dealing with Syria and Iran. More than that, they've signaled they will work to marshal world resistance against any US action, including embargo, which the US wants to take against Iran.

This is showdown time with our NATO allies. But instead of showing up at the OK Corral, Washington wants to hang out in the saloon and talk about Russia. Put yourself in Vladimir Putin's place and look at the situation. Why should he listen to what Bush asks him to do with regard to Syria? When he can see with his own eyes that US allies have no intention of listening to Bush with regard to Syria and Iran?

The lame excuse is that they don't like Bush's style. What they don't like is a US policy that places integrity and consistency in foreign relations above expediency. So we are right back to the central debate, which pits the Bush Democracy Doctrine against the Chirac School.

And given that roughly half the US voters side with the Chirac School, those Americans young at heart enough to believe this can be Liberty's Century have a great deal of groundwork to do.

When more Americans get clear on the Democracy Doctrine and how it works in practice, there will be greater force behind the words of the US Secretary of State in negotiations with our allies. As it is now, we're just whistling Dixie. And Putin and a host of other national leaders know this.

This to include our dear ally Israel. What in the Sam Hill were the Israelis doing selling weapons to China? When Pundita last checked, there is only one China. So this would be the same China that helped the Iranians and every other Jew-hating government build nukes. Then Sharon rings up Bush, "Oh they've got the Bomb!"

But if you know that, then why did you sell weapons to China, which makes a career out of counterfeiting weapons and selling knockoffs to the highest bidder? What is this, the Kindergarten Age? Is this what our ancestors invented copper and iron for?

But I see we've descended from polemics to sputters, so this might be the time for a critter story. Most people don't know this but beavers are the best negotiators; they have to be, to avoid being mauled by creatures who don't have the concept of dam building down pat. The beaver has to clamber around the river bank and chew down trees. Imagine yourself a bear listening to that racket. So the beavers have to communicate to the local yokels that they don't plan to stay long and that all they want is some lumber.

One day I asked the beaver member of Pundita's foreign policy team, "Just how does a beaver negotiate logging rights?"

He replied, "Sincerely."

A reply to remember during our foreign relations dealings, especially during war. If we want Russia to throw up a few less roadblocks to the Bush war plan, the request should come with the sincere assurance that he won't keep pulling knives out of his back.

Golden Oldie: "Things fall apart, the center cannot hold"

Pundita is on vacation and will return to blogging on September 16; in the meantime (excepting on Sundays) the blog will reprise some of her earlier essays. The following Golden Oldie was originally published in April 2005.

Sometime during the 1970s we passed into a new chapter in the saga of the human race. Here is the outline: Present technology + human population number + Amazon going up in flames due to bad development projects + rapidly escalating desertification + present phase of earth's cycle + very limited knowledge about dealing with problems of mass populations.

The earth has her own cycle of life--as we saw on the day we refer to as the Tsunami. Yet we can't tell the earth, "Please suspend your cycle until we get it together."

That means we're now operating on a very thin margin of error. One of the many recent signs of this was the heroic Canadian doctor who battled SARS to the death in a hospital in Canada. She had to wage battle with her back to the wall of bureaucratic bungling. That kind of situation is happening more and more. Yet when we're routinely having to depend on just one person to save us from a mega-disaster, this is a clear sign of system failure. It's a sign that our margin of error has shrunk to near zero.

Those who talk about saving humanity from disaster are referencing opportunity that is long gone. The ship left the pier decades ago. Given the combination of factors, there is no way humanity can avoid crashing into the metaphorical iceberg. However, the Titanic passengers who were killed did not die because of the impact of the ship's crash. They died because the ship maker and the shipping company didn't build in margins of error. They assumed the ship was unsinkable so--not enough lifeboats, no disaster drills, no backup SOS system, etc.

We can't avert all coming disasters but we can widen our margin of error--minimize our exposure to disasters and maximize our responses to them. There's plenty enough human brainpower for the task, thanks to our mega-population. The challenge is to get more of the brainpower involved with governing decisions and oversight.

That's where democratic government comes in. Democracy is no longer just about the choice between freedom and slavery. It's about transferring decision-making from small numbers (an 'elite') to large numbers with their vast diversity of experience and education. It's about the human race making it through this century in one piece.

Here we come to a snag. There are two democracy doctrines; one is phony. The Democracy Bubble of the 1980s and 1990s, when it burst, left many people round the world feeling cheated by their experiment in democracy. But they didn't really have democracy. They were sold a form of government that's a stage show run by a small circle.

How did so many people get taken in? Pundita's been trying to figure that out, in the manner of a bunko squad detective taking apart a con. I've zeroed in on the word 'freedom,' which is the word I hear most associated with democracy. Remove the dom and you're left with free--the con artist's favorite word.

(To the tune of "A Christmas Song" sung by Alvin and the Chipmunks):

Freedom for you and freedom for me!
We'll be free with democracy!
We won't worry when we are freeeeee!
All we do is vote and see
Our leaders will make us free!

Freedom is not free. It has a very high price and the payment is not a one-time shot. It's a huge ongoing investment of time and because time is money in the modern world, it's lot of money to invest. So the question is whether all the freedoms that come with democratic government are worth the high price for all peoples in all circumstances. From a Darwinian perspective, and during earlier eras, the answer would be no; the Democracy Stage Show Kit essay looks briefly at one reason--the exhaustion factor. But the choice is no longer about accepting democracy. The choice is how well the human race survives this century.

A Palestinian once told Pundita that humanity has no worries about the future because Muslim prophets have said that the end of the world is near. Hello, the end of the world is sure enough near for some peoples if they don't get cracking but we're not looking at a doomsday scenario in this century. We're looking at hell on earth for a lot more people, if we don't get more brainpower set to work on the problems we're facing. The fastest and best way to do this is via genuine democratic government beep this is a recording.

The US government needs to take all the above into consideration, the next time they decide to cut corners--for the greater good--and support a democracy stage show. They need to update their concept of the greater good. Same goes for the governments in other developed countries. Let's get it together, ladies and gentlemen, because this earth will not suspend her schedule of events while we're working through our issues.

In the Democracy Stage Show Kit I noted, "We have simply passed the era when a small elite could be counted on to properly manage the problems of governing a populace. It takes large numbers of people to efficiently govern populations that run into the hundreds of millions. "

In his commentary Zenpundit observes, "This point is not merely one of functionality but of political legitimacy."

I agree, and yet functionality and political legitimacy must converge, else the concept of 'government' is rendered invalid. I don't know the exact population number that has to be reached before tribal government begins to break down but at some point up in the thousands, it does. The same for imperial government when the population rises to the millions. "Things fall apart, the center cannot hold."

From then on, the choice is to rule by force or bring in democracy, which can efficiently govern very large numbers. Yet the functionality of democracy has not been emphasized during the past century; democracy has been presented as a philosophical subject and ideal. That's allowed for a lot of fuzzy inspirational talk and not much talk about the nuts of bolts of democratic government. That's what is missing, when we preach democracy. A little less preaching, a little more explanation. That would make it harder to palm off a show for the real deal.

We might try something new for a change and get creative. Someone could think up a board game that has players set up a democratic government. Then would come the computer game. Then the movie and the theme park.

Better yet--ask Mark Burnett to create a reality show on setting up a democratic government. Maybe we could get a LDC government to cooperate. The president of the country could give the same task to different members of his government then fire the one who did worst with the task. You could spin a soap opera off it. The BBC would pick it up; it could go on playing forever all around the world, like EastEnders.

Well why not, if you really want to see 'the masses' learn democratic government? But gee come to think of it, there never has been that much interest in teaching the masses the actual nuts and bolts of democratic government. What we've had is--

Freedom for you and freedom for me!
We'll be free with democracy...

Vacation time, review time

Pundita is getting in a whole two weeks of vacation! Of course I will be taking along a copy of Norm Podhoretz's Is the Bush Doctrine Dead? and Paul Wolfowitz's security 'doctrine' -- what's available of it in the public domain.

This seems a good time to review issues that seriously impact America's security and Bush's Democracy Doctrine. (The latter can, I think, be analyzed separately from the National Security Doctrine.) So Pundita has rooted in her archives for posts that will help me - and, I hope, the reader - review such issues. I will be publishing a "golden oldie" every day of my vacation with the exception of Sunday.

The first in the series, House of Cards, is posted below.

Until September 16th, then.

Best regards to all,
Pundita

Pundita Golden Oldie: House of Cards

Originally published September 2005
Reviewing a reader's question about corruption in Peru's construction industry reminds Pundita that two US states famous for corruption, Mississippi and Louisiana, are undertaking a massive reconstruction effort. So now is good time to bone up on a report about corruption in the construction industry and guidelines for averting the worst abuse of public monies --

September 2
"Dear Pundita:
I've lived in Latin America on and off for years. I've often wondered how US aid money gets from taxpayers' pockets to corrupt officials' private bank accounts. A flow chart would be fascinating (and heartbreaking).

The stealing going on must be tremendous. There is virtually no investment in infrastructure in most Latin American cities. Public works is a complete nil. I agree with one of your basic assessments (my paraphrase): it is not that rich people -- say, in Latin America -- are particularly bad or twisted, but they do not tax themselves.

Latin America does not have an IRS-type agency that has the Fear of God as a backstop. Basically, nobody pays taxes at any significant level. Or at minimum, there doesn't seem to be any honest collection and distribution system.

In any case, would you be willing to explain just how corruption works? Take for example some Minister -- say the Director, Ministerio de Vivienda of Peru. The public monies coming in cannot be all that large. Foreign aid on the other hand represents a respectable pile of cash.

How does our director go about getting his divvy of US foreign aid?
Doug in Seattle"

Dear Doug:
Actually the rich are soaked in countries without a fair tax code and enforced collection system; the taxation on the rich is whatever the traffic will bear. However, the taxation is under the table, as I pointed out in Paw a Revenuer's at the door....

In other words, there is always de facto taxation in effect. If you have to pay bribes to get anything done that's a tax albeit an illegal one.

The biggest problem with this kind of taxation is that the revenue, if it can be called that, is not spent on works that benefit the public as a whole. That sets in motion a vicious cycle. The roads or electricity will be somewhat reliable in a rich neighborhood, thanks to bribes, but because other regions or sections of a city go without, the rich end up spending exorbitant monies to do business or simply function outside their own neighborhood.

That much human stupidity is hysterically funny when looked at from the longest view. More than once Pundita has had to tell a bald-faced lie, in order to explain away her peals of laughter while listening to the complaints of the rich in countries that run on bribes.

"Bah! Nothing works in this crazy country! Our entire shipment rotted on the docks again because the roads washed out! I can't tell you how much in bribes it cost to get things moving again!"

If you see someone who is otherwise sane whacking himself in the shins with a tire iron then complaining, "I can't walk," at first you feel sympathy. But once you've heard, "This is my tradition" a few times it's hard not to think of The Three Stooges.

The good news: that much stupidity is severely punished in a globalized trade system unless there is an external force propping it up. Enter foreign aid and development loans.

So I'm going to throw you a curve ball. Even if the aid agency or development bank could somehow prevent corruption, which often can't be done without draconian, expensive oversight measures, you're not even out of the gate.

The truth is that as long as many governments have a way to stave off a realistic, enforced tax code, they'll take it. That's because the wealthy faction that put them in power throws a hissy fit when confronted with an iron-clad tax code and collection enforcement.

The World Bank has learned this lesson the hard way and USAID is catching up.(1) That's why they've gone gaga over remittances. The reasoning is that if they have to contribute to tax delinquency, at least work it so they're not the only ones. Encourage chump immigrants to send their hard-earned money over and above taxes back home.

In this way, the chumps continue to support the home administration's habit of blowing revenue to keep the rich from overthrowing them. Then we're right back at shin whacking.

Here you might ask why the wealthiest nations don't simply shut off development loans and aid except for outright disasters. The answer is that aid and development banking are mega-industries.

Even if you only gave aid in the form of outright cash, you'd be helping to support the banking sector because you have to collect, transfer and disburse the cash. However, most aid is in the form of goods or service, which helps support contractors and subcontractors.

Same principle applies to development banks. See Development Banks under the Pundita Selected Essays on the sidebar.

The industry of being helpful to the poor supports so many livelihoods that if you somehow managed the impossible and shut it down, it would spring up again virtually overnight.

The development loan industry even supports the industry that's grown up to invest in helping the poorest in the poorest nations, if you can feature that. There are funds you can invest in that specialize in providing micro loans to the world's poorest entrepreneurs. You don't get a big return, of course, but if you want to invest in 'socially responsible' projects, an industry has arisen to tend to that desire.

I hasten to add that investing in micro-projects, which can be as small as a few hundred dollars, is a good idea in principle. And in practice micro-investing brings genuine and generally corruption-free assistance to the neediest and hardest working.

Yet as soon as the poor expand beyond a tiny neighborhood business, they run into the same problems the rich run into in their country. The electricity fails during business hours, the roads are washed out, the garbage isn't picked up, and so on down the long list. So what do the fledgling entrepreneurs end up doing? They pay more bribe money.

How to break the vicious cycle? The US government has hit on the idea of promoting genuine democracy and election reforms in the poorest countries. The reasoning is that if more people in the poorest countries are brought into the voting and governing process, collective wisdom will break self-destructive traditions.

As to how aid money gets from Americans' bank accounts into the hands of corrupt officials, it depends on how the aid transfer is set up and the form it takes. Money can be skimmed or outright stolen by a virtually infinite variety of means. Close oversight, which costs a lot of money, is the only way to insure that most of the aid won't wend its way into the wrong hands.

With regard to corruption in public construction works, you will find the 2005 report by Transparency International of interest. You might want to first read their press release, which is cheerily titled, "A world built on bribes?"

Or go directly to Global Corruption Report 2005, which focuses on corruption in construction and post-conflict reconstruction. And ahem the guidelines and warnings apply as well to post-disaster reconstruction.

1) USAID Anticorruption Strategy 2005 (PDF).

Chad's president throws a tantrum at the World Bank: If you don't love me I'll go to Grandma's House!

Chad plays China against the US. Memorize this story -- the basic plot known to all cunning children with a doting grandparent living nearby -- because it's the shape of US efforts in the developing world for years to come.

The production and export of petroleum in Chad are overseen by the Exxon Mobil-led consortium. Under the mechanism, Exxon Mobil ... is responsible for 40 percent of the country's production, while Chevron has 25 percent and [Malaysia's] Petronas has 30 percent.

The three companies agreed to finance a $4.2 billion, 650-mile pipeline to deliver oil from landlocked Chad to a port in Cameroon.

The companies agreed to invest the money after the World Bank gave the project its support and after Chad passed a World Bank-backed oil revenue law that required most of the money to go to health, education and infrastructure projects. ...

But the venture has proved troubling for Chad, one of the poorest countries in the world. In January, the World Bank froze $125 million in oil revenue and cut $124 million in financial aid, accusing Chad of reneging on a promise to set aside part of its oil revenue to help citizens.

Last month, the government reached a deal with the bank and signed an accord to commit 70 percent of its budget to poverty and development programs. ..."

August 26, 2006
N'Djamena, Chad - Chad's president on Saturday ordered two oil companies, Chevron Corp. and Petronas, to leave the country, saying that neither had paid taxes and that his country would take responsibility for the oil fields they have overseen. [...]

If the two companies are evicted, Chad could seek help from China, which has taken an active interest in Africa in its search for raw materials, including oil and metals. Earlier this month, Chad broke off diplomatic relations with Taiwan and turned instead to China, a move that could help it sell its oil to the energy-hungry power. ...

California-based Chevron said in a statement Saturday that it had not been behind on any tax payments and had not been told it must leave Chad. ...

Mark D. Boudreaux, a spokesman for Exxon Mobil, told The Associated Press by e-mail that neither his company, nor affiliate Esso Chad has been asked to leave the country.

Chad's largest labor organization backed Deby's move, saying the country was being exploited by foreign oil companies, state-owned radio reported. However, opposition groups said on another radio station that only members of Deby's tribe - whose heartland is in the oil-rich north of the country - benefit from oil production.

Political scientist Roland Marchal, an expert in Chadian affairs, said Deby is unlikely to go through with the expulsion.

"Deby is playing both the nationalist card because he is saying that foreign companies are taking Chad's money, which is popular, and also that if these two companies are not flexible enough to come to a new agreement where Chad receives more money, then Deby can always talk to the Chinese ..."

Quotes compiled from two Associated Press reports filed by Madjiasra Nako: Chad Plans to Evict 2 Oil Firms Over Unpaid Taxes and Chad Suspends 3 Ministers Over Oil Deals

Of course Mom and Pop made a concession:

But the World Bank also agreed to allow 30 percent of oil revenue to go toward Chad's general treasury, instead of just 15 percent. Chad can use that money on whatever it wants -- including weapons.

And of course China's Grandma has very big teeth. But where there's life there's hope and negotiation:

August 30
Chad Panel to Renegotiate Oil agreements

N'Djamena, Chad (Associated Press)- Chad President Idriss Deby has formed a commission to renegotiate agreements with oil companies, after he ordered Chevron Corp. of the United States and Malaysia's Petronas out of the country for allegedly failing to pay taxes, his spokesman said Wednesday.

Deby signed a decree late Tuesday establishing the commission, presidential spokesman Dieudonne Djonabaye said. ...

Eeek! My blog has been taken over by Batchelorites!

Every Pundita post I ever wrote on John Batchelor's radio show has come back to haunt me, as Batchelorites descend looking to glean information on Our Hero's leave-taking. My poor little 100-limit site meter log is overwhelmed.

I will not sugar coat this; for now the terrorist-sponsoring states and their goons won a skirmish with John's ejection from his nationally syndicated radio show at ABC Radio.

And while John is off the air we're really going to appreciate how much work his research and his regular reporting sources saved us. There's nothing for it but to roll up our sleeves and descend on the milblogs and Google's search engine.

So this is a good time to thank John Batchelor, his staff, and the guest regulars on his show at ABC for all their years of service since September 12, 2001. I wish them smooth sailing in Batchelor's next broadcast venture.

Remember to check periodically at Batchelor's website for news on the show's next broadcast site. (The website and the John Batchelor Show belong to John, not Commodus - er, ABC.) and you can email John at the address shown at the website under "Contact us" in the menu column.

In the meantime we can keep up with important global news by making daily visits to The Intelligence Summit news page and following the links.

For readers who have never listened to the John Batchelor show and wonder what the fuss is all about, you can read the Wikipedia article, which features quotes from one of Pundita's posts.

For a less objective but more personal look at Batchelor you can read The New York Times February 2006 article.

For readers in a hurry, here are the Pundita passages on the show that Wiki quotes:

Batchelor's show represents post-partisan, intelligence-based news analysis and reporting. He and his sources unpack background to major news events over days, months, and even years so that the listener develops an in-depth, coherent view of a particular region or issue.

First American news program to treat the United States as a superpower nation. First American news program to look at international news from a uniquely American perspective. First news program to integrate daily news coverage with 21st century issues--energy, space exploration, etc.

. . . Analysis of US politics and European/other world region politics--Middle East, China, India, Former Soviet Union, African countries, etc. Reports regularly on State Department, White House, Congress, US intelligence agencies. Nightly in-depth reporting on war on terror. US history discussions, strong on US war history. Cultural trends. Discussions about new books on literary/historical figures.

Of course all Batchelorites know that the above doesn't do full justice to the show. We who consume news 24/7 depend on Batchelor's discussions with authors of books on the arts; science; and higher mathematics, which save us from grunting in monosyllables at dinner parties.

Tick tock tick tock it's almost 10 o'clock

11:45 PM ET Update
Batchelor let drop a little more news about his plans during the John Loftus Report. He said that the network he's going to after ABC will be connected with the Hoover Institution.

And crank up the theme music from "Gladiator!" Batchelor is retiring undefeated from ABC; he has been #1 in ratings since -- well, for years, and he's still #1. So, conspiracy theorists can have a field day speculating as to the real reason ABC Radio decided to ax John's show.

More news: John Loftus is in discussion with Discovery Channel to have his own weekly "spy" show. Now won't that be a show! The contract is not signed yet but obviously negotiations are promising for Loftus to mention it.
* * * * * * * * * *
10:37 PM ET Update
"The princes of serendipity have arrived and we are making the best of it."

Bah. That's not information, that's poetry. But then I assume ABC Radio wouldn't be overjoyed if John announced his plans on their airwaves.

Batchelor also said that he was leaving "not by my instigation." That we already know. Loftus wrote this morning that the network is being sold.

John also said something I didn't catch on account of munching on popcorn (I thought this was to be a major announcement) but it was to the effect that he'd continue with something or other and with his weekly column for The New York Sun.

Malcolm Hoenlein chimed in to say that this is not the end "but will be a new beginning" for Batchelor's show and that he'll be with John on the new Batchelor show.

A little more information can be gleaned from the John Batchelor Show website:

Starting Monday, September 4, 2006, The John Batchelor Show will be on hiatus until further notice, to return probably in late fall of 2006. We extend our warm thanks and appreciation to all the listeners of The John Batchelor Show, without whom we would not have had the luxury of producing the program. If you'd like more information on the future of The John Batchelor Show, please check this website for further announcements. We look forward with pleasure to resuming again and intend to do so soon enough.

I suspect that "late fall" will be in December, if I correctly read Loftus' email.

As to where the new show will be airing -- I guess we'll have to watch the sky for smoke signals.

By the way, Ambassador John Bolton will be guesting on Batchelor's Wednesday show. He usually visits during the opening segment.
* * * * * * * * * *
9:28 PM ET:
Not that Pundita is pacing the floor in impatience or anything. Tune to John Batchelor's show tonight at 10:00 PM ET to get the scoop on why he's leaving ABC Radio. See my earlier post today if you're just learning the news.

This is how the blogosphere gets things done right

I'm glad I stopped by Riehl World View a second time today or I might have missed Dan's latest post. If you are new to the Ambulance story you might have trouble keeping up with the discussion in the linked essay. But following the twists and turns is worth the effort if you rely on the blogosphere to turn up news that the MSM (mainstream media)overlook or get wrong.

The blogosphere as a self-correcting medium, and the microscopic analysis that the blogosphere excels at (note the discussion of rust in the linked post), are both on display in Dan Riehl's I'd Advise The Blogosphere To Slow Down:

As the originator of the Red Cross Ambulance story, I would urge the elements of the blogosphere still running with the story to at least slow down, if not back up. They are increasingly looking like the very drive by media against which we so often rant, running the risk of being exploited by propagandists on another side of an issue. And no matter how much many of us may support that side, propagandists on both sides do exist. For the record, I'm guilty, too. [...]

Other bloggers can always learn something when Riehl decides to search his blogger's soul, as he did today on his second anniversary as a blogger, and when he takes fellow bloggers to task.

John Batchelor will have the last word. Tune in tonight.

Friday is John Batchelor's last date of broadcasting for ABC Radio. John Mainelli's column at the New York Post published the news on Monday morning but I didn't learn of it until John announced the news during his opening Monday night segment.

Long time regular Pundita readers can imagine my reaction. It was somewhat like hearing the sun had fallen from the sky. I couldn't imagine what this country would do without Batchelor's reports on the war on terror and on other major issues shaping this century and America's place in it.

Pundita dashed off an email to Batchelor regular John Loftus of Intelligence Summit; it said simply, "This hit me hard."

Loftus replied that I should be sure to listen to Batchelor's show tonight for news on why the show is leaving ABC.

And a cryptic response from Batchelor in the wee hours, in response to a whiny email, gives me hope that the John Batchelor Show will soon have another roost on the airwaves.

Dan Riehl, take a bow

Today is Dan Riehl's second anniversary as a blogger. Here he republishes his first effort for the blogosphere. The writing conveys the signature elements of his blog: direct, from the heart, and very shrewd. Riehl World View is a great addition to the blogosphere and it's been a staunch friend to Pundita blog.

Dan, if you can keep finding the time to inform and educate us, I wish you many more years of success on the blogosphere.

Forget Podhoretz's four pillars; the Bush Doctrine needs flying buttresses

The Bush Doctrine is a towering edifice of ideas; it's a veritable manifesto of US international relations for the post 9/11 era. As such the doctrine does not, and cannot, serve as a US National Security Strategy and yet that is the doctrine's formal name and stated purpose.

So it's no wonder that many have pronounced the doctrine dead and charged that President Bush has abandoned it. However, one can't abandon something so weighted with diverse assertions that it can't get off the ground. That means Norman Podhoretz is technically correct in both defending Bush's actions (for a commander-in-chief can't actually deviate from a body of ideas that is not specific to national defense) and claiming the doctrine has not died.

Policy analysts noted of the first incarnation of the doctrine (published in September 2002) that in key aspects it was based on Paul Wolfowitz's 1992 Defense Planning Guidance draft co-authored with Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

The 2006 incarnation of the US National Security Strategy -- hilariously claiming to be supported by just two pillars -- piles on more points about human dignity, what it takes to make governments work, and a recipe for Salad Nicoise.

So what we need to do here, before trying to decide whether we should simply frame the Bush Doctrine for posterity and rely on Wolfowitz's manifesto for our national security, is plow through both incarnations of the security strategy and study the Wolfowitz document.

That will be the summer project for Pundita readers. Yes I know it won't be as fun as last summer's project (China's Mystery Pig Disease Epidemic) but I trust it will be greatly less confounding.

What is this, National Balkans Month?

Pundita's cogitations on Norm Podhoretz's Four Pillars of the Bush Doctrine were rudely interrupted by Senator Joseph Biden's Thursday editorial for The Washington Post, in which he argues that in order to save Iraq from sectarian violence we must destroy it:

The five-point plan Les Gelb and I laid out [...] calls for maintaining a unified Iraq by decentralizing it and giving Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis their own regions. The central government would be left in charge of common interests, such as border security and the distribution of oil revenue. [...]

Biden hauls in Bosnia to explain what he's talking about:

The example of Bosnia is illustrative, if not totally analogous. Ten years ago, Bosnia was being torn apart by ethnic cleansing. The United States stepped in decisively with the Dayton Accords to keep the country whole by, paradoxically, dividing it into ethnic federations. We even allowed Muslims, Croats and Serbs to retain separate armies. With the help of U.S. troops and others, Bosnians have lived a decade in peace.

There is no meaningful comparison between Bosnia and Iraq in this argument because Bosnia is not swimming in oil; nor is it sitting next to Iran.

Yet Biden's editorial is not the first time in recent weeks I've come across similarly flawed reasoning. So let me see if I understand the argument for the balkanization of Iraq:

A great failure of the American experiment in nationhood is that wars between Italian and Irish gangs for control of the bootleg liquor trade did not produce Bostonia and Chicagoia.

This failure built on Lincoln's catastrophic mistake in not allowing the southern states to become The Americas Republic of England and Teddy's wrongheaded decision not to cede Texas to Mexico.

My pen drips with sarcasm when I observe that the only condition under which the Iraqis should consider balkanization is if Iran would also agree to undergo the balkanization process so that the border of Shiastan is finally and fairly drawn.

But of course Iran would not tolerate a molecule of their nation ceded to a "tribal area," nor does Iran lust solely for Iraq's south. They want the whole enchilada, and in particular the oil-rich Kurdish region.

If Iraq is balkanized into three regions it will be impossible for each to muster an army capable of standing up to Iran's military. So Iran would not need to invade to gain control of the Kurdish region; they would only need to cut a deal with Turkey to harry the Kurds from two sides until so much oil tribute is paid to both that the Kurds can barely afford the price of Iran's tea.

To say that US muscle would prevent such an outcome is to argue for a large permanent US troop deployment -- across a region fragmented into competing tribal areas!

A balkanized Iraq simply means that the Arab gulf states and Iran's gulf state have more pawns to play against each other in their cold war for control of the Strait of Hormuz.

The Western powers that carved up the Iraq-Iran region did a typical botched job of drawing borders. But they got one thing right. They imposed the idea of nationhood on tribal peoples. That is a very good thing in an age when fabulous natural resources in a region invariably install the cruelest of pashas in place of the fatherly chieftain.

To support the argument for balkanization Senator Biden observes:

In December's [Iraq] elections, 90 percent of the votes went to sectarian lists. Ethnic militias increasingly are the law in Iraq. They have infiltrated the official security forces.

Have Biden and Gelb no sense of the history of American politics in cities that saw ethnic strife and non-government militias during America's peak immigrant decades?

Recall the time when New York was run by the Five Points gang, which controlled Tammany Hall and terrorized the fledgling police force. This was not reason to turn New York out of the Union, or to see in the power of gangster militias cause to balkanize the American Union. Why, then, not accord the same tolerance to the Iraqis' struggles to make their nation work as a democracy?

Or does Biden fear that tolerance equates to Congress writing out more checks to send more US troops to Iraq, so the Bush Administration can finally get the job of post-conflict stabilization done right?

In the end, those who argue for balkanization of Iraq are making a contradictory argument. On the one hand they recognize that Iran foments much trouble and supports the most powerful militias in Iraq. On the other hand, they want to exclude Iran from the discussion while observing that 'sectarian violence' is tearing the country apart anyhow!

The only ones who profit from the contradiction are al Qaeda and Iran's IRCG.

"The 'New Middle East' Bush Is Resisting"

As promised, here is the text to the opinion article I mentioned in today's earlier post:

The 'New Middle East' Bush Is Resisting
By Saad Eddin Ibrahim
The Washington Post
Wednesday, August 23, 2006; Page A15

"President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may be quite right about a new Middle East being born. In fact, their policies in support of the actions of their closest regional ally, Israel, have helped midwife the newborn. But it will not be exactly the baby they have longed for. For one thing, it will be neither secular nor friendly to the United States. For another, it is going to be a rough birth.

What is happening in the broader Middle East and North Africa can be seen as a boomerang effect that has been playing out slowly since the horrific events of Sept. 11, 2001. In the immediate aftermath of those attacks, there was worldwide sympathy for the United States and support for its declared "war on terrorism," including the invasion of Afghanistan. Then the cynical exploitation of this universal goodwill by so-called neoconservatives to advance hegemonic designs was confirmed by the war in Iraq. The Bush administration's dishonest statements about "weapons of mass destruction" diminished whatever credibility the United States might have had as liberator, while disastrous mismanagement of Iraqi affairs after the invasion led to the squandering of a conventional military victory. The country slid into bloody sectarian violence, while official Washington stonewalled and refused to admit mistakes. No wonder the world has progressively turned against America.

Against this declining moral standing, President Bush made something of a comeback in the first year of his second term. He shifted his foreign policy rhetoric from a "war on terrorism" to a war of ideas and a struggle for liberty and democracy. Through much of 2005 it looked as if the Middle East might finally have its long-overdue spring of freedom. Lebanon forged a Cedar Revolution, triggered by the assassination of its popular former prime minister, Rafiq Hariri. Egypt held its first multi-candidate presidential election in 50 years. So did Palestine and Iraq, despite harsh conditions of occupation. Qatar and Bahrain in the Arabian Gulf continued their steady evolution into constitutional monarchies. Even Saudi Arabia held its first municipal elections.

But there was more. Hamas mobilized candidates and popular campaigns to win a plurality in Palestinian legislative elections and form a new government. Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt achieved similar electoral successes. And with these developments, a sudden chill fell over Washington and other Western capitals.

Instead of welcoming these particular elected officials into the newly emerging democratic fold, Washington began a cold war on Muslim democrats. Even the tepid pressure on autocratic allies of the United States to democratize in 2005 had all but disappeared by 2006. In fact, tottering Arab autocrats felt they had a new lease on life with the West conveniently cowed by an emerging Islamist political force.
Now the cold war on Islamists has escalated into a shooting war, first against Hamas in Gaza and then against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel is perceived in the region, rightly or wrongly, to be an agent acting on behalf of U.S. interests. Some will admit that there was provocation for Israel to strike at Hamas and Hezbollah following the abduction of three soldiers and attacks on military and civilian targets. But destroying Lebanon with an overkill approach born of a desire for vengeance cannot be morally tolerated or politically justified -- and it will not work.

On July 30 Arab, Muslim and world outrage reached an unprecedented level with the Israeli bombing of a residential building in the Lebanese village of Qana, which killed dozens and wounded hundreds of civilians, most of them children. A similar massacre in Qana in 1996, which Arabs remember painfully well, proved to be the political undoing of then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres. It is too early to predict whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will survive Qana II and the recent war. But Hezbollah will survive, just as it has already outlasted five Israeli prime ministers and three American presidents.

Born in the thick of an earlier Israeli invasion, in 1982, Hezbollah is at once a resistance movement against foreign occupation, a social service provider for the needy of the rural south and the slum-dwellers of Beirut, and a model actor in Lebanese and Middle Eastern politics. Despite access to millions of dollars in resources from within and from regional allies Syria and Iran, its three successive leaders have projected an image of clean governance and a pious personal lifestyle.
In more than four weeks of fighting against the strongest military machine in the region, Hezbollah held its own and won the admiration of millions of Arabs and Muslims. People in the region have compared its steadfastness with the swift defeat of three large Arab armies in the Six-Day War of 1967. Hasan Nasrallah, its current leader, spoke several times to a wide regional audience through his own al-Manar network as well as the more popular al-Jazeera. Nasrallah has become a household name in my own country, Egypt.

According to the preliminary results of a recent public opinion survey of 1,700 Egyptians by the Cairo-based Ibn Khaldun Center, Hezbollah's action garnered 75 percent approval, and Nasrallah led a list of 30 regional public figures ranked by perceived importance. He appears on 82 percent of responses, followed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (73 percent), Khaled Meshal of Hamas (60 percent), Osama bin Laden (52 percent) and Mohammed Mahdi Akef of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood (45 percent).

The pattern here is clear, and it is Islamic. And among the few secular public figures who made it into the top 10 are Palestinian Marwan Barghouti (31 percent) and Egypt's Ayman Nour (29 percent), both of whom are prisoners of conscience in Israeli and Egyptian jails, respectively.

None of the current heads of Arab states made the list of the 10 most popular public figures. While subject to future fluctuations, these Egyptian findings suggest the direction in which the region is moving. The Arab people do not respect the ruling regimes, perceiving them to be autocratic, corrupt and inept. They are, at best, ambivalent about the fanatical Islamists of the bin Laden variety. More mainstream Islamists with broad support, developed civic dispositions and services to provide are the most likely actors in building a new Middle East. In fact, they are already doing so through the Justice and Development Party in Turkey, the similarly named PJD in Morocco, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in Palestine and, yes, Hezbollah in Lebanon.

These groups, parties and movements are not inimical to democracy. They have accepted electoral systems and practiced electoral politics, probably too well for Washington's taste. Whether we like it or not, these are the facts. The rest of the Western world must come to grips with the new reality, even if the U.S. president and his secretary of state continue to reject the new offspring of their own policies.

The writer is an Egyptian democracy activist, professor of political sociology at the American University in Cairo, and chairman of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies.

Correction to This Article
An earlier version of this op-ed that appeared in the print edition incorrectly identified the writer's credentials. Saad Eddin Ibrahim is no longer at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars."

Pundita has been thinking, thinking, thinking

If you have not yet read Norman Podhoretz's Is the Bush Doctrine Dead? all you need do is Google the essay to get an idea of how much discussion it's touched off in US foreign policy circles and the blogosphere. As Powerline's Paul Mirengoff observes:

Mr. Podhoretz does a great job of exposing a number of myths -- from nearly all positions on the political spectrum -- about the Bush Doctrine and the extent of its author's adherence thereto.

To expose the myths Podhoretz makes short work of the embalmed thinking represented by William F. Buckley Jr. and George Will, the gargoyles still guarding the Council on Foreign Relations, and a host of chipmunks posing as learned commentators.

But the essay does more than dispute; it also proposes. In particular it reviews the "four pillars" that Norman Podhoretz has proposed as the foundation for the Bush Democracy Doctrine. It is the four pillars that plunged Pundita into deep thought. I note that Paul Mirengoff's brow is also furrowed in thought:

In the end, I agree that the Bush Doctrine is not dead. However, I fear that the Doctrine may have a fever due to a serious tension between two of its primary elements.

It is important not to get lost in the thicket: there are Bush's statements, and there are Mr. Podhoretz's pillars, which are not necessarily a seamlessly correct interpretation of the doctrine. But let us not beat around the bush; Mirengoff targets a conflict between incidents on the ground and the belief that democracy is the best antidote to terrorism. Then he takes a side in the conflict that might be called irrational but only if you're not in the crosshairs of a terrorist attack.

So now you have some idea of why Pundita has been lost in thought for days. If you've not yet had the fun of reading Podhoretz's long but beautifully written essay I suggest you settle down with it before turning to Mirengoff's pithy commentary.

I also point you to Saad Eddin Ibrahim's very important editorial for Wednesday's Washington Post titled The 'New Middle East' Bush is Resisting. His comments zero in on the very question Mirengoff raises and are a wonderful summary of the US compromises between short-term strategic interests in the Middle East and the aim of the Democracy Doctrine.*

Norman Podhoretz musters a defense of the compromises: the US had to make many compromises while fighting the Cold War and one should be grown up about the compromises needed to fell this century's global enemy. Although the defense is comforting I am not sure it stands up to brute logic.

If you complain I haven't given you enough reading for the week, you might wish to read or review We had to destroy this democracy to save it, which I published in November 2005. Note that no one in Washington has gotten around to tackling the sly question Pundita posed: "What is the difference between a market economy and a democracy?"

That is enough musing out loud. I return now to pondering those four pillars. Ready or not I will post on the status of my cogitations by noon Saturday. Until then, I hope you will join me in thinking on Podhoretz's many challenging points.

* As of this writing, the editorial is not yet available online without registering at the Post; if it's not available Thursday by 4:00 PM Eastern time I will post the entire writing at that time for readers who hate registering at websites.

Whack-a-mole: How US fights when funding dries up

Sunday's Meet the Press program focused on the current situation in Iraq. Kudos to moderator David Gregory for sticking with the Iraqi troop deployment issue long enough to elicit pinpoint replies from Senator John McCain and General Barry McCaffrey.

I've moved around parts of the exchanges and considerably shortened the transcript, so I suggest it is time well spent if you read the entire discussion (both half hours), which is a good snapshot of where things stand now in Iraq for the US effort. Here I concentrate on what I consider the most illuminating and alarming observations; namely:

> We've been told for years that if commanders on the ground in Iraq need more troops they just need ask. Yet according to Senator McCain the decision is supposed to come from the Pentagon, not the commanders on the ground. He describes the issue as one of leadership from Washington.

> McCain asserts that more US troops are needed in Iraq. But the discussion is beside the point because the Army doesn't have enough funds to support more troops and even if they had more troops their equipment is falling apart.

The big question is the same one that's been debated for years: whether more troops in Iraq would be a solution. I have always left this question to the military bloggers. But the simple truth is that while the type of violence in Iraq has changed over the years the violence has not abated. So I think it's time to follow the counsel of Senator McCain, on the theory that we've tried everything else.

However, General McCaffrey's comments call into question whether the US is capable of getting additional troops to Iraq in enough time to halt the slide toward civil war. McCain seems to think there is enough time if the decision makers act quickly.

DAVID GREGORY: Do you think [US] military commanders on the ground [in Iraq] are asking for more troops?

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: I know that military commanders on the ground need more troops, whether they’re asking for them or not. But see, this is kind of a false argument. It’s not up to the commanders on the ground, it’s up to the leaders who assess the entire battlefield situation to decide whether they need. I’ve known very few commanders in the field who say, “I need help.”

So it’s up to the assessment made at the Pentagon level. And from the beginning, we didn’t have enough in the [Iraq] invasion, the initial invasion itself.

MR. GREGORY: But this is an important point because if there’s no clear commitment for more troops and a firm belief by you and others that more troops are needed, what’s standing in the way? Why aren’t military leaders asking, and is there politics involved that’s keeping troops from being deployed?

SEN. McCAIN: I think it’s got to do with the decisions that are made in the Pentagon. And I think that’s the sum total of it, and the advice that the president gets from the people that are on his team. And I don’t think it’s good advice. But I know that the president’s committed to win. I know that he will do what’s necessary. Many times he has said we will do whatever is necessary and I believe him. [...]

MR. GREGORY: General Barry McCaffrey [...] Our troops are not trained to referee a civil war. From a military point of view, as you come up with strategies, how do you navigate this current reality in Iraq?

GEN. BARRY McCAFFREY: [...] the battle of Baghdad won’t be solved by the United States Army. We’ve had 22,000 killed and wounded; two-thirds of our brigades, the ones that aren’t deployed, in the United States Army National Guard now, are not ready to fight. So the surge capability to deal with this from a military perspective is not there.

MR. GREGORY: Do you think more troops are needed at this point?

GEN. McCAFFREY: I’m not sure it’s the right question. First of all, they’re not available. The National Guard brigades—you know, we just had Lieutenant General Blum testifying, we had the chief staff of the Army testifying. The Army is $23 billion short, our equipment’s coming apart, we’re drafting 42-year-old grandmothers to be privates in the Army. I shouldn’t have said draft; asking for volunteers. So I don’t think the combat power is there in the Army and the Marine Corps to solve this problem militarily. We are a safety valve, we’re a peacekeeping mechanism, but the Iraqi security forces are going to have to pull this one together [...]

MR GREGORY: [President Bush] has said repeatedly that he has a strategy to win, that if his commanders want more forces [in Iraq], they will get them. Should more troops be sent?

SEN. McCAIN: Well, I think it’s been well documented now that we didn’t have enough there from the beginning, that we allowed the looting, that we did not have control, particularly, of areas, such [as] in the Sunni Triangle, which led to us paying a very heavy price. We make mistakes in every war, and serious mistakes were made here. The question is, are we going to be able to bring the situation under control now? I still believe we can. I think part of it has to do with the Mahdi Army and Sadr. Sadr has got to be taken out of this equation and his militia has got to be addressed forcefully.

MR. GREGORY: But to do that, do you need more U.S. soldiers on the ground now?

SEN. McCAIN: I think so. We took troops from places like Ramadi, which are still not under control, to put them into Baghdad. We’ve had to send in additional troops as they are. All along, we have not had enough troops on the ground to control the situation. Many, many people knew that and we’re paying a very heavy price for it. But I want to emphasize that we cannot lose this. It will cause chaos in Iraq and in the region, and it’s -- I still believe that we must prevail. [...]

MR. GREGORY: Well, let’s talk about the movement of troops throughout the country. Earlier this month, you said the following about U.S. forces going back into Iraq, some 7,000 troops. Let’s watch.

(Videotape, August 3, 2006):

SEN. McCAIN: And what I worry about is we’re playing a game of Whack A Mole here. We move troops -- it flares up, we move troops there. (End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: Whack A Mole. What are you talking about? What’s the concern?

SEN. McCAIN: Well, there’s the old arcade game where the head [appears], and you bang it down, and another head pops up someplace else, and that’s basically what I was talking about, is that we have never had sufficient number of troops to clear and hold.

The, what we call the oil spot strategy, which everybody knows is the successful way to combat an insurgency. So we’ve had to move our troops around from one place to another.

Fallujah was allowed for a period of a couple of years to become the center for terrorist operations through an insurgency throughout Iraq. We had to go in there, and these brave Marines and Army people, I mean, that was one of the historic battles in Marine and Army history. Eighty-six killed, 1,000 wounded because we didn’t have enough troops to control Fallujah to start with. That’s the object lesson. So then we had to move to Ramadi. Now, of course, Baghdad is the center of our attention now.

But I want to emphasize again, there are good things happening. We did have a free election, we do have a functioning government. Where—there are some parts of the country, particularly in the north, that things are good. It’s not all bad news. But it is a serious situation.

MR. GREGORY: But in the most dangerous parts of the country, you see this Whack-A-Mole approach. So what’s the consequence of that?

SEN. McCAIN: The consequences are is that we go in and we control an area for a short period of time and then we leave and then the insurgents filter back in.

MR. GREGORY: It’s not the right strategy, as far as you’re concerned?

SEN. McCAIN: It’s never been the right strategy as far as I’m concerned, since the beginning when I came back from my first trip to Iraq after every military person, including the British, told me that we didn’t have sufficient troops to control the situation. [...]

Fighting with empty hands

"Pundita,
I think the frustration is that many feel if we would only make up our minds to use force against elements like Hezbollah, we would experience no more anti-US feeling than we do now and, once defeated, there may actually be an ability to move forward with the populations.

We have decided the new warfare is not to defeat opponents, but to play games and wait until we "convert" them. That may be fine fifty years from now. In the meantime, we have to live with the terror threat every day.

What do you make of Iran's Aug. 22nd timing to respond to the UN?
Dan Riehl
Riehl World View "

Dear Dan:
The frustration you speak about tends to ignore the objective of war, so it overlooks much that the US has accomplished since 9/11. The question I always put to myself when I get frustrated is, "Do you want to win with blood or do you want to win?"

If you want to win with blood then we shouldn't have accepted Muammar al-Gaddafi's capitulation, which happened without a US shot fired at Libya.

If you want to win with blood then we should have upbraided whichever of the two zillion Arab factions who put out a contract on Yasser Arafat when they saw that Palestinian elections and Israeli disengagement from Gaza were going forward.

If you want to win with blood then we shouldn't have given Fouad Siniora's government an opportunity to use a lull in the Hezbollah-Israel conflict to cast Syria as the real villain of the piece.

If you want to win with blood then we should have refused to assassinate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi when Iran's military ratted out his location to their US counterpart.

All you need is to look at the devolution of the type of violence in Iraq to realize that the Iraqis are winning the peace with help from US muscle. At the end of the first year, Iraq was in the throes of a Baathist-led insurgency. At the end of the second year, Iraq was under attack from foreign-led forces. As we near the end of the third year, Baghdad is drowning in bloodshed from sectarian rivalries and warring gangs. Not pretty but it is huge progress and in less than three years.

President Bush said at the outset of this war that it would be fought on many fronts in many ways -- ways that the public couldn't always see. The war has so many fronts simply because it is a globally fought war that is generating the multiple fronts at the same time. And most of the battles are fought according to 4GW principles.

Yet I venture the people who are frustrated with the course of this war are looking at the Battle of Fallujah as the standard for how the US should fight. The catch is that the US military had to level the blinkin' town, and was saddled with the post-conflict stabilization phase.

So, much as I generally can't miss by blaming the State Department for everything that goes wrong, State is not playing fast and loose with America's life in the war on terror; neither is the Pentagon. There is a saying that you fight at the level you see. State and Pentagon see a great deal more than the public. This allows them to scramble to keep up with events that unfold with dizzying speed. Here's an example:

Because Iran's military uses a clunky Soviet era playbook for their meddling guidelines, they were blind to how Lebanon's government would react to the war they engineered with Israel on Lebanese soil.

Lebanon was angry at Israel but beside themselves with fury that Iran would use their country as a battering ram. They got back at Iran in a very telling way -- by turning blame on Syria!

Maybe State was blind at first but as soon as they realized what was going on, they scrambled to throw together any kind of cease fire. They saw that it didn't matter for US and Israel interests whether Israel thrashed around in Lebanon or had a clear victory; either way Lebanon's government had been landed a big pile of lemons and proceeded to make lemonade with them.

All that put Hassan Nasrallah, who is famously an Iranian puppet, in a terrible position. He really had no choice but to accept the cease fire if he didn't want to appear as trampling on Lebanon's sovereignty -- which Hezbollah is supposed to defend!

But for the large part the American public has been blind to what's really going on because they are focused on keeping score between Israel and Hezbollah and totting up Israel's mistakes in the conflict! They are not looking at things from the viewpoint of Lebanon's government.

I am afraid that such blindness is very typical in this fast-moving war if one isn't privy to classified intel reports! So the frustration you describe is understandable. Yet it's based on the view that either we act quickly to destroy the governments that sponsor terror, or terrorist acts of catastrophic scale will force the US to such destruction.

To intuit the flaw with such reasoning one only has to study the US post-conflict stabilization phase in just one town in Iraq -- Fallujah. The phase includes rebuilding and insuring that the enemy doesn't retake the town.

Governments the US can topple, and there's probably not a country in this world that the US military couldn't conquer. But it wouldn't be long into the conquests before the US would face the same problems that Genghis Khan and the Romans faced. It's those pesky post-conflict stabilization phases that are the bane of conquerors.

The only real solution is one the Romans used on Carthage. In other words, the way to quickly stop the terrorist threat is to practice genocide then render entire lands to dust. That's what the frustrated sentiment inadvertently asks for. Yet the Carthage solution is out of the question unless one wants to lose all the gains civilization made since the Enlightenment.

And we don't have enough Americans, let alone US troops, to manage the post-conflict stabilization phases if we toppled the 60 or so governments in the Middle East, Africa, and parts of Asia that we'd need to dispense with if we wanted to take the terrorist threat off the table. If we relied on the UN or coalitions of the willing to make up the shortfall, we'd be back in the same soup we've found in post-invasion Iraq.

However, the choice is not the Carthage Solution or nothing. The choice is to bog ourselves down in Cold War strategies or fight with 'empty hands' -- adjust on a dime to fast-moving situations so we can make the best use of them. This means making use of deadly force sometimes, and other times racing to the negotiation table to take advantage of a mistake by the enemy.

With regard to the significance of the timing of Tehran's announcement, I make the same of it that Beijing makes of it. I don't give a rat's hindquarters what Tehran says; I'm watching their actions.

We have to factor in China's relationship with Iran. Iran's ruling class got spoiled by the way Western diplomats and intellectuals pandered to their behavior since Iran's revolution. But the Chinese don't believe in pandering to grown people who act like homicidal juvenile delinquents on LSD.

According to what John Loftus told John Batchelor's audience on Friday, the Chinese want Tehran to knock off the mystic jibber jabber and start acting like businesspeople.

If Iran doesn't listen to China's money? Beijing will scotch trade deals with Tehran and get behind economic sanctions against Iran.

The price: China's military does want to be assured that the US won't cut and run from the Middle East anytime soon.

"Pundita, you forget Reagan's passing interest in Gaddafi, as when missiles passed over his head. And ultimately, I doubt he would have caved if he didn't see what was happening in Iraq.

I'm not suggesting going to war with everyone, but not shying away from it in some cases where it can expedite the process.
Dan Riehl"

Dan --
I have not forgotten, and I couldn't agree with you more about Gaddafi. And I think it's reasonable for Americans to worry that pressure from NATO allies and congressionals on both sides of the aisle could cause the US to draw back from a necessary military confrontation.

Yet up to this point I can't see where the US has backed away from lethal force where necessary in the war. What I have seen is the tendency by the public, journalists, pundits, and congressionals to react to very fluid events as if they were witnessing a final result, and from there assume that the US is losing the war. Americans need to sit hard on the tendency because the enemy can profit from it as much as from overconfidence.

War Boogie

At my age it's unseemly to hop onto an armchair and bounce up and down while yowling "Boogie oogie oogie!" But war events can sometimes bring out the seven year old in the most sedate people.

This happened last night while I listened to John Loftus report to John Batchelor that contrary to fast-gathering opinion, the Israelis had scored a rather stunning victory: just that night Hezbollah had quietly agreed to turn over their arms to the Lebanese army in a face-saving, under the table way.

Loftus also reported that the French government had read the riot act to Lebanon's government about their cowardly approach to dealing with Hezbollah, which prodded Beirut to action.

Readers who heard the ensuing exchange know that Batchelor was incredulous about Loftus' intel, which contradicted the intel from Batchelor's sources. In Batchelor's view, Israel had been soundly thrashed, Hezbollah was going to hold onto their arms, and Beirut was still hiding under the bed.

Loftus owlishly observed that maybe the truth was somewhere between the differing views, but he stood firmly behind his own sources (probably CENTCOM).

The good news that Loftus brought was so at odds with the conventional view of the status of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict that it's a reminder that events, not punditry, are in the saddle. It's also a reminder not to be swayed by early reports on how events are shaking out.

I'll allow myself one comment on Loftus' intel: if it's correct, Hezbollah's agreement to disarm is far worse than a fart in Iran's direction. It suggests that Hezbollah is thinking in nationalist terms; i.e., as an organization dedicated to Lebanon's best interests.

That can happen when a government throws off control by a foreign power (Syria, in this instance) and establishes political avenues for protest. Once the avenues open, why should Lebanon be Iran's poodle?

If Hassan Nasrallah is thinking in this way it's another sign that Iran's meddling has backfired, as it's backfiring in Iraq.

Okay, that's enough pondering. I just want to enjoy good news while I can, which I've learned to do during war. Boogie, anyone?

If you're thinkin' you're too cool to boogie
Boy oh boy have I got news for you!
Everybody here tonight must boogie
Let me tell ya' you are no exception to the rule!

Get on up on the floor!
Cuz we're gonna boogie oogie oogie
Till you just can't boogie no more . . . *

Taste of Honey's Boogie Oogie Oogie