The occupation of Iraq: forty years in the wilderness?

The New Neo Posted on by

I was at a talk recently given by one of my favorite Boston journalists and bloggers, Jules Crittenden. The conversation turned—as conversations often do these days—to the war and occupation in Iraq.

One of the themes that came up is the pace of change in a nation such as Iraq, previously subject to decades of bitter strife and vicious violence. This is where the realms of the political and the psychological intersect; generations brought up under a system such as was present in Iraq under Saddam are likely to hold different assumptions about the social contract, cooperation, and violence as a political tool than people brought up in a more civil and peaceful society tend to share.

That’s one of the reasons I always thought the postwar occupation of Iraq was going to have to be longer, and more directive, than those planning it seemed to think it would need to be. I had hoped they were correct, but it turns out they were not. Part of the reason, it must be said, is not anything about the Iraqi people themselves, but rather the intervention of their non-good neighbors Iran and Syria. But part of the reason is the understandably heavy and destructive psychological, political, and sociological legacy of the Saddam years.

I don’t believe, as some therapists do, that the mind is set virtually in stone very early in childhood. But I do believe that fundamental change is difficult, and that it is much easier to work with a younger generation to effect change in a society than it is to count on the older people.

The Palestinians know that full well, as do the makers of cigarettes. Still another example is the Biblical Passover story.

As the tale goes, after the Jews were freed from slavery they wandered in the wilderness (that’s the correct translation; it was not technically a desert) for forty years, one of those numbers in the Torah that is meant to stand for “a long time.”

Why? Why weren’t they rewarded by being shown the Promised Land instantly, or at least more quickly? The text says that they sometimes pined for the safety of their days of slavery in Egypt, and yearned after some of the good food that wasn’t available to them any more (manna from heaven apparently wasn’t quite as tasty as good old Egyptian melon).

The interpretation that I learned years ago, and that appeals to me most, is the following:

The [story] teaches us that there are no short-cuts to the Promised Land, and no instant transformation from bands of liberated slaves into responsible, self-governing nation; no generation of redemption (dor geulah) without a generation dying out in the desert (dor ha-midbar) preceding it.

So it’s not surprising that things are going slowly and laboriously in Iraq, and as I’ve written earlier, I never expected otherwise. Trying to create fundamental change in a broken society is one of the most difficult things to effect, and always has been, but as I wrote in the piece just linked, all the alternatives we faced (and still face) were worse.

It would be great if the Iraqi people had forty years in which to wander in the wilderness. But they don’t; the forces trying to destroy what they are trying to build are too powerful. But they certainly need and deserve more than a couple of months of our continued patience.

Hormones, heart disease, and breast cancer: first, do no harm

The New Neo Posted on by

For years, hormones were touted as the panacea for the menopausal and post-menopausal (dare I say, “aging”?) woman. HRT (hormone replacement therapy) was seen to be a fountain of youth in all respects, and who wouldn’t want that? Skin benefits, heart benefits, sexual benefits—you name it, hormones had it.

But in recent years the bloom is off the HRT rose. First it was the sad fact that, contrary to earlier reports, hormones not only didn’t prevent heart disease in women but even seemed to cause more of it. And recently the news from researchers is similar about breast cancer: hormones appear to either encourage new cases or accelerate the growth of already-present but as-yet-undiagnosed ones.

It’s a real bummer, to be sure. Although I’ve never taken the things, most of my friends do, and they’ve all had to make some tough decisions about symptom alleviation vs. risk of death.

The other question that comes to mind is: how on earth could medical researchers and doctors have gotten it so wrong, and for so long? And how do we know they are right now?

The short answer to the second question is: we don’t know. Our need to make our lives close to risk-free, although understandable, is unattainable. The short answer to the first question is that scientists use the best data possible at the time to make recommendations.

For example, as this article makes clear, the early data on hormones and heart disease was so promising that doctors felt secure in recommending them. In fact, the long-term studies on the topic were undertaken with such optimism, based on earlier and more limited studies, that doctors were convinced the larger studies would only serve to prove how very beneficial hormones were in preventing heart disease. They were shocked when the evidence proved them exceedingly wrong.

There is a certain amount of hubris in medicine, and a bit more caution when prescribing potentially dangerous drugs and interventions would be in order, so that the old oath of “first, do no harm” could be fulfilled. But doctors are also responding to our own demands for a pain- free life and eternal youth, and our impatience with the slow pace of medical knowledge and its fits and starts progress.

The West vs. jihadis: what sort of horse are we?

The New Neo Posted on by

I wrote yesterday that the current machinations of our Congress can only hearten the jihadis.

I just came across an opinion piece that appeared in the Wall Street Journal yesterday that drives home that idea. In it, Bernard Lewis—Princeton professor, scholar of Arab history and thought, and neocon advisor extraordinaire—makes a further point, which is that Muslim jihadis believe that they, not President Reagan or the West in general, were the real instruments of the downfall of the Soviets.

Makes a certain amount of sense, actually, despite its simplistic narrowness, because the Afghan War—interminable, unpopular, and above all costly—is widely regarded as one of several straws that broke the Soviet back.

Lewis also indicates that Osama (he of the famous strong/weak horse quote) and his followers considered the Soviets the far more powerful and ruthless “horse” compared to the United States, whose track record of response to terrorism, kidnappings, and the like displayed a muddled and well-meaning tolerance that was seen by the jihadis as weakness. Once the stronger opponent of al Qaeda, the Soviets, was defeated, it would be a relatively simple matter to overcome the weaker one, the US. In fact, we would probably cooperate in our own defeat.

The attacks of 9/11 were planned with that understandable mindset, but the muscular response of the US was a surprising break with precedent. Now there is evidence that the big stick we’ve been carrying has grown way too heavy for us to tolerate, and we ache to put it down and rest awhile.

Lewis is correct, I think, in saying that the jihadi perception of our weakness may be faulty; no one knows at this point what our response would be to another attack, for example. It may be that when push comes to shove, both parties in the US would unite to retaliate effectively and with strength no matter which party happens to be in charge at the time.

Or it may be that the whole thing will descend into political wrangling and impotence. But it seems clear to me that the signals we are now sending to the enemy only reinforce the idea that the US, despite all its weaponry and bluster, is a weak horse after all, and make future attack more likely.

More politics as theater in the Feingold-Reid bill: we know the players, but who’s the audience?

The New Neo Posted on by

The proposed Feingold-Reid bill to cut funding to the Iraqi troops by March of next year was resoundingly defeated in the Senate by a vote of 67 to 29. And yet it gained some previously equivocating adherents: Presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

The proponents of this bill knew going into the show that it had no chance whatsoever of even passing, much less of surviving the veto it would surely encounter if passed. So, why waste everyone’s time voting on it? The answer is that, as Forbes put it, the vote was “a symbolic measure” designed to crank up pressure on President Bush.

The Times article mentions that the dispute over these bills on funding has taken many weeks of Congress’s time. How nice, especially considering that all of them were known in advance to have either no hope of passing (like the bill in question) or no hope of overriding a veto (like previous ones that have passed).

This is a time-honored political device, and the Democrats sponsoring the bill have every right to use it, of course. It plays very well with their base, and in fact this is why the previously reluctant Obama and Hillary voted for this particular piece of legislation. Democratic Senator Dodd, also running for the Presidency, had thrown out a challenge, highlighting their dilemma: not voting for the bill would cost them in the Democratic primaries, and voting for it could easily cost them votes with moderates if they actually won their party’s nomination.

And so the delicate balancing acts continue. Obama tried a sort of Kerry-esque “I’m sort of for it and sort of against it” routine when he said the bill was not the “best answer” and yet he was supporting it with the idea of sending “a strong statement to the Iraqi government, the president and my Republican colleagues that it’s long past time to change course.”

Mrs. Clinton voted in the interests of party unity, “because we, as a united party, must work together with clarity of purpose and mission to begin bringing our troops home and end this war.”

Perhaps all this playing politics to make a statement is one of the reasons that, although Bush’s approval is in the basement, Congress’s is in the sub-basement.

I’ve never quite understood this “pressure on Bush” business, anyway. Bush is not only known for his stubbornness, he’s on record as telling key Republicans (at least, according to Bob Woodward), “I will not withdraw [from Iraq] even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me.” He’s nowhere near down to just the wife and dog, although that country and western scenario seems to be the goal the Democrats have in mind.

Bush, of course, is not running for office again. So that source of pressure is not going to be operating. The other source of pressure would be, of course, how his actions would influence the election of other Republicans in 2008, including whomever the Presidential candidate might be. But somehow I don’t think Bush cares all that much; he sees Iraq as a larger issue.

You might say that’s a flaw in his character. Or you might say it’s what makes his character, and places it above domestic politics in this instance, because the true audience for all this theater isn’t just the tryouts in the boonies, the domestic audience of US voters: it’s the world, and particularly the Arab and Moslem world. They are watching very very carefully, and weighing our resolve and our ability to stand by what we said. And our enemies can only be exceedingly heartened by the way this show is playing so far.

This week’s podcast: Rabbi (“Shalom in the Home”) Shmuley Boteach on the Sanity Squad

The New Neo Posted on by

The Squad interviews special guest Rabbi Shmuley Boteach this week, the host of TLC’s series “Shalom in the Home.” If you’ve never seen the show, it’s definitely worth a look; in each episode, Rabbi Shmuley takes a large van and spends ten days visiting a family in need of therapy. If this sounds like some sort of Saturday Night Live sketch, it’s not. Trust me, Rabbi Shmuley (columnist, author of many books, Oxford-trained theologian, and father of eight) does some marvelous things to help the families involved.

Join Siggy, Dr. Sanity, Shrink, and me as we discuss the prevalence of conspiracy theories today in the first segment, and then talk to our guest in the second half.

“Supporting” the troops—or patronizing them?

The New Neo Posted on by

The Democrats in Congress—and the few Republicans who agree with them—who’ve been pushing for a troop withdrawal continue to maintain that what they’re proposing is not only in the best interests of the American people, but it’s in the best interests of the troops themselves.

That would appear to be a no-brainer: surely the best way to protect the troops is to put them out of harm’s way, and that means their leaving Iraq and coming back home where they belong.

But what do the troops serving in Iraq think about it all? Sometimes I’m convinced that the aforementioned Congressional members don’t really much care about the answer to that question.

Those who are pushing withdrawal and the cutting of funds are concerned with a variety of matters, first and foremost politics. But I would guess that some of them do indeed have a sincere concern for the safety of the troops. Unfortunately, that concern is all too often embedded in a combination of patronizing condescension (“those poor, benighted, undereducated, oppressed troops”) and disapproval (“those babykillers, brutes, torturers”).

I’ve searched for polls that might offer some information to answer the question of what the troops themselves think or want, but I’ve found nothing especially relevant. Petitions, either pro-withdrawal or anti (see this and this) tell us virtually nothing except that there are two thousand active military personnel ready to sign the former, and three thousand ready to sign the latter.

There are some older polls that questioned the military on Iraq-related issues, here, but no data on the current withdrawal or fund-cutting proposals. There’s some interesting information available, though; in the most recent poll, which was taken at the end of 2006 among active military personnel (50% of whom had served in Iraq and 12% in Afghanistan). Morale was very high, support for the Iraq War was higher than lack of support, and more people thought success was likely than thought it unlikely.

But to me the most interesting responses were the answers to the following questions: how soon do you think the Iraqi military will be ready to replace large numbers of American troops, and how long do you think the U.S. will need to stay in Iraq to reach its goals?

Only 2% of the troops thought the answer to the first question would be “less than a year,” and only 2% thought the answer to the second would be “1-2 years.” The overwhelming bulk of the responses were in the “3 to 5 years” or even “5 to 10 years” categories, with a substantial minority thinking it might even take more than 10 years to accomplish either goal.

Contrast this with the impatience of Congress and much of the American public, who want it done by September or sooner or it will be “pull the plug” time. The members of the military who bear the brunt of it all understand the difficulty of the task, probably because they have studied the history of fighting insurgencies, guerilla wars, and terrorism far more than most of us have.

And yet, morale is high among them. They don’t have the benefit of easy optimism, but they don’t allow themselves the luxury of easy pessimism, either. I think what they are engaged in is actually realism, and that implies not only an awareness of the length of time this might take, but the extreme importance of the mission.

W. Thomas Smith Jr., a former US Marine infantry leader and now journalist on military matters, has written this piece about Iraq for the National Review. Smith dispenses with some misconceptions the general public, fed on a steady diet of MSM misinformation, have about the Iraqi people themselves. (Also see this article for a list of the accomplishments of the so-called “surge”; they are far from negligible.)

Smith mentions that most of the troops are stunned that anyone takes seriously Reid’s contentions that we’ve already “lost” in Iraq. And he reiterates what so many have said before: premature withdrawal from Iraq (and withdrawal any time soon would, by definition, be premature) would jeopardize the trust our allies (and enemies) have that we will keep our word.

Smith also thinks a premature withdrawal would have a more direct effect on the troops:

Success in Iraq is also about the morale and well-being of the U.S. military. Our forces would suffer in ways most D.C. politicians cannot begin to imagine if we were to retreat from Iraq.

That sort of suffering—the deep frustration of working hard for a vitally important goal and having all possibility of reaching it taken out of your hands just when things are beginning to improve—that sort of suffering is not the concern of those crying that their actions are only to “protect” the troops.

Congress, of course, knows better than those stupid, exploited, brutal (choose your own adjective) troops themselves know about what is good for them.

Waging war: “total” and otherwise

The New Neo Posted on by

Right now, at the top of the list of recommended reading at Real Clear Politics, are two articles that can be seen as companion pieces of a sort. The first is “Why Iraq’s So Hard” by Ralph Peters of the New York Post; and the second, by Christopher Shea of the Boston Globe, is entitled “War Without Limits.”

The message of Peters’ article can be summarized as, “In the fight in Iraq, we weren’t””and still aren’t””prepared to be ruthless enough to win.” Shea, on the other hand, offers a review of two books that describe the concept of “total war,” and are mainly critical of the concept and the practice.

Are we at fault, as Peters writes, for trying to wage a PC war on the cheap in Iraq? How “ruthless” should we be, and what is the definition of ruthlessness, anyway? And how ruthless are we required to be in order to win a war against an enemy prepared to be utterly unforgiving itself, an enemy that practices as “total” a war as its tools allow it to wage, and that is bent on acquiring ever fiercer tools?

The books Shea reviews seem to be asserting that total war is a product of the advanced technology of the last century or two, and part of the practice is the extension of war to the civilian population. But this ignores the fact that the ancients were no slouches at killing large numbers of the enemy, and ordinary citizens at that, as well as destroying their cities—purposely. Witness the Mongols, the sack of Carthage in the Third Punic War, and countless other incidents in which to be conquered meant to be destroyed.

“Total war” is a term that’s not all that well-agreed upon and ultimately not all that useful. To be total, does a war have to be worldwide in scope? If so, the war again Islamist totalitarianism fits the bill. Does it have to include the killing of civilians? Again, our role in the present war fits the definition, but not if what is required is the purposeful targeting of civilians, which we (unlike the other side) do not practice.

What Peters really may mean in saying we are not ruthless enough in this war isn’t that it should be a total war in the classic sense (if there is a classic sense), but that it should be waged without so many PC considerations, and with less concern for the economic bottom line. He indicates that, had we done both of those things from the start, things would be going much better than they are now.

We’ll never know, because that didn’t happen, although I tend to agree with Peters. But I don’t see this as ruthlessness, simply as common sense. There’s no point in starting a fight with one hand tied behind your back, unless it’s a benefit sporting event that doesn’t matter.

Peters is expressing the Jacksonian point of view that wars should be waged at a high level of intensity. Do Jacksonians advocate this because they are inherently bloodthirsty? No. In fact, as I wrote when discussing that most famous of American’s Jacksonian decisions—the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan—one goal of the intensity of warfare that Jacksonians advocate is to end a conflict as quickly and as decisively as possible, and thus avoid protracted wars that end up causing even more destruction and loss of life.

One of the books Shea reviews in his Globe article is by David A. Bell, on the topic of Napolean’s Europe and birth of modern total war. Shea writes:

In his book, Bell stresses how ferocious nationalism and revolutionary fervor led the French to view their enemies as people who needed to be exterminated, not just defeated — a decisive shift from an earlier Great Power style of warfare…Anti-revolutionary opponents, whether French peasants or Austrians, were now “sanguinary hordes,” “barbarous,” and “vipers”: all deserved disembowelment.

It’s that kind of invective Bell has in mind when he hears phrases like “the evil ones” today.

It seems that the word “evil” itself is now suspect; one can’t use it without being accused of drumming up an imaginary villain. But if the Islamic terrorists and jihadists today don’t fit the defintion of actual evil, then I don’t know what does. My guess is that, if Bell were writing today, calling Hitler “evil” would, likewise, be evidence of a bad mindset on the part of the Allies.

And “evil” is, after all, a mere word. If it’s not acceptable to even use the word “evil” today, how much less acceptable it is to fight evil with vigor. Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me, but one wonders sometimes if war critics would prefer that we go back to using sticks and stones.

As Peters says:

We face merciless, implacable enemies who joyously slaughter the innocent with the zeal of religious fanaticism. Yet we want to make sure we don’t hurt anyone’s feelings.

We’ve tried many things in Iraq. They’ve all failed. It’s a shame we never really tried to fight.

Hate for sale: the thriving BDS industry

The New Neo Posted on by

Yesterday I was in one of those stores that proliferate in the streets of the coastal resort towns of New England featuring items that aren’t at all needed but might be desired by the roving tourist with a heavy wallet: tavern puzzles and hacky sacks, retro postcards, windup toys from Asian countries, ironic baby shower gifts for cynical young folk who are nevertheless reproducing themselves, rubber (or maybe nowadays they’re plastic?) turds for the classic jokers among us.

And, of course, Bush memorabilia. Or rather, Bush paraphernalia of the hate variety: an amazing assortment of stickers, cards, paper dolls, and—most plentiful of all—refrigerator magnets featuring photos of the President with sayings describing how dreadful he is and, by implication, how infinitely wise and compassionate the buyer/displayer is.

They were various riffs on that old and always-good-for-a-laugh theme: Bush=stupid. Every now and then Cheney came into the picture as well (Cheney≠stupid; Cheney=evil). And there was a new theme—at least new to me, because I guess I don’t have my finger on the pulse of popular Americana: the countdown to the 2008 election.

Like prisoners scratching out on a dungeon’s gloomy walls their time yet to be served, those suffering from (or reveling in) Bush-hatred are charting the hours, days, minutes, and even seconds until their longed-for liberation. Here, for example, is a site devoted to these products and prominently displaying the hopeful countdown clock. Emblazoned with the glorious day, 1.20.09, are the bumper stickers, mugs, t-shirts, keychains, dog biscuits, and combo packs to purchase for the self or for the liked-minded friend or loved one.

I try to think back to other times of Presidential disfavor. Clinton, of course, as well as Nixon, must have had their products of mockery. But I can’t remember anything remotely resembling this cottage industry of ridicule, so casually and readily available in almost every shop. I wonder how well the products are actually selling, and whether people actually find the repetition of the same one-note themes endlessly amusing, or whether they tire of the knick-knacks almost as soon as the goodies are brought home.

I also wonder whether Bush-hatred will survive the retirement of its object from the Presidency on that long-hoped-for and long-delayed day. Will the products go on, always good for a superior laugh? Or will they be tossed into the dustbin of history, the owners not having Bush to kick around any more?

The larger question is whether, on that day of all days, the Bush-haters will get that Democratic President they so desire. If so, will the present BDS wares be replaced by new products featuring the next electee—say, Hillary, who certainly has her share of haters? Or will there be a surprise for the Democrats, and will Giuliani or McCain or Romney or fill-in-the-blank become the new focus of ire and the entrepreneurial spirit associated with it? I guess we’ll find out in (as I write these words) 618 days, 1 hour, 49 minutes, and 49 seconds.

For Mother’s Day: neo revealed

The New Neo Posted on by

Okay, who are these three dark beauties?

A hint: one of them is the very first picture you’ve ever seen on this blog of neo-neocon, sans apple. Not that you’d recognize me, of course. Even my own mother might not recognize me from this photo.

My own mother, you say? Of course she would. Ah, but she’s here too, looking a bit different than she does today–Mother’s Day–at ninety-two years of age. Just a bit; maybe her own mother wouldn’t recognize her, either.

Her own mother? She’s the one who’s all dressed up, with longer hair than the rest of us.

The photo of my grandmother was taken in the 1880’s; the one of my mother in the teens of the twentieth century; and the one of me, of course, in the 1950s.

Heredity, ain’t it great? My mother and grandmother are both sitting for formal portraits at a professional photographer’s studio, but by the time I came around amateur snapshots were easy to take with a smallish Brownie camera. My mother is sitting on the knee of her own grandfather, my grandmother’s father, a dapper gentleman who was always very well-turned out. I’m next to my older brother, who’s reading a book to me but is cropped out of this photo. My grandmother sits alone in all her finery.

We all not only resemble each other greatly in our features and coloring, but in our solemnity. My mother’s and grandmother’s seriousness is probably explained by the strange and formal setting; mine is due to my concentration on the book, which was Peter Pan (my brother was only pretending to read it, since he couldn’t read yet, but I didn’t know that at the time). My mother’s resemblance to me is enhanced by our similar hairdos (or lack thereof), although hers was short because it hadn’t really grown in yet, and mine was short because she purposely kept it that way (easier to deal with).

My grandmother not only has the pretty ruffled dress and the long flowing locks, but if you look really closely you can see a tiny earring dangling from her earlobe. When I was young, she showed me her baby earrings; several miniature, delicate pairs. It astounded me that they’d actually pierced a baby’s ears (and that my grandmother had let the holes close up later on, and couldn’t wear pierced earrings any more), whereas I had to fight for the right to have mine done in my early teens.

I’m not sure what my mother’s wearing; some sort of baby smock. But I know what I have on: my brother’s hand-me-down pajamas, and I was none too happy about it, of that you can be sure.

So, a very happy Mother’s Day to you all! What would mothers be without babies…and mothers…and babies….and mothers….?

[NOTE: This is a repeat of last year’s Mother’s Day post.]

Defeat and defeatism

The New Neo Posted on by

The word “defeat” has been thrown around lately in connection with the war in Iraq; here’s an example.

The title of the editorial is “Vietnam syndrome: the consequences of U.S. defeat in Iraq would be much greater than they were in Vietnam.” I agree with the basic premise; they would. But I disagree with the characterization of what’s going on there as “defeat.”

You may think I’m engaging in useless semantic nitpicking. But I don’t think so. I think what we experienced in Vietnam was closer to defeat than what’s going on in Iraq, but I think both basically come down to a different thing entirely: defeatism, and that it’s a troubling post-Vietnam development in our national psyche.

Remember that we had been disengaged from active fighting in the war in Vietnam for years when we abandoned that country in early 1975. I’ve written about that process so extensively that I’m not going to go into it again here (see this, this, this, and this). What’s important, though, is that we gave up when we were undergoing very little risk and when the cost of continuing was low. Even though we were merely subsidizing the fighting of others in a cause for which fifty thousand Americans had already given their lives, we had grown weary of what was perceived as an endless conflict, and it was that psychological defeatism that led to our pulling the plug on the still-fighting South Vietnamese themselves, who then—and only then—were in fact defeated.

We have lost relatively few casualties in Iraq, our economy is still thriving, and we’ve experienced no increase in terrorist attacks here. There has been no military defeat, just a psychological one, and it is self-generated.

In a way, though, my distinction between “defeat” and “defeatism” might be moot: in the end they both would have the same effect on the Iraqis. They would/will also have the same effect on the international perception of our ability to keep our word and to persevere in a struggle, an important part of deterrence of future conflicts.

They look different domestically, though; we have not experienced anywhere near the suffering and decimation involved in an actual defeat. Ask the elderly Germans or the Japanese what that is like.

In fact, the US has never suffered a defeat. The only part of the US that has is the South during the Civil War and its aftermath, the traumatic process of Reconstruction. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons the word “defeat” is now thrown around so readily; many of us don’t quite understand what it means.

Bye bye, Blair: more change across the pond

The New Neo Posted on by

Not unexpectedly, Tony Blair has called it quits as Prime Minister. His farewell speech was relatively short, and some thought it too emotional and quasi-apologetic on Iraq.

I only read it in print, so perhaps it was different when he delivered it, but it didn’t really seem either to me. Surprisingly, though, for a man known for his eloquence, it didn’t have much rhetorical flair. Perhaps after ten years he’s tired, much more tired than Obama, and for that he can be forgiven.

Yes, Blair does end his speech on an odd note, with an apology. In context, though, it’s a blanket apology for the times he had “fallen short;” people can decide for themselves what times those may have been. The bulk of his speech is actually about changes for the better in the British economy and its sense of itself as a leader nation during his tenure; he says only a little bit about international relations or Iraq.

As far as Iraq goes, Blair alludes to the fact that many people hold the opinion that the aftermath of the war in Iraq—what he calls the “blowback from global terrorism”—“simply isn’t and can’t be worth it.” But then he says:

For me, I think we must see it through. They, the terrorists, who threaten us here and round the world, will never give up if we give up. It is a test of will and of belief. And we can’t fail it.

It doesn’t seem all that equivocal to me. The war in Iraq has been, if anything, even more unpopular in the UK than it is here, and that was true at the beginning of the conflict as well as now. Blair had to buck public opinion from the start; as he says, he did what he thought was right in leading the country in that direction.

Blair’s most likely successor is his deputy, mystery man Gordon Brown. To some, Brown appears to be pretty much an Americaphile, and although he has a history of supporting Blair’s position vis a vis Iraq, no one is at all sure what he really thinks.

After reading five or six articles on the man, I can honestly say that the picture I get from all of them is a murky one; Brown appears to be an enigma even to those far more familiar with his record than I. Apparently he has purposely kept his positions somehwat ambiguous, the better to change them as the situation might warrant.

His personal style is very different from Blair’s: no charm or charisma here. The New York Times quotes the Sunday Times as describing Brown in an editorial as “a blank sheet of paper,” and that pretty much sums up the views of many who have watched him over the years.

So I won’t even venture a guess as to which way Brown will turn, except to say that he will probably seek to prove he’s not Bush’s poodle (the epithet that dogged Blair’s footsteps) by emphasizing whatever differences in policy do exist.

And by the way—what’s up with all these single-syllable leaders whose name starts with a “B”?

Congress, the President, and the polls: a game of withdrawal chess

The New Neo Posted on by

Headline in the Washington Post: “Bush would veto new Iraq bill.”

Ya think? Surely this isn’t a surprise (it’s a sort of “dog bites man” story) although of course the Post and the rest of the MSM are required to treat it as newsworthy.

The new bill would fund the war only through September, and even that would be contingent on a report this summer to Congress on whether the Iraqi government has met certain security benchmarks. Then Congress would vote again as to whether to actually release the funds or not.

Congress continues to play political games here. I guess at this point that’s pretty much its raison de etre. But still, the sponsors of this bill had to know that it would be vetoed. So, why continue this approach?

The struggle between Bush and Congress has always been couched at least partly as the Democrats trying to chip away at Bush’s popular support. But surely they know that, at this point, Bush is beyond such considerations. The word “Bush” is probably just a cover for the word “Republicans”—after all, it’s other Republicans, who must go on record as either voting or not voting for this bill, who need to run again in 2008.

So the Democrats don’t really need for the bill to actually be signed into law. It will function as a litmus test for members of Congress, and the Democrats are betting that it’s a winner for their side in the elective sense.

If one reads the news summaries of the latest polls, one could easily think the Democrats are right. It seems like a no-brainer: 6 out of 10 Americans want to see a timetable for withdrawal no matter what. What could be clearer? The Democrats would appear to have the majority strongly with them.

But go to the Gallup site and read the actual results. Hmmmm. It turns out that the all-important question was worded thusly:

If you had to choose, which do you think is better for the US—to keep a significant number of troops in Iraq until the situation there gets better, even if that takes many years, [or] to set a timetable for removing troops from Iraq and to stick to that timetable regardless of what is going on in Iraq at the time?

Why didn’t the pollsters ask whether people favored immediate withdrawal, withdrawal in a certain number of months, or whether they favored the bill as written (the poll was asked May 4-6, so the information in it could have been quite current)? Well, I don’t read the minds of pollsters, and I guess they were looking at exactly what they wanted to be looking at, which was the support for a timetable versus no timetable at all.

But the distinction isn’t a very helpful one when that’s not the choice being faced at the moment. It’s the addition of that telling phrase “even if that takes many years” that even I, a non-pollster, can tell easily could be skewing the results. And it doesn’t take training as a therapist to see that, either. I’m sure the pollsters knew it themselves.

Other parts of this and other recent polls ought to give the Democrats pause as well, although I doubt they will. A poll in late April asked certain questions that the Gallup folks apparently decided not to include this time, but the findings then were that only 30% of Americans would like to see troops beginning to return home within six months, with an additional 27% wanting to see withdrawal start sometime next year or beyond, and 39% against any such deadlines.

Hmmm, once again.

In the most recent poll, Americans believed 50% to 46% that a withdrawal would embolden Iran and North Korea to see it as evidence of US weakness, and to challenge us with threats. Hmmm again.

And then there’s the fact that majorities see a likelihood of negative consequences for a pullout: as increased threat of civil war in Iraq, al Qaeda setting up shop there, and increased threats of terrorist attacks in this country.

Again, I would exercise caution: polls are polls, and often not all that worthwhile. But if one is relying on them in order to gauge public opinion for a coming election—and I have little doubt that that’s exactly what the Democrats are doing—one should at least take a good, hard, and careful look.