The Danger of Providing Arms to Civil War Combatants

David Ignatius shares an update about the situation in Iraq,

ISIS forces have swept south along Highway 1 from Mosul, swelling their ranks by liberating 2,000 to 3,000 jihadist fighters from a prison in Nineveh province. The jihadists have captured so much U.S.-made equipment that it’s reportedly hard to distinguish friend from foe along the chaotic highway south.

Those who argue that we should throw powerful weapons to the "least worst" of the Syrian rebel factions had best keep in mind how quickly those arms can end up in the wrong hands.

Ignatius closes with an odd accusation,

Restitching the fabric of Iraq and Syria may be Mission Impossible. But with its focus on counterterrorism and weapons supplies, the Obama administration seems to have decided to treat the region simply as a shooting gallery.

As opposed to... doing what? Perhaps he's alluding to what had seemed to be a rhetorical question,

Can [the United States and its allies] convene a regional peace conference — which would seek to reconcile Sunni and Shiite forces and their key backers, Saudi Arabia and Iran — in some new security architecture?

Can they convene such a conference? I have every reason to believe that they can find a nice conference center, a printer who can engrave some attractive invitations, and a decent caterer. But the real question is, would such a conference accomplish anything? I suspect that, even at his most optimistic, Ignatius would admit that the odds of any material progress are vanishingly small.

David Ignatius States the Obvious

Which is to say, Ignatius has penned an editorial entitled, Claims of U.S. weakness and retreat of U.S. power are unfounded. That shouldn't be a surprise given the author, but it seems increasingly rare to see basic common sense on foreign policy issues from the Washington Post's editorial crew.

Ignatius has some criticisms for the President, but they invite criticism of their own:

I agree that [President] Obama’s foreign policy has not been as firm, especially in dealing with Syria and Russia, as it should have been. As a result, the United States has suffered some reputational damage.

It's reasonable to infer from Ignatius' statement that he believes that the U.S. should have taken military action in Syria. The problem is that, as Ignatius recently told us, there are no good ways to intervene in Syria. It's an odd sort of criticism, that the President should have boldly taken a different path that might have had negative results, perhaps worsening the situation. Truly, if Ignatius believes that there is an appropriate, stronger line to take with Syria, he should explicitly describe the intervention that he favors. Further, if his concern is truly with "global security", Ignatius should explain why he omits reference to Libya where the U.S. did intervene militarily to topple a despot, but where a consequence of that intervention has been the creation of a great deal of regional turmoil -- and also stands as an object lesson as to what could happen if Bashar al-Assad is toppled without the involvement of a very large western occupation force ready to impose and hold the peace.

It's also not clear why Ignatius believes that being more "firm" with Russia would do anything to change Russia's policies or Putin's behavior. Does he believe that Russians will somehow eject Putin from power if they perceive that President Obama is unhappy with him? I would expect not, given that it's obvious that the President is unhappy with him yet his domestic popularity has improved. I think Daniel Larison makes an apt observation:

When U.S. Russia policy prioritized working with Russia on matters of common interest, relations with Moscow measurably improved and the U.S. made some modest gains on a few issues. When Washington returned to its old habits of agitating over internal Russian affairs and seeking to overthrow Russian clients, relations went into rapid decline. Since then, U.S. punitive measures have contributed to the intensifying Sino-Russian cooperation....

Again I'm left wondering, what "firm" measures does Ignatius believe would change Russian behavior, and on what basis?

Ignatius made an argument toward the end of his editorial that I wish he would clarify:

The worriers [about weakness] get one big thing right. A strong, forward-leaning United States is essential for global security.

There are many regions in the world where the people don't enjoy much security, and many more where ethnic minorities are mistreated. Is Ignatius lobbying for U.S. military intervention that is truly aimed at "global security", or is he conflating "global security" with "the advancement of U.S. foreign policy interests"? The latter seems more consistent with the editorial position of the Washington Post, which under the leadership of Fred Hiatt reliably supports military adventurism in the name of muscular foreign policy. But there is a huge difference between that and actually working to achieve "global security", even if human rights violations are sometimes offered as a justification for intervention in a nation or region that, in the mind of the editorial board, affects U.S. foreign policy interests.

When looking for the prior link to Daniel Larison, I noticed that he has also written about this argument. Larison argues that many of those who make that argument about "America’s indispensability... are routinely wrong about specific issues":

Ignatius’ review of the [book, "Taking on the World" and its authors'] constant alarmism reminds us of something else that should be only too familiar to those of us that have observed or participated in foreign policy debates. No matter how often such people are profoundly wrong about important events and the appropriate way that the U.S. should respond to them, they continue to be relied on as authorities and guides in subsequent debates. Alarmists are never held accountable for their alarmism, at least not as long as they subscribe to the prevailing consensus view about what the U.S. role in the world should be. If you can get “one big thing right,” you need never worry about being right ever again. Then again, the alarmists are just taking their belief in American “indispensability” to its predictable conclusion: if a “strong, forward-leaning” U.S. is “essential” to global security, frequently panicking about potential “retreat” and “weakness” becomes a major part of maintaining that role.

Larison sees the tendency to perceive a constant need for U.S. intervention to address perceived threats around the globe results in the notion that non-intervention is treated as a failure of American strength, character and endurance, and creates an all-or-nothing foreign policy in which leaders are not trusted to determine which threats are serious such that, even in relation to minor threats, doing nothing becomes unthinkable. Larison argues that the "false belief in American indispensability breeds intense anxiety about security and causes people to imagine dangers that don’t even exist", resulting in U.S. involvement in "disastrous and unnecessary conflicts". I think the sort of argument Ignatius is implicitly making, "I don't know what we should do, and every choice is bad, but we must appear strong or, at a minimum, we risk reputational damage".

Ignatius sees Obama's actions as a retreat from military action, and also as consistent with history,

...[A] retreat to lick the nation’s wounds is fairly common after wars — and rarely does lasting damage.

But it apparently does not occur to him that strong military action in Syria, or attempting to escalate tension with Russia to the point that Putin might be cowed, are both ideas fraught with peril. That is, sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.

Foreign Policy? What's That?

David Ignatius presents what on one hand is a fair criticism of the President for his failure to articulate clear policies on foreign policy issues, and is on the other hand an unfair implication that this failure is both unique to President Obama and not a predictable consequence of our political system with its rigidly scheduled elections, presidential term limits, shallow political commentary and larger public disinterest in foreign policy.

Let's be blunt, our nation's Middle East policy has been a disaster for pretty much as long as the Middle East has had geopolitical significance. For much of that history, the United States has backed dictators and monarchs, even if that meant suppressing secular democratic movements and turning a blind eye to the rise of Islamic radicalism and the impact our policies have on popular opinion. We have been consistent in our support for Israel, but that's a one-off, not a coherent regional policy. The most articulate Middle East policy I can recall is the Carter Doctrine, "An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force." But that's more about hegemony than about creating a Middle East that, if not aligned with our interests, is at least not in large part openly hostile.

I have commented for years on what is obvious, that Presidents shy away from doing anything important prior to elections. And I'm not just speaking about the months or year leading up to an election. I'm talking about any major policy proposal or change that is expected to be difficult or potentially unpopular. To the maximum extent possible many of those issues are postponed until after the President is elected to his second term, or are implemented on a time table that delays important policies and benchmarks from being implicated until a year or two after the election.

Ignatius complains that a comment by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a "laugh line" that reflects "President Obama’s risk-averse refusal to engage on foreign policy issues", but I find it to be neither a laugh line nor even about Obama.

“I do believe that some conversations and key issues must be talked about again once we come out of the other end of the political election atmosphere in the United States.”

It's a candid statement of the reality faced by any nation hoping to effect foreign policy change in the United States. If it's controversial, the President is likely to put it off until after the election. If it's both difficult and controversial, there's a good chance any given President will punt, or take late action that leaves his successor to deal with any problems or to clean up the mess.

Ignatius complains,

The “come back after Nov. 6” sign is most obvious with Iran. The other members of the “P5+1” negotiating group understand that the United States doesn’t want serious bargaining until after the election, lest Obama have to consider compromises that might make him look weak.

It's fair to ask, what does Ignatius believe that the nation will gain by pushing ahead with negotiations right now, and trying to come to some form of deal with Iran in advance of the election? Will we suddenly be able to breathe a collective sigh of relief, end all sanctions against Iran, and live forever as a big happy family? Of course not. If and when an agreement is reached, things will continue to carry on pretty much as they are.

Ahmadinejad and some of his aides let slip during their visit to New York that they may be willing to offer a deal that would halt enrichment of uranium above 5 percent. Is this a good deal or not, in terms of U.S. and Israeli security? Sorry, come back later.

Why does Ignatius pose that as a rhetorical question rather than sharing his opinion, or the opinion of any of the other nations in "" who aren't burdened by pending elections? In case he needs the reminder, Netanyahu, bomb chart in hand, just gave the U.N. a somewhat condescending lecture about Iran. I missed the part when he said, "But if Iran says they won't enrich past 5%, peace will break out all over." If, consistent with the consensus view of their plan, Iran hopes to be the turn of a key away from becoming a nuclear state, does it matter if they "only" enrich uranium to 5% if with a few taps on a keyboard the very same centrifuges can enrich uranium to 20%?

This is pretty amazing:

Will Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu keep his gun in the holster until after the polls close? The White House certainly hopes so. But someone should check the odds with Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate who is one of Mitt Romney’s biggest financial backers.

What we saw over a period of months was Netanyahu's open effort to influence the outcome of U.S. elections, despite a growing criticism of his tactics by other political and military leaders, right to the point he flew to the U.S. to grouse about being snubbed by the President and to appear on Meet the Press, but then... oh, those polls. Time to be contrite, stay out of U.S. election politics, distance himself from any claim that he hopes for a Romney victory. Looking at Adelson's bet on Romney and their joint visit to Israel earlier this year, it isn't the President who looks like the loser in that round of high stakes gambling.

Ignatius then complains that, although the President has implemented programs in Egypt and Syria that Ignatius seems to regard as promising, the President isn't talking about those programs. So the problem isn't that the President is failing to form good policy, or is making bad bets, it's that he's not flashing his cards? How would public attention improve Obama's policies? How might Republican demagoguery affect their implementation? Given Romney's embarrassing demagoguery on Russia and New START, it's difficult to believe that it would be helpful.

Ignatius proceeds to complain, not about Obama Administration policies as such, but about the fact that the Obama Administration isn't discussing its policies.

I’m told that the talk in the Libyan underground is about a “global intifada,” like what the new al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has been preaching for the past five years. But ask U.S. officials about that subject, and you get a “no comment.”

I expect that pretty much every al-Qaeda sympathizer on the planet talks about a "global intifada" and a resurgent al-Qaeda, but politics aside, that doesn't mean it's good policy for the Obama Administration to talk about those groups and their goals, to give those groups publicity and attention that they may not merit in order to vindicate Ignatius's sources. Ignatius complains, "The administration has a lot invested in the public impression that al-Qaeda was vanquished when Osama bin Laden was killed", but I think it's more accurate to say that the media has chosen to treat al-Qaeda as an old story, perhaps even a non-story, and the Obama Administration sees no benefit in trying to inspire the media to again cover the story. It's not just the media - it's also the Republican Party.

The same is true with the war in Afghanistan. Ignatius may wish that the President were giving him a play by play on troop levels, but when you hear Romney talk about Afghanistan - if he even remembers to bring it up - he'll flip between criticizing the President for setting a firm date for withdrawal and giving the enemy too much information, and insisting that he'll have Afghanistan be fully responsible for its own security by the end of 2014. Why no mention of that incoherence?

Ignatius complains about the President's off-the-cuff candor with Dmitry Medvedev that, on certain issues, he would have more flexibility after being reelected. Well, no kidding. To those who pay even slight attention to U.S. politics, the story was that the comment was caught on microphone, not that the President stated something that is blindingly obvious. So why is Ignatius trying to turn that comment into something more than it is? Into something that makes Obama's putting off issues until after the election any different than Bush's pushing off his plan for Palestinian statehood until his second term, claiming a mandate to privatize Social Security after forgetting to mention it during his reelection campaign, having his tax cuts expire two years after he was out of office....

This strategy of avoiding major foreign policy risks or decisions may help get Obama reelected. But he is robbing the country of a debate it needs to have — and denying himself the public understanding and support he will need to be an effective foreign policy president in a second term, if the “rope-a-dope” campaign should prove successful.

That's the wishful thinking of somebody who places a high priority on foreign policy. As Ignatius knows, the average American has little interest in foreign policy and even less knowledge. Has he forgotten Bush's embarrassing lack of knowledge during the lead-up to the 2000 election, "but it's okay, because he'll surround himself with really good advisers." And the public, buying into that argument, bought into the conceit that nations like Pakistan aren't really relevant to our interests, so why should they care if the President can name their leaders or even find them on a map.

I don't disagree with Ignatius that timing foreign policy actions around elections is unhelpful, and that our nation would benefit from finding a way to avoid the problem, but unlike Ignatius I'm not willing to pretend that the phenomenon is new or unique to Obama. I also find Ignatius's comments to be, in large part, style over susbstance. I am perfectly happy to have the Obama Administration refrain from commenting on every hyperbolic claim of every group that sympathizes with al-Qaeda, even if it means that Ignatius can't win confirmation for whispered rumors form his sources.

Let me take you back roughly a year to when elections weren't on Ignatius's mind.

Barack Obama got elected president in part because he promised to change the foreign policy priorities of a Bush administration that was unpopular abroad, had strained relations with key allies and was facing a growing Iranian challenge and a continuing menace from al-Qaeda.

So what’s happened over the past 32 months? There have been a lot of bumps and bruises, especially in the global economy. But if you step back from the daily squawk box, some trends are clear: Alliances are stronger, the United States is (somewhat) less bogged down in foreign wars, Iran is weaker, the Arab world is less hostile and al-Qaeda is on the run.

Back then, Ignatius concluded, "Obviously, it will take awhile to accept that quiet American leadership is still leadership." I hardly dare ask whether Ignatius's change of position on the Obama Administration's successes and "quiet leadership" is itself a creature of this being an election year. David Frum quotes Ignatius,

David Ignatius of the Washington Post described Mitt Romney as a man having "no grasp of foreign affairs" whose approach to the subject amounts to a "series of sound bites" all of which portray a candidate who knows little about a subject of the utmost importance.

I'll be interested to see whether those thoughts percolate through to his pre-election commentary, as so far, he's pulling his punches.

Looking for Political Solutions in All the Wrong Places

David Ignatius offers his latest musings on the war in Afghanistan, "willpower" and the magic man who comes in the form of General David Petraeus, and pretends that he has a number of insightful questions for General Petraeus. His questions, though, center on how General Petraeus will implement political solutions to Afghanistan's problems. Um... David? Not his job. It may well be that the questions are the right ones to ask, but it doesn't help to ask them to the wrong person.

International Perspectives on the President

Although this type of claim by David Ignatius smacks of Thomas Friedman's "taxi drivers who happen to echo my exact beliefs", it's worth examining:

What the world sees, I'm afraid, is a weak U.S. president who isn't solving domestic economic problems, let alone global ones. But that's more a symptom than a cause. What's happening at a deeper level is a breakdown of the U.S. political system's ability to find consensus and make decisions. Washington doesn't work, as critics from the Tea Party right to the progressive left keep insisting.

In my younger years when I've lived abroad, and in my subsequent travels, I've heard a lot of discussion of the U.S. political system by those in other countries. As should go without saying, most people from other nations have a significantly worse understanding of how our government works than do the people of our nation - and... um, we (collectively) don't know a whole lot.

Media coverage of U.S. political issues often focuses on the President, and often approaches him as if his power is somewhere between that of a prime minister and a monarch, setting an agenda for his country and largely able to push it through. When the President wants something and it doesn't happen, yes, the international perspective may be that he looks weak - but that may in fact be a more accurate perception than the one Ignatius apparently prefers. Further, if you're from a nation with a parliamentary system, more so if it has a tradition of strong party unity, it's difficult to understand how somebody who you presume to be the actual (as opposed to de facto) leader of his party can't get them to follow his agenda.

Ignatius also appears to make the mistake of overstating the importance of U.S. politics to people of other nations and how much time they spend thinking about the U.S. president, perhaps because during his travels that's all he talks about and thus most of what he hears about. More importantly, he disregards the fact that popular impressions of the President in other nations are largely irrelevant, and can be just as media-driven, event-driven and fickle as political opinions in this nation. Does Ignatius know that the international view of Reagan was largely not flattering - doddering and not very intelligent? That G.W. was widely viewed internationally as an incompetent moron? I doubt that either would have been reelected had the election been held internationally. Does it matter? If so, why?

You Gotta Know When to Fold 'Em

In discussing Iraq, David Ignatius presents what is fundamentally an illogical statement:

America has spent so much blood and treasure in Iraq that it would be wrong to walk away completely, however attractive that may seem politically.

Many a gambler has lost his shirt following that philosophy. Painful as it may be to admit, it's important to develop the perspective and maturity to recognize when you're throwing good money after bad. It's not difficult to lay out a case for why we should continue to support Iraq and try to help it become a stable democracy, but "We've lost so much money and blood that it would be wrong to stop gambling" isn't it.

Ignatius comes close to invoking the gambler's fallacy - "After a losing streak this long, I must be on the verge of winning so I have to keep rolling the dice" - but he doesn't actually suggest that continued investment will bring about success. His editorial page boss, using the craven tool of the unsigned editorial, isn't as reticent. President Obama, it's suggested, should make "winning" in Iraq and Afghanistan his "top mission". What does it mean to "win"? How long will it take? What will be the additional cost in dollars and lives? You won't get answers to those questions from Fred Hiatt and his editorial board. But why would you expect them to care about such trivialities - let's throw out timetables and commit blood and treasure until we win, whatever that means.

Meanwhile, Matt Miller offers something of a mea culpa - although he believes the Iraq War would have been justified had Iraq in fact had WMD's (never mind that the Bush Administration chose not to let inspections continue to potentially resolve that question in the negative, and leaving aside the question of how Iraq's WMD's would directly threaten U.S. interests), if he "could turn back time" knowing that no WMD's were present he would oppose the war. His comments highlight how having firm dates for troop withdrawals may help:

Politicians rarely admit they're mistaken (as our surge-opposing president and vice president proved again this week).... I'm hoping for the best, in the spirit the president urged Tuesday night, though he can't admit he fought the surge that's created the chance for a happier ending.

The chance for a happier ending began with the Anwar Awakening. It seems more than fair to say that the surge built on that, and has resulted in a level of stability that has kept the window of opportunity open for considerably longer than anybody expected. But it's not clear that Iraq's factions and political leaders are any more willing or able to take the opportunity now than they were three years ago. On one side are those who benefit from the occupation and have little incentive to negotiate as long as U.S. armed forces have their backs; on the other side are those who expect to benefit from the withdrawal of U.S. armed forces and have little incentive to make larger concessions while the occupation continues when they expect to be able to make much smaller concessions (or make no concessions at all) after the occupation ends. The responsible drawdown of forces, and that seems like a fair characterization of Obama's decisions, may be what it takes to break that stalemate.

Obama's "Inner Machiavelli"

David Ignatius complains that he doesn't see evidence of President Obama's Machiavelli - that is, he believes Obama needs a Kissinger or Brzezinski to craft secret plans and engage in behind-the-scenes, off-the-record negotiations with groups that range from being nominally to explicitly enemies of the state. He admits that such an approach can result in blowback....

When an emboldened Soviet Union marched into Afghanistan, Brzezinski crafted a secret intelligence alliance with China and Pakistan to check the Soviets. Here, too, we are still living with some of the negatives. But it must be said, the Soviet Union is no more.

Even if we assume that the secret operations in Afghanistan and "Charlie Wilson's war" were the sole causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union, by stating that we're "living with some of the negatives" - a radicalized Pakistan, our nation's longest war ever in Afghanistan - Ignatius displays a gift for the understatement. He also mentions how Kissinger accepted Syrian intervention in Lebanon's civil war as something "that arguably still causes trouble". Yeah. Arguably. No mention, for some reason, of the secret war in Cambodia. Or the coup in Chile.

But his poor choice of examples aside, let's give Ignatius the benefit of the doubt - because he's correct that secret negotiations of one sort or another have helped and can help the U.S. in its conflicts around the world. (I suspect that he wanted to illustrate his point big, splashy, well-known examples; they were just poorly chosen.) To one degree or another, every U.S. administration has engaged in that type of behind-the-scenes operation. If a President announced his secret, "Machiavellian" operations, they would no longer be secret.

Where was Ignatius when the political right was savaging Obama for being an appeaser and being willing to "talk to our nation's enemies"? He was and remains in a powerful position to speak against that type of rhetoric, which he plainly believes can be damaging to the nation if it in fact deters secret contacts. I don't recall that Ignatius said a word.

Perhaps all of these diplomatic corkscrews are already at work. It's in the nature of successful secret diplomacy that you don't know about it until it's over -- and maybe not even then.

Right. So let's lament that Obama may not be doing something that he may in fact be doing, and which must be kept secret in order to be effective, but not the fact that political operatives have made it harder for him to reach out to hostile players and much more politically dangerous if he's "caught".

Update: Tim Fernholz has commented on the editorial at Tapped. He suggests that, "More often than not, the secretive aspects of our foreign policy are the most damaging", perhaps true but difficult to debate given that we're dealing with secrets and examining the known failures with the benefit of hindsight. That said, it is reasonable to admit that there are plenty of examples that support Fernholz's point.

If the solution to a foreign-policy problem involves Kissinger-level secrecy, it's probably the result of a previous blunder or fear of facing political consequences, not because secrecy is necessary. If conservatives in the United States, for instance, hadn't spent years baselessly demonizing the liberal foreign-policy establishment for "losing" China to the evil Communists, there would have been no need for a secret mission to open the country's relations to the U.S. Secrecy can be useful as a tactical tool, but when you make it a strategic objective, it's often a sign that you've already failed.

That's largely true. Contacts and negotiations that would be politically difficult may be kept secret for just that reason - but I think it's an overstatement to suggest that an administration's response to political realities is often a sign of failure. First, public backlash could end negotiations before they get off the ground. Second, many administrations will choose the politically safe approach, whatever the need for outreach, such that negotiations never occur. In Fernholz's specific example, yes, rhetoric about how the political left "lost" China made it politically difficult and dangerous for a Democratic President to reach out to China. But as a sign of failure, it seems to better illustrate why that type of rhetoric is dangerous - the same type of rhetoric I highlighted above, being used against Obama - as opposed to why secret negotiations weren't helpful or appropriate.

Never Mind What, Again?

David Ignatius, who I believe to be a sincere defender of the U.S. intelligence community, instructs us,

CIA officers aren't idiots. They knew they were heading into deep water - legally and morally - when they signed up for the interrogation program. That's part of the agency's ethos - doing the hard jobs that other departments prudently avoid. They hoped their government would protect them from future reprisals, but the graybeards were always dubious about the politicians' promises of support.

Not that I'm questioning the core assertions - CIA officers aren't idiots, and they had good reason to disbelieve any promises of the party in power that no abuses would be investigated or prosecuted - but Ignatius fails to inform us exactly which politicians promised them that acts of torture would be immune from legal scrutiny. I'm not sure if Ignatius is telling us that it would have been stupid for a CIA officer to believe a circular, self-serving argument that "anything the executive authorizes is okay," or if he's telling us that it would be stupid for them to believe a politician's promise of immunity in any context. But it's interesting that he seems to simultaneously argue that the CIA never relied upon the Bush era promises, yet that those promises should nonetheless restrict successor administrations.

It's sad, I think, that Ignatius doesn't understand that it would be terrible public policy to allow politicians to immunize government workers of any sort from immunity with a mere promise, even a promise that was not believed, that "your actions are legal" or "you'll never be prosecuted even if a judge disagrees with me." Even if the politician also offered them a legal memo from one of his underlings. The CIA agents at issue swore to defend the Constitution, not to bend to the will of the President or Vice President. If their own opinion was "this is not legal", why would they take a politician's word for anything?

And why does Ignatius believe their deference, particularly in the face of the strong doubts he identifies, should justify immunity? I know that there's always a double-standard when armed conflicts are involved, but in the past we of the United States have unapologetically prosecuted people for war crimes with a deaf ear to the defense, "I was just following orders." Whatever compelling arguments may be made against prosecution, you won't find them in Ignatius's column.

As so often happens in our country, the cynics were proved right: Despite President Obama's fine talk about looking forward, not backward, Attorney General Eric Holder decided this week that the CIA interrogators will face yet another criminal review of conduct that they were assured by the Bush administration was legal. No matter that the same evidence was provided five years ago to career prosecutors, who decided against bringing cases.

Which "career prosecutors" declined to bring charges? What was the substance of their determination - its basis in law? If Ignatius can't answer the first question he has no business trying to buttress their credibility - maybe the decision was made by somebody like Monica Goodling. If he can't answer the second, he's flying blind. Maybe we're back in the same circle of reasoning advanced by Ignatius, with the depth of the review amounting to "If the President says it's legal, it's legal":

Looking back, it's easy to say the CIA officers should have refused the assignments they suspected would come back to haunt them. But questioning presidential orders isn't really their job, especially when those orders are backed by Justice Department legal opinions.

But let's accept that and pretend, like Ignatius, that CIA officers swear to defer to the President instead of upholding the Constitution. If prosecutions result from the current process it will be of people whose actions went beyond what even the Bush Administration authorized. So the only objection Ignatius has raised which could be relevant is that a "career prosecutors" who may not in fact be either plural in number or have any actual experience as prosecutors, but were employed in the most politicized Justice Department in living history, chose not to authorize charges that would have severely embarrassed the Bush Administration? Well, you have to admit, it's a compelling argument. [cough]

What will happen the next time the White House wants the CIA to do something that's potentially controversial? Well, you know the answer. The CIA officers will want to talk to their lawyers, and maybe then to lawyers from the party out of power. That's not the ideal mind-set for a modern intelligence service. But the republic will survive.

Overlooking his hyperbole for the moment, who, other than Ignatius, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Dick Cheney, and possibly the CIA officers who felt too constrained by the Bush Administration's torture authorization and now may face prosecution, wouldn't add, "And may well be stronger for it."¹ Why is it less than ideal for the CIA to say, "Our lawyers disagree that torture is legal, so maybe they can meet with your lawyers and hash out something that everybody is comfortable with."

Perhaps the biggest lesson here could be drawn from Ignatius's declaration that the CIA wasn't in the interrogation business at the start of this process, had "zero internal expertise" and lacked both the skills or manpower to develop an interrogation program in-house, and had serious concerns about the legality of the program and of the possibility of future prosecutions. Sometimes when you're heading toward a traffic light that by all appearances is a very late yellow, maybe an early red, you should defer to your better judgment and put your foot on the brake.
__________

1. It's a rhetorical question and yes, I know I can add Michelle Malkin, Sarah Palin, John Boehner, Ann Coulter, and similarly strong thinkers to the list.

Put Steve Jobs In Charge of Everything!

A few months ago, that was a favorite solution for certain pundits - e.g., "We need a Steve Jobs for the auto industry". Today, after raising some valid points about the financial crisis:

We're still in the Neville Chamberlain phase when it comes to the economic crisis. The government is talking about sacrifice and solutions, but it hasn't yet made the tough decisions that will put the economy back together. Economist David Smick had it right in The Post this week when he said the administration had a three-pronged strategy: delay, delay and delay. The administration announces a rescue package but doesn't deliver details; it promises budget discipline but saves the hard decisions for later.

Ignatius suggests that the problem is that we don't have enough "business leaders with experience managing large organizations in crisis" in government. I'm sure it's as easy as stopping by the House cafeteria....

I'd like a Steve Jobs for the Commerce Department, and a Steve Jobs for Treasury, and a Steve Jobs for State, please. And a side of freedom fries!

Order up!

I'm kidding, of course. You can't buy freedom fries there any more.

Seriously, though, if we had wonderful examples of "business leaders with experience managing large organizations in crisis", do you know where I would put them right now? In business. To run faltering financial firms and banks, the faltering auto industry, one of many faltering retailers, faltering real estate and construction businesses.... There's lots of opportunity for these magic men. But oddly, there don't appear to be many of them.

I'm willing to hear Ignatius identify some of the people he proposes as becoming the magic men of government. But you know, he doesn't even name Steve Jobs. He instead suggests we need the equivalent of "Winston Churchill arrived as the avenging angel" - but last I checked, Churchill was a politician.

I would also like to hear Ignatius explain why he believes that "business experience" is better for people who run government agencies than, say, government experience. Why he would deem the CEO of AIG more competent to run government than the administrators who have bailed out his company? Where does he stand on somebody like Robert Rubin - why not mention Obama's receiving advice from a guy who was "good enough" to get compensation reaching into the hundreds of millions from Citigroup - isn't he a glorious example of somebody with the business creds to lead a financial industry turnaround? What of the dynamic duo of "businessmen", G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who led the country into this hole - Ignatius still perceives a glorious return from their "business experience"?

Let's say we put, say, Jamie Dimon in charge of the financial industry bailout - among the industry giants, he's arguably the financial industry CEO who did the best job in the years leading up to this crisis. What solution does Ignatius imagine that Dimon would serve up?

Really - if I'm to accept that there's a line-up of skilled business leaders, ready to take charge and quickly fix everything that's wrong with government, can we have at least one name? Can we hear about at least one strategy change that they would implement?

Obama administration officials are understandably nervous about taking a leap in the dark - imposing emergency financial measures that could mean bankruptcy and nationalization for big automakers and giant banks. I hope they will find more creative, market-oriented approaches that break up the giants rather than patch them together under government ownership.

No, I guess we're left hoping for a miracle man with a miracle cure.

Ignatius highlights a big part of the problem - nobody knows what will or will not work, and there's serious concern that proposed cures at best throw good money after bad or may make things worse. But there are no business leaders sitting quietly on the sidelines, ready and able to bring about a miracle cure but for the politicians who are leading the government.

But It's Even Worse, Isn't It?

If you wait long enough, somebody's probably going to articulate what you are thinking, and probably say it better. Case in point: I haven't had much time to type out my thoughts on the nation's fear of "nationalization", but Robert Reich does a pretty good job of describing something that's been bothering me:

The federal government -- that is, you and I and every other taxpayer -- has taken ownership of giant home mortgagors Fannie and Freddie, which are by now basket cases. We've also put hundreds of millions into Wall Street banks, which are still flowing red ink and seem everyday to be in worse shape. We've bailed out the giant insurer AIG, which is failing. We've given GM and Chrysler the first installments of what are likely to turn into big bailouts. It's hard to find anyone who will place a big bet on the future of these two.

In terms of the companies lining up for bailouts,

If anyone has a good argument for why the shareholders of these losers should not be cleaned out first, and their creditors and executives and directors second -- before taxpayers get stuck with the astonishingly-large bill -- I would like to hear it.

I completely agree. But there's something Reich doesn't mention that concerns me: Our current bailouts aren't working. That is, it may cost us more to continue bailing out loser companies while declining to nationalize them than it would if we nationalized them, ate their bad debt and, as quickly as possible, restored them to private ownership. (Part of the reason, of course, is the appalling greed of incompetent managers.)

I can also tell you this, not far off from one of Reich's points - Chrysler is a black hole. If it weren't, Cerberus would be bailing it out itself. They shouldn't be invited back for more "loans" or bailout funds, save perhaps a bridge loan to help them seal a takeover deal with a viable company.
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Addendum: "Moral haz... whuttard?" David Ignatius flat-out calls for subsidy:

How will the managers of the Bad Bank coax the gremlins out of hiding? With money, of course -- buying up an estimated $1 trillion to $2 trillion in toxic paper. Will the government overpay? Of course it will, especially at first, as it discovers fair prices for securitized debt for which there isn't now a functioning market.

Anybody even casually conversant with this crisis knows that the government will overpay because to do otherwise won't help the banks. We can buy them for the pretend value the banks presently use, knowing we're paying probably two, three, four times their actual value, removing a huge liability from the banks' shoulders, then hope that with actual assets back in their coffers banks will return to "business as usual". Or we can try to come up with something approximating market value, force banks to report multi-billion dollar losses on those assets, and... then most of them have to admit insolvency.

At least people seem to be through arguing that if the taxpayer ends up owning these toxic assets, there's a chance of "turning a profit". Does Larry Kudlow blush when he reads crap like this, or does he shrug, smile at the corporate interests he serves and say, "It was worth a shot."

And Next We Find a Philosopher King, and....

David Ignatius urges Obama to find a Warren Buffet of intelligence to be the next director of national intelligence.

The right answer? Find the Buffett-like manager who can create a truly great U.S. intelligence system at DNI, then let that person pick a CIA director who will be nonpolitical. And then, as the late CIA Director Richard Helms liked to tell his trench-coated colleagues, "Let's get on with it."

Sounds good. But... where do we look?

The War on Terror, On Film

In a nutshell, Body of Lies opens well, and starts building an interesting story. Then it goes off on a dubious subplot that isn't very convincing and takes far too long to develop. As the subplot is crucial to the ending of the film - your understanding of the characters, their motivations and their actions - it is indispensable. Unfortunately, it makes the film a bit too long and at times tedious.

The film tell a story that focuses on human intrigue, an expanding network of dysfunctional relationships with Agent Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio) at its center. That is, as contrasted with a lot of other modern films about the war on terror, it seems to be trying to put story ahead of politics. But make no mistake, this is a very political film, from its outset unapologetically asserting that the war on terror (efforts to fight terrorist cells and capture terrorist leaders) is crucial to the preservation of western values and freedoms. The Iraq war merits mention, but this film is about what its makers seem to see as the real "war on terror" - an often low-tech war with some high-tech components. There's plenty of double-cross and moral ambiguity.

As overt as the politics often are, as contrasted with a film like Babel or Syriana, the films largely avoids feeling like a condescending lecture or becoming lost in its convoluted plot. But you'll still get some elements of a political lecture, with characters dropping comments here or there describing how "torture doesn't work" (which isn't to say that those same speakers find no use for it) or that Islamic terrorism is predicated upon a misinterpretation of the Koran (while making it clear that you'll have no luck convincing the adherents of that interpretation that they've made a mistake).

I haven't read David Ignatius's book, but if the screenplay is any indication he's given a great deal of thought to the "war on terror", the mistakes we have made, and the reasons for our continued difficulties in identifying and stopping terrorist leaders and terrorist cells. This film sees great value in human capital (agents working in the field, and their building relationships with locals), and is often scornful of the U.S./CIA preference for surveillance technology that arose following the end of the cold war, as well as their treatment of the locals who risk their lives (or die) while working with or assisting field agents. In the film, Agent Ferris is morally elevated over his boss not because of what he does for those harmed or killed by his actions, but because he wants to offer assistance before indifferently accepting that it's not forthcoming.

But Ignatius is no Luddite - far from it. The film depicts whiz-bang, nifty keen technologies in all, or perhaps most of, their glory. While highlighting the limitations of technological surveillance, he also illustrates its usefulness, and showcases how even one or two people can orchestrate a massive disinformation campaign through the Internet.

Leonardo DiCaprio is well cast in this film, although the character he plays will be familiar to those who have seen his recent work. (His accent may change, but it's essentially the same character he played in Blood Diamond and The Departed.) His character is suited to his role. I suspect that Ridley Scott had fun with Russell Crowe, chubby and aged, commenting to DiCaprio at one point that a decade earlier he could have taken him in a fight. (Believe it or not, yes, it's almost a decade since Scott directed Crowe in Gladiator.)

Quite a Piece of Work, Indeed....

Recently, John McCain's campaign manager offered an admission:

Rick Davis, campaign manager for John McCain's presidential bid, insisted that the presidential race will be decided more over personalities than issues during an interview with Post editors this morning.

"This election is not about issues," said Davis. "This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates."

Today, David Ignatius personifies the type of voter Davis is targeting. Ignatius warns that the nation faces big issues, with little time for the candidates left to address them,

But for now, let's enjoy the American tapestry that's laid out before us: quirky, sometimes discordant, with some missed stitches and ragged patches, but quite a piece of work all the same.

No, let's not.

Demonstrating Bipartisanship The Wrong Way

David Ignatius has a silly idea for Barack Obama:

By reaching outside the Democratic Party for his vice presidential nominee -- tapping Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, say, or independent Mayor Michael Bloomberg from New York -- Obama would in an instant demonstrate that he truly means to change the divisive, lose-lose politics of Washington. It would offer a unity government for a country that seems to want one.

There are all sorts of practical arguments against such an unconventional choice -- not least that it would upset many of Obama's liberal Democratic supporters. But it would make a powerful statement that Obama really does want to govern in a different way. It would make "change we can believe in" more than a slogan.

No, the "not the least of which" argument is that when you vote for a President from a particular political party, you don't expect that in the event of his incapacity that the Presidency will shift to the rival party. If Ignatius brushes up on his history, he should learn that the purpose of joint tickets is to make sure that the President and Vice President are from the same party.

But it does make me wonder... what would the punditocracy say about an Obama/Powell ticket?

By choosing a veteran politician outside his own party, Obama would solve three problems at once: He would undercut the bipartisan appeal of his maverick GOP rival, Sen. John McCain; he would ease voters' fears about his own youth and inexperience...

This would work by sending the message, "I'm like G.W. Bush, and there aren't any Democrats who have sufficient national security credentials to even be as impressive as the mendacious, scheming, non-veteran Dick Cheney"? Great idea. You know what? The innuendo that Obama is "too young" or "too inexperienced" flows not from his actual age or experience, but from members of the punditocracy like Ignatius. So perhaps Obama is better served by scoffing at the suggestion, and challenging Ignatius types to back up their rhetoric with substance.

... and he would find a compelling alternative to Hillary Clinton, who for all her virtues as a vice president would come with heavy baggage - not least the role of her husband, who is even harder to imagine as Second Laddie than as First.

Okay, now that's just silly. If Hillary Clinton wants the VP spot, in all likelihood she'll get it. Nobody wants the fight, or party divisions likely to again erupt, if she lobbies for the job and is rejected. If she does not want the job, she won't be asked. Innuendo Bill Clinton? That's more suited to a Maureen Dowd column, David. Leave that stuff to others.

Moreover, Obama needs to counter the charge that he talks a better game about bipartisanship and change than he has actually delivered. His voting record in Illinois and Washington mostly has been that of a conventional liberal, and there are precious few examples of him taking political risks to work across party lines.

And we're back to, "If the pundits say it, it must be so."

McCain, by contrast, has actually fought the kind of bipartisan battles that Obama talks about - from campaign finance to climate change to rules against torture - and he has the political scars to prove it.

So Ignatius raises three issues to demonstrate McCain's "bipartisanship". First, campaign finance reform. McCain became the "maverick" behind campaign finance reform not by working toward bipartisanship, but by taking a stance against his own party. Look at the actual vote - 60 to 40, with 38 of the "nays" coming from Republicans. That was much less an example of bipartisanship than it was an example of McCain crossing the aisle. Does Ignatius understand the meaning of the word "maverick"? It's not a synonym for "consensus-builder".

The second example, "climate change". If bipartisanship means offering watered down proposals to try to bridge the gap between effective reforms and ineffective reforms, he gets some credit. But if we're actually looking for a President who will advocate the most effective solutions, that brand of bipartisanship falls short. What is Ignatius overlooking? The importance of leadership. That's what Obama is offering on this issue, as the Republican Party is full of climate change laggards. To use a word that G.W. likes to throw around, the type of compromise McCain is offering constitutes appeasement.

The third example, "rules against torture".... Ignatius has forgotten McCain's flip-flop? Or is he speaking of McCain's failed anti-torture amendment, supported in the Senate by a 90:9 vote, that failed due to threatened veto? Are we now defining a proposal that pretty much everybody already supports as representative of "bipartisanship"? If Obama floats a "Sense of the Senate" bill lauding the beauty of the American flag and gets a 100:0 vote of support, is proof that he can "work toward bipartisanship"?

The best thing I can say about this column is that virtually no one will take its suggestions seriously.

Housing Handouts

Pretty much everybody and his brother has published an editorial describing one stimulus or another for the housing market. A minority prefer to leave things alone. George Will, on the other hand, takes a middle road, apparently clinging to his belief that a handout is only a handout when it is made to an individual and not a corporation.

Oh? The idea that protracted golden years of idleness are a universal right is a delusion of recent vintage. Deranged by the entitlement mentality fostered by a metastasizing welfare state, Americans now have such low pain thresholds that suffering is defined as a slight delay in beginning a subsidized retirement often lasting one-third of the retiree's adult lifetime.

You know, for a guy who looks like he has never engaged in physical labor in his entire lifetime, Will should give it a try. He's only 67 years old - let's see how well he does when he's pushing something heavier than a pen, for something closer to minimum wage than his sinecures at The Washington Post and Newsweek.

Subprime mortgages are a small minority of mortgages, and only a minority of subprime borrowers are not making their payments. Casting this minority of a minority as victims of "predatory" lending fits the liberal narrative that most Americans are victims of this or that sinister elite or impersonal force and are not competent to cope with life's complexities without government supervision.

This represents Will at his best - half right. I agree with him that most of the people who are in trouble made poor individual choices. But that does not mean that there were no predatory practices by lenders, and it certainly doesn't justify Will's willful blindness toward the massive federal handouts being given to lenders who were much better positioned than any individual to recognize the folly of these loans - yet made them time, and time, and time again. As is his wont, Will also has to wrap his point in a silly smear against "liberals". (But perhaps he's now among those who think of John McCain and G.W. Bush as liberals, so who even knows what that means at this point.)

But I agree with this point, despite its condescension:

The 96 percent of mortgage borrowers who are fulfilling their commitments, often by scrimping, may be grumpy bystanders if many of the other 4 percent - those who found the phrase "variable rate" impenetrably mysterious - are eligible for ameliorations of their obligations.

The proposed "remedies" to the "foreclosure crisis" seem to be taking the form of handouts - either bailing out borrowers who are in over their heads, or subsidizing new home buyers to try to soak up some of the "excess inventory" in the housing market. Picking up where Will left off, David Ignatius presents a "slippery slope" (i.e., logically fallacious) argument as to where this all leads us.

We're now in a comparable cycle of bestowing special economic favors on members of the national family who have been hurt by the credit market crisis. "It's not fair," argue the housing interests and consumer advocacy groups. "Bear Stearns got a financial bailout, so why shouldn't we?" And they're right, by the simplest schoolyard definition of fairness.

So the line grows of people demanding breaks on financial obligations they can't afford. Last week, the Bush administration agreed to rescue 100,000 homeowners who are at risk of foreclosure on their mortgages. Congressional Democrats promptly announced that this wasn't fair enough and that they intended to expand the bailout to as many as 2 million distressed borrowers.

But why stop there? What about onerous commercial mortgages? And credit card debt? And student loans? Why should anyone have to pay back anything? It's not fair

Well, actually, we do have a mechanism where businesses and individuals can escape debts. It's enshrined in the body of the Constitution. It's called... bankruptcy. With some relatively modest tweaking of bankruptcy law, borrowers facing foreclosure can get individualized relief through the bankruptcy courts. The lenders who chose to give them too much money will take a loss, sure, but often less than the cost of a foreclosure. And there is no need for federal handouts to the borrowers.

As for those handouts, some of them inspire the "Say what?" response....

The only solution is for the federal government to offer a temporary 5 percent tax rebate — up to $25,000 — for first-time home buyers.

Here's where the point made by Ignatius and Will kicks in - that proposal is manifestly unfair to responsible borrowers, including first-time home buyers who may have lost part or all of their equity after buying houses they can afford. It also assumes that the problem exists at the bottom of the market. While I don't dispute that there seem to be many areas where foreclosures are affecting large numbers of entry level homes, there are also many areas where even with a subsidy the homes affected are out of the reach of first-time buyers.

I guess the idea is that making homeowners out of a population that has insufficient savings or interest in presently becoming homeowners will reinflate the bubble, such that other owners "get their equity back". But if that works, does it do more than postpone the present market correction? And don't we risk creating a new population of home buyers who don't have the financial stability or discipline to consistently pay their mortgages, setting ourselves up for "foreclosure crisis II"? There's a reason, after all, that lenders traditionally chose not to give mortgages to first-time borrowers who hadn't saved up a down payment, even if somebody else was willing to give them the money. Also, while the subsidy may inspire renters to buy homes, what happens to the vacant rental properties? Higher vacancies usually lead to lower rent, and rental rates typically correlate to housing values.

Meanwhile it does appear that there are individuals and investors who are bargain hunting, raising the question of whether such a subsidy at the bottom end of the market is even necessary.

Let's Not Overrate Bipartisanship

David Ignatius is much more comfortable with McCain's record on "biparisanship" than with Obama's:

The Obama campaign sent me an eight-page summary of his "bipartisan accomplishments," and it includes some encouraging examples of working across the aisle on issues such as nuclear proliferation, energy, veterans affairs, budget earmarks and ethics reforms. So the cupboard isn't bare. It's just that, unlike McCain, Obama bears no obvious political scars for fighting bipartisan battles that were unpopular with his party's base.

A couple of reactions....

Bipartisanship is a great concept when your party doesn't control the government. "They may have the power and control, but wouldn't it be better if they tossed us a bone from time to time?" It's necessary when no party is in control, as otherwise you can have gridlock. But if you do have control, what's your incentive for tossing the other side that bone? The vain hope that in the future, when they regain control, they'll return the favor? (What does the Republican legislative history from 2001 - 2006 tell us about that hope?)

Also, I don't believe for a second that McCain plans to run a bipartisan government, except as necessary to advance his agenda. He may be more willing to break with the Republican Party than his recent predecessors, just as they will be more likely to break with him, but that's not about "bipartisanship" - that's about their each advancing their own agendas. The spittle directed at McCain by right-wing nutters like Limbaugh and Coulter is a reflection of that reality - the problem is not that McCain is a "liberal" as some pretend, or that he belives in "bipartisanship". It's that he'll build coalitions to do what he wants.

It doesn't worry me that Obama doesn't have a long history of reaching across the aisle. He hasn't been in national office long enough to have a long history of anything, and for the first six years of the Bush Administration "reaching across the aisle" has largely meant getting a sufficient number of Democrats to acquiesce to an item on the Republican agenda. It would worry me more if he had the opportunity to advance significant legislation without compromise, but nonetheless decided to gut it in the name of "bipartisanship". (But I don't think he'll do that.)

Ronald Reagan taught the country something about the ability of a world-class communicator to create such a new political space that defies the previous categories.

I thought we were talking about bipartisanship, so why does Ignatius evoke Reagan? At present, to be transformative, McCain would have to do a lot of reaching across the aisle. Obama, not so much.

What Ails the Democrats

While David Ignatius points to an actual lack of focus within the Democratic Party, I think he underestimates the difficulty of articulating a coherent "opposition policy", particularly on a wide range of issues with no easy solutions. I don't think that it is true that Republicans really "play the game" better - instead, I think that they are better at framing the issues in a manner that benefits them, and in presenting a simplistic view of the world that is hard to penetrate with facts and nuanced arguments. What's the alternative to "cut taxes, cut taxes, cut taxes"? Raising taxes? What's the alternative to "sticking the course"? Cutting and running?

When he proposes,

What can the Democrats do to seize the opportunities of the moment? I suggest they take a leaf from Newt Gingrich's GOP playbook and develop a new "Contract With America." The Democrats should put together a clear and coherent list of measures they would implement if they could regain control of Congress and the White House.

does he recall what happened to Newt Gingrich and the "Contract On America"? If even the Democrats Ignatius views as weak and ineffective can tear down such a "contract" and its chief proponent, how does he propose that a Democratic alternative would not succumb to a similar fate?

Blaming The Public

In relation to Iraq, I recall the position of "Stormin' Norman" Schwarzkopf as set forth in his 1993 autobiography:

From the brief time that we did spend occupying Iraqi territory after the war, I am certain that had we taken all of Iraq, we would have been like the dinosaur in the tar pit - we would still be there, and we, not the United Nations, would be bearing the costs of the occupation. This is a burden I am sure the beleaguered American taxpayer would not have been happy to take on.

George H.W. Bush similarly opinined in 1998,

We should not march into Baghdad. To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day Arab hero. Assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning them to fight in what would be an unwinnable urban guerilla war, it could only plunge that part of the world into ever greater instability.

On Monday, George W. Bush expressed,

Pulling the troops out would send a terrible signal to the enemy. Immediate withdrawal would say to the Zarqawis of the world and the terrorists of the world and the bomber who take innocent life around the world: 'the United States is weak.

Yet, despite the Bush Administration's protestations, this war was sold to the American people as something that was going to be short and easy. I'm not sure quite how that sale was made - but I think it would have been better made with a candid discussion of the true costs and burdens of invading, occupying, and the attempted reinvention of Iraq. Granted, the sales pitch would have been less convincing, and it is possible that in the end the American people wouldn't have bought into a war that they knew would be this difficult, this protracted, and this expensive. (I'm sure that at least Donald "Democracy is messy" Rumsfeld would have accepted the will of the people, right?)

We now have columnists like David Ignatius suggesting that, in regard to the war, the President is tone deaf. Or Harold Meyerson all-but calling the war plan a failure. But we don't seem to have any reflection upon the fact that had the Bush Administration respected the American people enough to tell the truth from the beginning (say what you will about whether they believed WMD's were present; the truth I'm talking about is that of the difficulty and cost of the post-war) we would either have made the informed commitment to stick with the project despite those risks and costs, or we would have chosen not to invade. Either way, we would be better off.[FN1]

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FN1. The case is sometimes made that it isn't a question of whether "we" are better off, but is a question of "bringing freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people". We have yet to do that, and may never accomplish such a goal. The moral weight of that argument, and the counter-argument that the aftermath of invasion could be no better or worse than life under Hussein, is something that should have been thoroughly discussed and considered in the pre-war period, as a factor in the nation's informed choice.

A Detailed Plan For Iraq?

Throughout the campaign, the media have demanded that John Kerry detail a strategy for dealing with Iraq. Never mind that the situation has changed dramatically, month-by-month, throughout the campaign. Never mind that even if it were possible to propose a "perfect solution" for today's situation, that solution would be hopelessly out-of-date by January. Never mind that, no matter what the plan, the Bush Campaign would ridicule any element that it could not coopt. (That led to the recent pecularity, following Kerry's first clear speech on an Iraq plan, in which the unreflective Bush Campaign declared through parallel statements to the media, "His ideas are the same as ours" and "He's advocating 'defeat and retreat'".) Never mind that no similar demand has been made of the Bush Campaign.

I'll give David Ignatius this much - at least he's breaking with the nonsensical pattern of demanding the challenger to outline precisely what he would do in Iraq while failing to make any similar demand of the Bush Campaign. But any person who can assert,

The coming offensive in Fallujah could be the bloodiest combat that U.S. forces have faced yet in Iraq. Worse, it could push interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's fragile interim government toward the breaking point. One early warning sign was this week's comment by interim President Ghazi Yawar, a Sunni Muslim, criticizing recent U.S. airstrikes on Fallujah as "collective punishment." It was Yawar's threat to quit the interim government last April that helped halt the previous U.S. offensive in Fallujah.

has to also know that a strategy for the present situation in Iraq, let alone an exit strategy, could be dramatically changed by the success or failure of such a venture - and that even a military success could result in a profound setback if it inspires the collapse of the Allawi government, broadens the "resistance", or prevents elections.

Ignatius continues,

If you try to put yourself in the boots of a U.S. soldier in Iraq, what you want to know from the candidates is: Can we win this thing, and if not, how can we get out? Unfortunately, the debate didn't really illuminate those essential questions. The most difficult days in Iraq may well lie ahead, but neither candidate has leveled with the country about how severe that test will be, or what fallback plans he has if his assumptions prove overly optimistic.

The questions are not entirely unfair, but Ignatius again ignores the fact that what might work today might not work tomorrow, let alone next month. The answer to "can we win this thing" seemed a bit different when Bush was strutting beneath his "Mission Accomplished" banner than it does today - and the colossal mistakes made since that time make it much less likely that we will achieve the results we most desire. Then, "winning" was defined as creating a stable nation with a secular, democratic government. Today, "winning" seems to be defined as achieving stability, preventing civil war, and creating a government that is not hostile to western interests. Would Ignatius call a plan to achieve that end a plan for victory?

Bush, the person in the best position to provide the type of answers Ignatius demands, won't provide them. His answers would be an admission of the failure of his central promises in the "liberation" of Iraq, and would also reveal that he has no "exit strategy". And his campaign can't simultaneously accuse Kerry of "defeat and retreat" while simultaneously proposing Bush's plan for doing precisely what he ridicules.

Bush would love for Kerry to paint a strategic picture on Iraq that addresses the present realities. "See how negative and pessimistic he is. Defeat and retreat. He's setting back our interests in the region." Columnists like Ignatius need to place the onus on the Bush Administration to announce its plan - to which the Kerry camp could then be called upon to respond with what it would do differently. And Bush knows that had he clearly enunciated his plan for Iraq and "exit strategy", he would have had to update the plan so frequently as to be (in his parlance) the quintessential flip-flopper, or would have had to repeatedly admit failure. Or both.

Perhaps, before being allowed to write columns like this, columnists like Ignatius should be required to propose their own plans to achieve victory in Iraq, and their ideas of a viable exit strategy. Perhaps such a demand would be the only thing that would wake them up to the realities of the situation, and why their demands are rather silly.

He Brought It On Himself?

How many times should I expect to read a moronic assertion such as,

The attacks on John Kerry's military service in Vietnam were politically risky, coming from supporters of a Republican candidate who didn't serve in that war. But it must be said that Kerry invited this sort of scrutiny by making his Vietnam exploits the centerpiece of last month's Democratic convention.

While it could be said that Kerry's bringing his military record into his campaign opens it up for legitimate scrutiny, nothing about his use of his record justifies this type of smear campaign. And does Ignatius truly believe that these attacks weren't in the making long before the convention?

This type of comment makes it seem like the media is trying to cover for its pathetic failure to shoot the "Swift Boat Liars" out of the water the moment they launched their barrage of lies. As CJR Campaign Desk recently noted,

In a campaign season where the candidates have demonstrated a willingness (even eagerness) to misinform voters, it's the responsibility of the press to inform the public about who's enlightening us with fact and who's misleading us with fiction.