Is it an Iraq Study Group or an America Study Group?

Last week the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, led by James Baker, announced its findings, most of which would have been fairly obvious to anyone following events in Iraq. The situation is "grave." Check. The administration should employ diplomacy. Okay. There are no easy answers. Good to know. Along with engaging Syria and Iran, the heart of the recommendations appear to be speeding up the training of Iraqi police and military, and withdrawing American combat troops by early 2008. The hope is that by then Iraq will somehow have a national army that can maintain control over the various militias and insurgent groups.

There are many things that are troubling about the commission and its findings. First of the all, the very idea that important political decisions must wait until after elections and should be directed by unelected and isolated bodies of wise men is at root undemocratic. As we've commented before, the willingness to revert to commissions to solve tricky political questions further undermines the ability of ordinary citizens to control policy. Baker and company should not be the ones making life and death decisions about foreign affairs. No one elected them, and they represent no political constituency.

Yet, perhaps the most disturbing element of the ISG report is that its basic focus is not Iraq at all. One should wonder why the report stipulates early 2008 as a withdrawal date. No one, as Timothy Phelps as Newsday points out, actually believes that the Iraqi police and military will be remotely ready by then. The only feasible answer is that the date marks the beginning of the next U.S. presidential campaign. Baker and company do not want the war hanging over another election and new American presidency. Once again, American policies toward Iraq are being driven by events not on the ground but at home -- events tied in no conceivable way to the welfare and security of actual Iraqis.

Perhaps, the clearest example of the ISG's America focus is that the only realistic option that can change the dynamic of violence on the ground, immediate withdrawal of all US forces, was not included as a serious possibility. The report essentially defends the current "Iraqification" approach, and combines it with a large draw-down (although not full withdrawal) of forces over the next fifteen months. The goal is clearly to get out without it seeming like a precipitous defeat. To that end, the emphasis on diplomacy is meant to create a regional partnership that can control Iraq for the foreseeable future. None of this, however, is likely to alter the day-to-day experience of civil war and low-grade guerrilla insurgency.

Immediate American withdrawal could potentially suck the energy out of at least some of the violence. The reason often given against such a policy is that chaos would break out. But that is not why withdrawal isn't being recommended. Iraq is already experiencing one of the deadliest civil wars since World War II, with the numbers of Iraqi dead and wounded dwarfing those from Lebanon's nearly two-decade conflict (1974-1991). At present, 160,000 American troops aren't maintaining the peace, and raising the numbers in Baghdad by 20,000-30,000 over the next year won't either. Withdrawal isn't an option because the commission is again less focused on the future of Iraq and more focused on what remains of American military credibility. The only problem is that you can't help solve a problem in Iraq by thinking in terms of politics in Washington.

In the end, it took the commission nine months to tell us what we already knew and to offer advice more attuned to the interests of domestic politicians than actual Iraqis. But, then again, that's what we get for having commissions run our politics.

Rhetoric Machine: Political Art

Political art is very difficult to pull off. It often wavers between heavy-handed propaganda and pallid criticism. At the end of long-standing debates about the relationship between aesthetics and politics, one is often tempted to throw one's hands in the air and simply demand that the two remain independent of each other - it's better for both. But a recent exhibit reminds us not only that political art is not a contradiction in terms, it is a challenge more than worth the effort. Noah Fischer's Rhetoric Machine, on exhibit at the Oliver Kamm gallery in New York City, is an astonishing, multimedia display that tackles big themes - American militarism and the presidency. The title refers to the central topic: the means by which the government, especially presidents, use sound, image and words - in a word, rhetoric - to produce acceptance of their war-making aspirations.

Fischer's installation is laid out in a room divided by a white partition. In the first space is a small cut out of a presidential figure standing behind a podium. Projecting outward from him, on telescoping pedestals that grow gradually larger, are various mechanized sculptures. Each has a carefully scripted role to play in a multimedia cinematic experience that begins, quietly, with a montage of wartime speeches, beginning with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and rapidly moving through to Lyndon Baines Johnson. As the speeches play over loudspeakers, different Top 40 music snippets play in the background, and the figures move, as if responding to the presidential oration. The sound swells and builds, becoming more intense, almost overwhelming, as the sounds of war, bombs, sirens, and roaring jets, overpower speech and music.

But before the experience becomes intolerable, it suddenly quiets for a comically ironic solo performance by the eagle, flapping its metal wings to the sound of Whitney Houston. As the initial segment draws to a close the other half of the room begins to light up, and you move over to discover the 'brain' of the installation. It turns out the movement, flashing lights, and different sounds are all precisely coordinated by an incredible, spinning barrel with pieces of variable length magnetic tape on it. When the tape comes in contact with different switches, it closes the circuit, and tells the eagle to flap its wings, or the siren to spin and let out its piercing sound, and so on.

By calling attention to the means by which his installation produces its piece of theatre, Fischer seems to want to remind us of how rhetoric is produced generally. In doing this, he cleverly avoids the typical, didactic quality of political art. His medium is the message, not in a superficial way, but by emphasizing and even demanding that we reflect not just on the message, but on the production of messages - including his own. He obviously has a specific set of ideas he wants to convey - that war is senseless, that we have generally been misled into war, and that this is an ongoing problem. Even in the pure sense of message, Fischer's is far better than most artistic and propagandistic images these days, which tend to focus almost exclusively on Bush. In fact, thankfully, George W Bush is nowhere to be found in this installation. The last president to be heard is Clinton. Here again, even as he almost overwhelms the various senses, Fischer forces us to reflect and think - to step back from our immediate experience of politics, and to think about its history and its underlying structures. But again, it is not just this specific argument that Fischer wishes to represent in an artistic form; rather, it is the artistry of politics that Fischer wants to draw our attention to and to think about. The medium is the message, in other words, because the installation forces us to reflect upon the immediate world of appearances by creating images that make reference to their origins and essence. The 'brain' of the installation is itself integrated into the art, and is physically as well as temporally separated - the twenty minute piece presents you with about fifteen minutes of sound and image before drawing attention to what is producing the rhetoric.

One thing that makes good political art especially difficult is that most art in some way tries to be beautiful. Political criticism, on the other hand, is rarely beautiful. But Fischer resolves the challenge by creating an extraordinarily rich and complicated sensory experience. The installation is not quite beautiful, but it is nonetheless extremely creative and imaginative, and in that sense a work of art. The sheer logistical complexity of coordinating the various pieces is remarkably inventive. Even more, Fischer uses a wide range of different media to create his images - paper mache, woodworking, lighting, electronics, wire sculpture, photography, plastics, paper cut-outs, painting - to name a few. He is clearly in love with the creative process, and as committed to the craft as he is to the message itself - which is why the installation comes off as good political art.

Rhetoric Machine reminds us that rhetoric is not just speech, but sound and image too. If the thrust of the installation is to suggest that rhetoric is generally used to manipulate publics into supporting destructive, illegitimate wars, it is not an attack on rhetoric itself, and in that avoids the cynical tendency to equate all rhetoric with manipulation. The Greeks believed that the true citizen must master the art of rhetoric, because politics is about persuasion, and must engage more than just the rational mind. They of course believed it could be used badly, for manipulation and self-serving ends, which is why it must be yoked to rationally informed, public ends. By using his own 'rhetoric' against the rhetoric machine, Fischer reminds us of the art of politics, and the possibility of using it for better ends.

Noah Fischer's Rhetoric Machine runs through January 6, 2007 at the Oliver Kamm Gallery, located at 621 West 27th St., New York City.

Life-Blood of the War on Terror

Time Magazine's cover story this week is an investigation of the psychology of risk. Entitled, "Why We Worry About the Wrong Things," the article recognizes that both individual behavior and social policy are shaped by our perceptions of and attitude toward risk. Indeed, it doesn't take much mental effort to see how central the notion of risk is to the development and prosecution of the war on terror.

But the Time article is far more enlightening as a study in what it leaves undiscussed. Most obviously, as a "psychological" assessment of risk, it considers the question at the level of the individual. The reason we do a bad job of addressing risk is largely a problem of a "prehistoric brain." According to Time, "Sensible calcuation of real-world risks is a multidimensional math problem that sometimes seems entirely beyond us." The authors never consider that the notion of risk itself is influenced by social priorities and values. Instead, from the article's discussion one would think that human interaction with risk has hardly advanced beyond the level of instinct, largely governed by our "fight or flight" responses. Such biological assessments of social phenomena are pretty common. The Time article provides a good example of why this desire to biologize is so problematic.

If nothing else, the biological assessment of all manner of social problems leaves us with much less leverage to surmount them. The article's authors provide various suggestions of how we might tweak our risk assessment, but at base they believe, "it's something we'll never do exceptionally well." Since many of the problems lie in evolutionary, physiological structures, the theory goes, we have a limited capacity to change these. The authors exhibit no recognition that we could perhaps radically alter our attitude and approach to risk.

In this vein, the article is most telling. The problem it identifies is that we focus on some threats to our lives when there are other threats that are much greater. The article opens by saying, "It would be a lot easier to enjoy your life if there weren't so many things trying to kill you everyday." Among these things "trying to kill you" are early-morning heart attacks, fatal plunges down stairs, sausage getting lodged in your throat, and so on. The "optimistic" conclusion is that "officials who provide hard, honest numbers and a citizenry that takes the time to understand them would not only mean a smarter nation, but a safer one." There is a basic assumption here that we find problematic--that the fact one can die in a number of different ways, and indeed, will eventually die of something makes our lives impossibly risky. Therefore, rationally, we should spend our lives minimizing our exposure to these multiple life-risks.

But, why should we even think about risk in these terms? It is not inherent that we orient our social goals toward minimizing the chances of death, which of course is not to argue that society should be oriented around aimless risk-taking and thrill-seeking, or around a nihilistic lack of interest in preserving one's life. But society should perhaps not concern itself with risk. We could instead make decisions and shape policy around a vision of what we think life should be, and try our best to enable this good-life for all members of society. Today we are orienting society increasingly arount the avoidance of death. And this is exactly how Time's cover story understands and evaluates the question of risk. But avoidance-of-death policy does not provide for consideration of the next step, of how we should or would like to spend the time alive, nor how to maximize each individual's opportunities in life. Such a view is centered upon mere survivalism, never looking beyond preservation to ask what type of life we should live, and to craft social policy to enable that life.

This is, as we have said before, the ideology of the war on terror, it's life-blood. The bare-life vision enables the war on terror's bare-life policies. Central to overcoming the policies and consequences of the war on terror is resistance to this survivalist vision. It is indeed worth asking the question, "Why do we worry about the wrong things?" The answer, however, requires more than a biological assessment of individual brain function and demands that we re-think the notion of risk itself.

Remembering Hamdan

When Hamdan v. Rumsfeld was decided in late June of this year, it was heralded as a landmark case. Not only did it appear to validate the role of international law in constitutional decisions, it also seemed to vindicate those who sought to impose limits on a runaway president. But as one comment on Hamdan, which we recently came across, observes, the most notable thing about the decision is how unmemorable it is. The author, Jay Dratler of University of Akron School of Law, points out that "there is a time for technical analysis and a time for the wisdom of the ages. Of the latter I saw very little in Hamdan." This in spite of the fact that the concurring and dissenting opinions in Hamdan are a total of eight times longer than the entire Constitution.

Dratler has a conservative bent, thus he is worried about the decline of an august institution, its traditions, and the bulwark the Court provided against the depredations of democracy. Nonetheless, his concerns are apposite. He is not merely worried that courts write long opinions instead of short, crisp ones. The point is that, in Hamdan, the Court seems to have substituted verbiage and detail for the opportunity to make a historic statement. In so doing, the Court undermined itself, because it failed to perform that special function of reflecting on our highest principles - a function that grants it a peculiar kind of legitimacy. In fact, the opinions in Hamdan do the opposite of reflecting in clear, intelligent prose about the Constitution for the sake of public education. In Dratler's words, "As a whole, the Hamdan Court's output is hard sailing even for those, like myself, who have been trained for decades in the law. It is virtually impenetrable for people who have not incurred the expense of legal training." Awash in legalities and technicalities, the decision is written "as if the Justices were high priests of some obscure religion," not educated servants of the public.

Dratler is mistaken to have believed that the judges ever performed a particularly democratic function. Many of their most eloquent and clear opinions have justified transparently conservative decisions whose main function was to educate the public in just how undemocratic its government was; and to a degree, it has always functioned as a body of high priests in robes sitting in judgment on society. Dratler is nonetheless right that the Court seems actively to have avoided making any historic statements. The reasons for this are somewhat hard to discern. The main one is likely that the Court was recitent to act as an opposition in the absence of any other branch or party performing a checking function. Where Dratler takes this as a sign of decline, and an abdication of responsibility, we take it as a different kind of lesson on the limits of the Court. The Supreme Court is often vested with great expectations, especially in periods when political alternatives seem depleted or weakened. But it is precisely in such situations when the Court is least likely to stick its neck out. In fact, it is always something of a conservative institution. While there is some sense in demanding that the Court live up to its own standard, as Dratler does, there is more sense in freeing ourselves from the idea that the Court should play the role of interpreting our basic commitments to us in the first place.

A Blow For Freedom

In a recent court ruling, a district court judge ruled certain aspects of a Presidential decree using terrorist blacklists unconstitutional. The case had been percolating for years, and was brought by the Humanitarian Law Project on behalf of two groups, Kurdistan Workers Party and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. This is undoubtedly not the end of the case. Although the government has not yet decided on an appeal, it is likely to do so. However, regardless of whether the government does so or not, its results should not be confused with a victory for freedom against tyranny. No doubt it will be a good thing for the specific groups affected, and who were bizarrely included in the list of 'terrorist organizations.'

But no defense of liberties is serious and lasting if it is won in the courts alone. Indeed this case, brought by a liberal organization that self-consciously styles itself as political, and which includes David Cole, a widely visible liberal public intellectual, is one of a smattering through which liberals continue to try and defend civil liberties through judicial activism. The shift from a mass movement for civil liberties towards an elite activity taken up almost exclusively in the courts is a long term historical process. And at one time, one can imagine judicial activism having been one part of a broader movement for the expansion of liberty. Now, however, cases like the recent decision might limit the arbitrary powers of the President in some small way, and help a few individuals out. But its broader significance is, in the present climate, not progressive. Rather, this kind of judicial activism, and especially the politicized lawyers organizations, are a sign of the degree to which these groups have retreated from winning their arguments in the court of public opinion. Indeed, the emphasis on judicial activism now registers a distrust of the public, and an unwillingness to engage in the more difficult, but more important and enduring work of convincing the public that these cases are not just individualized instances affecting specific political groups, but matters of concern for the health of politics in general. A society that favors judges over the public is not free no matter how rigorously and fairly those judges apply the law.

With Friends Like These...

In yet another effort to find a new direction in Iraq, Bush and Rice prepare for a summit in Amman on Wednesday with Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki. The Amman meetings also serve to announce the Administration's plan to call on "Arab friends" for help in the region. And who better than the eternally compromised Jordanian state to act as friend and host?

On Sunday, Jordan's King Abdullah called for "a strong step forward" by the international community in order to avert a crisis in the Middle East. Without it, Abdullah warned, we face the foreboding possibility of opening 2007 with "three civil wars" in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq. It is no surprise that the Jordanian government, which owes its existence and longevity to its status as client-state (not to mention its recent economic boom due to the US invasion of Iraq), would call for increased action from the West. But the notion that international intervention can improve the situation or stabilize the region is beyond wishful thinking.

The crises that Abdullah describes are each the direct result of international "strong steps." The West's own fears of Islamism has led it to take measures, at times clumsy, at times heavy-handed, to counter what it sees as growing Islamist power. In Palestine, the international community intentionally crippled the democratically-elected Hamas government by cutting off the funding sources that enable the Authority to operate a government. International pressure has followed a similarly disastrous course in Lebanon--willfully attempting to quash the political influence of Hezbollah, which represents Lebanon's majority Shi'a population (who have, although the majority, been limited in government by the structure of the Lebanese state since its inception). And of course, the US invasion of Iraq is the direct cause of that country's descent into chaos (who's long-term causes are sanctions, and US support of Saddam Hussein against more democratic forces in the 1970s and 80s). At every turn, the international community has shown utter disdain to the notion of self-determination and popular will.

Thus it is predictable that the US wants to call upon its "Arab friends" to help resolve its current regional problems--the same authoritarian regimes that have survived for decades by virtue of US support. The result of this initiative will be more of the same, seeking as it does to neutralize all actors that appear to reflect a degree of popular will or regional autonomy.

Iraq: Who's on Trial?

A recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report condemning Saddam Hussein's Trial for being unjust and unfair has been making headlines across the globe. HRW notes numerous procedural irregularities, signs of bias, and violations of standard civil rights in the trial. The report concludes that the main problem was that Iraq lacked the "capacity to fairly and effectively try these massive crimes in a manner that is consistent with international criminal law and fair trial standards." HRW's report is presented as an impartial analysis of the trial, but one should not be fooled. The report is an incredibly self-serving, political document that puts the interests of international human rights organizations and international lawyers first, and Iraqi political needs second.

At one level, the document is the newest entry in a wide-ranging series of publications by organizations and individuals trying to distance them from the general Iraqi debacle in which they are implicated. Human Rights Watch and other human rights groups did a great deal to foster the prewar climate in which it was only possible to think of Hussein as a genocidal tyrant who needed to be overthrown, nevermind all the troublesome political issues involved with violating another country's sovereignty, smashing its state, and being an unwelcome presence to those people supposedly being liberated. And ever since Bush started leaning more heavily on humanitarian justifications for the war, and reminded the public of the connection between the Iraq war and prior humanitarian interventions, the human rights community, such as it is, has been in a small scale crisis of legitimacy. Developing a human rights critique of various aspects of the invasion and occupation has been a way of trying to salvage the international human rights project from this morass. For the liberals who run these organizations, these moves have been a way of preserving the idea that human rights contain some kind of (weakly) critical edge, rather than serve as imperial apologetics.

Factually, the report is disingenuous. The various international trials relating to the former Yugoslavia and to Rwanda were also highly irregular. It was with a sigh of relief that the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia saw Slobodan Milosevic die before his trial was completed. Not only had he run circles around a surprisingly incompetent prosecution, but he exposed just how unfair and unequal his trial was (including radical disparities in the resources available to prosecution and defense, attempts to speed up the trial, and dubious evidence, not to mention being tried in an ad hoc court established by the victors). And as an exercise in instituting the international rule of law, Milosevic's trial dragged on so long, most had forgotten about it and moved on. It utterly failed as a legitimating act, neither helping to recognize the public suffering caused by human rights abuses, nor establishing faith in the (international) rule of law - both claims widely made by human rights organizations. Many of the same advocates who are upset about Saddam Hussein's trial said little or nothing about irregularities in prior signature trials, and certainly did not do so as immediately and decisively as they have done with Hussein.

More to the point, HRW's report criticizes Hussein's trial mainly as a way of attacking local justice, not the idea of highly politicized human rights trials. The report claims "that trials that meet international human rights standards of fairness will be more likely to ventilate and verify the historical facts at issue, contribute to the public recognition of the experiences of victims of different religious groups and ethnicities, and set a more stable foundation for democratic accountability after periods of conflict and/or repression." There is no evidence for any of this, but what they are really trying to say is that we can only trust international lawyers and human rights experts to handle dictators appropriately, not local populations. In fact, as we have noted before, the central problem with Saddam's trial was not that it failed to conform with "international human rights standards" but that it was utterly removed from any kind of Iraqi political movement and democratic process. The trial, though held in Iraq, was outside of Iraqi control, and managed in a way to ensure that those actually repressed by Saddam were unable to hold him to account, perhaps using such accountability as part of a process whereby a new order was established. Indeed, the curfews imposed on various parts of Baghdad after the verdict was handed down demonstrates how little Iraqis were allowed to participate in holding their former oppressor to account. Removing Saddam's trial to some international court would only have exacerbated this political problem and further proved to Iraqis that their future is not under their control.

Human Rights Watch knows this, and its guilty, narcissistic consciousness peeks through its own report. At one point it states, "The significance of the trials before the IHT is difficult to overstate. For the first time since the post-Second World War Nuremberg trials, almost the entire senior leadership cadre of a long-lived repressive government faces trial for gross human rights violations committed during their tenure. At stake is not only justice for hundreds of thousands of victims, but, as at Nuremberg, the historical record itself." The breathless excitement at the prospect of parading an "entire senior leadership" of a Third World country before an international tribunal is so evident that it's almost perverted. And the invocation of the 'historic record' makes clear that what HRW really cares about is not the future of a Iraqi democracy and justice, but the future of the human rights project itself. They are upset that the Iraqis 'botched it' because it is a setback for a rare opportunity, made possible by the American invasion, of instituting the authority and expertise of human rights lawyers and activists as the ultimate arbiters of all conflicts. (HRW seems to forget that Nuremberg was basically a failure - extremely legally flawed and wrapped up hastily once denazification was seen to destabilize Germany in the face of a resurgent postwar left and emerging Cold War tensions.)

HRW's document is in no way an impartial analysis based on purely legal principles. The thrust of the document and its criticism is to suggest that only international experts and advocates are capable of dealing appropriately with former oppressors. It demonstrates no appreciation for the idea that the people themselves can and should, especially in times of extraordinary change, determine how to deal with the prior regime. A 'proper' international criminal tribunal would have only further exacerbated the political vaccuum and more deeply instituted the general idea that popular political processes are not to be trusted. What was wrong with Hussein's trial was not that Iraq lacked the capacity and expertise to deal appropriately with him, but that Iraqis were never given the chance in the first place.

Conference Call

If the question of an earlier period was ‘What is to be done?’ the slogan of contemporary politics is ‘Something must be done!’ This week something must be done about the Middle East apparently, with numerous calls for an international conference to resolve the ongoing crisis of Iraq, the Israel-Palestine conflict and the Iran nuclear stand-off.

Notable heavyweights lending themselves to this cause include Henry Kissinger and British PM, Tony Blair. Both used television interviews to publicly despair of the situation in Iraq; Blair declared the occupation ‘pretty much a disaster’ while Kissinger stated that he didn’t believe a military solution to the situation was possible. The alternative solution? According to Kissinger: “At some early point an international conference should be called that involves neighbors, perhaps the permanent members of the Security Council and countries that have a major interest in the outcome like India and Pakistan.” Blair also sought more involvement from Iran and Syria in stabilizing Iraq.

Such backsliding by the cheerleaders of the Iraq war is now commonplace. With no idea of how to extricate themselves from the situation, our leaders are seeking to drag in others to take the strain. Although Blair attempted to talk tough, declaring “If you [Iran and Syrian] are prepared to be part of the solution, there is a partnership available to you. But at the moment…you are behaving in such a way that makes such a partnership impossible,” this is pure bluster. A Syrian or Iranian dominated Iraq would once have been the worst case scenario for Bush et al; now it is their greatest hope.

If Kissinger had trouble thinking up a name for his international conference, Robert Skidelsky comes to his aid in The Guardian this week. “We need a new Congress of Berlin” he writes (not to be confused, incidentally, with the Berlin Conference; that misreading caused this editor to double-take), and in so doing reveals the theme underlying attempts to garner international cooperation on the issue. The Congress of Berlin, assembled by Kissinger’s inspiration Bismark, was tasked to resolve European tensions arising from the ascendance of Russia and the decline of the Ottoman Empire. Terms were essentially dictated to these weaker powers by an alliance of stronger states.

While others might be more careful about invoking an era of great power politics in their pronouncements, the logic is the same. While we might even invite members of the ‘axis of evil’ to rule Iraq, nobody has any faith in the ability of the Iraqis themselves to decide their own future. And therein lies the problem. The issues of the Middle East cannot be resolved through greater internationalization; such crises already result from the refusal of outside powers, regional or global, to allow people to determine their own politics. Using Iraq’s neighbors as proxy policemen, sending in more troops, or sending in United Nations, will not end the violence. No outside force can reconstruct an Iraq for the Iraqi people.

Finally, in case anybody thought that the admitted failure of the Iraq invasion might have caused a deeper questioning of the principles behind humanitarian intervention, they need only cast a brief eye over these two editorials from the last three days. First, The Guardian, vocal critic of the Iraq war that it is, calls for increasing ground troops in Afghanistan. Apparently the problem is that, thus far, the Western alliance has relied too heavily on air power. Meanwhile, the New York Times, calls for an expansion of the US army to over 500,000 men so that they better participate in peacekeeping and ‘unconventional wars’. We have argued many times on this blog that the overly narrow focus on both the Bush administration and the Iraq war would eventually prove counterproductive to those who seek an end to the military domination of the developing world. It seems like the mid-term defeat for the former project might pave the way for the resurgence of the latter.

When the Throne is A Chair

"Naive minds think that the office of kingship lodges in the king himself, in his ermine cloak and his crown, in his flesh and bones. As a matter of fact, the office of kingship is an interrelation between people. The king is king only because the interests and prejudices of millions of people are refracted through his person. When the flood of development sweeps away these interrelations, then the king appears to be only a washed-out man with a flabby lower lip. He who was once called Alfonso XIII could discourse upon this from fresh impressions."

So wrote Leon Trotsky about the Spanish king displaced by the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic. And one Saddam Hussein, now languishing in an Iraqi jail awaiting execution, might add some further insight.

Although this ‘November surprise’ did the Bush administration little good at the polls, it should not pass without comment. In fact, it is interesting because at this point, it seems to underline the jaded attitude widely held toward the Iraq invasion, both here and in Iraq. For Iraq, what might once have been a landmark in the construction of a new political order was insignificant when determined by forces outside the control of their control. The old man condemned to death by the court was simply that, an old man. His death no longer has the symbolic value it would have done had the Iraqis themselves overthrown an oppressive political order.

Compare the last week to the 1958 Iraqi Revolution that overthrew the British-backed monarchy. In his monumental history of Iraq 'The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq', Hanna Batatu records that, within minutes of the military coup that summarily dispatched the royal family (gunned down as they were marched out of the palace):

"...the capital overflowed with people...many of them in a fighting mood and united by a single passion: "Death to the traitors and agents of imperialism!" It was like a tide coming in and at first engulfed and with a vengeance Nuri's house and the royal palace, but soon extended to the British consulate and embassy and other palaces...When in the end, after nightfall, the crowds ebbed back, the statue of Faisal, the symbol of the monarchy, lay shattered..."

[Nuri As Sa'id, the sycophantic Prime Minister, was a particularly hated figure of the Hashemite regime. After his execution his body was disinterred, dragged through the streets, and then burned].

By comparison celebrations of this latest announcement were muted, partly due to a US curfew (no doubt a similar tidal wave was feared). But what would be the common cry of Iraqis today? And what would the hated symbols and figures of contemporary Iraq be? Flailing in a political quagmire of somebody else’s making, Iraqis can no longer unite over a vision of the future. Thus Saddam’s execution can only invoke an ambiguous response.

Reaction in the US is also complicated. In some circles the Hussein trial has been dismissed as a show trial, designed to vindicate the US invasion by exposing the worst crimes of the Saddam regime (ideally, while avoiding any discussion of US involvement in those crimes). There is no doubt some truth to this. But this was also a ‘showcase’ trial, whereby Americans, and perhaps more importantly, a skeptical international audience, would get to see the establishment of rule of law in Iraq. It was an attempt to present the occupation as an apolitical, ethical intervention, adhering to the norms of 1990s humanitarianism. These audiences would also observe that American power had not brought about a revolutionary moment with the violence and instability such an idea entails, but a smooth transition, replete with a therapeutic process for coming to terms with the past.

This has failed. Even groups who routinely push for the trial of international criminals, such as Human Rights Watch, have criticized the proceedings and questioned the outcome. In some ways, the trial has fallen between the cracks. For Iraqis the moment is not authentically political; they have never been agents in the downfall of Saddam and so, however much they dislike their former ruler, they are alienated from this process. Meanwhile for external observers, the trial can only seem illegitimate and designed to serve the purposes of the US, or the factional politics of Iraq. Once more the US founders in its Iraq project, unable to escape the distorting influence of its own power.

What Happened to the Republican Ideologues?

Last Wednesday, Bush participated in a press conference which was among the most memorable in his time as President. When asked about the incongruity between Rumsfeld's resignation and his comments only a week earlier, he said in all seriousness, "I didn't want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of a campaign." Certainly, we can all agree that campaigns shouldn't be about actual politics -- you know, ideas, beliefs, commitments. When asked about the conciliatory tone toward Democrats after repeatedly declaring that a victory for the Dems would be a victory for terrorists, the President responded, "What's changed today is the election's over. And the Democrats won."

For pundits, Bush's comments seemed to be a startling admission that his previous remarks had been lies. He had known all along that Rumsfeld was on the chopping block, while telling reporters that he was doing a "fantastic job" and would stay until 2009. Perhaps the most telling moment was when Bush was asked about Pelosi's very harsh words about him. The President replied, "I've been around politics a long time. I understand when campaigns end and when governing begins." In essence, Bush was saying that everyone lies during political campaigns and you can't take seriously anything politicians say to get elected.

Yet, in a deeper sense, Bush's remarks suggest that he really doesn't know when campaigning ends and governing begins. One of the political truisms since 9/11 is that the Bush Administration is unswervingly ideological, committed to policies regardless of their pragmatism or popular support (either domestic or international). But, the rhetorical about-face since the election indicates that maybe the Administration isn't nearly as ideological. What Bush is committed to is winning elections. In other words, all he knows how to do is to campaign. To the extent that Rove's base strategy and Bush's hardline language and policies were electorally successful, the Republicans were therefore ideological. When the approach no longer worked at vote-getting, the approach was changed. The last six years may have actually just been about branding, treating citizens like consumers and figuring out the best way to shape electoral preferences -- and in the process create a permanent Republican majority. Nothing more, nothing less.

If all this sounds distasteful, it should. Having bad ideologues run the government is certainly a grave problem. But, if those ideologues are actually genuinely committed to their position, at least it presents the possibility for debate and disagreement. What Bush's about-face indicates is something more subtle and perhaps more sinister. It's a vision of the citizen as purely a tool or instrument of campaign managers, and politics as indistinct from advertising any consumer good. For Bush, the substance of politics is literally just the campaign -- the sell. And as long as it works, virtually any brand (compassionate conservate, war-president, decider, neoconservative, social conservative, democratic revolutionary) fits the bill.

In a context where the only criticisms made of the Administration are pragmatic ones -- these guys are incompetent -- and Republican ideology is deployed cynically (gay marriage, war on terror, "stay the course" in Iraq), perhaps the Onion's recent headline offered the most telling critique: "Politicians Sweep Midterm Elections." Today, we've already begun talking about 2008. The Dems are moving to the center to win the next election, and Republicans are positioning themselves to re-take Congress. For both parties, politicians are products and ideology just a brand.

A Must Read on the Baker Commission

Michael Kinsley has one of the best op-eds yet written about the Baker Commission, and the Iraq War generally. He nails every theme - Bush's abdication of responsibility, Congress' abdication of responsibility, and the way democracy suffers when an anodyne, aimless and 'bipartisan' commission decides matters of war and peace. Kinsley has put his finger on a deeper, anti-political tendency in our society, which prefers independent commissions to political debates and positions. A few quotes from Kinsley's ope-ed below, the whole thing is a must read:

"Ordinarily a commission such as this has two possible purposes: action or inaction. Sometimes a problem is referred to a prestigious commission so that the commission can recommend doing things that everybody knows must be done but that nobody has the nerve to propose...On the other hand, sometimes a problem is referred to a commission simply to get it off the table. Action is widely perceived as necessary, and the creation of a commission can be made to look like action...But the Baker commission may be nearly unique in that there is no obvious solution waiting to be imposed. People actually hope that it will come up with something that no one has thought of."

"The chance that this group of aging white men, plus Vernon Jordan and Sandra Day O'Connor, will come up with something original is not enormous. It's a nutty and not very attractive idea to turn an urgent issue of war and peace over to a commission. Commissions have usually been trotted out for long-run social problems: immigration, debt, health care. Going to war is something that ought to be decided by the people we elect.Congress, in recent decades, has virtually abandoned its duty under the Constitution to make the decisions about when American soldiers are sent to kill and die."

Democrats Between Past and Future

The question on everyone's mind right now is 'having won, what are the Democrats going to do?' Leading Democrats have dropped strong hints that there will be no bold initiatives for the future. A discussion of the Patriot Act, of perhaps repealing some of its provisions, is not even priority enough to have been mentioned in any of the major dailies - let alone suggested as a possibility by incoming House and Senate leadership. A recent New York Times article reports Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, saying they will "re-examine" the lop-sided tax structure, but make no promises, and won't even get to that for at least six months.

Meanwhile, although the Democrats ran on the 'platform' of holding Bush and the Republicans accountable for their mistakes on Iraq (and elsewhere), the incoming House leadership have bent over backwards to make clear that impeachment is not an option. This was predictable (and impeachment was a bad idea to begin with). But Schumer has done even more to suppress expectations, saying on CNN recently that "we’re not going to hold a whole raft of hearings pointing a finger back at 2001." No doubt this is in part because any hearings, if conducted properly, would reveal just how complicit the Democrats have been in creating the current situation, both in their 'ayes' and unwillingness to 'nay.'

But the deeper question is this: if the Democrats are not planning on presenting an bold initiatives for the future, and don't want to investigate the past, then what is left for the present? Prepare for the 2008 election, which, if they win, will no doubt position them well for the 2010 mid-terms...Many Democrats insisted that once the Democrats were elected, they would begin to act like an opposition. But the opposite seems more likely to be the case. The more committed you are to winning elections every two years, the more unwilling you are to take political risks and stand on principle. The election cycle has a tendency to induce a false pragmatism and unnecessary moderation - the imperative of winning overwhelms all else, leaving you eternally trapped in the present, neither reflecting on the past, nor contemplating the future.