Lobbies Lobbies Everywhere

Last week, two well-known professors, one from Harvard and the other from the University of Chicago, published a paper called ‘The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy’ which has caused a serious furor amongst the chattering classes. The basic argument is that supporting Israel is not in the U.S.’s interest, so the only explanation for the massive financial and diplomatic support the U.S. gives that country is an Israel Lobby that wields disproportionate influence. As usual with these mini-controversies, it has shed more heat than light. But there are a few responses to this argument that are noteworthy.

First, there is the inevitable counterargument that it’s not the Israel Lobby but the Oil Lobby that is the major force behind American foreign policy in the Middle East. Perhaps it is surprising that more hasn’t been made of this argument, given how widely the Oil Lobby argument predominated during the peak of the war discussions. Even Bush has argued that dependence upon oil is a major problem for America! The Israel Lobby argument is even more farfetched as an explanation of foreign policy than the Oil Lobby argument. But both reflect a quest for conspiratorial explanations of politics that have quietist implications. If such lobbies really are in control, then what possibility is there for political opposition? One can complain about lobbies, but if the levers of power are tucked away in back rooms, telephone lines and special relationships, then there is no real possibility of reclaiming control. The implications of this argument are not critical but passive. And the fact that arguments about the two lobbies are not seen to contradict one another is significant—this is an instinctual reaction to politics, not a set of reasoned arguments.

Second, in this superb critique of the Israel Lobby paper, Joseph Massad points out that the argument is not only irrational, but apologetic towards American imperialism. Holding the Israel Lobby responsible for American foreign policy

‘exonerates the United States' government from all the responsibility and guilt that it deserves for its policies in the Arab world and gives false hope to many Arabs and Palestinians who wish America would be on their side instead of on the side of their enemies.’

When, after all, has American policy supported a progressive government in the Middle East or elsewhere? And American support for Israel has served many US interests, for such reactionary purposes as keeping the U.S.’s Arab clients guessing, as well as a kind of moral bludgeon with which to guilt trip Europe about its genocidal past. Massad mentions a number of other ways the U.S. gains from the relationship. The point isn’t merely that the ‘Israel Lobby’ argument has a narrow view of American interests. It is also that these wag the dog theories let the master off the hook.

The Optical Illusion of George W Bush: Presidency Without a Purpose

As the immigration bill rattles around the capitol, and the House and the Senate start meeting to reconcile their competing drafts, Bush increasingly appears like an innocent bystander to the political game. Bush has made his speeches, staked out his position, and made an effort to have his bill adopted. As with most pieces of domestic legislation, however, every Senator and Representative has his own opinions, shaped around some mix of his own principles and the demands of his constituency. Having conceded ground to Bush on the foreign policy front, members of both houses guard domestic policy ever more jealously.

On top of which, pending mid-term elections create pressures to produce. Everyone wants to stake out a claim to political activity. The costs of bucking the President’s wishes, especially one with as little control over his own party as Bush, are insignificant compared to the benefits to be gained by election year posturing. The authoritarian immigration bill that came out of the House already departed significantly from Bush's plan, and caused a ruckus in the Republican Party, not to mention the Senate. Meanwhile, the Senate Majority leader and presidential hopeful, Bill Frist, has already publicly split from Bush’ plan. In fact, when it comes to the immigration bill, Bush’s opinions appear less as the authoritative desires of a party leader, and more as the ideas of another interested decision-maker to be factored in amongst all the other competing constituencies.

All of this means the immigration bill is likely to be one of those standard pieces of election year compromise legislation, in which a mix of different interests are cobbled together under the banner of ‘reform’, a few dissenting voices take a stand on principle, and everyone goes home with something to show their constituency. What it won’t possess is the imprimatur of the President’s will, except in the purely formal sense that he will have to sign the bill. This has been a general pattern for domestic legislation under Bush, other notable instances being intelligence reform, health care reform, social security reform, and the even more ignored transportation and energy bills. In each of these situations, the president’s foray into domestic politics has come up against that irritation of irritations: politics. Managing the struggle of competing interests, the painstaking work of uniting disparate groups under a common banner, and even more, the attempt to infuse a policy issue with political ideals, has been well beyond the capacities of this president. He is as bad at domestic diplomacy, as he is at international negotiations. This is not merely a matter of personal character, but a product of the fact that he has no ideas with which to enchant and to make sense of the various domestic issues he faces.

All of which points to why Bush prefers the crisis environment of the war on terror to the nitty-gritties of governing the United States. Bush wants to be a ‘war president’ because it is the only way for him to give purpose to his exercise of power, or really, to avoid having to explain his reasons for using and abusing power. Living in the eternal present forestalls any discussion of the future. Emergency becomes its own excuse for failing to possess a political vision and win arguments. When crisis becomes the model for the general conduct of politics, and the formation of policy, it is no surprise that Bush should have difficulty following through on initiatives, be they occupation of a country or seeing though an immigration bill. Bush’s appearance of strength masks a profound weakness. His grandiose, ideological gestures reflect this inability to manage the world of gritty political decisions, and his attempt to transcend politics altogether. It is no surprise that, in spite of his desire to avoid responsibility for his own decisions, Bush is driven back towards foreign policy and the war on terror. There, at the very least, there is less ambiguity over who is the center of attention, and who appears like a leader.

A Million Little Colin Powells

On March 22, during a speech on Iraq in West Virginia, the President fielded a question about how "we" can balance the media's grim treatment of the war. He responded thusly: "I just got to keep talking. And one of the -- there's word of mouth, there's blogs, there's Internet, there's all kinds of ways to communicate which is literally changing the way people are getting their information. And so if you're concerned, I would suggest that you reach out to some of the groups that are supporting the troops, that have got Internet sites, and just keep the word -- keep the word moving.”

Bush's suggestion coincides with Congressman Pete Hoekstra's (R-MI) successful bid to release onto the internet thousands of documents captured in Iraq. As Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Hoekstra had been trying for weeks to get Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte to release the documents. Negroponte, not wanting a horde of recreational lay-persons drawing inappropriate conclusions, relented only after Hoekstra introduced a bill to force the release.

The documents themselves are from Operations Desert Storm, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. They include 48,000 boxes and span over 3,000 hours of recorded conversation. Although everything received at least a cursory analysis from intelligence officials, the vast bulk has not been classified in any particular way and remains untranslated.

Coming from Bush and Hoekstra, such boundless faith in the power of the people to properly interpret Arabic documents from the Iraqi regime is stirring, but we ought to remember the context in which this web-based populism is set. Iraq is already in the midst of something like a civil war (though Donald Rumsfeld will no doubt refrain from calling it one until a rival republic declares itself). The Administration, unable to prevent civil war, knows that the only thing forestalling the complete collapse of public support is their ability to hide the fact. That’s where pro-war blogs and an avalanche of random paperwork come in. Tenuous links made by anonymous bloggers can remind people why the United States invaded Iraq, and why it must see the mission through to completion. And with no oversight, the all-important will-to-believe and Bush’s endorsement of the medium, information bleeding from mainstream sources may be safely ignored.

As the New York Times noted, Ray Robinson has already declared: “Saddam's W.M.D. and terrorist connections all proven in one document!!!” And bear in mind that only 600 of the million or so documents have yet to be released. By the time Robinson has translated everything, who knows what tidbits will be found.

An increase in transparency and greater access to information is a good thing, but nothing is without context. Discharging tons of information onto the internet will provide neither a retroactive justification for the occupation of Iraq nor a surrogate for genuine public engagement. It will, however, offer shrill dissonance to the news coming out of Iraq. By dumping thousands and thousands of documents into the ether, the Administration explicitly seeks to dilute the debate through an avalanche of paperwork – a debate already darkened through a fog of fear. No longer a single, discredited voice holding up a vial, but a million.

Kos's Heart of Darkness

The New York Times on Tuesday reported Shia claims that the US is pressuring Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to step down. According to the Times report, US Ambassador Khalilzad passed on a “personal message from President Bush” that Bush “doesn’t want, doesn’t support, doesn’t accept” Jaafari’s remaining prime minister when the new government is formed.

The reaction to this news at Daily Kos reveals prejudices common to much of Western thinking about the Third World. Kos rightly points out the hypocrisy of this initiative: pressuring the Iraqi government to select a prime minister that the US “supports” all the while declaring a new era of “self-determination” for Iraq. But the post proceeds with this, ‘observation’: “Perhaps we should have done a wee bit of homework about Iraq's bloody sectarian history before we threw all our weight behind the Shi'a, who have been operating death squads from the Interior Ministry.”

The casual reference to “Iraq’s bloody sectarian history” is indicative of current attitudes toward the uncivilized non-Western world. The implication appears to be that we should have known Iraqis couldn’t handle self-determination, given their propensity to slit one another’s throats. But this history is more imagined than real. Sectarianism in Iraq is highly complex and dynamic but was never simply conflictual. Of course, one might have predicted eventual sectarian violence (although even now it is not clear that the country is engaged in a civil war), not because of Iraq’s supposed bloody sectarian history, but because it was clear from the start that the US occupation would treat the Iraqi population as sectarian blocs, and begin to establish a political system based on this sectarian conception. In ignoring this, Kos imputes the current crisis to some inherent aspect of Iraqi culture. Quite apart from the disdain this shows towards Iraqis, it also does Bush the service of writing America out of the Third World’s “age-old ethnic hatreds.”

The Logic of the War on Terror

What exactly is the logic of the war on terror? As two recent events remind us, the war on terror operates according to the logic of prevention. This logic redefines the standards by which we justify political action and by which we evaluate political leaders.

The first is today’s opening arguments in the Supreme Court’s review of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case, not to be confused with Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, an equally important case. There are many issues implicated in the Hamdan case, but one crucial issue raised is the matter of ‘prevention’. One of the policies the administration has pursued has been ‘preventive detention’, which, in the name of preventing terrorist acts, refers to overturning the presumption of innocent until proven guilty. Suspected terrorists are held without evidence, or on the basis of secret evidence, and, in the case of Hamdan, even prosecuted on the basis of evidence that would not stand up as adequate in normal courts. What the administration lacks in hard facts it makes up with speculation. As Andrew McCarthy, the lead prosecutor in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, says in yesterday’s New York Times, "If you are serious about stopping people before things take off, then necessarily your evidence is going to be more ambiguous." This is a special kind of argument for substituting security for liberty. The logic of prevention demands not hard proof of how suspending a specific liberty would measurably increase security. Rather, it as an argument on the basis of precaution: it is precisely what we don’t know that should determine how we should act. That they have a suspicion is reason enough.

The second illuminating event is the revelation of secret prewar memos between Bush and Blair. According to the NYTimes, in these memos, ‘the president spoke as if an invasion was unavoidable’ even prior to seeking a second United Nations resolution. These memos seem to refute the administration’s claim that war was a last resort, and that no decision had been made prior to going to the UN. To some, this militaristic stance is a sign that Bush was making decisions on the basis of ulterior motives, which no doubt played a role. However, Bush’s conviction that war was inevitable was also consistent with his foreign policy doctrine of pre-emptive war. What is striking about Bush’s approach to the Iraq War is not merely that he thought war was necessary regardless of a UN resolution, and that he started planning for war late in 2001, but that he saw it as an emergency. Despite the absence of any imminent threat, action could not wait. It was the ‘unknown unknowns’, in Rumsfeld’s inimitable language, that demanded an immediate response.

Under this logic of prevention, subjective fears are confused with and substituted for objective threats. When fears are not linked to rational standards, such as magnitude, imminence and likelihood, they take on a crisis-character. There is no external check on the object of fear, by which a policymaker can approach alternatives, or by which critics can assess a policy. Vague suspicions morph into all-encompassing threats, and even become their own reason for action. It is not merely that, as one critic of prevention, David Cole, puts it, this leads to ‘secrecy, [and] disdains the rule of law for the rule of force.’ By elevating feelings of insecurity, eliminating the need for hard evidence, and transforming all issues into political emergencies, the logic of prevention destroys any rational standards of political judgment. This undermines the very possibility of criticism.

Conflict Avoiders

A consistent theme of this blog has been to draw attention to a tendency of political critics to put forward their arguments using a borrowed authority. Thus we see the veterans used by Democrats to oppose the Iraq war, discrimination against minorities used to argue against civil liberties violations, and everyone hiding behind the conclusions of ‘neutral’ commissions.

Now, in the UK’s Guardian, critics of Israel are adopting a similar tactic. A two part series in that paper equates Israeli treatment of the Palestinians with the Apartheid system in South Africa. The series makes for interesting reading; there are undoubted similarities between the two histories, as both became Cold War Western client states, regional policemen against the threat of Third World nationalism. Indeed, the two pariah states did form a close, if awkward, relationship from the 1970s up until the end of Apartheid and the first multiparty elections. And both faced Soviet backed guerilla movements who argued their claims in a fiery language of the universal right to self-determination.

But South Africa became the paradigmatic liberal cause of the 1980s. As colonialism and racist domestic laws were discredited, the consensus on South Africa became universal. Politicians, who shied away from speaking out against the brutal treatment of African-Americans at the hands of US police, felt comfortable decrying the brutality of apartheid. Israel in contrast, has always tugged two ways at the liberal heart-strings; on the one side an impoverished oppressed group that struggles for democracy, on the other, a plucky group of Jews, survivors of the moral absolute evil of the 20th Century, the Holocaust. Now Palestinian sympathizers would like to co-opt the moral weight of the anti-Apartheid struggle.

But while we can understand the temptation, this strategy raises a number of problems. The Guardian article itself quotes Ronnie Kasrils, member of the South African government and campaigner for Palestinian rights, who claims, "there are enormous parallels with apartheid, but the problem with making comparisons is it actually distracts from the Palestinian context." Indeed. The comparison with apartheid shifts the ground of the argument so that the Palestinian claim to justice is based not on their oppression, but on their similarity to black South Africans.

Meanwhile liberal compassion for the victims of apartheid was often a complex affair, exercised when children were shot in the townships, but diluted when nationalists fought back against apartheid troops. Palestinians have already struggled with such vacillations in the past; they should avoid at all costs becoming the next victims of the humanitarian impulse. Surely we should be able to argue against genuine oppression when it exists, without having to resort to this most basic common denominator of liberal politics. Palestinians need democratic rights not because they evoke memories of another downtrodden race, but because they are members of the human race.

Bunker Busters

This week, New York City Department of Transportation workers unearthed a sad reminder of America’s last great fear craze: Cold War nuclear annihilation. The spectre was haunting the Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan side, in the form of a fallout shelter no doubt built for city brass and dated to the months just after Sputnik shot into orbit. CNN reports that the bunker contained the requisite drums of distilled water, sealed tins and high calorie crackers marked with the instructions “To be opened after attack by the enemy”.

The appurtenances of wartime panic are unmistakable: from Nike missile platforms in the Olympic peninsula (where this editor spent his childhood) to the Fallout Shelter signs placed outside buildings throughout Manhattan. This subterranean life of security and risk aversion has always driven a wedge between individuals, at times a driving force in the political construction of American individualism itself.

Yet in his retelling of the mythic founding of American superpower in Eisenhower’s prime, David Halberstam spells out the gritty reality of 50s culture as a time of incredible expansion, risk and exploration—a cultural scene as daring as any, leading into a new political period of insurrection (a.k.a. the ‘60’s). Despite the top-down anti-communism of those years, which included all the sorts of fear-mongering that we see leveraged in the public sphere today, the total social output of American life was not subsumed as it is in the present day ‘think-not’. Even in its most sinister moments (Star Wars, Scientific Manpower Initiative) the Cold years had some noticeable leftovers that prove it was really there. But if the Cold War gave us the interstate highway systems, the suburbs and big basements, Velcro and microwaves, what do we get at the end of the War on Terror? If our country, and the “Coalition of the Willing” ever wake from this stupor, what leftovers will be there to prove that we weren’t just dreaming?

Occupiers Behind Bars

If Bush is leaving to future presidents just how to extract the country from Iraq, one thing he's decided to do while he's still (nominally) in charge is build massive bases. The U.S. may be winding down its reconstruction projects -- with the only new money going to prison cells -- but Washington has authorized $1 billion dollars for military construction. The purpose: to consolidate massive bases like Anaconda in Balad (already over 2 million cubic feet and home to 120 helicopters) and to expand numerous other installations, which were military hubs under Saddam.

As American soldiers pull back from the cities, such fortifications are going up in remote locations of Iraq, and like al-Asad in the western desert amount to huge concrete cities. According to the AP, "17,000 troops and workers come and go in a kind of bustling American town, with a Burger King, Pizza Hut, and a car dealership, stop signs, traffice regulations, and young bikers clogging the roads." Asked whether the U.S. is in Iraq to stay, one young soldier at the base in Balad responded, "I think we'll be here forever."

The scope of these militaries cities is remarkable for two reasons. First, it reinforces just how physically and politically isolated the U.S. has become. CPA officials under Grand Vizier Bremer famously referred to their headquarters in Baghdad as the Green Zone, and the area outside the blast walls (i.e. all of Iraq) as the Red Zone. The Green Zone/Red Zone divide underscored the utter lack of control CPA officials exerted over their own occupation. In a sense, these bases -- intended to provide the military with a modicum of normalcy -- speak to the same predicament. By retreating from where power and politics operates in Iraq to isolated corners behind impenetrable concrete, the U.S. is simply highlighting its inability assert authority over the country. America is now primarily a witness, imposing a facade of calm for its soldiers while staggering from event to event and utterly disconnected from the real Iraq, the Red Zone.

Rather than suggesting clear, long-term designs, the bases are also a perfect embodiment of the Administration's short-term, reactive thinking -- doing what it takes at the moment to insulate the occupation from the very consequences of its actions (the violence and uncertainty all around it). The Administration has been repeatedly accused of having nefarious geostrategic plans for the country, of which these bases are considered tangible proof -- clearly at least some soldiers seem to think we're "in country" for good. And certainly, one of the hopes of a successful Iraq War was the idea of employing Iraq as a military outpost in the region -- one friendlier and more secure than Saudia Arabia.

Yet, at this point, perhaps why the military is so coy in telling us what the future plans are for the bases is because they really don't know. American politics may call an end to the whole fiasco by the end of this year. In other words, there is no conspiracy because the conspirators have no idea what their plans are. If miraculously a stable and pliable Iraq emerges, the original goal for such bases may be implemented -- but nobody's holding their breath. For the time being, the military construction is just further proof of action without policy or ultimate purpose. Like the creation of the Green Zone, the bases are part of an unreality the U.S. hopes to impose on Iraq -- and if that unreality can't work for the country at least it can exist behind the concrete for the administrators.

Idolizing Suffering

In the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Halabja became a poignant symbol of all that was evil in Saddam's regime. Bush, Powell, Rice all focused upon Halabja as an example of both the threat that Saddam Hussein represented to the world, and the terrible suffering that had to be rectified through invasion. The Bush Administration did not have to work too hard to find a sympathetic ear for its reading of the Halabja massacre. Human rights groups and other international aid organizations had long cited Halabja as an example of genocide, and used it to call for sanctions prior to the Gulf War. The Halabja poison gas attacks, which killed as many as 8,000 Kurds through the use of mustard gas and nerve agents, were explained as an ethnic assualt.

This reading conveniently papered over the US role in the wider conflict of which Halabja became a horrifying part. In March 1988, Iraq was in the midst of major fighting in the Iran-Iraq War, heavily supported by the US. On March 15, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Iranian Royal Guard forces took Halabja. The Iraqi army unleashed its terrible chemical attack the following day, which succeeded both in ousting Iranians from their foothold in the region and crushing Kurdish resistance. It was against this complicated international backdrop that Saddam was able to operate, and in which the Kurds suffered the focus of his brutal rule.

Through the extreme simplification of this scenario, the Kurds are portrayed today only as the great victims of a barbaric Third World regime. But last week local Kurds made a bid to rewrite that role. Protesters arrived early Thursday morning, the 18th anniversary of the Halabja attack, countering the memorial ceremony arranged for the day. The protest quickly escalated, and the local protesters stormed the museum, smashing windows, display cases, and eventually setting it on fire.

It was in sharp contrast to the scene three years earlier, when Colin Powell was in attendance for the Halabja Museum's inauguration ceremony. On that occassion, Powell defined the museum's purpose: "By your actions here at this spot and by the construction of this museum, you have made sure that you will never forget but above all, the world will never forget. And I will always remember Halabja."

But Halabja's protesters appear to object to their inauguration as eternal victims. Some may ask, why attack a museum that honors the victims of Saddam's regime? The protesters realize, however, that such memoriams to suffering are directly at odds with their interests. The New York Times quoted one protester as saying "That monument over there has become the main problem for Halabja...All the foreign guests are taken there, not to the city." Another young Halabjan told the times that she came both to remember her sister who was killed in the attacks and to stop the PUK from taking advantage of the ceremony. "Kurdish officials used Halabja to gather money...Millions of dollars has been spent, but nothing has reached us."

Such complaints are worth considering. The international focus on the Halabja attacks creates problems for Halabjans, not only when Kurdish politicians use it cynically for their own political or financial gain. The problem, unfortunately, runs far deeper. To a significant extent, Kurdish political groups have been able to exercise relative power and autonomy in Iraq due to the victim status that tragedies such as Halabja garnered them. Thus Kurdish politics relies upon currying its darling status with the international community, based almost entirely upon victimhood. Kurdish frustration with the memorial museum serves to highlight that this peculiar dynamic has limited Kurdish control over its own leadership--and that their present and future interests must compete with (and lose out to) the glorification of their suffering. That the international community is tripping over itself to transform sites of horrible atrocities into reverent memorials and places of pilgrimmage, all in the name of representing the local residents, provides some indication of just how far the distance is between the aims of such humanitarian campaigns and the reality for the local objects of their campaigning.

The New York Times ran a correction to its story yesterday. The article had originally run under the headline, "Kurds Destroy Shrine in Rage at Leadership." The Times explained that it had "misidentified" the building that was destroyed, which was a museum dedicated to the people killed in the 1988 attacks, not a shrine. The Times may, unwittingly, have been more accurate the first time. Three days after the riot, the Swedish Left Party called for the Halabja anniversary to become an international day against weapons of mass destruction. The Kurds may have to destroy further golden calves of western humanitarianism if they are to be any more than international idols of suffering.

Evasive Maneuvers

Yesterday, Bush made the striking announcement that full withdrawal from Iraq would be up to "future presidents and future governments of Iraq." This statement opened up a new chapter in Bush’s strange relationship with Iraq. Bush wants to have it both ways: he has staked his entire presidency on the Iraq affair, yet simultaneously wants to avoid taking responsibility for it.

Punting the crucial decision about withdrawal to future presidents was only the most recent in a long list of evasions. Bush has consistently presented the war and occupation as an action on behalf of Iraqis, and made the United States appear the servant of Iraqis. Hence his claim that it is up to Iraqis to decide when the US withdraws, it is after all about them not about the US. Many have noticed that this inverts the real relationship of power – the Iraqis have about as much say over how long occupation will last as they did over whether the US invaded in the first place. Their government is so dependent upon US cash and security provision that, even if we suspended belief for a moment and considered it properly representative, the Iraqi regime will never call for the US to leave.

Even more, it is not just that the real relationship of power is inverted, it is also that Bush attempts to absolve himself of the responsibility to make the all important decision. He presents the situation in a way that side-steps being held to account by the American public, because he claims to be accountable to the Iraqi public, despite the absence of any real mechanisms by which Iraqis could hold him to account.

Bush has also attempted to evade responsibility by consistently changing the terms on which the Iraqi venture is evaluated. According to the LATimes’ assessment of Bush’s speech, ‘The president's series of speeches reflect a twofold White House campaign: to lower expectations and at the same time hold out prospects for success.’ The lowering of expectations is a way of trying to side-step being held to account. It is not surprising that, whenever pressed on the invasion of Iraq, Bush falls back on the ‘brutal dictator’ rationale. In Bush’s words ‘The decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision.’ The removal of a brutal dictator is generally is seen as the supreme moral act by an ethically motivated statesman. However it is actually a limited and minimal goal usually trotted out to buttress a policy unable to achieve anything else. Its rhetorical content is effectively to say ‘well at least Saddam is gone, how can you argue with that?’ This verbal bait and switch is a way of dodging the real question. Bush wants to avoid being held to account on terms he himself established – liberation of Iraqis, improvement of their everyday life, exportation of democracy, spread of freedom throughout the world. In consistently answering questions about civil war and reconstruction paralysis, Bush is forced to admit that the democratization of Iraq is a sham. But by engaging in a publicity blitz to lower expectations, Bush attempts to avoid accountability by turning failures into successes.

What’s striking about Bush’s recent statement, then, is just how far he is willing to go to avoid those decisions that would draw him out as the responsible actor. By adding that future presidents, not just Iraqi governments, will be making the final decision, Bush is engaging in an especially desperate evasive maneuver. Essentially he is responding to criticisms by saying ‘you cannot call this a failure because at some future date it might still be a success’. This is not so much letting history be the judge as it is deflecting attention from his own role in creating and maintaining the situation. He does not so much want a piece of history as seek to avoid the burdens of being a part of it.

These evasions are indeed calculated, but they are not part of a concerted plan by which ulterior motives are pursued so much as a sign of political desperation. As Michael O’Hanlon said, in the New York Times, ‘I also don't think [Bush] has enough new to say’. Besides practically bimonthly speech tours on Iraq, and publicity stunts dressed up as a military operations, Bush doesn’t actually have anything substantial to say about Iraq. He is treading water until he gets out of office. One gets the sense Bush would just as soon prefer not to be president anymore, but since he is, he is doing what he can to stay afloat politically.

The Time and effort Bush puts into the Iraq is beyond anything he invests in American society. So long as Bush is able to focus attention on Iraq, no matter how badly things look there, it is better for him than allowing the full light of public scrutiny to fall on his complete inattention to and visionless appraisal of American problems. Bush seems more comfortable presenting himself as the virtual representative of Iraqis than as the real representative of Americans. Against this Bush argues that "We can do more than one thing at a time.” But the more he insists, the more hollow his administration sounds. This, perhaps, is the reason why Bush is caught in the strange paradox of trying avoid responsibility for Iraq yet constantly pushing it center stage. He may have no new ideas for what to do in Iraq, but he has even less stomach for America.

The Other War on Terror

From Al-Ahram Weekly, a useful breakdown of the different parties competing in the upcoming Israeli elections, and a primer on the issues at stake in that other war on terror. Veteran Territories correspondent Graham Usher reminds us that, "As always in Israeli politics the fundamental fissure is not over social, economic or cultural policies…It is over the national struggle with the Palestinians and the fate of the occupied territories."

In some ways, Israel today provides a glimpse of what happens when security becomes the defining issue of political life. Differences amongst the three parties are largely rhetorical. Kadima (Sharon’s adventure out of the Likud fold, initiated shortly before his stroke) and Likud tough it out on the right, but even the surprise victor of last November’s Labor Party leadership election, Sephardi trade unionist and member of the pressure group ‘Peace Now’, Amir Peretz, states that he would never "divide Jerusalem" or tolerate a right of return for Palestinian refugees.

The Palestinian conflict becomes the stage on which Israeli politics are acted out, with all parties working to maintain an air of constant crisis in order to maintain their legitimacy. Nothing could belie the claim that Palestinian resistance represents an existential threat to Israeli existence as starkly as last week’s prison raid. Once the international observers were withdrawn, Israeli tanks were shelling the Jericho compound within minutes, and Palestinian police and militia were powerless to stop them taking away Palestinian MP and General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Ahmed Saadat, amongst others.

Indeed, given the international controversy surrounding the election of Hamas, it is astonishing just how weak Palestinian institutions are. At will, Israel has of late closed the borders of the Gaza Strip which has led to critical food shortages. Without the resumption of EU and US aid the ‘economy’ of the Occupied Territories will collapse. Meanwhile Saadat’s potential release from the Palestinian Authority jail was based on the fact that his original conviction came down from a kangaroo court convened under extreme Israeli pressure. The idea that this is a battle of anything like equals is impossible to uphold.

Even the alleged militants of Hamas realize that leadership of such a ‘state’ is a poisoned chalice and, although they won enough seats to form a majority government, have been desperately trying to draw Fateh into the ruling coalition only to be rebuffed. It is hardly the sign of a resurgent political movement which supposedly, in the words of a New York Times article that completely fails to mention such reticence, “has the paradigm-shifting quality of the Iranian revolution”.

Israel has long been fond of the David and Goliath myth, choosing to represent itself as the underdog. The results have been detrimental, creating a state organized around perpetual conflict. Social conflict or utopian thinking about the future is subsumed to the necessities of continuous crisis. And when the threat is no longer particularly palpable, the politicians work overtime to resurrect it. Israeli politics provide an object lesson in the danger of the permanent state of exception, which we all would do well to absorb.

A Load of Kos

Yesterday, Daily Kos described another chapter in the disintegration of the conservative coalition. This time it is the well-known pundit Kevin Phillips, once a strategist for the Republican Party and author of the famous 'The Emerging Republican Majority', who has turned into a critic of the GOPs apparent departure from conservative principles. To Kos’ credit, he does not confuse this further crack-up of the Republican base with a stroke in the liberal win column. There is no substitute for a well-organized and articulated opposition.

However, Kos sounds a familiar note in echoing Phillip’s criticism:

“It can't be said enough. The modern Republican Party has abandoned all pretenses of conservatism in favor of cult of personality. But those movement conservatists are dinosaurs in an era of Bushbots. They're either old, obsolete, and dying off, or they've been corrupted beyond recognition and are being forced to lawyer up.”

In his comparison between dinosaurs and ‘Bushbots’ Kos is playing to the idea that the Bush loyalists are an clique of ideologues and adventurers, given to risky ventures and unconstrained by the realpolitik that defined conservatism in the past. It is a familiar criticism, leveled by such diverse voices as Francis Fukuyama and Pat Buchanan who believes the neocons “owe more to Leon Trotsky than to Robert Taft," and that there is "a Jacobin streak in neoconservatism that cannot be reconciled with any concept of true conservatism.”

First of all, there is nothing to Kos' claim of a contradiction between conservatism and the cult of personality. In fact, the cult of personality is always politically conservative. It speaks either to pre-modern ideas about dignity, honor, and personal integrity as the basis of legitimate rule, or to a rather more twentieth-century, but no less reactionary, politics of plebiscites and charismatic authority.

But more to the point, where does this fascination, or really obsession, with Bush’s supposed anti-conservatism come from? From liberals like Daily Kos, to former neocons to Francis Fukuyama, to conservatives like Phillips and Pat Buchanan, everyone is convinced that Bush’s project of war, deficit spending, and democracy promotion is something closer to revolutionary than conservative. We have suggested that this criticism of Bush is wide of the mark because he is actually more anti-utopian than utopian, but there’s more to the story. Why obsess about the one feature of Bush’s project that is positive? That he is not following some idealized vision of conservatism is neither here nor there (unless you really are a traditionalist). Obsessing about Bush’s lack of conservatism only leads criticism towards an even more pessimistic or ‘realist’ direction, which is hardly the way to direct critical, progressive thinking. Surely what is bad about Bush is not his apparent willingness to demand great sacrifices in the name of democracy and freedom, but that he is actually taking us in the opposite direction.

Shock and Awe Redux: 'The Largest Air Assault Operation'

Simultaneous with the third anniversary of the war in Iraq, the United States military has launched Operation Swarmer in Samarra, billed as the “largest air assault” since the war began. We can perhaps measure something of the status of the war through this latest effort. Here is how the event is described on the Operation Iraqi Freedom website:

“Operation Swarmer included more than 1,500 troops from the Iraqi Army’s 4th Division, the U.S. 101st Airborne Division and 101st Combat Aviation Brigade. The Soldiers isolated the objective area in a combined air and ground assault. More than 50 Attack and assault aircraft and 200 tactical vehicles participated in the operation. Troops from the Iraqi Army’s 4th Division… assaulted multiple objectives. Forces from the Iraqi 2nd Commando Brigade then completed a ground infiltration to secure numerous structures in the area. Initial reports indicate a number of weapons caches were captured, containing artillery shells, IED-making materials and military uniforms. Iraqi and Coalition troops also detained 41 suspected insurgents.”

One would be forgiven for thinking that through the impressive list above, the military is conveying a message of actual combat. In fact, the true meaning of “air assault” is the transportation of troops from one area to another, and does not imply any fighting. As Christopher Allbritton notes over at Back to Iraq, the entire operation was entirely overblown from the moment it began. For the duration, not a single shot has been fired, nor has any resistance been encountered. While 48 people have been detained, 17 were immediately released, and by the second day, the 1,500-strong force was reduced to 900.

All told, Operation Swarmer is entirely routine, and, depending on how you measure such affairs, is certainly not larger than the operations in Fallujah in 2004 nor others that have taken place along the Syrian border. As the BBC notes, it is merely the next in a long line of regular maneuvers, and is, in fact, a continuation of one already begun earlier in the month. It is, therefore, nothing more than a PR stunt. From the first moment, there was a gaggle of press along to snap photos of multiple helicopters taking off at once and troops running out of transports in all directions. Brian Bennett, who was along on one of the rides for Time Magazine, gives a good account of the aimlessness of the whole affair.

But however empty the experience might have been, the primary domestic goal was achieved. The fourth estate’s 24-hour news programs were all abuzz with a major development in Iraq, and this in the city whose name nearly became the label for descent into civil war. And here, at the dawn of the fourth year, we can detect a remarkable feature of the conflict:

The military, no longer able to sell the prospect of victory, has begun to sell itself. Large operations are proof that things are happening, and there is a certain confidence that momentum can inspire. That no insurgents were engaged hardly seems to matter, for it is no longer the results, but the operation itself that holds the promise of progress in Iraq. This is the talking point for the Administration. When they mention the progress being made, what they mean is that they are still capable of synchronizing a flight of 50 aircraft. Operation Swarmer is as much a display of hardware as anything else. And the hardware is evidence that the military is still there. From the mainstream response, that is all that is required to keep the war drums beating.

None of this alters the fact that the war is going nowhere. The oblique and ever-contracting criteria for victory will not surmount the problems involved. The position of the United States is untenable, and no amount of air assaults will alter that - least of all fabricated assaults.

Wishing for a Cold War

Yesterday, the Bush Administration released its National Security Strategy, a 54 page document outlining its basic foreign policy doctrine. As the Washington Post notes, the document is notable for its aggressive restatement of preemption as well as its commitment to ending global "tyranny", with language lifted directly from the second inaugural address.

The document itself is a study in wilfull blindness, seeming to ignore how much the political landscape has changed over the last five years and pressing ahead as if it were September 12, 2001. The reassertion of preemptive war ignores the fact that as a practical matter the Iraq occupation has made the use of military force in Iran or elsewhere a non-starter. The discussion of ending tyranny and promoting human rights, like the recently released State Department Human Rights Country Reports, has an ironic quality -- since it never mentions the U.S.'s own use of torture and systemic violation of the laws of war since 9/11.

But, the document seems most outdated in its continuing commitment to a vision of the world less and less plausible with each passing day. This vision imagines Islamic fundamentalism as a fairly unified and monolothic political movement, against which the U.S. must wage a global and permanet struggle, with the very survival of human freedom hanging in the balance. If this sounds familiar, it's because it's exactly the same ideological framework as that used during the Cold War. In fact, Cold War references abound throughout the document, from Bush's claim to be part of the foreign policy tradition linking both Truman and Reagan to the fairly blunt assertion that, "The U.S. is in the early years of a long struggle, similar to what our country faced in the early years of the Cold War."

This continual need to present current events as a latterday Cold War has an almost breathless desperation about it. To begin with, we face nothing like the threat posed by communism -- a clear ideology supported by a world power and presenting the possibility (although remote) that our government could fall. To the extent that we are in the early years of a long struggle, the struggle is ultimately the product of those in power, who sincerely (or insincerely) imagine any threat to physical safety requires a permanent global war.

More importantly, it tells us that the Administration, rather than confronting a new challenge, is ultimately reliving the past -- hoping that the symbols, rhetoric, and counterinsurgency tools of a previous era can be the building blocks for contemporary policy. It's no surprise that so many of the Administration's foreign policy wonks were Russia "experts," or like Rumsfeld old-time cold warriors.

The desire to recreate the past again speaks to a basic problem facing the Administration and its allies. The Cold War framework provides ideological legitimacy to the state's actions, and an easy basis by which to distinguish friend from foe. It also masks what is a remarkable fact --the folks in charge simply have no idea how to make sense of the post-Cold War world. This world, our lived reality, is one without ideological coherence or clear left/right divisions. In a sense, the National Security Strategy shows the Administration fumbling for a way out of the morass by both hoping no one has noticed that it isn't 9/11 anymore, or that the Cold War and Cold War-thinking are irrelevant.

In the end, what's most surprising about Bush and his advisors is how quaint they are. But then again, if they were to give up on all the outdated Cold War thinking, what ideas, policies, proposals would be left?

Democracy Against the War on Terror

A thoughtful reader left this comment to a previous post: "Your position appears to be that if only there were more 'popular participation in politics,' if only the government were more responsive to 'the people,' there would be no secret prisons, torture, broad surveillance of communications, and other abuses. I would like to see a vigorous defense of this premise, for which evidence seems to me to be scant."

This in fact is not our position. Rather, over a series of posts we've attempted to underscore the relationship between the emptiness of American politics and the ease with which security speak has filled this void. The most fundamental shortcoming we face today is the absence of a coherent set of ideas that can make politics collectively meaningful. Devoid of clear ideological goals, both parties have increasingly resorted to the language of fear and risk management to reach voters. Yet, this emphasis on threat and insecurity simply reinforces the atomization felt by many Americans -- and highlights just how demobilized the public has become.

In a sense, such demobilization is embodied in the mini-crisis of legitimacy confronting the current Administration. With a public in retreat, Bush and his advisors have little sense of which policies enjoy a popular mandate or justify wielding state power. As we've said before, the incompetence of the Administration is as much about an uncertainty regarding what to do, as it is about simple-minded obtuseness.

But, demobilization allows the administration to run rampant, because it means that suspect state decisions -- such as secret prisons, torture, broad surveillance -- can persist without any real popular check. Security-speak, increasingly all that we have left as a political discourse, can work to eliminate what remains of popular control and participation by continually invoking the spectre of crisis and emergency.

Under these circumstances, the call to "participate" is not meant as solution to the War on Terror. Clearly, great popular control is useless if the public has no sense of collective possibility, no vision for the future, or guiding ideals. Ultimately, participation is simply a means -- albeit an important one -- to the end of creating a better, more progressive society. The solution can't be public involvement alone, but must include developing, through debate and collective action, compelling options and ideas that make the act of participation worthwhile.

So far, Against the War on Terror has suggested one simple thought as part of such a public debate. The war on terror must be rejected by American citizens, because ultimately it seeks to eliminate the very possibility of debate -- by reducing politics to fear and collective possibility to the bare avoidance of danger. This thought alone cannot sustain a new politics that links popular participation to meaningful ideas, but it can serve as a ground for thinking through precisely what's wrong with our national politics. It also allows us to recognize that even if "the people" can choose unwisely when wielding power, the practical elimination of public voice (except for the occasional vote) suggests just how empty democratic ideals have become.

As a final note, implicit in the comment above was an unstated thought about mass politics -- that "the people" can't necessarily be counted on to protect civil liberties because they are easily swayed by passions and prejudices. Such sentiment expresses a type of cynicism about democratic politics that embodies the public mistrust infecting much of contemporary politics -- as evidenced by various trends, from the rule of judges to the consolidation of executive power. Such mistrust helps foster an environment that only perpetuates demobilization and, in the end, questions the very ability of citizens to develop new ideas worthy of political action.

Trials and Tribulations of DOJ

Although all commentary has pinned the latest Moussaoui trial debacle on the bizarre incompetence of Carla Martin, a government Transportation Security Administration attorney, Martin’s stunning errors nonetheless point out the weaknesses of the prosecution’s case itself. The prosecutors admitted on Monday that Martin had contacted seven witnesses—four of them potential defense witnesses—relaying details of trial proceedings and discussing strategy as to how to testify and respond during cross-examination. Perhaps her most interesting communication detailed the erroneous testimony of an FBI agent that, prior to 9/11, the bureau was not considering the possibility that airplanes might be used as weapons. He was then acknowledged under cross-examination that the FBI did know of earlier plots to fly airplanes into CIA headquarters and the Eiffel Tower.

All Martin’s witness coaching was considered a violation of Judge Brinkema’s prior order in the case to sequester the witnesses during trial. The judge has now ruled that all aviation testimony will be excluded from the trial. This exclusion constitutes a significant blow to the prosecution, largely because Moussaoui’s connection to the crime is so attenuated. As former Assistant United States Attorney and former Department of Justice Special Assistant Andrew McBride explained on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,

“The government's theory is that Moussaoui lied in August of 2001 in a way that set the FBI on the wrong course. The aviation witnesses are there to say, if we had been on the right course, we would have stopped the hijacking of one of those four planes, because we would have undertaken, under FAA procedure existing in September of 2001, procedures that would have stopped at least one of those four flights from being hijacked. And that means Moussaoui is responsible for some of the deaths on 9/11. Without that aviation testimony, it's unclear the government can make that link.”

The judge herself seems to question whether such a theory can hold up as the basis for a death sentence. On Thursday, she opined: “I must warn the government it is treading on delicate legal ground here. I don't know of any case where a failure to act is sufficient for the death penalty as a matter of law." Judge Brinkema had previously eliminated the death penalty as a sentencing option in 2003, after prosecutors refused to allow defense questioning of Al Qaeda witnesses in U.S. custody, but was overruled by the Fourth Circuit.

As Martin’s blunders have once again forced into the spotlight, the prosecutorial arm of the war on terror is a continued failure. Moussaoui’s trial is the only chance they have to obtain a conviction directly tied to the 9/11 attacks, and they are insistent that they will make the most of it. Moussaoui has denied any involvement in 9/11, saying he was training for possible future attacks. The latest acrobatics by the Department of Justice, as they try to put a deranged man to death, marks yet another milestone on the destructive yet aimless path of the government since 9/11.

All Eyes on China

Each side having been driven into the corner by the other, the punitive phase of the stand-off over Iran’s nuclear ambitions has begun. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as interlocutor to the conflict, last week referred the matter to the United Nations Security Council, thereby pronouncing dead any existing basis on which to find a compromise. Russia, more conciliatory than the usual brokerage firm of the EU-3 (the United Kingdom, France and Germany), has had its latest offer rejected by Iran. At this point, the two other essential members of the cast take center stage: the United States and China.

There is no “go it alone” rhetoric to hustle everyone along this time around. Post-Iraq, the US strategy has been to allow diplomacy to run its course. This has been demanded by the EU-3 and Russia just as much as it has been welcomed by the US, neither side wanting a pre-mature repeat of the Iraq debacle. Indeed, due to Russia and China’s unwillingness to impose sanctions on Iran at this point, the United States has voluntarily tempered the frenetic pace at which freedom tends to march, seeking only a consensus statement from the Security Council that Iran should halt its nuclear enrichment. Such is the demoralizing effect of Iraq as the western powers begin to confront Iran directly.

Nevertheless, the gravity of the moment should not be under-stated. Iran remains committed to researching technology for nuclear power and developing nuclear material to that end. This it regards as its sovereign right and is quick to point out the seeming double standard by which Western policy is calibrated. Further, Iran has mumbled a thing or two about possibly pulling out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT), as well as using its considerable influence over world oil supply as a political lever should it become necessary.

American opposition has continued apace. Standing in front of the American and Israeli flags, Dick Cheney recently told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that, "The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose meaningful consequences." In deliberating on what “meaningful” means, nothing, it seems, is “off the table,” including a military strike. Beyond that, of course, is the recent blitz of democracy spending awarded to the State Department for tinkering in Iran. Although it must wait patiently as diplomacy turns and turns, and even as displeasure with the Bush Administration grows, the United States can rely on a significant amount of domestic anxiety so far as Iran is concerned.

So far, so good. The wild card, however, is China. Along with Pakistan, China is reeling from the recent nuclear deal between the United States and India. That deal, in all but name, is designed as a deterrent to China’s regional ambitions, both economic and military. In short, due to the substantial shift in nuclear policy that the US-India deal represents, China now has a probable incentive to defend Iran’s sovereign right to develop nuclear technology in the Security Council.

Through the US-Indian deal, the Bush Administration has demonstrated its willingness to depart from a rules-based approach to non-proliferation in favor of a more pragmatic good actor v. bad actor model. Good actors (read: US-approved), even those who are not signatories to the NNPT, like India, may have, basically, any nuclear program they want. Bad actors (“rogue states” or, of course, terrorists) get nothing.

As George Perkovich writes, from the point-of-view of the Bush Administration, “The established global nonproliferation regime is predicated on rules that do not sufficiently discriminate between bad actors and good actors. Universal equal compliance with rules will never happen because bad guys will always exist and cheat. The objective should be not to constrain or burden good actors, including the United States and India, but rather to concentrate power on removing or nullifying bad actors. If negotiation and enforcement processes are hung up on equal treatment and mutual obligations, they are a waste of time and political capital.”

The problem is that China can also play this game. As a permanent member of the Security Council, it is in a good position to possibly rectify the recent setback over India through some measure of support for Iran. China faces a dilemma here: while Iran is a vitally important trading partner for China (particularly where energy is concerned), its economic influence does not compare with that of the United States. If forced to support some sort of punitive measure against Iran, China might endanger a crucial source of energy. If it resists those measures, it risks the ire of Washington. (It could, of course, abstain – as it often does – but it would still be obliged to comply with any punitive measures.)

Before the nuclear deal between the United States and India, China was in a bind over Iran. But after discovering that the world’s most populous good actor (India) is to be used as a buffer against its own interests, China now has one more reason to side with Iran against the United States. Whether it does or not will depend on developments in the coming days. But in a sign of things to come, Iran seems to be making an about-face in its approach to the Security Council, and it would be hard to imagine that it does not have China in mind.

The Judges Are Revolting

The Guardian reports that in a recent speech at Georgetown, Sandra Day O'Connor condemned what she saw as the evils of dictatorship beginning to corrupt the American political process. For the British daily, such stern words from a Republican ex-Supreme Court justice was a remarkable indictment of the Administration, its Congressional allies, and a general sign of just how bad things have gotten in the old U.S. of A. But, like with many things, first appearances can be deceiving.

Before praising O'Connor, it's important to ask exactly what she thought smacked of dictatorship. The reduction of popular participation in politics to only an occasional vote, with citizens enjoying little tangible control over basic political decisions? The intense resort to security speak as a way to justify permanent and global war? The creation of an international (and secret) prison system, largely unchecked and replete with cases of abuse? Clearly not the latter, since O'Connor's own decision in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld in June 2004 made constitutional the idea of indefinitely detaining individuals caught on the battlefield, with the only legal process being a military tribunal with the presumption of guilt, hearsay evidence, and no opportunity for judicial review.

Rather for O'Connor, what suggests the slide toward dictatorship are threats to the authority of the American judiciary -- specifically the efforts of Delay and other Republicans to strong-arm judges into supporting partisan political views. In a sense, such worries are part of a general trend among judges to hit back at what they see as a basic disrespect for their institutional competence. As discussed in an earlier post, what most upset the FISA court in the furor over warrantless domestic wiretapping was the fact that Bush's actions simply ignored the court entirely. Similarly, the Fourth Circuit, which has been notoriously deferential to presidential assertions of war powers, blocked the Justice Department's move last December to transfer Jose Padilla to a separate jurisdiction for a new criminal trial. For the conservative court, the government's behavior had crossed the line by directly questioning the circuit's power to decide on key cases.

Thus, what O'Connor and others fear as "dictatorship" is better understood as a threat to judicial supremacy in contested matters of law and constitutional politics. The courts have carved out an incredibly powerful role as final arbiters of constitutional meaning, but such power rests on the willingness of the "political" branches to defer to judicial authority and to accept the court's jurisdiction. Critically, this supremacy also rests on popular acquiescence to the court's right to preside over so much of the public discourse.

In a sense, what the Administration and Delay are doing --unintentionally -- in ratcheting up the partisan nature of the judiciary and openly defying court authority is exposing the very question of legitimacy at the heart of judicial politics. What right does O'Connor have to wield such massive power over our constitutional framework? At stake for her, the FISA judges, and the Fourth Circuit isn't the defense of the public from a threatening government. As we've repeatedly discussed, the courts have been instrumental in expanding the security state. For O'Connor and others, their real interest is in maintaining judicial sovereignty over basic political questions -- a sovereignty that remains unchallenged -- and with it the troubling presumption that judges are "non-political" and neutral appliers of the law.

All this should make the Guardian and other commentators deeply suspicious of dictatorship-talk by O'Connor. For her democracy is synonymous with law-rule, the safe assertion of constitutional prerogative by insulated courts. This is as impoverished and empty a view of democracy as that offered by the Bushies, and should be resisted. As long as we take our political cues for those like O'Connor we will never have the tools to challenge the current status quo or the political imagination to develop a richer account of democratic possibility.

Democrats 2, Electorate 0

Time columnist Joe Klein reveals the Democrats' latest weapon in the upcoming election: veterans. Noting that, "This is Karl Rove's worst nightmare," he reports that 50 Democratic candidates for Congress this year are veterans and that they may "represent the beginning of the Dems' long climb back to credibility on national-security issues."

As if we needed yet more proof that the Democrats are running on empty (in the ideas tank), they are now seeking to hide behind the authority of former soldiers. Given that the 'support the troops' line still goes unquestioned, the Democrats believe they can co-opt some of that legitimacy rather then have to persuade the electorate through the force of their own arguments. And where does it leave the electorate? As Klein makes clear the veterans are unlikely to challenge the broader consensus around the war on terror, "They are not so much antiwar as anti-Bush". He quotes Chris Carney, an ex-Naval Intelligence officer standing in the 10th Congressional District, whose position on the Iraq War will ruffle few feathers on Capitol Hill, "There were no links to 9/11," he told me. "But there were plenty of other contacts with terror groups. I always thought that was a better argument for the war than weapons of mass destruction."

Yet again it seems that our representatives have chosen not to challenge us with the difficult task of picking between two alternatives.

Britain: The Good Occupiers

Britain's Sunday Telegraph had an interesting story yesterday about a trooper in the elite SAS's counter-terrorism team who refused to return to Iraq. What makes the story notable is his primary rationale -- that the war was immoral because of the counterinsurgency tactics being used by American soldiers. According to Ben Griffin, "I saw a lot of things in Baghdad that were illegal or just wrong. I knew . . . that this was not the way to conduct operations if you wanted to win the hearts and minds of the local population. And if you don't win the hearts and minds of the people, you can't win the war." Griffin's words provide a powerful critique of events on the ground, but in a sense they also play into a particular British image of the war -- and of America's sole responsibility for the occupation's failure.

Max Hastings, in the same Telegraph, writes that a "fatal divide" separates the brutality of American behavior from British legality, and that the central mistake of the Brits was to imagine that with so small a military force in Iraq they could actually check American aggression. A soldier like Griffin isn't expected to question the ends of British war policy. Still, this tactical critique does allow Hastings and others to repeat the mantra of liberal hawks in the U.S. -- the cause was just, but the execution was poor.

It also gives Hastings a chance to assert once more that the Brits are somehow better, gentler, more friendly to hearts and minds, and if only they had been in charge all would be well. While describing the great training ground in counterinsurgency tactics that was Northern Ireland, he allows himself to admit that "things happened in Kenya" that would have resulted in an "orgy of war crimes trials." Perhaps, his comment "things happened" was referencing the 1.5 million Kikuyus (the entire ethnic popoulation) who were forced into concentration camps during the Mau Mau uprising, where rampant disease, slave labor, and brutal torture were commonplace. Britain's past colonial history may offer plenty of experiences in wars of occupation, but they are hardly worth emulating.

More importantly, the continual focus on tactics and legality -- while laudable among soldiers -- cannot be the basis of meaningful critique. It's not which army is in charge that makes the war illegitimate, it's the fundamental goals -- the very idea of "hearts and minds" campaigns, with its presumption that "we" somehow know better how to structure political and social life in foreign lands. Breaking the law can be immoral, but even lawful wars are unjust. Those like Hastings need to abandon their moral highground, because in castigating Americans he and others fail to address Britain's own complicity in this war, let alone own up to its past.

Freedom Go To Hell

Over a month after the actual protests took place, it transpires UK police are to arrest certain participants of a London anti-cartoon demonstrat