# Posted 9:57 PM by David Adesnik  

PRAISING THE NYT: Mericless as I am when it comes to the men and women of 44th St., I don't hesitate to give credit where credit is due. And it is due once again because the NYT editorial board does understand certain fundamental things about the occupation of Iraq regardless of their terrible coverage of the subject. Today, the editors write that

This page opposed an invasion that lacked the endorsement of the United Nations Security Council, and it now seems clear the Bush administration exaggerated its central argument for the mission — the threat of Baghdad's unconventional weapons. Nevertheless, establishing a free and peaceful Iraq as a linchpin for progress throughout the Middle East is a goal worth struggling for, even at great costs. We are there now, and it is essential to stay the course. But if Washington is to retain the public support needed to see the job through, it can't pretend that everything is on track. The soldiers returning home every week in body bags make that plain.

There is what to criticize in such a statement, but it is more important to recognize the potential for a bipartisan consensus on the rebuilding and democratization of Iraq. The potential for such a consensus is one of the principal reasons that Josh and I founded OxDem. Even in the midst of the intense partisan debate now raging over WMD, it is clear that simple and shared American ideals are still capable of uniting both Republicans and Democrats behind very specific objectives, such as sharing with the people of Iraq our own inalienable rights. I am thankful for that. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:42 PM by David Adesnik  

SIX DEGREES OF BLOGERATION: Two items of note today. First, AG's uncle-in-law Mort Abramowitz has an excellent op-ed on Aung San Suu Kyi in the WaPo. Uncle Mort says that the international community has to focus its pressure on Burma's allies in Beijing:

To hold China's feet to the fire, a U.N. Security Council resolution proposing a sanctions regime on Burma needs to be introduced. While China would almost certainly veto it, Beijing does not like to use its veto, and the prospect of exercising it might cause China, at least quietly, to urge the Burmese government to free Suu Kyi.

There you have it. Another good chance for the US and the UN to work together for a cause they both believe in. Besides, if Kofi Annan is willing to endorse Iraq's new Governing Council, it shouldn't be hard to get him behind a politically immaculate cause such as the protection of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Moving on, JAT reports that

Jonathan Mermin is the second cousin of my roommate, fellow Cornell math graduate student, and friend since 8th grade, Jeff Mermin. I've been over to eat dinner a couple of times at the house of Jonathan's father, recently retired Physics Professor David Mermin.

Sort of reminds me of that scene in Spaceballs which goes something like this...

DARK HELMET: Before you die there is something you should know about us, Lone Starr.
LONE STARR: What?
DARK HELMET: I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate.
LONE STARR: What's that make us?
DARK HELMET: Absolutely nothing! Which is what you are about to become.

And while you're wasting time, make sure to check out this New Yorker article on the origins of the Six Degrees theory. Finally, expect a follow up post by Patrick, since his mother-in-law also published an article on the subject. Those Alaskans sure have a lot of time on their hands... ;) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:10 PM by David Adesnik  

THE SEARCH FOR JUSTICE: The torture described in this article will make you sick. But you should read it as a tribute to the courage of Jumana Michael Hanna, one of the first Iraqi women willing to come forward and identify those who tortured her on behalf of Uday and Saddam.

Harrowing as the article is, there is also great consolation in the commitment of American occupation officials to working with women like Hanna to help her find the men who tortured her and bring them to justice. I wish them well. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:50 PM by David Adesnik  

SADDAM'S NEXT MOVE: This WaPo front pager begins by recycling the old news that, in October, the CIA said Saddam was most likely to launch chemical and biological attacks if the US invaded Iraq. However, buried toward the end of the article is the far more interesting and far more disturbing contention that a defeated Saddam may be reaching out to Al Qaeda and hoping to plan a joint chem-bio attack.

If such an attack were to take with it the lives of hundreds of American soldiers or civilians, it would provide considerable validation to the anti-war argument that an invasion of Iraq would undermine American security and set back the war on terror. But what is the chance of such an attack happening? Only God knows.

UPDATE: Pejman strongly disagrees. (Thanks to MD for pointing it out.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:02 AM by Patrick Belton  

WHY I LOVE THE LRB, NUMBER 28: So we've already established by judicious use of the empirical method that they have the best personals ads (to wit, this, scroll down to Wednesday at 1:19 pm).

But any periodical which writes back "It's a nice advert, so we'll run it for free," when I try to buy an ad seeking an old-fashioned Oxford-style bike for my wife....thereby races to the pinnacle of my mountain of newsprint favorites.

ME: Dear LRB Classifieds Office,
Hello, I would be very grateful if I could place the following advert. I enclose my credit card information at bottom. With many thanks, Patrick Belton
Wanted: old-fashioned, black bicycle, with basket and in good condition. For wife, who lost hers. Patrick.Belton@trinity.oxford.ac.uk

THEM: Thanks for your e-mail. It's a nice advert, so we'll run it for free. It will appear in the 7 Augsut edition. Let me know how you get on.
 
David Rose
Advertising Manager
London Review of Books

Classy act, that LRB.

P.S. Perhaps no more posting for me for the day. The Caffe Nero on the High, whose Airport base station I've been taking advantage of, has been gradually taken over by continentals, who have managed to smoke even former-Latin-America-and-mediterranean-resident-me out. Wow!
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:05 AM by Patrick Belton  

UPDATE ON NOAH FELDMAN PRESS SPREE: An anonymous mystery reader writes in to let us know that Noah Feldman will be speaking on WNYC, which is broadcast (and subsequently archived) online:

Noah Feldman will be on W-NYC, New York Public Radio, at 10 o’clock a.m. EST. (That would be 3 p.m. your time, I believe.) You can listen to the show in real time at www.wnyc.org. Just click on The Brian Lehrer Show under “On The Air Now” which is at the top right of the page. (Actually, the Brian Lehrer show will probably be displayed twice under “On the Air Now.” It doesn’t matter which one you click.)
Brian Lehrer’s show is two hours long. I think Professor Feldman is the first guest, so he may come on at 10:06 or so. (You know how NPR affiliates almost always have a six minute new roundup before a show starts.) If you miss the show, it will be archived much later today.

Thanks! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:22 AM by Patrick Belton  

BURPING STARS FILL THE COSMOS WITH DUST. They must be from Europe. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:21 PM by David Adesnik  

LA LUCHA CONTRA TERRORISMO: Randy Paul reports that Argentine President Nestor Kirchner is taking bold steps to solve the mystery of who bombed a Buenos Aires Jewish center in 1994, leaving scores dead. Kirchner is also aggressively moving to find and punish those responsible for the horrific human rights violations committed during the last Argentine dicatorship (1976-1982). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:01 PM by David Adesnik  

REVISIONIST HISTORY?: The NYT has a long review of who knew what about WMD when. Basically, the article says that the administration seriously overstated the case for the existence of WMD. While one might criticize the article for not providing anything new, its greatest flaw is its systematic failure to mention any of the most compelling reasons to believe that Saddam had extensive stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.

The hero of the NYT's story is, of course, Colin Powell, who often criticized administration hawks for wanting to show the public only that evidence which favored the administration's position. Fair enough. It is now apparent that the Pentagon often let its politics get the best of its intelligence.

More interestingly, the Times avoids praising Powell for his emphasis at the United Nations on intelligence profiling Saddam's comprehensive effort to prevent UN weapons inspectors from uncovering information relevant to his weapons programs. This evidence was and still remains unchallenged. Saddam was both hiding something and in clear violation of Resolution 1441. You remember 1441, don't you?

Another glaring oversight in the NYT article is the failure to mention (let alone explain) the fact that even the most prominent opponents of the war believed that Saddam had chemical and biological weapons. If, as the NYT suggests, the administration had to spin the intelligence to persuade the American public that Saddam had WMD, why did independent and skeptical figures such as Hans Blix come to the same conclusion?

In short, the NYT tries to leave the impression that the nation was misled into war. If not for the political connotations of the phrase, one might be tempted to say that the Times is in the process of writing "revisionist history". (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:13 PM by David Adesnik  

QUAGMIRE! QUAGMIRE! QUAGMIRE! The NYT isn't letting up. Today's Week in Review section features a lengthy essay comparing the failures of the American occupation to the failures of its British predecessor 80 years ago.

The most glaring oversight in the NYT essay is its willful blindness on the question of democratization. The essay notes that in response to a violent rebellion in 1920, the British held a rigged plebiscite in which King Faisal got 96% of the votes. Impressive, huh? Just 4% short of Saddam's total in the most recent Iraqi election.

Unsurprisingly, the Iraqis didn't take well to the rigged plebiscite. Thus,

In response, the British turned to technology, with their air force commander, Arthur (Bomber) Harris, boasting that his biplanes had taught Iraqis that "within 45 minutes a full-sized village can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or wounded."

Hmmm. Carpet bombing of innocent civilians. That does remind me of American strategy in a certain war. Could it be...could it be...could it be...VIETNAM?

Now, if you're looking for realistic commentary on the situation in Iraq, the WaPo Outlook section has an excellent forum on the subject. First off, retired Army officer Ralph Peters reminds us that the situation in Germany in July 1945 was far worse that the situation in Iraq in July 2003. Peters then goes on to blast press coverage of the occupation, writing that

the breathless media reporting of each American casualty in Iraq implies that the occupation has failed.

Sounds like someone has been reading OxBlog...

But let's get off our high-horse for a moment. As one of my friends in the military shot back when I criticized the media's coverage of the occupation, the fact that Iraq isn't Vietnam hardly makes Iraq a success. Point taken. So what next for the occupation? Tom Carothers that the US has to keep hammering away at the restoration of basic services and the augmentation of state administrative capacity. Otherwise, elections will only raise expectations while providing a government incapable of meeting them. In short, "The engine of democracy is useless without the chassis of the state to put it in."

While Carothers is absolutely right, it is worth keeping in mind that Paul Bremer will get hit hard regardless of whether he speeds up or slows down the transition. I put the problem this way in a forthcoming report for OxDem:

Conflicting pressures to both accelerate and decelerate the transition to an elected government illustrate the fundamental paradox of occupation: satisfying immediate demands for autonomy may threaten the prospects for democratization in the long-term, while a refusal to satisfy such demands may provoke an immediate backlash against the democratization process. The best illustration of this paradox is the way in which Bremer initially suspended the transition process in response to widespread criticism of his predecessor’s efforts to rush it forward. After winning initial praise, Bremer came under fire for not pushing the process forward fast enough. And now that he has responded to that sort criticism by appointing a Governing Council, experts such as Carothers are dissatisfied with his efforts to rush the process too much.

In the short-term, the untying of this Gordian knot may depend on the occupation forces’ ability to ensure a rapid increase in the Iraqi standard of living, since material advances tend to increase public patience with the gradual pace of political reform. And given enough time, the new Iraqi state may be able to take advantage of its most important asset in the democratization process: the desire of its people to ensure that they will never suffer again as they once did under Saddam Hussein.

As such, it isn't particularly helpful when Kofi Annan demands a timetable for the American withdrawal. If the guerrilla war gets worse and fundamentalist Shi'ites show little respect for democratic norms, will Annan still insist on meeting the timetable's objectives? (Don't answer that question.)

Moving on, the last two articles in the WaPo forum each make one solid point and then take it to ridiculous extremes. Historian Niall Fergusion writes that American underfunding of the reconstruction effort is extremely perilous, because

Without jobs and wages, many of the young men of Iraq will find the temptations of violent crime and guerrilla warfare impossible to resist.

Mind you, Ferguson knows from personal experience that money talks. After all, that's why he left Oxford for NYU. But would Fergusion have become an academic guerrilla if he were unemployed? That, of course, it is an absurd question. But how much more likely is it that all Iraqi youths -- especially Shi'ites and Kurds -- will join the Ba'thist guerrillas is they lose their jobs? Still, crime is a serious problem, along with the general dicontent that comes with poverty. Ferguson is right that the US has to spend more and not wait for the Europeans to get on board.

Finally, we come to Lesley Abdela passionate argument that having just three women on Iraq's Interim Governing Council will help perpetuate the brutal variant of sexism that has already taken hold in Iraq. Abdela writes that

As someone who has worked with Kosovo Albanians, Sierra Leonians and Afghans in rebuilding democratic institutions after devastating wars, I have heard local men and the international community alike excuse the exclusion of women from political power with weak arguments about "cultural sensitivities" and "custom and tradition." And yet, the introduction of pluralistic democracy itself is a clear break with the past -- a break from systems in which rights over others are based on gender, class, tribal affiliation or heredity.

Exactly. Exactly. But does that mean that there should be 14 women on the Governing Council instead of 3, as Abdela suggests? I don't know. It was hard enough to find three prominent women in a male-dominated society. Seems to me the real issue is to ensure that the men in charge are sensitive to women's rights and concerns.

So, leaving all the rhetoric aside, where are we know? I have to admit that I just don't know. While things certainly are not as bad as the media make it seem, their misguided reporting has made it all but impossible to know what is actually happening on the ground. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:36 AM by Patrick Belton  

ABU MAZEN AND THE NYT: Abu Mazen gives his first interview to a U.S. paper to the New York Times this week. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:31 AM by Patrick Belton  

MUSICAL CHAIRS: So David's packing his bags and getting ready to head to Harvard, and Josh is off vacationing in Ireland (and getting ready to change his d.phil. topic to an exploration of Belton sociology)....which leaves me - can it be true? - the only OxBlogger actually in residence at Oxford. Whowouldathunk? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:29 AM by Patrick Belton  

NOAH FELDMAN IN DC: Several friends have been kind enough to point this out to me: namely, on Tuesday Noah Feldman will be speaking in Washington at the New America Foundation. Given that he's just departed his position as the interim Iraqi government's chief constitution-drafter, and the event is marked on the record, we can perhaps assume that we'll be hearing strong remarks, and criticisms, about the process of building Iraqi democracy. Feldman's departure, it's said, wasn't under the happiest of circumstances, but he's a bright, idealistic young man (and a Yalie Oxonian), so his criticisms, even if laced with a touch of bitterness, will surely be much worth listening to.

The event will be at the New America Foundation at 12:15 pm this Tuesday, and the announcement says, significantly: "A special note to the media, Noah Feldman resigned his U.S. government position last week from his Baghdad position and has much to say on the subject of Iraq as well as on the very broad subject of Islam and constitutional democracy. THIS MEETING IS ON THE RECORD." I'd encourage any of our readers who can, to go, and report back what he has to say. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:14 AM by Patrick Belton  

WAR AND LITERATURE: OxBlog Lower East Side correspondent Liz Goodman on why Vietnam is a recurring metaphor for war - partly, she says, because the literature that came out of Vietnam and seared it on our national consciousness was just so good:

It occurs to me suddenly that the reason that Vietnam gets brought up so often in conjunction with any kind of American military incursion is that the war stories field reporters told about their experiences and their mission in Vietnam were better and more compelling than any job-narratives since. I've just been rereading Dispatches, by Michael Herr, which John le Carre called "The best book I have ever read on men and war in our time."

"I see a road. It is full of ruts made by truck and jeep tires, but in the passing rains they never harden, and along the road there is a two-dollar piece of issue, a poncho, which had just been used to cover a dead Marine, a blood-puddled, mud-wet poncho going stiff in the wind. It has reared up there by the side of the road in a horrible, streaked ball. The wind doesn't move it, only setting the pools of water and blood in the dents shimmering. I'm walking along this road with two black grunts, and one of them gives the poncho a helpless, vicious kick. 'Go easy, man,' the other one says, nothing changing in his face, not even a look back. 'That's the American flag you getting' your foot into.'"

On the one hand, I think most reporters would love to have the sense of purpose and storytelling ability of a Michael Herr; I think the myth of Dispatches is that war correspondents were in the trenches desperately trying to tell the truth to a country that did not want to hear them. On the other hand, it's a brilliant, terrifying book. I try to reread Dispatches every time the Vietnam analogy comes up or American soldiers are at risk in some foreign place. I find that it greatly helps me to remember exactly what we mean by "quagmire."

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:38 PM by David Adesnik  

RESISTING THE PA FROM WITHIN: Dan Drezner has an excellent post up on the Palestinian Authority's [literally] heavy-handed efforts to silence intellectuals who question its policies. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:27 PM by David Adesnik  

ABUSING IMMIGRANTS: Dan Simon explores the implications of a French decision to ban foreign words that have made their way into the Fifth Republic. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:22 PM by David Adesnik  

URANIUM WATCH: Kevin Drum has the latest, plus an amusing photo of the President wearing glasses. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:19 PM by David Adesnik  

MATT YGLESIAS IS BACK from his Italian adventure and seems to be in quite good spirits. In the past three days, he has linked to my posts twice, both times in agreement. Unheard of!

On the 17th, Matt gave his qualified endorsement to my argument that the American media has locked itself into a Vietnam mindset. While Matt refers to this argument as David's theory, I really shouldn't take all the credit. For those of you who have the time, check out the work of Jonathan Mermin, who studies media coverage of US military interventions.

While I haven't had a chance to read Prof. Mermin's book, his 1996 article [no permalink] in Political Communication makes a very detailed argument about the misleading comparisons between Vietnam, Panama and the First Gulf War which the media made in the early days of those conflicts. The main difference between myself and Mermin is that the good professor attributes a narrower scope to his argument. Rather than say that this sort of coverage is characteristic of a media establishment that came of age in Vietnam, he argues that it simply reflects the media's willingness to criticize even popular military endeavors (by comparing them to unpopular and unsuccessful ones).

A harsher critic might say that Mermin doesn't recognize the implications of his research because he can't see beyond the ivory tower belief that the American media has a strong pro-conservative bias. (Yes, you heard right. "Pro-conservative". Talk a look at either this textbook or this one to see what I mean.)

Getting back to Mermin, I think he is holding back in the article because he recognizes the sort of critical firestorm he'd bring down on himself if he contradicted the prevailing paradigm in his discipline. As a young professor with one book to his credit, I don't think he can afford to offend the top scholars in the field. But that's just my instinct. Perhaps after reading his book I'll know for sure.

Now, the second time Matt Yglesias had a kind word for OxBlog was when he wrote today that even though

"a lot of hawkish bloggers seem to have a real distaste for discussing domestic policy issues that can't be reduced to mocking radical academics...Though I note that OxHawk David Adesnik is getting pretty darn caustic on the subject of Bush's tax cuts. Maybe it's time to start liberating another country before the hawk crowd starts focusing it's mind on other issues."

I guess the question is whether Matt would still be praising my diverse interests if I were an ardent defender of Bush's tax cuts. Regardless, I think I'm going to have disappoint Matt and say that I know a lot less about taxes than I do about foreign policy. When I write about economics, I do so as a layman tackling issues with which he is unfamiliar. By putting my opinions out there, I hope to get responses that introduce me to the basic facts of political economy.

In contrast, when I write about foreign policy, I am testing myself to see if I can apply my academic knowledge and doctoral research to current events and issues. That's why most of my posts focus on foreign policy and why I'm willing to go to the mat (no pun intended) to defend my views on the subject. So, if you want to see more domestic policy posts on OxBlog, write in if I put up even a single post on the subject and you'll have my attention. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:34 PM by David Adesnik  

A SOLDIER'S LIFE IN IRAQ: Chief Wiggles gives a detailed account of a day in the life, in his case dealing with Iraqi POWs. I don't think there's anyway not to be impressed with how hard the Chief is working, or for that matter how hard almost every soldier is working regardless of his or her specific task.

NB: One of the Chief's associates pointed out to me, the Chief does not GUARD the prisoners, as I wrote earlier. That kind of work is for "the average boot". The Chief is responsible for debriefing the POWs and other related tasks. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:58 PM by David Adesnik  

OH, THE IRONY: Maureen Dowd writes that America is still afraid of intelligent women. Is that a subtle dig at the NYT for not having a serious female columnist? Or is MoDo trying to tell us that she's just been playing dumb? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:35 PM by David Adesnik  

BRAVO, NYT: Kinds words for the NYT are not common on OxBlog, but today they are very much in order. On the op-ed page, the Times has published a column by Jordan's Prince Hassan which upraids the occupation forces in Iraq for their hypocritical rhetoric and cultural insensitivity. As Prince Hassan would have it,

The occupying coalition talks of transitional justice. But how can it explain the absence of an Iraqi court to deal with the affairs of its citizens? Other than a new, relatively powerless governing council, why are Iraq's people — inheritors of the cradle of human civilization itself and arguably some of the most sophisticated and advanced in the Arab world — having to watch while others impose their will and their plans on the country?

The people now in charge of Iraq, be they in Baghdad or Washington, seem to lack the cultural sensitivity and proper knowledge of Iraq and its neighbors, and to have little regard for the religious and spiritual values of the Iraqi people, lacking even an appreciation of Iraq's ecumenical and cosmopolitan past. Nor has the de facto authority shown any intention to put to use the intellectual and technical potential of the Iraqi people, causing even greater frustration, confusion and anger.

At this point you might be thinking to yourself, "So what? Trite anti-American banter is par for the course on the NYT op-ed page." But hold on just a second. What makes Prince Hassan's comments so delightful is that the Times has run his column side-by-side with this essay by Fawaz Gerges, in which the author blasts the monarchs and dictators of the Middle East for their shallow and hypocritical embrace of democratic rhetoric. I can only imagine the look on Hassan's face when he picked up his copy of the paper this morning...

Anyhow, Gerges main point (one that OxBlog made two months ago...) is that the emergence of democratic rhetoric in the Middle East is part and parcel of cynical strategy designed to placate the United States for long enough to ensure that the Bush Administration forgets its declared interest in promoting democracy in the region. Gerges observes that

Shamefully, President Bush and his senior aides spent most of their meeting last month with the leaders of Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia pressing them to fight terrorism. What they should have been talking about was the importance of promoting democracy and reform. This emphasis sends the wrong message to Arab rulers and citizens by reinforcing the widely held perception that the United States uses democracy as a whip to punish its enemies, like Iraq, while doing business as usual with its autocratic allies.


Moreover, it is shortsighted. If America wants to end terrorism, it needs to understand that ultimately, democracy and respect for human rights and the rule of law are the most effective way to undermine extremism. That change will come about only when the United States begins exerting pressure on its allies, not just its foes.

Even I have to admit that Gerges is going a little too far. There is no question that the President and his senior advisors had to focus on terrorism in their meetings with Middle Eastern heads of state. But what Bush and his advisors apparently failed to do was make it clear to those heads of state that (as Gerges says) promoting democracy and fighting terror are all part of the same war.

While that sort of rhetoric may sound nice on a website or on the NYT op-ed page, if the President of the United States is willing to make the exact same point in closed door meetings with Middle Eastern heads of state, it can have a tremendous impact. Much as the people of the Middle East seem to want greater freedom, their governments will not give it to them unless they have no other choice. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:41 PM by David Adesnik  

MONEY, MEET MOUTH: Leading Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Sadr has denounced the new Iraqi Governing Council and called for the creation of an independent Islamic army.

Am I concerned? Yes. Not because Sadr has the necessary legitimacy within the Shi'ite community to effective challenge its pro-Council leadership. (He doesn't). But because this is the moment the skeptics have been waiting for. The people of Iraq have finally been called to the banner of anti-American fundamentalism.

Will they rush to it, or will they prefer to focus on "democracy, security, services and food on their plates" (as one Shi'ite cleric on the Governing Council put it)? I know what my answer to that question is. So now it's time for OxBlog to put its money where its mouth is. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:31 PM by David Adesnik  

POLITICAL CALCULUS: My erstwhile NYC neighbor AG writes in with some further thoughts about partisan politics and free trade:

Here's an alternative hypothesis. The Bush II administration's objective function has one and only one domestic argument -- the average marginal tax rate on the 1,000 wealthiest taxpayers -- and the first and second derivatives of this function in this arguement are large and negative. They'll adopt whatever other policies it takes to decrease the expected future value of this variable through all time. Trade? Who cares as long as we can get tax cut votes out of the Missouri and Michigan delegations. Farm subsidies that keep Africans impoverished? Who cares as long as get concurrence from the Iowa and Nebraska delegations. Free abortion on demand? Maybe, if we really have a chance of getting Hilary and Chuck to help eliminate estate taxes.

This is extreme. But I haven't seen any evidence that would lead me to refute this hypothesis.

Nor have I, nor have I. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:43 AM by Patrick Belton  

A NEW SPEECH attributed to bin Laden is making the rounds in the Islamist press, courtesy of MEMRI. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:57 PM by David Adesnik  

DEMOCRACY IN A SMALL PLACE: It isn't easy for countries like Sao Tome to make the headlines, even when the military overthrows its elected president. Thus Bill Hobbs and Adam Sullivan deserve considerable credit for bringing this issue to the blogosphere's attention. Given's Sao Tome's size, it shouldn't be all that hard for joint US-European pressure to restore the elected government, as it did once before in 1995. The question is, with so many other issues on the agenda, will the Bush administration be paying attention? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:58 PM by David Adesnik  

FREE TRADE BUSHWHACKED? The always thoughtful JAT isn't satisfied with my assertion that

"...we now inhabit a strange world where the Democratic Party has
become the most credible advocate of free trade and balanced budgets, i.e. economic conservatism."

No. As I'll explain below, it is paradoxically because the Democratic
Party is less a party of free trade that Democratic *Presidents* (as
opposed to Congressmen) have stronger political incentives to be free
trade.

First off, your comment seems absurd to someone who lives in North
Carolina, and witnessed the Elizabeth Dole- Erskine Bowles Senate race in
2002. Almost every Bowles ad contained some criticism of cheap Mexican
goods flooding into the US, and cheap Chinese goods flooding into the US
through Mexico. (Complete with scary maps and red arrows.) Elizabeth
Dole generally tried to avoid the issue, but made a defense of free trade.

The same was true of Rep. Robin Hayes's (R-NC) race. (Rep. Hayes was one of the final "Yes" votes for fast track authority.) His Democratic
opponent ran nothing but anti-free trade ads in 2002. Everywhere in North Carolina, every legislative race I've ever seen, the Republican candidate is more free trade than the Democratic one. This is repeated throughout
the state and the country-- relatively protectionist Republicans represent
protectionist districts (heavily union, especially) where the Democrats
who run against them are even more protectionist. Free trading Democrats represent very pro-free trade districts.

In the larger picture, remember that even during the Clinton
Administration, a majority of the Republicans in the House and Senate
voted for fast track trade authority, while a much smaller fraction of the
Democrats. (Under a Republican president, Bush, more Republicans and
fewer Democrats voted for fast track.)

Remember Gephardt and most of the rest of the Congressional Democrat
leadership saying that the steel tariffs didn't go far enough.

The Republicans have a much, much larger free trade bloc than the
Democrats, and have a much more naturally free trade constituency. The
legislative votes reflect this.

However, this does peversely mean that Democratic *executives* can
sometimes be more free trade, in an "only Nixon can go to China" sense.
When a Democratic President advocates free trade, he upsets his union and left wing base, but reaches out to moderates and Republican supporters. A sitting Democratic President doesn't have to fear an attack from the left
as much, and can broaden his support by supporting free trade. His base
may be upset, but he can use other issues to placate them.

A Republican President faces exactly the reverse dilemma. Caving on free
trade upsets mostly Republican voters (and moderate Democrats), but is an attempt to appeal to large Democratic constituencies that are open to
Republicans on other issues-- but are very protectionist. (Unions,
especially.) Again, it's an attempt to broaden support at the expense of
upsetting the base.

I have to admit, JAT's logic is pretty solid. I'm not sure, though, that there is such a clear incentive for Presidents to offend their base in the process of reaching out to the center. After all, it is the base that votes in the primaries and sends in donations. As such, I think it is still fair to say that Clinton had a real commitment to free trade while Bush simply doesn't. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:46 PM by David Adesnik  

GRAN'PA IN BAGHDAD: How many blogs out there are written by American army officers charged with guarding captured Iraqi generals? As you might guess, Chief Wiggles (I presume that is not his real name) is a little older than your average soldier. And definitely a little wiser. He is a father and a grandfather as well as an officer, not to mention a former missionary. Interesting reading to say the least. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:40 PM by Patrick Belton  

MAIL BAG: Our readers do some pretty neat things. And occasionally, they let us know about them, which is the absolute best. So without further ado, a few interesting things OxBlog readers have recently brought to our attention:

The Center for Regulatory Effectiveness, a group of former OMB officials, has a white paper out on the fradulent diversion of pharmaceutical drugs from their intended recipients - a problem they find to be large, growing, and troubling.

Brian Ulrich has posted some interesting thoughts on Afghan-Pakistani relations.

And our friends at MEMRI note Al Hayat's coverage of Iraqi intelligence's plan for insurgence operations in the event of the fall of the Iraqi regime, recently unearthed in the Mukhabarat's former building. (Here's the original Arabic, for those of you who can use the practice). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:38 PM by David Adesnik  

DEMOCRACORPS: Boomshock has claimed christening rights for OxBlog's new nation-building corps. Meanwhile, Reihan Salam points out that Donald Rumsfeld came up with a surprisingly similar idea (but has no idea how to implement). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:35 PM by David Adesnik  

HONOR AMONG THIEVES: Attend the 3rd Annual Nigerian E-mail conference! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:28 PM by Patrick Belton  

TONY BLAIR IN CONGRESS: "There never has been a time when the power of America has been so necessary or misunderstood." text, MSNBC, CNN. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:23 PM by David Adesnik  

CLINTONIZING BUSH: I've already put in my two cents about the significance of Uranium-gate. But what matters far more is the significance that the President's antagonists want to give it. What they want is nothing less than to discredit the President permanently in the way that Lewinsky-gate discredited President Clinton.

According to Maureen Dowd,

More and more, with Bush administration pronouncements about the Iraq war, it depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is.

Josh Marshall is taking the slightly different tack of posting Bush's best-known attacks on Clinton's credibility side-by-side with the embarrassing excuses now being offered for the infamous 16 words. For example:

"I will bring honor to the process and honor to the office I seek. I will remind Al Gore that Americans do not want a White House where there is 'no controlling legal authority.' I will repair the broken bonds of trust between Americans and their government."

-- George W. Bush
March 7th, 2000


Quote number two ...
"It didn't rise to the standard of a presidential speech, but it's not known, for example, that it was inaccurate. In fact, people think it was technically accurate."

-- Donald Rumsfeld
July 13th, 2003

For the moment, I still think it's extremely premature to compare the White House spin on Uranium-gate to Clinton's outright lies regarding his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. (No, I don't think anyone should ask the President about his sex life. But if he is testifying about it in court, then a lie is a lie is a lie.)

Even so, the Administration's inability to get its foot out of its collective mouth is making it harder and harder not to ask just what the White House has to hide. Just a few days ago, George Tenet took the fall for the administration after Condi Rice insisted that the CIA was responsible for letting the '16 words' into the State of the Union.

Now Tenet says his staff never asked him to evaluate the 16 before they went into the President's speech. Not only does that contradict Tenet's good soldier act from earlier in the week, but it seems implausible given yesterday's NYT report that Tenet called Stephen Hadley before the President's October speech in Cincinnati and insisted that he take the uranium-from-Niger story out of the text.

What this sort of Cabinet-level chaos calls to mind is not the mendacity of our 42nd President but the incompetence of our 40th. Throughout the 2000 campaign, the Republican line was that Bush would surround himself with experts on foreign affairs. But now he seems unable to control his cabinet.

By the same token, the much-lauded White House press machine has been unable to offer any sort of convincing explanation of what exactly went on in the days leading up to the SotU.

Ideally, this will all come to end when the President decides that the excuses being offered in his name are doing far more damage to his reputation than the truth itself. But I'm beginning to wonder, does Bush even know what happened? What I fear is that Bush will have to come before the nation and declare in a Reagan-esque manner that he has no recollection of how policy was made in his own White House.

I hope I'm wrong. Not because I have an interest in protecting the President's reputation. But because I don't want to believe that no one is in charge in the White House.

AFTERTHOUGHT: Andrew Sullivan and the WSJ have cited last October's National Intelligence Estimate for Iraq in order to show that the CIA had, at one time, considered the Niger story to be thoroughly reliable. But if the NYT report I mentioned above is to be believed, George Tenet explicitly told Stephen Hadley not to believe those sections of the NIE dealing with the uranium from Niger. Both Andrew and the WSJ also point out that the British are still standing by the uranium story. Yet given that the UK has excellent intelligent services, why doesn't anyone in the White House want to defend the actual content of the 16 words? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:46 AM by Patrick Belton  

BLIND CENSORS AND NABOKOV IN PERSIAN: TNR'S Cynthia Ozick offers a beautiful review of Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Iran. A favorite excerpt:

One of Nafisi's recurrent "jokes"--not unlike the joke about the Rule of the Bus--is her account of the official censor, whose job it was to guard against insult to religion in film, theater, and television. What made him highly suitable as a judge of the visual arts was that he could not see what he condemned--he was virtually blind. The sightless censor is Nafisi's metaphor for the Islamic Republic: it declined to see, and in not seeing, it was unable to feel. This blind callousness--Nafisi rightly terms it solipsism--ruled every cranny of the nation's existence. The answer to governmental solipsism, Nafisi determined, was insubordination through clinging to what the regime could neither see nor feel: the sympathies and openness of humane art, art freed from political manipulation--the inchoate glimmerings of Fitzgerald's green light, Nabokov's "world of tenderness, brightness and beauty," James's "Feel, feel, I say--feel for all you're worth."

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:29 AM by Patrick Belton  

AND WHO SAYS NOTHING GOOD COMES OUT OF CONGRESS????? The Senate passed, with a lone dissenting vote, a measure backed by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) to ban the importation of goods from Burma, freeze the junta's assets in the United States, expand the ban on visas for Burmese junta officials and codify the current ban on US support for assistance to the Burmese government by international financial institutions. The House passed the same measure by a 418-2 vote the day before (who votes against this kind of stuff?). Happily, the administration has greeted the move with support.

Just look at that - Congress passing a measure imposing tough sanctions on a regime brutally abusing human rights, and a Bush administration is backing rather than vetoing the move. Perhaps we've come a long way, baby, since Tiananmen. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:24 PM by David Adesnik  

NOT THE INDEPENDENT'S DAY:First it recycled Palestinian lies about an alleged massacre in Jenin. Now's it printing groundless stories about Dick Cheney on the brink of getting fired. Well, what do you expect from a newspaper whose top foreign correspondent is Robert Fisk? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:53 PM by David Adesnik  

YOUCH! Anne Applebaum writes:

Nearly all of the arguments about multilateralism, unilateralism and whether the United States should have allies need to be framed differently. For we do have allies -- it's just that they're allies who want America to fight the war on terrorism while their citizens, simultaneously, denounce the United States for fighting the war on terrorism. What we have, at the moment, is not a coalition of the willing, in other words, but a coalition that dare not speak its name.

You know, you'd think I'd feel better about having a moderate WaPo columnist say exactly what I want to hear. But now I'm so paranoid about the media, that if it says what I want, then I think I must be wrong! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:47 PM by David Adesnik  

WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRACTION: Jim Hoagland perfectly captures my take on uranium-gate; it's a minor flap handledly so incompetently by the Administration that it's opening bush up to well-deserved partisan ridicule while distracting both the policymakers and the public from more important issues.

UPDATE: Josh Marshall gives reason to think that Hoagland is hardly an impartial judge when it comes to the intel wars. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:52 PM by David Adesnik  

ANTI-SEMITISM VS. ANTI-AMERICANISM: There is something amusing about French anti-Americanism. It is a strange sort of faith that considers certain carbonated beverages, hamburger franchises and animated children's films to be its mortal enemies. In political terms, this sort of anti-Americanism is little more than an adjunct to the longstanding nationalist pride that is responsible for France's periodic efforts to step on the toes of the American colossus. No wonder that the American response to such sentiments consists of patently ridiculous initiatives such as the liberation of French fries.

But French anti-Semitisim is deadly serious. The incidents described in today's WaPo are both so brazen and so violent that it is almost beyond belief. In one instance

A gang of 15 North African teenagers, some of them wielding broom handles, had invaded the grounds of a Jewish day school on Avenue de Flandre in northeast Paris the previous evening. They punched and kicked teachers and students, yelled epithets and set off firecrackers in the courtyard before fleeing.

In broad daylight in the heart of Europe. Unthinkable. Or rather, in the United States such behavior would be unthinkable. I myself am the graduate of a Jewish day school in Manhattan. If this sort of violent attack took place at my school or at any other day school in New York, it would become the focus of all student activity for months, if not years, to come. Hundreds of thousands of Jews would march on the Capitol and demand an end to anti-Semitism and all other forms of primitive racism.

But what if this sort of attack were not an isolated incident, but rather part of a disturbing pattern. Would American Jews be able to mobilize the same anger if they knew that this sort of attack were inevitable? Consider the following:

Police forensic experts in Lyon, France, investigated an attack on a synagogue in March 2002, in which assailants used a car outfitted with battering rams to smash the doors and then set fire to the building.

The degree of calculated malice involved in that sort of attack is absolutely shocking. It is an act of war. At minimum, there is something comprehensible about the decision of 15 North African teenagers to overrun a Jewish school. Their behavior bears some sort of resemblance to the Crown Heights riots of a decade ago, during which an outraged mob vented its anger on innocent Jews.

But to outfit a car with battering rams? That is not aggravated assault. It is premeditated murder. Perhaps because of such shocking events, the French authorities have begun to take anti-Semitism more seriously. Better late than never. I am afraid, however, that no amount of law enforcement can prevent such motivated criminals from doing their worst. What must ultimately change is the mindset of the Muslim communities from which the attackers come.

In the WaPo article mentioned above, the leader of a Muslim organizaton in Paris attributes the attacks to the disaffection of young Muslims and the influence of television.

"For these kids, television is enormous," he says. "It conditions their minds. Before, they had respect for their parents and their roots. Now with this new generation, the respect is gone. The roots are cut."

I don't buy that for a second. I simply do not believe that either rising unemployment or news broadcasts could provoke anti-Semitic attacks if the teenage assailants were not brought up on a steady diet of anti-Semitism at home and at school.

While anti-Semitic attacks do rise and fall in response to the temperature of politics in the Middle East, one still has to ask why young French Muslims respond to events in the Middle East by terrorizing Jews rather than participating in the French tradition of strikes and protests. Thus, the WaPo was right to headline its report "For Jews in France, a 'Kind of Intifada'". The same inbred, inter-generational hatred that motivagtes suicide bombings in the Middle East has begun to rear its head on the European continent.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:09 AM by Patrick Belton  

BACK TO PLAY....This after a lovely sun-splotted weekend spent discharging the happy honor of steering my beloved friends Rafael and Alexandra Cox down the aisle at Trinity, and several subsequent days spent scribbling in the Bodleian to get to the point where I can call myself a real DPhil student. But not wanting David to get lonely or be playing all by himself, I thought I'd come back to play....

So, first of all, a few quick links to today's best of the web:

My DC foreign policy posse, the Nathan Hale gang, drives home just how superfluous I am by having - while I'm away - a splendid and searching discussion examining US policy options toward North Korea.

MEMRI has a quite good summary of the current situation facing the pro-democracy student demonstrators in Iran.

Eurasianet has added some typically insightful analyses to their website: on Turkish and US interests in Iraq, military-civil tensions again within Turkey, and Hizb ut-Tahrir. With regard to the last, the ICG's caution that more democracy, rather than more repression, is the appropriate way to deal with Central Asian extremism is extraordinarily welcome and timely.

Via my friend Alexandra, here are two round-ups of the recent Mexican legislative elections: here and here too.

Rita Katz and Josh Devon, whom I'm privileged to know slightly, have a quite good piece in NRO on terrorists' use of the internet. And Stratfor has a good, non-subscription piece on the strategic challenges posed in pursuing counterinsurgence operations in Iraq.

That's it for now - happy reading. I'll be off scribbling. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:42 PM by David Adesnik  

BELIEVING THEIR OWN LIES: As far as I can I tell, my constant fulminations against the WaPo's misinterpetation of polling data hasn't had much effect on its reporting. Today, my criticism of the WaPo's coverage focuses on the same biased question that provoked my wrath once before:

8. How do you feel about the possibility that the United States will get bogged down in a long and costly peacekeeping mission in Iraq? Would you say you're very concerned about that, somewhat concerned, not too concerned or not concerned at all?

Sadly, none other than David Broder, the vaunted "Dean" of political journalism has been taken in by the answer to this one-sided question. According to Broder, the most recent WaPo/ABC poll

"found a dramatic reversal in public tolerance of continuing casualties, with a majority saying for the first time that the losses are unacceptable when weighed against the goals of the war.

Eight out of 10 in the Post-ABC poll said they were very or somewhat concerned that the United States "will get bogged down in a long and costly peacekeeping mission."

Now, before getting in to what the data actually showed, it is worth noting that Saturday's WaPo ran a front page headline that read "Support for Bush Declines As Casualties Mount in Iraq." In other words, Broder is simply echoing the same quagmire theme that both his own colleagues and countless other journalists have been harping on since the second week of the war.

Unfortunately, the American people are refusing to play along. When asked

Do you think the United States should keep its military forces in Iraq until civil order is restored there, even if that means continued U.S. military casualties; or do you think the United States should withdraw its military forces from Iraq in order to avoid further U.S. military casualties, even if that means civil order is not restored there?

72% said the US should stand its ground. Lest anyone think these 72% are naive, a similar number (74%, to be exact) answered in the affirmative when asked

Do you think there will or will not be a significant number of additional U.S. military casualties in Iraq?

To some degree, that answer conflicts with the one given to the following question:

Again thinking about the goals versus the costs of the war, so far in your opinion has there been an acceptable or unacceptable number of U.S. military casualties in Iraq?

44% said acceptable and 52% said unacceptable, the reversal of the 51-42 split from three weeks ago. But what exactly does it mean to say that the casualty count is unacceptable? Here's one explanation:

"I don't think any [casualties] are acceptable, but they're necessary," said Chris Eldridge, 29, an electronics technician from Louisville. "They're a lot lower than I expected. I expected there would be more during the initial fighting. I expected a lot more killed. Fortunately there hasn't been."

Answers like that demonstrate just how important it is to be precise when designing poll questions. Still, one shouldn't jump to the conclusion that Americans are enthusiastic about the occupation. When asked

All in all, considering the costs to the United States versus the benefits to the United States, do you think the war with Iraq was worth fighting, or not?

the Yes-No split was 57-40, down from 64-33 in late June. Frankly, it's hard to know whether those sort of numbers reflect the absence of any major WMD finds, the uranium-from-Niger debate, or the rising casualty count. Given that 72% of Americans support the occupation, it is reasonable to infer that the WMD and uranium issues are more important.

Of course, that isn't what the WaPo wants you to believe. As they have it, "Support for Bush Declines As Casualties Mount in Iraq." What's so interesting about that sort of spin is that it has no clear relationship to journalists' own self-interest. With regard to the uranium, the media can plausibly argue that their investigative reporting helped expose the President's mendacity. So why not suggest that Bush's falling approval rating reflects the success of their investigative reporting?

With regard to WMD, it makes sense to argue that some Americans feel betrayed by the Administration's inability to validate its firm prewar assertions that Saddam had impressive stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. While the media couldn't take any direct credit for exposing the apparent absence of WMD, the failure of an American president to deliver on his word is exactly the sort of story that journalists love to play up.

Yet in spite of these compelling alternatives, the WaPo decided to favor the least plausible explanation of Bush's falling numbers: the supposed quagmire in Iraq. It is precisely this sort of indefensible decision which highlights the lasting impact of the Vietnam mindset on American journalists. Our media is so invested in the Vietnam narrative of hit-and-run guerrillas, disappointed GIs and homefront dissent that it turns every war into Vietnam.

At times, this Vietnam mindset results in coverage that is decidedly liberal. Yet in this instance, the quagmire prism favors those conservatives and realists who believe that America has no business rebuilding war torn nations and promoting democracy abroad. Thus, it isn't politics in the partisan sense of the word that determine how the media cover foreign affairs. Instead, there is an unconscious ideology -- derived from a self-absorbed interpretation of American political history -- that leads journalists astray.

Thankfully, the American public is not following that lead.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:13 PM by David Adesnik  

SELLING OUT AUNG SAN SUU KYI: In today's WaPo, the director of Asian studies at Georgetown argues passionately for engagement with Burma. Prof. Steinberg argues that whereas taking a hard line

"may be morally comforting to all of us who wish the world were more democratic, but have they been or are they likely to be effective? What the United States has been doing is to drive the Burmese back onto themselves and more closely into the Chinese sphere of influence...

The United States should not foster Burma's isolation. It should, with Japan, the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, engage that state to encourage positive changes. It should induce China to warn the Burmese of their predicament.

Like most supporters of Mrs. Suu Kyi, I am well aware that strident protests may have no effect on a junta led by ignorant and violent men. Yet what reason is there to believe that "engagement" would work any better?

Stunningly, Prof. Steinberg doesn't list a single incentive that might induce the Burmese junta to improve its record on human rights and democratization, in the event of a more conciliatory approach by the West. If I were a member of the junta, I would interpret Western diplomatic openings as a clear indication that the United States, the EU , Japan and ASEAN will continue to do business with the junta regardless of how brutal it is.

Now mind you, "engagement" is not a dirty word. It is not necessarily the same as appeasement. Take China, for example. While I have serious misgivings about engaging its leadership, Chinese society is far more open than its Burmese counterpart. Because there are businessmen, labor leaders and local politicians who have an important say in what happens, at least at the lower levels of government, engagement has the potential to strengthen pro-democratic forces in China.

In contrast, Burma is the most primitive form of dictatorship, in which hapless generals rule over an impoverished and resentful population with no means of resisting government violence. In short, there is no one in Burma to engage.

If the United States, the EU, Japan and ASEAN take a consistent hard line with the junta, the Chinese may decide to accept Burma as a satellite. On the other hand, a united US-EU-Japanese-ASEAN front may well convince the Chinese that taking on another backwards henchman (cf. North Korea) may entail far more trouble than it's worth. If so, the Myanmar junta will recognize that they have no choice but to compromise with pro-democracy forces or hope that their more resentful subjects don't launch a bloody revolution first. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:52 PM by David Adesnik  

NOT BIAS. JUST CONFUSION: Compare the headlines, both on the front page:

"Appointed Iraqi Council Assumes Limited Role" --Rajiv Chandrasekaran, WaPo, July 14.

"Iraqis Set to Form an Interim Council With Wide Power" -- Patrick Tyler, NYT, July 11.

What's even funnier is that you could switch the headlines around and both articles would still make just as much sense.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:36 PM by David Adesnik  

THE STRANGEST OFFER: Con-artists are getting more and more creative. Just take a look at this:

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TESTIMONIAL:
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And to think most bloggers just have a tip jar... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:21 PM by David Adesnik  

VIVE LA REPUBLIQUE! Happy Bastille Day to one and all. While it is hard to resist the temptation to make some sort of snide remark about the vanity and hypocrisy of modern-day France, there is already enough of that out there. In the post-Howell era, even the NYT has begun to publish condescending and cynical essays about the French.

In today's paper, Walter Isaacson writes that Benjamin Franklin long ago discovered how best to deal with the French:

"always play to their pride and vanity by constantly seeking their opinion and advice, and they will admire you for your judgment and wisdom."

With all due respect to Mr. Hundred-Dollar Bill, that is pure bullshit. No resilient alliance can rest on a foundation of cynical condescension. Instead, we must constantly remind both ourselves and the French that our nations are founded on shared ideals.

Both "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" as well as "liberte, egalite, fraternite" are expressions of the same democratic ethos underlying both of our revolutions. (So what if the American revolution lasted for seven years while the French one lasted for eighty? What do you expect from a nation with a 35-hour work week?)

Anyhow, the better the United States is at living up to its ideals, the more persuasive it can sound when demanding that France live up to those same ideals as well. There will come a day, I hope, when the Tricolor, the Stars & Stripes and the Union Jack are recognized around the world as symbols of a single Enlightenment faith that has brought freedom and democracy to the four distant corners of the earth. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:22 PM by David Adesnik  

BUSH AND ANNAN HAVE FAILED to take any substantive measures to punish the Myanmar junta for its imprisonment of Aung San Suu Kyi and its violent crackdown on the Burmese democracy movement. The UN even elected Myanmar (as the generals call it) to serve as Vice President of the General Assembly during the upcoming session. Burma's neighbors are evading responsibility as well. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:21 PM by David Adesnik  

VICTORY FOR BOOMSHOCK: Robert Tagorda (aka Boomshock) cruised to victory in the most recent running of NZ Bear's New Weblog Showcase.

Robert won for his post on Arnold Schwarzenegger's bid for the California state house. Impressively, the Ah-nuld post won the endorsement of Glenn Reynolds and Andrew Sullivan as well as numerous others.

Embarrassingly, I forgot to vote in the Showcase even though I told Robert he should enter. So I'm glad that everyone else thinks as highly of Boomshock as I do. As I did once before, let me put it in terms an LA Dodger fan can appreciate: Folks, your looking at the Rookie of the Year. Next up, MVP? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:01 PM by David Adesnik  

A SHEEP IN WOLF'S CLOTHING: While Will Saletan bashes the anti-Americanism at the heart of Howard Dean's foreign policy, Dan Drezner illustrates how Dean has clothed a mainstream Democratic foreign policy in the rhetoric of the radical left.

In some respects, Saletan and Drezner aren't far apart. Both recognize that the most offensive thing about Dean's foreign policy is not its substance, but the arrogance with which the candidate conveys it.

While Saletan and Drezner suggest that Dean's arrogance is a personal characteristic, I tend to think that it reflects the anti-Vietnam heritage of the Democratic Party's far left. While the overwhelming majority of American were anti-Vietnam by the time the war as over, the anti-war resentment of many protesters and activists became the foundation of a worldview that was automatically suspicious of American power to the point of being anti-American (in the foreign policy sense of the word.)

Since the end of the Cold War, only those Democrats who share this heritage resentment have been able to criticize American foreign policy with the same bravado dispalyed by Howard Dean. Whereas many other Democrats have offered thoughtful criticism of US foreign policy under both Clinton and Bush, they advance their criticism in the spirit of loyal opposition to a foreign policy that has done great things for the world.

In contrast, it often seems that Dean wants to tear down the accomplishments of his predecessors. The irony, of course, is that Clinton and Bush have slowly, sometimes unwillingly, brought American foreign policy around to the values vocalized so forcefully by the anti-Vietnam protesters.

Two decades ago, humanitarian intervention in Africa and nation-building in the Middle East would have been written off as hopeless causes. Admittedly, the US military has played a greater role in these endeavors than peace-loving protesters might be comfortable with. Still, the values animating the enterprise are the same.

In many ways, we are living in Howard Dean's America. The strange thing is that Dean himself isn't aware of that fact. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:27 PM by David Adesnik  

IDIOTARIANS OF THE RIGHT: Dan Drezner adds considerable depth to my comments on Pat Robertson. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:22 PM by David Adesnik  

BUSH THE SOCIALIST: Andrew Sullivan writes that

President Bush's massive increases for such subsidies is yet another indicator that, in economic policy, he's much more of a socialist than he lets on. Big debt, deficit financing, huge new entitlements, and bigger subsidies: Bush's economic policy is a Democratic dream. So why are Republicans voting for it?

The answer is simple: Republicans are not economic conservatives. They are tax-cutting revolutionaries who will let nothing get in their way.

The Republican party has inherited its economic platform from the Reagan era. It insists that tax cuts will promote both economic growth and sound government finance. Of course, that idea was implausible in Reagan's time and discredited further by the Reagan deficit; according to a fellow named Bush, it was a classic example of "voodoo economics".

What made Reagan so successful as a tax-cutter, however, was that he knew not to touch the entitlements that Americans have come to depend on thanks to Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. This pragmatism continues to inform Republicanism today, giving it the debt-laden, welfarist character Sullivan rails against.

And so we now inhabit a strange world where the Democratic Party has become the most credible advocate of free trade and balanced budgets, i.e. economic conservatism.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:59 AM by Daniel  

SAFIRE ON TRUMAN ON UNDERDOGS. Very well put column about the newly released Truman diary. I agree that Truman should be criticised for his comments--why does he deserve a free pass simply because cultural anti-Semitism was common at the time? His decision to recognize the Jewish state 11 minutes after it decared independence is a seperate matter for which he should be commended. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:27 AM by David Adesnik  

FOER PLAY: If Frank Foer wrote an article called "My Butt", OxBlog would still link to it because Frank is such a great writer. Instead, Frank has written a WaPo op-ed arguing that the Democrats should draft Wesley Clark as their candidate for President.

I have to admit, it's pretty persuasive. I would've linked to it even if someone other than Frank had written it. But for the moment, I'm still wondering whether Clark's inability to generate his own momentum says something about him as a candidate. While my heart says "Lieberman in '04", my mind is very much open.

Also, make sure to check out "Everything is Illuminated", the debut novel by Frank's brother (and my friend) Jon. It's fantastic. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:06 AM by David Adesnik  

ANGLING FOR THE BIG FISH: The WaPo has an interesting cover story on the hunt for Saddam. Nice as that would be, one shouldn't overlook this week's capture of #23 and #29 on the most wanted list. Regardless of their importance as individuals, their capture demonstrate that Ba'athist guerrillas still lack one of the most important capabilities of an effective fighting force: the ability to protect their leaders. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:51 AM by David Adesnik  

NOT ENOUGH SOLDIERS IN IRAQ: Trent Telenko has just put up a first-rate post on this subject which explores different ways in which the United States can redress the shortage of military manpower that has become self-evident as a result of the occupation in Iraq.

After some very sharp analysis, Trent comest to a conclusion that I strongly disagree with: We need to reinstitute the draft. A draft is a very bad idea on both practical and political grounds. As Phil Carter has observed, the superior performance of our soldiers is a direct result of the fact they are part of an all-volunteer force. On the political side, I have a very hard time imagining that the American electorate wants anything to do with a draft, especially if its purpose is to facilitate nation-building.

So what are the alternatives? Patrick, Rachel and myself have talked about this and are slowly working our way towards the idea of a nation-building force that has the virtues of both the Peace Corps and the Foreign Service. Like the Peace Corps, it should be composed of idealistic young men and women who want to better the lives of impoverished nations. Like the Foreign Service, it should be composed of professionals whose expertise in local languages and cultures enables them to advance American ideals and interests.

Given that the Foreign Service accepts only an infinitesimal percentage of its applicants (and the Peace Corps is extremely selective as well), there is clearly an untapped reserve of American citizens who want to serve their country abroad. One should also note that the Foreign Service is extremely attractive because it offers what is, in essence, lifetime employment and excellent benefits. If we want to establish a professional corps of nation-builders, attached to the Department of State or any other, I think that offering similar terms will be absolutely necessary.

And extremely expensive. Without knowing much about military logistics, I still suspect that having combat divisions serve as nation-builders is far less cost effective than having a purpose-built nation-builiding corps. To be sure, there will still have to be significant combat forces deployed to protect our nation-builders. However, the nation-building corps should be able to perform those tasks which resemble the work of an American police department.

In other words, nation-builders should not be afraid of carrying a gun. If you are a pacificst, go to the Peace Corps. If you a warrior, enlist. But if you are prepared to face the maddening complexity of working on the margins of peace and war, then you are ready to build nations.

Admittedly, this is a role for which Americans are not naturally suited. Our political culture does not recognize that some nations must live neither at peace nor at war. If anything, this transitional state of being reminds us of Vietnam. The British, on the other hand, have a long historical memory of imperial service that bridged the divide between peace and war. Sadly, the purpose of such service was control, not liberation.

What America does have is a historical faith in the importance of promoting democracy abroad. Impressively, the Founding Fathers recognized the universal applicability of their values. They knew that there could not be democracy in just one country. And they believed in helping others to achieve the freedom that is the inherent right of man.

Thus, America has the necessary faith to engage in nation-building, even if it does not have the necessary experience. However, if this Administration maintains its commitment to a democratic Iraq, we will be on our way to having both faith and experience. Let the tyrants beware. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:30 PM by David Adesnik  

OPIATE OF THE MASSES: A few days back, Josh declared that there are some definite reasons for optimism about the future of Afghanistan. While it is most definitely unfair (and perhaps even snarky) to take cheapshots at those who are on vacation, I can't help but wonder whether Josh's optimism reflects his possible consumption of Afghanistan's leading export.

Yesterday, the WaPo published an in-depth, front-page report on the pervasiveness of opium cultivation in Afghanistan. In part, this trend reflects pure desperation. Growing poppies is the only way to earn a secure living. The situation is so bad, in fact, that Muslim clerics are disregarding the tenets of the faith and entering the drug trade themselves.

On its own, however, desperation was not enough to fuel the massive spread of opium growth. Far more important is the impotence of the Afghan central government. The WaPo reports that

In the eastern province of Logar, convoys of trucks loaded with drugs and guarded by men armed with semiautomatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenade launchers travel toward the Pakistani border at least two or three times a week. The police chief says that his men don't have the firepower to stop them and that some well-armed militiamen are in league with the smugglers...

Police across the country not only do not have the might to confront well-armed drug smugglers, they also lack such basics as cars, telephones and radios.

In mountainous Badakhshan, the police have just one vehicle, a pickup truck. When police at headquarters in the provincial capital, Faizabad, receive a tip about a smuggling operation in a far-flung district, Nazari often has to send an officer on foot. A round trip can take a month and leave an officer in trouble with no way to call for help.

While all that is bad enough, the real impact of the opium crisis may not be felt until Afghanistan holds its first elections. In the same WaPo report,

Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani called the drug trade "a threat to democracy" as Afghanistan tries to prepare for elections next year. "Elections are expensive propositions," he said in an interview last week in the capital, Kabul. "The liquid funds from drugs, in the absence of solid institutions, could corrupt voting practices and turn them into a nightmare instead of a realization of the public will."

Bad as that sounds, it is an accurate description of exactly what happened to democracy in Colombia. Given that Afghanistan is far more impoverished than Colombia, the influence of drug money will be even greater. Moreover, the Colombian military is fundamentally committed to preserving the constitutional order, something that cannot be said of either the (non-existent) Afghan army or the provincial warlords and their militias.

So, yes, things are better than they were under the Taliban. And they always will be, because you can't put a price on the right to vote or speak your mind. But if the warlords and the drug barons aren't brought under control, corruption and violence will soon rob most Afghans of the personal freedoms that democratic citizens are supposed to enjoy. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:10 PM by David Adesnik  

SCHOLARSHIP GUILT: Thought it was only the Rhodes? Now the Truman Scholars are at it as well. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:02 PM by David Adesnik  

URANIUM-GATE: Josh Marshall is still all over this one. As things now stand, Powell has basically said he knew the uranium story was false from the get go and that that's why he avoided mentioning it at the UN. Meanwhile, Condi is explicitly holding Georget Tenet responsible for letting the story into the State of the Union address.

Josh himself is taking both Bob Woodward and the New York Times to task for playing down the whole story. While I agree that Uranium-gate says a lot about the irresponsible spin doctoring that is characteristic of this administration, Josh seems to think this story has the potential to become a major scandal. Why else would TPM focus so obsessively on every unfolding detail?

But the fact is, Uranium-gate will never become much more than a diversion from the more important issues of the day. Why? First of all, because Niger's alleged sale of uranium to Iraq was never more than a peripheral aspect of the case for going to war.

Perhaps more importantly, it was well-known two solid weeks before the invasion of Iraq that the documents describing Saddam's uranium purchase had been forged. Josh Marshall points this out himself, albeit without recognizing its significance.

The big accusation now floating around is that Bush misled the nation into going to war. For uranium-gate to matter, there would have to be evidence that concern about the alleged uranium sales played an important role in generating support for the war. Yet if we all knew before the war that the uranium story was a fabrication but still supported the use of force, then it is self-evident that no one was misled.

Now, instead of looking backward, let's look forward to 2004. It may turn out that Bush or Cheney knew before the State of the Union address that the uranium story was implausible or even flat out untrue. That may cost the President some votes. But unless the American public comes to believe that its sons and daughters gave their lives because of a lie, Bush will still be untouchable on foreign policy. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:17 PM by David Adesnik  

PAT ROBERTSON, GODDAMNED LIAR: Turns out old Pat still thinks Charles Taylor is a swell guy. It's especially important to note, however, that many other Baptists and evangelicals have taken a firm stand against Taylor's brutality. Moreover, this stand reflects their sincere and enduring commitment to defending human rights. As one political scientist told the WaPo, Robertson's

comments really feed into the media critique of Christian conservatives, that they are not sophisticated, they don't care about others, all they care about are Christians around the world -- when in fact that is a caricature of the faith-based human rights movement.

While I admit to being highly suspicious of faith-based politics, I believe it is extremely important to work with its advocates when they embrace such worthy causes. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:41 PM by David Adesnik  

IS FOX CHICKEN? Glenn Reynolds takes Murdoch Inc. to task for ignoring this week's massive pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:53 PM by David Adesnik  

BEN & JERRY GO TO LIBERIA: Ryan Booth dismantles Howard Dean's comments on Liberia. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:34 PM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG VS. NYT, PART II: I am now slightly less pissed off at the NYT. Perhaps reconizing how misleading and inaccurate its original article on the Rhodes Scholarship was, it has printed the following letter-to-the-editor, written by a pair of South African Scholars:

"Rhodes Scholars Are Split on a New Foundation for South African Awards" (news article, July 6) hints at opposition to the Rhodes Trust's efforts in South Africa. In truth, however, the letter to the trust cited in the article, signed by 115 current scholars, focuses on issues of internal management and transparency, while unambiguously expressing the signers' "full support for the trust's new commitment to South Africa" and applauding "the creation of the Mandela Rhodes Foundation." Nowhere does it complain that the foundation is diverting funds from the scholarships.

As Rhodes scholars and South Africans, we have a deep appreciation of the powerful symbolism involved in linking the names of Nelson Mandela and Cecil Rhodes, and firmly believe that the association is in the long-term interests of both the trust and our country. We would not have signed a letter that claimed otherwise.

MURRAY WESSON
KIM MATHIESON
Oxford, England, July 6, 2003

Well-said.

UPDATE: Kikuchiyo has some nice comments on my first post about the Rhodes Scholarship. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:21 PM by David Adesnik  

UNFAIR. UNBALANCED. UNMEDICATED. Yesterday was IMAO's blogiversary! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:15 PM by David Adesnik  

REAGAN'S VISION: Just recently, Henry Yang sent me a long and thoughtful response to a post I put up on May 11th as part of a wideranging discussion on the nature of liberal foreign policy. (NB: The discussion was set off by Michael Totten's provocative essay "Builders and Defenders", which was later published by WSJ Online. For further comments from myself and others, click here.)

Henry writes that:

...Through OxBlog, I have learned that you have been working on your dissertation. As I said, I was reading the archives of your blog when I encountered a post you made on May 11th of this year when you characterized President Reagan as someone who battled isolationists and realists within the Republican Party as a finding in the course of your research. I write in to inform you of my disagreement with that perspective.

I would certainly agree that Reagan chose to take what one might call a “proactive” stance toward the Soviet threat that effectively silenced the isolationists in the party for a long time. (though not decisively crushed, as evident from the likes of Pat Buchanan before he left the GOP) What I disagree with is your assertion that Reagan represented idealism in combating the realist elements in his party. In my opinion, nothing can be further from the truth.

From your blog, I can tell that you are already aware of many exceptions to the “democratic idealism” that you ascribe to Reagan, though I’m puzzled by your failure to note the fact that there are so many “exceptions” to your theory that the "exceptions" are the rule, and that the examples supporting your theory are the real exceptions. In other words, Reagan was a realist who achieved realist ends occasionally (though infrequently) through idealist means (and often employing idealist rhetoric).

For a realist statesman, his primary interest is the interest of his country. As a realist myself, I am more interested in the actions of statesmen than their
words. (So, please, do not quote me his words as rebuttal since I’m quite familiar with them and will be dealing with that aspect later on.)

Reagan’s actions contributed to the collapse of the Communist system throughout the Soviet bloc and encouraged their replacement with democratic states.
Though that is obviously consistent with Wilsonian idealism, it also served US interests. Therefore those examples cannot decisively prove one argument or
another.

You might say that Reagan’s view that Communism was an evil that must and could be defeated was an idealist view, since the realist view, as represented by the detente of Nixon and Kissinger, was that Soviet Communism was a force that could only be contained and that perhaps the 2 forces could reach a peaceful accommodation.

This view ignores a few facts:

1. The above view could only be an idealist view if detente was the complete realist solution to the Soviet threat. It was not. Quite the contrary, Kissinger viewed detente as nothing but a phase in his strategy to defeat Soviet Communism.

Kissinger’s memoirs, “Years of Renewal”, made that quite clear. We must remember how seriously the Vietnam War weakened the United States. Economically, the US was a train wreck. Socially, it promoted civil disobedience that destroyed internal cohesion. Politically, it caused the Democratic Party to adopt the idea of unilateral disarmament and destroyed whatever little bipartisan consensus the 2 parties had. (Consider, for example, the lopsided
Congressional vote on the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. In contrast, Reagan’s decision to deploy “Euromissiles” and his SDI were denounced thoroughly by the
Democrats) Diplomatically, it seriously weakened the United States’ prestige overseas. Most important of all, the American people lost confidence in their own country.

Nixon and Kissinger knew that the US was in no position to begin a campaign of confrontation against the Soviet Union. Therefore, detente was devised,
which was no more than a tactic of buying time for the US to recover so that it can resume on its grand strategy of bringing Communism to an end. As
Kissinger puts it: “I shared their [neoconservatives] distrust of Communism and their apparent determinationto thwart its aims. I thought once they realized that our goal was not to placate but to outmaneuver the Soviet Union, we would be able to join forces in a common cause.”

You might question the wisdom of putting one’s faith in the architect of detente whose policy was eventually revoked. You might make the argument that
this is nothing less than Kissinger’s attempt to rewrite history so that he might appear as a wise sage than a bumbler. [I would! --ed.]

I don’t believe that’s the case. First, surely Kissinger’s narrative was sound strategy, considering the context. Second, let’s remember Kissinger’s background. He was a Jew, and the memory of the Holocaust must have oppressed him. It is hard to believe such a person would so readily compromise with the likes of the Soviet Union.

Third, there’s also Kissinger’s acts, which showed that he was trying to hold as much ground as possible considering the miserable hand dealt to him by
Johnson...

Reagan’s realism in his handling of Latin America is a matter of record. (In other words, he followed the prescription of Dr. Jeanne Kirkpatrick in her
“Dictatorships and Double Standards”: Support any right-wing government, no matter how despicable their death squads may be, in the interests of attacking Communism.)

What is also instructive is the way the US dealt with the dictatorship of Mobutu in Zaire (or, shall we say, how Reagan continued the policy of supporting one of the most corrupt dictatorships in Africa) and supported the military government of South Korea.

My favorite example remains the Kwanju Massacre of 1980, when the South Korean military government massacred hundreds of protestors and students. During the conflict, the protestors and students managed to seize some weapons from the military and discovered that they were all made courtesy of the United States. Reagan continued the policy of supporting the military government of South Korea.

Also, the idealist quotient of President Reagan’s support of the proxy war in Angola, with the Soviets supporting the government and the US supporting UNITA (hardly a lily white lamb when it came to human rights) is questionable.

You might say that this criticism is unfair. That without US support, Angola would go over to the Soviets. However, surely the most humane (i.e.
fastest) way to bring that conflict to an end was a full scale American invasion? Or perhaps the US could have threatened UNITA with withholding aid if they
don’t become more humane? Of course, no such threat was issued. As long as UNITA was effective in checking the Angolan government, Reagan did not lose much sleep over their brutality.

What about all those beautiful speeches urging no compromise with the “Evil Empire”?

For better or for worse, the American people cannot be roused with a pure realist appeal to their best interests. It must also be combined with a call to
their ideals. (As someone once quipped: Just as realist can never convince the American people to follow the example of Metternich, liberals can never
convince the American people to always defer to Kofi Annan.)

Those speeches were rallying cries to motivate a nation that was spiritually drained after Vietnam War, Watergate, and the uninspired leaderships of Ford and Carter. (“malaise”, anyone?) The purpose of rallying the people was to serve the country’s interests, which was not an accommodation with the Soviet Union. The fall of the Communist order was seen to be in the best interests of the country.

Isolationism did not serve the interest of realism. Therefore it never became mainstream Republican thought. (Trent Lott’s statement on Operation Allied
Force notwithstanding, I should note that Sen. John McCain supported the operation once it got underway. So did Kissinger, Norman Podhoretz, Joshua
Muravchik,...etc.)...

I hope you don’t misunderstand me and think that I’m an embittered Leftist e-mailing you a rant on Reagan and Bush. Quite the contrary, I’m a conservative
realist who applauds the realist policies of both administrations as I believe they have served American interests well. (I dare say the current president has
done more for the US in terms of foreign policy in his first 9 months than Bill Clinton had done for the country in all his 8 years.)

There’s a principle in logic known as “Occam’s razor” which states that the simplest hypothesis is always the best in explaining inexplicable facts. A theory
of idealism would have trouble accounting for any lack of restraint of UNITA or the South Korean military government or the likes of Mobutu, and would have to fall back upon complicated (and not necessarily accurate) factors such as bureaucratic infighting to account for Reagan’s foreign policy.

In contrast, the realist explanation is simple, straightforward, and requires no Kremlinology.

The best theories are not only descriptive but also predictive. Not only does realism account for a lack of attention to Afghanistan now, not only is the
realist paradigm being validated everyday as the US continues to refuse to expend the necessary energy and resources to reconstruct Afghanistan, I believe it will be validated by Election Day 2004 when the reconstruction of Iraq continues apace whereas Afghanistan, aside from garnering a few posts on
OxBlog and a few editorials in a few newspapers, would be entirely forgotten. I would not be surprised if most US troops would be withdrawn by then. (I heard a report suggesting that the Pentagon is trying to sub-contract security to some security firms.)

I apologize for this exceedingly long e-mail and look forward to any thoughts you might have.

Sincerely,
Henry Yang

Well-said, Henry. Here's my response:

I am much obliged for your extensive comments on President Reagan. And I apologize for not responding sooner. In case you didn't notice my recent post on the subject, my e-mail has been down, thus preventing me from sending responses to all those who've been in touch.

Anyhow, moving on to more substantive matters, let's talk about realism. First of all, I take issue with your definition of a realist (or "realist statesman") as someone whose "primary interest is the interest of his country." Absent a clear definition of what the national interest is, this definition is nothing more than a place holder. It was precisely because Hans Morgenthau relied on such a vague definition that his work come under such heavy assault in the decades after its publication. While Ken Waltz sought to improve on Morgenthau's work, his work proved to be just as maddeningly evasive on the question of what the national interest is. In essence, Waltz insisted that the national interest consists of "security", which he does not define any better than Morgenthau did the national interest. [Note: Amazon's prices for the Morgenthau and Waltz books are outrageous. Any campus bookstore should used copies available for a tenth of the price. --ed.]

Before descending from this high theoretical plane to the world of actual politics, I think it's worth considering the ideas of John Mearsheimer and other "offensive realists". In essence, they attack Waltz for presuming that states tend to defend the status quo rather than expand their territory or resources. I hope you'll agree with me that the Waltz-Mearsheimer dispute has ended in a fundamental and unresolvable deadlock about state motivation. What's so interesting about this deadlock is how it EXACTLY REPRODUCES Morgenthau's distinction between "status quo" and "revisionist" states. In the final analysis, 60 years of realist scholarship has not moved the realist camp any closer to an account of state motivation any more specific than Morgenthau's original insistence that some states are aggressive and some states aren't.

So let's talk about Reagan. How can we assess whether or not he was a realist if we don't have a clear definition of the national interest? My answer: By examining his attitude toward the most important realist doctrine of statecraft, i.e. the pursuit of a balance of power. As Martin Wight and others have pointed out, the notion of a balance of power has proven just as hard to define as the national interest. In practice, however, realists have consistently defined it as the belief that stability results from balanced relations between the great powers and CANNOT be achieved through the pursuit of dominance. This, fundamentally, was the motivation for Kissinger's vision of detente. While I endorse your comments with regard to Kissinger (moreso, Nixon) recognizing the limits that Vietnam had placed on American foreign policy, the fact remains that Kissinger closely adhered to a historical vision which saw the civilized world in decline. To arrest this decline, the United States best hope was to accept the Soviet Union as its equal and avoid any sort of devastating conflict with it.

Reagan's historical and political vision could not have been further removed from the one advocated by Kissinger. Reagan was an eternal optimist who believed that the United States was destined to triumph over all adversaries and become the greatest and most powerful nation of all time and for all time. Rather than refer to Reagan's speeches to make this point, I refer you to the remarks he made in private to his colleagues throughout his political career. You can read more about them in the many memoirs such men have written. However, I think that the best account of Reagan the man is Lou Cannon's biography of him, which carefully demonstrates that there WAS NO DIFFERENCE between the public and the private Reagan. While I certainly accept your insistence that one must approach political rhetoric with a dose of skeptical disregard, Reagan made no attempt to persuade the American people of anything that he himself did not believe.

The natural corollary of Reagan's optimism was his belief that the United States must aggressively confront and triumph over the Soviet Union. In practice, this strategy may seem little different from the sort expected by "offensive realists". Given your standard of judging statesmen by their actions rather than their words, you would no doubt object that Reagan was therefore an offensive realist. However, one must be more precise about the nature of offensive realism. Whereas offensive realists predict that states will engage in aggressive behavior, they also accept that such behavior is ultimately self-defeating because of the inevitability of a restored balance of power. According to offensive realists, the only reason that statesmen pursue such self-defeating strategies is because they fail to recognize the inevitability of a restored balance of power.

Naturally, many realist scholars (both offensive and defensive) criticized Reagan on precisely such grounds. However, I gather from your letter that you think of Reagan as a masterful practitioner of the realist art. That, however, forces you to explain away Reagan's belief that the United States could triumph over the Soviet Union once and for all. (Moreover, if you are a committed realist, you will also have to deal with the attendant problems of explaining how the United States actually did manage to win the Cold War and establish the first ever unipolar international order in modern history.)

But if Reagan was such a realist, what then of all the ruthless forays his administration made into Third World politics? In fact, you were so concerned about the immorality of Reagan's policies that you hoped I wouldn't "misunderstand [you] and think that [you are] an embittered Leftist" ranting against the evils of Reagan and Bush. You can rest easy, however. I recognize that you are advancing a principled defense of unprincipled behavior in international affairs (which, I might add, constitutes an ideology, something that "realism" most definitely is.)

Getting back to Reagan, the critical thing to understand is that by describing him as an idealist or even a Wilsonian I do not mean to say that his version of American idealism was the same as that of his liberal critics. For Reagan, the United States ultimate commitment to a democratic and capitalist world order justified its ruthless efforts to destroy Communism in all of its many forms. Sadly, Reagan didn't appreciate the degree to which this sort of idealistic ruthlessness hurt the United States far more than it helped it.

With regard to Latin America, the issue was not that Reagan accepted the prevalence of right-wing death squads as an acceptable price to pay in exchange for preventing Communist takeovers. Rather, Reagan's appalling ignorance of the facts on the ground resulted in his delusional belief that the death-squad massacres were covered incessantly by the same liberal media that ignored the (allegedly) far worse crimes of left-wing terrorists. Given this sort of inexcusable detachment from reality, it is hard to describe Reagan as any sort of realist at all.

There are many other interesting issues you raise in your post which I have not addressed. However, I think my response is long enough for the moment. While our beliefs about what is wise and just in international relations are diametrically opposed, I think I can say without hesitation that I admire your consistency, your honesty, and your commitment to an all-encompassing vision.

Sincerely,
David

For those of you haven't had enough, I suspect that there is more to come...

UPDATE: PS says that

I'm not going to weigh in on whether or not Reagan is a realist or idealist, but I do think you might be misinterpreting Mearsheimer-ian offensive realism. You state that

"Whereas offensive realists predict that states will engage in aggressive behavior, they also accept that such behavior is ultimately self-defeating because of the inevitability of a restored balance of power. According to offensive realists, the only reason that statesmen pursue such self-defeating strategies is because they fail to recognize the inevitability of a restored balance of power."

I think this is actually more true of defensive realists - see Jack Snyder's "Myths of Empire", in which he talks about self-encirclement as a result of foolish domestic ideologies of expansion (Van Evera and Waltz are other defensive realists who can strike similar tones). Mearsheimer (who I have had the pleasure of being taught by) doesn't think that balancing is under all conditions inevitable. States act offensively to gain regional hegemony,
which, if successful, eliminates the possibility of regional balancing. The US is his classic regional hegemon, and he defends Germany, Japan, and France's attempts at regional hegemony over the centuries. As Mearsheimer puts it, offense sometimes does pay and states can be acting quite rationally when they act aggressively. In at least Mearsheimer's offensive realism there is not "inevitability of a restored balance" nor is offense always "self-defeating." States and statesmen will act offensively not because they do not
understand balancing, but because it is possible to eliminate the threat of balancing through conquest. More often that not they fail to achieve hegemony, but they don't act as they do because they are foolish or short-sighted - they recognize all too well the likelihood of balancing and try to escape it by force, sometimes successfully.

PS is right that I have given short shrift to Mearsheimer's thoughts on regional hegemony. Prresumably, John M. lays out those thoughts in his new book, which I haven't yet had the time to read. Still, given the content of Mearsheimer classics such as "Back to the future: instability in Europe after the Cold War" (International Security 15:1, Summer 1990), one has to wonder if he has been revising his theories to account for his failed prediction of Europe falling apart in the 1990s.

More importantly, with regard to Reagan, potential arguments about regional hegemony cannot enable offensive realists to reconcile Reagan's views with their own since Reagan unabashedly believed in the inevitability of American global dominance. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:02 PM by Patrick Belton  

IRAN UPDATE : News reports are spotty, and the print media has been shamefully asleep at the wheel, but here's a summary of what's appeared:

Armed Iranian Islamic vigilantes (the volunteers, or basj) seized three student leaders as they left a news conference where they announced they had cancelled protests to mark the anniversary of 1999 university unrest. (see NYT, also VOA). The three students were Ali Moghtaderi, Arash Hashemi and Reza Amerinassab, and were thrown into three separate cars by roughly 15 armed vigilantees. Moghtaderi's face was covered with blood, after his having been shoved to the ground by the volunteers.

Police fired tear gas at groups of students near Tehran University's campus, and Reuters reports three-way street battles being fought between student pro-democracy demonstrators, police, and the basj.

Iran's reformist newspapers, for their part, complied with government threats and didn't comment on the events of July 9th (from BBC). Reformist paper Yas-e Now writes today, "We apologise to all the people and our readers for not being able to write a word yesterday, 9 July, about this tragic and criminal event." And MSNBC, somewhat inexplicably, decides to blame the students.

Demonstrators in Oslo attempted to enter the Iranian embassy yesterday, and were dispersed by police (reports the Norway Post). Iran's ambassador was taken to the hospital for a heart ailment.

More dignified, DC's protest at the National Capital drew 400, including Sen. Sam Brownback (sponsor of the Free Iran Act currently before the Senate) and Reps. Rohrbacher and Cox (and, incidentally, Rachel, who was holding up half of the banner reading "Students for Democracy in Iran...." We've befriended the organizers of many of the local rallies, and are looking forward to planning together with them and with our blogosphere friends and readers new ways to build the democracy in Iran cause into a sustained movement...watch this space in days to come for more on this.....). (see press release by one of the organizing groups). Austin's event outside the Texas State Capitol also went off well.

We've received numerous reports from our correspondents and friends who attended different rallies yesterday - we'll post them shortly.... Thanks, and warm congratulations, for all of our friends who went out to stand for humanity and democracy against repression and coercion. But this must only be the beginning.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:43 PM by David Adesnik  

SUDDENLY AFRICA MATTERS: The iron law of American press coverage is that whatever the President does is front page news. Thus, now that President Bush has touched down in Africa, both the NYT and WaPo have come up with long, thoughtful, front-page essays on US-African relations.

In the editorial that goes along with its front page essay, the Post spins the President's trip as an indication of Africa's rising importance as a strategic front in the war on terror. While it is right about Africa becoming more important, the Post is mistaking the forest for the trees.

Consider the closing sentences of the Post's editorial:

In a world where "failed states" and regions of perpetual conflict are breeding grounds for terrorism, Africa is no longer as far away as it once seemed. Like it or not, its conflicts are now America's problem, too.

Now try this: strike the word "Africa" from the first sentence and replace it with "Southeast Asia", "Latin America" or any other place on earth. The sentence will still make just as much sense as it did before.

Why? Because the war on terror is global. And in a world with one superpower, nowhere is off limits.

Consider this argument from the NYT editorial arguing for intervention in Liberia:

Liberia's turmoil also has a regional dimension. Continued mayhem there will feed further instability in neighboring Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and Guinea. If the world fails to act now, the region's problems will probably grow worse, requiring more extensive, and expensive, intervention later. A multinational military force will provide no instant cure. But it can buy time for more lasting political solutions.

That sounds sort of like Lyndon Johnson's argument for going into Vietnam, doesn't it? Now, I'm all for intervention in Liberia. But we have to recognize that the logic behind our intervention is an updated version of the Domino Theory.

Even though it fell into disgrace after the war in Vietnam, the Domino Theory continued to express certain fundamental truths about the Cold War. Above all, it served as a reminder that no strategist -- not even the most dispassionate Kissingerian realist -- could decisively write-off even a single region as irrelevant to the outcome of the Cold War.

Thus, the lesson of Vietnam is was not that peripheral conflicts are unimportant, but rather that the United States must not invest all of its resources in the defense of a single domino. After all, some of them manage to fall without knocking over their neighbors.

In advance, it is often impossible to know which dominos matter. Thus, the constant reassessment of our commitments will be just as important as our initial decision to go in. Thanks to the war in Vietnam, the American media has become adept at constantly asking whether any given intervention has become a quagmire. If anything, the greater danger is that the United States will cut and run at the first sign of trouble.

Perhaps more than the success or failure of any given intervention is the way in which the United States conducts itself abroad. In the final analysis, the tragedy of Vietnam was not that the United States lost, but rather that in the process of doing so it demonstrated its brutal disregard for those it was trying to save.

At any given moment, there will be a temptation to sacrifice principle for short-term advantage in terms of security. It was that sort of thinking that led the United States to install the Shah of Iran, work with corrupt generals in Vietnam and with violent reactionaries in the jungles of Nicaragua.

In the long-term, however, the United States has far more to gain from living up to its self-image as the champion of freedom. It was that sort of enlightened self-interest that led us to promote democracy in Japan and accept membership in an Atlantic alliance grounded in partnership rather than subordination.

If we are to prevail in the war on terror, we must remain true to our selves, even at the moments when doing so seems to be most dangerous.

UPDATE: DN responds

You write:

"That sounds sort of like Lyndon Johnson's argument for going into
Vietnam, doesn't it? Now, I'm all for intervention in Liberia. But we have to recognize that the logic behind our intervention is an updated version of the Domino Theory.

Even though it fell into disgrace after the war in Vietnam, the Domino Theory continued to express certain fundamental truths about the Cold War. Above all, it served as a reminder that no strategist -- not even the most dispassionate Kissingerian realist -- could decisively write-off even a single region as irrelevant to the outcome of the Cold War."

The answer [to your quesiton about Johnson] is either "sort of" or simply "no."

The Domino Theory essentially argued that great powers could not let any peripheral state fall to an adversary. The argument was based on a number of assumptions, but I list the two most important below.

(1) Failure to defend one ally, no matter how insignificant, may destroy the credibility of a great power as an ally. In consequence, other, strategically important allies, will be more likely to accommodate or even bandwagon with an adversary.

(2) Each and every loss adds to the resources of the enemy, and thus increases their capacity to expand.

None of these arguments are at work in what you call an "updated" Domino Theory. Instead, the assumption is that in some areas -- and this is clearly true in western Africa -- instability in one country is likely to destabilize others. Since terrorist networks have, and likely will, make use of "failed states" it is a good idea to move quickly to prevent regional instability (e.g., the interventions in Bosnia and
Kosovo, despite what most neoconservatives argued at the time, were good things because they prevented them from becoming bases of operation for Islamicists).

Think about it this way: one need not agree with the Domino Theory to believe that political instability can cross borders. One need not
agree with the Domino Theory to believe that "failed states" often provide safe harbors and opportunities for terrorists. If you were
indeed discussing anything like the Domino Theory, you would argue that failure to _prevent_ terrorists from "conquering" or "destabilizing" one state would lead other states to doubt the resolve of the US (the logic in number 1), and (2) that each state they conquered brought them closer to conquering the homeland. While there is a superficial similarity, the arguments are not the same. Indeed, the reason most scholars reject the DT is because its mechanisms remain unpersuasive. States are not likely to respond to such losses by bandwagoning; if anything, such losses make them more likely to see a great power's enemy as a threat and to balance with the great power (consider ASEAN in the late 1970s and 1980s). States such as Vietnam had absolutely no real impact on the balance of power, and did not (nor would they be likely to) add to the resource base of the USSR. If anything, we now know that the marginal benefits of expansion in places like Cuba and Vietnam were probably net negatives for the USSR. I would venture to
argue that the net drain on the US from defending Vietnam was more deleterious to the overall balance of power than the loss of Vietnam was. There are a bunch of other reasons I won't go into. The point is, and I repeat myself here, that these are about different mechanisms than the ones involved the justification for intervention in Liberia.

My respone to DN:

I don't think we are all that far apart on the domino theory. If failed states facilitate terrorist organization, than the spread of regional instability would seem to fulfill the second assumption you list as critical to the domino theory. However, instead of "each state they conquered [bringing] them closer to conquering the homeland," each state destabilized brings them closer to launching another devastating attack on American territory.

Or perhaps French territory. Osama has a wicked sense of humor. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:11 AM by Patrick Belton  

CARNEGIE ON ARAB DEMOCRACY: Carnegie's Democracy and Rule of Law Project (run by Carnegie's Thomas Carothers, who is a mentor to many of us who work in or study democracy promotion), has the first issue of its Arab Reform Bulletin out today. Their authors are quite good (including, for instance, CRS's Kenneth Katzman, who contributes a sobering piece on the risks of SCIRI ascendency within post-occupation Iraq). Other pieces profile Jordan's elections to its lower house (pro-government candidates won two-thirds of the seats, Islamist representation is trending downward, and casework-focused candidates predominated); and a survey of Arab human rights councils (Egypt's is new but is born at a time of oppression of independent political expression; Morocco's is fairly strong and is led by respected human rights campaigners; Tunisia's and Algeria's are both menacing and attempt to discredit independent human rights organizations; Yemen's and Jordan's are innocuous and education-focused.) Much more, too - it's wonderful to have this Bulletin joining the conversation. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:04 AM by Patrick Belton  

LITTLE BLESSINGS - AT LEAST now my spam is offering me Glocks instead of Nigerian business deals, Russian brides, and free university degrees.

Okay, okay, I admit. I actually called the number for the free university degree. Nobody picked up, but there was a answering machine. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:55 AM by David Adesnik  

NOTE TO READERS: I am having some very serious e-mail problems at the moment. If I haven't responded to any of your messages, it is because my computer and my life are a total mess. David. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:50 AM by Patrick Belton  

WELCOME TO THE BLOGOSPHERE to Crooked Timber, a needed addition to the too-small number of bloggers who focus on issues in political theory and ethics. (Others include Micah Schwartzman and Josh Cherniss, both good friends of ours.) They also have a quite nice blogroll of academic bloggers in different disciplines. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:35 AM by Patrick Belton  

DEMONSTRATING FOR A FREE IRAN - D-DAY!!!: The Iranian students, who had been planning a significant protest today to mark the fourth anniversary of a brutal repression of pro-democracy student protesters at Tehran University, have been forced to cancel their planned demonstrations today after receiving warnings that a Tiananmen-like response was in the offings. A student leader told Reuters, "We received information that the other side wanted to heavily confront it and we didn't want to harm the movement and pay this heavy price." Foreign press were directed not to report on the event: in a fax to all foreign news organizations, the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance wrote, "It is expected that you do not attend any possible illegal gatherings."

But that doesn't mean that those of us who live in free nations can't show our support for them. We've listed here a few demonstrations of support that are taking place in several US and European cities. And the first of these, in Dallas last night, has already begun. Here are pictures, and one of our readers wrote in last night:

The ... demonstrations are going on right now in Dallas. Can't be sure on the size from looking out my 31st floor window from about two blocks away, but I'd guess it's between 50 and 75 people. They are making up for their numbers with their volume. They've been going strong for a over an hour.

There are many more today - Rachel will be attending, and reporting back on, a demonstration at the U.S. capitol in Washington. Eve Tushnet will also be at the Capitol (look for each other?), and Asparagirl is planning to attend the event in New York. It would be wonderful if all of our readers and fellow bloggers could report back on the events they attend - this will accomplish a great deal toward keeping the Iranian cause in the public eye, and spurring on public support and coverage in other non-blog media. (Incidentally, also in Washington and timed to coincide with July 9th, Senator Sam Brownback's Iran Democracy Act, to increase funding for beaming pro-democracy radio programming into Iran, is coming up for a floor vote.)

On a purely personal note, I've been truly astounded by the extraordinarily generous degree of interest and support that's been shown for the brave pro-democracy demonstrators in Tehran. My inbox has been filled to the brim all week with messages from people wanting to show their support (and I'm very sorry if there's anyone I've managed to miss getting back to). In the blogosphere, InstaPundit and Andrew Sullivan have been devoting great space to the Iranian students and sympathy protests; Winds of Change, Pejman, and Jeff Jarvis have been continuing their usual excellent level of coverage and commentary; and Hoder and Iranian girl have been adding very poignant, personal perspectives.

With all of this interest and support, we'd be awfully interested in hearing your thoughts about how to begin cementing this groundswell of support into a movement in the US and Britain, one which can galvanize more widespread print coverage and lobby governments in support of the cause of Iranian democracy. It's starting to seem very possible.

First, though, for today and its important events - here's a quick run-down of a few sympathy demonstrations taking place today in the US and Britain:

New York: from 11-2 at the Ralph Bunche Park and Dag Hammarksjold Plaza, at 47th and 1st Avenue

Washington, D.C.: 10:00 am at the West Front of the Capitol (with the participation of several Senators and administration officials)

Los Angeles: 5:00 pm, times outside the Federal Building in Westwood.

London: 2:30-4:30 Wednesday, in front of Number 10

Austin: 6 pm in front of the Capitol

Dallas, 5 pm on July 13th, at the Intercontinental Hotel

Houston: 5 pm on July 13th, at the Hilton on Westheimer Road.

And finally in Tehran, there is at least one student group which in spite of the danger is still planning a sit-in in front of the UN's headquarters in Tehran. Godspeed, our friends. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:25 PM by David Adesnik  

SLAVERY AND WOMANIZING: Eugene sets the record straight. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:17 PM by David Adesnik  

STUPID WHITE MEN VS. JOHN STUART MILL: Advantage, John Stuart Mill. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:10 PM by David Adesnik  

RADIOACTIVE POLITICS: Josh Marshall and Kevin Drum have the run-down on Saddam's supposed uranium. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:01 PM by David Adesnik  

WHO'S UGLY NOW? Reporting from Italy, Matt Yglesias says that European tourists behave far more offensively than their American counterparts. Strangely, he has no thoughts on the British... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:58 PM by David Adesnik  

SHARPEN YOUR KNIVES: The Guardian has plans to launch a weekly magazine in the United States. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:26 PM by David Adesnik  

A SPADE A SPADE: Whereas everyone else is covering this war as if it were Vietnam, Newsday's Marvin Kitman has the guts to admit it:

It used to be that every time a U.S. soldier was killed in a traffic accident, it was a major news story. Now it's just "Another Marine got killed today..."

What does this remind you of?

I think what we are seeing now is the Vietnamization of the Iraq war news. And it's scary.

Much as I disagree with Kitman, it's always better to deal with someone who is introspective enough to recognize his own prejudices. That way, you can address the fundamental issues at stake rather than getting lost in the details. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:43 PM by Patrick Belton  

A VERY WARM WELCOME TO THE WORLD to my new cousin Jacob!!!!!! (who, as we see, is already quite a handsome man....)

Jacob: I can't wait to make your acquaintance. May you take after your wonderful parents, and my treasured friends who share your name. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:21 AM by Patrick Belton  

BAD NEWS FOR COFFEE DRINKERS: Lucky for Rachel that she doesn't touch the stuff. The rest of us, we can worry. Ozzy, who knows a thing or two about these things, says "I used to think they should legalize pot, but you know what? They should ban the lot," and then the worrisome bit: "One thing leads to another. Coffee leads to Red Bull, Red Bull leads to crank." Expresso to crack in three easy steps: you heard it here. (And for those of you not up on your Brit-slang, thanks to the South Carolina general assembly's handy guide to street jargon you can find out that crank means methamphetamine, and not turning into, say, Ian Duncan Smith or Howell Raines....)

For those of us whose life labor is the conversion of coffee into text (particularly political science scholarship, which I wake up each morning thinking there isn't enough of in the world), this last bit could be cause for some trepidation.

AND THEN A FAIRLY INSTANTANEOUS UPDATE: That, of course, requires a paean. (Hey, we do it for Manischewitz, fireworks and Irishmen, and a few of our friends in the Blogosphere; perhaps soon we'll be like the royals and have a whole set of OxBlog-approved, eco-and-hawk-friendly household products....) Pope Clement VIII, responding to mercantilism-influenced pleas from Spanish Jesuits to ban the drink when it migrated to the west from the Middle East (like, incidentally, algebra, Aristotle, the number zero, Jews, and a heckofalot of other very nice and useful additions to the west), famously responded saying: "This Satan's drink is so delicious that it would be a pity to let the infidels [note: OxBlog does not endorse the branding of members of other religions as infidels, even by members of other centuries] have exclusive use of it. We shall cheat Satan by baptizing it."

Coffee. Papally approved since 1592, OxBlog endorsed since 2002..... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:02 PM by David Adesnik  

BBC=NYT? Andrew Sullivan suggests (hopes?) that the BBC will find itself as disgraced as the NYT was in the aftermath of the Jayson Blair scandal. For the moment, however, the BBC hasn't seen fit to change its ways. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:00 PM by Patrick Belton  

A NEW CURRENCY FOR A NEW IRAQ: Bremer has announced a new national currency, an independent central bank, and a budget for the rest of the year in which the largest line item is earmarked for improvements in the nation's electrical infrastructure.

Good for him. Those bills with Saddam's picture were getting a little old. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:54 PM by Patrick Belton  

THANK YOU, BRITISH PRESS, #135: from a story in The Scotsman entitled "Boys planned Matrix-inspired massacre,":

"The New Jersey trio were planning to kill randomly in the streets of Oaklyn, which has inhabitants."

(This, presumably, cannot be taken for granted with respect to mass teenage killing sprees in the Highlands....) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:35 PM by David Adesnik  

TAKING THE FUN OUT OF HARRY POTTER: As only the British and the NYT can. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:58 PM by David Adesnik  

YOU CAN'T BUY PUBLICITY LIKE THAT: Nothing has done more to make American soldiers look good than widespread fears of Saddam's return. Not long ago, all we heard about was the growing resentment directed at American forces. Now

The growing number of attacks on U.S. forces has also disquieted some Iraqis, who worry that rising casualty figures will prompt President Bush to start withdrawing troops before Hussein is caught and fighters loyal to him are rounded up.

"Inside every one of us there is the fear of what will happen if the American people start pushing their government because they are losing so many soldiers every day," said Fadhil Majid, an employee at a bridal shop in the Adhamiyah neighborhood. "If they decide to withdraw, what will happen to us? Saddam is still free. With all the [militiamen] around, what kind of life will we have?"

Ironically, though, it isn't the American people but rather the American soldiers who are interested in getting out of Iraq as fast as possible. (Ditto for the soldiers' wives.) I guess Mr. Majid has this war confused with Vietnam.

Speaking of which, another WaPo front pager has announced that US forces are

becoming enmeshed in a full-blown guerrilla war, military experts said yesterday.

While Colbert King is already calling for a roadmap out of Iraq, most of the individuals quoted in the WaPo and elsewhere seem to think that the real answer is to capture Saddam Hussein.

While I still think that the guerrilla threat is overrated, Phil Carter strongly disagrees. Given the tremendous respect I have for his opinions, Phil's post on the subject has led me to question my own beliefs.

Still, I think we are seeing more spin the substance -- except when it comes to our soldiers' morale. Their performance will deteriorate if they feel abandoned to a hostile population. Even if things aren't looking bad from on high, it is a rough existence on the ground in Baghdad. So let's give our armed forces the support they deserve by sending in enough troops and the right kind of troops to get the job done. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:46 AM by Patrick Belton  

CIVIC DISCOURSE AT OXFORD: The toilet (sorry, cloakroom) in the Radcliffe Camera has gone from advocating "No War" to proclaiming "No Warthogs," presumably also a controversial political stand in some quarters. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:50 PM by Patrick Belton  

ARAB INTELLECTUALS AND DEMOCRATIZATION WATCH: Brett Marston finds us this thoughtful analysis by the Frei Universitat's Amr Hamzawy, who currently is teaching at the University of Cairo. Among Dr. Hamzawy's conclusions after surveying the comments of reform-inclined Arab intellectuals with regard to democratization and the west, is this: "Despite some critical remarks on the West’s Middle East policy, the reformers are beginning to realise that the countries in question are pluralist nations whose foreign policy actions are continually being questioned and monitored by state and civic control bodies."

Furthermore, the lesson - that western democracies are acceptable models of democratic participation, even for those who disagree with American Mid-East policy - is spreading beyond the reformers to the street, according to Hamzawy. He points as evidence to the Saudi initiative of January 13th, in which the Saudi government promised a new social contract respecting the right to criticism of the government, expansion of political participation, and freedom from violence. In comparison, the conservatives' message - that an apocalyptic battle between Occident and Orient is brewing, and the West, ever the colonialist and crusader, is conspiratorially seeking to annihilate Arabs (beginning with the children of Palestine and Iraq), and all they hold holy - gradually is becoming as dated as it is comfortable. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:29 PM by Patrick Belton  

SOME PEOPLE have waaaaay too much fun with photoshop..... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:00 PM by Patrick Belton  

THOMAS FRIEDMAN'S on vacation this week. They were going to rerun one of his old columns....but then they realized that's exactly what they do when he's not on vacation....

UPDATE: so this week, read this parody instead. (via Jeff Hauser, by email) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:06 PM by Patrick Belton  

YLS BOMBING UPDATE: The YDN and Hartford Courant are reporting that a grand jury has been impaneled to investigate former students or employees who may have a grudge against the law school. (Rumor has it they're starting with the five students in Yale Law history to receive grades of "P" during their time in New Haven. Folks - ahem, senators, professors, sirs - you know who you are, so be prepared.)

A former compsci department employee, with guns and books about explosives found in his house, is apparently under investigation, as is a University of Wisconsin-Madison student who last year was convicted for stealing materials worth $2.5 million from Beinecke. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:30 PM by Patrick Belton  

MEXICO TODAY UNDERGOES what are anticipated to be the second fully democratic national elections in the nation's history, as all 500 seats in the Camera de Diputados open for contest. (CNN, Reforma, WaPo, Brett Marston) Nuestros amigos y vecinos, les deseamos suerte y aún más éxitos en el futuro. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:22 PM by Patrick Belton  

AND THE RESULTS ARE IN: It's the moment you've all been waiting for - yes, the finals of Finland's 11th annual carry-your-wife-in-a-race-to-win-her-weight-in-beer-contest.

Estonia won. The "Estonian Carry" technique once again proved invincible.

And for all of you out there who might feel inclined to make light of such serious and competitive international sport, we could note that it is safer than England's dangerous roll-down-a-hill-with-seven-pounds-of-cheese-contest, or, heck, any of these. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:02 PM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG VS. NYT -- NOW IT'S PERSONAL: On Friday, I had the pleasure of talking to NYT correspondent Sheryl Wu-Dunn and her adorable daughter Caroline, age 5. Also roaming about Oxford was Ms. Wu-Dunn's husband, Nick Kristof, of whom I have said many things, both good and bad.

Given the fierceness with which I have criticized Mr. Kristof on occasion, I actually felt embarrassed about going up and talking to him. While some might say that business is business and that no one should take it personally, I still think that one dare not forget that one is criticizing actual human beings with actual emotions.

The point here isn't that Nick Kristof would be hurt by anything I say, but rather that I don't want to be the kind of person who criticizes in a hurtful way. Admittedly, I am always far nicer to fellow bloggers than I am to professionals, even to hardcore liberals like Kos and Atrios. Still, running into Sheryl & Nick reminded me that you never really know who you're going to meet. And since it doesn't hurt to be civil, why not?

Now, it would be nice if I could end this warm and fuzzy post by saying something nice about the NYT as a whole. But I won't, since they went and pissed me off by printing something misleading and insulting about me. The collective "me", that is, in my incarnation as one of 250 current Rhodes Scholars.

In this article about the Rhodes Centenary, the NYT presents current scholars as selfish brats because of our alleged resentment of the Rhodes Trust's decision to donate £10 million for the benefit of South African children rather than spending it on extending our stay at Oxford.

In fact, almost none of the Scholars oppose the decision to support South African children. I, for one, am behind it 100%. In truth, our resentment of the Trust comes in response to the arrogance, incompetence, condescension and neglect we have encountered in the person of Dr. John Rowett, CEO of the Trust and the Warden of Rhodes House.

For the moment, I am going to hold back on fisking the NYT article, since the Scholars may decide on a collective response to the NYT's Blair-esque reporting. (Blair as in Jayson, not Tony, of course.) The only thing to be said in the NYT's defense is that the Times of London [no link] and the Independent got the story completely wrong as well.

However, given that the NYT cited two Scholars' response to the Independent (in the form of a letter to the editor [no link]), there is no excuse for its negligence. I guess firing Howell Raines wasn't enough.

CLARIFICATION: A fellow Scholar thought it might be wise to point out that my comments regarding the Warden do not reflect the official position of those Scholars (including myself) who signed the letter protesting his conduct. At present, the contents of that letter have not been made public. Thus, I am not in a position to let the readership of this website compare my personal opinion with that of my fellow Scholars. For the moment, the best I can do is assure you that my sentiments are little different from those of the overwhelming majority of Scholars I have personally spoken to. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:58 AM by David Adesnik  

THE USUAL SPIN: The NYT declares that the current ceasefire in the occupied territories is a victory for Israeli intransigence. Damn Israelis. Considering peace a victory for themselves. Next thing you know, they'll be trading land for peace. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:48 AM by David Adesnik  

SIGNS OF THE TIMES: At the moment, I'm sitting at a desk on the upper level of the EasyEverything internet center in central London (on Tottenham Court Road, for those of you who are interested.)

In addition to the usual signs informing users that no food or drink is allowed in the store, there is also a sign which says "No Sleeping Allowed". To its right is a sign which informs users that first aid is available at the Subway sandwich store downstairs. I guess that means that if someone is slumped over at one of the desks, they may be dead and not just resting.

I think I will go for a walk. By the way, this No Sleep and First Aid signs remind of my favorite internet center sign from Buenos Aires: "No Screaming Allowed". No, that wasn't for the benefit of those who had decided to sleep at their computers. It was a reminder to those playing Doom, Duke Nukem, et al. to stop disturbing the rest of us. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:10 AM by David Adesnik  

MUSLIMS KILLING MUSLIMS: The Middle East is not at war with the West. Rather, there is a three-way struggle for power going on in the Middle East, pitting murderous fundamentalists against brutal dictatorships against besieged democratic forces.

In Pakistan, a suicide bombing by Sunni extremists resulted in the death of 44 Shi'ites. The attack was both the first suicide bombing and the bloodiest sectarian assault in Pakistani history.

In Iraq, Ba'athist guerrillas murdered seven police cadets who had just graduated from an American training program.

These attacks have emphasized yet again that anti-democratic forces in the Middle East have no more regard for innocent Muslim life than they do for innocent Christian or Jewish life, including the twelve concert-goers murdered by a Chechen suicide attack yesterday in Moscow.

While there is no question that the democratic forces are the weakest of the contenders for power in the Middle East, their possession of the moral highground is becoming tragically self-evident. This ethical difference ought to remind American policymakers that only brave allies from abroad can salvage the democratic cause in the Middle East. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:16 PM by Patrick Belton  

DEMONSTRATING FOR A FREE IRAN: According to the Iranian students, solidarity protests are being organized around the world for July 9th. In the US, these include one in New York from 11-2 at the Ralph Bunche Park and Dag Hammarksjold Plaza (47th and 1st Avenue); in Washington, one will begin at 10:00 am at the West Front of the Capitol (with the participation of several Senators and administration officials), two in L.A. (on July 8th at 5:30 pm, and July 9th at 5:00 pm, both times outside the Federal Building in Westwood).

Texas has several: in Austin, at 6 pm in front of the Capitol; in Dallas, at 5 pm on Tuesday in front of the Kennedy Memorial and Sunday the 13th at 5 pm at the Intercontinental Hotel; and in Houston at 5 pm on Sunday the 13th at the Hilton on Westheimer Road.

A solidarity protest in London is scheduled for 2:30-4:30 Wednesday in front of Number 10. (Other protests are scheduled in Bern, Brussels, Paris, Oslo, Rome, and the Hague- please email us if you'd like details. All of the times listed above are for the 9th if not otherwise noted.)

As the students write, "please bring your friend(s) along." Do. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:26 PM by Patrick Belton  

DON'T SWEAT IT! Hot? Wishing you were, say, in a cool northern latitude like...Oxford... instead of sweltering it away in Washington, D.C. and other currently-tropical cities? Well, buck up! Others have it worse than you. (And finish your dinner, too, while you're at it - people are starving in Africa.)

That is, unless you live in Phoenix. In that case, actually, sorry: no one in America has it worse than you. This according to a recent study by Proctor & Gamble of sweat levels in different U.S. cities (so they can decide, among other things, where to market and stock higher levels of deoderant and cologne). The results?

In first place is Phoenix, Arizona; then come, in order, Houston, Miami, San Antonio, Fort Myers, Florida, West Palm Beach, and Tampa; rounding out the top ten are Waco, Austin, and N'Awlins.

So sorry, Chafetzes and Fishkins. At least you're not sweaty Phoenicians. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:16 PM by Patrick Belton  

AN ARMY OF LOTS MORE THAN ONE, PLEASE: Fred Kagan calls for much, much more attention to the insufficient current level of American military manpower relative to the nation's military commitments.

A few salient facts: Of the 495,000 troops in the U.S. Army, 370,000 are already deployed around the world. Compared with the normal requirement to have two units at home resting, training, and tending to stateside tasks for each unit deployed, we currently have the equivalent of over five of the Army's eleven divisions deployed overseas. Finally, we've been calling on our reservists to do the work of full-time soldiers: not a very good way of thanking unusually committed and patriotic citizens, many of whom have been called up for between once and two years, to the detriment of their families and civilian professions. And a number of crucial roles needed in tasks such as providing an interim government for Iraq- civil affairs, for instance - are disproportionately (upwards of 90 percent) concentrated in the reserve component - so as it stands now, lots of people won't be going back to their families, companies, or law schools any time soon. A heckuva nice way to treat our selfless volunteers.

Kagan estimates the Army needs a manpower increase of 25 percent. This basically coheres with other estimates. We'll hope that Congress and the Secretary of Defense heed his, and others', call.
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:01 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE WEEKLY STANDARD'S AMIR TAHERI has a solid piece on democracy in the Arab world. After briefly surveying the principal canonical stages in Arab political development (monarchies, supplanted after 1948 by republics, which then evolved into authoritarian states relying to differing degrees on Islam to counteract the Khomeini-influenced oppositions who opposed their authoritarianism and corruption...), he offers this cogent analysis of prospects for democracy in Islamic political literature:

The failed model is the power state, known in Islamic literature as "saltana," whose legitimacy rests on the possession and use of the means of collective violence. In saltana, there are no citizens, only subjects, while the ruler is unaccountable except to God.

The only alternative to this failed model is what might be called the political state, whose legitimacy rests on the free expression of the citizens' will. Such a model could be based on what the 14th-century historian Ibn Khaldoun called "al-assabiyah," a secular bond among citizens. The key feature of this model is pluralism, known in modern Islamic political literature as "ta'adudiyah" and "kisrat-garai."

Both the Islamists and the secular authoritarians of the Arab world have persistently opposed the idea of bonding through citizenship. Nevertheless, Islamic political and philosophical literature offers a wealth of analyses that could be deployed in any battle of ideas against both the Islamist and secular enemies of pluralism. Both Farabi (d.950) and Avicenna (d. 1037), partly inspired by the work of the Mutazilite school, showed that there need be no contradiction between revelation and reason in developing a political system that responds to the earthly needs of citizens. On the contrary, because Islam places strict limits on the powers of the ruler, it theoretically cannot be used as the basis for tyranny.

One hopes our Arab brothers and sisters come to Taheri's conclusion, not that of Khomeini and his heirs.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:46 PM by Patrick Belton  

OTHER ADDITIONS TO OXBLOG'S SUGGESTED READING LIST FOR THIS WEEKEND: Foreign Affairs (.org, not .com, which is also an interesting website) has several awfully interesting pieces out in their current issue. Brandeis's Yitzhak Nakash writes on the direction Iraq's Shi'ites are likely to take, with respect to America, Iran, and the nation's other communities. And Kenneth Pollack has a piece on new security challenges in the Gulf now that Saddam is gone. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:40 PM by Patrick Belton  

ETHICS, FOREIGN POLICY, AND PRINCETON: I haven't yet had the opportunity to watch all of the webcasts from this conference on ethics and foreign policy that the Woodrow Wilson School hosted in April, but I'm looking forward very much to doing so. Their panelists include many of the people you'd most want to hear speaking on the topic - inter alia, Michael Walzer, Bill Kristol, Michael O'Hanlon, Dennis Ross, and Dick Ullman (a true elder statesman who made Rachel's and my night last night by sitting down with us in a corner of St Antony's and letting us pick his brain for about an hour...) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:25 AM by Patrick Belton  

NEWS FLASH: RACHEL HAS LEFT THE BUILDING. (Sniff.) Posting from me therefore will resume momentarily. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:53 PM by David Adesnik  

LOVE WILL NEVER BE THE SAME: Barry White passes on at age 58. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:50 PM by Patrick Belton  

IS IT THE FOURTH? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:48 AM by David Adesnik  

LIBERIA: It is ironic that on this Fourth of July, the front pages of America's great newspapers are devoted to the chaos and rampant violence in Liberia, the one nation on earth founded by Americans who recognized that our independence was not theirs to share.

I agree wholeheartedly with the President that Liberia's unique history justifies international expectations that the United States will devote some of its greater power and wealth to restoring stability in that war-torn nation.

At the same time, I share the concerns of a military friend of mine who thinks that if we are already neglecting Afghanistan, it is absurd to take on the responsibility of policing a potential Somalia. As Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution has argued, the United States Armed Forces have been dangerously overstretched by deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea and the Balkans.

Thus, it comes as no surprise that the President has made Charles Taylor's resignation a precondition of American participation in an international peacekeeping force. Moreover, the President (wisely IMHO) wants to avoid another nation-building project by ensuring that the objective of the American peacekeepers will be to establish a minimal level of stability and then turn matters over to an international force.

Now, some might ask, why the United States should do anything in response to Kofi Annan's request that it restore order in Liberia, given how unhelpful Annan and the United Nations were regarding Iraq.

Fair enough. But it would be wiser to take advantage of the situation in Liberia to rebuild our relationship with the United Nations while exacting an important quid pro quo in return for our deployment. As Jim Hoagland argues in the WaPo, Annan should facilitate American intervention in Liberia by persuading other nations to commit substantial forces to the occupation of Iraq.

As David Ignatius suggests, the European Union can demonstrate the seriousness of its common defense and security policy by providing an effective peacekeeping and reconstruction force for Iraq. Thus, all Annan has to do is persuade the Europeans to get their act together so that the United States can send the Marines into Liberia without undercutting its deployments elsewhere.

Going into Liberia is the right thing to do. And if the EU and the UN cooperate, going into Liberia can also serve America's national interest.
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# Posted 8:17 AM by David Adesnik  

MIRROR IMAGES: Since 1776, Americans have known that "because we are free, we cannot be indifferent to the fate of freedom elsewhere." The question remains, however, whether we can best share our freedom by serving as a model for others to emulate or, instead, by investing our wealth and power in the active promotion of freedom.

Often, American statesmen have sought to reconcile this contradiction between emulation and activism by asserting that freedom is a natural consequence of prosperity and that, therefore, trading with dictatorships will gradually result in the liberation of their subject-citizens.

Sadly, history has provided little validation for this optimistic belief. Instead, it is being challenged by one nation -- the People's Republic of China -- that is committed to demonstrating that the benefits of propserity and modernity can be enjoyed despite the total absence of political freedom.

While the dramatic growth of the Chinese economy has given substance to such assertions, there is not much reason to believe that the Chinese will be successful in the long run. However, rather than economic growth serving as a foundation for political freedom, I suspect that the absence of political freedom will ultimately undermine China's economic growth.

Perhaps the oligarchs in Beijing will be fortunate to stabilize the economy at a half-way point that provides their subjects with a decent way of life but no political freedom. What is more likely, I suspect, is that the Chinese state will come crashing down amidst the corruption, inefficiency and violence bred by the presence of dictatorship.

As such, the United States cannot afford to remain passive and look on as a spectator while the Chinese government conducts the most ambitious experiment in the history of social science. While the use of force is not possible, we must constantly speak out on behalf of freedom.

Thus, at this moment, if we are to celebrate this Day of Independence with a clear conscience, we must remember that as we speak, the Beijing dictatorship has begun to crush the freedom of that small outpost of civil liberty known as Hong Kong.

And so it must, because freedom cannot be contained. If Hong Kong lives free, the rest of China will demand nothing less. It is not prosperity that spreads freedom, but rather the exhiliration of knowing that others are free and prosperous. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:31 AM by David Adesnik  

REFLECTIONS ON INDEPENDENCE: No matter how imperfect our implementation of it, the Founders' vision for the United States of America continues to inspire all those whose struggle for freedom has not yet been won.

As an American, I find few things more inspiring than seeing how the ideals laid out in the Declaration of Independence are able to reach out across time and space, across cultures and religions, to provide consolation and encouragement for all those whose peoples are not yet free.

In that spirit, I have decided to reprint a short message I received yesterday from a friend born in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). In the space of a few sentences, he gives life to America's ideals in a way that few of us ever can.

To my American friends,

Happy Independence Day!

I first learnt of this date when I was 14 years old, when the national programme of my country (D. R. Congo) started getting pupils' minds open to world history and geography. In that same year I got interested in the history of the French Revolution. I then realised that peoples of different countries and times have always fought for independence, for self-determination and self-rule, for justice and equality for all, for freedom and for truth. If the leadership and the people are determined, their dream comes true, but if, unfortunately, they have a poor and corrupt leadership their dream fades away and never comes true.

May this day remind you of your nation, its past and present, and of similar fights and struggles in various parts of the world.

Peace to you all!

MK

Well said. Happy July 4th! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:27 AM by David Adesnik  

RUMSFELD, SULLIVAN AND OXBLOG: On Sunday, I explored -- and ultimately rejected -- the suggestion that the war in Vietnam and the occupation of Iraq are similar projects. On Monday, Sec. Rumsfeld made the same point. On Wednesday, Andrew Sullivan reiterated my point that the American media treats every American war as if it were another Vietnam.

So? Maybe all those ".mil" hits are coming from the Secretary's office... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:16 AM by David Adesnik  

IRAQ UPDATE: Boomshock puts Kevin Drum's pessimism in perspective, as well as offering some thoughtful comments on Zimbabwe. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:13 AM by David Adesnik  

REFLECTIONS ON A CENTURY: This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Rhodes Scholarship. To celebrate, the Rhodes Trust has organized four days of reunion events in Oxford and London, events that have drawn more than 1500 scholars (and their companions) back to the British Isles.

In general, I avoid commenting on the fact either that I am a Rhodes Scholar or on the significance of that fact to me. I do so because announcing that I am a Rhodes Scholar says very little about who I am or what I believe.

However, the Rhodes Scholarship is a recognizable landmark in American life. Thanks (or no thanks) to President Clinton and others, saying that one is a Rhodes Scholar has important connations, both positive and negative.

As my younger brothers never tire of reminding me, becoming a Rhodes Scholar entails a definite measure of self-promotion and self-aggrandizement. However, that is a very American perspective on the scholarship.

At Oxford, no one cares all that much if you are a Rhodes Scholar. There are 250 of us here at any given time, so everyone at Oxford has gotten used to seeing us on a regular basis. However, the culture of the Rhodes Scholarship entails constant reflection on what it means to have one's education paid for by the estate of Cecil John Rhodes.

Rhodes was the brutal imperialist who brought southern Africa into the British Empire and made his fortune on the broken backs of South Africa's native population. Thus, Rhodes Scholars never dare forget that their education is being paid for with blood-soaked cash.

Being a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford entails a burden of guilt and responsibility. Everytime we consider asking the trust for an increase in our stipend, the Rhodes e-mail list floods with messages discussing whether the necessary funds would be better spent on charitable works in South Africa.

Every time there is a formal dinner at Rhodes House, we ask whether we couldn't have fed hundreds of starving South African children instead of enjoying one more five-course banquet. No matter how many times we tell ourselves that we will redeem our scholarship through public service in the decades to come, we still ask whether we are doing enough right now to repair that damage that has already been done.

As such, one might expect that that the Rhodes Centenary would focus on this central dilemma of Scholarly life. But it has not. Last night in the Houses of Parliament, all 1500 guests at the reunion gathered for the privilege of being addressed by Tony Blair, Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela, as well as brief remarks by the Chancellor of Oxford University, the Chairman of the Rhodes Board of Trustees, and the Chairman of the DeBeers diamond mining corporation (founded by Rhodes in the 1888).

All of the speakers were careful to point out that Rhodes was a very bad man who happened to do some very good things, such as endowing the Scholarship Fund. However, not one of them addressed the significance of that contradiction for those of us who have been educated at Rhodes' expense. Not one of them sought to explain how it is that a man whose wealth rested on the brutal exploitation of his workers could wax eloquent about the importance of encouraging young idealists to "fight the world's fight" and better the lot of all humanity.

While some might dismiss such concerns as anachronistic self-flagellation, the fact remains that such concerns still exert an overwhelming influence on the behavior of the Rhodes Trust. It is not just the Scholars but also the Trustees and the Warden who are in constant search of forgiveness.

Toward that end, the Trust has devoted £10 million to establishing the Mandela Rhodes Foundation, a charity focused on strengthening civil society in South Africa. As the Foundation's name implies, Mr. Mandela himself was deeply involved in its establishment and in setting its priorities.

While a number of the speakers at last night's event made passing remarks about how the names of Mandela and Rhodes is a sign of reconciliation and of "closing the circle" of South Africa history, none of the them addressed the fundamental perversity of naming the Foundation after both a brutal racist and the greatest living champion of racial justice and equality.

Given that Mr. Mandela himself has blessed the merger, it is hard to argue that joining his name with that of Rhodes' betrays Mr. Mandela's life work. Still, the question remains: What does the establishment of the Foundation say about those of us who continue to benefit from Rhodes' generosity but did nothing to liberate South Africa?

Are we forgiven? Can we now point to the Foundation and say that our obligation to the past has been fulfilled? Ideally, some sort of balance ought to be struck. On the one hand, it would be wrong to forget where the wealth of the Trust came from. On the other hand, we should be at least as comfortable with the Rhodes Trust as Mandela himself is.

Unfortunately, I don't know how such a balance can best be achieved. The constant hand-wringing of the Scholars currently on stipend is somewhat disingenuous, given that few of us will do much for South Africa except thinking about it.

All in all, I tend to prefer an American approach to the Scholarship. I applied for it believing that it is a Scholarship which rewards commitment to public service. It entails a commitment to the future, not to the past. If I devote my professional life to promoting democracy in the Middle East, that is no less valuable than promoting development and civil society in South Africa.

The lesson of Rhodes' life is not that I have some special obligation to the people of southern Africa, but rather that we still live in a world where vicious oppression destorys countless lives in Burma, in North Korea, throughout the Middle East, and in Central Africa, just north of Rhodes' erstwhile homeland.

Let's do something about that.


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# Posted 1:14 AM by Patrick Belton  

ISRAEL DECLARES BBC PERSONA NON GRATA:
Saying distortions in the BBC's coverage of Israel rival the worst of Nazi propoganda, Israeli officials said that the Government Press Office, Foreign Ministry, and Prime Minister's Office would no longer grant BBC correspondents interviews or offer them services generally provided foreign journalists.
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# Posted 10:19 PM by David Adesnik  

NATION BUILDING: Yesterday, I referred in passing to Greg Djerejian's suggestion that the US military should train its own corps of nation builders rather than depend on international forces. Phil Carter also thinks that's a good idea, and point out that Fareed Zakaria agrees as well. Me three.

NB: Greg's permalinks aren't working, so scroll down to "Constabulatory Duties and the Warrior Ethos". Also, in yesterday's post on the occupation of Iraq, I exaggerated Greg's support for a greater UN role. He'd like to see more cooperation, but agrees that the US should be firmly in charge. (2) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:10 PM by David Adesnik  

SPEAK OF THE DEVIL: Kevin Drum expressed his concern yesterday that the US is appointing too many Ba'athists to influential posts in occupied Iraq. Then today, American forces arrested the mayor of Najaf, a former military official, on charges of corruption and kidnapping.

So does that mean we're appointing Saddam's henchmen to high office, or that we're able to recognize and correct our mistakes with reasonable speed and accuracy? I tend to favor the second explanation, given that we haven't heard much about Ba'athists being appointed to high office.

Paul Bremer seems to be rather fixated on de-Ba'athification, so I imagine that lower-level officials are mindful of its importance as well. In Najaf, for example, the mayor's arrest apparently came in respone to public dismay with his Ba'athist past.

It also wouldn't surprise me if the WaPo's recent article on reinstated Ba'athists had something to do with the arrest in Najaf. In fact, the WaPo explicitly identified the mayor of Najaf as a former Ba'athist whose reinstatment had led to popular resentment.

While it would be better if occupation forces acted even before the media let them know what was wrong, it is still quite remarkable that a single article (probably) led to immediate action. Often, the government does nothing until it is avalanched with negative press coverage. Thus, the occupation forces's apparent responsiveness demonstrates a real commitment to promoting democracy Iraq. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:50 PM by David Adesnik  

OUTSIDE IRAQ: While things in Iraq are going better than expected, the Administration is adrift almost everywhere else.

As a candidate, the President criticized his predecessor for his excessive personalization of US diplomacy, i.e. depending on single figures such as Yeltsin rather than building a strong overall relationship with Russia. Yet in Russia, Pakistan and Afghanistan, Bush has fallen prey to Clinton's old habit.

When it comes to more peripheral regions such as Africa, Latin America and (for the moment) East Asia, the Administration seems to have no strategy at all. But that much is to be expected.

Few American presidents have ever developed a truly global strategy. Nixon and Kissinger did, but theirs was worse than none at all. So let's just hope that our ambassadors and assistant secretaries of state are ready to face regional challenges without much guidance from above. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:06 PM by David Adesnik  

DOWNSIDE UP: Yesterday, I commented with surprise on a strong preference for the GOP among small donors to political campaigns. Alas, my surprise has exposed my ignorance of campaign finance to the entire blogosphere.

As JAT points out,

It's not surprising that small donors are heavily favoring Republicans. They always do. This has been true since at least the 1910s. I remember my US History books specifically pointing out this fact.

People who actually are small donors still have to have enough excess cash to really consider contributing. The Republicans have always had a strong advantage among a broad section of the fairly rich-- the upper middle class, lower upper class, et al. The Democrats have generally had support from the broadly poor and a relatively small number of highly committed supporters among the superrich.

Even back in the 1920s, the Democratic Party funds were mostly financed from a mere handful of people. Eugene McCarthy's 1968 campaign was primarily financed by just a handful of people, such as Stewart Mort and Jack Dreyfus Jr. (This explains why he was also a plantiff in Buckley v. Valeo, challenging the campaign finance limits of the time. He still argues that being able to raise money from such a small group of people is much less corrupting than having to raise money from so many different interest groups.) By contrast, Barry Goldwater was the first politician to raise significant amounts of his presidential campaign funds in small amounts through direct mail. To be fair, George McGovern followed in his footsteps and was also very successful at this method.

The Republican Party has *always* had an edge in direct hard money contributions from many different individuals in small amounts. The Democratic Party has always been able to equalize only with massive soft money contributions from the very wealthy, such as celebrities. This why McCain-Feingold is so, so damaging to the Democrats, unless they find ways around it.

JVL adds

Not to quibble, but the only aspect of this story that resembles a yoga asana is the failure of the WaPo to notice the phenomenon [of GOP predominance] until now. Ever since the Reagan landslide of 1984, the GOP has scored the bulk of its hard money from small donors. Ron gave the RNC a mailing list that Terry McAu[liffe] would kill for. No fault of yours that this may be news. In 1984, you were creating in Legos, not blogs.

N.B. Not a hint of condescension there. I have yet to discover that having been born when Cal Coolidge was gearing up to run for re-election confers any eminence upon said dodderer.

Ah, Silent Cal. If only modern Presidents had the good sense to keep their thoughts to themselves more often.

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# Posted 8:12 PM by David Adesnik  

FUBAR IN BAGHDAD: CalPundit and Tacitus think that the occupation has spun out of control. I don't. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:01 PM by David Adesnik  

OBJECTIVITY: Daniel and Eugene comment on bias in the blogosphere. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:56 PM by David Adesnik  

THE GUERILLA MYSTIQUE: Criticism of the American occupation of Iraq is widespread. While much of it comes from those who have long insisted (or implied)that an American occupation must fail, some of it comes from those who are passionately committed to promoting democracy in Iraq but believe that the United States is not doing enough.

The editors of both the Washington Post and The New Republic fall into the latter category. Even though I am committed to hearing out both the constructive and the destructive critics, I have found it harder and harder and to take the latter seriously as a result of their Vietnam mindset. However, when the WaPo and TNR criticize the occupation I take their observations very seriously.

Recent criticism from the WaPo and TNR is all the more surprising because my own interpretation of the public record suggests that the occupation is going better than expected. Moreover, Josh is at least as optimistic as I am, if not moreso.

So what's going on? First and foremost, the rising casualty toll and persistence of guerrilla warfare has persuaded even supporters of the occupation that something is going seriously wrong. Second, the Pentagon's decision to have combat troops serve as peacekeepers suggests that one can trace much of the chaos in Iraq to the occupation forces' lack of appropriate training.

On the first point, I think that the WaPo and TNR may have fallen prey to media spin. The headlines coming out of Iraq are almost entirely negative. For example:

• Experts Question Depth of Victory
• Iraqi Ambushes Beset Troops
• British Trust in Iraqi Militia Proved a Fatal Miscalculation

And those are just the headlines from Friday's WaPo. By themselves, none of these headlines are inaccuate or misleading. Yet taken together, they indicate the inability of even top-flight journalists to put the military situation in a broader perspective.

As you might have guessed, I think the guerrilla threat is not all that serious. I tend to agree with this former Marine officer who argues that the Ba'athist insurgents have already demonstrated their incompetence as military strategists. In short, he argues that the Ba'athist offensive is extremely premature, given the overwhelming American forces still on the ground in central Iraq.

Without sounding like a kneejerk reactionary, I would like to suggest that the American media -- including moderate, mainstream, responsible publications such as the WaPo -- are still imprisoned in a Vietnam mindset. In contrast to those conservatives who constantly attack the mainstream media, I do not believe that this Vietnam mindset is part and parcel of a pervasive but unacknowledged left-liberal agenda.

Rather, much of this mindset reflects an honest but misguided effort to learn the lessons of history. If Vietnam were the only guerrilla war ever fought (in addition, perhaps, to those in El Salvador and Nicaragua) one might fairly conclude that American generals consistently underestimate the popular support and tactical sophistication of their opponents. Yet quite often, government forces destroy overconfident and unprepared insurgents.

Recently, I have been giving a lot of thought to the Vietnam-Iraq analogy thanks to Neil Sheehan's masterful work on the Vietnam War, A Bright Shining Lie. After confronting the depths of ignorance and incompetence that led to the fall of Saigon, it is ridiculous to suggest that the Ba'athist any surgents can mount any sort of challenge to American occupation forces.

In Vietnam, the United States was supporting a brutal regime that showed total disregard for its citizens' lives, economic welfare, and political rights. In contrast, the Viet Cong demonstrated an impressive concern for the people of Vietnam despite committing some appalling atrocities.

In Iraq, the United States has brought down a regime that strongly resembles the one its supported in Saigon. The occupation forces are also doing far more for the people of Iraq than even the Viet Cong did for the people of Vietnam. Even so, the unexpectedly swift fall of the Ba'athist government ensured that thousands of its supporters would fade into the woodwork, along with considerable amounts of military equipment.

Sad to say, even a flawless assault on the Ba'athist remnants will cost the lives of scores of American soldiers, even hundreds. No question, some of those lives might have been saved had Coalition forces launched their counterinsurgency campaign immediately after the fall of Baghdad. But in the long-run, a month-and-a-half delay is insignificant. With the postwar casualty toll standing at 23, it's hard to say that the US could be doing much better.

Which brings us to the second trend that has disturbed the democracy promotion advocates at TNR and the WaPo: the decision to employ combat troops as peacekeeping forces. Unsurprisingly, this decision has opened the Pentagon to ample criticism of its unpreparedness to face the realities of postwar Iraq. And such criticism is well-deserved. In fact, I agree wholeheartedly with Greg Djerejian's suggestion that the military should equip and train several divisions for the explicit purpose of peacekeeping and reconstruction.

Along with the WaPo and TNR, Greg think that our troops unpreparedness is an ex post facto vindication of those who insisted that the UN play a greater role in the occupation of Iraq. I wouldn't go that far. Yet while I stand by my argument that a strong UN voice would derail the occupation, I do recognize that peacekeeping damages soldiers' morale and that it wouldn't hurt to bring in UN or NGO officials with experience in Bosnia and Kosovo.

That said, I think that Coaltion forces have been doing an impressive job regardless of their insufficient training. Why? Because American soldiers instinctively put their democratic values into practive. Would further training improve these soldiers' efficiency and morale? Absolutely. Yet I suspect that chaos would still abound even with the best-trained forces in Baghdad.

What matters now is patience. If the President ensures that rebuilding Iraq stays at the top of the American agenda, we can overcome those errors that have already been made. While TNR and the WaPo are right to be concerned about the state of affairs in Iraq, the progress we have already made suggests that a long-term commitment to promoting democracy in Iraq will be well worth the effort.


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# Posted 1:41 PM by Daniel  

SOME OF HIS BEST FRIENDS ARE JEWISH. The Telegraph and the London Times pick up the story of Oxford Professor Andrew Wilkie's rejection of Amit Duvshani's PhD application. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:17 PM by David Adesnik  

SCALIA ON GAY MARRIAGE: Andrew Sullivan comments. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:58 AM by David Adesnik  

SAYS WHO? You might have figured out by now that I like guessing games. So ask yourself who said the following:

1) "overshadowing the military achievement [in Iraq] is the failure -- so far -- to find, or explain the absence of, weapons of mass destruction that were the necessary and sufficient justification for preemptive war. The doctrine of preemption -- the core of the president's foreign policy -- is in jeopardy."

2) "Whatever legitimacy preventive war may claim derives from intelligence reliable enough to persuade responsible people, including allies, that the supposed enemy is really about to strike the United States. If no WMD turn up in Iraq, President Bush will lose a lot of credibility. It seems doubtful that he would be able to lead the American people into wars against Iran or North Korea simply on his presidential say-so."

Turns out the first quote is from George Will, the second from Arthur Schlesinger Jr., the erstwhile JFK advisor and inveterate Democratic mouthpiece.

The surprising resemblance of Will and Schlesinger's views underlines an important aspect of the WMD debate that has often been ignored. While there is little substance to accusations that Bush & Co. invented the Iraqi threat, the President will have to overcome much greater skepticism if he ever asks either the American people or foreign governments to trust his judgment on a matter of fact.

Even if no WMD is found, Bush will be safe at the polls. But America may have its hands tied abroad. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:19 AM by David Adesnik  

UPSIDE DOWN: Bush is setting fund-raising records in California while small donors across the nation are heavily favoring Republicans over Democrats. What is the world coming to? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:06 AM by David Adesnik  

AMERICAN DOLLARS FOR TERRORISTS: Jim Hoagland blasts the President's hypocritical embrace of Pakistan. Sadly, the Administration seems unable to recognize that Musharraf is not a provider of stability, but rather a corrupt and incompetent fool who promotes violent fundamentalism, launches terrorist attacks on his Indian neighbors and destroys democracy.

UPDATE: Greg Djerejian thinks that Americans fail to appreciate just how much Musharraf did for us right after Sept. 11th. Fair enough. Still, I think Greg substantially exaggerates the degree to which Musharraf risked his own political well-being in the process of aiding the United States. The people of Pakistan may resent "Busharraf" for his ties to the United States, but they resent him much more for being an incompetent and corrupt dictator. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:02 AM by David Adesnik  

LIKE A BLOG OUT OF HELL: Six days have passed since my last substantive post on this site. My inbox is overflowing. My ignorance is apalling.

Countless news cycles have spun by in my time away from the web. And yet life goes on. To my surprise, it is possible to live -- and live well -- without being constantly plugged in to the information superhighway.

The pinnacle of the past six days has been the Magdalen Commemoration Ball, an all-night celebration of indulgent excess that takes place only once every three years. Its atmosphere ranges from the elegant to the ridiculous, from white tie and tails to barbecue and bumper cars. Admission comes at the price of One Hundred English Pounds.

While I might have been tempted to skulk away from the cocktail bar and fireworks show to post my latest thoughts on the reconstruction of Iraq or peace in the Middle East, I did not have that option. Given the intense demands for electricity generated by three sound stages and all sorts of other entertainment paraphrenalia, the college authorities shut down the computer center in order to save power.

But now I am back and raring to go, ready to take on the world like a blog out of hell. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:42 AM by Patrick Belton  

NEWS BULLETIN: Rachel's in Oxford - woo-hoo! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:42 AM by Patrick Belton  

HA'ARETZ ON JERUSALEM'S 4-YEAR OLD ARABIC-HEBREW BILINGUAL SCHOOL: This is precisely the sort of thing all people of good will need to be supporting..... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:00 AM by Daniel  

BILL KELLER ON DIVERSITY. He acknowledges the many shades of gray in the affirmative action debate and demonstrates that it does not follow left/right lines.

The column introduced a quote from Stanley Fish which I thoroughly enjoyed. Referring to the problem of stigmas (something Josh and Clarence Thomas disdain about affirmative action), Fish stated: "the low self-esteem that comes from wondering if your success was based on merit is probably preferable to the low self-esteem that comes from never getting a chance to succeed in the first place." In this sense affirmative action, despite its flaws, is the least worst option. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:14 AM by Patrick Belton  

TROUBLING IF TRUE: Little Green Footballs point out this letter, in which - assuming it is authentic - an Oxford professor refuses to consider advising an Israeli doctoral applicant because of his Israeli citizenship:

From: "Andrew Wilkie" awilkie@worf.molbiol.ox.ac.uk
To: "Amit Duvshani"
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2003 9:58 AM
Subject: Re: PhD application

Dear Amit Duvshani,

Thank you for contacting me, but I don't think this would work. I have a huge problem with the way that the Israelis take the moral high ground from their appalling treatment in the Holocaust, and then inflict gross human rights abuses on the Palestinians because they (the Palestinians) wish to live in their own country.

I am sure that you are perfectly nice at a personal level, but no way would I take on somebody who had served in the Israeli army. As you may be aware, I am not the only UK scientist with these views but I'm sure you will find another suitable lab if you look around.

Yours sincerely,
Andrew Wilkie

Nuffield Professor of Pathology,
Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine,
The John Radcliffe,
Headington,
Oxford OX3 9DS,
UK.

Tel (44)-1865-222619
Fax (44)-1865-222500

A FINAL UPDATE: Ha'aretz picks up the story, and Oxford's formal apology to Mr. Duvshani (though, somewhat inexplicably, they refer to him as seeking an internship). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:59 AM by Patrick Belton  

THERE'S A TRUCE! HAMAS FOUNDER SHEIKH YASSIN CALLS FOR A CESSATION OF HOSTILITIES AGAINST ISRAEL BY ALL PALESTINIAN GROUPS.

Responses: Israel (skeptical), US (positive), France (supportive of Hamas no matter what), EU (pissy). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:35 PM by Patrick Belton  

DEFINITELY WORTH A (FAR)READ: That is, Foreign Policy's new issue on rebuilding Iraq. Among others, there are pieces from Marina Ottaway, Tom Carothers, Bob Kagan, Husain Haqqani, and Minxin Pei.

These are all worthy of further comment, but for the moment I need to post quietly, because my happily-frequent roommate Josh is grabbing some shuteye in the other room. On the other hand, sunrise over the half-completed annex going up outside the window of his room in Merton is dazzling and beautiful. (Perhaps all the dust being kicked up into the atmosphere by the construction...) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:22 PM by Patrick Belton  

SAUDI ARABIA LECTURES THE WEST ON HUMAN RIGHTS: From the Saudi Kingdom and its embassy in London, we now have a set of Questions and Answers about Human Rights. Occasionally, we in the west may get confused on questions of human rights - which, after all, are thorny and complex. Fortunately, we have the house of Sa'ud to explain all these knotty issues to us: (This via MEMRI)

Q: "Why is Saudi Arabia often criticized in the media for violating human rights?"

A: "Human rights, as a concept, did not suddenly [come into] the world in the form of a sacred revelation. The theory of human rights evolved slowly and is still evolving. A century ago, it was difficult to recognize in Europe anything like the human rights of modern Europe. Saudi Arabia does not see fit to accept the latest version of the West's version of human rights. Saudi Arabia has its own vision.

Q: "Why can women not travel freely and alone within Saudi Arabia?"

A: "This phenomenon is not limited to Saudi Arabia. This custom prevails in many Muslim countries. There is a religious basis for it: the Prophet Mohammad said that no women should travel for more than one night without her husband or a Mahram, for example, her father, son, or uncle. Some Muslim scholars believe that the Prophet's instruction was based on the unsafe travel conditions of the time. They argue that as travel is no longer risky, that injunction does not apply. However, religious scholars in Saudi Arabia do not accept this interpretation, and neither do the majority of the Saudi people. This is not a matter of government decree; it is a matter of deep personal belief."

Q: "....Now that you mention Islam, why is it that Saudi Arabia does not allow the followers of other religions the freedom to practice their faiths in Saudi Arabia?"

A: "Anyone in Saudi Arabia is entitled to his own beliefs and practices. But Saudi Arabia cannot allow the public practice of any religion which contradicts Islam. Saudi Arabia is a special place: it is the cradle of Islam and the Prophet Mohammad declared it a preserve of Islam. A lot of the so-called dissidents want all non-Muslims thrown out of Saudi Arabia. But the government takes a far more moderate stance.

Q: "....But Saudi Arabia's courts lack the basic minimum standards of justice."

A: "Britain is only familiar with the Western system of justice and cannot envisage any other. The West's judicial system is the result of its own historic evolution and so is Saudi Arabia's. According to Saudi tradition there are no juries, nor are there likely to be in the future. Lawyers are not an integral part of the system. One can bring a lawyer but that is optional. We don't consider the presence of lawyers a prerequisite for the delivery of justice."

Q: "But without a jury and a lawyer what guarantee to a fair trial does the accused have?"

A: "A good question. In Saudi Arabia the judge acts, in effect, as the defendant's lawyer. He challenges every piece of evidence presented by the prosecution. Unlike judges in the West who simply act as umpires leaving the prosecution team and the defense team to influence the jury, our judges consider themselves personally accountable to God for every judgment they make. If a judge condemns to death a man who is innocent – the judge faces eternal divine punishment and he knows that. Among God-fearing men this is a mighty safeguard."

I'm convinced. Dunno about you. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:57 PM by Patrick Belton  

DON'T JUST DO SOMETHING, SIT THERE: CalPundit has a wonderful post on differences between the British and U.S. press relationships with senior officeholders. His gist: US politicians are permitted (i.e., by the press and the rules of their game) to dodge questions and avoid press appearances, while British prime ministers must skillfully handle hostile, well-prepared, and dogged interviewers. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:44 PM by Patrick Belton  

A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT TO OUR READERSHIP: Every one of you, right now, and yes that means you there, need to go without any delay and register online in the Federal Trade Commission's new do-not-call registry, debuted today. Telemarketers who do not remove registrants from their rolls by October 1st may be fined up to $10,000 for their unwelcome calls at dinner. (More information: FTC, WashPost.) This is one populist bill I can heartily thank God, or at least the Congress for. Bloggers (and members of the press), spread the word.... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:49 AM by Patrick Belton  

SENATOR THURMOND died last night, at 100.

His politics were not my politics, but I had the pleasure of meeting him several times when I worked in Senator Chuck Robb's legislative office. He was a quintessential Southern gentleman who would always generously spare moments for a skinny 22-year old, a flirt who could often be seen walking to Union Station with female interns under each arm, and who once whisked two female colleagues away from a friend of mine with the promise to demonstrate how a gentlemen charmed the opposite sex. Such behavior would have been unthinkable from a younger man, but for Senator Thurmond, well, everyone understood he was being Ol' Strom, and played along. He was a segregationist, but his views changed, and people must be allowed the chance to change for the better - as he did.

An age dies with him. We are better without its worst aspects, and have fortunately learned to treat each other more fully as humans, and as brothers and sisters. But we would do well to recall, and perhaps to imitate, its charm, honor, and graciousness, as they were instantiated so well by the senior senator from South Carolina. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:31 AM by Patrick Belton  

LOOK FOR mostly amusing ancedotes and such bits out of me for three or four days (i.e., soft-core OxBlog) while I finish up a few articles and bits of my thesis, then back right away to more substantive posting (hard-core OxBlog).

After all, how am I supposed to write or blog when I'm on the road, travelling...okay, in Oxford. As a personal note, it's incredibly nice to be back here, seeing many of my closest friends, and being reminded that this place really exists, and isn't merely a fiction of my delirium. At the very least, Oxford is a fiction which manypeople share.....

My first anecdote, however, isn't very amusing at all. It's about an incredibly disturbing incident that took place in Oxford, and was covered in the non-OxBlog Oxford student publication, Cherwell. Cherwell reports that Maxwell's bar in Oxford (37 Queen Street) served ground glass, mixed in a cocktail, to Oxford student Emma Phillips. She subsequently spent the night in John Radcliffe Infirmary, and in x-rays the bottom of her stomach was shown to be lined with glass. The only immediate action taken by the bar? To offer her two free jugs of cocktails. (Yeah, like she's going to drink those....) The manager on duty insisted there was nothing more he could do. However, after time passed, he relented and generously agreed to pay for a taxi to take Ms. Phillips to hospital. (For those of you who have lived in the UK, this will be instantly recognizable as an instance of Anglo-institutional rationality.)

Finall, the excruciatingly painful quote to carry around with you the rest of the day: "Philips had all but finished the drink before she realised that the crunching sensation in her mouth could not be ice."

Anyone in Oxford who reads this who doesn't immediately boycott Maxwell's, well, should. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:04 PM by Daniel  

JOSH, YOU ARE RIGHT that I have no way of 100% knowing that affirmative action gave Thomas an opportunity he otherwise would not have had. You are far better versed in legal scholarship than I am, but here is some other evidence: if I am not mistaken, in 1991 the American legal community expressed apprehension about Thomas's clear lack of experience--he had only served two years as a federal judge. Would that allow me to say that he may have been qualified but not a likely candidate given the fact that several other prospective justices had far more experience than he?

My knowledge of history goes back to the late 1980s/early 1990s, so your antebellum reference did not register too well with me. Was there a program in place in the 1850s which looked at qualified black and white candidates and then chose white candidates based in part on the discrimination against them in the past and present? As far as I am concerned, the moral and political distinctions between slavery and affirmative action clouds any analogies.

I am not calling Thomas or our friend from the 1850s "barking mad." Of course black people can criticize affirmative action. When did I argue that they could not?

I do disagree with you over affirmative action--I think that right now, the benefits of affirmative action outweigh the costs but do hope that we can reach the point where it is no longer necessary. We just aren't there yet, as far as I am concerned. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:45 PM by David Adesnik  

ADESNIK AND CHAFETZ DOMINATE AMERICAN MEDIA: This article mentions Patrick as well. Read the whole thing! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:55 AM by Patrick Belton  

NARCO AND TERRORISM: Time has a fairly good analysis of some of the dynamics relating to Hamas's ceasefire.

On a completely different note, upwards of 90 percent of banknotes in circulation in Europe betray traces of cocaine, from users having rolled up the notes at some point in the notes' history to form a tube for snorting. (Any readers who want to correct my technical description, please feel free.) The Spanish peseta and Irish pound, followed by the German deutschmark, had the most widespread levels of cocaine contamination in a test run by the EU shortly before the introduction of the euro. Now that the euro has been released, the concentration of cocaine on euro notes from Spain was found in a test to be one hundred times that on euro notes from Germany. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:15 PM by Daniel  

WHAT HORRORS? Josh, I don't think Dowd has a problem with the idea of black conservatives in general. She just has a problem with one in particular. Was her quote from Thomas' 1987 speech inaccurate?

Sure, the shot against Gonzales was unneccesary, since Gonzales might just be the most qualified man for the job, but I don't have a problem with her legitimate lambasting of Thomas. Why not look at Thomas as an example of the benefits of affirmative action--he was a qualified candidate for law school and later jobs who, because of affirmative action, was given an opportunity that he otherwise might not have had? (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:14 PM by David Adesnik  

OXBLOG REUNION! Finally, Josh, Patrick and David all in the same place at the same time. The place is Josh's spacious apartments in the graduate annexe of Merton College.

The time is now.

United as one, we have performed the sacred Oxford ritual of purchasing chips & cheese at 1:30am from Hassan, the Lord High Commissioner of Kebab.

As we should have pointed out long ago, the British stopped referring to them as "French Fries" long before any Americans did. Moreover, they refer to it as "snogging" rather than "French kissing"

Contrary to the predictions of organizational theory, the presence of all three OxBlog contributors in one place has not led to any increase whatsoever in our collective efficiency.

(This may have something to do with the fact that Josh insists on watching over my shoulder as I write this post. You'd think Josh would know that Communism doesn't work.)

Anyhow, instead of blogging, we have done many productive things, such as eating in Kurdish restaurant and watching Harlem Nights, a Richard Pryor/Eddie Murphy flick from a few years back. (4 stars out of 5!)

So there. Don't our lives sound fun? Damn right they are. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 3:31 PM by David Adesnik  

LIGHT SWEET CRUDE: The Post's Outlook section has an in-depth explanation of why this war isn't about oil. The basic points will be familiar to readers of the TNR piece which OxBlog linked to a while back. In short, going to war for oil just doesn't make economic sense, either for individual firms or for the US government. The Post article has a few strongpoints, though, which the TNR piece doesn't. First, it's written by Daniel Yergin, who won a Pultizer for his book on oil and power in the Middle East. Second, it contains a lot more solid evidence, especially concerning Iraq's role within the global oil market. Happy wonking. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:10 PM by Patrick Belton  

NOVELIST LEON URIS, author of Exodus among other notable books, died today at 78. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:12 PM by David Adesnik  

A DECADE OF SUFFERING AND STRENGTH: Andrew Sullivan marks the tenth anniversary of his struggle with HIV. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:56 PM by David Adesnik  

ROADMAP SCHOLARS: Intelligent updates from Reason of Voice, Kesher Talk and Belgravia Dispatch. [BD's permalinks are broken, so scroll down to "Roadmap Implementation Watch".] (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:45 PM by David Adesnik  

THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL: Better known to OxBlog readers as the creator of Boomshock, Robert Tagorda has just published a fascinating essay in The American Spectator on his experiences as a Filipino American confronting the idiosyncratic arbitrariness of affirmative action.

While my knowledge of the law consists of nothing more than common sense, I think that Robert's essay provides a compelling illustration of why the Supreme Court chose to strike down all affirmative action programs that treat human beings as numbers rather than complex individuals. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:18 PM by David Adesnik  

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: Commentary on the Court's rulings from Jack Balkin and Eugene Volokh. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:15 PM by Patrick Belton  

ISLAM AND DEMOCRACY: Last night, our D.C.-based Nathan Hale foreign policy group hosted a discussion on the prospects for democratization in the Muslim world. Will Baude posts notes on our discussion here. (And here's what we'd been reading on the subject.) I'll look forward very much to hearing your thoughts!.

On a somewhat related note, there's a new free monthly bulletin Carnegie has just begun, to track and analyze reform and democratization developments in the Arab world. You can subscribe to the on-line version here. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:33 AM by Patrick Belton  

BASHAR ON IRAQIS IN SYRIA AND THE PEACE PROCESS: Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad gave a recent interview on Al-Arabiyya. Some highlights:

On not cooperating with the US about Iraqi ex-officials from the Saddam regime presently in Syria: "One official entered Syria under a false name, but not from Iraq - from another country. We learned about him from the Americans, who asked that we extradite him, but we refused. I think he was captured later in Iraq. We did not turn over, and will not turn over, anyone to the Americans. There may be [Iraqi officials in Syria that we are unaware of]. Anything is possible. It's impossible to stop the movement of goods and people between the countries. [If we capture any of them], we'll send them back to Iraq. We won't do anything to them. We won't turn them over to anyone."

On Syria's non-cooperation with the peace process: "They (the U.S.) did not require Syria's presence, because Syria is irrelevant to the issue and because we do not agree to the proposals..."

On Syria's supposed benevolence toward the Palestinian people: "When we adopt the [Palestinian] problem, we do it in accordance with the desire of the Palestinian citizen, whose problem it is. We cannot agree to anything that contradicts it, even if we believe in it, and we cannot oppose anything the Palestinian citizen believes in."

Incidentally, the last point belies one of the unstated cruelties of the Arab world: Arab governments' treatment of their Palestinian refugees. Of the 3.5 million UNRWA-registered refugees in Arab countries, only the 1.5 million in Jordan are granted the basic rights of citizenship of the nation in which they reside. This act of humanity is particularly striking for Jordan, a country which is beset by a simmering question of competing Jordanian and Palestinian identities given the fact that Palestinians have come to constitute 60 percent of the Jordanian population. The 373,000 stateless Palestinians living in Lebanon are not allowed to attend public school, own property, or even improve their housing stock. The Lebanese government is even planning to revoke citizenship rights to Palestinians who were granted Lebanese citizenship in 1994. Marginalization of Palestinian refugees in the Arab world does nothing to diminish radicalism or improve the lot of a people whose human suffering has been great. Arab countries are quite happy to treat them as pawns, to clothe themselves in the symbolic legitimacy of their cause while acting in quite atrocious ways to the actual Palestinians, who often live (as in Lebanon) in refugee camps where they face horrific public health, minimal prospects of education or employment, and are instead maintained in as much of a marginalized status as possible to augment their stateless status and maintain pressure on Israel. If Arab governments were only as good as their people, they might remember with the Palestinians the meaning of the phrase "Ahlan wa Sahlan" - "When you cross our threshold you are one of our family, and you have stepped on even ground."
(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:23 PM by David Adesnik  

NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SON: We have not found weapons of mass destruction. Thoughtful critics have begun to charge the Administration with practicing pervasive deception. Much of the furor centers around an investigative report in The New Republic, which reaches the damning conclusion that President Bush

has engaged in a pattern of deception concerning the most fundamental decisions a government must make. The United States may have been justified in going to war in Iraq--there were, after all, other rationales for doing so--but it was not justified in doing so on the national security grounds that President Bush put forth throughout last fall and winter. He deceived Americans about what was known of the threat from Iraq and deprived Congress of its ability to make an informed decision about whether or not to take the country to war.

But compare TNR's allegations to the more precise criticism offered by Josh Marshall:

It's suddenly become acceptable to discuss what everyone knew for the last year or so: that is, that the administration was willfully misrepresenting the evidence both on WMD and a purported link to al Qaida.

At first, Marshall's criticism comes across as a repetition of the TNR allegations. But it isn't. Marshall is accusing the administration of engaging in deceptive salesmanship, not wholesale fabrication of an Iraqi threat. As Marshall observes in The Hill:

There were really two WMD debates. One was about chemical and low-end biological weapons. The other was about smallpox, nukes, al Qaeda and pretty much everything else under the sun.

On the former, the White House didn’t hoodwink anyone, since virtually everyone in the foreign policy mainstream figured that Iraq at least maintained a chemical and biological weapons capacity. I certainly thought so.

At a minimum, there was solid circumstantial evidence to believe that they did. Frankly, there still is.

If there still is solid evidence that Saddam had chemical and biological weapons, then Saddam was in material breach of Resolution 1441. Do those words sound strange to you? "Material breach"? "Resolution 1441"?

They should. Because the question everyone is now asking is "Did Bush lie?" rather than "Did the United States have good cause to invade Iraq without the express written consent of the Security Council?"

While I suspect that Bush himself did not lie, there is considerable evidence that high-ranking officials, possibly including the Vice President, knew in advance of the State of the Union address that Iraq had not purchased uranium from Niger. If so, all of the officials involved in that process of deception should be severly disciplined.

Nonetheless, this sort of deception has minimal bearing on the justice of the American cause. Just days ago, Hans Blix

said he remains deeply puzzled by the former Iraqi government's efforts to deceive and mislead U.N. inspectors for 12 years after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

"Why did they conduct themselves as they did throughout the '90s?" Blix said in an interview last week. "Why deny access if you are not hiding something? What I am groping at now is whether pride was at the root of it."

For the moment, there are no answers to those questions. But if Saddam was refusing to submit to the will of the Security Council, then France and China and Russia had an obligation to ensure that Saddam would face the "serious consequences" mentioned in 1441.

Still, it is fair to ask whether the American people would have supported the President's decision to invade if it had been more fully aware of the salesmanship involved in the presentation of the Iraqi threat. TNR argues that

Had the administration accurately depicted the consensus within the intelligence community in 2002--that Iraq's ties with Al Qaeda were inconsequential; that its nuclear weapons program was minimal at best; and that its chemical and biological weapons programs, which had yielded significant stocks of dangerous weapons in the past, may or may not have been ongoing--it would have had a very difficult time convincing Congress and the American public to support a war to disarm Saddam.

While still within the realm of the possible, TNR's speculations directly contradict the results of multiple opinion polls: that if Saddam was hiding chemical and biological weapons, then the United States should go to war.

In the final analysis, there is nothing new under the sun. The case for war then is the case for war now. While front-page stories continue to hint at startling revelations of presidential lies, even those of us who supported the war knew that the President's rhetoric went too far.

What we are waiting for now is the truth in Iraq. Until we know for sure what happened to the WMD, we will not know whether the invasion of Iraq headed off a major threat to international security, or simply removed a megalomaniacal dictator who conned his opponents into believing that he was much more dangerous than he actually was. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:41 PM by David Adesnik  

AUNG SAN SUU KYI: Enraged, the WaPo observes that

Southeast Asian foreign ministers, meeting last week in Cambodia with Mr. Powell, agreed to send a delegation to Burma no later than October. October? While one of the world's most courageous political leaders languishes in one of its most infamous jails? Where are Kofi Annan and the U.N. Security Council? Where are the executive orders that President Bush could issue today?

Your answer is as good as mine. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:17 PM by David Adesnik  

EVIL FORCES: The inimitable Reihan Salam waxes nostalgic about high school life in NY, spins esoteric political rhymes, and comments on the lyrical subtlety of teenage Russian lesbians. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:34 PM by David Adesnik  

ME VS. ME: In the first half of his column in today's NYT, Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson advertises his liberal credentials by offering a bleeding-heart utilitarian defense of affirmative action. In the second half, Patterson launches a devastating attack on the politically correct multiculturalist rationales offered in defense of affirmative action as it is currently practiced. The horse, my friends, is Trojan.

NB: If you are interested in the history of slavery and emancipation, head straight for Patterson's brilliant work on Slavery and Social Death. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:58 PM by David Adesnik  

A GEM FROM SAFIRE: On freedom in Iran.

For more on the role of foreign broadcasts in supporting the protests, click here. And click here to read about flagrant Iranian violations of the profoundly flawed Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:22 PM by David Adesnik  

ALL YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT TERRRORISM...but were afraid to ask. Yesterday, I wrote that

If there were any hope of destorying Hamas, Fatah and Jihad by purely military means, I might well support it.

Yet as Greg Djerejian points out [via e-mail], Fatah is not an explicitly terrorist organization, even though it has spawned such offshoots such the Tanzim and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

In fact, Mahmoud Abbas himself is a member of Fatah. So it is pretty much here to stay. But Greg's real point is that we pundits need to be more precise when talking about different terrorist organizations, lest we say something we don't mean. To that end, Greg recommends consulting the "Terrorism: Questions & Answers" website, a project suppored by the Council on Foreign Relations. I, for one, have every intention of doing so. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:13 PM by Patrick Belton  

INTIFADA IN GAELIC: In one of the more interesting manifestations of the IRA-Hamas linkages (which extend to symbology as well as cooperation in training exercises - Irish Republicans have begun flying Palestinian flags, and in response Unionists have started to display Israeli flags), a web page has appeared supporting the intifada, in Gaelic.

Small world, indeed. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:29 AM by Patrick Belton  

MAN ON THE STREET RESPONSE TO BRITISH TOE WRESTLING: "No, Patrick, you do that much better than I do." - Eliana. "That looks like an exciting topic." - Rachel, newly returned from wedding travels. What is everyone talking about - at least at the OxBlog DC bureau office, this morning? It's the British triumph yesterday at toe-wrestling world championships.. "That's sad." - Rachel (0) opinions -- Add your opinion