Introduction

On the surface, the US has been saying it wants Russia's cooperation on Iran's nuclear program in the Security Council this week. So praktike wonders what to make of the timing of Cheney's anti-Russia speech in Lithuania, in which he accused the Russia government of using oil and natural gas as "tools for intimidation and blackmail," "unfairly and improperly restrict[ing] the rights of her people," and taking "actions that undermine the territorial integrity of a neighbor, or interfere with democratic movements."

After that bit of raw chutzpah, Cheney proceeded, in the words of the NYT, to wade into the energy battles in Kazakhstan while embracing Nazerbayev with smiling praise for Kazakhstan's "political development." Cheney finished his tour in Dubrovnik with the endorsement of NATO membership for an unlikely trio of candidates, Croatia, Albania and Macedonia.

Altogether, the trip was a tour de force -- a nicely judged combination of high-minded Cold War-style ideological conflict with cynical Great Game competition, carefully tailored at each stop to play to the specific anti-Russian (and pro-US) interests of key local players.

Strategic linkages

I don't think there can be any question that the Bush Admin has been making a number of anti-Russian moves in recent weeks and that Cheney's trip was deliberately designed to be provocative. It appears to me that the Russophobe hardliners within the Bush Admin, led by Cheney, have won the internal debates about how to deal with Russia leading up to next month's G-8 summit in St Petersburg.

As important, I also think the provocations directed toward Russia are part of a parallel program to delegitimize the UN process for dealing with Iran, where the US is transparently engaged in faux diplomacy.

In my view, recent moves by the Bush Admin are comprehensible only when they are seen as linked -- part of a broader "forward-leaning" effort to aggressively reassert US hegemony. My fear is that the tactics the US is using in playing the "diplomatic route" re Iran may not only be extremely dangerous as a way of dealing with Iran itself. Those tactics are likely to have far broader and more profound long-term effects on the structure of the international system.

Where are US foreign policy elites?

Why so little reaction to the Bush Admin's tougher line on Russia by American foreign policy elites ("realists" and "liberal internationalists") who aren't the natural allies ("neocons" and "national greatness" conservatives) of the Bush Admin? Perhaps it's because most foreign policy elites tend to be experts in one area or another with limited overlap -- e.g. nuclear proliferation, Middle East, former Soviet Union, China, Latin America, defense, etc. Or perhaps it's because they've lost the old Cold War habits of seeing linkages across diplomatic and security issues and across regions.

I also think, in part, it's because almost all "schools" of American foreign policy share unquestioningly the assumption that being the sole superpower is in the natural order of things. American hegemony is, at least in principle, assumed to be necessary and/or benign, and its maintenance and assertion is a good thing. What the various schools quarrel about is how best to maintain and assert American power (soft and hard) and "leadership." When liberal internationalists like John Ikenberry and Anne Marie Slaughter question whether maintenance of a unipolar system is actually in American interests, note how gingerly they approach the issue in order to avoid being treated as anti-American heretics.

"Realists" and "liberal internationalists" may tut at Cheney's confrontational style, and some may question his blatant hypocrisy on the subject of democracy. But I'm rarely seeing any challenge to the basic narrative that Russia deserves a smack-down from the US. First, it's become conventional wisdom (albeit of the ahistorical variety) that Russia is rolling back democracy and increasingly flirting with dictatorship at home [ed. - without really explaining why, it seems to be assumed that Putin's "soft authoritarianism" at home should automatically have a negative impact on US-Russia relations on everything from terrorism to trade]. Second, there's a general feeling that Russia has been getting a bit uppity abroad [ed. - Russia is seen as somehow "meddling" where it doesn't belong, even where some American elites actually agree more with Russia's position than that of the Bush Admin -- e.g. issues such as Iran or the Palestinians]

So maybe it's not surprising that it takes a rabid anti-imperialist who doesn't belong to any of the mainstream foreign policy schools, Justin Raimondo, to produce the first article I've read that condemns Cheney's anti-Russia attacks as something more than just undiplomatic and hypocritical. Even Raimondo, however, doesn't fully link Cheney's moves with the diplomatic games vis a vis Iran.

A five-pronged strategic offensive?

To see how recent Bush Admin policy moves are part of a broader strategy of reasserting hegemony, I find especially helpful the following observation by DrLeoStrauss (Stop the Spirit of Zossen).

The U.S. is currently conducting five separate strategic grand offensives:

(a) the roll back of the old Soviet imperial periphery across Eastern Europe, down through the Russian 'Near Abroad' of Ukraine and Georgia and Central Asia;

(b) the on again off again stuttering efforts to isolate China as the new 'Peer Competitor' across both the Asian Pacific rim and also in Central Asia [ed. - and in recent months, competition in Africa has been added to the list];

(c) conduct an international war on 'terrorism' (such as it is);

(d) lead new international cooperation regarding nuclear and WMD proliferation [ed. - "lead" is a charitably neutral way of describing the Bush Admin goals of (i) leaving to the US the determination of which countries are worthy of obtaining nuclear technology and weapons and (ii) ensuring that no unfriendly state can achieve deterrence against the US use of force]; and

(e) bootstrap the Middle East into modernity through unilateral American force of arms.

(Sprinkle 'democracy' on all of the above).

What's remarkable is that Iran intersects with all five "grand strategic offensives" plus "democracy." That helps explain how and why the Bush Admin has turned the nuclear dispute with Iran into a "crisis" (with considerable help from the Iranians themselves, of course). The Iranian situation offers the Bush Admin an opportunity to make "progress" on a number of its strategic offensives simultaneously -- not just with Iran or with the nuclear proliferation regime but with China and Russia as well.

The UN process is set up for "failure" in the sense that the Bush Admin is not going to obtain the sort of robust steps against Iran that it has sought. Either the Security Council negotiations will produce some sort of deadlock over the statement or, as Bolton has suggested this weekend, the US intends to proceed without Chinese and Russian support. Either outcome would give the US the excuse to ignore the Security Council going forward -- Rice has already been claiming that the Security Council would suffer a fatal "loss of credibility" if it fails to take action on Iran. Next stop, as again Rice has already suggested, is "coalitions of the wiling."

The Bush Admin will likely pin the blame for failure on the "ineffectiveness" of the UN (and international institutions), in general, and on China and Russia, in particular. We should expect the bill of particulars against China and Russia to be three-fold:

• they are authoritarian regimes that cozy up to tyrants for their own narrow economic and geopolitical purposes
• they threaten global energy security (in their roles as major consumer and major producer, respectively), and
• they are potential threats to their neighbors.

Marketing the program

This three-pronged attack draws on several different policy rationales or motives, each with a different way of defining "threats" to American interests:

• Cold War-style: ideologically-defined enemies, based on the "nature of the regime";
• Great Game-style: challenges to US influence/control of global energy;
• US "global leadership"-style: threats to US predominance in any region.

As DrLeoStrauss suggests, even if the Bush Admin's strategic goals were commendable (which I dispute), the simultaneous pursuit of such an ambitious collection of strategic objectives is likely to produce considerable incoherence in execution. Furthermore, as Cheney's trip illustrated, that incoherence will be compounded by relying on such a mix of "styles." It's difficult to reconcile the Cold War-style (e.g. Cheney's ideological assault on Putin's supposed lack of democracy) with the Great Game-style (e.g. fishing for gas deals with Nazerbayev while praising his fifteen-year contribution to Kazakhstan's "political development").

The advantage of this mixed bag of rationales, however, is the same the Bush Admin enjoyed in assembling support for the Iraq war: a bit of something for everyone -- liberal hawks, ideological warriors, "national greatness" conservatives, and old-fashioned military hawks. The fact that no one can explain the "real reason" the US went to war in Iraq isn't a bug, it's a feature.

Of course, such an ambitious program can't be left entirely to the Bush Admin. They need help from pundits and politicians to frame, legitimize and sell the program. Not surprisingly, we've already begun to hear from the usual suspects. A mere four days before Cheney's appearance in Lithuania, Robert Kagan warned in the op-ed pages of the WashPost of a global threat to liberalism potentially greater than Al Qaeda: a "League of Dictators" (read China and Russia) that will use their positions at the UN to undermine the promise of a new international order. Although Kagan's essay is primarily an example of the Cold War-style, he deftly weaves in the "energy security" card by showing how China's ideological and strategic interests (i.e., access to energy) are likely to coincide in places like Africa or Venezuela.

Max Boot has similarly been busy on the op-ed pages. The day before Cheney began his trip in Vilnius, Boot was lamenting the "dictatorship dividend" -- the windfall from rising oil prices enjoyed by "noxious dictators" like Putin and Chavez. Boot hit the trifecta -- the challenge to global "energy security," an ideological conflict, and the threat of "regional contagion."

Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chavez can buy off their publics with generous subsidies and ignore Western pressure while sabotaging democratic developments from Central America to Central Asia.

Since in this article Boot is concerned with nefarious energy suppliers, his list of villains doesn't include China, with which he is willing for the US to make common cause, at least as fellow energy consumers. In a longer piece, I'm confident he'd be able to find a way to lodge China in the enemy camp a la Kagan. As Matt Yglesias notes, Francis Fukuyama reminds us that the PNAC folks always need an enemy, and China was their pre-9/11 favorite. So they may just be reverting to form.

If John McCain's speech at the Brussels Forum on transatlantic relations a week ago is any indication, the "national greatness" conservatives are on the same page as the neocons and, according to Dan Drezner, the "muscular liberals" in the person of Richard Holbrooke are in full agreement with McCain. And of course the human rights folks and democracy true believers have long had China in their sights and are delighted to hear Cheney take on the Russians.

Reporting on his attendance at the Brussels Forum, Drezner notes:

The general tenor of the conference so far has been to focus less on transatlantic frictions and more on the geopolitical and geoeconomic difficulties that Russia and China are posing to the West as a whole. More later, but a question to readers -- will the realpolitik of a rising China and a renegade Russia... be the ultimate driver for a closer transatlantic partnership? And should that be the main driver?

Snark aside, Kagan and Boot give us a taste of the sort of arguments, from the same unholy alliance that brought us Iraq, that I expect to hear against Russia and China as the Bush Admin seeks to reassert American hegemony.

This post certainly requires quite a bit more fleshing out, so let's call it an "Intro." As and if I develop some of these thoughts further, I'll update with links to future posts.

cross-posted at American Footprints

I was flipping through the newest issue of Foreign Affairs and what should I see but an ad for the hot-off-the-presses book by Mark Lynch, aka Abu Aardvark, on Arab media: Voices of the New Arab Public: Iraq, al-Jazeera and Middle East politics today. Here's the catalog description:

Al-Jazeera and other satellite television stations have transformed Arab politics over the last decade. By shattering state control over information and giving a platform to long-stifled voices, these new Arab media have challenged the status quo by encouraging open debate about Iraq, Palestine, Islamism, Arab identity, and other vital political and social issues. These public arguments have redefined what it means to be Arab and reshaped the realm of political possibility. As Marc Lynch shows, the days of monolithic Arab opinion are over. How Arab governments and the United States engage this newly confident and influential public sphere will profoundly shape the future of the Arab world.

Marc Lynch draws on interviews conducted in the Middle East and analyses of Arab satellite television programs, op-ed pages, and public opinion polls to examine the nature, evolution, and influence of the new Arab public sphere. Lynch, who pays close attention to what is actually being said and talked about in the Arab world, takes the contentious issue of Iraq-which has divided Arabs like no other issue-to show how the media revolutionized the formation and expression of public opinion. He presents detailed discussions of Arab arguments about sanctions and the 2003 British and American invasion and occupation of Iraq. While Arabs strongly disagreed about Saddam's regime, they increasingly saw the effects of sanctions as a potent symbol of the suffering of all Arabs. Anger and despair over these sanctions shaped Arab views of America, their governments, and themselves.

Lynch also suggests how the United States can develop and improve its engagement with the Arab public sphere. He argues that the United States should move beyond treating the Arab public sphere as either an enemy to be defeated or an object to be manipulated via public relations. Instead of wasting vast sums of money on a satellite television station nobody watches, the United States should enter the public sphere as it really exists.

Amen, to that last point in particular. And just maybe the much-hyped and much-criticized new public-diplomat-in-chief, Karen Hughes, has figured that out? One indicator is the decision to pull the plug on the innocuous teen-oriented Arabic lifestyle magazine, Hi. Another potential indicator is the doubling of the number of the State Department's media interviews in Arabic this year, to about 100, as reported by Steve Weisman, in a profile of Hughes in the NYT. Weisman also reports that Arabic satellite television is definitely on Hughes' radar screen.

Ms. Hughes departs from one common policy among top American officials. She appears on Al Jazeera, the popular Arabic satellite television station accused by the Pentagon of cooperating with anti-American extremists. This past week, Ms. Hughes sparred with a Jazeera moderator over Iraq, Israel and democracy in the Middle East. "I came here because I respect Al Jazeera," she said. "You have a large audience, and I wanted to address that audience to communicate with the Arab world."

Afterward, Ms. Hughes said that she had been advised not to appear on the station but that she disagreed.

"We have to be out there," Ms. Hughes said. "We may not like everything they report. They may be putting out misinformation. They may incite violence. But we have to be out there."

Marc Lynch has set up a separate blog for discussions of the book, reviews, and his book-promotion schedule, and you can buy it there through his Amazon links. For a good intro to his views, see this recent article in the Wilson Quarterly, Watching al-Jazeera.

cross-posted at American Footprints

I couldn't help stealing that great post title from Patricia Kushlis (PHK) of Whirled View. Her starting point is Elisabeth Bumiller's recent White House Letter ($ req'd), which noted that the Bush Administration is now "on message" regarding the existential threat of an AlQaeda-sponsored caliphate.

Needless to say, both the history and geography contained in the warnings from Cheney et al are more than mildly suspect, as PHK illustrates. But the Caliphate is certainly a colorful way to package the President's claims that the West is engaged in another generational struggle of near-apocalyptic proportions akin to the Cold War. Norman Podhoretz and the World War IV advocates must be highly gratified.

"D" is for Dominoes?

Few would argue that the US is not facing a long-term threat of terrorist attacks on US interests at home and abroad. The debate is rather about the appropriate strategy for addressing that threat, which depends in part on how one views the nature and sources of the enemy's strengths and weaknesses, and the best means to reduce its strength and counter its ability to cause lasting damage. And one of the central points of contention in that debate is the place, within the "global struggle against violent extremism" (yes, GSAVE is actually a useful concept despite its origins) of the current fighting with the AlQaeda-linked insurgents in Iraq.

By introducing the caliphate argument, the Administration seems to be shifting away from crude "flypaper" logic, although certainly not abandoning the rhetoric entirely, based on the President's Sunday speech from the Oval Office. The handy feature of the caliphate argument is that it doesn't simply equate Iraq as the "central front in the GWOT" because that's where the terrorists are fighting. Rather, Iraq is proclaimed to be the main line of defense against the encroachment of a geopolitical enemy. We can't leave Iraq because it could be taken over by AlQaeda -- step one in the march to the caliphate. Echoes of dominoes anyone?

Big Media Justin and his Cato colleague, Christopher Preble, have addressed the Administration's fear of an AlQaeda victory in Iraq in The Daily Star. After examining Iraqi and Arab public opinion, as well as the hostility against AlQaeda of other well-armed Iraqi insurgent groups and sectarian militias, they conclude that if America leaves, AlQaeda will not inherit Iraq.

As Logan and Preble parse recent speeches by Administration figures, what emerges is not only the argument that AlQaeda's defeat in Iraq (by the US or by Iraqi forces?) will be critical to preventing AlQaeda from achieving its goal of a caliphate. That argument is supplemented by the assertion that a withdrawal by the US would be greeted by AlQaeda as a moral victory, which would in turn attract legions of bandwagonning Muslim supporters across the arc of instability.

And "P" is for Peace with Honor?

Shades of Nixon and Kissinger's "peace with honor," the President's Sunday speech expanded on the theoretical costs of America's losing credibility by prematurely withdrawing from Iraq, providing a laundry list of international audiences:

We would abandon our Iraqi friends and signal to the world that America cannot be trusted to keep its word. We would undermine the morale of our troops by betraying the cause for which they have sacrificed. We would cause the tyrants in the Middle East to laugh at our failed resolve, and tighten their repressive grip. We would hand Iraq over to enemies who have pledged to attack us and the global terrorist movement would be emboldened and more dangerous than ever before. To retreat before victory would be an act of recklessness and dishonor, and I will not allow it.

Logan and Preble respond to the President's final warning:

The jihadis will certainly claim that the American withdrawal represents a victory for their side, but they will do so whenever U.S. forces leave - be that next year, or 10 years from now. In his Johns Hopkins speech, Rumsfeld declared that a "retreat in Iraq" would tell our enemies "that if America will not defend itself against terrorists in Iraq, it will not defend itself against terrorists anywhere."

That is absurd. An American military withdrawal from Iraq would not signal that the U.S. has chosen to ignore events there; it expects all countries around the world to cooperate with it in the fight against terrorism. The withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq must be coupled with a clear and unequivocal message to the people of Iraq, and to the world: Do not threaten us; do not support anti-American terrorists. Meanwhile, the U.S. must continue to pursue Zarqawi and his network, just as it pursues bin Laden and his network. The world can be assured: the U.S. will take all necessary measures to carry the fight the enemy, wherever he might reside, be that in Germany, Afghanistan or Iraq.

An American military withdrawal from Iraq will hardly be a stepping stone for Al-Qaeda's grandiose plan to establish an Islamic super-state from Morocco to Indonesia. The Bush administration ought to stop inflating the costs of leaving Iraq, and take a more serious look at the benefits.

That's not to suggest that the Iraqis, the US and Iraq's neighbors shouldn't be concerned about AlQaeda taking advantage of chaos and low-grade civil war in western Iraq to maintain fluid bases of operations from which attacks outside Iraq could be carried out. The recent bombings in Amman underscore that threat. But that argues more in favor of working on the political dimensions of the non-AlQaeda insurgencies. (More on that later.) Not on casting the conflict in Iraq with Zarqawi's supporters as the battlefield on which the future of a caliphate is to be determined.

As I've argued for a long time, the US needs a "peace with honor" exit for its own political equilibrium, not for its international standing, which will be helped, not hurt, by significantly scaling back its involvement in Iraq. And I'm willing to engage in a few harmless fictions from the Administration if it's helpful to that process. But ginning up new existential battles is a pernicious distortion of the threat from terrorism America is facing as well as of the nature of the conflicts in Iraq and the Middle East. As we should already have learned from the Iraq/WMD fiasco, fashioning and executing sensible strategy is considerably more difficult when the Administration engages in fanciful threat inflation.

cross-posted at American Footprints

Dave Schuler (The Glittering Eye) and I have been exchanging some lengthy comments on his blog about the domestic politics of the war in Iraq. Dave and I have similar perspectives on the war -- not only why it was a bad idea strategically in the first place but how, once the US went into Iraq, the US has had both a responsibility and a strategic national interest that compel it to try to make the best of its intervention. We also share similar views of the dynamics of the on-the-ground situation and the limited options remaining now to the US. And we both get extremely cranky when public debate disintegrates into the false dichotomy of "withdrawal" versus "stay the course." At least rhetorically, Dave's a bit more optimistic than I am. He still talks in terms of possible "victory" in the long-term, whereas I've been in "damage control" mode for some time. Still, I'd say that compared to the wide range of opinions about Iraq that you find in the blogosphere, Dave and I are more often than not on the same page (or at least in the same section of the hymnal).

Which is why I find it interesting that Dave and I have such markedly different opinions about the play of domestic politics re Iraq. At the end of an excellent discussion of assumptions underlying the "National Victory Strategy" presented by the President on Wednesday, Dave "couldn't resist" the following remark about "a good part of the Democratic Party" including at least one of what we might call war-Dems, Senator Clinton:

C’mon, folks. Lead, follow, or get the hell out of the way.

In response, I too "couldn't resist" -- commenting in part:

Sorry Dave, you should have resisted. The critiques by the “war-Dems” have been the same as the Republican Senators like McCain, Hagel, Lugar (and even increasingly Warner!) — and they’ve been on the money for the last several years in terms of where the big weaknesses have been in the Admin’s abysmal planning and execution. The changes in policy we’ve seen over the past 4-6 months under the Casey/Khalizad team are the sorts of things that “war-Dems” and the more serious of the Republican Senators have been calling for since 2003. Note Lugar-Biden attempts to deal with these issues in hearings that the media have generally ignored.

I don’t see what the war-Dems have been doing as anything other than responsible. They’re not in a position to “lead”, they surely shouldn’t be expected to have “followed” the criminally incompetent Admin without insisting on changing course, nor do I see them as “in the way.”

Dave clarified what he had meant by his off-the-cuff slap, I responded with a monstrously long essay in the comment thread, and Dave has now penned a further post that goes to what I believe is the heart of the matter. Rather than continue to bury this discussion in comment threads, and eat up vast quantities of his bandwidth, I figured I'd post my response here.

Dave's new post is appropriately titled “The President proposes, Congress disposes” -- "a play on a much older apothegm: 'Man proposes but God disposes'."

When you realize that in the Washingtonism “Man” has been replaced by “The President” and “God” by “Congress”, the meaning becomes quite clear: the President is the handmaiden of Congress and subject to its will, not the other way around.

Under our system the president has primary responsibility for the military, the conduct of foreign policy, and the administration of the departments of government:

The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.

and enforcing the law. The Congress has primary responsibility for the creation, passage, and promulgation of laws (and, of course, raising and apportioning revenue).

Here’s what the Constitution says about the president’s responsibilities in formulating domestic policy:

He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States.

It should be clear that ours is a system in which the bulk of the responsibility particularly in the area of domestic policy devolves upon the Congress; we expect leadership and courage from our Congress; when you have cowardice and venality and a willingness to wait for the President to act and then snipe you get, well, what we have now. But that’s not our system it’s a perversion of our system.
[...]
Like it or not Senators are leaders. The slim Republican majority in the Senate doesn’t absolve the Democrats in the Senate from the responsibility to lead.

Let me be very clear: I’m not just critical of Senate Democrats. I think the Senators of both political parties did not fulfill their responsibilities when they authorized the president to go to war with insufficient debate. But I further think that those Senators who voted “Nay” had a responsibility to hold their peace once our soldiers had gone into harm’s way and those who voted “Aye” had an affirmative responsibility to defend their vote and advocate the position to the American people. This is manifestly not what happened and that’s why I’m convinced that many Senators, particularly Senate Democrats, did not vote their consciences but voted with one eye (as Nadezhda pointed out) on the midterm elections and the other on the upcoming presidential primaries. Of course there will be political calculation from Senators. But there should be more than political calculation. Where is the statesmanship? We aren’t just warring factions; we’re all Americans.

I also freely acknowledge that the greatest incompetency of the Bush Administration has been in communicating with the American people, with the Iraqi people, and with the world. But the Administration doesn’t have sole responsibility for communicating with the American people. Congress has substantial responsibilities in that area, too.

I share Dave's visceral commitment to what at times seems like an old-fashioned notion of separation of powers, with each branch responsible for playing its part and protecting its prerogatives in order for the system's checks and balances to work. Since I began blogging, one of my recurrent themes has been that our checks and balances haven't been working properly in recent years.

Dave and I are also certainly on the same page in believing that Congress has not been living up to its responsibilities. In my view, only the courts have provided an occasional check on executive power. I am personally hopeful, with the first small indications of a reassertion by the Senate of its institutional prerogatives, that a rebalancing is starting to emerge.

I don't, however, put Congress' failure down to sheer cravenness on the part of either individuals or their respective parties. Instead, I see several (hopefully transient) structural factors that have recently inhibited the sort of Democratic leadership Dave calls for -- or encouraged the media to ingnore attempts at constructive leadership by either Democrats or Republicans on the Hill -- while producing a quasi-parliamentary arrangement that fits poorly with the US system.

As Jack Balkan points out in a very nice short essay on the subject of checks and balances, James Madison's assumptions didn't include political parties. When US parties start acting as cohesive blocks, the system's potential weaknesses become glaring. Even before 9/11, some political trends had converged to produce a far more disciplined party-based organization (running the House, extending into the Senate once the party took over the White House, and maintaining its power base through especially effective political-financial connections) than has traditionally been the case in our national politics.

When one party hits the rare "constitutional trifecta" as Balkin calls it -- when all three branches of government "are working more or less together to achieve the party's goals" -- a parliamentary-style system is likely to emerge. And today, the power base that supports the GOP's trifecta is unusually insulated from voter sentiments by the current arithmetic of geographic representation. (See e.g. Hacker & Pierson's The Center No Longer Holds in the NYT Mag from a couple of weeks back.) The cohesion of this party-based organization has been more financial and electoral than ideological. It remains to be seen whether it can renew its cohesiveness now that its primary strengths -- electoral (Bush's popularity) and financial (DeLay-KStreet connection) -- are eroding and ideological fissures are widening.

It is my strong hope that we've not been going through a permanent change in America's political system. Rather, I prefer to believe that we've encountered a sort of perfect storm that has produced an excess of executive power which will be soon begin to be corrected. The combination of 9/11's trauma and the peculiar (to the US) polarizing style of this White House and GOP congressional leadership, when combined with the related growth of executive-branch patronage, has overridden the inherently conservative brakes of our system, not only in the legislative branch but within the executive branch itself. It's not simply the problem of the so-called "Mayberry Machievellis" who ignore substantive policy issues in favor of a purely political calculus. We have seen a widespread pattern of the Bush Administration trying to run a government via little groups of ideologically-committed but inexperienced appointees who bypass the bureaucracy (whether civil service, foreign service, military or intelligence). These practices have served neither the Bush Administration nor the country well.

Post-invasion Iraq and Katrina are two sides of the same coin. Organization Theory 101 teaches us that when you don't involve the folks with experience who are going to have to execute policy in your policymaking or planning, then when it comes time for action and you put your foot on the accelerator, you won't get to where you want to go. The engine may reve, but the connections to the gears and steering are missing or broken. This has not been a problem for the Bush Administration exclusively in the realms of military action or homeland security. The Administration has also been hollowing out the most professional and effective, and least partisan, parts of the bureaucracy, such as Justice and Treasury, and seeding the second tier of departments and agencies with political hacks and ideological naifs. The costs to the government and the nation are increasingly visible, and Congress is finally starting to push back on the appointment process.

In recent months, as more buried problems from Bush's first term start rearing their ugly heads in the press and Senators of both parties increase their pointed critiques of Administration policy, we're starting to hear indirectly from government, military and intel professionals who have been bypassed by the White House (or the Vice President's office) and its political apparatus in the departments and agencies. The whole "torture" and "detainees" issue is a perfect example -- the WH, OSD and DoJ ignored the accumulated wisdom of both the government departments and the military. The bipartisan opposition in the Senate, being led as much by Republicans as Democrats, is starting to give voice to those views. The same has been happening with a number of aspects of the Administration's military, political and diplomatic efforts in Iraq and the Middle East more boradly. Jack Murtha, John Warner, Chuck Hagel, John McCain and Joe Biden each have a different approach for the future course the US should take. But though their conclusions differ, they are all reflecting the facts and opinions they are regularly receiving from officials and officers who have been unable to be heard within the Administration's own decision-making processes.

I think Dave and I agree that a more robust system of Congressional (and especially Senatorial) oversight would and should have brought those voices and views to the fore years ago. As I see it, however, better late than never. I think we are starting to see a natural and healthy process of rebalancing, although it will be a noisy and acrimonious process. But then, it takes a good deal of noise and acrimony to effect a rebalancing when the system has gotten so far out of whack.

My principal disagreement with Dave is that I do not see the noise as the actions of a minority political party adopting the role of "parliamentary opposition" or failing to embrace the fact that "we're all Americans" when it comes to issues of war and peace. We should not be surprised by an occasional "parliamentary opposition" stance taken by the Democrats, primarily in the House given the way it's run. And perhaps on the Alito nomination in the Senate, especially if his files keep producing a stream of worrisome evidence of his opinions and habit of thought on some key issues.

But on the Iraq war, I don't see a "parliamentary opposition" emerging or likely to emerge. The Democrats have agreed to disagree among themselves for the past three years. As the debates heat up, they are already reverting to form (and to the incentives of the US system of constituency representation), with a considerable variety of individually-defined and rather nuanced positions. I assume that Reid and Pelosi won't even try for a unified party position on the war, since they know better than anyone it's like trying to herd cats. As the President's power has started to erode, the same phenomenon, by the way, has been emerging on the Republican side in the Senate, though the critiques of the President's performance by Republican Senators are more implicit than explicit.

Instead, we're likely to see more and more highly charged debates over policy positions that are, on close examination, difficult to distinguish. Battles to the death over distinctions without significant differences may simply be the way the American political system deals with disagreements over war, as Ed Kilgore has recently reminded us.

I had one of those old-guy moments today when I suddenly remembered a moment in the debate on Vietnam which reminds me of the odd disjunction between the relatively small policy differences dividing most Democrats and many Republicans on Iraq, and the big tonal and intepretative differences they sometimes convey.

In the famously fractious 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the big platform debate over Vietnam (note to young people: this was back when big platform debates were still possible) involved a majority plank which endorsed free elections in South Vietnam to create a coalition government including the National Liberation Front (the political arm of the Viet Cong), and a minority plank endorsing a coalition government including the NLF that would be required to sponsor free elections. The policy distinctions between these two planks were about as meaningful as today's difference between supporters of a benchmarked withdrawal from Iraq based on estimated dates, and a timetable withdrawal contingent on benchmarks.

Yet at the time, these two proposals were almost universally described by the news media as "pro-war" and "anti-war" platform planks.

The lesson is this: So much as many of us might wish to focus on the policy details of proposals about what to do now in Iraq, you can't take the politics out of politics, and the "tonal" or "contextual" implications of various proposals, despite their substantive similarity, matter a great deal.

The challenge of reconciling policy with political imperatives isn't unique to Democrats. Praktike and I have written repeatedly on the huge gap between the President's political rhetoric on Iraq and the evolving (and improving) policies being adopted by both the military and the State Department in his second term. The primary virtue of what the President accomplished in his speech this week was to narrow the rhetoric/reality gap, as did his spokesman in somewhat disingenously claiming that Senator Biden's proposals represented Biden's embrace of the President's own strategy, as described by Eric Martin.

These sorts of "failures to communicate" that Dave bemoans are, in part, driven by political considerations of the White House and politicians of both parties positioning themselves with the electorate. Let's hope for all our sakes that the politics this time serves a broader purpose than acting as a circular firing squad of Democrats. At the close of Jack Balkin's admittedly partisan essay on the structural reasons for recent failures of Congressional oversight, he asks:

If Congress won't perform its assigned function of oversight, the only recourse is the American people. Will they become sufficiently engaged to put our constitutional system back in order, and once again let ambition counter ambition?

Many media commentators, especially the purveyors of "moderation" and the "pox on both your houses" punditocracy, argue that the Democrats shouldn't run so heavily against the performance of the Bush Administration since Bush won't be on the ballot in 2008. But that misses the point that one of the major political themes running across both domestic and foreign policy is a rebalancing of the system of powers. It's in the interest of the health of the body politic that we "once again let ambition counter ambition."

[cross-posted at American Footprints aka Liberals against Terrorism]

A follow-up to praktike's prior post. Prak points to why I found the recent profile on a group of Sunni insurgents so interesting. You wouldn't know it from listening to our President or Secretary of State, but political participation and violence aren't an "either/or" proposition. In the run-up to the December elections, we shouldn't anticipate that violence will be limited to those insurgents who oppose any Sunni participation in the electoral process. Nor should we expect that a high turnout in Sunni areas would foretell a major reduction in post-election violence.

One reason to expect continued violence is highlighted in the article prak cites: even if Sunnis were more satisfied with their representation in the emerging political system, that would not remove one of the major motives for violence -- the US presence. But even if the US military were to withdraw tomorrow and the December elections produced a more "inclusive" political system, we should not be surprised if violence remains a significant feature of the political landscape.

Just an impression -- sorry, no links -- but it seems to me commentators are starting to use the three-plus decades of Northern Ireland's Troubles to point out a simple fact: political participation and violence are often complementary tactics within a broader opposition/resistance strategy. The "military wing" can be used to enhance credibility or political power for the "political wing."

Some of the patterns we should expect during the run-up to and after the December elections among Sunni groups that aren't total rejectionists of any political participation:

• The "hard men" try to get the government and other political groups to take their "political wing" seriously by, at the very least, holding out the threat of continued violence.
  
• They use high-profile attacks to attract the support (including the votes) of constituencies that agree with their aims and admire their willingness to fight and take personal risks.
  
• They try to radicalize the political process by muscling out of the political space (through intimidation, assassination etc) other politicians who are competing for the same base but who renounce violence.
  
• They use violent criminal activities (robbery, smuggling, kidnapping, protection rackets and other extortion) to obtain important resources for their movement (funding, weapons) or enhance their personal power via personal enrichment.

A number of these observations would also apply in some regions to Shi'a and Kurd militias that are closely linked with formal political groupings.

I'm not suggesting that elections are bad. In fact, one of the reasons I had hoped for elections in Iraq much earlier was to reduce the period of time during which "vested interests" in continued violence, especially criminal connections, were created and became valuable for members of fighting groups. The fact that a large number of individuals have "vested interests" in continued violence means that, at least for many Sunni groups, the "military wing" is likely to outweigh the political side for some time to come. The importance of the "military wing" for the Kurds and some of the Shi'a groups will actually increase in some locations, such as Kirkuk, where key political solutions are yet to be defined.

The continued importance of the "military wings" reduces the likelihood that Khalizad's "national reconciliation strategy" (see Fareed Zakaria) will produce quick, large-scale reduction in the level of violence. We should also expect that any attempts by the US to negotiate with insurgent groups will be an immensely complex and drawnout process.

That's not to suggest that a primary focus on political solutions to address violence by insurgent or militia groups is unwarranted. On this score, the Bush Administration is right -- insurgencies are ultimately defeated politically, not militarily. Indeed, pursuing policies that establish reconciliation processes, such as amnesties, are critical and, in fact, probably long overdue. In my opinion, the significance of Saddam's trial is ultimately how it contributes to or erodes the prospects of Iraqis becoming reconciled with their future political system, if not with each other and with their pasts.

In the long run, the fighters have to be either brought "in from the cold" or, if they refuse to renounce violence, marginalized from mainstream political, social and economic life. As is illustrated by the gradual process by which Sein Fein distanced itself from the military IRA, if the political system begins to work, there seems to come a "tipping point" where violence starts working against the political agenda rather than supporting it. But Northern Ireland also illustrates that it's a long, complicated process that demands both the internal development of political institutions and continuing engagement by the international community.

[cross-posted at Liberals Against Terrorism]

At A Fistful of Euros, Doug Muir (Halfway down the Danube) digs through a recent Eurobarometer poll on EU enlargement and finds some fascinating patterns.

The big picture holds no surprise -- those polled from countries which are newly added members are decidedly more enthusiastic about further enlargement than those from the older fifteen members. And Albania and Turkey don't generate much enthusiasm at all.

Where things get interesting is breaking down the poll further by both individual member countries and candidate countries. Among the older fifteen, the Brits are less favorable to enlargement in the abstract, and more so when considering the candidacies of specific countries. The reverse is true for Spain and Portugal. And Austrians seem to be a bunch of Dr No's across the board -- maybe that's what 50 years of neutrality will do for you.

Long-standing diplomatic ties seem to be less important for producing favorable attitudes than more recent economic links -- or else, familiarity breeds contempt -- but Romania isn't a favorite with the French public, nor is Croatia with Germans. And the biggest surprise for me is that Bulgaria seems to have had wide success in winning hearts if not minds.

Doug has lots more interesting bits.

And while we're on the subject of aFoE's coverage of Europolitics, check out guest blogger Alex Harrowell (my favorite Yorkshire Ranter) and his most recent German election watch. He reads the German press so you don't have to pretend to and sketches the permutations and combinations of coalitions, grand and not so grand, including "the possibility of the imagination-buggering Schröder-Lafontaine reconciliation."

Via AP, More Changes Said Likely to Iraq Charter:

The U.S. ambassador suggested Tuesday there may be further changes to the draft constitution in order to win Sunni Arab approval, saying he believed a "final, final draft" had not yet been presented.
[...]
"I believe that a final, final draft has not yet been, or the edits have not been, presented yet, so that is something that Iraqis will have to talk to each other and decide for themselves," Khalilzad told reporters.

The law says the version signed off on by parliament Sunday cannot be amended. But Khalilzad said the door could be open for changes declared as "edits" to the approved text. There was no official comment from the Shiite parliamentary leadership on whether it shared that opinion.

However, influential Shiite lawmaker Khaled al-Attiyah, a member of the constitution drafting committee, insisted that "no changes are allowed to be made to the constitution" except for "minor edits for the language."

Shiite leaders consider some of the Sunni objections — especially on federalism and references to the Baath Party — as matters of principle.

An Arab League official in Cairo, meanwhile, said Arab diplomats were urging the Iraqis to amend the constitution to strengthen references to the country's role in the Arab world.

Iraqi Sunni Arabs cited the phrase among reasons they rejected the draft, . Although the law forbids further changes in the draft, the stakes are so high that Iraqis may overlook legalisms in a bid for unity. A Sunni constitution negotiator urged all opponents of the constitution, including radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, to join a national front against the charter.

Khalilzad spoke alongside prominent Sunni leader Adnan al-Dulaimi, who urged Sunnis to reject the constitution in the Oct. 15 referendum as it stands. He also denounced the Shiite-led Interior Ministry for allegedly murdering Sunnis.

It was unclear if negotiations among the factions were actually under way. But the presence of Khalilzad with a respected Sunni figure was a clear sign the Bush administration has not given up on its campaign to win Sunni endorsement before the referendum.

"With regards to the constitution, as I said before, if Iraqis among themselves, in the assembly and those from outside, decide to make some adjustments compared to the draft that was presented three, four days ago, it's entirely up to them," Khalilzad said.

Let's set to one side the awkward detail that the draft has already appeared in the local newspapers and may already have started coming off the printing presses for public distribution.

What seems clear is not just that the Founding Fathers shtick isn't playing very well, in either Baghdad or Peoria. The US is understandably getting mighty uncomfortable being in the position of defending a constitutional process that's seen by many Sunnis, in and outside Iraq, as a declaration of civil war. And of building the capacity of an army and police force that are viewed as already engaged in "soft cleansing." Standing next to a Sunni leader, it's becoming harder for Zal Khalilzad to maintain even a figleaf of an "honest broker" role. Yet the grand irony is that the US military will be fighting "anti-Iraqi forces" to try to ensure security for Sunni voters to get to the polls to defeat the draft constitution.

Meanwhile, the Arab League is, of course, typically late to the party. And futhermore, if the Arab League actually wanted to be relevant to the whole process, they could focus a bit more on substance. The "Arab nation" issue is certainly important and hot-button, but the legitimate problems the Sunni negotiators had with the draft go to the structure of the country, their role in it, and whether the majority is going to steamroll them on a regular basis, not Arab identity. The Daily Star, no fan of Amr Moussa in any event, argues that the League's General Secretary and the League itself are worse than useless.

[Moussa's] current criticism of the Iraqi charter offers no tangible solutions and therefore does little to ease the volatile situation in the country. Given the fact that the only hope for Iraq at this crucial juncture is the political process, Moussa's statement, which undermines that process, only serves to fuel sectarian aggravations in the country.

Sadly, Moussa has never made an effort to take the Iraqis under the wing of the league. This paper urged the Arab League to become actively involved in the drafting of the Iraqi constitution by offering guidance, advice and expertise. Discussions over the draft charter could have taken place under the auspices of the Arab League, but the organization never managed to rise to the level of the challenges in Iraq. For months, as the debate over federalism and Arabism has been raging, the Arab League has said nothing. If these issues were of such great Arab concern, one wonders why Moussa didn't visit Iraq and meet with the various community leaders to urge consensus on the matter.

This inaction on the part of the Arab League is also nothing new. The league was silent when thousands of Sudanese were being slaughtered by government-backed militias in Darfur. It did nothing to help resolve the dispute between Qatar and Saudi Arabia over their shared border, nor did it act to reduce tensions between Syria and Lebanon after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

A harsh assessment, yes. But unfortunately, a fair one. With Khalilzad openly taking the risk of keeping a crack open for some accommodation with the Sunnis, it remains to be seen whether outsiders like the Arab League can avoid the temptation to grandstand and instead play a useful role. Based on past performance, the odds aren't good.

Of course, if our pal Zal were listening to Jim Hoagland do his best Charlie McCarthy imitation, channeling the voice of Ahmad Chalabi, Zal wouldn't be making another "risky intervention" like the President so foolishly did last week with his famous phone call to Shi'a leader Hakim. Instead of sticking his neck out for Sunni participation, Khalilzad really ought to be joining in with the Iraqi spirit of democracy and self-governance. Instead of standing next to a Sunni leader, he ought to be signing on to the strategic alliance between Najaf and Washington advocated by another DC pundit, David Ignatius, who thinks Washington should place its bets on the Shi'a version of a "grand plan" for democracy, even if it does involve a bit more untidiness for another decade or two.

Count me a cynic, but I won't complain if Bush can relinquish his typical "we've got the votes so we call the shots" approach to politics and show some sympathy for the importance of consensus. More power to Khalilzad if, by tinkering a bit with the Iraqi democratic process, he can obtain an outcome that at least a portion of the Sunnis might be willing to endorse. Unfortunately for the US, its leverage is increasingly weak. And the position in which the US is finding itself is being dictated by local contending factions, not by US choice.

A couple of months ago, Joe Biden offered four options for the future course of the US engagement in Iraq: (1) stay the course/muddle through, (2) withdraw with or without a timetable, (3) limit US losses by throwing in with the Kurds and Shi'a, or (4) "do more, better." Biden was advocating steps he thought would make up the fourth option, but he recognized that the third option "may end up being our only option if we don't do the right thing in the near term." Increasingly, it's looking like Door No. 3 by default.

cross-posted at Liberals Against Terrorism

This fascinating tidbit comes from Mahalanobis:

A study ($) of Chinese and American students has found that the two groups looked at scenes in photographs in distinct ways. The findings indicate that previously observed cultural differences in judgment and memory between East Asians and North Americans derive from differences in what they actually see. There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that whereas North Americans tend to be more analytic when evaluating a scenario, fixating on the focal object, East Asians are generally more holistic, giving more consideration to the context.
[...]
As the team predicted, the American students homed in on the focal subject sooner and longer than did the Chinese students, who paid more attention to the background imagery. This suggests that the Americans encoded more visual details for the focal objects than did the Chinese, which would explain why the Americans fared better when it came to determining whether they had seen a given subject before, even when it was presented against a new backdrop.

Nisbett and his collaborators posit that these differences in attention to object and context arise through socialization practices. "East Asians live in relatively complex social networks with prescribed role relations. Attention to context is, therefore, important for effective functioning," the scientists observe. "In contrast, Westerners live in less constraining social worlds that stress independence and allow them to pay less attention to context.

Now wouldn't it be interesting to see what sort of differences, if any, correlate with greater exposure to other cultures, such as traveling or living abroad. One could speculate that paying greater attention to context might not be all that bad an acquired perspective for some Americans.

Justin Logan, sitting in at Unqualified Offerings, has fun with the pro-war folks who remain fantastically (in all senses of the word) upbeat about what the war in Iraq has wrought, no matter the evidence. He points specifically to Reuel Marc Gerecht's recent "don't worry" commentaries on the likelihood that Sharia law will have a prominent place in the new Iraq.

Gerecht's performance this weekend on Meet the Press has attracted considerable attention:

DAVID GREGORY: Fast forward to this morning. Gentlemen, we put this on the screen from The New York Times. "[American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay] Khalilzad had backed language [in the constitution] that would have given clerics sole authority in settling marriage and family disputes. That gave rise to concerns that women's rights, as they are annunciated [sic] in Iraq's existing laws, could be curtailed. ... [The] arrangement, coupled with the expansive language for Islam, prompted accusations from [a Kurdish leader] that the Americans were helping in the formation of an Islamic state."

Mr. Diamond, is that a change of position?

LARRY DIAMOND: It would be, I think, a substantial change if it's true. We need to wait and see what exactly is true. All of these are just reports. Let me say, I don't think we have--and I think Reuel would agree with this--we don't have the power anymore to foreclose this, to veto this. We're not a veto player there anymore. But neither do I think the United States should be endorsing it. And I think our clear stand should be in favor of individual rights and freedoms, including religious freedom, as vigorously as possible. So I hope the ambassador on the ground is standing up for that principle.

MR. GREGORY: Mr. Gerecht, the consequences of this?

REUEL MARC GERECHT: Actually, I'm not terribly worried about this. I mean, one hopes that the Iraqis protect women's social rights as much as possible. It certainly seems clear that in protecting the political rights, there's no discussion of women not having the right to vote. I think it's important to remember that in the year 1900, for example, in the United States, it was a democracy then. In 1900, women did not have the right to vote. If Iraqis could develop a democracy that resembled America in the 1900s, I think we'd all be thrilled. I mean, women's social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy. We hope they're there. I think they will be there. But I think we need to put this into perspective. [emph supplied]

I will give Gerecht this -- he's a bit more credible on this score than the johnnie-come-latelies who have recently discovered that Sharia law doesn't matter. For more than a year on the "expert panels" circuit, Gerecht has been making the case for aggressively supporting democratization in MENA, not just in Iraq, even though it will most likely involve Islamist parties gaining significant political power. And he's also been one of those pointing to ">Shi'a jurisprudential traditions (of which Sistani is a leading example) as in many ways more promising than Sunnis' in helping Islam to come to terms with the 21st century.

Gerecht argues against the sort of policies pursued with respect to Algeria when the government halted the electoral process as Islamist parties were winning victories at the ballot box. He argues that political transformation will not happen through liberal reformers taking over -- they won't get the votes -- or hoping that the current entrenched authoritarian regimes get hit by a bolt of enlightenment and suddenly transform themselves into liberal systems. Instead, transformation to a more democratic order will only occur if the Islamist politicians and clerics are made part of the system.

Gerecht is of the "give them enough rope they'll hang themselves" school. Leading Islamist political groups in most countries right now don't really have a platform -- they're mostly just opposing the current regime with vague calls for a system based in Islam which would magically be more harmonious and virtuous. Gerecht's theory is that when the Islamists have to face the hard facts of governing, they'll also have to face the reality of keeping voters happy. So democratic accountability will serve to moderate the Islamist parties over time.

I have a lot of sympathy for the broad approach of bringing the Islamist parties into the system rather than continue to try to marginalize them -- that's just putting off the inevitable and increasing the odds that when regime change finally happens it will be violently revolutionary with decades of turmoil to follow. I have also long shared Gerecht's admiration of Sistani. I must add, however, that I think Gerecht puts an excessively high premium on political freedoms relative to other freedoms.

But I'm far less relaxed about the mechanisms by which Sharia law is incorporated into a system -- it's hard to keep it limited to just dealing with "social" rights and freedoms. The temptation becomes great to have the clerics involved in the "judicial review" of the whole shooting match, which is what the really critical debate has been about over the past few days in Iraq. It's all well and good to say that the system has to be consistent with Islamic law -- the key is who decides and under what mechanism. Billmon, in his recent series on the realpolitik of Iraq's constitutional process, details the threat of a slippery slope to theocracy when clerics start getting rights of "judicial review."

The other Iraq-specific objection I have to Gerecht and his fellow-travelers is that Iraq is decidedly different from other countries in the region on the women's rights front. It's one thing to take a gradualist approach to securing and expanding women's rights as the political, social and economic cultures evolve. For example, some Arab "feminists" have had more success achieving changes in women's status laws through an appeal to Islamic principles than Western-style liberal concepts. But it's another thing altogether to take a giant leap backwards, as is being proposed in Iraq, and expect women to start all over in a gradualist process. If the proposed reversal of women's legal status is accepted, it will serve as a strong rationalization of the severe extra-legal restrictions and intimidation that, since the US invasion, have been increasingly felt across all spheres of women's lives.

Gerecht seems to think that as long as women have some minimal rights of political participation, they'll be able to eventually demand and reclaim the legal, social and economic status they enjoyed under the previous regime. But he ignores how, once the overall status of women has declined and their ability to protect themselves reduced, those minimal participatory rights to which Gerecht refers are unlikely to be very effective vehicles for making themselves heard.

Butterflies and Wheels provides the example of this problem in practice -- this week's local elections in the North Western Frontier Provinces in Pakistan. Women are legally entitled to vote, and in fact over a quarter of the candidates are women. But tribal elders took it upon themselves in some areas to ban women from voting. The national government seems to have tried to intervene to halt the denial of women's suffrage, but one would expect that there was a significant suppression of women's participation, and a number of irregularities were noted in women's (segregated, of course) polling places.

Even where women's participation is not so severely circumscribed, it's a giant leap to assume that they will be able to effectively reclaim through the political process their prior status and freedoms. A recent study of women in parliaments in Egypt, Syria and Tunisia identified a number of reasons why they have had "little legislative or political influence." First, of course, is that in most such legislative bodies, they represent a small percentage of total members. But other factors are also involved that won't be "cured" simply by mandating a certain percentage of seats go to women.

• Second, female MPs tend to avoid focusing on gender-related legislation such as women's labor rights and family laws, and instead direct their efforts to less controversial [read safer] matters....
  
  
• Third, because most women MPs belong to the ruling party, and in some cases have gained their seats through presidential appointment, they overwhelmingly support regime policies and rarely challenge the government through questioning ministers or a vote of no confidence. [This has certainly been the case for most of the women who won seats in Iraq's interim parliament as part of the national electoral lists, and it would be surprising if that pattern did not continue under the new constitution .]
  
  
• Finally, women do not coordinate among themselves on legislation, further diluting their influence. [Lack of coordination is not surprising, given the second and third factors identified above.]

If the clerics dominate "social" law and acquire strong influence over the legislative and judicial systems, then whatever pretty "equality of rights" language may be contained in the constitution will be worthless window-dressing. "Just be patient little ladies" or "go spend decades fighting to get back what you used to enjoy" isn't an adequate response.

We're looking at a tragedy, quite simply. Larry Diamond is almost certainly right -- the US doesn't have a "veto" anymore. The outcome may, by now, be unavoidable. And in the great grand "perspective" of trying to tamp down the further spread of inter-tribal warfare, sacrificing the lives of the women of Iraq may be collateral damage. But Larry Diamond had the good sense and basic humanity to hope that the US would not endorse this "compromise."

Gerecht & co should be ashamed of themselves for so lightly dismissing the terrible costs that will be borne by Iraqi women in the years ahead.

cross-posted at Liberals Against Terrorism

And now, moving back from politics to policy again. One of the interesting points about Juan Cole's "plan" that I linked to previously is the distinction he makes between withdrawing US ground forces based in Iraq and total disengagement. He sees an ongoing need for American military support for the Iraqi government and to deter an all-out "set-piece" civil war.

Rob Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money, in reviewing Cole's proposals, raises a good caveat on the limits to the efficacy of US air power as a guarantee.

Some similar thoughts on a "withdrawal-lite" that provides for continued engagement has been offered by Daniel Byman of Georgetown/Brookings. Brad Plumer discusses in a series of posts here, here and here.

And Kevin Drum chimes in that we have to take the risk of a failed state or civil war seriously. The debate should therefore be over how best to achieve what I've called "mission damage control." He argues for his preferred approach -- an announced timetable.

UPDATE: Fafblog has the definitive cunning plan. Check out those permanent bases!

cross-posted at Liberals Against Terrorism