Well, you can only get so pumped about an Inaugural, before the back-patting for being democratic starts to wear thin--especially when the incumbent spends his entire speech talking as if he'd been elected Grand Consul of the Planet. It's time to evaluate how we walk the talk, and we're not walking in a very promising direction.
Iraq and Iran represent where we are and where we appear headed, respectively. I had definitely heard with interest an overview of Sy Hersh's report on US covert involvement in Iran. Now compared to bombings, urban search and clear missions and the ugly policing of civilians, black ops don't necessarily sound like an unreasonable alternative. They're not pretty, and they are usually beyond control, but they are the most tightly focused operations directly against an enemy. Infiltration better guarantees that you're interdicting actual insurgents/terrorists. So I didn't buy the angry US denials, nor did I think too much of the implications. Besides, that's pretty much what the CIA is for.
My first big mistake would be believing that the White House would trust the CIA with anything again. Of course not:
The President has signed a series of findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as ten nations in the Middle East and South Asia. The President’s decision enables Rumsfeld to run the operations off the books—free from legal restrictions imposed on the C.I.A.
OK, so that 's a big red flag right there. Who has focked up our foreign policy outcomes more than any other official in the administration? The Secretary of Defense. Want a recent example? He's totally short staffed Mosul with Stryker brigades rather than full battalions, and now Mosul is awash in chaos. What's the response? Hand him more oversight. Hersh goes on for pages about the ways in which Rumsfeld can now conduct operations of any kind, in almost any place, without telling anyone.
But that's Sy Hersh, and while he has been spot-on regarding his intel on the Middle East lately, he is not a direct conduit into the national media consciousness. Try as he might, he only seems able to break stories, not make them. One place that was apparently happy to swoop in on Hersh's story was WaPo, who in so doing have strongly ratified what Hersh was telling us: the President has given Rumsfeld black ops permission wherever he wants, and Iran is the first stop. Why might they be angrily pursuing nuclear weapons? Maybe because they were stung by the dirty dealings done against them when Bush I was backing Saddam in the war. Who was working on that angle back then? Hmmm... And what really is going on in Iran? Do we know? How competent are they? According to the Arms Control Association, not very.
So when WaPo talks, people like John McCain listen. McCain now wants hearings to learn more about Rumsfeld's secret army. Stay tuned on that one.
As far as Iraq goes, the common meme from the administration and likeminded media is that elections are a small but important step, and Iraqis will use it to develop their sense of democratic self--they'll surprise us with their pluckiness, those doggone Iraqis! That's the outlook I'm sensing from the Krauthammers and Novaks, et al. Many are citing the International Republican Institute's (!) recent survey of Iraqis, showing 64% were very likely to vote--a figure most outlets inflated to 80% because the additional 16% "somewhat likely" figured to be more likely than somewhat, I guess.
The survey showed all but two provinces provided respondents, and cited security problems as the reason for the omission of the other two. Now, start with 60% Shia and 15% Kurd, and you've got about 75% of your sample looking forward to the vote. The problem has never been the 75%, it's been the 25% who are looking at the fairplay of Turnabout, ready to turn squarely into their faces. They do note that Sunni voting likelihood is running at 50% combined, one assumes more somewhat than likely.
But if the survey takers are limiting themselves to areas where they can safely poll, you have to have serious doubts about the randomness of the survey. For journalists, anything going on outside of Baghdad if you're in Baghdad, as far as you're concerned is only going on if the military wants you to know it's going on. According to UK Independent correspondent Robert Fisk, many don't even leave their hotel rooms, leading Fisk to call it Hotel Journalism. Sadr's radicals are bailing--good news or bad I'm not sure--and Zarqawi is declaring war on the ballot. So I'm not yet sure what ray of hope is warranted, and I'm not sure anyone really knows what kind of turnout or result they'll get, and whether it will mean any kind of turning point--or just a signpost.
A broad word of thanks and hat tips to Doug Ireland's blog; several of the cites I've provided here started out as places I found after reading his posts.
--TJ
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