State Versus Defense

The WaPo on the battles underway between Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon. A prominent part of the piece has to do with a Newt Gingrich broadside against Powell's State Department.

Some key language:

"Gingrich said the "final straw" that caused him to speak out was Powell's announcement that he planned to visit Syria. Rumsfeld and other top Pentagon officials had assailed Syria, accusing the country of aiding Saddam Hussein's government and allowing top Iraqi officials to flee. Powell's statement helped cool the diplomatic fires. But Gingrich said Powell should not visit a country that he said was obviously linked to terrorism.

Powell allowed himself to be convinced to go to Damascus" by the department's Near East Bureau, which Gingrich said "appeases dictators and tries to be nice to corrupt regimes." The State Department official noted that Bush said over the weekend that Syria appeared to be cooperating in response to U.S. concerns, in effect endorsing Powell's approach."

Listen, this isn't Warren Christopher off to Damascus for his 26th visit or such. The Syrians have assured visiting Congressmen that they will not provide asylum to any of Saddam's former henchmen or other wanted Iraqi Baath party officials. On WMD, we will have to wait and see if there is any evidence that Iraqi chemical or biological agents may have been transferred to Syria but grandstanding about it at the present moment is unwise until compelling intelligence proves the case.

This leaves the terrorism issue. Damascus has cooperated on providing critical intelligence regarding al-Qaeda in the past. The U.S., however, has very real concerns about their support to Hezbollah and, to a lesser extent, Hamas (this is less of a "global reach" terror group than Hezbollah). But having the Secretary of State press Bush's agenda (make no mistake, it is Bush's agenda, despite Newt trying to make Powell's Damascus trip sound like a nefarious plot hatched by hapless Arabists at NEA) in Damascus is just fine. Better to apply diplomatic pressure, in person at such high levels, than continue the breathless pontifications that Damascus is next--at least at this juncture.

Some neo-cons might find my musings above wobbly Foggy Bottom prattle. But the bottom line is that marching to Damascus now, or even imposing severe economic sanctions without even trying to make progress diplomatically, would be folly. What is needed now is a vigorous diplomatic push to have a chastened Damascus, cowed by the rapid-fire implosion of their fellow Baathists across the border, make very real concessions to the U.S. Let's give Powell a chance to do that contra Newt's broadside.

Kennedy's Back!

Well, at least Paul Kennedy, author of the gloomy late '80's tome "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers." In a lengthy WaPo outlook section piece, Kennedy dusts off the old opus and recycles it, tells us why we aren't on our way to Damascus (or Teheran) now (but might be soon, he implausibly argues), and reminds us of all the problems the hapless Brits had in the Middle East early in the last century.

Put this one in the poor prognostications department (will he ever learn?). As I've argued before, no Washington consensus exists now (or will exist during this Administration) that calls for taking out the regimes in Syria and Iran by force and occupying those countries in "Empire"-like fashion, while pressuring the Saudis, Egyptians and other assorted Arab leaders to democratize with dispatch or face American retribution.

Instead, we have removed a sadistic despot with WMD capability from the scene and are now proceeding to have, through diplomatic (and perhaps economic) pressure, neighboring governments reform their behavior when it comes to WMD-possession or support of global terror groups. Contemporaneously, I trust, pressure will be applied in both Tel Aviv and Ramallah to make headway on "roadmap" implementation.

Is this tantamount to taking on Kipling's "white man's burden" as Kennedy, in cliched fashion, trots out at the end of his op-ed?

WMD Watch

"Where's all the WMD?", the Iraq skeptics will doubtless begin to bellow more loudly in the coming days. Judith Miller, on the WMD beat for a good while and one of the NYT's more intrepid reporters, has the goods here:

Money grafs:

"Military officials said the scientist told them that four days before President Bush gave Mr. Hussein 48 hours to leave Iraq or face war, Iraqi officials set fire to a warehouse where biological weapons research and development was conducted.

The officials quoted him as saying he had watched several months before the outbreak of the war as Iraqis buried chemical precursors and other sensitive material to conceal and preserve them for future use. The officials said the scientist showed them documents, samples, and other evidence of the program that he claimed to have stolen to prove that the program existed."

Miller's piece will also give neo-con Syria Bashar-bashers more ammo but there is nothing here that is out and out damning vis-a-vis Damascus. More footwork needs to be done on the extent of (if any) WMD transfers to Syria by Iraq over the past few years.

Gone Fishing

Apologies for the very light postings that look set to last through the Monday after Easter Sunday. I am traveling and, as of tomorrow, without any Internet access for several days. Thanks for your patience.

Axis of Evil

It's increasingly looking like Damascus is replacing Baghdad so that the Axis of Evil remains a triumvirate. I'm beginning to wonder if Bashar's father would have been so clumsy in dealing with this U.S. Administration? Probably, not. Let's at least hope Bashar hasn't done something really dumb like harbor Saddam (if he's indeed alive and not in some Tikrit bunker) or accepted the transfer of significant WMD to his country for safekeeping or the like.

North Korea Watch

The NYT appears a bit schizoid regarding NoKo today. There is an ominous tone in this story from Dave Sanger:

"The North Koreans have been eerily quiet for the past three weeks. "Kim Jong Il has gone underground for months, and no one is sure why," said one senior official. Yet satellite photographs continue to show steady progress at his one known nuclear site."

Then James Brooke's reports, rather contra to the tone in Sanger's piece, that Pyongyang has just made a highly significant diplomatic concession:

"In a policy shift, North Korea said today that it would negotiate its nuclear program without sticking "to any particular dialogue format" if the United States changed its stance on the issue." In other words, they are finally dropping their demand for one-on-one talks in a direct bilateral forum with the U.S.--a non-starter for most policymakers in Washington.

There is also this intriguing quote from the South Korean President:

"North Korea is "petrified" by the rapid American victory in Iraq, Mr. Roh said Friday in an interview with The Washington Post."

Remember how conflict in Iraq was going to inexorably lead NoKo to take provocative actions to goad us into miscalculations while we were occupied in Iraq? Quite the opposite, at least at this juncture. A show of strength by the U.S. in Iraq (and perhaps some long overdue concerted diplomatic pressure from regional players on Pyongyang) has led to, at least for now, more conciliatory noises emanating from Kim Jong Il.

Fiske Alert

Robert Fiske writing in the Independent:

"American control of the city is, at best, tenuous – a fact underlined after several marines were killed last night by a suicide bomber close to the square where a statue of Saddam Hussein was pulled down on Wednesday, in the most staged photo-opportunity since Iwo Jima."

That's quite a charge, isn't it? Might Fiske even attempt to corroborate his claim? Nah, why bother...

Of course, Fiske is writing in a paper that will headline this tomorrow.

"A City in Flames, A Nation in Chaos"? Almost makes you pine for the good old days of order and discipline under Saddam...

Josh Marshall has a less hyperbolic analysis here.

Passions Running High over Ahmed Chalabi!

Here's the view from the pro-Foggy Bottom anti-Pentagon side of the fence.

Galbraith finds a pretty fired up Danielle Pletka when interviewing her for this article:

"Danielle Pletka, vice president of the AEI and an expert on the Iraqi opposition, angrily denounced State Department officials who disparage Chalabi. "The [Defense Department] is running post-Saddam Iraq," said Pletka, almost shouting. "The people at the State Department don't know what they are talking about! Who the hell are they? Who gives a good goddamn what they think?" Pletka concedes that the State Department has a "deep bench," a lot of expertise and Arabic-speaking professionals. "But they need to remember that the president of the United States needs to be boss," she said. "And the simple fact is, the president is comfortable with people who are comfortable with the INC."

Oh my.

Meanwhile, a retired diplomat who served often in the Middle East and is not a died-in-the-wool-Arabist-type describes Chalabi to me thus:

"Unreliable, financially suspect (implicated in a corrupt banking deal in Jordan), self promoter and not considered to have grass roots support among Shi'a."

It's going to get nasty and Dubya is going to have to play umpire. Stay tuned.

"Embarassed" German Anti-War Protestors

And this a headline in Le Monde!

Embarrased, perhaps, yet a planned Berlin anti-war protest is set to go forward regardless this Saturday. Meanwhile:

"Alors que les Irakiens faisaient la fête à Bagdad, leurs compatriotes de Nuremberg ont spontanément organisé un défilé de voitures décorées des drapeaux irakiens, américains et britanniques pour fêter la chute de Saddam."

Translation: "While Iraqis are celebrating in Baghdad, their compatriots in Nuremberg spontaneously organized a demonstration with cars decorated with Iraqi, American and British flags to celebrate the fall of Saddam"

So let's get this straight. German anti-war activitists and assorted hanger-ons will protest the war in Berlin on Saturday while Iraqis residing in Germany organize demonstrations celebrating Saddam's fall. Telling, isn't it?

That "Cakewalk" Thing

Ken Adleman (maybe a bit too soon?) takes something of a victory lap in the WaPo today.

Meanwhile, Charles Krauthammer:

"The sight of them panicked Cassandras here in the United States who were quick to predict that the evidence of any armed resistance meant that we were in for a long guerrilla war. But the Vietnam analogy was absurd. It was not the people of southern Iraq who harassed our troops on the drive to Baghdad but the regime's shock troops. These "irregulars" were not insurgents; they were counterinsurgents. They did not represent the people they used as human shields; they ruthlessly repressed them."

Very true. But I'm less comfortable with his concluding graf:

"Which is what makes the Three Week War a revolution in world affairs. It is one thing to depose tin-pot dictators. Anyone can do that. It is another thing to destroy a Stalinist demigod and his three-decade apparatus of repression -- and leave the country standing. From Damascus to Pyongyang, totalitarians everywhere are watching this war with shock and awe."

A bit triumphalist and laden with hubris for my taste. For one, the war isn't over so we don't know if it is, indeed, a "Three Week War." (Is Krauthammer trying to be the first to provide a moniker for this conflict a la Six-Day War?) Also, Saddam may not have been quite "tin-pot," but he wasn't Uncle Joe presiding over an empire spanning eleven time zones either.

And a "revolution in world affairs"? Maybe, if suddenly a working, democratic polity in Iraq proves inspirational and leads to Jeffersonian Democrats popping up in Cairo, Riyadh, Damascus and Teheran. But is is just too early to judge the impact of the dramatic events of yesterday per Krauthammer's conclusion.

Put differently, I'm not sure 2003 is quite 1776, 1789, 1917 or, even, 1989. If the Middle East region that has never been through the Enlightenment and other key historical periods the West passed through begins, over the next few years, to become more transparent, extend voting rights to its people and create working democracies with representative parliaments and egalitarian constitutions--maybe the beginnings of a revolution in world affairs were indeed witnessed yesterday. But we're very far from that, as sober observers appreciate.

For the time being, however, I simply rejoice in the liberation of a people desperately hungry for their freedom after unimaginable brutalities were visited upon them decade after decade. I hope too that the naive and spoiled anti-war protestors (many of them comfortable amidst the material bounty of the West and protesting out of nothing more noble than sheer boredom) will take stock of the lessons of Baghdad's liberation yesterday.

Many of these anti-war protestors, of course, had nary a clue about the grotesque repression that was part and parcel of Saddamism (while pretending to be protesting on behalf of the Iraqi people). Perhaps some of the anti-war forces, even if just a small number, might re-analzye their Pavlovian anti-war posture in the face of the images of liberation the world witnessed yesterday.

Finally, I rejoice too that a vicious regime, with every passing day, is less likely to possess and be in control of the WMD that could be used to devastating effect against free and innocent peoples the world over.

Wolfy Is....Woodrow Wilson!

Says Caleb Carr in the pages of the Observer.

"We are, after all, a country that has always profiteered with a noble fig leaf; and the man whose job it is in this case to spin a set of philosophical principles that will serve as a cover for the potentially exploitative occupation of Iraq is Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Possessed of a powerful intellect, along with ideas that, packaged in the best sort of benign American wrappings, are nonetheless characteristically self-interested, Mr. Wolfowitz is thought of as the eminence grise behind the idea that a democratic Iraq is possible, desirable—and will take far longer to embody than did the rehabilitation of Afghanistan (where a pre-assembled government was in place within weeks of the liberation of Kabul and where—not coincidentally—the potential rewards to American business were far lower).

Mr. Wolfowitz has been analyzed and reanalyzed in the press, yet he is not generally paired closely enough with the American to whom he bears the strongest ideological and psychological resemblance: Woodrow Wilson. This is perhaps understandable— Mr. Wolfowitz is a short, unassuming Jew, while Wilson was a puffed-up, posturing Presbyterian—but it’s also troubling. For whatever the superficial differences between the two men, they share one overriding quality: a belief in evangelical interventionism. This passion caused Wilson’s eight-year Presidency to become the greatest single period of American interference in the affairs of other governments in our nation’s history: He was a serial, unilateral interventionist, and one gets the feeling that Mr. Wolfowitz—who increasingly enjoys the ear of another democratic evangelist, George W. Bush—may be trying to duplicate the feat."

Ah yes, the wild messianic fervor of Paul Wolfowitz. Aren't these arguments getting mind numbingly dull given how often we hear them?

But Mr. Carr has other unfounded ruminations to share with us. While describing the occupation of Iraq as "potentially" exploitative-he appears to have already made up his mind that said occupation is doomed to be a neo--colonialist affair with Cheney and chums filling up their pockets (and so Republican party coffers too).

He concludes:

"Perhaps we will insist that our civilian leaders honor the achievements and sacrifices of our forces, and those Iraqis who have fought beside them, by rejecting the plan that Messrs. Bush, Cheney and Wolfowitz are trying to railroad through Congress, even as various Iraqi opposition groups scream their protests. Perhaps we will recognize that "Iraqi Freedom" may not mean "Iraqi American-Style Capitalist Democracy"; but then, our commanders presumably chose the first name rather than the second because it had a distinctly better ring to it. This ought to tell them something: We have sacrificed and inflicted sacrifices in order to liberate Iraq, and let its people live as they wish—not to remake it in our image. That is the work we must now be about; that is the only work that can match what our troops have done in the field."

Will someone please explain to me what exactly is the "plan" that Dubya, Cheney and Wolfowitz are trying to "railroad through Congress" to "remake [Iraq] in our image"? I haven't seen it, have you?

Baghdad Has Fallen

U.S. forces are in the main central square:

"It's like Iraqi tanks pulling up on Fifth Avenue in New York or Picadilly Circus in London," said Reuters correspondent Khaled Yacoub Oweis, speaking from within the hotel. "The fall of Baghdad is complete."

I guess it's on to Tikrit next.

Magnanimity Department

Bob Kagan mostly hits all the right notes counseling mitigation of any U.S. triumphalism post victory and a good dose of magnanimity during the post-war period. Meanwhile, Jim Hoagland (did Doug Feith draft his op-ed?) is singing Ahmed Chalabi's praises.

Too much, I think. Many Iraqis will doubtless prefer a more home-grown leadership to take up the post-war leadership mantle. To be sure, Iraqi exile groups will have to be prominently represented in any future government. But to pitch Chalabi as the Iraqi Karzai isn't going to cut it, I fear, for a variety of reasons.

One reason comes to us from the Development Director of the International Rescue Committee, probably the leading U.S. humanitarian NGO [full disclosure: I used to work for them in the mid-90's]. Michael Kocher, most recently in Basra today, informs me that from run-of-the-mill folks to local non-Baath elites (and this is in the Shi'a south, Chalabi is Shi'a)--many locals were unenthusiastic about the prospects of Chalabi having an overly prominent role in the post-war government. Sure, that's just some sporadic reporting from Basra. But I'll have more on all this soon.

Chirac Watch

We've moved well beyond the French perfidy stage when Powell had to play deep huddle with Dominique around the horse-shoe-shaped table at the UNSC. Now, French foreign policy objectives are merely becoming laughable.

Dubya and Blair are looking to grant the U.N. a "vital role" in post-war Iraq. But Chirac, instead of making a good faith exploration regarding what such a "vital" role might consist of--is instead continuing the scuttle-style French diplomacy of recent months:

"In remarks in Paris today, Mr. Chirac said the United Nations — "and it alone" — should be responsible for administering Iraq's reconstruction and governance. "We are no longer in an era where one or two countries can control the fate of another country," he said pointedly at a news conference after meeting the United Nations' high commissioner for refugees."

For one thing, Jaques might try that one on, say, inhabitants of the Cote D'Ivoire.

And what planet is Chirac living on if he thinks the U.N. "alone" will have a role in post-war Iraq? After the huge expenditure of U.S. and U.K. blood and treasure on the war effort, said countries, just like that, will turn over the entire Iraq reconstruction effort to Turtle Bay technocrats and, by extension, feckless nation-states that sat the war out?

I'm not saying Washington and London shouldn't consider well conceived plans that provide the U.N. with a prominent role such as this one. [Though I think that Gareth Evans and Bob Malley may be exaggerating the degrees of anti-Americanism that would be engendered by a U.S. led interim authority swiftly handing power over to Iraqis as compared to their more U.N.-centric structure. Regardless, note that ICG's recommendation forsees significant U.S., not U.N. troop commitments, to ensure stability.]

But not, per Jacques, a role for the U.N. simply "alone." That's simply a non-starter given the U.N.'s abdication of responsibility vis-a-vis Iraq in the advent to the conflict. Further, a Bosnia redux with hapless blue helmets hopscotching about "safe havens" and the like would make a mockery regarding the seriousness of purpose the international community has regarding stemming the potential tide of revanchist killings, ensuring the territorial integrity of Iraq, and otherwise stabilizing the polity.

The George Michael of Diplomacy!

Yes readers, someone got to the Belgravia Dispatch per the following Google search: "Dominique de Villepin", "sexy". I trust this visitor (coming to us from a France-based Internet server, bien sur) might have been a bit let down by what they found regarding the dashing French FM on this modest site. We know it wasn't a regular Maureen Dowd reader who was googling for Dom hits. Were that the case, as regular Dowd readers will know, the search terms would have been "Dominique de Villepin", "svelte."

Arundhati Roy

Middlebrow novelist Arundhati Roy penned this screed right after 9/11--and is back with another opinion piece in the pages of the Guardian. She employs a moronic adolescent tone throughout much of the op-ed. Sample:

"So here's Iraq - rogue state, grave threat to world peace, paid-up member of the Axis of Evil. Here's Iraq, invaded, bombed, besieged, bullied, its sovereignty shat upon, its children killed by cancers, its people blown up on the streets. And here's all of us watching. CNN-BBC, BBC-CNN late into the night. Here's all of us, enduring the horror of the war, enduring the horror of the propaganda and enduring the slaughter of language as we know and understand it. Freedom now means mass murder (or, in the US, fried potatoes). When someone says "humanitarian aid" we automatically go looking for induced starvation. "Embedded" I have to admit, is a great find. It's what it sounds like. And what about "arsenal of tactics?" Nice!"

Another snippet: "And now this talk of bringing the UN back into the picture. But that old UN girl - it turns out that she just ain't what she was cracked up to be. She's been demoted (although she retains her high salary). Now she's the world's janitor. She's the Philippino cleaning lady, the Indian jamadarni, the postal bride from Thailand, the Mexican household help, the Jamaican au pair. She's employed to clean other peoples' shit. She's used and abused at will."

Oh, and this: "And now we have the siege of Basra. About a million and a half people, 40 per cent of them children. Without clean water, and with very little food. We're still waiting for the legendary Shia "uprising", for the happy hordes to stream out of the city and rain roses and hosannahs on the "liberating" army. Where are the hordes? Don't they know that television productions work to tight schedules? (It may well be that if Saddam's regime falls there will be dancing on the streets of Basra. But then, if the Bush regime were to fall, there would be dancing on the streets the world over.)

Surely Ms. Roy didn't see recent media coverage of local inhabitants of Basra visiting the old Baath parties' mukhabarat (secret police) headquarters in that city. They showed the hooks from which they were dangled and brutally tortured. They were, be sure, very pleased that such a brutish regime was no longer stoking terror there. Their clear feeling, contra Roy's grotesquely exagerrated diatribe, was not that mass murderers had arrived in Iraq. Rather, there was real relief that a regime that frequently resorted to mass murder had been unseated.

We likely wouldn't have had to hear all this claptrap if five judges hadn't helped provide Roy with celebrity (or, at least, Notting Hill starlet) status post-dispensation of the Booker Prize. But, alas, here we are.

UPDATE: Le Monde, predictably, dutifully translated this piece and ran it for the benefit of any Francophones who might have missed the English language version.

Yale Professoriat Think

Predictable dispatch from New Haven.

But note this wise student reaction:

"I thought that their speeches were crafted very carefully to draw whimsical chuckles from jaded leftists in the crowd," Goldenberg said. "It was long on wit, short on wisdom. It was rhetoric without content, opinion without foundation, but worst of all, it was above all an ego enhancement session for a group of smug intellectuals. In short, [it was] a session of group intellectual onanism."

Indeed.

Karbala Dispatch

Quote of the day: I love you George Bush. Well, sounds like a liberation in Karbala folks. Now the love has to last a while--the harder task--as married couples likely realize!

UPDATE: Related to my post below, note also these quotes from the article linked above: "Night and day, no water." "Hospital. No electricity, no food, no medicine."

To retain the goodwill manifested by the spontanous celebratory outbursts--humanitarian aid needs to get to places like Karbala quickly.

Field Report

I just got off the phone with Michael Kocher of the International Rescue Committee who was in southern Iraq two days ago and is now back in Kuwait City. He was among the first U.S. NGO representatives to enter Umm Qasr and surrounding areas (CNN International had a story on the trip yesterday). I've known Michael since we worked together in the Balkans in the mid-90s and highly respect his judgment. He relayed to me that the humanitarian situation in cities like Umm Qasr is somewhat difficult, though not critical or desperate. That said, he stressed that water supplies are urgently needed.

In addition, he mentioned that simple peasant families queried him about whether coalition forces were coming as liberators or occupiers. He was also shown unexploded ordnance (including cluster munitions) and queried about when the international community would remove such bombs from their land.

I didn't directly ask Michael, but by reading between the lines of what he was relaying, I got the sense that a good 50%-55% of the chillier than expected reception by Shi'a in the south could be attributed to continuing fear that Saddam loyalists, fedayeen etc. will avenge "traitorous" behavior were coalition forces were to move on leaving the population unprotected. Another 25% or so might be attributed to how quickly water supplies and other humanitarian aid gets up and running effectively. The remaining 20-25% or so could be attributed to the fears underpinning the Iraqi peasant's query, ie. why are coalition forces in Iraq? To liberate or occupy? In addition, where more civilian deaths occurred due to the allied campaign the mood appeared, predictably, more cautious regarding U.S./U.K. intentions.

The lessons are clear. Fedayeen and other Saddam loyalists must be eliminated or apprehended as expeditiously as possible. Major attention needs to be focused on ensuring rapid delivery of humanitarian aid. That takes care of the underlying causes of about 75% of the suspicion among Iraqi civilians about U.S. intentions. Then the even harder and more nuanced task(s) awaits. The U.S. will have to make all best efforts to ensure that an interim coalition administration hands power over to the Iraqis with dispatch. That said, however, a strong coalition presence will be needed to stem revanchist killings and ensure the territorial integrity of Iraq--a benign MacArthur if you will. So it's going to be a tough balancing act--and all this once the conflict is won. Remember, this is just day 18 of the war. Major tasks await both to conclude the conflict and effectively win the peace.

Syria Watch

O.K. so maybe I was wrong that Dubya has been telling Rummy to cool it recently on Syria and Iran--if the NYT got this story right.

"Shortly after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld issued a stark warning to Iran and Syria last week, declaring that any "hostile acts" they committed on behalf of Iraq might prompt severe consequences, one of President Bush's closest aides stepped into the Oval Office to warn him that his unpredictable defense secretary had just raised the specter of a broader confrontation. Mr. Bush smiled a moment at the latest example of Mr. Rumsfeld's brazenness, recalled the aide. Then he said one word — "Good" — and went back to work."

It does bear noting that Dave Sanger gets it wrong when he describes Rummy's statements as prompting 1441ish "severe consequences." I have Rummy's exact statement (and some analysis) here and, as the transcript shows, the phrase "severe consequences" wasn't used.

That said, I'm a bit alarmed by Dubya's reaction. I still think we should be handling this issue with Damascus off the public airwaves in private channels. We have an Embassy in Damascus and active diplomatic relations with that country. Colin Powell can pick up the phone and call his Syrian counterpart, Farouk Shara, anytime. Leaking to the NYT that the President, reacting to Rummy's press conference statements on Syria, simply smiled and says "good" won't go over too well in Damascus and points beyond.

Nor does it inspire much confidence that top-down policy formulation is taking place within the Beltway. Too often with this Administration, policy tortuously emerges after protracted in-fighting between the Pentagon and State Department. With major issues like this, where Rumsfeld's comment can contribute to potential regionalization of the conflict and fan suspicions among Arabs (and Iranians) that other countries are on the U.S. regime change list--we should expect that the White House has provided coordinated marching orders to both Foggy Bottom and Defense.

Instead, it appears this may be another Rummy free-lancing episode. Of course, if Syria is miscalculating and providing succor to the enemy through manpower and materiel transfers of material scope--such "shots across the bow" are likely justified. But I have to suspect we'd do better with Bashar Assad regarding having him cooperate more through concerted private diplomacy. More soon.

UPDATE: Ross Douthat over at the American Scene has a good post up on the whole Iran/Syria angle.

NY Post Takes on NYT

And Howell defends himself!

"For his part, Times executive editor Howell Raines called his paper’s war coverage "non-ideological …. I get up every morning trying to break stories that other people have to follow," he said, and added: "I understand there are other people who approach these tasks with different kinds of agendas. And we live in a time when there’s a lot of ideological journalism going on. I think it’s interesting, but it has nothing to do with what we do, which is make our journalism as straight and as energetic and competitive as we can."

No ideological journalism on W 43rd St, huh? That's a "bit" exagerrated, isn't it?

Anglo Ayatollahs On the Loose!

George McGovern in the Nation:

"The President frequently confides to individuals and friendly audiences that he is guided by God's hand. But if God guided him into an invasion of Iraq, He sent a different message to the Pope, the Conference of Catholic Bishops, the mainline Protestant National Council of Churches and many distinguished rabbis--all of whom believe the invasion and bombardment of Iraq is against God's will. In all due respect, I suspect that Karl Rove, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice--and other sideline warriors--are the gods (or goddesses) reaching the ear of our President."

I doubt Mr. McGovern can corroborate his contention that Dubya often tells "friendly audiences" (other theocratic zealots, i guess?) that he is "guided by God's hand." But hey, he's writing in the Nation (the WaPo appears to be turning down his submissions, George tells us, those damn hyper-hawks on the Potomac!) so no need to quibble with factual analyses if it impairs a Dubya put-down piece.

Meanwhile, the Spectator's cover story this week describes Tony Blair as the "most religious prime minister since Gladstone." Perhaps true, but not these extrapolations:

"It is characteristic of those who feel that they have an unmediated line to the Lord that they think that they can make the law themselves. Tony Blair rewrote the rulebook for the Labour party. And this is what he and George Bush are doing in Iraq: their readiness to ignore the procedures of international institutions such as the United Nations is a manifestation of the same sort of arrogance. According to the precepts of natural law, the humility and discipline of religion express a wisdom that is deeper than individual men and women can readily understand. These are boundaries which, as Mr Blair may be about to discover, are impertinent to transgress."

Unmediated lines to the Lord? Guided by God's Hand? Never, of course, about unseating a loathsome regime in possession of WMD during a perilous new era of apocalpytic terror. Apocalpytic because, lest any grizzled long-term Euro-residents think I'm being hyperbolic, groups like al-Qaeda would be thrilled to kill millions in any Western city if they could gain the requisite means. We are not talking about car bombs in Bilbao here folks.

Dominique's Folie de Grandeur

Daniel Bell has a provocative piece up in TNR (registration required) on the French Foreign Minister.

Money grafs:

"There are many people who believed that de Villepin had valuable points to make in warning against a rush to war. If only we could believe that his argument against the war grew out of real conviction. His books suggest that in international affairs he is really an immoralist—that he has no trouble with a powerful nation imposing its will by force, taking potentially dangerous risks, and possibly violating international law. He just prefers that the nation in question be France. His writings suggest that his current obstruction of the United States stems not from well-reasoned political principle but from an appetite for obstructionism itself, because in this way France can again occupy the international limelight. It is laudable to want to establish the greatness of one's nation through peace, but not when the reason is one's own inability to make war. De Villepin is not so much an anti-imperialist as a weak would-be imperialist.

At the start of his book, de Villepin remarks that its writing was closely bound up with his long experience in the corridors of power. But he does not mean that he drew on his own experience of government in order to better understand the age of Napoleon. Quite the reverse. "There has not been a day," he remarks, "when, seized by the tribulations of doubt, I have not dwelled on the voice of the past ... not a day when I have not felt the imperious need for memory, so as not to surrender to indifference, derision and mocking ... so as to continue to move forward in the service of a French ambition." This is a fine stance for politicians to take—but everything depends on their choice of memories and the way they interpret them. In choosing to hallow the memory of Napoleon, and in promoting him into a symbol of pure glory and grand sacrifice, Dominique de Villepin demonstrates only that he is suffering from a delusion of grandeur."

Academic Idiocy Watch

The legacies of Vietnam era protest culture and faded memories of the grand old days on risible display in this NYT piece:

"We used to like to offend people," Martha Saxton, a professor of women's studies at Amherst, said as she discussed the faculty protest with students this week. "We loved being bad, in the sense that we were making a statement. Why is there no joy now?"

Hate to break it to Martha, but restraining genocidal regimes from WMD possession post 9/11 is a major strategic imperative. It's quite beyond moronic ruminations about being "bad" (is she studying P Diddy lyrics when not poring through the Kristeva reader?) so as to make a "statement."

A Professor Sarat adds this:

In Madison, teach-ins were as common as bratwurst," he said. "There was a certain nobility in being gassed. Now you don't get gassed. You walk into a dining hall and hand out an informational pamphlet."

A certain nobility in being gassed? Tell that to these people. CAUTION: GRAPHIC PICTURES.

Michael Kelly

We all lost a highly talented journalist today.

Andrew Sullivan puts it thus: "I'm simply stunned by the news of Mike Kelly's death. He was a beautiful writer, a brave polemicist, a prickly, funny man, a superb editor, and a friend. He died in action, which is perhaps as he might have wanted it. I can't think of anything more to say right now in the moments after reading this awful news, except that please pray for his young family, his wonderful wife, and his wider family and friends. He was a great journalist and a good, good man. May he rest in peace."

Cautionary Notes

As the endgame (appears) to be approaching some words of caution from Rummy and via the FT.

Rummy/Syria Update

Rumsfeld was again asked about Syria at yesterday's Pentagon briefing:

Q: Have you seen any indications from Iran or Syria that they've heeded your warning, or are ignoring your warning? And please be as specific as possible. And Gen. Myers, your thoughts on progress on the friendly fire front. Is it better or worse this time around, or about what you expected?

Rumsfeld: I have no way of knowing what Iran's reaction was, but I have not seen anything recently on the part of Iran that was -- I don't know if you have, either -- that is terribly disturbing. We do -- we have seen that Syria is continuing to conduct itself the way it was prior to the time I said what I said.

Q: So what's next --

Rumsfeld: Oh, that's -- that's for others to decide.

Others? The President? Dick Cheney? Powell? I think Rummy was told by Bush via Condi to tone the Damascus talk down a notch or two.

UPDATE: The WaPo has a story up on Rummy and Syria.

Money quote:

"What Rumsfeld did was basically to deliver a shot across the bow of Syria and Iran in the heat of battle in Iraq," said Edward P. Djerejian, a former U.S. ambassador to Damascus who is now director of the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. "He was looking at the progress of the war plan and expressed concern and nervousness about what was happening across the border." Djerejian described Rumsfeld's statement as "a preemptive public diplomacy strike at both countries" and not as a prelude to "what's next after Iraq."

Baghdad From the Palestine Hotel

John Burns puts it all in perspective.

On why Baghdadis have been fleeing their city in recent hours:

"The fear driving the exodus, by car, bus and truck, was of street-to-street fighting, revenge killings, a last-minute paroxysm of violence by the enforcers of the terror that has bludgeoned Iraq for three decades. For many Iraqis, this has been the nightmare all along, the least calculable part of the "price" they tell Westerners they have known would come with any American invasion to topple Mr. Hussein.

The implication in these whispered conversations has been that there has been a price, in limited casualties, that many, perhaps even most, Iraqis would be prepared to pay for their freedom, but that equally there was a price that would be too high.

With the battle for Baghdad about to be joined, that price will now be set, and with it, an outsider can imagine, the estimate many Iraqis will ultimately make of the war. But many people in Baghdad seem to have made their judgment about the air campaign already.

After the first few days, life in the city's streets gradually began reviving as confidence grew that there was not going to be widespread carnage, with American bombs and missiles striking wildly at civilians. Today, as for many days past, city-center gathering spots like Liberation Square, site of the lamppost hangings of nine Iraqi Jews condemned for spying in 1969, were busy with fruit and vegetable sellers, and hawkers doing brisk trade in the water canisters and buckets, duct tape and canned food, sacks of flour and candles, that have been the biggest sellers in recent weeks."

And on the civilian toll born of U.S. precision weaponry:

"That American bombs and missiles have gone astray is beyond challenge. Pentagon officials acknowledged before the war that even with the advances in satellite-guided targeting systems since the Persian Gulf war in 1991, no technology was foolproof, and mistakes would be made. How many there have been in this war will be clearer when the fighting ends, but the impression gained from living the war in the center of Baghdad has been that many of the strikes that have been visible - either from the grandstand view afforded by the Palestine Hotel's balconies, or from the guided bus tours of bomb sites around the city organized by Iraqi Information Ministry officials - have been astonishingly accurate.

On visits to neighborhoods around the city, reporters have seen homes, workshops and sidewalks where airstrikes have killed dozens of civilians and wounded many more. In some cases, the huge size of the craters, the proximity to military installations and witnesses' accounts have lent credibility to the Iraqi claims that the strikes were responsible.

In others, including the marketplace bombing that Iraq said killed 62 people in the Shula district of western Baghdad on Friday, there have been more questions than answers. Often, as in Shula, officials have delayed taking reporters to the site for hours, and have met with evasions the inquiries about the unusually small crater at the marketplace, and the fact that most victims appeared to have died from shrapnel wounds and not from the kind of blast associated with high-energy bombs and missiles."

This, from the acknowledged dean of war correspondents who won the Pulitzer for his coverage in Sarajevo where Bosnian Muslims were occasionally accused of shelling their own civilians in a bid for international sympathy so that the Western cavalry would rush in. Burns wouldn't write this lightly.

A final, telling, snippet:

"Over a few days in the last week, at least six inner-city telephone exchanges were destroyed, apparently to disrupt the Iraqi leadership's ability to conduct the war from the safety of underground bunkers and other hideouts. In almost every case, the missiles or bombs used appeared to have struck bulls-eyes in the roofs, plunging downward into the buildings' hearts before exploding with a force that left nothing but dangling wires, shattered concrete and twisted steel. At two exchanges, hours later, a lone beeper continued to wail in the wreckage, like a bell tolling for the departed."

Docile on the Hudson

The war has been going, pretty much, swimmingly the past 72 hours. So, if you're the NYT, what to do per your editorial stance? Your mastheads, frequently hyper-critical of Dubya, merely become tepid news summations.

Worth noting too, is this highly embarrassing "correction" the NYT made yesterday. As Andrew Sullivan points out, is anyone actually editing the paper with the requisite diligence? The misquote from the field commander, needless to say, had a very significant impact on the debate regarding the planning and the prosecution of the war last week. The NYT really has a responsibility to the public to do better.

Howell's Wolfy Obsession

Following on Instapundit's response to Aaron Brown's lame interrogatories regarding bloggers not having editors and what that portends for content accuracy and the like can someone please tell Jane Perlez (or Howell) that Paul Wolfowitz is Deputy Secretary of Defense and not Undersecretary (there is only one Deputy Secretary while there are several Undesecretaries).

UPDATE: Here's the NYT correction today. Note they still get in a subtle dig with a reference to Wolfy's "proteges" even in the correction.

Once that part of the story is corrected, maybe we will know how much validity to give Howell's spin that "Wolfowitz of Arabia" is:

"....passing judgment on others assigned here, making the transitory Potomac here as divisive and political as the permanent one at home, some participants say."

Folks, hate to break it to you, Wolfy isn't omnipotent and in Machurian-candidate like control of Dubya and all else that happens in the far-flung reaches of the empire. Nor is Powell as MIA as, for instance, a Jim Hoagland thinks. I'll predict now--Ahmad Chalabi will not be the Iraqi Hamid Karzai--and State will have a big role in helping erect the post-Saddam government. You heard it here first (or early at least!).

Al-Jazeera is Too Pro-American!

If you're repping for the Iraqi Information Ministry. Following such warped logic, Saddam is, of course, a noble defender of his people (though in hiding?) and exemplar of enlightened human rights best practices.

What Planned Siege Robin?

Contra Robin Cook's emotive musings in the Mirror (yes, the same paper that helpfully scooped up recently out of work Pete "I'm Single-Handedly Changing Public Opinion in the States Against the War Mr. Information Minister" Arnett) it appears U.S. war planners are attempting to avoid a siege strategy in Baghdad.

"The enemy is taking what forces he can muster and is ordering them back into the city," a senior American military officer said tonight. "He is bringing in the Republican Guard for a last stand. We have been trying to kill anything that is moving toward the city. We don't want a big siege at the end of this."

Coalition forces might end up having to employ a protracted siege posture pending developments on the battlefield--but the intention is not to starve Baghdad as Cook intimated. Aside from his hyperbolic left Labourite tendencies (and dreary didactic tone), he must be getting less au courant intelligence briefings these days.

Ca Commence!

Post-war commercial maneuverings are beginning in earnest, but it appears some French outfits got a bit trigger-happy:

"On Thursday, a working-group meeting on how to seize opportunities in Iraqi reconstruction was scheduled here by Medef, the organization of major French industrialists. The meeting was canceled last weekend after discussions between the French government and Medef's head, Ernst-Antoine Seilliere.

"Too early, too high-profile," Seillere reportedly ruled, especially since France has been too close to Baghdad under the regime of Saddam Hussein and too estranged from a Washington at war.

The little French faux pas in scheduling provided a rare public hint of the political and business calculations that are driving a corporate scramble in Western capitals - and sometimes right behind the battle lines in Iraq."

Worth noting too, enarque complicity with the Baathist power structure:

"A company often singled out for attacks in Washington is TotalFinaElf, the French oil giant, which has signed a colossal contract with Saddam's government for future rights to Iraqi oil fields. The deal, whose terms remain a commercial secret, would have gone into effect once sanctions were lifted on Iraq. French officials have vowed to defend the contract in international arbitration, while the Bush administration charges that the French company stood to gain a lopsided premium for working with a rogue regime.

"French companies that know Iraq well - like the carmaker Peugeot and the telecom giant Alcatel - have a problem because their contacts and allies tend to be linked with the Ba'ath party rulers, who are liable to be on the wrong side in a new Iraq," a French diplomat said.

"It could depend on how fast Washington wants to revive the economy," said Philippe Maniere, editor of La Lettre de l'Expansion, the Paris-based newsletter that disclosed the abortive Medef conference. "French companies already have experience and even blueprints for Iraqi infrastructure in critical areas such as oil and water."

Well Philippe, many trust "Washington" will manage just fine (and fast) without "blueprints" secured from Baathist thugs by Jacques and Co.

Disquiet at the Pentagon!

How do you get from a field commander's statement that the enemy is not the one "war-gamed against" to contending that a pro-war cabal is cavalierly willing to risk the lives of American fighting men and women in pursuit of an extremist ideology? If you're writing in the pages of the Nation, it's easy:

"To say that the enemy in Iraq is not the one "we'd war-gamed against" is to say that the war games themselves were not an accurate representation of the situation in Iraq, and that the games' designers--the senior leaders at the Pentagon--were blinded by their prowar zealotry from appreciating the vigor of Iraqi defenses. Put another way, this means that the civilian leadership was prepared to risk the lives of American fighting men and women in pursuit of an extremist ideology."

What "extremist ideology"? Lebensraum for Rumsfeld's grandkids in "Venice of the East" Basra? Forced conversions of Shia's to Crawford-style Baptism? A Halliburton-cracy on the Tigris--rife with wild cat profiteering and replete with steely, self-contented chuckles from Cheney and pals as the cash comes gushing in?

Past Practices

Worth keeping in mind as the coalition continues to ratchet up the pressure and attempt to tighten the proverbial noose around Baghdad:

"Despite the unimpressive results the development of such CW continued. By 1987 significant quantities of nerve gas, both Tabun and Sarin, were produced and weaponised, but mustard gas became the mainstay of Iraq's chemical armoury. These weapons were not used to any strategic effect, and Iraq mainly used chemical attacks as a desperate last resort in the face of continued Iranian advances." [my emphasis]

That's assuming that Saddam is still around to issue such orders (and, of course, that no renegade commanders would use WMD without being directed to by Saddam personally).

UPDATE: Similar concerns from Down Under.

Blair Profile

Good WaPo analysis of Blair:

Money grafs:

"Blair has emerged as a unique figure on the world stage, an unusual blend of warrior and internationalist. His hawkish credentials are unassailable -- since becoming prime minister in 1997, he has dispatched British troops to Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Afghanistan and now Iraq. Yet he has always done so in the name of repairing and strengthening international order and institutions.

This has made him a lonely figure, both at home and abroad. He is too hawkish for doves, yet too soft for hard-liners. "For the Europeans, the emphasis is on the soft side -- on nation-building and development aid and the enforcement of international law -- but they shy away from the military side," said James P. Rubin, an assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration who teaches and works as a consultant in London. "Those on the Bush side tend to stress the military realities but get weak in the knees when it comes to concepts like nation-building. Blair's the only one who's willing to do both. He's out there somewhat by himself."

The roots of Blair's beliefs go back at least to his days at Oxford University in the early 1970s, according to John Rentoul, author of a Blair biography. It was there he was introduced to the writings of John MacMurray, a Scottish philosopher who championed the concept of community as the ultimate expression of human relationships.

Blair put it this way in a 1993 speech: "We do not lose our identity in our relations with others; in part, at least, we achieve our identity by those relations."

Blair, trained as a lawyer, combines this sense of community with a strong belief in the power and justice of the law. And he is a deeply religious person, having taken confirmation in the Anglican Church at the end of his sophomore year at Oxford. He remains a regular churchgoer in a society that has largely turned away from formal religion.

But unlike Bush, Blair holds Christian beliefs from the socially liberal wing of the church. He was comfortable, for example, appointing Rowan Williams, a self-described "hairy lefty," as the new archbishop of Canterbury, even though he knew Williams might take a strong public stand against military action in Iraq, which he has."

Democracy, Whiskey and European Commerce

Couple gems in this article:

"In the giddy spirit of the day, nothing could quite top the wish list bellowed out by one man in the throng of people greeting American troops from the 101st Airborne Division who marched into town today. What, the man was asked, did he hope to see now that the Baath Party had been driven from power in his town? What would the Americans bring? "Democracy," the man said, his voice rising to lift each word to greater prominence. "Whiskey. And sexy!"

And:

"Just before the sun went down, the engineers cleared the third of such fields, detonating them with C-4 explosive. The troops had discovered a factory where such land mines were made, but the ones exploded at the end of the day on Tuesday had been made in Italy, said Lt. Col. Duke Deluca. "Europeans are antiwar, but they are pro-commerce," Colonel Deluca said."

Now, I'm surprised a Colonel by the name of Deluca wouldn't be clued into the fact that Berlusconi has ensured that Italy is part of the coalition of the willing, but still, he makes a great point.

BTW, is it just me, or has the NYT become a bit more gung-ho WaPo-like in the past 48 hours on the war?

Dirty Tactics Department

These combatants aren't going to go down as noble Shi'a holy warriors among the locals, I suspect, but rather as regime die-hards violating the sanctity of their holy sites.

Food for Thought

As of today, 75 individuals have died from the Severe Acute Respitory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak. Total allied fatalities to date in the Iraq campaign? Seventy-three.

Of course, there is no way of knowing how many members of the Iraqi military have perished. As for Iraqi civilians, this website keeps a tally. Each of these deaths is tragic, not only civilians deaths but also Iraqi military personnel that have been forcibly sent to fight rather than Baathist loyalists and the like fighting of their own volition.

But, and bearing in mind the cautionary note that we are entering the most difficult phase of the war, note that total casualties to date (discounting the unknowable tally for the Iraqi military) are under 800.

In terms of U.S. military casualties, as this site indicates, these are casualty totals well under historic norms. As warfare becomes more precise and the U.S. enjoys unmatched military supremacy, war fatalities appear to be on a steady downward trend for both U.S. military personnel and civilians.

Regarding civilian casualties, the totals so far remain well below recent conflicts including, for instance, Chechnya. Western media, over the course of the two Chechen conflicts spanning from 1994 to the present time, estimate between 100,000 to 200,000 civilian deaths as the above linked site indicates. So far in Iraq there have been, at most, fewer than 750 civilian casualties.

Let's keep that in mind in the coming days. The United States, because of its incredible "hard" and "soft" power, because it is so widely resented as a hegemon, because it so often breeds an odd hybrid of fascination, resentment, fear and, yes, enthusiasm (still)--is often held to standards in the conduct of its warfare wholly different than, say, a Russia. That's fine, of course, as we wouldn't want to compare the conduct of a war of supposed "liberation" with a conflict aimed at continuing to keep an entire peoples involuntarily under the Russian yoke.

But the massive difference in civilian casualties, and the fact that the Islamic world is so much more alarmed by the conflict in Iraq than the one in Chechnya, tells us something. At least 100,000 Muslim civilians were killed in Chechnya--and the streets of Cairo or Damascus were much more quiet than they are today--when a relatively modest 750 or so civilians have been killed. Why?

In large part, obviously, because this war is taking place in the heart of the Arab world and there is concern that the U.S. wishes to dominate the entire region--while Chechnya is tucked away on the southern periphery of Russia. And, of course, the close relationship between Washington D.C. and Tel Aviv is another reason that much suspicion and animosity exists among Arabs regarding U.S. motives in the region.

But I remain optimistic that, assuming relatively low casualties and a somewhat speedy conclusion to hostilities, and making all efforts so as not to appear as occupiers during the postwar scene, this ambitious project might yet yield a warmer reaction in the Arab world. As Tom Friedman points out today, there is a "skeptical curiousity" among some Arabs about what a liberalized Iraq might mean for the region. Tapping into that skeptical curiousity and transforming it into something altogether friendlier and more constructive presents the grand challenge to American policymakers once this conflict is over. More on this last soon.

Najaf Watch

This blog has been a tad gloomy recently about the going-ons in the vicinity of Najaf. Here's some good news:

"Hundreds of curious civilians, many of them smiling and waving, lined the narrow, dusty streets while soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division pressed to within a half-mile of the gilded dome of the tomb of Ali, a site venerated by Shiite Muslims as the burial site of the prophet Muhammad's son-in-law.

Shortly before 2 p.m., Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne, drove in an armed convoy up a rocky escarpment into Najaf, urged on by clapping Iraqis who gestured impatiently for the Americans to press deeper into the city center. An Army loudspeaker truck broadcast messages in Arabic, urging residents not to interfere with the military operation and blaming militia fighters loyal to President Saddam Hussein for the intense fighting of the past week."

Saddam's Final Circles

Excellent breakdown from Anthony Cordesman on Saddam's Republican and Special Republican Guards.

Arab Press on Rumsfeld and Syria

A sample of typical commentary from the Arab world on Rummy's Syria comments and related topics:

"In the Beirut daily An-Nahar, Randa Haidar says that although Israel has long been accusing of Syria of helping Iraq acquire arms or hide banned weapons from UN inspectors, the US has always dismissed these allegations.

On the face of it, she writes, the warning issued to Syria by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld served notice that Washington will no longer turn a blind eye to arms smuggling via Syria to Iraq, or the continued pumping of Iraqi oil to Syria. In other words, the Americans are saying that “Syria can no longer claim to be supporting the ‘war on terror’ while at the same time supporting Iraq in its confrontation with the Americans and British.”

But Haidar says Rumsfeld’s threats to both Syria and Iran cannot be viewed in isolation from Israel, which is eager to get Washington to target both countries once it is finished with Iraq, using the “usual ploy” of playing up the threat they pose to it. In the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11 they focused on Iran, but when that failed to impress a US administration that wanted Iran’s cooperation in Afghanistan, the Israelis turned the spotlight on the threat posed by Syria’s backing for Hizbullah and Palestinian fundamentalist groups.

Despite the assistance Syria gave Washington in its war on terror, Israel is lobbying to make Syria, Iran and Hizbullah its next targets, she says. Rumsfeld’s remarks have thus done them a “big service.” And while the US has traditionally put its own interests above Israel’s when deciding how to treat Syria, “the danger is that the current Bush administration’s perception of US interests in the region and Syria’s role is identical to Israel’s.”

And, on the ramifications of the Iraq campaign (ostensibly after a U.S. victory):

Egyptian analyst Dia Rashwan writes that it was inevitable the conflict in Iraq would quickly “cease to be an internal Iraqi matter” and have an impact on the other Arab states.

He writes in the semi-official Cairo daily Al-Ahram that the prospective occupation of Iraq can be expected to have the same kind of fallout on and within the countries of the region as the Palestine question has had over the decades."

Israeli Defense Minister

Mofaz's view on the impending battle in Baghdad.

"In an interview with Yediot Ahronot military analyst Alex Fishman, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz is confident that the Iraqis will not hold out for much longer and that Baghdad will not prove to be their Stalingrad.

“As I understand it,” Mofaz says, “the center of gravity today is the Republican Guard. Perhaps the most important component is the Iraqi soldiers’ and civilians’ perception. I don’t think the Republican Guard units are going to fight ‘a war to the death’ around Baghdad. They are not going to sacrifice their lives for Saddam. I believe that the further the Americans advance and the more significant gains they make, the perception of imminent American victory will grow in the consciousness of the Iraqi soldiers and civilians. In general, the degree of loyalty there is not high. The Iraqi structure will collapse. It’s only a matter of time.”“There are pockets of resistance,” Mofaz acknowledges. “But I don’t think this is doing anything to block the American advance. Within hours of their original time frame, they are going to be in position on the outskirts of Baghdad.”

Where Are We?

It has been a difficult week for those, like me, who advocated American intervention in Iraq. Cascading rose petals, courtesy of grateful locals, are not yet greeting American "liberators." Entrenched and seemingly highly motivated Fedayeen forces are burrowing into civilian areas and using guerilla tactics to inflict pain on coalition forces. Long supply chains remain vulnerable and there are reports that GIs have been reduced to nibbling on one MRE a day. Marketplace massacres (not caused by genocidal Bosnian Serb gunners) make the news as civilian casualty tolls grow steadily. Suicide taxis blow up U.S. GI's--and so new "rules of engagement" are duly passed. The early results, predictably, the deaths of women and children in a civilian vehicle. Meanwhile, Iraqis in the relative safety of Jordan board buses to, you guessed it, head back to Baghdad to fight the neo-imperialistic (or infidel) invaders. Saddam might not be too popular, but nationalistic (or religious) heartstrings are evidently being pulled. For good measure, wider pan-Arab instincts are kicking into higher gear too. Palestinians (and some reports indicate Syrians) are also reportedly being sheperded back to Iraq to take up arms. Meanwhile a combative Don Rumsfeld, apparently not sufficiently alarmed by all these going-ons, was warning Damascus and Teheran to behave lest they be viewed as perpetrating hostile acts. Hell, some wondered, did Perle, Wolfy and Doug Feith really trounce Powell, Tenet and gang to such an extent? Would we take over the whole, damn region if need be? Surely the pinstripes at Foggy Bottom would protest vociferously? No, quite the contrary. Powell would follow up Don Rumsfeld's diktats with his own warning to Syria and Iran--delivered at the unlikely forum of AIPAC. More wonderful imagery to be digested (with difficulty) in the government halls of Cairo, Riyadh, Damascus and Teheran.

And what were the causes of all the above problems, why were we in the "region" to begin with, really? Maybe it wasn't about oil, or Poppy's unfinished business, or WMD, or the integrity of the U.N and its resolutions, or terrorism or Christian evangelical fervor or bringing democracy to the beleagered Iraqi masses? No, a nation was in the grips of a national hysteria. She was flailing wildly to regain her balance after, given her relative insulation by two wide oceans, an attack whose rareness and severity panicked the nation and wounded her psyche greviously. Kicking a little butt in Afghanistan didn't quite restore the nation to equilibrium, it was, well, a tad too easy and quick. In short, we were still smarting big time and needed more targets to take out. And there was a convenient bogeyman out there, we had fought a war with him before, but left him around because we were worried about all these things that we weren't worried about this time. Little things like not surpassing the mandate the international community had provided through U.N. resolutions, not engaging in actions allies of long standing were not comfortable with in terms of expanding war aims, not risking Iraq's territorial integrity. But now, post 9/11, all was different. New doctrines of preemption were needed--and damn the consequences if all those weasely Frogs and Krauts didn't get it. Who the hell needed them anyway? Or the U.N. or NATO? All these institutions were obsolete now as we often heard advocated in precincts like AEI or in the pages of the Weekly Standard.

Legions of Washingtonian think-tankers and politicians and lobbyists and Manhattan moneymen continued to float around their respective centers of American power with omnipresent flag-pins on their suits. Symbolizing what, exactly? That, wherever this war on terror goes, we support you Mr. President. From the Philippines to the Pankisi Gorge, from the tri-border Area in Latin America to the coasts of Djibouti, from Kabul to Baghdad to NoKo to Iran to Damascus to Gaza just do what you gotta do. Because we never want another 9/11. And the 24 hour cable stations began reporting on the latest war in a manner appropriate to March Madness, with a wide moronic den of idiocy emanating from places like Fox News that gave Al-Jazeera a run for their money as a propaganda organ. Meanwhile, statesman of some standing were increasingly widely loathed. Jacques Chirac? Warning us about the creations of little Bin Ladens? Hosni Mubarak the same? What do these cowardly or quasi-authoritarian idiots know? How does war in Iraq create more Saudi multimillionaires hell-bent on jihad (many mocked)? And don't dare suggest that pictures of dead civilians in Nasariyah, Najwan, Basra, Baghdad or Tikrit would lead to any animus in the region. We're just liberating cowed folks from the brutal yoke of Saddamism. They will thank us shortly--including the POWs hooded up a la Gitmo providing more images beamed around Aleppo and Alexandria drawing rooms tapping ever more deeply into wellsprings of Arab humiliation.

It's enough to Robin Cook it--turn tail and advocate we get the hell out. If not quite a Vietnam style quagmire, we at least have "spider webs" of Special Republican Guard awaiting to ambush us in the myriad back alleys of a Stalingrad on the Tigris. Heavy coalition casualties will lead to a "siege" strategy. Humanitarian horrors will result. Civilians will die in large numbers--their suffering beamed about helpfully by al-J (or Peter Arnett). Let's just get out now--strike a deal with Saddam--where the hell is Yevgeny Primakov when you need him!

Well folks, that's certainly one story line making the rounds. But here are ten good reasons why we need (or should) see this campaign through despite all the hand-wringing:

1) This war is not even two weeks old. We are in control of huge swaths of southern, western and northern Iraq. We have near complete control of the skies. We have lost fewer than 100 men in fighting and, even according to likely inflated Iraqi figures, civilian deaths remain under 500 as of this writing. Supply lines are thin and underprotected--but improving daily. We are wearing down the Republican Guard units outside Baghdad--softening them with the use of airpower--before finishing them off with our manpower.

2) To even consider pulling out now would be a blow to American legitimacy and its power and credibility unparalled in my lifetime (I'm 30, btw!). It's is unthinkable as a serious policy option. NoKo and Iran would turn on the nuclear processing with an unprecedented alacrity. We would have been revealed as a paper tiger--full of bluster with no conviction or seriousness of purpose.

3) This is not a war to conquer the Middle East. I still believe, deeply and despite Rummy's recent comments, that we would not embark on the folly of military adventures in Syria or Iran unless grotesque miscalculations are in the offing in either of these countries and they begin to provide very significant supplies or personnel, in consistency and large number, to Baghdad. I doubt either party will do so as each realizes such actions would be reckless in the extreme. So too, however, would it be reckless for us to embark on punitive strikes on these countries at this juncture or, indeed, in the future while reconstructing Iraq. Demographic trends in Iran augur well for liberalization of that society. Syria has cooperated with the U.S. closely on intelligence sharing with regard to al-Qaeda. We have unofficial or official relationships with these countries that shouldn't be easily squandered. So let's cool Rummy down a bit--he's got his hands full already anyway. And let's remember that large segments of Dubya's administration don't want to expand the conflict beyond Iraq, including very likely, the President himself.

4) It's still about the WMD. We find Iraqi units with chemical protection gear almost daily. Why? Saddam flouted 1441 and we were right to hold him to account. Let's not forget that in the fog of war. Containment of WMD by rogue regimes is a crucial post 9/11 strategic necessity.

5) The reception to coalition troops will get warmer as a) the specter of Saddam's terror apparatus fades, not only because locals see coalitions troops patrolling their town and cities, but also because the passage of more time allows them to "breathe" and feel more confident; b) humanitarian aid deliveries become less chaotic and more organized so that not only the fit gain food and medicine; and c) they realize this isn't a '91 replay with rebellions fanned only to be left in the lurch to the mercy of Saddam's henchmen.

6) The Kurds, a chronically abused and stateless peoples, will be able to enjoy the fruits of an autonomy with representation in a central government.

7) The reception among Sunnis (aside from the Tikrit gang) may be warmer than expected. For one, they don't have the memory of being betrayed by U.S. forces as did the Shi'a in '91.

8) Through magnanimity in victory and careful, methodical diplomacy none of the damage done to our relationships with key European allies is irreperable.

9) The U.N. and NATO are not dead.

10) The U.S. still has a chance at gaining respect and trust among the Arab and Islamic world if a coherent and sustained nation-building effort follows a relatively quick victory (say 1-2 months) that doesn't result in horrific scenes of carnage during the Battle for Baghdad with power (and the nation's oil supplies) turned over to Iraqis as quickly as possible.

Vitriolic Rants

How crazy can the anti-war left get? Take a peek at Wayne Madsen's latest:

"Bush, who fancies himself a "born-again" Christian, is actually a foul-mouthed and erratic alcoholic. For example, the "pretzel" incident had nothing to do with a pretzel. While watching a football game at the White House, the "leader of the free world" got so drunk he fell right on his face and blamed it on his inability to remember his mother's missive about chewing all one's food before swallowing. Such alibis and ruses are the trademarks of drunks. During the presidential campaign Bush called a New York Times reporter a "major league asshole." In 1986, a clearly drunk and disorderly Bush told The Wall Street Journal's Al Hunt, "You fucking son of a bitch . . . I saw what you wrote. We're not going to forget this." The rich frat boy was irate about an article Hunt wrote about Bush's father. Time magazine is reporting that during a March 2002 briefing for three senators by Condoleezza Rice, Bush poked his head into a White House meeting room and bellowed, "Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out!"

Notice the personal hatred aimed at Dubya--reminiscent of an anti-war protestor in London I spotted with a mohawk simply walking around holding a pretzel high. But it gets worse:

"The Joint Chiefs of Staff, armed with enough support from their subordinate commanders, troops, and civilian staff, could place a team of Delta Force commandos and armor on the South Lawn of the White House and in front of the North Portico on Pennsylvania Avenue. Using large loudspeakers designed for use in civil action campaigns like the ones currently taking place in Umm Qasr, Basra, and Safwan, Iraq, the Delta Force commander would instruct the Secret Service to exit the White House and lay down weapons. Five minutes should be sufficient. They should then secure the "football" and the military officer who maintains it. The football is actually a large briefcase that contains the nuclear firing codes and it would have to be quickly separated from the madmen in the White House.

Bush, Cheney, Card, Rove, Fleischer, Rice, and the rest should then be taken into custody and transferred to a remote facility like Wackenhut's large detention center in Kern County, California, which was originally designed to hold American political prisoners and anti-war "protestors.

The Joint Chiefs should quickly name a transition Executive to plan for new presidential elections. Executive authority could be vested in the man who received the majority of votes in the 2000 election. Al Gore would be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. In the interest of national unity, Gore would be asked to pledge not to seek re-election in the upcoming presidential election, which should be held no later than nine months from his inauguration.

Former Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter could be named as co-Vice Presidents (it would be constitutional since neither ever served two full presidential terms). These one-time political adversaries are also the best of friends. Although the Joint Chiefs would also have to remove Rumsfeld and his war hawk advisers, Bush Cabinet members (sans Ashcroft and Tom Ridge) who pledged to support the transition government could remain in office pending new elections. However, in all likelihood, many of the Bush appointees would probably be too embarrassed to remain in any official capacity. Washington, DC has a huge reservoir of talented people who could assume Cabinet and other governmental functions - there are a number of ex-senators, representatives, ambassadors, and cabinet members who could step up to the plate during such a national emergency transition."

You couldn't make this stuff up.

But wait! There is also the pernicious slur that Dubya knew about 9/11 before the attacks:

"An American Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which would be named by President Gore, would look into what Bush and his cronies really knew about the September 11th attacks and whether they allowed them deliberately to occur in order to seize unconstitutional power, who was responsible for the anthrax attacks on the Democratic leadership of the Senate and the media, i.e., the attempted assassinations of the Democratic Majority Leader and the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jeb Bush's malfeasance in the 2000 presidential election in Florida, the alleged profiteering of George H. W., Marvin, and Neil Bush in post-September 11th Middle East business deals, and the role of The Carlyle Group, Halliburton, Enron, and others in disastrous pipeline politics in both Afghanistan and Iraq."

NYT Hyperbole Watch

The mood in Washington hasn't been this angst-ridden since the Civil War--says the NYT. What about WWI, Pearl Harbor, the Cuban Missile Crisis, 9/11? No, this trumps 'em all:

"Baghdad is of course a lot farther away than Gettysburg. The sense of siege in Mr. Bush's Washington comes not from Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard but from the fear that battles fought in a distant land will inflame hatred of Americans and inspire new acts of terrorism against the United States.

Unlike the Civil War, when the sense of siege ended with the fighting, the current fear may never entirely go away, even after Baghdad falls."

Taxi Suicide Attacker Hagiography

Is it just me or does Robert Fisk employ an almost breathless tone in his story on the suicide attack on U.S. troops?

"Sergeant Ali Jaffar Moussa Hamadi al-Nomani was the first Iraqi combatant known to stage a suicide attack. Not even during the uprising against British rule did an Iraqi kill himself to destroy his enemies. Nomani was also a Shia Muslim – a member of the same sect the Americans faithfully believed to be their secret ally in their invasion of Iraq. Even the Iraqi government initially wondered how to deal with his extraordinary action, caught between its desire to dissociate themselves from an event that might remind the world of Osama bin Laden and its determination to threaten the Americans with more such attacks."

"The details of the 50-year-old sergeant's life are few but intriguing. He was a soldier in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and volunteered to fight in the 1991 Gulf War, called the "Mother of All Battles" by President Saddam Hussein, who believes he was the victor. Then, though he was overage for further fighting, Nomani volunteered to fight the Anglo-American invasion. And so it was, without telling his commander and in his own car, he drove into the US Marine checkpoint outside Najaf."

Fisk's offensive tone aside, I think we should all be careful about labelling this attack as a terrorist operation as it was directed at combatant soldiers. One of the better definitions of terrorism I've seen is from Paul Pillar, a former deputy chief of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center, who argues that there are four key constitutive elements of terrorism:

a) It is premeditated—planned in advance, rather than an impulsive act of rage.
b) It is political—not criminal, like the violence that groups such as the mafia use to get money, but designed to change the existing political order.
c) It is aimed at civilians—not at military targets or combat-ready troops.
d) It is carried out by subnational groups—not by the army of a country.

It appears that the attack fails parts "c" and "d" of the definition--so would better fit under the heading of guerilla tactics (if reprehensible ones). All this said, Fisk's article appears just shy of a hagiography of the perpetrator of the attack--and to describe the Iraqi government as, even briefly, desirous of "disassociating" from this act is a laughable contention given that the Iraqis actively publicize that they have thousands of such martyrs ready to attack allied troops.

The problem with all this, as with so many other aspects of this young war, is that now U.S. soldiers look set to encircle cities like Najaf while barely allowing vehicular traffic out. It makes the gaining "hearts and minds" aspect of this conflict much harder when residents of entire cities can't move around much. And, unfortunately, the Iraqis realize this and will continue using tactics that will provoke various responses by coalition forces that will doubless anger and frustrate many locals. I still believe, however, in cautiously optimistic fashion, that as we slowly take apart Saddam's Fedayeen, as the Shi'a in the south see that this is not a replay of '91, ie. that the U.S. is in it for keeps, and as humanitarian aid starts to get distributed in a more widespread and efficient manner-- more goodwill towards coalition forces will be earned from Iraqis. But there appears to be a lot of hard and messy slogging in the days ahead--particularly as U.S. forces aren't yet in predominately Sunni areas.

Dubya Metamorphosized Into Nero

Comparisons of Dubya to Hitler are getting too cliched and hackneyed on the Left. So the Baudrillard crowd has come up with a new historical personage to compare Dubya to--Nero!

"How can we admit that we have returned to the worst hours of the Roman Empire, those that bear the tragic seal of Caligula and Nero? How is it possible now, in our day, when supposedly there is the most comprehensive application of "democracy" in the history of humanity, to accept the idea that the most "developed," wealthy and powerful nation in the world has a leadership that has come down with a devastating psychosis?"

"But the United States has also become a pathocracy, that is, a regime that is neurotic in essence, the leaders of which are, quite simply, psychopaths. I offer the hypothesis that the American president is personally suffering from a paranoid psychosis and that the quartet he has formed with Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld constitutes a government that is both theocratic and pathocratic."

Francois de Bernard--moving well beyond the Dubya as religious nut argument popular in European circles--accuses a good chunk of the American leadership of simply being psychopaths. He is therefore the latest recipient of the Vidal award for heated anti-american rhetoric devoid of any fact-based analysis.

Friendly Fire

Even when close allies are engaged in battle together--tensions spill over because of incidents like these.

More on Rumsfeld's Warning to Syria

Haaretz has a piece up on this. The news is not good per my initial analysis here. It appears that this was another instance of Rummy freelancing without a unified Administration posture having been hammered out before:

"Despite this, Rumsfeld's statement surprised officials in the State Department and CIA. American sources said secret contacts are being held with Syria to stop the spill of equipment and weapons into Iraq and there was no intention of making this public. Yesterday, State Department sources spoke of the damage caused by Rumsfeld's statement. They said Rumsfeld was playing into the hands of those Middle East organizations and states that claim Washington's plan is not to make do with Saddam's head but continue from Iraq to other Arab states."

UPDATE: This story is getting more complicated. In a speech over the weekend to AIPAC, Colin Powell talked Syria too. Here's what he had to say:

Saying the country faced a "critical choice," Mr. Powell said, "Syria can continue direct support for terrorist groups and the dying regime of Saddam Hussein, or it can embark on a different and more hopeful course. Either way, Syria has the responsibility for its choices and for the consequences."

The language is not as belligerent in tone as Rummy's--but it looks sure to ratchet up the tension with Damascus more. Was Powell ordered to back up Rummy's tough talk by the President or did he decide to do so on his own because he believes the assistance being rendered through (or by) the Syrians to Iraq is too significant? And who at Foggy Bottom or Langley is leaking to Haaretz that there is discomfort that this spat has been publicized?

The Syrians, predictably, are sounding off in public more vociferously now too.

Coalition Casualty Watch

Regular readers may recall an earlier post where I had expressed some surprise at the amazingly low casualties during the hostilities in Najaf--with reports of 1,000 Iraqis dead compared to a single U.S. soldier in fighting described by U.S. GIs as "Apocalypse Now" in intensity. Rusmfeld was asked a related question at last Friday's Pentagon briefing:

Q: And I had one follow-up, sir. The casualty figures currently officially released by the U.S. military show 28 dead and 40 wounded. Now the proportion of wounded and dead would be -- would seem to be historically way out of skew, because the number of wounded is usually far more than the number killed in action. Is there -- can you explain why that would be, or -- and is there any effort to either unreport or underreport casualties from the battlefield?

Rumsfeld: "Oh, my goodness! Now, you know that wouldn't be the case. There's no -- no one in this government, here or on the ground, is going to underreport what's happening. That's just terrible to think that. Even to suggest it is outrageous. Most certainly not! The facts are reported. (Pounds fist.) When people are killed, they're killed and we face it. When people are wounded, we say so. When people are missing and we know they're missing, we say so. And when we're wrong and they wander back into camp, as several have recently, having been lost or with other units, we say so. Absolutely not!"

Myers: "The only thing I would add to that is that there can be reporting lags. And with embedded media, you know, you can hear reports, but before the families are notified of either wounded or killed in action or missing, we don't release the figures. So, there could be some lag time. But we never -- we're never going to hide those numbers."

Rumsfeld's argument appeared a bit 'he doth protest too much' in nature, but I have to assume he is being completely honest. In addition, I take Myer's point regarding "reporting lags."

But the suspicions regarding casualty totals are, nevertheless, continuing to percolate, most recently, courtesy of the Week in Review section of the NYT:

"Snippets of news from Nasiriya give us a picture of chaotic guerrilla warfare, replete with hit-and-run ambushes, dead civilians, friendly fire casualties from firefights begun in the dead of night and a puzzling number of marines who are still unaccounted for."

I trust this administration to give the American public the unvarnished truth when it comes to casualty totals. What concerns me, however, is that firefights may have been more intense than we perhaps realize at this stage. And that, in the chaotic aftermath of myriad engagements, we are not yet fully aware of the human toll to date.

Robin Cook to Cheney, Rummy and Wolfy--I Wish You Were "Embedded"

Robin Cook, fresh from leaving Blair's government, isn't staying quiet.

"We were told that the local population would welcome their invaders as liberators. Paul Wolfowitz, No.2 at the Pentagon, promised that our tanks would be greeted "with an explosion of joy and relief". Personally I would like to volunteer Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz to be "embedded"alongside the journalists with the forward units.That would give them a chance to hear what the troops fighting for every bridge over the Euphrates think about their promises."

Later, however, Cook clarified his position and says he wants the coalition to "see the job through."

Cook resigned with some dignity. I agree that a protracted seige, which Cook suggests is the new strategy for taking Baghdad without any corroboration, would be a public relations disaster (though better than increasingly aggressive bombardments that lead to more destroyed marketplaces and the like) . But Cook isn't privy to the strategy that will be employed to take Baghdad. And this war isn't even two weeks old. So why this piece, now?

It appears, all in all, that Cook was simply emoting in the pages of the Mirror. Like him, we all want the troops out as quickly as possible, this war ended swiftly, few civilian deaths. But as even Cook admits, there is no question of now retreating and leaving Saddam in power. Better to focus our collective thinking on the least messy ways forward to secure victory and begin the mammoth task of creating a viable, integrated, democratic Iraqi polity. Cook doesn't help us, at all, on that score. Which is one of the many reasons that Cook would never prove to be a threat to Blair as leader of the Labour party.

Rumsfeld on Syria

Rumsfeld's comments on Syria certainly did not appear to be off the cuff remarks like, perhaps, his "Old Europe" locution or grouping Germany together with Cuba and Libya as nations not providing any help with regard to the U.S. action in Iraq. As the linked transcript shows, they were part of his prepared remarks. His prepared language was as follows:

"And to Iraq's neighbor, Syria: We have information that shipments of military supplies have been crossing the border from Syria into Iraq, including night-vision goggles. These deliveries pose a direct threat to the lives of coalition forces. We consider such trafficking as hostile acts and will hold the Syrian government accountable for such shipments."

The FT, in somewhat sensationalistic fashion, has run a large headline in their weekend edition titled U.S. Warns Syria on 'Hostile Acts.' One might think the U.S. if off to Damascus in short order!

Meanwhile, the Syrian foreign ministry spokeswoman has described Rumsfeld's comments as "absolutely unfounded."

But one has too look at some of the Q&A to get a better feeling of what Rumsfeld meant. Here are all the relevant passages from yesterday's Pentagon press conference:

Q: Mr. Secretary, I'd like to ask you about your statement about military supplies moving across the border from Syria. You described those as hostile acts. Are they subject to military action in response if that continues?

Rumsfeld: There's no question but that to the extent military supplies or equipment or people move across borders between Iraq and Syria, that it vastly complicates our situation. And that is why I said what I said.

Q: But so are you threatening military action against Syria?

Rumsfeld: I'm saying exactly what I said. It was carefully phrased.

LATER:

Q: Mr. Secretary, I wanted to clear up what you said earlier about the Syrian -- or the NBGs coming in through Syria. Are you suggesting or is there information that this in fact state-sponsored, these are state-sponsored shipments of military goods?

Rumsfeld: I don't think I want to get into it. It's an intelligence issue. They control their border, and we're hopeful that that type of thing doesn't happen. (Cross talk.)

LATER:

Q: Mr. Secretary, for someone who's always advocating private channels of diplomacy, I'd like to go back to your statement about Syria and Iran. Be very precise. What message are you sending the governments of Syria and Iran from this podium? If the rules -- are the rules of the road for this conflict to other countries the same as they are for the war on terrorism: You are with or against us, which is the president's message? Is that what you are saying here, your message?

A: And specifically, with respect to Syria, I pointed out that we have seen military supplies and materials and equipment crossing the border, and we'd like it to stop. And to the extent it keeps on, we have to consider it a hostile act. [my emphasis]

The FT and other media outlets have headlined their stories per Rummy's initial remarks, ie. that the Syrians are engaged in hostile acts and they could be held accountable as a result. But, as the Q&A shows, Rummy later tipped his hand a bit by stating that, "to the extent it keeps on, we have to consider it a hostile act." In other words, it was the proverbial "shot across the bow," a stern warning to the Syrians (particularly, it appears, regarding night vision goggles--provision of which mitigate coalition forces advantages in urban fighting and, as the weather gets hotter, when allied forces might prefer to engage the enemy during the cooler night hours).

A couple points: I really hope that the U.S. approached Damascus on this issue through private channels before this highly public airing of Washington's concerns. If we did, and the Syrians denied they were allowing any assistance to cross their border to Iraq, and the U.S. had highly compelling intelligence that they were fully cognizant of such transfers, then I can understand Rumsfeld's need to issue a public warning to Damascus. But only if we made best diplomatic efforts in private first. Needless to say, the regional situation is immensely complex with each of Iraq's neighbors. There are, obviously, fears in Teheran and Damascus that they are next. To employ, in public, bellicose language about "hostile" acts in reference to one of these two countries should be done only when absolutely necessary--as it fans suspicions among Arabs (or Iranians) throughout the region that we have designs on strategic control of the entire region. It will be interesting to see if Powell has any comments on Syria in the coming days respecting this issue--I would be heartened if he backs Rummy up as it would show that the entire Administration has a coordinated posture on this issue and, likely, that we had already approached Damascus with our concerns to no avail. If Powell, instead, appears to differ with Rumsfeld on this issue it will be another example of lack of coordination between battling fiefdoms in the Adminstration--not what the U.S. needs during these critical times.

Another issue to keep in mind is whether Syria is allowing Hezbollah or Palestinian elements transit rights over their border and the equipment comes from such groups. If so, Syria still is culpable and needs to be held to account--but the tensions are unlikely to spill out of control. If Damascus itself is providing the equipment--and continues to do so after Rumsfeld's warning--the prospects of greater regional de-stabilization are significantly enhanced.

Are These The Sentiments of an Ally?

"Svelte" Dominique de Villepin per a British journalist's query regarding where his sympathies lay in the war:

"I'm not going to answer because you have not listened carefully to what I have said before." The text of his speech, however, gave no particular clue as to what he meant, other than a comment that "I naturally wish that this conflict finds a swift conclusion with the minimum possible number of casualties."

Amazing. Shocking too that the NYT categorizes Dominique's lastest broadside against Washington as akin to the extension of an olive branch (albeit a "thorny" one). France's leading diplomat is not even willing to go on the record to say that France, at this time of significant peril to (ostensibly) friendly forces, would favor an American/British victory? This is an olive branch to Washington? Maybe for Howell's Dominique fan club. To me it's a bitter slap in the face. And I'm sure many in Washington will feel the same.

UPDATE: Now the French want a U.S. victory. Kind of like they would support us in the event of a WMD attack. The mere fact that the French Foreign Ministry would have to release a statement saying that France actually does want a U.S. victory in Iraq speaks volumes.

Neo-Cons on the Defensive!

Richard Perle resigns as Chairman of the Defense Advisory Board, Paul Wolfowitz quotes in a WaPo story on the Turkey imbroglio display earlier overconfidence regarding Ankara's position, the Powell doctrine appears to be trumping Rummy/Wolfy style military campaigns of special ops, psyops, heavy reliance on airpower and lean troop movements, and Michael O'Hanlon says Perle and Ken Adleman thought an Iraq campaign would be a "cakewalk."

Well, I can certainly emphatize with Richard Perle's reaction to a NYT journalist's phone call today (they have, of course, been leading the Perle resign bandwagon via mastheads, Maureen and "investigative" journalism a la Hersh):

"In a brief phone conversation this afternoon before the Pentagon's announcement, Mr. Perle sounded angry. Asked whether he had resigned, he replied: "Let me just tell you something. If I had, you'd be the last person in the world I'd want to talk to." He then slammed down the phone."

Did the NYT really have to provide all the gritty details? So, uh, National Enquirerish of them. Regardless, I still don't believe Perle will be found to have committed any illegal actions either on the Khassogi/Bandar Hersh opus or Global Crossing. But his resignation letter to Rumsfeld gets it about right:

In a letter to Mr. Rumsfeld dated Wednesday, Mr. Perle said he was "dismayed" that criticism of his business ties was distracting Pentagon officials while they were grappling with the war in Iraq. "I have seen controversies like this before, and I know that this one will inevitably distract from the urgent challenge in which you are now engaged," Mr. Perle wrote. "I would not wish to cause even a moment's distraction from that challenge. As I cannot quickly or easily quell criticism of me based on errors of fact concerning my activities, the least I can do under these circumstances is to ask you to accept my resignation as chairman of the Defense Policy Board."

Of course, many will continue to demand that he leave the Defense Advisory Board altogether--not just step down from the Chairman role.

Vidal Award

To Wayne Madsen for showcasing the Vidalian penchant for wild anti-american rants devoid of any factual moorings:

"The nations of the world must learn how to cope with living on the same planet with a regime that has resurrected the Nazi war strategy of "blitzkrieg" (lightning war) by adopting the concept of pre-emptive "shock and awe" military strikes. Make no mistake about it, the Bush regime, which came to power through a manipulative election process and then conveniently used a domestic terrorist attack to seize unconstitutional powers, will stop at nothing from remaking the world according to its own concept of a "new world order" subservient to the United States."

Oh, cut through all the verbiage, won't you Wayne? The U.S. is a Hitlerian state is what you mean to say, right? And Dubya the new Fuhrer.

Le Monde Watch

From a Richard Bernstein piece in the NYT:

"Le Monde, France's most prestigious newspaper, published a front-page cartoon by its caricaturist, Plantu, that showed an American soldier with an American flag marching over a heap of Iraqi corpses. The soldier says, "This sandstorm is terrible!"

See the cartoon here (scroll halfway down page). UPDATE: This cartoon has been removed (replaced with another anti-american one, however). I'm sorry I don't have a direct link to the original one described in Bernstein's piece.

Meanwhile, in a story on Syria, Le Monde reverses the September 12th, 2001 headline "We Are All Americans Now" with (from the Damascene perspective, bien sur) "We Are All Iraqis."

Speaking of Syria, Bashar Assad is ratcheting up the rhetoric. I suspect this is mostly for domestic consumption--the U.S. and Syria have been cooperating quite intensely since 9/11 on intelligence sharing related to al-Qaeda. Sure, it is a very difficult relationship, but not so bad (at least at the present juncture) that Bashar would credibly fear that he is "next."

Letters Department

A reader writes in re: my somewhat gloomy Safwan post below: "You are not getting the full picture. Saddam's loyalists are still active there. Yesterday, a woman who greeted the British troops was found swinging by the neck from a tree. Reprisals have occurred to others, too. Plus, these Iraqis you speak of were on camera and knew it. After we abandoned them to slaughter in '91, the Iraqi Shia are understandably cautious about jumping into our arms so soon. They do not know for sure which way this thing is going to turn out. They do not know our level of committment."

I agree with all these sentiments, some of which are also reflected in Bill Safire's column today. In addition, reports that Iraqi officers are threatening to shoot soldiers who don't fight are increasingly popping up (for instance, here and here).

In short, we shouldn't necessarily get too caught up in speculation that anti-U.S nationalistic sentiment is sweeping Iraq despite widespread hatred for Saddam. But let's not instead get overly triumphalist and believe that we are going to be greeted with warm emotive outbursts the minute Saddam's loyalists are dead or captured or that the population is convinced that, this time contra 1991, we are committed for the long haul. The reality likely resides somewhere in the murky middle.

By the way, regarding reader mail, let me note that I will take the liberty of quoting letter writers by name unless the writer expressly requests that I not do so. And while on the subject of such in-house matters, a quick thank you to Andrew Sullivan and Dan Drezner for their recent links to my site. I hope the readers who have thereby been introduced to the Belgravia Dispach will keep coming around!

The Medievalism of "Embedded" Journalism

Caleb Carr in the Observer. A bit hyperbolic in parts, but worth a quick read.

Casualty Reports and Murkiness in Safwan

Alarming story in tomorrow IHT. Per my post below entitled "The Najaf Battle" it appears something fishy is going on with regard to coalition reports on allied casualty figures:

General Brooks declined to comment on the number of United States casualties in the war and explicitly said the military would not provide numbers. "As a matter of practice, we just aren't going to announce numbers of casualties," he said. [Brooks is deputy commander of operations based in Qatar].

That's certainly not a positive development and I'm hoping Vincent Brooks made a mistake when he said the above. The U.S. people need to know what is going on on the battlefield. We're adults, we can handle the difficult truths, transparency is critical. I am getting a nagging feeling that casualties are significantly higher than we are aware at this juncture.

He goes on: "The practices that have been conducted by these paramilitaries, by these others who are out there sometimes in uniform, sometimes not in uniform, are more akin to the behaviors of global terrorists than they are to a nation," General Brooks said.

Well sure. But as I've said before, no one thought Saddam was going to play by Marquess of Queensbury rules. There will be feigned surrenders, soldiers in civilians garb, all manners of ambushes--in a word, brutal guerilla warfare. But, apropos this discussion, that Brooks would say this, with apparent frustration, indicates to me that we've lost more than 20 odd GI's over the past six days.

And, sorry to be so damn gloomy (this article really got to me) but check this out:

"In Safwan, close to the border with Kuwait, reporters said food was distributed in a chaotic scene in which local residents chanted their support for Mr. Hussein even as they collected boxes of goods. Scores of Iraqis scrambled into the backs of three trucks driven over the border by the Kuwait Red Crescent Society. Some 21,000 meals were packed into the convoy, including bread, flour, tea, water and cooking oil.

"With our blood, we sacrifice ourselves for you, Saddam," a group of Iraqis were reported to chant."

Safwan? Shi'a territory just over the Kuwaiti border? Folks, if we're having difficulties there then it's not looking pretty regarding a warm reception in the Sunni heartlands (of course, locals could have been putting on a show for the journalists).

Could it be that, even when on the cusp of liberty from the most brutal totalitarianism, populations revert back to a nationalistic posture when they begin to suffer significant losses from a foreign invader? Another reason to be very intent on keeping to a minimum civilian casualties in the difficult days ahead.

UPDATE: Video from Safwan food distribution.

UPDATE: Publicized coalition casualties to date.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

One of America's political giants, dead at 76.

More detailed obit here.

The Najaf Battle

The media has been full of reports of a major battle near Najaf that reportedly killed perhaps up to 750 Iraqi soldiers with no U.S. casualties:

"Hundreds of Iraqis died in the attack near Najaf, American military officials in central Iraq said on Wednesday, after the fighting ended. North of town, 400 to 500 Iraqis died, and to the south, another 150 to 200 were killed. These forces were overpowered by American superiority in ground armor, including the Abrams tanks. No American casualties have been reported, but two tanks were lost."

I don't want to sound overly pessimistic regarding coalition casualties, but does this sound strange to anyone else? Particularly as it is the Iraqis who initiated the attack? And were there any personnel in those two tanks?

And take a look at this story:

"Sean D Naylor of the American Army Times quotes a US soldier describing the fighting as so intense that "it looks like Apocalypse Now".

"So intense was the fighting that at one stage the 3rd Squadron commander's driver, Private First Class Randall Duke Newcomb, was forced to steer his Humvee with one hand while firing out of the window with the other."

This sure doesn't sound like a zero coalition casualty fight to me folks. Now maybe the Pentagon will provide figures once they can further confirm the full extent of what occurred on the battlefield--but we have to feel confident that they are not keeping the bad news from us. The public needs to be informed as swiftly as possible about developments so that it retains full confidence that the Pentagon is disseminating information as expeditiously as possible. I hope I'm wrong and we won an amazing victory in Najaf with no U.S. victims. But it's tough to believe, isn't it?

UPDATE: Link to the Army Times story on Najaf:

"The captain said he didn’t count the Iraqi corpses. However, his troops did hang around long enough to confirm they were Republican Guard soldiers by the distinctive red triangular shoulder patches and red brassards they wore on their olive-drab fatigues. One Republican Guard soldier was also carrying a gas mask."

Why are Republican Guard soldiers carrying around gas masks? It appears we may have to increasingly brace ourselves for possible use of nerve gas as troops get closer to Baghdad. The one thing that might keep Saddam from using such agents is the near universal condemnation such tactics will bring. Right now, particularly given events like this, the Iraqis are winning the propaganda war throughout the Arab world (and much of Europe). Such "gains" will be greatly mitigated if the Iraqis go chemical. But, on balance, I fear Saddam will employ whatever means at his disposal to survive (as long as possible) the coalition onslaught. (UPDATE: John Burns must feel like he is back in Sarajevo. Recall that, during the siege of Sarajevo, there was occasional speculation that the Bosniaks were sometimes shelling their own people so that images of slaughter would expedite the arrival of Western powers combatting Bosnian Serbs arrayed around the city. There is some similar speculation in Baghdad about whether the Iraqis orchestrated the attack themselves in a bid to enhance their standing as "victims" per the propaganda war.)

UPDATE: This story has one American fatality and an estimated 1,000 (you read right) Iraqi military deaths. I'm hopeful but still dubious that the ratio is 1:1000.

"This is Not Our War"

The latest (good) news from Ankara:

"This is not our war," the general said, reading from a prepared text at a local military base here. "This is not our mission."

"His announcement eases fears of a war-within-a-war on the northern front, though General Ozkok did say that he reserved the right to send additional forces into Iraq if the situation there spins out of control."

Needless to say, the situation in the north remains highly fluid but, at least today, developments there are quite helpful to Washington.

Fischer's Hyperbole

Joshka Fishcher has been making some pretty inflammatory comments recently:

Referring to Britain and Spain, he said: "One must ask whether the countries that are such close partners of the US had or have an influence [over Washington's Iraq policy]." He said the positions taken by the British and Spanish governments had led to "major [domestic] problems that bordered on the destabilisation of democratic systems".

The destabilization of democratic systems? I can assure the German Foreign Minister that presently, the U.K. certainly doesn't feel like, say, Weimar Germany. Democratic moorings appear well intact. The PM faced the Commons and won majority support from the two key parties in the land. His popular support is on a major uptick. What is Joshka Fischer talking about?

He also is trying to paint an impotent Aznar and Blair who constitute an amen corner to whatever diktats emanate from Washington. Another impolitic slur which will do little to begin to provide a better climate for mending fences. Gosh, what an awful team over in Berlin. The irony is, sadly, they are keenly aware that their chances of staying in power are increased by a constant resort to such primitive anti-American rhetoric. But one must ask, to what extent is the German leadership responsible for fanning and intensifying the anti-americanism currently sweeping Germany?

Note too, the Development Minister didn't want to be left out of the Washington-bashing Berlin fun:

Ms Wieczorek-Zeul, who is known for her leftwing views, also lashed out at the US military. "As we see, there are none of the 'clever bombs' that the US military claim; bombs are always destructive and murderous," she said.

The "poisoned" relations might just get worse, I'm afraid.

"Find and Fix"

Current coalition military strategy per Janes.

"A major effort has been underway in recent days to 'prepare the battlefield' ahead of the advancing US armoured columns in what military doctrine describes as the 'deep battle'. The Apaches of the 11th Aviation Brigade have been in action, trying to find and destroy Republican Guard tanks in the towns and villages south of Baghdad. Once these efforts to 'find' the main Republican Guard positions have been successful, reconnaissance forces, including attack helicopters, will be sent into action to 'fix' them in their positions while the 3rd Infantry Division's three armoured brigades position themselves to strike.

The 'find and fix' phase of the battle is the most crucial for US commanders because they have a numerically inferior force to the Iraqis and have very exposed flanks and supply lines. If US reconnaissance forces and surveillance assets fail to find the Iraqis or misidentify the main Iraqi defensive positions then the US armoured brigades could be committed in the wrong place, exposing them to counter-attack while refuelling or re-arming."

But how will this "fixing" be undertaken?

Thomas Ricks takes a look at the WaPo:

"The impending battle confronts U.S. forces with a dilemma that goes to the heart of the complex mission in which they are engaged: They can maximize the advantages of their overwhelming firepower and bomb a wily adversary hiding heavy weapons in built-up areas, which would inflict civilian casualties and set back the U.S. campaign for public opinion. Or they can try to attack precisely with low-flying helicopters and ground forces, which could mean losing more U.S. troops. If the fight against the Medina Division ends in just a day or two, or if parts of the unit even surrender without a fight, that will send a powerful signal that the climactic battle for Baghdad won't be as difficult as some have predicted, or won't occur at all.

"But if the 10,000-man Medina division manages to undercut U.S. momentum, and especially if it inflicts heavy casualties in the process, or if it just retreats from a battlefield strewn with dead civilians, then the tone of the war probably will change. A bitter fight that takes a week might even persuade the U.S. military to alter its strategy and dig in to wait for reinforcements from the Army's tank-heavy 4th Infantry Division -- which probably would take at least two or three weeks."

Northern Front Dispatch

Tim Judah has a good piece in the NYRB.

On the positive side of the ledger, Judah quotes a Mr. Omar, the leading Kurdish official in the small town of Shoresh (just inside the autonomous Kurdish zone):

"Mr. Omar thinks that not much is going to happen here. That is what the Iraqis across the front line are telling him. According to Mr. Omar, Iraqi officers and ordinary soldiers slip across it several times a week to give him detailed information to pass on to his bosses, and to beg him not to attack when the US-led war begins. He told me: "They are saying they will not fight. They say: 'Just don't attack us, give us time to join you or to escape.'" There have always been contacts between the two sides, he told me, but in the last two months the number of men crossing over to visit him has increased dramatically. He explained that Saddam's men "have a contact who brings them over." They change into civilian clothes and, he said, "they come especially at night."

On another topic, as regular readers know, I've defended a good deal of this Adminstration's diplomatic efforts but have criticized occasional U.S. heavy-handedness in some of our diplomatic efforts (Mexico, Turkey). If this vignette is accurate, it's a prime example of some errors the U.S. made in our approach to Ankara:

"In a largely Muslim country of some 57 million people, well over 90 percent of Turks are opposed to the war and there have been large-scale demonstrations against it. While many in the government and especially in the military believed that Turkey's strategic and economic interests lay in cooperating with the Bush administration, "the Americans," Mr. Dulger complained, had disparaged the Turks as haggling "rug merchants" and "belly-dancers" and had refused to listen to Turkish concerns as a good ally should. In the Foreign Ministry an official told me that when Yashar Yakis, the foreign minister, told President Bush that Turkey had severe problems with the war and with complying with all of America's requests, Mr. Bush brushed him off, saying: "I understand, but now go back to Turkey and do the job." The official thought awhile and said of President Bush: "The man is ill."

Well, I certainly don't think Dubya is ill (perhaps a bit cocksure, occasionally)--but, if true, such an approach was a bit too haughty to take with a Foreign Minister tasked with persuading a government to support an action opposed by approximately 94% of the population. Powell should have flown out to Ankara and done some immediate face to face clean-up after this episode--if indeed it occurred.

That said, the Turks were likely communicating to the Americans that approval of a sizable troop deployment was in the bag--and key interlocuters in Ankara were probably just as stunned as U.S. Administration observers when the parliamentary motion was defeated. Powell and team also likely felt, in the final analysis, that the Army would deliver the Parliament. But with Turkey going through chaotic, historic deliberations over matters they consider of the utmost vitality to their national security (even if many of their fears are exaggerated)--more observers should have been cognizant than anything could happen. And in an environment like that, you don't want the diplomatic wires to get soured because of diktat-like formulations or even the perception that there are Washington whispering campaigns that the Turks are just in it for the cash.

High Baathist Death Toll Good

Or so says Daniel Drezner in a provocative post. Drezner thinks we reap the gains of a more expeditious de-Baathification in such fashion--making the post-war scene easier to navigate for allied forces. Sorry to say, I think a much better way to go about de-Baathification will be through a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Committee or former Yugoslavia style war crimes tribunal once the conflict is over rather than higher body counts at the present juncture.

Why? Well, for one, there are well over a million potential sympathizers of the Baath Party but a much smaller number of actual Baathist leadership:

"....the Baath Party claimed about 10 percent of the population, a total of 1.5 million supporters and sympathizers; of this total, full party members, or cadres, were estimated at only 30,000, or 0.2 percent. The cadres were the nucleus of party organization, and they functioned as leaders, motivators, teachers, administrators, and watchdogs. Generally, party recruitment procedures emphasized selectivity rather than quantity, and those who desired to join the party had to pass successfully through several apprentice-like stages before being accepted into full membership. The Baath's elitist approach derived from the principle that the party's effectiveness could only be measured by its demonstrable ability to mobilize and to lead the people, and not by "size, number, or form." Participation in the party was virtually a requisite for social mobility. "

There is likely a decent chunk of those 1.5 million Baathist symphathizers that may, at this juncture, still fight sporadically based on varied local dynamics underway during the current chaotic unfurling of the allied campaign (but are increasingly likely to lay down arms as Saddam's regime totters). Rather than calculate that we are making the post-war scene easier to manage by killing large swaths of Baathist supporters now, better to think solely in terms of engaging active resistance that must be defeated to assure success.

Further, and importantly, it is the approximately 30,000 cadre members that are the real objects of a necessary de-Baathification once a coalition victory is secured. And, unlike Drezner, I think these 30,000 are not so embedded into Iraqi society that we won't be able to identify them with relative facility once victory is secured.

Bringing them to justice via tribunals or a truth and reconciliation committee will prove an important mechanism for Iraqi society to grapple with the legacies of a brutish, tribal, neo-Stalinist regime. Running roughshod through population centers like Basra to hunt down tepidly motivated Baathist resistance now, at high cost to civilian lives, will be more likely to imperil the war effort than make for an easier post-war scene.

Dueling Mastheads Redux

Pretty gloomy on the Hudson; pretty feisty on the Potomac.

Nerve Gas Distributed to Republican Guard?

WaPo article quoting Ken Pollack contains the alarming contention that chemical agents have been passed along to Republican Guard units defending the capital:

"There are intelligence reports that Iraq has distributed chemical weapons, most likely VX [nerve gas] to the Republican Guard," including the Medina division, said Kenneth M. Pollack, a former CIA analyst of Middle Eastern militaries. When reconnaissance images showed munitions being delivered, he said, they were accompanied by chemical decontamination trucks.

Retired Rear Adm. John Sigler, a former chief planner for the U.S. Central Command, agreed with that assessment, saying, "I don't think you'll see bugs [biological weapons], but you might see gas."

A Chilly Reception from the Shi'a in the South?

I am a bit concerned that certain observers are being a tad sanguine about the progress of the campaign (though I want to be careful not to overdramatize the difficulties and am still highly optimistic regarding ultimate coalition success). The key issue currently is that U.S. planners may have overestimated the support the oppressed Shi'a in the south would provide incoming coalition forces. The conventional wisdom in the Beltway was that the Shi'a, long under the brutal yoke of Saddam's predominately Sunni government, would rejoice when forces arrived whose objective was the overthrow of Saddam. The problem, however, is that it appears that many Shi'as assumed that U.S. forces would basically rush up to Baghdad and unseat Saddam and, voila, Saddam gone. Not to mention, Iraqi Shi'a-Sunni relations are a bit more nuanced than commonly appreciated. Regardless, resistance along the way has provoked significant firefights and allied bombing that appears to have reduced much of the good will in that part of the country because of civilian deaths and detiorating humanitarian conditions. Such, of course, are the unpredictabilities of even the best laid war plans.

So what's the key issue right now tactically? Retired Marine Corps General Bernard Trainor has a pretty good take on it:

Question: When we talked just before the war started, you were concerned about the size of the U.S. forces, that they might be too thin. Are the problems in the south attributable to the fact that we don't have enough forces there now?

Trainor: "It's certainly part of it. The military planners assumed that we would have the support of the locals and therefore we did not have to worry about our long, 300-mile supply line. But now we do because we don't have the locals. And the fact that the Iraqis have been able to contest us successfully has probably stiffened the resolve of some of the units which otherwise might have surrendered.

We don't have sufficient depth and weight to make up for that. We probably have enough to do the job--at least I hope we have enough to do the job--unless things really get nasty in downtown Baghdad. But we really don't have enough to complete the security of the entire area until we get more units ashore, and it's going to take at least a couple of more weeks to get the First Armored Division and the First Cavalry Division and the Fourth [Mechanized] Infantry Division. The Fourth Mechanized originally was supposed to go into Turkey, and now its equipment is being rerouted. So the troops are getting stretched rather thin and they are getting a little tired also. I still feel that the unease I expressed the last time we spoke still exists and I have greater grounds for it this time than just the speculation and suppositions I had the last time."

Another reason there is so much anger at Ankara in Washington right now.

Ambush Alley

Marines have a nickname for the environs of Nasiriya: "ambush alley".

Aside from the unexpectedly high death toll to coalition forces, the story deals prominently with the dangers the recent battles in Nasiriya have presented to civilians in the area:

"Iraqi fighters pushed women and children into the streets to serve as human shields and drive up the civilian death toll, officers said. Civilian casualty numbers were unknown."

"It's not pretty," Officer Woellhof said. "It's not surgical. You want surgical, you should have left the place alone. You try to limit collateral damage, but they want to fight. Now it's just smash mouth football."

I have been worried that, confronted with significant urban resistance (particularly feigned surrenders, possible suicide attacks, "troops" fighting in civilian clothes) the degree of anger, frustration and urgency among allied military forces would ratchet up--leading to more robust (and less precise) tactics that would potentially kill significant numbers of civilians. These are the perhaps inevitable results of pitched battles being fought in unorthodox manner by Iraqis resisting the coalition advance. Of course, no one expected Saddam's thuggish regime to play by Marquess of Queensbury rules.

In addition, Saddam likely realizes that the propaganda value of such carnage, beemed back by Al-Jazeera T.V. crews in places like Basra, is almost as important to his efforts as holding back the coalition advance to Baghdad. Prospects of regional destabilization (I am particularly worried, currently, about Jordan) will be enhanced if the numbers of civilian dead begins to mount into the hundreds and beyond. Such developments, I trust, are still far-fetched. But we can be sure Saddam will enhance the chances of such regional shocks occuring so as to ratchet up pressure on Washington from the international community.

American war planners must remain keenly aware of this dynamic and not, in frustration, begin taking out targets where large numbers of civilians are located with any frequency. The problem is, of course, the lives of coalition troops are on the line as well--what to do when soldiers are being shot and killed from a building where civilians are located too?

The Colonel interviewed for this piece answered this question:

"If he puts his combat forces near hospitals, schools, or anything else that uses that area to direct fire, we will engage the enemy wherever he is shooting at us. The enemy commander is responsible for any collateral damage caused by putting enemy forces near a protected site."

We must hope and pray that such actions are not necessitated too often in the coming days.

UPDATE: The above linked NYT story has been significantly changed since it initially went online. There is no longer a reference to "ambush alley" and some of the quoted language I posted has been removed from the revised version of the story. It appears to me that quoted military personnel were emoting in direct fashion (given the strain of pitched battle) and higher-ups felt the language was too direct. Put simply, it appears as if the story were "sanitized" a bit per Pentagon request. Certainly, in my opinion, Howell Raines wouldn't have made these edits of his own volition.

UPDATE: See below a relevant quote from retired Marine Corps General Bernard Trainor:

Question: Are the Marines and the Army troops under too many constraints? They seem so worried about killing civilians that some people wonder if they are taking unnecessary losses.

Trainor: "That one's a judgment call. I mean somebody comes at you with a white flag. And even though you have to be wary of him, you still must make an assumption he's genuinely surrendering. You just can't shoot him. So that automatically makes you somewhat vulnerable. But there is not much you can do about that except keep your finger on the trigger, and if he makes a false move, then unload on him.

But the other restrictions, are they inhibiting us? Yes they are, but I think justifiably so. I mean, if we are going in there to liberate a place, it doesn't seem to me to be appropriate to take out a lot of civilians in the process of liberating them. For example, the British down around Basra have been wanting to open fire on some ancient T-55 tanks and some artillery pieces that the Iraqi military has in the suburbs of Basra. They are not getting the permission [to do so]. Why? Because if they fired on them, there would be collateral damage and civilian casualties. So, I think that's understandable. It's frustrating some of the military but then you have to find means around them. Properly so, the president said the war is not with Iraqis but with the Baathist regime."

French and German Media Coverage of the War in Iraq

Another must read from John Vinocur at the IHT.

The Baghdad Blogger

The Guardian has a story on the Baghdad-based blog here. Note, at least since the last time I've checked, Salam Pax hasn't updated his site since Friday Baghdad time.

One of the most poignant entries I noted over at his blog was his mixed feelings about pictures of Iraqis surrendering in the south. Even for this Westernized, "pro-liberation" Baghdadi, feelings of discomfort and humiliation arise when he sees his people surrendering to foreign forces.

"On BBC we are watching scenes of Iraqis surrendering. My youngest cousin was muttering “what shame” to himself, yes it is better for them to do that but still seeing them carrying that white flag makes something deep inside you cringe."

This is yet another example of the complexities that await U.S. forces during these momentous times. As Dave Ignatius writes in the WaPo:

"It's a criminal regime, and they execute everyone, for one word, even," said a 14-year-old boy named Mohammed, who said one of his brothers had been executed. Asked what kind of government he wanted to see in the future, a jubilant farmer named Salem Muhsen answered: "Anything but Saddam's terrorism." Two of his cousins had been executed, he said, for the crime of traveling to Kuwait to sell their vegetables. This was the face of Iraqi liberation. The farmers had gathered at the Safwan intersection, the same spot where the peace treaty ending the 1991 Gulf War had been signed.

"Yet soon after these happy sentiments were voiced, a battered white Toyota pickup arrived at the intersection bearing the bodies of two men who apparently died during American attacks. Cradling them was a woman dressed in black, who said the men were her father and brother. She wailed inconsolably, denouncing the American invaders. Her anguish was so intense that when she arrived in the nearby town of Safwan, reporters there said the anti-American mood turned ugly."

UPDATE: Salam Pax had just advised that he had lost Internet access and his server crashed due to huge incoming traffic. He advises that he will be posting a new entry soon.

UPDATE: An IHT story on blogs.

The Neo-Sacco-Vanzetti Types

Are even bugging the anti-war crowd in the Bay Area:

"The protesters are acting like sore losers," said Aitan Melamud, a retired urologist, as he watched a protest outside Bechtel Corp. headquarters Friday morning. "Like if they can't have their way, then we can't go on with our lives."

Said Smears Rudy!

Remember the $10,000,000 million that Saudi Prince Prince Ibn Al-Walid wanted to donate to NYC after 9/11? Then Mayor Rudolph Guiliani turned away the donation because of the below comments:

"I believe the government of the United States should re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stance toward the Palestinian cause," he added, calling for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"Our Palestinian brethren continue to be slaughtered at the hands of Israelis as the world (looks the other way)," said Walid, listed by Forbes Magazine as the sixth-richest man in the world with a fortune of more than 20 billion dollars."

When informed of Walid's comments, Giuliani retorted: "I entirely reject that statement. The people who did it lost any right to ask for justification for it when they slaughtered four or five thousand innocent people, and to suggest that there is a justification for it only invites this happening in the future," he said. "It is highly irresponsible and very, very dangerous. Not only are those statements wrong, they are part of the problem." [Note: The 4,000-5,000 figure, readers will recall, was the number observers thought dead through most of September 2001]

I believe Guiliani was spot on given that Walid's suggested linkage between Palestinian national aspirations and 9/11 was reprehensible. First, no matter how deep seated one's grievances about U.S. policy in the Middle East, the intentional murder of civilians wholly divorced from the conflict is unjustifiable. Second, recall that the first WTC bombing occurred in 1993--highwater mark of rosy Oslo talk with Rabin and Arafat feted on the White House lawn. The enhanced prospects for a Palestinian state then didn't stop theologically driven barbarians from attempting mass slaughter in our greatest city. It was disingenuous, tasteless and, yes, dangerous for the Prince to couple his gift with comments regarding how such actions might be caused by U.S. policy in the Middle East. Dangerous as they seem to provide justification for pursuit of, perhaps legitimate causes, through acts of grotesque violence.

What of Edward Said's take? In a piece ostensibly about a disunited wartime America (seemingly the length of a Tolstoyan tome) Said opines thus:

"In a fit of petulant rage, the then Mayor of New York (which also has the largest Jewish population of any city in the world), Rudolph Guiliani, returned the check to Al-Walid, rather unceremoniously and with an extreme and I would say racist contempt that was meant to be insulting as well as gloating. On behalf of a certain image of New York, he personally was upholding the city's demonstrated bravery and its principled resistance to outside interference. And of course pleasing, rather than trying to educate, a purportedly unified Jewish constituency."

Perhaps Said should forsake the pages of the Nation and other assorted leftish precincts and start submitting pieces over at the American Conservative?

Meanwhile, in a sloppy piece (gosh, doesn't even get Wolfy's title right!) written by one Josh Reubner, Paul Wolfowitz is derisively labelled a "court Jew" and urged to resign.

Who Lost Russia?

Martin Indyk thinks Dubya did. He argues that failure to get Russia on board was the key variable that prevented the U.S. from getting a second UNSC resolution. (The latest "blame it on the bad diplomacy" argument, some earlier ones I addressed here.)

Indyk: "The failure lay not with the French but with the way we ignored the Russians. Remember Vladimir Putin? Up until last week, his alignment with the United States was the single greatest achievement of this president's personal diplomacy. Despite the Bush administration's trampling of Russian interests in abandoning the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, Putin made a personal decision to forge a strategic partnership with the United States. On that basis, the Russian president was willing to abandon decades of Soviet and Russian support for Hussein. In the 1990s such an approach was inconceivable. The Yeltsin government, under the guidance of longtime Middle East hand Yevgeny Primakov, developed a strategic as well as commercial rationale for maintaining close ties with Baghdad. But after 9/11, Putin developed a very different strategic calculus -- that Russia's future lay in partnership with Washington, not Baghdad."

Indyk underestimates the continuing Primakov hangover effect on Iraq policy that colors the judgement of large swaths of the Russian foreign policy elite on matters related to Iraq. Putin, it is likely, communicated to Dubya that he would not be able to actively support a second resolution given a Soviet and then Russian policy that viewed Iraq as akin to a client state. All this said, however, particularly after the French dismissed the British bridging proposal out of hand, it is not inconceivable that the Russians would have abstained rather than vetoed a second resolution had it come to a vote. Regardless, however, this is less a failure of U.S. diplomacy than a reflection of special Russian realities that Putin had to navigate regarding Iraq policy.

Indyk goes on to write: "The Bush administration simply assumed that Putin was in the president's pocket and took him for granted. Even last week, when the president appeared to begin the effort to repair the damage in the Security Council, he chose to fete the president of Cameroon at a private White House dinner. Where was Putin? Left clamoring from the sidelines for the president's attention by personally criticizing our actions in Iraq."

Come again? From where does Indyk corroborate that Dubya assumed he had Putin in his pocket? The fact that the president of Cameroon had dinner at the White House has nothing to do with the conduct of our diplomacy with Russia over the past several months with the UNSC.

The most powerful argument regarding the shortcomings of American diplomacy since the entire U.N. process began on September 12th with Dubya's speech hasn't been widely aired yet. It is that we should have been more proactive about the potential for French trouble-making at the UNSC. In other words, we took Dominique de Villepin too much at his word that he would be willing to vote a second resolution if, per a good faith determination, a judgement were made that Saddam wasn't fully complying with 1441.

We should have, way back in December, for instance, devised highly specific targets that Saddam would have to meet and gotten the French to say on the record that, without Saddam meeting those requirements, Paris would support a second resolution calling for "serious consequences." In other words, rather than amorphous "material breach" language that the French could argue Saddam wasn't in violation of--we should have preemptively pinned Paris down on a specific series of actions Baghdad would have had to take by a time certain.

All this said, of course, hindsight is 20-20. Who could have expected that the French would have chosen this juncture to re-assert neo-Gaullist projects in contravention of matters of immense import to international security? But, aside from occasional heavy-handedness with allies like Turkey or Mexico or a dearth of what former Secretary of State George Schultz calls "gardening" (patient, routinized maintenance of alliance relationships), or a few Rumsfeldian excesses--I think the U.S. diplomatic effort was just fine, thank-you. The ultimate problem was that countries like Germany and France were (and are) still dwelling in a pre-9/11 modality--still not fully cognizant of the dangers presented by the intersection of WMD, transnational terror groups and rogue regimes. And, of course, Paris grabbed an opportunity to counter the hyperpuissance during a high-profile crisis to ratchet up their international profile a few notches--a short-sighted strategy that is bound to backfire.