Month: January 2007

That’s it, apparently. Phased in slowly, with a mere 10,000 or so Iraqi government soldiers. To retake Baghdad block by block. I’ll be fascinated to know if even Fred Kagan thinks this is sufficient. But I’ll wait for the details tonight. Here’s the White House’s broad rationale. I have to say I’m shocked by its naivete. Here’s the regional strategy:

Iraqi:

    * Vigorously engage Arab states.
    * Take the lead in establishing a regional forum to give support and help from the neighborhood.
    * Counter negative foreign activity in Iraq.
    * Increase efforts to counter PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party).

Coalition:

    * Intensify efforts to counter Iranian and Syrian influence inside Iraq.
    * Increase military presence in the region.
    * Strengthen defense ties with partner states in the region.
    * Encourage Arab state support to Government of Iraq.
    * Continue efforts to help manage relations between Iraq and Turkey.
    * Continue to seek the region’s full support in the War on Terror.

It makes Baker-Hamilton look realistic.

Mark Blumenthal notes a wide discrepancy in the polls about support for a surge – but all of them are anemic. Below is Charles Franklin’s helpful graph on public attitudes to the war over the last four years. The last time more than 50 percent of the American public believed the Iraq war was "worth it" was in early 2004. Here’s Franklin’s analysis.

A conservative wonders what the movement has become. Money quote:

Into this disorderly scene strode George W. Bush, touting a compassionate conservatism that accepted the present size of government (or at least resolved to stop arguing about it) and strove to build an enduring Republican majority by increments, appealing to soccer-cum-security moms, immigrants, and minorities. Though the strategy contributed to victory in several elections, it came with high costs. Literally: the new prescription drug entitlement will cost untold billions (though it will save some hospitalization costs, too). More important in the short term, compassionate conservatism eviscerated the GOP’s reform ambitions. By abandoning the public case for limited government, Bush’s spiritless conservatism left the administration, and especially Congress, adrift and spendthrift.

Well, I’ve put in my two cents.

A fascinating analysis of a great gay, Catholic writer.

Here’s a YouTube edited from Mitt Romney’s 1994 debate with Ted Kennedy for the Senate. Listening to his convictions a decade ago, you can see just how massively his message has changed since then. That may be due to an intellectual and spiritual evolution; or it could be total political cynicism. Make your own mind up.

I’ll be blogging from Capitol Hill tonight on the president’s speech, and will be doing post-speech commentary on Anderson Cooper’s show on CNN. Stay tuned tonight.

A conservative cares!

He’s the main influence behind my new book, "The Conservative Soul," and I’m delighted that my 1989 doctoral dissertation on him, "Intimations Pursued," is going to be published later this year, as part of a series of books devoted to analyzing his thought. If Anglo-American conservatism is going to be revived in the twenty-first century, it will, I think, have to draw deeply on Oakeshott’s reconciliation of conservatism with modernity. One of the sharper younger Oakeshott scholars is Ian Tregenza, whom I met at the Oakeshott Society conference earlier this year. If you’re interested, here’s a podcast from an Australian radio show called "The Philosopher’s Zone," where Ian discusses Oakeshott with Peter Coleman. Here’s how the podcast is introduced:

The British philosopher Michael Oakeshott, who was born in 1901 and died in 1990, is a difficult man to pin down. He’s frequently described as a conservative, but there isn’t much in his thought that would have been of help to a political party, and his work is often seen as poetic and evasive. This week, we look at the work of a great – and strange – philosopher.

Listen here.

Big Sur, California, 2 pm.

The WaPo has an unsettling story today on how the strategy the president will unveil tonight emerged:

The Joint Chiefs were also worried that sending more troops would set up the U.S. military for an even bigger failure – with no backup options. They were concerned that the Iraqis would not deliver the troops to handle their own security efforts, as had happened in the past. They were particularly alarmed about the prospect of U.S. troops fighting in a political vacuum if the administration did not complement the military plan with political and economic changes, according to people familiar with their views.

Pentagon officials cautioned that a modest troop increase could lead to more attacks by al-Qaeda, provide more targets for Sunni insurgents and fuel the jihadist appeal for more foreign fighters to flock to Iraq to attack U.S. troops.

Even the announcement of a time frame and mission – such as for six to eight months to secure volatile Baghdad – would play to armed factions by allowing them to game out the new U.S. strategy, the chiefs warned the White House.

Then there was the thorny problem of finding enough troops to deploy. Those who favored a "surge," such as Kagan and McCain, were looking for a sizable force that would turn the tide in Baghdad. But the Joint Chiefs made clear they could muster 20,000 at best – not for long, and not all at once.

We may be about to hear a strategy disowned by the military brass, opposed by the party that controls both Houses, insufficient by the metrics of even its supporters, and a result of a compromise that has more to do with securing agreement in Washington than with actually turning the tide in Iraq. That’s my fear anyway. I don’t see the sufficient troop numbers to turn this around. And the economic reconstruction aspects seem to me to be pathetic.