Month: February 2007

The blog is in the process of being moved. It happens gradually, although the "hard" switch-over will happen over the weekend. If you want to ensure you can find it, bookmark the URL http://www.andrewsullivan.com. That will automatically redirect you to the new site at the Atlantic. A brief thanks to Adam Embick at Time and all the tech staff at the Atlantic for their help. Monday morning, the new site will be up and running (knock on wood).

I confidently predict that the following phrase will become the new neoconservative mantra on Iraq:

We midwifed their freedom. They chose civil war.

And the truth is: it isn’t untrue. Blaming the U.S. entirely for the deep ethnic divides and profound sectarian hatreds in Iraq is preposterous. But speaking of the civil war in Iraq as if the Bush administration had nothing to do with it is equally preposterous. Even the most optimistic of pro-war thinkers were aware of the potential for sectarian warfare once Saddam had been deposed. I remember writing for a long time after the invasion that we should be happy that the most likely thing had not yet happened: a civil war. So we knew it was a risk; and we knew we had to act quickly to prevent it. We didn’t. As the insurgency took shape, Dick Cheney was more interested in smearing Joe Wilson than in preventing an incipient civil war. Moreover, the invading army has a moral responsibility to maintain order. What Charles ignores is how complete anarchy is the oxygen necessary for civil war to spark into a conflagration. When there is no central authority, people immediately seek security from their family, tribe or faith-community. By refusing to send enough troops to maintain order, the Bush administration provided the timber, fuel and context for a sectarian fire. No, they didn’t strike the match. But their negligence gave Zarqawi his opening. And he took advantage of it. Zarqawi won this war – because Bush was too clueless and arrogant to win it (and Bush didn’t kill Zarqawi when he had a clear chance).

Recall also how patient the Shia in Iraq were for so long. Constantly goaded by Sunni terrorists and al Qaeda, they tolerated attacks for three years before snapping around a year ago, after the Samarra mosque bombing. So sorry, Charles. If you think you can get the Bush administration off the hook for the past four years and blame everything on Arab pathologies, you’re dreaming.

It’s all the rage in state legislatures, apparently.

Sorry but I don’t get it. There is nothing inherently wrong with a think-tank using its corporate dollars to finance research projects whose results might benefit such companies. The key is transparency and accountability. I don’t see any evidence that AEI sent out letters secretly seeking contrary studies to the IPCC report on climate change. So what’s the scandal? Listen to this hysteric:

"It’s a desperate attempt by an organisation who wants to distort science for their own political aims," said David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

"The IPCC process is probably the most thorough and open review undertaken in any discipline. This undermines the confidence of the public in the scientific community and the ability of governments to take on sound scientific advice," he said.

He sounds like a member of the curia, not a scientist. There’s something creepy about the notion that a scientific report must not be subject to scientific criticism, regardless of how it’s funded. If the studies are flawed, attack the studies. It is as if climate change has become a doctrine to be defended rather than a hypothesis to be debated. I should add I find much of the evidence for man-made, carbon-based global warming to be extremely convincing. Maybe that’s why I’m completely unfazed by the idea of studies being commissioned to question it. Let the studies be debated on their scientific merits. And if the skeptical papers don’t persuade, why wouldn’t the climate-change alarmists be pleased?

A word.

Belfast, Maine, 7 am.

I still feel this is among the more intriguing scribbles I have read in a long time:

More here. One recalls this other extract from a letter Libby wrote to Judy Miller:

"It is fall now … Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them."

We may soon find out how connected they actually are.

Tim Gunn makes it work.

The Economist weighs in on a debate I helped spawn.

Here it is, in all its glory:

Gaza Strip cease-fire short-lived.

Surprise! Observing the chaotic, barbaric and shambolic politics of the Palestinians is perhaps a useful lesson when considering Iraq. Over the years, I have been persuaded by many neoconservative arguments about the futility of Israel trying to negotiate with the Palestinians. The notion that the Palestinian leadership would ever agree to a compromise with Israel, let alone live up to any agreement, was disproved again and again and again. There is not even a pretense any more of any Arab entity desiring to actually govern the Palestinian territories, when they could be fought over, which is where the energy always seems to lie. If you didn’t believe this gloomy analysis in the past, the fate of the Oslo Accords surely proved it. If Clinton couldn’t get Arafat to sign off on a completely reasonable and viable deal, then I concluded it wasn’t worth trying.

But here’s the thing: the same neocons who persuaded me that Arab culture was simply impossible when it came to the Palestinians were the same ones who reassured me that Iraq would become a democracy easily, that sectarian divisions were not that deep, that not all Arab societies are politically dysfunctional, and so on. So which is it? Are the Arabs just desperate for democracy? Or are they doomed never to experience or even want it? I wish they’d make up their minds.