"An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the premise of "Angry Birds," a popular iPhone game. In the game, slingshots are used to launch birds to destroy pigs and their fortresses, not to shoot down the birds," – NYT.
Extra irony: Janet Maslin, the critic of Joe McGinniss, wrote this. So anonymous sources are verboten but you can just make up the details of a video game you have no clue about.
From back in March, but perfect for some pre-Halloween creepiness:
He is fixated on the number 45. Cottle puts this in perspective:
Remember how much criticism Rick Perry took for suggesting God had called him to run? The ridicule Michele Bachmann has endured for her religious views? Just imagine the abuse that would have been heaped on any other member of the GOP field who spent an entire chapter of his or her campaign book rhapsodizing about the mysterious power of the number 45. If Perry had written that, you can bet Team Romney would be paying people to show up at Rick’s rallies dressed like fortune tellers and waving Magic 8-Balls.
Frederick Kagan thinks Obama's withdrawal from Iraq constitutes "abandoning" Iraq. Matt Duss calls him out:
Interestingly, Kagan doesn’t mention that this "retreat" is being done in accordance with an agreement that the previous administration signed with the Iraqi government. Even more interestingly, when that agreement was signed, Fred Kagan himself hailed it as a great U.S. success.
The neocons are desperately attempting to leverage withdrawal from Iraq, as promised, as some kind of defeat. Bush won in Iraq, remember? It's Obama who lost it. I've gotten used to this kind of reality-free discourse on the neocon right. But the basic fact is: there was a debate in the administration over how many troops to keep in Iraq, but the Iraqis ended that debate. The election that Kagan touts gave us an elected Iraqi government; and key elements of that government refused to offer US soldiers legal immunity on Iraqi soil. And so we finally got a clean end to this disaster – thanks to the democracy Kagan favors:
Still burdened by the traumas of this and previous wars, and having watched the revolutions sweeping their region, the Iraqis were unwilling to accept anything that infringed on their sovereignty.
It's odd that neocons actually resent a sovereign government's reluctance to host an occupying army – even one reduced to a 3,000-person training mission. Wasn't self-determination what the neocons always wanted? Or is it only what they said they wanted?
And no, if Iraq disintegrates, as I suspect it will, that is not Obama's fault either. It's simply another facet of the failure of the surge to resolve those issues it was designed to resolve:
Twenty months after a national election, the country’s leading political blocs cannot agree on who should run the Defense and Interior Ministries. The Parliament still has not passed legislation about how the country’s oil and gas revenues should be divided — years after the Bush administration set such a law as a benchmark for progress.
The issue of whether Baghdad or the Kurdish region should hold sway over Kirkuk also remains unresolved.
Tom Ricks is in my gloomy camp:
I suspect various factions and external actors have been keeping their powder dry while U.S. troops were still on the scene. No one wanted to mess much with "the biggest tribe," especially because those fighters and weapons might be handy once that tribe left. It's like the Jets and the Sharks making nice while waiting for [Officer] Krupke to move along. With Uncle Sam out of the way, it will be interesting to see which players – internal and external –– seek to fill the vacuum.
Why am I such a "pestamist"? — to borrow a term my daughter invented as a child. Because none of the basic questions that led to the civil war of 2006-07 have been resolved-how to share oil revenues, what the role of the Kurds will be, and basically how to govern the country. (On the other hand, supporting the Clinton view, I have heard the argument that the U.S. presence is the factor that had enabled Iraqi politicians to keep questions hanging fire.)
Do not be misled. The US was extremely lucky that its troop buildup coincided with exhaustion in Iraq's civil war, the switching of the Anbar tribes against al Qaeda, and some great military work on the ground. Then we were lucky to get a president intent on getting out, and extra-lucky that the Iraqis refused to let us set up yet another neo-imperial satellite. The idea that this string of great luck should be ignored – let alone gainsaid – seems bizarre to me. If the Iraqis, having secured their sovereignty cleanly, subsequently ask for help in training, we should help. But it is vital that they do so having made their own country whole and under their own rule. Or they will seem to themselves – and others – as a satrapy, not a state. Have the neocons learned nothing from the Arab Spring? Or is the real pint not Arab democracy and self-determination, but US global power?
Or to put it more bluntly: If Iraq collapses into civil conflict, it will be because the entire project was built on wishful thinking, not reality, from the get-go. Which is a pretty good definition of neoconservatism as a whole.
(Photo: Iraq War veteran Brad Hammond walks up the stairs on September 26, 2011 at his house in Lakewood, Colorado. Seven years after returning home from a year-long deployment in Tal Afar, Iraq, Hammond continues to experience severe post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and the effects of traumatic brain injuries he sustained in combat. He suffers from chronic anxiety, headaches, night terrors, hallucinations and frequent bouts of aggression and cannot hold down a full time job. He helps his wife Dani care for their three children, while also taking a private mentoring classes to help improve his attention and cognitive skills. Hammond was on a team of U.S. soldiers who opened fire on a carload of Iraqi civilians on January 18, 2005 in Tal Afar, Iraq, killing two, when they did not stop at a checkpoint. By John Moore/Getty Images.)
"Mexico is moving north. Ethnically, linguistically, and culturally, the verdict of 1848 is being overturned. Will this Mexican nation within a nation advance the goals of the Constitution—to “insure domestic tranquility” and “make us a more perfect union”? Or has our passivity in the face of this invasion imperiled our union?" – Pat Buchanan, from a list of the craziest quotes from his new book, Suicide Of A Superpower.
Drezner, reacting to my thoughts, imagines a snippet of a Obama stump speech on foreign policy:
As president, I have to address both domestic policy and foreign policy. Because of the way that the commander-in-chief role has evolved, I have far fewer political constraints on foreign policy action than domestic policy action. So let's think about this for a second. On the foreign stage, America's standing has returned from its post-Iraq low. Al Qaeda is now a shell of its former self. Liberalizing forces are making uneven but forward progress in North Africa. Muammar Gaddafi's regime is no longer, without one American casualty. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are winding down. Every country in the Pacific Rim without a Communist Party running things is trying to hug us closer.
Imagine what I could accomplish in domestic policy without the kind of obstructionism and filibustering that we're seeing in Congress — which happens to be even more unpopular than I am, by the way. I'm not talking about the GOP abjectly surrendering, just doing routine things like actually confirming my appointments. I've achieved significant foreign policy successes while still cooperating with our allies in NATO and Northeast Asia. Just imagine what I could get done if the Republicans were as willing to compromise as, say, France.
That last line is a classic. My view is that Obama should aggressively deploy his successful foreign policy in the campaign – and warn of a return to militaristic autism in the neocon Romney wins.
(Image from Pundit Kitchen)
Mitt Romney has a problem:
After a month of condemning programs that provide state aid to undocumented immigrants, even blaming the aid for increasing illegal immigration, this new report shows that Romney’s health-care reform law — his only meaningful accomplishment in public office — provides at least some limited, taxpayer-subsidized health care assistance to these same undocumented workers.
Relatedly, Peter Beinart probes Romney's coarse use of "illegals" as a noun.
And there's even more heartburn for the GOP base: Vatican support for a supra-national body to regulate the entire global economy! Compare this with Herman Cain's praise for Christ as the "perfect conservative":
For over 2,000 years the world has tried hard to erase the memory of the perfect conservative, and His principles of compassion, caring and common sense.
And don't forget the Sermon on the 999 plan. Tom Reese predicted exactly that – and it would be well worth reporters asking, say, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich where they stand on this: with the Church or against it. Both have displayed their Catholicism on their sleeves lately, and both insist that their faith informs their values. So what will they say about this Vatican document? Or will they quietly ignore it, as usual, as they did on torture?
The truth is that Catholic social teaching has always regarded market capitalism as immoral if not strongly regulated to protect the weak and the poor. The escalating inequality in the US would place the Church firmly on the left of the Democratic party. And the deeper truth is that Jesus had no politics, but believed that all wordly possessions and success mattered only as an impediment to finding God. The West is based on the rejection of this Christianity, not its fulfilment. But do not expect the GOP theocons to grapple with that too much. Their heads might explode.
(Image via the tumblr "Common Sense Jesus")
Chataignier, Switzerland, 5 pm
John Esposito is encouraged by breaking reports that Ennahada, Tunisia's leading Islamist party, is leading the vote count:
Several secular parties, such as the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP), have trailed Ennahda with expected five to 15 percent of the vote. PDP leaders have stated their intention post elections to build a coalition that would deliberately exclude Ennahda even if it emerges as the chief vote getter. In contrast Rached Ghannoushi of Ennahda looks to Turkey as an example, a source of inspiration not necessarily “the” model. Turkey's ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) secular system of government emphasize separation of religion and the state which provides space for belief and unbelief, pluralism and equality of citizenship and recognition of Turkey’s Muslim history and culture. Ennahda has advocated a government of national unity based on Tunisia’s Arab-Islamic identity and the desire to address common political, economic and social concerns. It speaks of government that is inclusive of all parties, secular or Islamist, accepting equality of citizenship, civil society and Tunisian women's rights.
The Dish 
