Category: The Dish

As the weeks go by, the initial narrative put out by the Bush administration and Blair government is in tatters. John Judis picks up the thread at TNR. Money quote:

While those arrested were British Muslims, they were thought to be acting on behalf of or in coordination with Al Qaeda. A "senior US intelligence official" told The Boston Globe, "There are suspicions that there is a real Al Qaeda connection – not just Al Qaeda wannabees or inspire-ees." Pakistani and American officials claimed that the "operational planner" of the conspiracy was Rashid Rauf, a British citizen, whom the Pakistanis said had admitted under interrogation of having met with an Al Qaeda leader in Pakistan …

Was the plot an Al Qaeda operation? Rauf himself had been busted by the Pakistanis the day before the London arrests, and, according to the Pakistanis, had admitted – allegedly under torture – to having made contact with Matiur Rehman, whom the Pakistanis claim is an Al Qaeda operative. But that’s hardly proof of Al Qaeda direction. Moreover, Rauf’s role remains unclear. A British counterterrorism official told the Los Angeles Times that Rauf was not the plot’s "mastermind." And Rauf’s actual connection to Al Qaeda is also suspect. Rauf has been linked to Jaish-e-Mohammed, which operates in Kashmir. There could still be an Al Qaeda link. But, like all the initial details of this case, it remains in doubt.

As the details have become murky, what has also been cast in doubt is the explanation of why the arrests were made in the first place. According to British officials, the Brits did not want to arrest the plotters; they preferred to see who else, over the next months, the plotters recruited and made contact with. But their hand was forced when the Pakistanis arrested Rauf on August 9. Why the Pakistanis did so remains unclear, but there is a speculation that they did so at U.S. urging. "There have been reports that U.S. officials pushed for the arrest," the Los Angeles Times reported on August 20.

Hmmm.

There’s a sane and smart op-ed in the WaPo today arguing against the rage on the right for constitutional amendments to deal with contentious social debates. It’s by Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III. Money quote:

Ordinary legislation – not constitutional amendments – should express the community’s view that marriage "shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman." To use the Constitution for prescriptions of policy is to shackle future generations that should have the same right as ours to enact policies of their own. To use the Constitution as a forum for even our most favored views strikes a blow of uncommon harshness upon disfavored groups, in this case gay citizens who would never see this country’s founding charter as their own.

Let’s look in the mirror. Conservatives who eloquently challenged the Equal Rights Amendment and Roe v. Wade for federalizing core areas of state law now support an amendment that invites federal courts to frame a federal definition of marriage and the legal incidents thereof.

This, of course, is the authentically conservative argument. But it seems to me that Wilkinson misses an important aspect of the phenomenon: there is an integral philosophical connection between religious fundamentalism and the push not just for legislative but constitutional action on social matters. For the fundamentalist, the truth never changes, and the truth, i.e. God’s law, must be applied at all times. And where else to instantiate that truth in the most authoritative sense than in the Constitution? When matters of life and death and the nuclear family are concerned, why should Christianists stop at mere legislation? On the issues they care most about, they can see no compromise between the "culture of life" and the "culture of death."

Within Christian fundamentalism, after all, there is no internal argument for restraint or moderation. In fact, restraint in the face of evil is a sin, just as doubt is a failure of religious will, and moderation is, more often than not, the fruit of "relativism" or evil. Hence the Republican party platform that calls for amending the federal constitution to ban all abortions and to bar gay couples from equality for ever. You can see the inexorable fundamentalist logic: if we have a chance to prevent future generations from succumbing to terrible sin and social decay, why should we refrain? It was the same Christianist impulse behind Prohibition – which insisted on amending the federal Constitution to reflect God’s law rather than simply banning booze by state law or county ordinance. In Christianism, there is no Burkean sense of generational or organic social change. Such Burkean change is terrifying for the Christianist, whose truths cannot change. There is merely eternal truth, to be implemented as thoroughly as possible, as soon as possible – or face divine judgment. And so the constitutionalization of social policy is integral to Christianism, which is now integral to Republicanism. I’m glad Wilkinson sees that there is a difference between this and what we once knew as conservatism.

It’s a good one.

Fareed Zakaria asks us all to take a deep breath and "contain" Iran. He debunks the Nazi analogy by pointing out that in 1938, Germany was the second biggest economy in the world, while today, Iran barely makes the top 20 and is going backwards. He thinks of Ahmadinejad as a populist Huey Long not an apocalyptic Adolf Hitler. Count me unpersuaded. The one huge difference between today and 1938 is technology. in 1938, you needed a massive economy to wage conventional warfare. Today, you need some loose nukes and a few religious fanatics to bring the West to a halt. Moreover, the Soviets were rational compared to the Jihadists. They saw nuclear annihilation as something to be avoided. Ahmadinejad and other radical Islamists see it as a prelude to the Eschaton they devoutly hope for (along with vast numbers of Christianists). Fareed also declares the major powers "united" in facing down Iran. Really? Russia? China? Not so much. We have five years, Zakaria argues, until we face a nuclear Iran. So it’s not 1938, after all. It’s just 1934. Reassured? Actually, I am. There’s a chance to stop Iran without depending on George W. Bush or Dick Cheney. So there’s hope.

A new book says he was gay, and that Rove had a good and loving relationship with him. So today’s Republican hierarchs don’t seek merely to persecute their own gay sons and daughters, they also retroactively demonize their own parents. Hey, if bashing your dad’s relationship gets you Ohio, you do what you gotta do. It’s called family values. Or the pursuit of power. Take your pick.

Another blogger joins the chorus and suggests replacing the Pentagon’s Captain Queeg with Lindsey Graham. I think the Democrats would be atypically shrewd to center their fall campaign on national security by focusing on Rumsfeld. They should attack him for losing the war, for not sending enough troops, and for wrecking the most high-stakes military mission in a generation. If a defense secretary who has bungled two wars cannot be replaced after six years, then we have no accountability in government.

Pollster.com is a new site, pioneered by my friend, Mark Blumenthal, of Mystery Pollster fame. Slate has also hired Mark and Charles Franklin to provide polling analysis of the fall elections. It’s crack for wonks. Snort away.

Two more readers weigh in on Mark Steyn’s recent pre-emptive attack. Mark Steyn hasn’t read my book – and he hasn’t read Faust either:

Steyn has totally misunderstood the quote from Faust. Ironically, he couldn’t have picked a better quote to make your point: Faust is madly driven by his desires Рfor knowledge, wisdom, power. To this torn man, the ability to let go, to be at peace and enjoy the moment, is nothing but foolishness, laziness and weakness.

What makes this anti-hero so fascinating is his constant thirst for more and his refusal to ever be satisfied. But this is also his big mistake, and his downfall. Only at the end of his journey will Faust finally find his peace – his one moment that he wants to "linger awhile". However, it is not his defeat, but his salvation. Steyn got it totally wrong: To Goethe, "living for the moment" is not "Western weakness" – but rather it is true happiness.

Faust Schmaust. Steyn had some copy to file and a poofter to discredit. Another reader adds:

It apparently escaped Steyn’s notice that Goethe’s Faust, unlike Marlowe’s, is saved by God at the last minute precisely because his motive in making a deal with the devil was noble. (Although misguidedly romantic, not "conservative".) In fact, God, in Goethe’s work, is so little concerned with following inviolable laws and moral regulations that He’s willing to overlook making a deal with the devil in the case of someone who tries to do the right thing when it matters.

Should we be surprised that Steyn attacks you by plucking a quote out of context from a work that he doesn’t actually know anything about? Should we be surprised that his thinking is so sloppy that he completely misunderstands what the quote itself plainly means?

Count me unsurprised.

It’s critical for a halfway decent future for Iraq. And thanks to the post-liberation anarchy, it seems to have evaporated in favor of Sadrist extremism. I missed this story on vacation, but it seems important, if depressing, to note.

"Today, students should shout at the president and ask why liberal and secular university lecturers are present in the universities," – Michelle Malkin Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran.