Category: The Dish

Jim Fallows’ take on Walt-Mearsheimer.

Hanna Rosin, author of God’s Harvard, wonders what’s going on with the new(ish) power of evangelicals:

Here is something that’s perfectly emblematic to me about this confused moment in evangelical, fundamentalist, whatever you want to call it involvement in politics: Bob Jones III’s endorsement of Mitt Romney. Romney, as we all know, is a Mormon, and we can all imagine what the talk is around the Jones dinner table about the Mormon creed. Hillary Clinton is a lifelong Methodist who has tried hard to make peace with religious America but is only getting cold hard stares back.

Is this the temper of the new fundamentalist avant-garde, still freely offensive about Mormonism but more practical minded in their political alliances? ("As a Christian I am completely opposed to the doctrines of Mormonism," Jones said. "But I’m not voting for a preacher. I’m voting for a president. It boils down to who can best represent conservative American beliefs, not religious beliefs.") Does this represent progress and political sophistication? Or ever more backwardness? Is this yet more evidence of how Christians have sold their soul for a seat at the table? At the very least, I have to say there is something unseemly, un-Christian one might even say, at the community’s salivating over the prospects of She-Devil’s nomination.

Un-Christian?? Yep: hence the ist.

Karzai was very friendly with the Iranian foreign minister this weekend. He was at a meeting of the Middle Eastern Economic Cooperation Organization. While he was warning that Afghanistan might come under attack by Iran if the US attacked Iran, his friends in Tehran were being more explicit:

"In the first minute of an invasion by the enemy, 11,000 rockets and cannons will be fired at enemy bases," said Mahmoud Chaharbaghi, a brigadier general in the elite Revolutionary Guards. "This volume and speed of firing would continue," added Chaharbaghi, who is commander of artillery and missiles of the Guards’ ground forces.

Bravado? Bluff? I don’t know. I do know that figuring out how foes react to American initiatives is not something this administration has shown a great deal of aptitude for.

The verdicts have to be arranged for the election, don’t they:

Politically motivated officials at the Pentagon have pushed for convictions of high-profile detainees ahead of the 2008 elections, the former lead prosecutor for terrorism trials at Guantanamo Bay said last night, adding that the pressure played a part in his decision to resign earlier this month.

Er: I think these have historically been described as show trials. And, in the past, they have been preceded by similar kinds of prisoner treatment. Kleiman notes that a politicized uniformed officer is the source. I’m not surprised either.

Fareed has a strong column advising restraint and pespective:

Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland’s and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?

When exactly do you say "I love you" in a budding relationship? Answer:

When dLove/dt = zero.

Ouch.

The Iraqi leader is helpless, apparently:

Asharq Al-Awsat: The Turkish Government wants you to arrest their leaders who are present on Iraqi territory.

Talabani: We cannot do that. How can we arrest the leaders who are present in the mountains and surrounded by thousands of men? The Turkish army, with all its power, cannot do that. How can we do it?

Asharq Al-Awsat: What, then, does Nuri al-Maliki mean by his comment about eradicating their bases?

Talabani: I do not think that this is accurate talk. The prime minister and I have the same view, namely, that we cannot send sufficient Iraqi forces to fight the PKK.

And so we head toward conflict. Drezner’s response is roughly mine:

"Oh, shit."

Booman:

"We are this close to seeing the war in Iraq spread to the stable provinces of Northern Iraq…"

Meanwhile, this strikes me as obvious:

If the eight missing Turkish troops turn up in Kurdish hands – or worse yet, mistreated in Kurdish hands – the odds of a Turkish incursion (and the urgency of finding an American response to the PKK’s campaign of provocation) will rise dramatically.

Could NATO be drawn in?

(Photo: This file picture taken 18 November 2006 shows Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebels walking a ridge during military exercises in the mountains of northern Iraq’s Kurdish autonomous region. By David Furst/AFP/Getty.)

Who does she think she is these days … Hillary?

It was an almost perfect line for the culture war he is still, alas, a part of. And it’s a sign of some desperation. He wants to malign the Democrats as Woodstock hippies – still working after three decades! – while touting the torture "enhanced interrogation" he endured as a Viet Cong captive as an emblem of his patriotism. But notice how a politician still gets traction in our culture: not by addressing actual policies or even engaging current cultural arguments. He gets it by electro-charging up the ancient cultural divide that has prevailed since Vietnam and that still drives the boomers and those drawn into their orbit (i.e. the rest of us). This culture war is something we need to move beyond if we are to tackle the threats from abroad and make concrete, pragmatic reforms at home. And yet it’s still indispensable in provoking the kind of emotional response that campaigns need to gain oxygen. Remember the Swift Boat attack? This is what Obama is up against. He’s a post-boomer politician in a boomer-dominated discourse, where Woodstock and Vietnam are still the needle-changing motivators. Still. How many more election cycles do we have to go through before we get past this?