The Dish

Michael Totten sends another grim despatch from Southern Lebanon.

Stephen Bainbridge proffers another test to see where you fit ideologically. I fear I have been outed as a "moderate libertarian". Here’s where I end up on the ideological grid. Try it yourself.

I fear the debate over the surge is beginning to resemble the debate over whether to go to war in the first place. One assumption in particular has been set in stone – just as the WMD assumption was taken for granted in 2002 and early 2003. Here’s the new orthodoxy: If we were to withdraw now, it would mean a huge victory for the Jihadists who would use their new bases in Anbar to directly threaten us. I certainly don’t think this is an idle worry. It may be the best argument for starting over, as the president seems to want. But it’s worth airing again a counter-factual on this. If we withdraw from Iraq cleanly, it seems to me that the narrative of the war on terror also changes – in ways potentially beneficial for the West. Until very recently, the narrative of this war followed Osama’s script: the world of faithful Islam versus the corrupt West. But the unleashing of sectarian warfare in Iraq makes the story something else: not Islam against the West, but Islam against itself. If we can change the narrative of this war to one of a battle within Islam, which in essence it is already, we will have pulled off a major victory in the world of ideas. And ideas matter in long wars.

Or look at this another way: what is the greatest weakness of our enemy? The answer is fanaticism. It was fanaticism that prompted bin Laden to attack on 9/11/2001 before he had access to WMDs. He struck too soon, because he couldn’t help himself. His rage forces him to make mistakes. Same with Zarqawi, who alienated all of Jordan with bombing a wedding, and who even promoted bin Laden to worry about killing too many Muslims in Iraq. Al Qaeda hates the West, but their main beef is with fellow Muslims who will not bend to their extremism or persist in what they see as Shiite blasphemy. So let them hang themselves by this rope. By leaving Iraq, we create a dangerous civil war that nonetheless has huge propaganda potential for changing the entire game of this war. It takes the West much further out of the picture, and focuses the mind where it truly belongs: on current Muslim pathologies, paranoia and self-hatred. We can still prove our pro-reform bona fides, by concentrating on Afghanistan, where we still have a chance to turn things around. And we also give Iran a huge headache in grappling with the chaos on its border.

The other likely result of a Sunni-Shia war is serious damage to the world’s oil supply. But isn’t that just what the West needs? Don’t we desperately need to wean ourselves off oil – and wouldn’t $100 a gallon be the best way to accelerate that? I’m not saying leaving a civil regional war in Iraq is not dangerous. But so is staying. And the upsides of leaving haven’t been fully thought through yet. So let’s think them through, shall we?

As chaotic as his execution. A video can be watched here. Meanwhile, here’s a riveting exchange on al Jazeera. Video here. Transcript here. Money quote:

Mish’an Al-Jabouri: You should have some self-respect, and choose your words carefully, or else, I will do to you things you cannot even imagine, you Persian liar… Behave yourself, you liar…

Sadeq Al-Musawi: You are a thief… You are a thief. You’ve been convicted for theft..

Mish’an Al-Jabouri : Get out. Saddam Hussein is your master and the master of your parents…

Mish’an Al-Jabouri: These are your documents. You are an Iranian citizen. You are Persian… You are an Iranian citizen… Saddam Hussein is your master and the master of people like you… (throwing the pages at Al-Musawi) These are your documents…

Sadeq Al-Musawi: Your father killed Kurds…

Mish’an Al-Jabouri: These are your Iranian documents… You are Iranian. These documents show that he applied for Iraqi citizenship in May 2004.

Sadeq Al-Musawi: We will settle accounts with all of you…

Mish’an Al-Jabouri: To hell with you and your accounts…

We are supposed to bring these people together with 20,000 more troops? Who are we kidding?

Today’s NYT piece on doctors’ urging more comprehensive testing for Down Syndrome fetuses omits one obvious fact: the reason for such testing. Which is to kill them in utero, of course. Why leave this out? Isn’t it the crux of the story? And no mention of the 90 percent figure for abortions after DS detection. Do the NYT’s editors believe readers cannot handle the truth?

"[A] well-managed retreat would be preferable to a continuation of the status-quo policy of the last 18 months, dressed up under new commanders and 20,000 more troops," – John McIntyre, RealClearPolitics at Time. The president’s toughest critics Wednesday night may be pro-war conservatives.

"The worst of all worlds would be a small, short surge of U.S. forces. We have tried small surges, and they have been ineffective because our commanders lacked the forces necessary to hold territory after it was cleared. Violence, which fell dramatically while U.S. forces were present, spiked as soon as they were gone. Any new surge needs to provide enough American troops to hold the areas on their own.

A short surge would have all the drawbacks associated with greater deployments without giving our troops the time to be effective. Announcing that we are surging for three or six months – or any other timeline – would signal to the insurgents and militias that they can wait us out, and it would indicate to the Iraqi public that the enforcement of their government’s authority will be fleeting. This would strengthen, not weaken, the power of the militias," – Senator John McCain.

I agree. But I also believe that a real surge means a minimum of 50,000 more competent, professional soldiers deployed for the indefinite future. That’s a minimum for Baghdad. More will be needed subsequently, escalating to perhaps 100,000 more troops within a year. McCain, alas, commits himself to a mere minimum of 25,000. Sorry, but no deal. Anything less than 50,000 means more of the same. We also need the best speech of the president’s life, if he is to persuade the American people to send young troops to rescue Iraq from the grotesque incompetence of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, and the pathologies of Muslim sectarianism. We’ll see.

(Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty.)

… and Romney fades in Massachusetts. The social conservatives seem to have taken a second look.

Here’s a provocative study on the psychological underpinnings of our current political divide. It may be that understanding human psychology will tell us more about who is a conservative or a liberla in today’s world. Money quote from Psychology Today:

We tend to believe our political views have evolved by a process of rational thought, as we consider arguments, weigh evidence, and draw conclusions. But the truth is more complicated. Our political preferences are equally the result of factors we’re not aware of‚Äîsuch as how educated we are, how scary the world seems at a given moment, and personality traits that are first apparent in early childhood. Among the most potent motivators, it turns out, is fear. How the United States should confront the threat of terrorism remains a subject of endless political debate. But Americans’ response to threats of attack is now more clear-cut than ever. The fear of death alone is surprisingly effective in shaping our political decisions‚Äîmore powerful, often, than thought itself.