The Dish

Fascinating account in the times of the story of a Qaeda operative turned informant in Germany. The twist to me was that this Jordanian originally fled his own country because he was gay. Then he was caught up in the ex-patriate fundamentalist-terrorist world, trained in Afghanistan, and deployed in Europe to manufacture false passports in order to import more terrorists into the West. So a man who left tyranny for freedom ended up attempting to import it back to the West. And now, in a weird denouement, he has become a critical element in foiling new Qaeda operations. Just like the 9/11 murderers who seemed as much drawn to the West as repelled by it, we have a psychological profile that’s highly conflicted and repressed, wreaking havoc on the world. And when you think of what Islamist culture does to the healthy psychological development of men and women, its sex-phobia and misogyny, it’s no surprise that we have some characters this disturbed. Another reason why we will have no real peace until the fundamental culture of the Middle Eastern Islamic world is shifted.

THE BBC’S TRIUMPH: Last Saturday’s march in London was in part a triumph for the BBC. This enormously influential network – PBS on steroids – has been churning out relentless anti-war polemics for months now. They make Howell Raines seem positively objective. No doubt they had a receptive audience. But it is still quite an achievement. To give you an idea of how it’s done, check out this transcript of a major television show, Panorama. Look at the content of the questions. See how the show, which is ostensibly a “debate”, is in fact a kind of show trial, with the pro-war party represented by a tiny fringe, and given almost no time to make anything like a serious case.

Several things are worth noting after the weekend’s spasm of outrage and protest at the thought of deposing Saddam with American and British arms. The first is that the NATO crisis seems to have eased. The second is that France has still not ruled out supporting the use of military force although Chirac is sailing very close to the German position. The third is that editorials in the New York Times and even the Guardian/Observer have reasserted the need to keep a military option on the table. I think some reason for this new-found sobriety is based on the weekend’s marches. There is little doubt that they represent something absolutely real in European public opinion: an aversion to any war for any cause except in urgent self-defense. But what, one is forced to ask, were these marches actually for? And if these people’s representatives were actually in power, how safe would we be?

THE ADOLESCENT MOMENT: The British march was a negative one: against conflict. But its positive goals were and are opaque: they range from Islamism to workers revolutionary socialism to pacifism to anti-Americanism. Lesbian avengers marched next to people who would stone them to death. None of the marches addressed an answer to the problem of what to do about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, the premise of the marches was that there is no problem. Saddam is evil but harmless, they seem to say (although the avoidance of any mention of Saddam, in words or pictures, was the most stunning aspect of the spectacle). Or they think that the terrifying prospect of a Blixkrieg will cow Saddam into compliance. Very few concede that “inspections” are only happening at all because Bush and Blair played the military card and meant it. And few seem to understand that the threat of military force is useless if the premise is that it will never be exercised. Their marches this weekend, by making exactly that no-war-ever argument, paradoxically undermined the likelihood of a peaceful settlement being reached. Not that they seem to care.

SAVING BLAIR: When you think about it, this is the behavior of adolescents. Leaders, in contrast, have to take responsibility. No marcher will be held accountable if Lyons or Manchester or Chicago endures a dirty bomb, procured from Saddam. No protestor will be held responsible for a nerve gas attack on the London tube. But Bush and Blair will be. And they should be. That’s why, after this mother of all teenage tantrums, the grown-ups will have to reiterate the process, restart the inspections, redouble the threat, and, if necessary, launch the invasion. But this weekend changes one thing, I think. Blair may not survive politically if we go to war with no further attempt to bring the U.N. around, and the war is in any way complicated or prolonged. It makes no logical sense to go back to the U.N. But it makes a lot of political sense – if only to show the world American reluctance to go to war and to shore up an absolutely critical ally. (Imagine losing Blair to his party’s left-wing wolves at a critical moment in the military campaign.) Here’s one option: take Villepin’s date of March 14 and make it a final deadline. Say that by that date, Saddam must provide an accounting for the anthrax, nerve gas and other missing and unaccounted for materials cited by Blix; and also by that date, Iraq must destroy all its al Samoud missiles, which are banned under existing resolutions. We need a deadline. We had one – “immediate compliance” – I know. But we lose nothing by giving the world a final one. It would put the onus back on Saddam, help Blair, show a little flexibility on the part of the U.S., maybe bring around a few more Security Council members and not lose any significant time. Again, this isn’t logical from the point of view of 1441. But it is a reflection of the political pressures on a key U.S. ally. Recognizing that political pressure is not surrendering to it. But ignoring it when we can still offer an alternative would be foolish. We can afford to be a little flexible. So let’s be.

I hope Kanan Makiya is wrong when he says that the forces in the administration least friendly to Iraqi democracy are now calling the shots on the question of a post-Saddam settlement. It seems to me that, after some kind of authoritarian-military rule to avoid chaos in the wake of victory, the U.S. really does have an obligation to find a way to bring real democratic institutions to Iraq. Yes, this is a war largely designed to protect the West and others from Saddam’s menace. But no, that doesn’t mean repeating the mistakes of the past in propping up failed and illegitimate Arab autocracies in the wake of victory. Makiya has a vested interest, of course. But he’s right nonetheless. Liberation without democracy would render this war unjust and unAmerican.

DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ II: Here’s the email from an Iraqi exile the prime minister quoted in his extraordinary speech on Saturday. Money quote:

I remember when I was around 8 I went along with my father to a demonstration against the French embassy when the French were selling Saddam weapons. I know of the numerous occasions my father and many, many others haves attended various meetings, protests and exhibitions that call for the end of Saddam’s reign. I have attended the permanent rally against Saddam that has been held every Saturday in Trafalgar Square for the past 5 years. The Iraqi people have been protesting for YEARS against the war – the war that Saddam has waged against them. Where have you been? Why is it now that you deem it appropriate to voice your disillusions with America’s policy in Iraq, when it is actually right now that the Iraqi people are being given real hope, however slight and precarious, that they can live in an Iraq that is free of the horrors partly described in this email?

But in some ways, the most important part of the letter is the following:

If you want to make your disillusions heard then do speak out, put pressure on Blair, Bush & Co to keep to their promises of restoring democracy to Iraq. Make sure they do put back in financial aid what they have taken over the years, and make sure that they don’t betray the Iraqis again. March for democracy in Iraq. If you say that we can’t trust the Americans then make sure that you are a part of ensuring they do fulfil their promises to the Iraqis.

Absolutely. We must hold insist that Bush fulfill this promise (and I think he will). There must be no attempt to placate the Arab autocracies in the region with just another pliant pro-American strongman in Baghdad. Once order is restored and enforced, we need a real attempt at some sort of democracy in Iraq. Nothing else will suffice.

The Roman Catholic hierarchy is now in full spin behind Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. It was truly sickening to see Tariq Aziz, the instrument of one of the most murderous regimes on earth, using the shrine of St Francis for a photo-op. It’s even more sickening to read the comments of Cardinal Etchegaray, informing the world that

Saddam Hussein had been relieved by Friday’s report to the United Nations by the chief weapons inspectors. “He [Saddam Hussein] is doing everything to avoid war,” the Cardinal told Italian television, according to French news agency AFP.

I know these aren’t matters of faith and doctrine to which all Catholics are supposed to assent. But after the child-abuse scandals, we now have to deal with a Catholic hierarchy that is actively supporting genocidal dictators and their malevolent agendas. When the world needs moral clarity, the Vatican gives us the spin from Baghdad. It really is 1933 again, isn’t it?

British lefty, Nick Cohen, assails the anti-war movement’s collaboration with oppression and terror:

The Iraqis must now accept that they will have to fight for democracy without the support of the British Left. Disgraceful though our failure to hear them has been, I can’t help thinking that they’ll be better off without us.

Read the whole thing – about Harold Pinter’s hypocrisy over Kurdish autonomy and democracy, of the way in which European socialists, gripped by anti-Americanism, now back a genocidal dictator against the democratic aspirations of his own people. I think yesterday’s massive marches represent something deeply, deeply corrupt in the soul of the left: a form of Western self-loathing that, unless it is resisted, will lead not just to tyranny for more people in the Middle East, but for the slow erosion of Western freedom itself in the face of terror. The only response is resistance. Not from the governments in Washington and London; but from the rest of us. The lies must be challenged day by day, hour by hour. The self-hatred must be countered with calm recitation of the West’s proud history; the excuses for tyranny opposed by a growing demand that the Arab world not be tool in the Western left’s attempt to destroy Western freedom, but seen as a part of humanity that deserves the freedom that the rest of us enjoy. No justice. No peace. As the left used to say.

SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE: “This is a president who uses the death penalty with complete abandon and disregard for any respect for life. This is no example. So let everyone recognise what has happened here today: that Britain does not support this war for oil. The British people will not tolerate being used to prop up the most corrupt and racist American administration in over 80 years.” – Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, accusing Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice of being racists.

Another superb grown-up piece from John F. Burns today in the New York Times. Smart, isn’t it, to interview Iraqis not in the midst of their own police state, but just over the border in Jordan, where they have some modicum of freedom. As often, it’s hard to summarize Burns’ peerless reporting. But if this piece doesn’t remind you of Kipling, I’d be surprised. The critical thing now, to my mind, is less the diplomatic pirouettes than the execution of the coming war. The question is not whether we win, but how we win. Without jeopardizing victory, we have to be extremely careful to avoid excessive civilian casualties and to keep the battle as short as possible. I have no idea how this can be done. But I do think that the war will be politically successful if it can bring these two objectives into play. (P.S. Tom Friedman has an excellent take today as well.)

A WASTE OF SPACE: Reading Maureen Dowd’s characteristically inane column today, I asked myself once again why, at this moment of gravity and importance, a major American columnist has simply nothing to say, except occasional lame pop-cultural associations and a superficial account of the views of others. I’m not the only one. Here’s the Washingtonian’s verdict on the Dowd decline:

Complaints about Dowd have moved beyond her flashy reporting style and water-beetle habit of skimming the surface. Her crimes against readers now fall into three main categories – formulaic nuttiness, posturing, and condescension.

Even worse, the Dowd schtick seems to me to be a bad thing for women in journalism. It implies that women op-ed writers, opinion journalists, and pundits are at their best parlaying gossip, small-talk and chit-chat. So odd that Dowd, who views herself as a feminist pioneer, unwittingly reinforces certain stereotypes. At least McGrory tells us what she thinks, rather than what she buys.

I would vote for him next time, regardless. Because of speeches as magnificent and as brave as this one:

Yes, there are consequences of war. If we remove Saddam by force, people will die and some will be innocent. And we must live with the consequences of our actions, even the unintended ones.

But there are also consequences of “stop the war”.

If I took that advice, and did not insist on disarmament, yes, there would be no war. But there would still be Saddam. Many of the people marching will say they hate Saddam. But the consequences of taking their advice is that he stays in charge of Iraq, ruling the Iraqi people. A country that in 1978, the year before he seized power, was richer than Malaysia or Portugal. A country where today, 135 out of every 1000 Iraqi children die before the age of five – 70% of these deaths are from diarrhoea and respiratory infections that are easily preventable. Where almost a third of children born in the centre and south of Iraq have chronic malnutrition.

Where 60% of the people depend on Food Aid.

Where half the population of rural areas have no safe water.

Where every year and now, as we speak, tens of thousands of political prisoners languish in appalling conditions in Saddam’s jails and are routinely executed.

Where in the past 15 years over 150,000 Shia Moslems in Southern Iraq and Moslem Kurds in Northern Iraq have been butchered; with up to four million Iraqis in exile round the world, including 350,000 now in Britain.

This isn’t a regime with Weapons of Mass Destruction that is otherwise benign. This is a regime that contravenes every single principle or value anyone of our politics believes in.

There will be no march for the victims of Saddam, no protests about the thousands of children that die needlessly every year under his rule, no righteous anger over the torture chambers which if he is left in power, will be left in being.

I rejoice that we live in a country where peaceful protest is a natural part of our democratic process.

But I ask the marchers to understand this.

I do not seek unpopularity as a badge of honour. But sometimes it is the price of leadership. And the cost of conviction.

But as you watch your TV pictures of the march, ponder this:

If there are 500,000 on that march, that is still less than the number of people whose deaths Saddam has been responsible for.

If there are one million, that is still less than the number of people who died in the wars he started.

Something about Britain seems to bring my homeland the leaders they need when crisis beckons and nerves fail. Churchill – too late but just in time. Thatcher – way before her time. Blair – the Gladstone of the new century. As Glenn would say, Read The Whole Thing.

And they probably don’t even know it.

“Nobody today, except the Iraqi ambassador, tried to claim that Iraq has fulfilled its obligations. Nobody tried to argue that ‘serious consequences’ means something other than military action. Nobody disputed that, just three months ago, the council’s 15 members passed Resolution 1441 unanimously-not casually or unwittingly so, but after seven weeks of negotiations, in which Secretary of State Colin Powell altered the language to meet French reservations. Powell looked clearly flummoxed during his turn for comments today. One question he should have asked de Villepin: ‘Why did you sign Resolution 1441 in the first place if you never had any intention of carrying out its enforcement clause?'” – Fred Kaplan, eloquently stating the obvious. And the more you think about this, the more you realize that France must have signed onto 1441 entirely duplicitously. They did so as a delaying tactic, knowing full well that they would later sabotage it. This is why the epithet “weasel” really is appropriate. France could have refused to sign 1441, after all. They could have signed a resolution that did not demand immediate and complete cooperation with the U.N. They could have signed a resolution that did not threaten “serious consequences.” They didn’t. Now they pretend they did. You simply cannot do business with these people.

THE TIMES FINDS A BACKBONE: I’m exhilarated by the New York Times editorial position today. It’s clear. It isn’t treading water. It sees through the flim-flam of the Franco-Germans. Has someone serious finally gotten a hold of that column? Have they finally made up their minds? Here’s hoping.

HOW WE’RE HELPING AFGHANISTAN: Don’t believe the anti-Bush hype.

Tariq Aziz, Saddam’s puppet and accomplice, refused to take a question from an Israeli reporter today. Period. It was mentioned on most of the network news broadcasts tonight, in passing. But it’s helpful as an insight into the anti-Semitism that pervades the Saddamite regime. It will also be helpful to see whether Saddam’s two major allies in Europe, France and Germany, express any qualms about it. Today reminded me all too vividly of the 1930s – from the Pope warmly shaking the hands of an anti-Semitic dictatorial regime to the complete abdication of responsibility at the Security Council. It is a dark time; and it just got a little darker.