The Dish

It’s been a tumultuous day in British politics. Alex Salmond, the charismatic Scottish Nationalist leader who galvanized the independence referendum has resigned as First Minister of Scotland. From his statement:

The real guardians of progress are not the politicians at Westminster, or even at Holyrood, but the energised activism of tens of thousands of people who I predict will refuse meekly to go back into the political shadows. “For me right now , therefore there is a decision as to who is best placed to lead this process forward politically. “I believe that in this new exciting situation, redolent with possibility, Party, Parliament and country would benefit from new leadership.

The promises of devo-max for Scotland – made as a panicked last ditch attempt to preserve the union – are now, however, provoking a backlash in England, especially the Tory parts:

In his speech [after the results], Cameron made clear that the constitutional reforms, including in Scotland, would not be delivered until after the general election, and that Scottish measures would proceed in tandem with changes in England. “We have heard the voice of Scotland and now the millions of voices of England must be heard,” he said.

Cameron threw down a challenge to the Labour opposition to say whether it would agree to the introduction of English votes for English MPs, and announced that William Hague, leader of the House of Commons, would advance the issue in a special cabinet committee.

You can see the point: if Scotland gets to determine its own policies in Holyrood, then why should it also get full representation in Westminster with respect to English laws and English policy? The constitutional complexities are enormous, but figures as disparate as the former prime minister John Major and the Liberal Democratic leader, Nick Clegg, are in favor of devolution to England as well:

“Clearly when you have that degree of devolution [to the Scottish parliament], saying that … a Scottish MP has precisely the same say over matters in English as an English MP, doesn’t make any sense. That’s why you then decide how you divvy votes in the Commons,” Clegg told his regular LBC phone-in audience this week.

Such a change would mean a structural shift rightward for the English parliament, which is why the Labour party is so ambivalent about this. But Cameron may need to get more radical, if only to address the pressures from the UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, who said today:

It’s quite interesting to see Mr Cameron today on the steps of Downing Street relieved that he didn’t manage to lose the union but now panicked by the English question. I think that short-term, as far as English voters are concerned, I’m going to write today to all 59 Scottish MPs and I’m going to say to them in the spirit of finding a fair settlement for the United Kingdom, will you please commit from today not to take part in debates or votes in Westminster on English devolved issues. Short-term that’s what we can do. Longer-term, and I think all the constitutional experts talking on your show say, this stuff is complicated, getting this right matters as it will be for many, many decades to come and I really do think now we absolutely need to have a constitutional convention to talk about how we create a fair, federal United Kingdom.

That process is vital. All I’ve heard from Mr Cameron is that William Hague will head up some committee to discuss the English question and I simply don’t think that’s enough.

I guess we’ll see what’s enough after the next election. But it would not be the first time that Scottish nationalism awakens something just as deep: English patriotism.

(Photo: Leader of the UK Independence Party, UKIP Nigel Farage gives interviews on Abingdon Green on September 19, 2014 in London, England. By Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.)

Some welcome news for Christie:

The U.S. Justice Department investigation into Gov. Chris Christie’s role in the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal has thus far uncovered no evidence indicating that he either knew in advance or directed the closure of traffic lanes on the span, federal officials tell NBC 4 New York. … Federal officials caution that the investigation that began nine months ago is ongoing and that no final determination has been made, but say that authorities haven’t uncovered anything that indicates that Christie knew in advance or ordered the closure of traffic lanes.

Morrissey reacts:

Does this make Christie a winner in Bridgegate? Well, that might be a stretch, but he’s not going to be the big loser in it. Had his critics just stuck to focusing on his executive skills and lack of control in his office this scandal might have hurt, but the hysteria of blowing up Bridgegate into a Watergate-scale scandal created a bubble that popped in their faces.

Cillizza views this as “very good news for Christie and his potential 2016 presidential prospects”:

For the first time in a long time, Christie can at least see a plausible path back to the top tier of a Republican presidential primary. He remains the most naturally gifted communicator in the potential field and, assuming that Bridgegate is truly behind him, the person with the best relationships with the Wall Street major donor crowd that helps provide the financial backbone to presidential candidates. Now, with the dark cloud of the looming investigation seemingly gone, those traits have a far better chance of shining through.

Jennifer Rubin talks up his presidential prospects:

The question for Christie and his supporters is how much damage this has done and what, if any, are his prospects for a presidential run. On one hand the scandal froze the donor community and may have stirred the Jeb Bush buzz. But ultimately no clear frontrunner emerged and while he’s been more focused on New Jersey, other big names have gotten banged around (e.g. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul) or have disappeared from the national stage altogether (e.g. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker). Moreover, Christie has kept up a furious pace of fundraising and campaigning for the Republican Governors Association, work that earns appreciation from candidates and close contact with big donors. All the while Christie remained near the top of the 2016 polls.

In short, his momentum was stopped but there doesn’t seem to be serious damage to his prospects.

Adam Wollinger agrees that Christie’s work with the governors association could set him up for a run:

Christie insists that he is completely focused on the elections at hand this fall—and he’s undoubtedly provided a great deal of help to Republicans on the ballot in 2014. The RGA has raised $75 million since he took over as chairman in November 2013, and candidates’ campaign coffers have benefited from Christie’s visits. But that doesn’t mean he can’t tend to his own political ambitions along the way, too.

At a press conference in Trenton on Thursday, Christie said his recent campaign stops will factor into his decision regarding the 2016 presidential race. “That’s all stuff for me to consider, to take into account,” he said. “It affects it in the sense that it gives me a window into … what that would be like. And it gives my family a window into what that would be like. And so that will all wind up, I believe, affecting the decision that we make come the beginning of next year.”

(Photo: By Kena Betancur/Getty Images. Title hat tip: Jeryl Bier.)

Charles Krauthammer has a column his morning that is eerily in some agreement with yours truly on what happened in August. My view is that ISIS was deliberately baiting the US and the West through its horrific beheading videos, hoping to drag the US back into an unwinnable war, and to elevate its status as the successor to al Qaeda. Sounds a lot like Krauthammer:

As for the short run, the Islamic State knows it will be pounded from the air. But it deems that price worth paying, given its gains in propaganda and prestige — translated into renown and recruiting — from these public executions … We tend to forget that at this stage in its career, the Islamic State’s principal fight is intramural. It seeks to supersede and supplant its jihadi rivals — from al-Qaeda in Pakistan, to Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria, to the various franchises throughout North Africa — to emerge as champion of the one true jihad.

The strategy is simple: Draw in the world’s great superpower, create the ultimate foil and thus instantly achieve supreme stature in radical Islam as America’s nemesis.

My inference from this is that we should not take the bait. I fully understand how hard that is, given the Jacksonian impulse in American culture, given the PTSD of 9/11, given the horrifying depravity of these Jihadist lunatics. Krauthammer’s reaction, in contrast, is to talk smack:

When the enemy deliberately draws you into combat, it is all the more imperative to show the world that he made a big mistake.

And so we are supposed to send ground troops back into Iraq in order to win back urban centers from a deeply marginalized and radicalized Sunni minority, and turn this entire thing into a US vs Jihad battle. You can see why Krauthammer admires Netanyahu so much. He doesn’t just support a permanent war, he seems to relish it. You could summarize this column with a classic Bushism: “Bring It On.”

He seems to believe that ISIS can be defeated by US forces, and the gist of the latest neoconservative gambit – hyped by the Washington Post among others – is that half-measures won’t do. Once you’ve committed to “ultimately destroying” ISIS, you have to commit to it. Don’t rule out ground troops; rally the country with Manichean rhetoric; score cheap points at home by declaring yourself more manly than the president; and react to any further ISIS grandstanding by ratcheting up the rhetoric – and thereby disappearing down yet another Mesopotamian rabbit-hole.

It is as if the lesson of the Iraq war was that we didn’t use enough firepower. Then this canard:

A common mantra is that American cruelty — Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, “torture,” the Iraq war itself — is the great jihadist recruiting tool. But leaving Iraq, closing Abu Ghraib and prohibiting “enhanced interrogation” had zero effect on recruiting. In fact, jihadi cadres from Mali to Mosul have only swelled during Obama’s outstretched-hand presidency.

Turns out the Islamic State’s best recruiting tool is indeed savagery — its own. Deliberate, defiant, triumphant. The beheadings are not just a magnet for psychopaths around the world. They are choreographed demonstrations of its unbounded determination and of American helplessness. In Osama bin Laden’s famous formulation, who is the “strong horse” now?

So we’re back on bin Laden’s horse again, are we? Of course, the implosion of American decency and horror in the last decade did not create Jihadism. But it sure didn’t help.

Bombing the crap out of a country, breaking it apart, unleashing its sectarian demons, occupying it for a decade, and then up-ending its long-standing dynamic of Sunni minority rule: that has something to do with it. More to the point: those very tactics proved that military force cannot do what Krauthammer wants it to do. The Iraq war revealed the limits of American power more dramatically than any of Obama’s more minimalist policies.

Our difference is simple. My view is that the sense of American “helplessness”, as Krauthammer puts it, is based on reality. We cannot end Jihadism ourselves or by military force alone; it has to be defeated within the Arab and Muslim world. This is not merely an abstract argument: we have a decade of experience now that proves it. What the neocons are proposing is a Likudnik strategy of brutal warfare to allegedly wipe out the enemy. It hasn’t worked in Israel – and they have far more at stake than we do. It has deepened bitterness, drawn atavism to the surface like pus, altered Israel’s democracy in profound and troubling ways, violated core Western values, and won … well, a constant low-level war which can be relied upon to flare again and again indefinitely.

America is bigger and better than that. When fanatics use brutal performance art to bait us into a trap from which we have few escapes, our task is to ignore them. That may be a very hard sell in the current climate. But if we cannot see it clearly after the last decade, we are truly careening toward the rapids.