Chertoff seems to be punting a little, mercifully.
Understanding Ahmadinejad
One key is not to under-estimate him:
Wherever he speaks and whomever he addresses, Ahmadinejad is always communicating with a domestic audience of millions of citizens in Iran, as well as with the rest of the Muslim world. He knows his audience well and, while he may convey an air of clumsy haphazardness, his discourse and demeanor express a meticulously crafted, politically astute message of pious populism. He is very much a product of recent Iranian history, and understanding his early years and rise to power provides insight into current circumstances in Iran, his own likely course of action, and the prospects for Iranian political reform.
But Abbas Milani sees some reason for optimism: the kind of bottom-up gradualist evolution that thwarts theocracy with realism and individual free thought, however tenuous, however beleaguered:
An even larger number of those working with the regime, particularly among the thousands of often-Western-educated mid-level managers, are increasingly aware that the status quo is untenable. As the economy continues to falter, and as radicals like Ahmadinejad seek more stringent enforcement of Islamic laws—by, for example, charging more than 160,000 women in the past two months of being insufficiently veiled—it is easy to imagine the emergence of a grand coalition, consisting of technocrats within and outside the regime, disgruntled reformists, quietist clerics, members of the Iranian private sector, women demanding equality, students, democratic parties, and labor unions, all willing to compromise in favor of a better society…
A strategy in Iran that forges democracy through a politics from below would have ramifications throughout the Middle East.
The whole essay is worth absorbing. Orin Judd is encouraged by Rafsanjani’s response to Ahmadinejad; Jim Hamlen less so. Hat tip: Sign and Sight.
(Photo: Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty.)
The View From Your Window
Westwood, California, 5 am.
Quote For The Day II
The Derb really is fearless:
Q: But there are different kinds of intelligence, aren’t there? The Bushmen of the Kalahari have their own kind, to help them survive. You, with your book-smarts and your desk-smarts, wouldn’t last a week in the Kalahari.
The Derb: That is very likely true, but if so, it belongs to the category of melancholy truths. I mean, it’s a truth that does nobody any good, and which, if you think through its consequences, will make you feel sad.
It certainly isn’t going to do the Bushman any good. If the terrain over which he exercises his keen hunter-gatherer intelligence becomes interesting to some mining company, or builder of dams, or foreign conqueror, he will be swept from it like a bug from a picnic table. His superior intelligence, however admirable it may be from a metaphysical point of view, will avail him nothing in a clash with modernity.
There may indeed be different kinds of smarts, each worthy in its own way. In the world as it is, though, the kind of smarts that gets you a coherent nation under stable government, with a fair shot at security, prosperity, good health, and comfort for yourself and your descendants, is one particular kind — the kind measured by I.Q. tests.
Having lost a lot of my conservative readers, I guess I need to brace myself for losing a bunch of liberal ones. Of course, the bushman can live a full life without destroying the global climate. But that’s another question.
Moralizing Romney
First, he tells Obama not to talk about his past drug-use, even though Obama isn’t really bringing it up and is being forthright when asked. Now, he reminds voters that Giuliani has been married twice. Look: no one is or should be electing a saint. And there comes a point at which moral preening about a squeaky clean private life comes off as icky.
Dobson On Romney
According to a Focus On The Family macher,
it’s "doubtful" that James Dobson would personally endorse Mitt Romney because of "the tremendous difference in theological views."
But I thought there was no purely religious criterion for selecting the GOP’s candidates? Haven’t I been deluding myself for the past few years? Or is Dobson now deemed irrelevant to the party? (Hat tip: Marc.)
Christianism Redux
It’s funny, isn’t it, how much abuse I receive for writing a book and a blog that essentially argue that the base of the GOP is a sectarian and religious movement rather than a political one – and that this is a problem. In that sense – in the sense that it believes that political power should be assigned primarily on the basis of religious purity – it is a theocratic force. And now who comes along and agrees with me, with respect to the new front-runner in Iowa? Freddy The Beetle Barnes:
Maybe my memory betrays me, but I don’t recall a major presidential candidate who made such an unabashed, unambiguous appeal for support on the basis of religious faith… The Huckabee ad, entitled "Believe," begins with Huckabee’s emphasis on the importance of his faith. "Faith doesn’t just influence me," he says. "It really defines me." A few seconds later, the words "Christian Leader" are emblazoned on the screen… I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that, at least in this ad, Huckabee has made his political views secondary to his religious beliefs. Perhaps this is what Christian conservatives in Iowa want to hear.
You think? You can buy the book here. Denial is a powerful thing, isn’t it?
Huckabee On Climate Change
The Economist gets it about right:
On green issues, he is all mood and little substance. He says God wants us to look after the earth, and touts his own use of a flex-fuel car. But he has no serious plan to reduce greenhouse gases. A carbon tax, he claims, sounds too much like a tax. And a cap-and-trade system sounds "a bit like buying indulgences from the ancient church," he told the Wall Street Journal.
Pejman echoes – but much the same could be said of Bush. Here’s factcheck.org on Huck’s fiscal record. Personally, I prefer big government conservatives who actually tax people. More honest than borrowing from your kids.
The Problem With The Surge
A reader nails it:
I don’t have any doubt – and really, never did – that increasing the use of (and apparently, more properly deploying) American troops would reduce violence in Iraq. And I think that although Bush did this belatedly and only in response to political pressure he deserves (along with Gates and Petraeus) to be applauded for that. But what does that have to do with the goals of the war? As I understand it, we don’t have a military goal – we have a hope that the Iraqis are able to put together a democratic government that is capable of unifying and securing the country. That has nothing to do with whether there is a lot or not a lot of violence in Iraq.
Remember, we started out with a specific military objective – remove the Hussein regime. We hoped that if we achieved this military objective, the Iraqis would put together a democratic government that could unify and secure the country. We achieved the objective, but the Iraqis did not fulfill our hopes. Now, instead of a military objective, we have a military activity – maintaining security.
Or if you want, say that we have a "military objective" – reducing violence. It doesn’t matter, really. Again, we hope that if we do a good job of maintaining security/reducing violence the Iraqis will put together a democratic government that can unify and secure the country.
Again, there’s not the slightest reason in the world to think that the Iraqis will fulfill our hopes.
Is there some earthly reason to think that the Iraqis are more likely to put together a democratic government that is capable of unifying and securing the country just because they have some relative peace and quiet? Why would that matter?
Again, it’s a 1960s fantasy.
“One Of The Finest People I Know.”
Deal Hudson airs the story that the MSM is so leery of: Rudy Giuliani’s close association with, employment of and loyalty to a priest credibly accused of child molestation. Money quote:
Since 2002, Msgr. Alan Placa has worked for Rudy Giuliani as a consultant at Giuliani Partners. In 2003 a grand jury report of Suffolk County, NY, accused Placa of sexually abusing multiple victims.
A spokeswoman for Giuliani Partners told Salon Magazine that the former New York City mayor believes Placa was "unjustly accused." The grand jury report contains accusations from three alleged victims, including two children (Placa is named as "Priest F" in the report.) According to testimony before the grand jury, "Everyone in the school knew to stay away from Priest F."
Placa has been suspended from his priestly duties for the past five years…
The grand jury report includes excerpts from a letter in which Placa brags about his ability to settle multi-million dollar clergy abuse claims for "$20,000 to $100,000."…
The suspension of Placa’s priestly duties has now reached the five-year point, far beyond the norm in such cases. Will Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre remove Placa’s priestly faculties during the presidential campaign? That would be both an embarrassment for Giuliani and an implicit admission by the diocese that the case against the monsignor was serious. Of course, given Giuliani’s legendary influence in the New York metropolitan area, Placa’s faculties are not likely to be removed before the election.
One simple question: why has the press not pursued this story more aggressively? Nothing quite highlights Giuliani’s blindness toward friends and cronies like this story. That Giuliani is still paying the guy a salary long after these serious accusations became public boggles the mind. It speaks to an arrogance, flawed judgment and personal contempt for the law that should disqualify Giuliani from any serious aspiration to the presidency. (Update here.)
(Photo: Win McNamee/Getty.)
