The Dish

Rick Rosendall takes a step back and puts Larry Craig into perspective.

This cartoon, making fun of Jerry Falwell, was syndicated in newspapers across the country.

This cartoon, making fun of Islamic fundamentalists, gets canned.

Meanwhile, of course, the Catholic League is complaining that cartoons offending Catholics aren’t banned too.

Will the fecklessness before perpetually-aggrieved Muslims ever end?

Here is a pdf copy of the "Restricted Distribution" report by IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, "Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran."

These concluding clips from the Summary underscore that ElBaradei sees Iran moving in a positive direction and setting its nuclear program up for high level transparency that had not been previously the case:

22. The Agency is able to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran. Iran has been providing the Agency with access to declared nuclear material, and has provided the required nuclear material accountancy reports in connection with declared nuclear material and facilities. However, the Agency remains unable to verify certain aspects relevant to the scope and nature of Iran’s nuclear programme.

It should be noted that since early 2006, the Agency has not received the type of information that Iran had previously been providing, including pursuant to the Additional Protocol, for example information relevant to ongoing advanced centrifuge research.

23. The work plan is a significant step forward. If Iran finally addresses the long outstanding verification issues, the Agency should be in a position to reconstruct the history of Iran’s nuclear programme. Naturally, the key to successful implementation of the agreed work plan is Iran’s full and active cooperation with the Agency, and its provision to the Agency of all relevant information and access to all relevant documentation and individuals to enable the Agency to resolve all outstanding issues.

To this end, the Agency considers it essential that Iran adheres to the time line defined therein and implements all the necessary safeguards and transparency measures, including the measures  provided for in the Additional Protocol. 

24. Once Iran’s past nuclear programme has been clarified, Iran would need to continue to build confidence about the scope and nature of its present and future nuclear programme. Confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme requires that the Agency be able to provide assurances not only regarding declared nuclear material, but, equally important, regarding the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, through the implementation of the Additional Protocol. The Director General therefore again urges Iran to ratify and bring into force the Additional Protocol at the earliest possible date, as requested by the Board of Governors and the Security Council.

This last section, however, is what the United States and France are crying foul over and which remains a major obstacle to more political progress:

25. Contrary to the decisions of the Security Council, Iran has not suspended its enrichment related activities, having continued with the operation of PFEP, and with the construction and operation of FEP. Iran is also continuing with its construction of the IR-40 reactor and operation of the Heavy Water Production Plant.

What is happening now is that there are now at least three, if not more, divergent international tracks in confronting Iran on its nuclear program. 

The IAEA track — which the Iranians themselves have now just applauded (which does raise questions actually) — is citing enough progress on transparency and possible cooperation with international nuclear protocols that the IAEA is at odds with the third round of economic sanctions that the U.S. and France are trying to rally against Iran.

Then inside American and some European circles, Iran’s failure to suspend its enrichment program requires toughened sanctions, each round of which becomes tighter — harming both Iran as well as firms in nations applying the sanctions.

And third, the neoconservative crowd simply wants to suspend all negotiations and begin bombing.

At a minimum, ElBaradei’s report probably stalls somewhat the neoconservative effort to start yet another war — but I think that the sanctions noose that Under Secretary of State R. Nicholas Burns is feverishly working on will continue.

And if there was a God that had ElBaradei working on one side of the process and Burns on the other — with the neocons somewhere very, very hot — I’d think that that was a brilliant good cop/bad cop strategy. 

Unfortunately, I don’t think that such order and design exist in our universe.

— Steve Clemons

The President’s Address to the Nation, January 10, 2007:

"I’ve made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraq’s other leaders that America’s commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people — and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people. Now is the time to act. The Prime Minister understands this. Here is what he told his people just last week: "The Baghdad security plan will not provide a safe haven for any outlaws, regardless of [their] sectarian or political affiliation." (…)

A successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations. Ordinary Iraqi citizens must see that military operations are accompanied by visible improvements in their neighborhoods and communities. So America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced."

Background Briefing by Senior Administration Officials, January 10, 2007:

"We have made very clear that the Iraqi government needs to meet the benchmarks it has set in order to do the things on which a broader reconciliation are required. And you all know them. They’re the oil law; they’re de-Baathification, narrowing the limitations of the de-Baathification law; they’re provincial elections to bring the Sunnis back into the political process at the local level. There is also continuing, and we would hope even accelerating the transition of security responsibility to Iraqis elsewhere in the country and in Baghdad, because if this works it will actually enable Iraqis sooner to provide security in Baghdad. And we have — would like, and the Iraqis have made clear that one of their benchmarks is to take responsibility for security in the whole country by the end of the year. (…)

They have set forward this plan. They have brought forward these benchmarks. And what the President is saying is, fine, we will judge you now less on your words and more on your performance."

Today, after news that the GAO will report that Iraq has failed to meet its benchmarks:

"An internal White House memorandum, prepared to respond to the GAO findings, says the report will claim the Iraqis have failed on at least 13 benchmarks. It also says the criteria lawmakers set for the report allow no room to report progress, only absolute success or failure.

The memo argues that the GAO will not present a "true picture" of the situation in Iraq because the standards were "designed to lock in failure," according to portions of the document read to the AP by an official who has seen it."

And:

"At the White House, officials argued that the GAO report, which was required by legislation President Bush signed last spring, was unrealistic because it assigned "pass or fail" grades to each benchmark, rather than assessing whether the Iraqis have made progress toward reaching the benchmark goals.

"A bar was set so high, that it was almost not to be able to be met," White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said."

(Emphasis added in all quotes. Cross-posted to Obsidian Wings.)

From the Washington Post:

"Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration.

The strikingly negative GAO draft, which will be delivered to Congress in final form on Tuesday, comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own new benchmark report in the second week of September, along with congressional testimony from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. They are expected to describe significant security improvements and offer at least some promise for political reconciliation in Iraq.

The draft provides a stark assessment of the tactical effects of the current U.S.-led counteroffensive to secure Baghdad. "While the Baghdad security plan was intended to reduce sectarian violence, U.S. agencies differ on whether such violence has been reduced," it states. While there have been fewer attacks against U.S. forces, it notes, the number of attacks against Iraqi civilians remains unchanged. It also finds that "the capabilities of Iraqi security forces have not improved."

"Overall," the report concludes, "key legislation has not been passed, violence remains high, and it is unclear whether the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion in reconstruction funds," as promised. While it makes no policy recommendations, the draft suggests that future administration assessments "would be more useful" if they backed up their judgments with more details and "provided data on broader measures of violence from all relevant U.S. agencies.""

Here’s a graphic comparing the GAO and the administration’s views on which benchmarks have been met. The three that both agree have been met include: "Establishing supporting political, media, and economic committees in support of the Baghdad security plan", "Establishing all planned joint security stations in neighborhoods across Baghdad", and "Ensuring the rights of minority political parties in the Iraqi legislature are protected." Two more are graded "mixed" — "Enacting and implementing legislation on procedures to form semi-autonomous regions" and "Allocating and spending $10 billion in Iraqi revenue for reconstruction projects including delivery of essential services, on an equitable basis." The GAO finds that progress on all the rest has been unsatisfactory. "The rest" includes de-Baathification, amending the Constitution, the petroleum law, decreasing violence, training the Iraqi army, disarming militias, establishing electoral laws and so forth — little things like that.

But hey: at least we’ve formed some committees!

I found this bit particularly interesting:

"The person who provided the draft report to The Post said it was being conveyed from a government official who feared that its pessimistic conclusions would be watered down in the final version — as some officials have said happened with security judgments in this month’s National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq."

And the GAO is clearly right on this point: "future administration assessments "would be more useful" if they backed up their judgments with more details and "provided data on broader measures of violence from all relevant U.S. agencies." If the administration wants to ask the American people to go on supporting a policy that seems to have failed, they owe us a detailed explanation of why they think that support would do more than postpone the inevitable.

"I often remind our fellow citizens that we live in the greatest country in the world and that I have lived the American dream. Even my worst days as attorney general have been better than my father’s best days."

–from Alberto Gonzales’ resignation statement.

Even a determined Gonzales-hater might find this statement somehow poignant, given his family’s hardscrabble background. But what Mr. Gonzales evidently fails to understand is that he has diminished our collective American dream, alas. He diminished it by dismissing the Geneva Conventions as "quaint", by allowing a horrific torture policy to take root, by his banana-republic like late night visits to John Ashcroft’s hospital room, by ignoring Congressional subpoenas, by authorizing illegal wiretapping programs, by firing qualified United States attorneys in an apparent putsch, and on and on.

Still, I will confess to a measure of sympathy for the man. Much like Harriet Miers, he was so supremely underqualified for his position, so spectacularly beyond his depth, that he should never have been put in such a difficult position. Instead Bush’s bovine obsessiveness with loyalty–basic competence be damned– has focused the brutal kleig-lights of international opprobrium on old friends like Harriet and Alberto. Like Brownie, say, they will become key examples in the history books of the rampant cronyism and incompetence of this Adminstration.

Their legacy thus sealed, one wonders, is Bush even cognizant of how he’s effectively besmirched his friends by trying to elevate them to realms they should have never occupied to begin with? I suspect not, as the President’s capacity for self-criticism appears somewhere between minute and non-existent. Instead, he’s doubtless bitterly nursing his grudges, rankled that Senators like Arlen Specter and Pat Leahy and Chuck Schumer dared to challenge an Attorney General whose sycophancy to the President was so complete as to render the Department of Justice a wholly discredited arm of Government, one where Administration lawyers dutifully genuflected before David Addington and John Yoo’s youthful exuberances.

In the end, I suspect Gonzales simply couldn’t tolerate the punishing mortification anymore, the spectacle of his gross incompetence playing out so harshly on the national stage. And so he finally summoned up the courage to confront the President, that one time, if only to try and salvage whatever crumbs of dignity he had left, likely pleading with Bush to set him loose. Put differently, his only act of rebellion came at the very end, not on the important issues of the day that so badly sullied our democracy and highest traditions, but because Gonzales could no longer abide a crushing humiliation that had by then become total.

Ironically evincing a smigden of backbone only in a bid to persuade Bush to allow him to move off stage to spare himself further such misery, this belated act of banal self-preservation sadly came far too late. By then our collective American dream had been badly tarnished. Still, if it is part of the price of him leaving, let us allow him to fancifully imagine he is still somehow living his. All told, it’s a small price to pay as we begin to clear out the rot left in the wake of this baleful Administration.

(Cross-posted at Belgravia Dispatch)

John Dickerson asks a good question:

We don’t have to guess about what Goldwater would do. During the 1964 presidential campaign, he faced almost precisely the same issue. In October, the Goldwater campaign learned that Walter Jenkins, LBJ’s closest aide, had been arrested on a "morals charge" in the YMCA bathroom. According to J. William Middendorf’s account of that campaign, A Glorious Disaster, Goldwater’s aides wanted to use the scandal against Johnson, who was well ahead in the polls. Jenkins was not only a security risk—open to blackmail— but long before he was arrested, there were allegations he’d used his influence with then-Vice President Johnson to get an Air Force general who had been busted on a morals charge reinstated. The Goldwater aides even tried out slogans: "Either way with LBJ." Goldwater insisted that they make no use of it. The story never came up during the campaign.

This may say more about Goldwater’s personal decency than it does about his governing philosophy. Jenkins had served in Goldwater’s Air Force Reserve Unit, and as Goldwater later wrote, "It was a sad time for Jenkins’ wife and children, and I was not about to add to their private sorrow. Winning isn’t everything. Some things, like loyalty to friends or lasting principle, are more important." Mitt, you’re no Barry Goldwater.

Which reminds me of the best put-down ever in the history of American politics:

Regular readers of Belgravia Dispatch likely sensed my dismay when the Administration floated that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were going to be declared a foreign terrorist organization. (Actually, a "specially designated global terrorist", seemingly something of a sui generis category born of breezy ‘transformationalist diplomacy’ that apparently allows the largest branch of a sovereign state’s army to be designated a foreign terrorist group. And, yes, in case you’re wondering, this doesn’t really logically fit into this more established listing of foreign terrorist organizations, which I guess is more "quaint" now).

Beyond the sloppiness, however, the policy itself is unlikely to have any material financial impact on the Guards, but will very likely help dash any meaningful chance of fruitful diplomatic dialogue with the Iranians on issues like the nuclear dossier. As Ray Takeyh explains in yesterday’s FT:

…the US has no trade linkages to Iran that it can sever, and European companies are unlikely to adhere to yet another set of American sanctions. Moreover, given the murky and ambiguous nature of the Revolutionary Guards’ business enterprises, it is difficult to suggest in a conclusive manner whether a company is really operating on their behalf. As such, the type of information and intelligence that is needed for targeted sanctionsis unlikely to be available.

While the economic ramifications of the new policy will probably be in-adequate, its political impact is likely to be considerable. Past and present Guardsmen permeate Iran’s security network. The staff of Ali Larijani, Iran’s national security adviser and chief nuclear negotiator, is composed mostly of Revolutionary Guards. Iran’s policy toward Iraq and Afghanistan is also under the purview of the Guards.

Despite their attempts to arm and train Iraqi Shia militias and advance Iran’s nuclear programme, the Guards have not opposed negotiations with the US. Indeed, it would be inconceivable for talks on the nuclear issue or Iraq to have proceeded without the Guards’ approbation. The administration’s attempt to coerce and put pressure on this organisation is likely to trigger its antagonism towards further dealings with the US.

So we merrily continue to go down a road where conflict with Iran increasingly looks to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is hugely troublesome, not least because–as Anthony Cordesman has pointed out–the repercussions of such a conflict could be disastrous. Cordesman lists potential Iranian retaliatory moves including (with some tweaks for context/language):

1) Iranian retaliation against US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan using Shahab-3 missiles armed with CBR warheads; 2) using proxy groups including…Sadr in Iraq to intensify the insurgency and escalate the attacks against US forces and Iraqi Security Forces; 3) turning the Shi’ite majority in Iraq against the US presence and demanding US forces leave; 4) attacking the US homeland with suicide bombs by proxy groups or delivering CBR weapons to al-Qa’ida to use against the US; 5) using its asymmetric capabilities to attacks US interests in the region including soft targets: e.g. embassies, commercial centers, and American citizens; 6) attacking US naval forces stationed in the Gulf with anti-ship missiles, asymmetric warfare, and mines; 7) attacking Israel with missile attacks possibly with CBR warheads; 8) retaliating against energy targets in the Gulf and temporarily shutting off the flow of oil from the Strait of Hormuz; and 9) stopping all of its oil and gas shipments to increase the price of oil, inflicting damage on the global and US economies.

And yet, as Glenn Greenwald notes, no one really seems particularly alarmed about such a prospective debacle. What to say? I mean, whether on civil liberties issues (as Hilzoy describes to devastating effect here) or on the foreign policy side of things (we all know we’re ‘surging’ now through March ’08, don’t we, whatever September festivities aside, as this report strongly indicates?), one feels compelled to ask, where is the effective opposition?

I know, I know. Larry Craig has wandering toes, and we’re busily chronicling the travails of the blow-dried, bow-tied vigilante class roaming malls off "M" Street. But really, and speaking of "grit" as we’ve been doing here these past days, what about the abysmal meekness and unseriousness we are manifesting as a nation in refusing to attentively broach any number of issues of critical import to the future direction of this country?

(Cross-posted at Belgravia Dispatch)

Leon Wieseltier put it best when he referred to Norman Finkelstein–the hysterical, Hezbollah-loving, soon-to-be-late-of DePaul University political science professor–as "poison, he’s a disgusting self-hating Jew, he’s something you find under a rock." Finkelstein has built a career on defaming Holocaust survivors as greedy liars out to rob noble Swiss bankers, all the while using "I’m Jewish!" as a defense. The wife of the neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier Ernst Zuendel once said, "I feel like a kid in a candy store… Finkelstein is a Jewish David Irving." You get the picture. But if you don’t, read Omer Bartov’s review of Finkelstein’s The Holocaust Industry in the New York Times.

Well, it looks like Professor Finkelstein has some company under that rock: Tariq Ali, Noam Chomsky and, perhaps more surprising, ostensibly respectable academic figures like Tony Judt and John Mearsheimer, author of the conspiratorial The Israel Lobby.

In June, DePaul University denied Finkelstein tenure. Of course, his defenders are all weeping the tears of those victimized by academic "censorship" (because, as we all know, it’s leftists who are "censored" on college campuses). Ultimately, however, it was not Finkelstein’s political views–odious as they are–that did him in, but his shoddy scholarship and unprofessional behavior. As DePaul’s president wrote at the time, Finkelstein did not  ”honor the obligation” to ”respect and defend the free inquiry of associates.” DePaul has canceled Finkelstein’s class, but the good professor says he may carry out a "hunger strike" in protest. He’d be doing the world a favor if he did.

These academic heroes have joined an outfit called the "DePaul Academic Freedom Committee," the mission of which is to "preserve academic freedom for our faculty on campus." Ali, Chomsky, Judt and Mearsheimer will be convening a teach-in at DePaul in October to protest on behalf of Finkelstein. Though now lacking an academic perch (DePaul is the third university from which he has been fired) Finkelstein won’t be out of a job for long; I imagine the Iranian mullahs, Hizbollah or Hamas would love nothing more than to have an energetic, American Jewish spokesperson to make their respective cases (though perhaps he’s more effective advocating for them in an unofficial, unpaid capacity). If they don’t come through, Finkelstein can always go climb back under his rock. 

One expects these sorts of theatrics from Ali and Chomsky. But Judt and Mearsheimer have revealed much about themselves–and their intellectual motivations–by choosing to advocate for a Hezbollah propagandist and hero of neo-Nazis.

Toles (c) 2007 The Washington Post. Used by permission of Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved.