Differentdrummer

Reading Obama

We live in economically perilous times so it's a rarity when a new industry is launched and becomes instantly successful. But that's what's happened with the Barack Obama Deconstruction industry. The punditocracy, blogosphere and political class have all weighed in 24/7. 

Will Obama betray his progressive base? Does his appointment of Clinton administration veterans and extension of an olive branch to McCain-supporting and Obama-bashing Joe Lieberman testify to his embrace of the "America is a center-right nation" narrative that conservatives desperately wish for? Or, is he cleverly channeling Don Corleone's wisdom to "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer," and going one step further--- getting his rivals in the Democratic Party to implement his possibly more leftish policies. (In Lieberman's case, there might also be an echo of Louisiana Governor Huey Long's strategically using ex-convicts as personal assistants. Owing all to Long, their loyalty could be counted on. Only Obama's forgiveness saved Lieberman from banishment from the Democratic caucus and he's been a loyal lapdog for the President-elect ever since).

To deal with my own confusion on the matter I decided belatedly to read Obama's first book, Dreams from My Father, published in 1995 at a time when he certainly wasn't seriously contemplating running for the presidency. It may, therefore, represent a more authentic guide to his approach to politics and social policy than his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope, or speeches on the campaign trail. Of course, Obama's life has changed so much since Dreams was written, a time before he entered government as a state legislator, became a U.S. Senator and ran succesfully for the White House.  Perhaps his ever-widening social circle, specifically his greater contacts with economic and political elites, and new intellectual influences, have fundamentally changed his world-view. But, his unique background for a President-elect still should at least inform the way he processes new experiences and acquaintances.

What seems clear from reading his autobiography is that Obama is someone who is deeply aware, by personal experience and education, of gaping inequities within American society and the even greater ones that exist in the Third World. He is also cognizant of the role that American foreign policy has played in supporting those who tyrannize their own people, whether it be the Shah of Iran or Suharto of Indonesia.

Although, while campaigning, Obama would often refer to his "mother from Kansas" as if to conjure up an image of a cooking-baking home-maker with no political leanings, his mother was actually very sympathetic to the emerging civil rights and peace movements, anti-colonial struggles and problems of underdevelopment in Africa and Asia. His Kenyan father had similar proclivities and first-hand experience as a colonial subject.

Obama also lived in Indonesia as a small child during the early days of the pro- U.S Suharto regime which massacred as many as half a million supporters of his predecessor, a non-aligned nationalist. Obama witnessed his once confident Indonesian step-father cower in the face of political repression against those suspected of being disloyal to the new strongman.

As a rare black youth growing up in Hawaii with a white mother and grandparents he assimililated mainstream culture, but also recognized that he was different, and viewed as such, within his generally very accepting peer group. Several disturbing incidents, as well as awareness of the civil rights struggles on the mainland, nurtured a growing need to find a viable identity as a black man---not a biracial one. This quest accelerated when he went to Los Angeles and New York to attend colleges in cities with large, diverse and vibrant politically black communities.

Obama was an undergraduate in the 70s when many veterans of 60s activism became academics and re-shaped the social sciences and humanities. He was surely exposed by professors and fellow students to Marxism, feminist thought and the various strands of black nationalism and radicalism.

In Dreams from My Father Obama shows how he managed during his student days and afterward to  peacefully co-exist with all the strands of black consciousness, while never fully embracing any. He remained committed, often against his instincts, to universalism and integration as opposed to identity politics and nationalism. Yet, Obama saw black nationalism as an effective psychological defense against recalcitrant white racism and a useful tool for political mobilization. What he consistently eschewed are mere words---rhetoric---ironic for someone whose own eventual meteoric political rise owed so much to that. Effectiveness is what concerned him.

He also understood, early on, that it was necessary to avoid the persona of the "angry black man" in order to make his way in the larger society. Being polite invariably put white people at ease.

Obama's work as community organizer in Chicago after leaving New York gave him a practical education in the limits of coalition building---just because two groups should have common interests doesn't mean they perceive them or are willing to focus on what unites them. Specifically, race often trumps class solidarity even in the face of economic hardship. If there is little hope, for example, of dramatic success for a grand coalition---white and black working class struggling to save factories that once employed both---better to look out for number one. The lesson Obama may have learned is that it's difficult to ask people to exert energy in behalf of goals they perceive as pie in the sky.

Obama came to realize the importance of movements from below---mobilizing anger for social change---but also their limits. He understood that insurgents in democratic socities need motivated and effective allies in the corridors of power to bring about rapid societal reform.

One of the experiences that has not been mentioned by pundits, but Obama clearly notes, was the untimely death of Harold Washington. Washington, Chicago's first black mayor and a charismatic reformer, might well have formed a symbiotic relationship with community organizers like Obama. His death occurred early in his tenure when he was moving carefully with an eye towards long-term institutional change. Washington assumed he would be in office for a long time and did not have to fast-track reforms.

The current debate over whether Obama will be inclined to move swiftly or deliberately to institute his vision might be better informed if the lessons he learned from Harold Washington's unexpectedly brief tenure is factored in. The economic crisis itself might compell rapid implementation of policies aimed at recovery, but perhaps, reflecting on Washington's fate, Obama will feel that he cannot assume he has eight or even four years to institute reforms in other arenas as well.

Although a long-time smoker, at 47 Obama probably doesn't have to worry about sudden death from cardiac arrest if he plans to serve two terms. On the other hand, the fear of assassination by a racist or someone convinced he is a secret Muslim terrorist sympathizer or the anti-Christ---widely disseminated assertions in viral emails during the campaign---should not be discounted. Obama probably has already received more death threats and hate mail than any other President-elect, if not all others put together. Perhaps that is one reason why he has assembled massive task forces to examine and evaluate every nook and cranny of government policy so he can hit the ground running on January 20, 2009. He may try to mobilize his supporters---connected by text messages and youtube---to push from below against congressional and media resistance to his programs.

Obama's decision to work quickly or with caution on issues other than economic recovery might also be affected by his unusually high approval ratings in polls. On November 6 the respected Rasmussen Poll indicated a 52-44 percent spread between those who approved of him and those who didn't. Six weeks later it has grown to 69-29. This is political capital he can spend. By 2010, after mid-term elections, he might, if history is a guide, have fewer supporters in the public and allies in the congress. But maybe he will show once again that history can be rewritten.

Still, the question remains, what is Obama's vision? On the basis of Dreams from My Father I would imagine he will try to move the U.S. closer to the kind of social democracy found in Western Europe, bolster labor unions and worker protections, rely less on military force than diplomacy and economic aid in foreign policy. He also believes in the rule of law and should seek to reverse Bush Administration's practices which border on or embrace criminality (e.g., illegal wiretaps, contravention of the Geneva Accords regarding torture).

Obama's experience as a community organizer and law professor might also conduct a massive "adult education" offensive---speaking directly to the public on a regular basis to let them understand what and why he is doing something. But Dreams also suggests that while Obama's goals are to empower the citizenry and provide more safety nets and opportunities he is open to a variety of suggestions regarding how this can be done and committed to trial and error experimentation along the way. He is, above all, results oriented and perhaps that is a major reason why he has generally chosen cabinet officials and advisors who are  billed as extremely competent nuts and bolts operatives rather than visionaries. Obama himself, as he has said, will supply the vision. The danger is that his appointments, with rare exceptions such as the new Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis,are small bore actors and that, unless he can find the time to consider groundbreaking  policies by tapping sources of wisdom and innovation beyond that of his appointees, his presidency may fall well short of the greatness many expect of him. 

Specifically, the Obama of Dreams is a voracious reader with far-ranging tastes and unusual curiosity. He also enjoys encountering people from a wide spectrum of humanity and who hold great diversity of opinion. But Obama is not a twenty-something student, community organizer or informal world traveller anymore. As president, his unscripted time will be severely truncated, he will simultaneously have to deal with a myriad of issues, and his access to a diversity of people and perspectives may be minimal. Before he could relax by reading and playing basketball. Now he might have to choose between the two or do less of both.

The wild card in all speculation are the historical crises Obama will inherit, which may require---out of trial and error---an unprecedented transformation of U.S. economic, political and social life. After all, neither Lincoln nor FDR thought of themselves or were "radicals" when they entered the White House. Obama's biography suggests a greater capacity for it than theirs did, but even if his political ideology is now more centrist than Dreams might suggest, his embrace of pragmatism---what works---might lead him leftward gain. We shall see soon enough.

Postscript: February 6, 2009

It is too early, of course, to answer any of the important questions about Obama's course, but there are a few signs worth noting. First, as I hoped, he seems to understand that his ability to communicate directly with the citizenry---counter-acting the mainstream media tropes (i.e. wisdom comes from the center at all times) and predilections (e.g., focus on soundbites, drama, playing stenographer to politicians instead of investigating the truth of their claims) is essential for bringing dramatic social reform

Second, Obama seems to be inclined to appoint special envoys (e.g. George Mitchell to the Mid East) to solve problems rather than allow cabinet appointees to try their hand. This suggests his cabinet officials may be utilized more for carrying out routine functions than setting policy. This should reassure those on the left that having a center-right cabinet will not necessarily mean a center-right agenda. 

Finally, it appears as if bi-partisanship is more of an Obama strategy of cooptation and less an end in itself. He will listen to many viewpoints, and is open to changing his opinions, but does not accept the idea that compromise in itself trumps choosing the best approach to problem-solving.

Finally, on a lighter note, I hope sending Henry Kissinger on a secret mission to negotiate with the Russians on nuclear proliferation was at least partially motivated by a desire his plane might crash or be forced to land in some country where he could promptly be arrested an hauled before a war crimes tribunal.

President Obama: The Bridge From Nowhere

During the primary season I argued that Barack Obama's chance to become President hinged upon his ability to be perceived as an honorary "white," someone like Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods or Colin Powell. Winfrey, Woods and Powell have transcended their racial identity in a society where racism still is a significant sub-text and "blackness" is still equated for many members of the white majority with being alien, discomforting, potentially dangerous..."that one."

Obama has come close to achieving this goal because of his unflappable personality, eloquence, intelligence and political acumen. Nevertheless, until the recent economic crisis his triumph in November was still very much in doubt. Despite the great unpopularity of President Bush and  the Republican Party, John McCain and Obama were in a tight race for the White House. Had Obama been white there is little doubt he would have had a double digit lead all along instead of barely edging McCain throughout the summer.

But all that has changed. Just as there are no atheists in foxholes racism can temporarily be put aside when the black candidate seems to be better equipped to lead the country from nowhere---an economic catastrophe in the making--- while his white opponent appears to want to stay the Bushonomics course.

Every day the Dow plummets, housing values plummet,unemployment and foreclosures rise and credit remains frozen Obama's numbers rise. Even if Osama Bin Laden turned himself in to McCain it wouldn't make a difference. It's the economy, stupid.

If headline-grabbing bad economic news continues unabated until November, as it should, and GOP efforts at voter suppression fall short, there is a good possibility that Democrats can not only regain the White House but have a working majority in Congress. Obama, if he has the will and the economy is righted, can begin moving the country towards a long overdue transformation--- European style regulated capitalism with a strong social safety net and vastly reduced economic inequality. 

If Obama can make health care approach universality, pass new laws, such as the Free Employee Choice Act, enforce old ones making it easier for the 40 percent of workers who wish to unions (as opposed to the 12 percent who currently belong) to do so, and change the tax code to reduce wealth and income inequalities Democrats can put Republicans out of business for a generation.

But Obama's will is paramount and he may be tempermentally unsuited to using power to bring about deep reform as opposed to trying to find a middle ground with an opposition that may still have bark if no more bite. In his public life Obama has often seemed more devoted to the process of perpetual democratic deliberation than fighting in a partisan way to bring substantive outcomes in the lives of people. Perhaps he truly believes the truth is always in the middle and that is why he chooses a non-confrontational path.

On the other hand, Obama's autobiography, Dreams from My Father, suggests he might be biding his time and that while presenting himself as a man who wants us all to get along he is deeply aware of the uses of power and the realities of powerlessness. After all, his legislative career has been in settings in which his party did not have the votes to impose its will on Republicans. As president, he might turn out to be a decisive leader who will be comfortable using his power.

Much will depend on whether Obama will be preoccupied with being re-elected or whether he wants to leave an indelible mark as an agent of change. He can be another Bill Clinton---a modest overly cautious reformer---or take a tip from his predecessor, George W. Bush, who aggressively utilized all his power as chief executive to implement his policies. Bush also engaged in illegal and unethical conduct, of course, but many of his actions, such as the unprecedented use of signing statements, were perfectly legal, if seldom employed, tactics designed to thwart an uncooperative Congress. (With a Democrats in control of the Senate and House Obama has no need for signing statements, but still might find some creative ways to implement his policies if Democrats fall just short of a filibuster-proof 60 seates in the Senate).

Obama's campaign, of course, has already changed American politics in a profound way in several respects, most notably how to raise money, organize volunteers and defeat smear and fear tactics by rapid counter-punching and maintaining a positive message. If Democrats make big gains in Congress, state legislatures and statehouses Obama can also stump for reforms in voting laws and proceedures that can reduce voter suppression that has routinely disenfranchised hundreds of thousands if not millions throughout the country.

Obama has a resource few leaders have: the intellect and  communication skills to educate the low-information citizen. He can mobilize public opinion in behalf of a program for profound change---to speak above the clamor of the right-wing officeholders in Congress and their media allies. The economic crisis can give him that opportunity, especially if it brings Democrats effective control of the legislative branch. But even if he falls just short of a working majority in the Senate he can frighten the opposition with the spectre of the people's wrath---but only if he chooses to arouse it.

A President Obama could certainly have a great effect on race relations. His triumph might make even extremely cynical black Americans wonder whether American society has turned a corner and that racism and discrimination, while obviously still present, may not be the all-powerful forces they once were. The effect of this change of consciousness, particularly on alienated young black males, could trigger a self-fulfilling prophecy that might begin to weaken the power of the more self-defeating aspects of black underclass culture.

At the same time Obama, if successful, will make it a bit harder for  racist sentiment and discrimination to be tolerated within the white community, especially if, as is his nature, he seeks to unite all Americans around policies that make their lives easier.

Cultural changes within white and black communities would, if forthcoming, feed on each other and help the country move towards a deeper level of integration than has hitherto existed.

While outlining a best case scenario, it's necessary to acknowledge that factors beyond Obama's control could undermine his hopes. If the economy truly melts down and Obama can't fix it the racial divide could deepen as widespread insecurity leads to an exacerbation of racial tension. Whites could imagine that blacks are somehow being privileged by an Obama Administration whether true or not. Blacks might sink deeper into despair as their hopes are dashed.

The most realistic outcome of an Obama Administration is that he will bring about  incremental reform and be a black Bill Clinton who can feel the pain, or appear to, of whites and blacks. Even with modest accomplishemnts Obama's tenure will have had world-historic significance. He will be the first black leader of any country with a white majority and given the legacy of race few even a year ago could have imagined this pathbreaking accomplishment would have happened in the United States.

Obama's "Whiteness," Black Racism and Anti-Semitism

Barack Obama, by all accounts, is a man devoid of any prejudice towards white people as a group and Jews in particular. Yet, in the final debate between him and Hillary Clinton, MSNBC moderator Tim Russert thought it was vital to ask whether Obama rejected support from Louis Farrakhan, the well-known, but no longer influential, black leader of The Nation of Islam.

Obama gave a masterful reply, but it's foolish to think the sub-text behind the question, is Obama "white" on the inside regardless of his skin color, will go away. The call for Obama to "denounce" or "reject" Farrakhan, a man who long ago expressed anti-Semitic sentiments which he claims he now rejects, but has also been a vociferous critic of  self-destructive attitudes and behavior within the black underclass, will surely be followed by further demands to denounce Jeremiah Wright, a black Chicago pastor who Obama has long been close to. No doubt Al Sharpton will also have to be pilloried. Eventually Obama may have to repudiate Barry Bonds and OJ.

It is very difficult for a black to become an honorary white person, like Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods, or Colin Powell in American society, and Obama cannot become President without achieving such a status.

Whites, especially those aspiring to high office, never have to pass a remotely equivalent reverse test. True, today they can, as George Allen learned in Virginia after his infamous "macaca" statement, have their political careers abruptly end if they exhibit overt racist sentiments. But they are not routinely asked to denounce not only the racist expressions but the "support" (something in the Farrakhan case which merely amounted to a hope Obama would win) of prejudiced people, and never the person himself.

Will John McCain have to refuse to appear on the resurrected Imus show or denounce any support Imus, a long-time McCain fan, is likely to express?  Although Rush Limbaugh and other nationally prominent right-wing talk show hosts have been highly critical of McCain, will he be asked to eschew any support they might eventually give him because of their own prejudicial comments over the years?

Interestingly, in the days following the Obama-Farrakhan story, McCain has explicitly rejected the need to repudiate John Hagee, an evangelical television minister who has expressed anti-Catholic prejudices along with other inflammatory views by simply saying that he doesn't have to agree with all the beliefs of supporters in order to accept their endorsement. Obama cannot get away with that reasonable stance even though he never sought Farrakhan's endorsement while McCain actively courted Hagee and appeared with him on stage. 

Besides the issue of sub-text in Russert's query and the double-standard black political candidates have to face it's worth considering an additional issue: is there a difference between prejudices held by whites towards blacks and what is commonly called reverse racism.

Looking at public opinion polls conducted over many decades there is no question that prejudice towards blacks has precipitously declined in the United States. Still, in 1999 an ABC television poll revealed that 32 percent of whites admitted to at least some racist feelings. Forty percent of blacks said they had at least some of the same feelings about whites. A Zogby poll in 2007 indicated about a third of the American people harbor such feelings, but there was no racial breakdown of the results.

To say there is some level of prejudice held by a significant proportion of whites and blacks (and, of course, all other groups) is not to say that these feelings are deep or, more importantly, desire to actively discriminate or do harm is common. In fact, while an Anti-Defamation League survey in the early 1990s found black anti-Semitism of any magnitude substantially higher than among whites, only 12 percent were deemed to have high levels of anti-Semitism based on attitudes. Moreover, some blacks challenged the overall study by saying that certain items used to measure anti-Semitism (e.g., a belief that Jews like to stick together) might well have been said out of admiration for the perceived community-mindedness of Jews, not as a criticism.

But to say that black prejudice against whites (including the sub-category of anti-Semitism) has the same significance as similar white prejudice (including anti-black feelings by Jews which exists, albeit in lower numbers than among non-Jews) is to ignore completely the issue of power imbalances between the two races in this country.

Even if black antipathy continues to exist in slightly greater numbers than white prejudice blacks have little ability to act on it. They are not often in a position to prevent whites from moving into a neighborhood whites wish to live in, obtain employment, or any other thing of value. Prejudice without the power to act upon it simply becomes muttering to oneself or a fantasy...one likely to be felt more strongly by a people that have suffered from slavery, Jim Crow and still substantial discrimination in employment, housing and a host of other arenas. The need to have Obama denounce this or that black figure simply reflects both lingering white racism and a guilty conscience that wants absolution without expiation. Tim Russert appointed himself the representative of those white voters who seem to require a guarantee that if they vote for Obama all will be both forgiven and forgotten and, above all, no sacrifice of still substantial privileges of white skin will be required.

Postscipt May 9, 2008

The tumult regarding Obama's relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright  throughout the nomination process---one that will continue until November in some form---was predictable even if the specific path the controversy took was not. Interestingly, the mainstream print and broadcast media almost completely ignored Wright's low-key interview with Bill Moyers on PBS three days before the Reverend imploded during a Q and A at the National Press Club. Why was this? Was it not newsworthy because Wright's demeanor undecut the pre-existing narrative of him as a bigoted and unpatriotic hater and media narratives,once established, are set in stone. If so, why? Had the Moyers interview been widely discussed and his demonization halted perhaps Wright might have performed a few days later, though he may have had other reasons not to, i.e. anger at Obama for distancing himself from his pastor.

Interestingly, Hillary Clinton periodically tried but failed to tie Obama to Farrakhan. The mass media, had it wished to thwart that effort and call a halt to "guilt by association" tactics could have chosen to show a clip on youtube (Google "Rendell" and "Farrakhan") of her major supporter in Pennsylvania, Governor Ed Rendell. Rendell, who is Jewish and therefore particularly unlikely to be perceived as someone "re-habilitating" Farrakhan, is seen effusively praising him when he was mayor of Philadelphia in 1997, after inviting the minister to the city to help quell a civil disturbance that involved the black community. Rendell noted in his remarks  that many of his friends were not pleased that he came to an assembly to laud Farrakhan, but that he had come to realize his positive contributions to the black community and Islam's emphasis on family values.

Despite the efforts of Clinton, the GOP, and mainstream media---with the late aid of Rev. Wright---to derail the Obama campaign, as of this date Obama appears certain to have won the nomination and has an excellent chance to become President. Being black might have helped as well as hurt him in the nomination process---given the overwhelming support he eventually, not initially, garnered in the black community.

But the general election is a different matter. If he weren't black there is little doubt, given the state of the economy, Iraq's continuing nighmare, his youth, looks, intelligence and eloquence, Obama would be a heavy favorite to triumph in November. But with his racial identity and the resultant difficulty finding significant support among older and/or working class whites he might fall short. His opponent, John McCain, may publically denounce efforts to inject race into the campaign, but  his allies will find every opportunity to do so. Obama, particularly after his forceful denunciation of Wright, has taken a huge step towards becoming an acceptable black man in white eyes, but his travails are not over.

The War at Home: The Political Campaigns

In politics addition often can best be obtained by subtraction. By this yardstick the best news in the marathon race to be the next US President was the demise of Rudy Giuliani's candidacy. Of all the aspirants running on the Republican side Giuliani was by far the the most dangerous threat to our already fragile democratic institutions. He is a dictator by nature, the closest to Dick Cheney in his willingness to circumvent established procedures as a matter of principle and maximize the powers of the President.

The Bush Administration, in addition to its policy failures, has exposed the inherent weakness of the Constitution's separation of powers through its frequent use of signing statements, the aggressive advancement of the "unitary theory" of Executive power, and habitual disregard of congressional oversight of its activities.

But Bush himself is primarily authoritarian as a defensive strategy---he is a control freak because he fears exposure as an Emperor with no clothes and has a need to cover up his authorization of many illegal acts (e.g., wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, sanctioning torture). By contrast, Giuliani is more like Russia's maximum leader, Putin, someone who seeks total power out of ideology, a sense of entitlement and self-righteousness. Moreover, as the New York Times (January 22, 2008,p.1) has documented, Giuliani as Mayor took extraordinary lengths to destroy anyone who had the temerity to criticize, oppose or even annoy him. With the enhanced powers of a President his vengeful propensities could have wreaked far greater damage at home and abroad and be far more difficult to restrain.

McCain, now almost certainly the Republican nominee, unlike Giuliani, appears to have respect for democratic government in theory and practice. McCain's initial advantage as a candidate rests upon the the mainstream media's love of him and its continuing to propagate the false view that he is a maverick with a deep sense of integrity. But McCain has waffled on many issues he embraced in the past---notably campaign finance reform, opposition to the regressive Bush tax cuts, even his previously unequivocal condemnation of waterboarding--- and was obsequious in genuflecting to the social conservatives he castigated in 2000. He is nearly as much an opportunist as Mitt Romney was, but has avoided being perceived as such. (cf. Jonathan Chait, "Maverick vs. Iceman: The Cold Calculations of the Straight Talker" The New Republic (February 27, 2008).

McCain's vaunted integity has also taken a beating of late with the publication in The New York Times (February 21) of a detailed investigation into  his questionable relationship with a lobbyist for telecommunicatioins companies seeking help from the Senate Commerce Committee he served on. The story outlined  other ethical lapses in which McCain accepted favors from persons whose business interests might be advanced by his senate actions.

McCain's major policy weakness in November should be his unwavering commitment to achieving victory in Iraq. Despite the somewhat illusory military gains in the past months, achieved largely because both the mainstream Sunni insurgents and the Shia both detest Al Qaeda-inspired jihadists, not because they have reconciled their own conflicts, most Americans believe the war was a mistake and want our troops out within a year. If the Sunni-Shia civil war resumes---the Mahdi army and newly-armed Sunni Awakening (supported by us to destroy jihadis but as easily capable of turning their attention elsewhere) go at it---it will be hard to claim progress is being made. There is still, of course, no progress in regard to a political reconciliation and the Kurds, America's only real ally in Iraq, are increasingly at odds with both the Sunni and Shiites.

McCain also has no answers that the general public wants to hear about fighting the economic slump. He can't suddenly become an economic populist without Republicans deserting him. As it is the influential far-right and their media flacks will be hard put to endorse him as a lesser evil to the Democrats.

If the Democrats focus on McCain's flip-flopping, Iraq and the economy they should win. But which Democrat? Obama may be somewhat to the left of Clinton on foreign policy. His advisors have been against the war in Iraq from the outset, while Clinton's initially backed the invasion. In addition, given the long-standing presence of gender and racial stereotyping which Republicans will try to exploit and the mainstream media, acting as stenographers, amplify, Clinton, if elected, might well have to endure pressure to prove her "macho" credentials by unnecessarily brandishing military weapons.

Obama might avoid this as the last time a black man was denigrated for lack of courage on the national stage was just before Jack Johnson destroyed Jim Jeffries, the "Great White Hope", in the ring back in 1910. In short, the death toll in American soldiers and foreign nationals might be significantly less in an Obama Administration.

On the other hand, Obama seems slightly to Clinton's right on domestic policy, especially health care, but I feel he has a greater upside than she does if elected. His policies are probably less set in stone than hers might be and when in the Illinois State Senate he was clearly in the left- of- center wing of that chamber as well as having been a community organizer and civil rights lawyer.

Finally, Clinton, as noted in a perceptive article by Jonathan Chait in The New Republic (February 15, 2008), has perhaps learned too much from the past she and Bill shared when he was Governor of Arkansas and President. Chait argues that their liberal policies put them at odds with Arkansas' conservative political culture and Clinton was voted out of office after one term. They came to believe that center-right incrementalism was the only way to survive. It worked in Arkanasas, as Bill eventually won a second term.

As President, Clinton initially veered somewhat leftward, but when militant right-wing opposition materialized, he not only retreated on gays in the military but made policy self-censorship into a strategy he believed vital for his political survival---triangulation. Despite great communicative skills he only spoke out dramatically for ----NAFTA.

Polling has long shown that a majority of Americans are willing to pay higher taxes for universal health care, want government to curb corporate power and protect the environment.  But Clinton was afraid to push boldly with, for example, "fireside chats" for these priorities. President Bush, by contrast is willing to use even powers he doesn't have to achieve his goals, and these rarely have had public support.

Perhaps Hillary Clinton is tougher than her husband was and perhaps more committed to social change, but her Senate record and attempts to play it safe on many issues---especially Iraq---suggest otherwise. To be fair, once in power, she might be more inclined to flex her muscles in behalf of goals no one doubts she passionately believes in.

Obama, although often moderate in subtance, perhaps also for strategic reasons, may be more willing, if elected, to use his oratorical skills and charm to remind the citizenry of what it already believes in and bring them down a path they are already receptive to. He might be more effective by going over the heads of the pols rather than try to run through them if he can mobilize public opinion and thereby intimidate obstructionists in the Congress.

Regarding their chances to win a general election Obama is more acceptable to independents, but Clinton probably has a temperment more suited to the trench warfare needed to defeat the swift-boating to come. The Clinton operatives do know how to be  aggressive in winning elections even if they forget these lessons once in office when it becomes time to govern. The important question of whether a "hidden" anti-black or anti-woman vote will offset the expected leaps in voting by these two groups is unknown, but one can expect Republicans to remind voters in subtle ways that they are the party of and for white men.

Of course, McCain might eschew this sort of campaign, but he's already compromised on so many other issues to woo the right surely he can rationalize one more departure from his "principled" self. Even if he can't, the right-wing financiers of swift-boaters, with or without his permission or support, will try to take the Democratic nominee down by any means necessary. There is a chance,however, those who bankroll these operations might be so anti-McCain that they would prefer losing this time to having the nature of the Republican Party be altered, perhaps indefinitely, in a more moderate direction.

Another factor that may operate if McCain is the Republican nominee is the mass media's clear preference for Obama's personal style over Clinton's. McCain's informality will be contrasted to Hillary's stiffness and as we know from 2000 Gore's remoteness made reporters warm to Bush and never look at their respective qualifications, views and records too carefully. This unquestionably played a role in Gore's defeat as reporters were quick to seize on any Gore misstep and ignore Bush's. Once a narrative ( e.g., opportunist, dumb, straight-talker) has been created for a candidate the media rarely re-examines it. 

My suggestion is that whichever Democrat wins the nomination choose Virginia Senator Jim Webb as a running mate. Although Vice-Presidential candidates normally have a marginal impact on the race---two percent at best---Webb has several major assets:

---A distinguished military background. Webb, a platoon leader and commander in the Marines, was wounded in Vietnam. He became an Assistant Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Navy in the Reagan Administration. His background and strong anti-Iraq war sentiments can be invaluable in neutralizing McCain.

--- Webb is sensitive to working class economic grievances.

--- He can be a pit bull as in his confrontation with Bush when the latter asked him about his son in Iraq and Webb said that was a private matter he felt no need to reduce to small talk with the person whose Iraq policy Webb detested. VP candidates are often asked to be the "tough cop" and rough up the opposition in a manner that would turn off voters if the presidential candidate followed suit. Webb will relish the role.

---Even if geographical ticket-balancing is no longer important, demography matters. Both Clinton and Obama will struggle to win enough white male voters and Webb has the macho swagger (and substance) to perhaps undercut the sexist and racist inclinations that might deter such voters from considering either candidate.

Postscript: May 9, 2008

Much has happened in the campaign warfare between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama since my original post. Obama has apparently defeated Clinton and Clinton has increasingly discredited herself among Democrats by adopting racist and jingoistic appeals along with a disresepect for Party rules she previously agreed to. Besides damaging Obama for the general election without benefiting herself Clinton's reckless ambition has probably destroyed her chances for a second run for the White House should Obama lose in November. Party activists and fundraisers will not forget her disgraceful behavior and should she seek re-election to the Senate or the position of Senate majority leader she probably will face significant opposition. She is well on her way to becoming Joe Lieberman in drag---a pariah.

Virginia Tech and Righteous Slaughter: The "Morality" of Mass Murder

The horrifying events at Virginia  Tech this week will undoubtedly lead to  many efforts to comprehend what seems incomprehensible at first glance. We've been down this road before, of course---trying to understand what caused the events and  what it tells us about our society. After the Columbine massacre Goth music and costume seemed to be the answer to some---the culture of nihilism.  If one examines many cases of mass murder by individuals, however, no common ideological commitments predominate.  Fortunately, almost all adherents to any ideology don't end up shooting perfect strangers. Mass killing is an extremely rare phenomenon after all.

The fact is the ideology that animates mass killers can vary  or, in the Virginia Tech case and many others, there need not be one at all. But that isn't to say that these events are not motivated by morality, albeit a twisted manifestation of one or another. Indeed what seems to be common in these cases is seething resentments against a group of individuals or an entire class of people  who have violated, in the minds of the killers, deeply held values---or alternately, must be slain to uphold these values.

It is perhaps no accident that mass killing terrain appear almost always to be reatively small seemingly idyllic communities or enclaves---precisely the settings where people can have illusions about the validity of absolute values or seethe at those who transgress against them. People who live in big cities, by contrast, rarely have romantic fantasies about human pefection or a loving community. They tend to be cynical and while cynicism isn't an appealing characteristic in humans it just might innoculate against a propensity towards mass murder.

If this thesis is true we should consider ourselves lucky that there aren't more Virginia Techs and Columbines because there are probably many millions of  marginalized true-believers out there. To turn righteousness into massacre there are probably many  precipitating factors that come in to play. Very few of them are of a nature that  intervention can reasonably occur. People have a right to be weird, loners, have odd beliefs. We can't confine all the millions that do in order to protect the society from the one every few years who will kill indiscriminately. That is why zero-tolerance programs in schools are apt to damage far more lives than can be saved by preventing ---if they even can be prevented---Virginia Techs. They are, at the extreme, the domestic variant of our ill-managed War on Terror. Labeling , punishing or "treating"  large numbers who will never cause harm to others---or themselves---to prevent a mass murder.

The only  social  policy  that actually might make a difference, at least in regard to body counts, is the one we have shown as a society least commitment to: preventing  easy access to weapons that can kill large numbers of people in a short time.The current mass killing poster boy, without the capability of firing many rounds in a matter of seconds would have simply been unable, with firearms at least, to be as lethal as he was. Perhaps he could have shot one or two people in a classroom before being taken down, but not dozens.

So apart from eliminating assault weapons I'm afraid our society just  has to expect that what sociologist Jack Katz calls "righteous slaughter", is the price we must pay every once in a long while for our proclivity to embrace absolute values and disdain ethical relativism, situation ethics and other  more nuanced ways of  judging others.

It is also worth putting the events in Virginia in a larger perspective.The kind of mass killing perpetrated by lone individuals (or the occasional duo) naturally gets intense media coverage but the far more costly state sponsored-mass killing, which has some of the same dynamics ---the demonization of the "enemy"  and the perceived righteousness of the cause ---often gets short shrift, especially when, it goes on day in and day out.

Had Mr. Cho Seung-Hui, not been preoccupied with "rich kids" and "promiscuous girls", put on a military uniform and gone after "terrorists" in Iraq---even if  the so-called collateral damage to non-combatants predictably dwarfs that inflicted on sanctioned targets---he would be getting medals instead of becoming  infamous for slaughtering  innocents. This is  because in "militaryspeak", if someone is killed by our soldiers that proves they were indeed the enemy.

Winter Soldier, the 1971 documentary in which former American soldiers in Vietnam candidly discuss the atrocities committed against civilians they witnessed and/or participated in, vividly presents this aspect of war. The invasion of Iraq has simply substituted "towelheads" for "gooks" in  the process by which humans become things eligible for mass killing.  Not a distinctly different process from that which made Cho Seung-Hui so lethal.

Social science research has also established that homicide rates in general rise in the aftermath of warfare because of a densitization towards violent death. In the U.S., for example, murder rates nationwide declined precipitously in the 1990s , but have, of late, begun to rise.  The  incremental  increase in routine murders, like the mounting deaths in Iraq, doesn't  produce 24/7 media attention given to spectacular events such as the Virginia episode, but, once again,the overall body count  dwarfs what any single mass killer accomplishes.

Marketing World War III

With President Bush unable to  convince Americans that his Iraq policy  is working and Republicans up for re-election in the Senate and House of Representatives increasingly worried, Newt Gingrich has come to the rescue. The former congressman and architect of the Republican mid-90s ascent to power in the House hasn't come up with any new policies designed to solve America's foreign policy crises. But he's trying to do the next best thing ---a marketing strategy to keep Republicans in power.

His latest effort, admittedly clever, is to re-conceptualize the conflicts currently  going on in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Gaza, and India along with the tensions surrounding Iran and North Korea's nuclear ambitions as theatres of  one war, WWIII. The purpose of this spin is that it has the potential to inspire Americans to emulate the spirit of sactifice that WWII once did, paint Democrats and others critical of the Bush Administration as traitors who would have "cut and run" after Pearl Harbor, and slough off the debacle in Iraq and the growing troubles in Afghanistan as mere setbacks in a single front, akin to Dunkirk, on the road to a protracted but inevitable victory.

Democrats are aiming to nationalize the November 2006 mid-term elections as a referendum on Bush and Republican control of Congress. Republicans prefer voters ignore how Congress works in terms of majority Party dictatorship--- prioritizing items in a national agenda--- and focus entirely on whether one's local representative is a good deliverer of funding for strictly local projects.  In an analagous but inverted strategy, Gingrich wants to divert Americans' attention from the specific historical backgound and current realities of global "hotspots" and internationalize them by connecting dots that either have no business being connected ot have become connected only because of the Administration's policies.

Take the bombings in Mumbai. Was this a new theatre of WWIII or another in a long series of terrorist acts by Kashmiri insurgents who couldn't care less about a world-wide Islamist jihad, but have never reconciled themselves to the  details of  India's partition sixty years ago? Might the bombers, who happen to be Muslims mind getting aid from al Qaeda, or even identify with it in their quest? Of course not, but they'd be just as happy to get support from the American Jewish Congress,  Pat Robertson or the Gates Foundation. If they achieve their goals they'll stop bombing, not sign up to plant bombs in Grand Central Station.

The Israel-Palestine conflict is another endless struggle that has nothing to do with 9/11 and has been going on in various forms since before Osama was even born.  It is a struggle about turf, not ideology. Just because the same tactics (e.g., suicide bombings) can be found in a variety of guerilla wars doesn't mean the wars themselves have the same roots or that their respective insurgents have anything in common in the sense that Germany, Italy and Japan did,or, as during the Cold War, was true for almost all national Communist parties.

In much of the rest of the Mideast, the biggest conflicts have been between Shia and Sunnis.  We can see this unfolding in Iraq where the U.S. is increasingly a bystander in a civil war our invasion and post-war policies inadvertently brought about. By contrast, in Afghanistan, it is tribal and ethnic conflict that has torn that country apart for more than a generation. The Taliban became part of the al Qaeda connection because of Osama's aid, but their focus was basically on their own country not exporting their extremist views to Chicago.

The Muslim world, in truth, is divided everywhere by sectarian differences as well as harboring many who are secular. Sometimes the sectarians have little or no interest in politics and sometimes the secularists do (e.g., Fatah).  What most do want is to be left alone and there is a long-term resentment regarding Western attempts to control economic and poliitcal life in the Mideast. In fact, it is that resentment which accounts for whatever sympathy exists for Osama and al Qaeda, not the rigid theological ideology he would impose if his otherwise unpopular minions ever could take power in a Muslim society.

Then there is the case of Iran. It's clerical dictatorship is no doubt reprehensible, but is it really a threat to other countries? Even without nuclear weapons, it has a formidable military apparatus and weapons capable of wreaking havoc. But  why hasn't it used them to launch an attack on isreal, for example? Rhetoric is rhetoric; actions are actions. The fact is Iran has never invaded another country in the post-1979 era of islamic Revolution. The clerics mainly want to maintain their power and their anti-Israel stances are as much for domestic consumption as anything else. Their leaders understand that  launching a nuclear first-strike would be suidcial. But they also know that having nuclear weapons is the best insurance against an American invasion.

Finally, North Korea has perhaps the world's worst government, but how is it linked to WWIII? Only rhetorically. Their megalomaniacal leader is not a Muslim, not interested in territorial expansion, not even worrying South Koreans as much as U.S. sabre-rattling does (since North Korea threatens to annihilate the South only if the U.S. attacks them). What he wants is security, stroking,  money and no one threatening his personal macabre Disneyland.

The dots Newt Gingrich wants to connect are almost entirely made up of long-standing local conflcts that need not be internationalized because they have no common ideology and their protagonists no common goal. However, there is such a thing as a self-fulfilling prophecy . If the Bush Administration and its media allies (already the WWIII mantra is being hyped by  Fox and Friends) as well as opportunists on all sides (e.g., the Israeli government and al Qaeda) persist in seeing and acting as if there is some underlying unity where none need exist, an extraordinarily watered-down version of WWIII might come to pass. The new version, WWIIII-lite, would not involve nearly  as many countries, would involve a fraction of the world's population compared to its immediate predecessor, and would not have several million-man armies confronting each other not to mention tens of millions of dead. It wouild still be tragic and unnecessary.

Apart from the news media--ever hungry for a new "controversy" for talking heads on which to pontificate ("Is it really WWIII or not?")---and Republican operatives who hope this becomes the Swift Boat bonanza of 2004 redux ("Are the Democrats using Neville Chamberlain's playbook?") there is no reason for anyone else to buy into the marketing of WWIII. Iraq has made Americans understandably leery of crusades, but our sound-bite politics and news media ill-equip us to treat complex issues with the thoughtfulness they deserve.

John Mark Karr: Accidental Educator

It hardly came as a surprise when DNA analysis ruled out John Mark Karr  as a suspect in the 1996 murder of JonBenet Ramsey.  When even Nancy Grace  expresses skepticism about the evidence against  a pedophile arrested for the most notorious unsolved murder in the United States since the Black Dahlia case in the late 40s, there's not much more to say for the prosecution.

While it is  worrisome for the rest of the country that Jon Benet's killer is likely still at-large the Karr episode does have the potential to educate the public about more than simply the perils of rushing to judgment in criminal cases. 

When, for example, critical questions began to be raised about  whether Karr's  apparent confession should be taken at face value, the media, while continuing to demonize him,  eventually began to  do  solid investigative reporting. So many  inconsistencies turned up that the  DNA-based exoneration was anti-climactic.  The silver lining  in this bi-polar performance by the media  is that  the public may now  have burned in its consciousness that false confessions are not only possible but more common than might be imagined.

In one study of a single Illinois county's murder trials covering a decade, for example,  247 confessions were ultimately disregarded by jurors. False confessions are more likely to occur in high-profile cases, but also when the accused are interrogated for a long time (with implied rewards for  confessing such as leniency or even being allowed to go home), have low IQs, are delusional, suffer from anxiety disorders,  have compliant personalities. or are disturbed attention-seekers.

In addition to sensitizing citizens (and potential jurors) to the possibility that  confessing to a crime should  not be sufficient evidence for conviction in either the court of public opinion or a court of law the Karr  fiasco  might also have educational value in re-framing the public's understanding of pedophilia. Unfortunately the media passed up this opportunity, possibly fearing that it might be perceived as "defending" pedophiles.

John Mark Karr is undoubtedly a pedophile insofar as he has sexual fantasies involving children. He is certainly a deeply strange and troubled man.  But  he also  was a married man who fathered several children. Moreover, to date, although he worked with very young children in a number of capacities---teaching and providing a home-based day care service---there is no evidence he molested any of them. His only arrest involves possessing child pornography, a misdemeanor.

Asssuming his portrait is accurate, and the media has not left many stones unturned in this case,  Karr's history  undermines two  widely held beliefs about pedophiles: 1) those drawn to very young children are incapable of having sexual feelings or performing with other adults and 2) pedophiles, unlike normal adults, invariably act on their fantasies by carrying out  deviant sexual  behavior.

Karr ,at the very least, engaged in sexual relations with an adult woman when he was married. Researchers not only maintain this is not unusual but the consensus seems to be that  what is rare or non-existent is a pedophile who can have sex only with young children. This is important because it is far easier to rehabilitate people who can respond sexually to more age-appropriate persons than someone who has no ability to get aroused with adults. In fact, a U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics  study published in 2003 found that only 3.3 percent of child molesters  released after a prison term were re-arrested within the following three years for another sex crime directed against a child. 

Sex offenders can  learn to control their behavior and that, not their fantasies, is what society should be concerned with. Yet, both the public and justice system typically assume pedophiles are a singular sub-species of human who cannot sexually fantasize without acting upon what is imagined.  But is there any compelling evidence in support of this view?  Do all those who possess adult pornography involving violence or who have rape fantasies (including some women) actually try to act on the fantasies? Some perhaps, but  very few as a proportion of those exposed to such material.  Why should pedophiles be any different?  Most likely  they are either content to or accept the necessity to restrain their conduct because, if for no other reason, fear of the consequences of  being apprehended.

In fact, distasteful as the idea of kiddie porn may be to the overwhelming majority, including me, it may be that its availability might actually serve to reduce sexual crimes against children. Rather than being a spur to sex crimes, child pornography, like its adult variant, might reduce the consumer's sexual arousal by channeling it into harmless acts such as masturbation.

John Mark Karr  will eventually take his place as an answer in Trivial  Pursuit or a crossword puzzle. His fifteen minutes of fame might ordinarily have been taken by the annual August shark attack headlines. He deserves no more, but  though  we didn''t learn from him the truth about who killed JonBenet Ramsey,  Karr may have inadvertently  given us the opportunity to learn more important things.

Postscript:

Less than a week after John Mark Karr was exonerated in the Ramsey murder case a 29 year old Fairfield, Connecticut  man stabbed to death a 58 year old neighbor who the killer believed had molested his two year old daughter. The allegation was apparently made by the daughter to her mother who then informed her husband. Immediately thereafter  the father took a kitchen knife, broke into the neighbor's home, and stabbed him repeatedly.

Although many details of this case are unknown at this time residents familiar with the victim claim that he was frequently drunk, crashed his car into his own home while under the influence of alcohol,  yelled obscenities at children in his vicinity and had a history of  either deliberately or inadvertently exposing himself.

There seems little doubt  the murdered man was a danger to his community  because of  his  drinking behavior.  One might well believe the world was better off without him. Public opinion may well  be sympathetic to his killer and  make either the filing of a first degree murder charge, a conviction on it, or a typical penalty, if found guilty, unlikely.  However, I would argue it would be a grave injustice  to  ignore the seriousness of this crime.

First,  we have a justice system in this society that, despite occasional lapses,  does convict  and punish  the guilty.  Because of this there is no reason for vigilantism, and for those who take the law into their own hands, especially when it involves taking a life, being excused or given a slap on the wrist . 

Second, the only evidence we have that the murder victim molested the perpetrator's child was an alleged claim by a two year old that he did so.  Even assuming the child's mother accurately transmitted her daughter's report verbatim, the credibility of  a child  that age cannot be taken for granted.  Two year olds do tell the truth, but they also make things up, not to be malicious, but as a part of their playfulness.  The assumption that children must always be believed when making accusations of sexual molestation led to  miscarriages of justice during the child sexual abuse witch-hunts of the 1980s, such as the infamous McMartin day care trials in Califronia and the Little Rascals case in North Carolina.

Finally,  even if  the murder victim did touch the two year old there is no evidence thus far that she suffered physical injury in the encounter and at her age it is quite unlikely she will even remember the incident  in the future.  It is rare when events occurring prior to age three, even traumatic ones, can be recalled years later. Moreover, evidence from clinical research shows that the overwhelming majority  of young children who have been molested either exhibit no psychological ill-effects or do so for a relatively short time. The popular notion that non-violent molestation, by far the most common---about 99 percent---  has permanent psychological effects on victims,  has  not been supported by the most thorough research to date.

It is important to distinguish between very unpleasant experiences and those producing long term harm. Being molested is far more apt to be the former than the latter as has been reported in research in  several studies in which adults who had such experiences as children were asked whether they believed the incidents had long-term effects upon them. Unless the perpetrator was a close relative and/or the encounter was violent this rarely was the case.  Given the above evidence the murder of an alleged molester, even if  his guilt  could be established, is  punishment wildly disproportionate to the nature of  the offense. The killer's daughter's life will be undoubtedly affected far more by her father's reckless act  than  by anything  done to her by  the man who might have molested her.

The Forgotten Palestinian "Peace" Scare

The grim news coming from the Mideast is about the racheting up of violence. Israel invades Gaza to liberate an Israeli soldier kidnapped by the increasingly autonomous military wing of Hamas which is located in Syria and opposes any movement towards recognizing Israel. Besides asserting its independence from the Hamas government the kidnappers want to use their captive as a bargaining  chip to swap for their own  comrades in Israeli prisons.

The world has seen all this before and probably will again in this seemingly unending struggle. But while the U.S. media focuses on the military drama--- explosions and  frightened civilians--- a possibly critical political context which preceded the current escalation has been ignored:the peace scare.

We are all familiar with the concept of a war scare, the anxiety and even panic when war is coming to one's nation (e.g., Iraq just before the U.S. invasion). But, what is a peace scare? Why would a people, or a segment of its population, be worried about the prospect of peace? Only if peace brought with it some potentially undesired consequence. For example, we are accustomed to thinking of the 1938 Munich accord between Neville Chamberlain and Adolph Hitler as the latter's triumph and the former's shame. But the event was far more complex and, in fact, Hitler apparently viewed it as a terrible failure. He wanted war then and ended up having to wait until September 1939 to get his wish by making sure his "demands" could never be met by his new target, Poland.

Another more recent example took place during the Vietnam war when Henry Kissinger, President Nixon's Secretary of State, successfully negotiated a peace agreement with the North Vietnamese before the 1972 elections. Nixon was not elated. He was obsessed by the fate of Winston Churchill, Britain's wartime Prime Minister, who was voted out of office once the Nazis had been defeated because the British people now wanted a Labor government.

Nixon worried that  peace with the Vietnamese might jeopardize his own re-election because his domestic policies and personality might be unpopular. His believed his electability depended on the perception that he was especially qualified to be President when foreign policy issues trumped all others. He instructed Kissinger to scuttle the diplomatic breakthrough by falsely proclaiming the North Vietnamese were reneging on their agreement. As a consequence, while Nixon was re-elected, the war dragged on for three more bloody years and, in the end, the U.S. did no better than it would have achieved had Nixon endorsed Kissinger's efforts.

The most recent, example, of course, of the peace scare involved the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. The Bush Administration clearly decided that nothing would stand in the way of war and viewed Saddam Hussein's admission of U.N. weapons inspectors to search for what turned out to be (and likely was known to be) non-existent WMD as a grave threat to their plans. They ultimately went in before inspections were concluded to prevent the possibility that their public rationale for pre-emptive war would be exposed is hollow.

What does this have to do with the current situation in the Mideast? Possibly nothing, but there are intriguing possibilties that a peace scare might have played a role in scuttling a critical waystation to a resumption of serious negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

The background is simple. Israeli governments for a long time have wanted to have their cake and eat it: peace without having to return to the 1967 borders mandated by international law which prohibits building permanent settlements on territory occupied as a resuilt of war.

Israel has avoided this issue by maintaining that both groups currently contending for Palestinian leadership, Fatah and Hamas, have never been willing to accept the existence of the State of Israel. The settlements were presented as security outposts when, in reality, they were also meant to mark permanent boundaries of a geographically  enlarged state.

Israel has long argued that negotiating with the Palestinians could not achieve peace since the latter wanted to destroy Israel not truly compromise with it. One can debate whether this perception was true in the past, but just before the recent resumption of intense hostilities strong evidence existed that both Fatah and Hamas were implicitly willing to recognize an Israel which would return to its pre-1967 boundaries.

On June 28, 2006  Ian Fisher and  Steven Erlanger (The New York Times , Section A, page 1) reported as follows on a draft agreement between the two major rivals for Palestinian governmental leadership:"The draft agreement between the Fatah faction of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, and the Hamas faction of prime Minister Ismail Haniya is based on a document outlined by Palestinian prisoners. It is described as containing an implicit recognition of israel's right to exist, because it calls for the creation of a Palestinian state within pre-1967 borders, presumably next to Israel."

It is true that the draft was hammered out rapidly after months of futile negotiations partly because of the pressure from Israel's incursion into Gaza to free Israeli soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit. Another critical factor in the Hamas government's evolution was no doubt its inability to obtain Western aid without at least tacitly renouncing its long-held non-recognition of Israel's right to exist at all.  Whether Hamas would fundamentally change its behavior even if its rhetoric  changed is open to question, but  history is filled with examples of  once non-negotiable demands that political organizations  eventually modified when they had to.

The Times article also suggests not all members of the Hamas government agreed on the implications of the accord and it awaited final review by Fatah's Abbas as well. Nevertheless, the development was potentially of great significance, but was summarily dismissed by an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman as being irrelevent to the more critical issue:finding and liberating a lone Israeli soldier.

Does this Israeli version of Saving Private Ryan make sense in terms of  the nation's priorities or should Israel have entered into negotiations for the Corporal Shalit's release with his captors while encouraging the final ratification of the Fatah-Hamas concessions?  The latter approach makes far more sense in terms of the larger objective of long-term peace and security for Israel, particularly since appparently neither Fatah nor Hamas' political leadership endorsed the kidnapping and claimed they were aggressively trying to locate Shalit themselves. (It should be noted that there is conflicting evidence on Hamas' position on the kidnapping, as reports have also suggested that the organization was concerned its lack of militancy---a ceasefire for a year without it leading to western financial aid or Israeli concessions---was losing it support among Palestinians).

Some might say that Israel had to strike back hard to free Shalit and/or punish such tactics. But, if peace is the goal, military overkill, which is what is happening, invariably creates more animosity, and miltants willing to engage in terrorist acts, in its wake.

Another claim is that Israel must maintain its principle of not negotiating with terrorists, but the reality is that they have done so on many occasions. They have traded large numbers of Palestinians they have imprisoned for attacks on Israel in exchange for small numbers of Israelis held captive. Ariel Sharon even released many prisoners to re-patriate the body of a dead Israeli. These swaps, apart from liberating Israelis, were designed to symbolically show how Israel considered even one Israeli more valuable than many Palestinians, but made little sense from a practical point of view in a prolonged guerrilla war. Nevertheless they did occur and there is no reason why they could not again.

So, one is left wondering whether the real purpose, or at least an additional goal, of  the ever-escalating Israeli military action in Gaza is to obscure the tentative actions taken by Hamas' government officials towards recognizing Israel which might have produced a new effort to negotiate a political settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. Perhaps Israel's government prefers the long familiar extreme irredentist Hamas to come back so it can argue for the necessity to maintain the post-1967 borders and settlements. Eliminating the peace scare would then be of utmost importance. (Note: The expansion of the military front to include Lebanon after Hezbollah  conducted a raid and captured additional Israeli soldiers, also for the purpose of swapping prioners, but perhaps for other reasons as well, cannot be understood using the "peace scare" concept as military hostilties between Israel and Hezbollah had not existed for some time. It certainly has had the consequence,however, of further removing the Hamas-Fatah draft agreement from public consciousness).

One would be naive to think that any negotiation between Palestinian government officials and their Israeli counterparts would go smoothly. Moreover, there are extremists among both Israelis and Palestinians who would readily resort to violence if peace threatened to dismember their image of what Israel or Palestine should be. Nevertheless, polls taken among both warring peoples have long shown a majority of each population would accept a trade of land for enduring peace. It is for this reason that they shouldn't let their respective governments forget what was transpiring before the  planes, tanks and rockets took center stage.

Nor should the U.S. government remain in its recent passive mode, which essentially allows, if not encourages, Israel to do what it wishes. Economic sanctions seem to have worked to make Hamas more amenable to compromise. The same could be true if the immense economic support the U.S. gives Israel were jeopardized by the carnage wreaked by Israeli military actions.

After al-Zarqawi: Another Bogus "Turning Point" in Iraq

The death of  Abu Musab al-Zarqawi by American air strikes in Iraq is justly celebrated but both his story and his significance has been distorted by the mass media and Bush Administration.

Zarqawi was a violent criminal, who during time served in prison embraced Islamist  jihadist  beliefs. Initially, he allied himself with the large numbers of foreign jihadists brought to Afghanistan  to fight the Soviets in a strategy orchestrated by the United States (see the extraordinary story of America's short-sightededness in Mahmood Mamdani's Good Muslim, Bad Muslim (2004)). Later on he used terrorist tactics to try to overthrow the Jordanian monarchy. Finally, he began to operate in league with, or parallel to, the Sunni-based resistance within Iraq, became the architect of gruesome beheadings and other attacks on largely Shiite civilians there, and, despite previous strategic differences,  pledged his allegiance to Osama bin Laden.

Zarqawi will be mourned by very few  outside his narrow circle, including other insurgents. This reality may be obscured in the media and, belatedly, the Administration's growing inclination to consider his removal from the scene as an important victory in the hitherto hapless efforts to achieve military and political stability in Iraq.

In reality, Zarqawi was not a critical figure in, nor essential to, the Iraqi resistance. First and foremost, he wasn't  Iraqi, but  Jordanian. This alone would disqualify him for any  important political role in  Iraq. Second, he was committed to the sectarian Sunni Islamist  ideology that  would ultimately make him repellent to the largely secular Sunni insurgency . Initially the Sunni insurgents  were happy to have his attacks on Shiites as well as Coalition forces, but at some point they recognized Zarqawi's tactics were alienating Iraqis who otherwise might be sympathetic to their resistance to foreign occupation. Zarqawi's brand of Islamism, fiercely anti-Shiite and anti-secular Sunni, could never succeed in Iraq because it represents the ideology of no significant segment of Iraqi society.

The Bush Administration inflated his importance in the Iraqi resistance primarily because of its desire to make it appear as if  al Qaeda had always been at its forefront rather than a parasitic element that had long outlived its usefulness. In fact, according to terrorist experts Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon in their op-ed piece in the  New York Times (June 9, 2006), the U.S. could have killed Zarqawi years earlier when he was operating  in northern Iraq, beyond Saddam Hussein's reach,  prior to the U.S. invasion. In those days he was fighting Kurds. The Bush Administration never moved against him.

There is even evidence that even Osama Bin Laden, or at least al-Qaeda's second in command and tactical  spokesman, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was not pleased with Zarqawi's Iraq operations. It should be undertstood that  Zarqawi came to Iraq on his own initiative, not doing al-Qaeda's bidding. Because "the enemy of  my enemy is my friend"  al-Qaeda supported Zarqawi's undertaking and, for his part, Zarqawi, previously a minor jihadist on the world stage, wished to have the blessings of bin Laden's organization. But in July 2005 al-Zawahiri sent Zarqawi a letter that, if authentic, questioned whether the latter's tactics, beheadings and  killing of Iraqi civilians, were not counter-productive.  He was concerned that  Zarqawi was targetting Muslims not Americans and their foreign allies.

Reports also circulated earlier this year that the Sunni resistance was secretly cooperating with the U.S. to eliminate Zarqawi, who was a thorn in both their sides.

The official position of the Bush Administration is that he was located indirectly through intelligence  provided by a captured comrade. Other reports suggest Jordanian intelligence might have played a role, but given his widespread unpopularity among the various insurgent groups, his elimination could have been orchestrated by any one of them without the betrayal indicating a weakening of the anti-Occupation forces. It remains to be seen whether Zarqawi's organizational skills, charisma and ruthlessness were irreplaceable or if other al-Qaeda inspired foreign jihadists can continue their uniquely barbaric depradations at  the same level as previously.

It has also been reported that Zarqawi was trying to extend his network by recruiting outside Iraq and even in Europe. If so, his death may have been a significant blow to the spread of worldwide terrorism, but  what about the situation in Iraq? Now that Zarqawi is dead will the insurgency crumble?

Hardly. It  never owed its success to him, only its  worst publicity. Osama and al-Zawahiri may publically mourn Zarqawi as a great guerrilla leader and jihadist, but privately they are probably  happy to have him disappear. The American invasion has already been a great ideological success for al-Qaeda no matter what transpires in Iraq, because it has led to worldwide condemnation of the U.S. and  helped recruit terrorists in many parts of the globe. Zarqawi's tactics made al-Qaeda more feared but even more unpopular than it might have been in Iraq. Moreover, his organizational ambitions might have collided with Osama's.

As far as Iraq's internal political development goes, Zarqawi's demise might actually intensify anti-American sentiment.  The Sunni insurgents may hope to no longer be saddled by his unpopular tactics and  more easily present themselves as a truly national resistance to foreign domination. The Shiite civilian population may feel they are somewhat safer from suicide bombings and  horrific executions than when Zarqawi was active. If  wanton attacks on Shiite civilians do diminish a sense of greater security  might mean greater pressure on the U.S. to withdraw its troops from some within the Shiite community who tolerated our presence earlier. Of course, in a decentralized insurgent movement, Zarqawi's presence might not be needed to resume mayhem by foreign jihadists or the low level civil war between sectarian militias.

The U.S. population was mobilized initially to accept the invasion of Iraq because it accepted the false claim that Saddam had ready-to-go weapons of mass destruction and that he was involved in the attacks of Sept 11, 2001. When that rationale no longer had credibility a new justification emerged, one in which the U.S. was overthrowing a tyrant and ushering in democracy.

This was never a serious reason behind the Bush Administration's efforts as whatever democratic practices struggling to emerge in Iraq have taken place in opposition to America's preferred post-war path: an unelected government of Iraqi led by secular exiles such as Ahmed Chalabi.

Whenever  U.S. strategy was met by armed resistance by a variety of strange bedfellows the government has tried to associate insurgency with a demonic leader. First, it was Saddam, Uday and Usay; later, Moktada al Sadr, an extremist Shiite cleric and militia leader, but  also a nationalist who rejects the Occupation. Zarqawi is the most recent candidate who, if eliminated , would allow democracy to flower.

By killing Zarqawi the U.S. has, however,  also left a "demon vacuum." If bad news can't be laid at the doorstop of a single  evildoer it  will be far easier for Americans to recognize, as most have by now anyway, that the Occupation cannot succeed and needs to be wound down. The current Administration public relations offensive and talk of "turning points" in the aftermath of Zarqawi's demise may be its Hail Mary pass to at least slow down even greater political losses. If this fails, Bush and his cohorts might be tempted to play double-or-nothing in Iran to rally the media and  citizenry, and divert attention from Iraq.

President Bush may well reap a brief respite from falling  public opinion polls as a result of  Zarqawi's death. People want to believe in magic. But the facts on the ground suggest it will be as short-lived as other "significant" turning points in the war which turned out to be illusory.  The reality in Iraq has always been the same: America cannot  reshape Iraq in accord with its  desires: a secular, pro-American, pro-Israeli society, in which the U.S. is free to have permanent military bases and  major economic  influence. 

Iraq: Neo-Imperial Daydreams and Nightmares

IraqThe Bush Administration's ill-conceived "war on terror" long ago morphed into American state-terrorism, directed deliberately and/or with predicatable "collateral damage" against Iraqis.The invasion has represented a fantastic enough gift to Osama bin Laden to make him believe in Christmas.

Nearly the entire world condemned this "war of choice" from the beginning. Even on the homefront, as is often forgotten, public opinion initially was reluctant to endorse unilateral war. But once the invasion began a solid majority of Americans became converted to supporters-- by disinformation regarding WMD and Saddam's alleged ties to Osama, mass media jingoism, and what appeared to be a quick, painless victory.

Now, three years later, polls show a majority of Americans believe the war to be a mistake and that we were misled in the run-up to it. As for what to do next  in the near future, stay or leave, opinions are divided and largely dependent on how questions are phrased. But those favoring quick withdrawal probably largely do so, just as in Vietnam, only because we might not win, not because we shouldn't win.

Whatever happens in Iraq, it is unlikely to lead to the kind of national soul-searching  Germany, for example, has undergone in the past generation or so. The mainstream media has made only the most limited attempt to understand the ideological roots of the war.There has been some criticism (most notably that of Francis Fukuyama (The New York Times Magazine , February 19, 2006), a neo-conservative himself, of the naivete of the Adminstration's neo-conservative "idealists" like Paul Wolfowitz who allegedly sought to bring democracy to Iraq without appreciating the political divisions in the country and lack of democratic traditions. But to simply blame the war on excessive idealism is to engage in a form of self-congratulation: we had noble intentions which the Iraqis were unworthy of.

But that is only a small element in the story. There is little doubt that President Bush had little if any interest and virtually no knowledge of foreign policy  when he became President. He relied almost exclusively on Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their associates to steer the ship. They in turn had long advocated what has come to be known as "neo-imperialism," a project which Americans should be aware of, but has generally been ignored in the U.S. mainstream media.

The first expression of the George W. Bush Administration's foreign policy elites'  desire for American global domination actually occurred in the Administration of his father George H.W. Bush. Cheney was then Secretary of Defense. Paul Wolfowitz, later to become Donald Rumsfeld's assistant in the second Bush's presidency, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby  together wrote a 46 page draft  for a document, entitled "Defense Planning Guidance," which was endorsed by Cheney and Colin Powell, the President's chief military, advisor among others.

The document was leaked apparently by a high-ranking military official who felt such a shift in American foreign policy should be publically debated. Its content was summarized by The New York Times (March 8, 1992) in an article by Patrick Tyler, "U.S. Strategy Plan Calls for Insuring No Rivals Develop." Democrats strongly criticized the proposals. Ultimately, the then Presdent Bush and his top advisors, Secretary of State James Baker and NSA chief Brent Scowcroft, disavowed the draft.

But the authors of the policy paper and advocates for a Pax Americana resurfaced as key foreign policy makers in George W. Bush's Administration. Their views were unchanged and, this time around, not successfully challenged.

The ideas governing the coming  era in foreign policy were to be articulated once more in a new but familiar document entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses:Strategies, Forces and Resources For a New Century." It was commissioned by soon to be Vice-President Cheney, future Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, his Deputy, Wolfowitz, Governor Jeb Bush and "Scooter" Libby, now appointed Cheney's chief of staff. It was written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think-tank Project for a New American Century .

In essence the document  argues that in a post-Cold War environment in which the U.S. has become the world's only superpower we should take advantage of that unique opportunity to do the following:

1. Insure that the U.S. permanently maintain that status by preventing the emergence of any future rival power and shaping the "international security order" in line with our principles and interests.

2. Use the armed forces as "the cavalry on the new American frontier" to fight and win "multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars as a 'core mission.' "

In conjunction with these proposed ends and means of foreign policy the document also seeks to downgrade the role of the United Nations, expresses concern about Europe rivaling the U.S., proposes establishing permanent military bases in the oil rich Gulf region despite acknowledged domestic opposition there, and advocates the use of various forms of power to induce "regime change" in troubleblesome states such as Syria, Iran, North Korea and Iraq. The report even proposes the development of U.S. "Space Forces" to dominate beyond earth, and total control of cyberspace to thwart internet-based "attacks" on us. Finally, and ironically, the U.S. should develop non-lethal biological weapons that could be directed "politically" at specific genotypes. (Is someone getting a grant right now to develop microbes to be put in our food supply to make us generously contribute to the Republican National Committee?)

These documents strongly demonstrate that politically transforming the Middle East was a pre-9/11 goal of those now in charge of U.S. foreign policy. They also show why  Saddam Hussein had to go even if the Adminstration was convinced, which privately they might have been, that he did not have WMD any longer and sanctions were working to prevent him from acquiring any in the future. He was an Iraqi nationalist, albeit a brutal one, and not simply a lackey.  Morever, toppling Saddam  would show our toughness.

Regime change was to be done presumably in accordance with "American principles and interests" but, of course, in world affairs "interests", particularly long-term economic and political ones, can often undermine nobler principles. Democracy and freedom in particular are concepts with much elasticity. As Noam Chomsky has said, when war-makers claim to be fighting for "freedom" it conveys no useful information in itself since throughout the last century it has been the only motive claimed for virtually all participants in all wars.

Once in office the Bush Administration, with Cheney and Rumsfeld driving policy, 9/11 provided a tragic but fortuitous pretext to embark on regime change, occupation and transformation in Iraq despite no evidence whatsoever that Saddam Hussein, an enemy of Al Qaida, would ally himself with it. (Osama Bin Laden has long been opposed to secular Muslims leaders and there have been numerous occasions when he denounced Saddam. In his most recent communique, in fact, he equates what he calls the "crimes" of the U.S. in Iraq to those of Saddam). 

Initially, the 2003 invasion seemed highly successful, especially from a military point of view. Even if Iraqis didn't seem to greet us as liberators, all but the Sunnis, the religious group that accounted for 20 percent of the population but was the bureaucratic and military backbone of his regime, seemed happy to be rid of a tryrant. But, since the early honeymoon period the Bush Administration's neo-imperial thrust has met its Waterloo.

The increasingly sophisticated guerrilla resistance, based on a multitude of sometimes contradictory ideologies and interests, but all viewing the Americans as occupiers, has, in fact, achieved its goal of denying an American military victory---and even physical security. This has gradually weakened political support at home for the war. Even American soldiers stationed in Iraq are becoming disilliusioned. Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times'  Op-ed columnist, reports (February 28, 2006) the results of a recent Zogby Poll of our troops stationed there indicating only 23 percent wish to stay until the President's objectives are achieved. Twenty nine percent wish to withdraw immediately and 43 percent no longer than one year.

Among Iraqis suspicion and hostility towards the ultimate purpose of the U.S. effort is pervasive regardless of attitudes towards the Saddam Hussein regime. A January 2006 poll conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland indicates the vast majority of Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis believe the U.S. will never leave even if asked by Iraq'a newly elected government and that it seeks permanent military bases in their land. Not surprisingly then, 47 percent  of all Iraqis indicate it is legitimate to attack the overwhelmingly American "coalition" soldiers, while fewer than 7 percent condone similar actions against the Iraqi military. Only 1 percent would authorize attacks on civilians.  (Note: An October 2006 a follow-up poll showed that  61 percent  supported attacks on U.S. forces )

But if Iraqis generally and reasonably suspect America's long-term goals in their country their attitudes regarding whether the U.S. should withdraw within six months not surprisingly reflects the extreme divisions between Kurds and Shiites, who wish us to stay at least somewhat longer, and the Sunni, who  want us gone quickly. The Shiites and Kurds desire America to protect their post-Saddam rise to power and the Sunnis want to reverse the status quo by removing their enemies' American protectors. (Note: An October 2006 poll  indicated 71 percent of all Iraqis  want U.S. forces withdrawn  within a year and 37 percent within six months).

Ironically, because Shiites, often members of the police and/or sectarian militias, have recently begun to massacre unarmed Sunnis in retaliation for Sunni violence it is possible the latter group, if polled today (April 2006) might also have begun to want the U.S. to stay a bit longer and intercede in their behalf. For both Shiites and Sunni, however, American presence is a short-term strategic issue at this point and should never be confused with deep pro-American sentiments.

The unanticipated scope and effectiveness of the Sunni-led resistance's guerrilla war, along with the Administration's ineptness in its lack of pre-war and post-war planning , has played the largest role in shaking but not completely destroying American's support for continuing the war. That could change, particularly if what has been a low level civil war between Sunnis and Shiites engulfs the entire country and makes it ungovernable and uncontrollable. Despite the recent elections, the Iraqi government has no legitimacy in the eyes of the Sunni minority and the police and armed forces are widely perceived, even by worried American officials, as having greater allegiance to Kurdish and Shiite ethnic and religious groups than Iraq as a nation.

But a loss of popular support is not the same as an organized movement to force the Bush Administration to withdraw and abandon at least this particular imperial dream. Organized dissent, apart from a few large anti-war marches, has not been a feature of the Iraq war. College campuses have been silent. Moreover, as a recent Pew poll shows, younger Americans today are not radically different from their elders when it comes to holding somewhat contradictory views on the war and American foreign policy in general. The cultural generation gap which intensified political differences during Vietnam is far less pronounced today. And, of course, there is no military draft.

Are there levers within American society that can compel the Bush Administration, or its successor in either party, to leave Iraq and reject the militarized neo-imperial strategy of the the current Administration? If the 2008 election was held today neither front-runners John McCain, Hillary Clinton, or other "serious" contenders (i.e., those who might receive both generous and respectful media attention and could generate massive campaign war chests) are supporters of immediate or  even phased withdrawal without "stabilizing" Iraq. If stability means a country that is not ideologically closer to Iran than to us, allows permanent U.S. military bases, is at least neutral on the Israel-Palestine conflict and has a government and military that could achieve nationwide legitimacy and crush the insurgency, that day will never come. On the other hand, chaos on the ground  and its impact on America's appetite for further punishment might dictate withdrawal just as Gerald Ford ended the Vietnam debacle in 1975.

Is it perhaps the Iraqi resistance alone which will save us (and the world) from ourselves as the Vietnamese did thirty years ago?  (When I say "save" I mean that just as in the aftermath of the defeat in Vietnam U.S. military adventurism was curbed for a time and that meant fewer American casualties and wasted revenues. It also saved other countries from death and destruction as well.)  Who could doubt that if Bush's "mission" had been accomplished in 2003 his hubris would now have us in a bigger and more costly war with Iran and maybe even North Korea, with even more horrendous losses on all sides.

Of course, viewing the Iraqi nationalist resistance in a positive light may appear unacceptablly immoral or cynical, but, during World War II, Americans were relucant to engage the Nazis until after Pearl Harbor forced the European war upon us. It was, as all historians of WWII know, the tyrannical Stalin's Red Army which did the most to destroy the Wehrmacht. Had they not done so, Germany would have won the war. 

The resistance in Iraq is, as noted above, a complex affair, as even the U.S. military and the new Iraqi govenment concede. It involves genuinely nationalist elements along with Saddam-era revanchists mainly angered at losing the power and privilege they held for decades. The vast majority are Sunnis, who, even if they didn't like Saddam, benefited from the dominance their group enjoyed since the 1920s.

As for foreign jihadists under the leadership of Jordanian Abu-Musab al Zarqawi, they are only a tiny fraction of the insurgents, although perhaps responsible for the lion's share of suicide bombings and gruesome beheadings. There is scant support for jihadism or Al Qaida among Sunnis, Shiites or Kurds. An end to U.S. occupation, despite White House rhetoric, would isolate them even more than now since their tactics have made them outlive their initial usefulness to the native Iraqi resistance. There have been reliable reports that Sunni-based guerrillas have fought pitched battles with Zarqawi's forces and even hints that backchannel contacts have been made between Sunnis and the U.S. military to eliminate what has become a common enemy.

There should, of course, be no romanticization of those Iraqis fighting America. Few have true democratic inclinations, but the same could be true for the primary groups U.S. policies have inadvertently politically empowered: Shiites who wish to have some sort of Islamic state in which women certainly will lead much more restricted lives than they did under the old regime. Saddam Hussein was a monster, but a secular one, and women, if they were not perceived as political opponents, had far more freedom than in other parts of the Muslim world.

The fact is that Iraq does not have as yet a political culture that embraces respect for minority rights and any democratically elected regime is likely to trample on dissenters, religious or secular. Even if the Bush Administration truly cared first and foremost about Iraqi democracy, which it never did, it would not have been achievable even without an armed guerrillas-based resistance thwarting our efforts to reconstruct Iraqi politics.

If the U.S. is forced to retreat from its neo-imperial effort in Iraq, it might just try again elsewhere or, as after Vietnam, become more pacific for a time. The latter development will please almost all our major allies, but  the current  Administration has been seriously  making plans to launch a  major strike, possibly including tactical nuclear weapons , against Iran, whose allies in Iraq we have unintentially put in power (See Seymour Hersh, "The Iran Plans," The New Yorker  (April 17, 2006).

As for our enemies, particularly those associated with Osama and Al Qaida type-cells, they have never been able to command popular support to rule anywhere. Their popularity is based on what and who they are against, not what they are for. They can engage in terrorist acts that kill hundreds or even thousands, but they have no capacity to take over the world, even if they wished to. Osama and his allies may hate our values, but they are only fighting to oppose our actions in the parts of the world where Muslim are numerically a majority. Osama has not, after all, attacked Sweden, even though he undoubtedly abhors its values ---democracy, secularism, gender equality, and sexual freedom for unmarried women.

Intelligence gathering and arrests are still the best ways to thwart existing terrorists. The evolution of Al Qaida from a more centralized command structure prior to 9/11, when it could operate freeely in Afghanistan, to its current form--- small, independent multinational cells inspired but not controlled by Osama --- reduces the utility of the military and their powerful weapons. Moreover, heavy weapons such as missiles typically produce so many innocent civilian casualties that they inadvertently succeed most as recruitment posters for more terrorists.

But intelligence requires a great deal of luck along with skill. Creating an effective defense (e.g., port and chemical plant security, locating and securing nuclear materials)is easier if there is a political will and the huge financial commitments entailed are not squandered on pork barrell projects to secure low-risk targets or neo-imperial campaigns (see David Cole's "Are We Safer?", The New York Review of Books ,March 9, 2006;  Hassan M. Fattah and Eric Lipton, "Gaps in Security Stretch All Along the Way Fom Model Port in Dubai to U.S.," The New York Times ,February 26, 2006).

As for what will become of Iraq, most Americans still believe the U.S. has some control, but it should be clear now it doesn't. Guerrilla wars are lost politically and we can never control politics over there. Our government's only choice is which way it will lose.

The argument that we should at least stay to prevent all-out civil war presumes we can do so. In the recent crisis which has brought the country to the brink our military spokesmen have said we simply do not have the manpower to stop it once it has begun. Moreover, It's not clear our diplomatic skills, which are curently being used to de-escalate sectarian violence are necessary or sufficient to do so. Iraqi political groups are capable of negotiating among themselves or calling on the U.N. to play that role.

Will defeat there undermine our principles and interests? That depends on which ones we mean. It certainly won't undermine our democracy as "the war on terror" has, by weakening the legislative branch of government and giving the Executive unlimited power during "wartime," making a mockery of our commitment to the rule of law, undermining civil liberties at home and violating our traditional norms of military conduct as embodied in the Geneva Convention. (Does anyone remember the White House and media hue and cry when American prisoners in the early days of the Iraq invasion were photographed by their captors?) 

Nor will losing in Iraq weaken our economy which has become more vulnerable to foreign powers as a result of our soaring deficits, a significant part of which can be traced to the cost of the war. Our dependence on oil, whether from the Mideast, which only supplies 20 percent now, or from elsewhere, will require a painful readjustment of our lifestyles sooner or later as world oil supplies are finite. China, India and other developing societies cannot be expected to forego development so we can live as profligately as we have. The world's strongest military cannot force others to buy our products and services or keep our people employed. Only investment in science, technology and education can do that. The Soviet Union didn't collapse because of military weakness and we can't prosper because of military power.

In a February 2006 Pew poll Amercans are asked what relationship we should have with the world. Fifty percent wish us to remain the sole world superpower; 35 percent do not. On the other hand, 53 percent want us to compromise with other allies and only 37 percent prefer we "follow our own interests." But, whatever we decide may not matter. Iraqis and the rest of the world are deciding for us and we will have to, and should, accept it.