Matthew Duss

Muqtada's Got A Posse

From my review of Patrick Cockburn's Muqtada: Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq, now up at TAP:

Muqtada represents the Iraq we found, which was not what had been expected. Rather than work with that Iraq, the U.S. has continually tried to reshape reality to its liking. From the beginning, the U.S. occupation consistently treated Sadr's movement as a problem to be solved, rather than a genuine constituency to be accommodated, as demonstrated by Paul Bremer's shocking declaration, as recounted by Ali Allawi, that Bremer "didn't care a damn about the underclass and what they [the Sadrists] represented!" It was the inability and unwillingness of U.S. policymakers to deal with this Iraq, rather than the Iraq of neoconservative hallucination, that fed the chaos and led to the years of staggering violence and humanitarian catastrophe which have scarred a generation of Iraqis.

Better Service

Responding to the overwhelmingly negative reaction to Edward Luttwak's recycling of Daniel Pipes' garbage earlier this month, New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt concludes:

With a subject this charged, readers would have been far better served with more than a single, extreme point of view. When writers purport to educate readers about complex matters, and they are arguably wrong, I think The Times cannot label it opinion and let it go at that.

The Times' readers would have also been far better served by simply not allowing a conservative military historian with no apparent training in Islamic jurisprudence to hold forth on the finer points of sharia law on the Times' esteemed op-ed page in the first place. But it's good that there now seems to be some consensus about what unscholarly trash Luttwak's piece was.

...And To The Evil For Which He Stands.

Harvey Korman, 1927-2008.

This Talk Is Not Straight

John McCain was asked by Jeffrey Goldberg, "Is the Zionist cause just, and has it succeeded?"

John McCain: I think so. I’m a student of history and anybody who is familiar with the history of the Jewish people and with the Zionist idea can’t help but admire those who established the Jewish homeland. I think it’s remarkable that Zionism has been in the middle of wars and great trials and it has held fast to the ideals of democracy and social justice and human rights. I think that the State of Israel remains under significant threat from terrorist organizations as well as the continued advocacy of the Iranians to wipe Israel off the map.

Nice, safe Washington answer. I suppose if you squint your eyes and ignore Israel's forty-years long military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and the ongoing illegal settlement enterprise which it facilitates, you could even defend the bit about "democracy and social justice and human rights." Unfortunately, when asked the very same question about the Palestinian cause, McCain gets really shifty:

JM: In respect to people like Mahmoud Abbas, who want to have a peaceful settlement with the government of Israel, to settle their differences in a peaceful and amicable fashion. If you are talking about Hamas or Hezbollah, which are dedicated to the extinction of the state of Israel, then no. It depends on who you’re talking about.

No, it really doesn't, John. Either the Palestinians deserve their own state or they don't. Either you believe that both Jews and Arabs have legitimate claims on the land that must be resolved through negotiation, or you don't.

It's interesting that, when answering the first question, McCain defines Zionism in the most charitable way possible, ignoring the extreme forms of Zionism which continue to exacerbate and perpetuate the conflict, both in the Israeli government and on the ground in the occupied territories. It's shameful that he couldn't frame his second answer as charitably.

Unfortunately, in American politics there is virtually no cost to punting on the profoundly important question of Palestinian national rights.

Of Churchills, Chamberlains, and Hitlers

My latest in the Guardian:

Nearing the end of his presidency, and saddled with a record of unmitigated foreign policy disaster, George Bush seems to have discovered a way to reestablish his national security bona fides, a peg upon which to hang his legacy: steadfast opposition to Nazi Germany.

Speaking to the Israeli Knesset last week, President Bush attacked those who "believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals." Bush stated: "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

On one hand, this is understandable. Despite his facade of self-assurance, President Bush is a man who craves affirmation and applause. And let's face it: if there's one place in the world where coming out strong against Nazi Germany is sure to get you a nice standing ovation, it's the Knesset.

On the other hand, the spectacle of an American president using a speech in a foreign capital to attack his domestic political opponents is the latest example of this president's divisive tendency to politicise national security. President Bush has consistently tried to divide Americans through fear because he has neither the ability nor inclination to unite us with hope and aspiration. This is part of his legacy.

The president's attempt at argumentum ad hitlerum was useful, however, in that it clearly displayed, once again, the simplistic national security mentality of conservatives. In their uncomplicated worldview, every actor can be cast in one of three roles: Hitler, Chamberlain or Churchill.

Read the whole thing.

One To Grow On

Stories like this are why I make it my policy never, ever to go in the water. Ever.

Authorities kept watch Saturday over a stretch of Southern California beaches, scanning the waters for a shark they believe killed a triathlete a day earlier. [...]

Helicopters kept searching for signs of the shark that killed triathlete David Martin, Solana Beach Lifeguard Capt. Craig Miller said.

Martin, 66, died on the beach Friday morning after a shark, presumed to be a great white, lifted him out of the water with his legs in its jaws, leaving deep lacerations and shredding Martin's black wetsuit.

Yes, I know shark attacks are statistically rare. I'm sure that made a hell of a lot of difference to this dude as he was lifted out of the water in the razor-sharp jaws of a 5,000 pound, 17-foot long apex predator.

Strategic Confusion

Brian Katulis and I have an op-ed in today's Baltimore Sun. Here's the money:

In their testimony before Congress this week, Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker and General David Petraeus portrayed recent clashes between competing Iraqi factions as a fight between the Iraqi government and Iranian-supported groups looking to undermine that government. This simplistic "good guys versus bad guys" depiction masks a much more complicated reality in which U.S. policy in Iraq unwittingly strengthens Iran's overall hand there and around the region. [...]

Over the past five years, Iran has hedged its bets, maintaining ties and offering support to all of the major Shiite factions in Iraq, including Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army, which fought pitched battles with the Iraqi army and the Badr Corps last month. But Americans should be clear about where Iran's closest allies are in Iraq. They are at the highest levels of the Iraqi government.

On Basra

Some commentary on what happened in Basra and after.

Abu Aardvark reflects.

Eric Martin on the same clowns always predicting the end of Sadr, at it again.

Spencer Ackerman on how Sadr drew a box around the surge.

Joe Klein on how the Fred and Kimberly Kagan, collectively, don't really know much about Iraq.

My Wonk Room post on how John McCain doesn't really seem to know much, either.

A Hundred Floors Above Me, In The Tower Of Song

Leonard Cohen is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

If you want a lover
I'll do anything you ask me to
And if you want another kind of love
I'll wear a mask for you
If you want a partner
Take my hand
Or if you want to strike me down in anger
Here I stand
I'm your man

If you want a boxer
I will step into the ring for you
And if you want a doctor
I'll examine every inch of you
If you want a driver
Climb inside
Or if you want to take me for a ride
You know you can
I'm your man

Ah, the moon's too bright
The chain's too tight
The beast won't go to sleep
I've been running through these promises to you
That I made and I could not keep
Ah but a man never got a woman back
Not by begging on his knees
Or I'd crawl to you baby
And I'd fall at your feet
And I'd howl at your beauty
Like a dog in heat
And I'd claw at your heart
And I'd tear at your sheet
I'd say please, please
I'm your man

And if you've got to sleep
A moment on the road
I will steer for you
And if you want to work the street alone
I'll disappear for you
If you want a father for your child
Or only want to walk with me a while
Across the sand
I'm your man

Friday Guitar Blogging

Gotta get me one of those fretless guitars.