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Attacking Iran would be Bad

Attacking Iran would be Bad

So Sarah Baxter of The Sunday Times ("Pentagon 'three-day blitz' plan for Iran"), George Packer in The New Yorker ("Test Marketing") and Lance Mannion ("Oh what the heck, let's start a third war!") all say that the Bush administration may be considering a major strike against Iran.*

That is a Very Bad Idea.

"Bad" can mean a lot of things. It can mean wicked, unjust or morally suspect, as when we refer to villains as the "bad guys." It can mean unwise or foolish (bad bet, bad idea); broken or dysfunctional (bad sparkplug, bad title); inept (bad singer, bad fielder); erroneous (bad spelling, a bad note) or spoiled and rancid (the milk's gone bad). I mean all of those here.

The criteria of the just war tradition provide a useful framework for illustrating why I think a potential attack on Iran would be a Very Bad Idea. Here is a useable summary of those criteria from Paragraph 2309 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:

- the damage inflicted by the aggressor** on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave and certain;

- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;

- there must be serious prospects of success;

- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.

But so what? What does it matter what the Catholic catechism says? It's not legally binding, nor should it be. And even if, as is the case, the idea is not exclusively Catholic or even exclusively Christian, who cares about the moralizing and hand-wringing of a bunch of philosophers and theologians off on the sidelines somewhere?

Fair questions. I appreciate that the moral considerations of the just war tradition can seem wholly irrelevant or academic. The kind of people who really want to have a war are going to have one whether or not I, or even the last two popes, tell them it would be immoral. So let's set aside, for the moment, the moral aspect of these criteria and just consider the pragmatic contributions they may have to offer.

Those of us who subscribe to these criteria evaluated the proposed American-led invasion of Iraq before it happened and we found it to be, unambiguously, an unjust proposal. In terms of the version of the criteria summarized above, this war is 0-for-4.

But note in particular that final criterion above, the one usually referred to as "proportionality," summarized here as not producing "evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated." The invasion of Iraq had no just cause, it was not a last resort and it did not suggest serious prospects of success, but to me the most important factor here was that it was disproportional -- it was likely to produce "evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated." Here is what I wrote about that back on August 8, 2002:

The question of proportionality ... is bound up with the question of likely outcomes. ... Another way of putting these questions is this: Will this war likely make things better or worse?

Answering such a question involves more than merely applying abstract ethical principles. It involves weighing matters of fact and probability, prudence and judgement, learning from history to project our best guesses onto the future.

And my best guess is that ... the "reckless, ill-conceived and possibly disastrous" manner in which the Bush administration is pursuing this effort seems likely to make things worse. That's not a just war.

This is where, I think, the just war criteria make a pragmatic contribution. Heeding the principles of just war can keep you out of the quagmire. The reason for this is very simple: Unwinnable wars are disproportional and therefore, by definition, unjust.

So while I don't expect the Bush administration*** to care very much that the attack against Iran it may be considering would be another 0-for-4 -- that it would be unjust and immoral -- I do think they should be expected to care that it would be counterproductive and unwinnable. It would "produce evils and disorders graver than" those that exist now.

I realize that Bush and Cheney aren't terribly worried about graver evils (they think this makes them look "tough" and "manly"), but I'm desperately hoping that some of their deputies can persuade them to be concerned about graver disorders.

At the end of Packer's New Yorker piece, he adds this postscript:

Barnett Rubin just called me. His source spoke with a neocon think-tanker who corroborated the story of the propaganda campaign and had this to say about it: “I am a Republican. I am a conservative. But I’m not a raging lunatic. This is lunatic.”

More of this, please. Fewer raging lunatics, please.

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* Baxter's Times article mostly just indicates the existence of contingency plans, which doesn't necessarily mean that even someone as recklessly bellicose as Dick Cheney is pondering implementing those plans. It's also possible that all of this talk is simply clumsy saber-rattling akin to Nixon's "Madman strategy."

** The first criterion, usually called "just cause," is nicely expressed here. The usual language of "defense against wrongful attack" is simply presumed as self-evident. If there is to be any possibility of a case for just war, this formulation assumes, then there must be an "aggressor." This doesn't necessarily mean that the good guys can never shoot first -- defense against imminent wrongful attack could still be a just cause. But defense against the fear of the potentiality of the possibility of wrongful attack-related program activities doesn't cut it.

*** My dad had a cartoon on the wall of his law office: Two cavemen are sitting on a rock and one is saying something like, "There's no point in making a law against eating people, because the kind of people who are going to eat other people are going to do it whether or not there's a law."

Glory, glory hallelujah

If you want an acerbic taste of what might be called Niebuhrian irony, see the gallows humor of American soldiers in Chris Collins' front-line* McClatchy report from Iraq, "South of Baghdad, U.S. troops find fatigue, frustration":

Standing in a small room in the Iraqi home they'd raided an hour earlier, a dozen soldiers from the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division were trading jokes when 1st Sgt. Troy Moore, Company A's senior enlisted man, shouted out.

"We're bringing democracy to Iraq," he called, with obvious sarcasm, as a reporter entered the room. Then Moore began loudly humming the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Within seconds the rest of the troops had joined in, filling the small, barren home in the middle of Iraq with the patriotic chorus of a Civil War-era ballad.

The "Battle Hymn of the Republic" embodies exactly the kind of naively revolutionary, millennial optimism that Reinhold Niebuhr made a career out of shouting down. Due to my preoccupation with the scatological eschatology of our friends LaHaye and Jenkins, I've tended to spend a lot of time here with the errors and oddities of premillennial dispensationalism. But that is only one form, and not even the dominant one, of the millennial fervor that has, periodically, played such a large role in American Christianity and American history. The "Battle Hymn" is the almost-official theme song of that millennial fervor.

When performed well, the song can give you a sense of the attractiveness of that millennial spirit. That allure, and its influence in our culture and history, is reflected in the many echoes of Julia Ward Howe's lyrics in our literature and political rhetoric. It is a beautiful song,** but it is also, explicitly, a crusader's hymn. It is a distillation of the Civil War minus all of Lincoln's doubt, sorrow and humility. (Look again at his Second Inaugural, which serves almost as a rebuttal of this song.)

The arrogant, vainglorious dreaming of the Project for a New American Century -- the people who pitched and promoted, but never planned for, this war -- is the latest expression of this millennial optimism. That implicit millennial vision has at times been stated explicitly, as when Condoleezza Rice spoke of the recent fighting in Lebanon as the "birth pangs" of democracy in the Middle East (an allusion to the mini-apocalypse of Matthew 24). The dreamers of PNAC preached a "fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel," but the soldiers of Company A know better. The Lord hasn't been seen in their hundred circling camps.

American millennialism needn't be as explicitly religious as the "Battle Hymn," although even in its most secular forms it remains a kind of religious faith. One of the most memorable portrayals of this secular millennialism is that of Alden Pyle, the title character in Graham Greene's The Quiet American, of whom Greene's narrator, Fowler, says, "I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused."

In an astonishing speech last month*** President Bush attempted to cite The Quiet American -- including that very description of Pyle -- as part of some sort of argument for why the American occupation of Iraq must never end. I've been too flabbergasted by the perverse audacity of that to comment on it (Greg Mitchell does a good job of responding), but here's a bit of a post I wrote on all of that back in mid-December, 2003:

Greene's most important novel today has to be The Quiet American, in which he tells the tragic story of two unlikely friends: Thomas Fowler and Alden Pyle.

Fowler is world-weary, disillusioned and, if not exactly corrupt, thoroughly compromised. Pyle is in many ways his opposite -- young, naive, idealistic. Pyle, Fowler tells us, semi-reliably, was "determined ... to do good, not to any individual person, but to a country, a continent, a world." He was innocent, and therefore dangerous: "Innocence always calls mutely for protection, when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it; innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm."

The two men are presented as opposites -- one disillusioned, the other illusioned. If you read the novel -- and the world -- convinced that Pyle and Fowler represent the only available options, then you are left with despair. Surely there is some option available to us other than inhuman detachment and the violent idealism of plastic explosives.

When one reads the audacious plans of the PNAC ... in the light of Greene's novel, what's striking is the way its authors seem to combine the worst elements of both Fowler and Pyle. It exhibits both Pyle's unbridled, hubristic idealism and Fowler's cynical regard for the naked power of imperial hegemony. ...

What's particularly annoying -- and offensive -- is the habit that the PNACes have of treating all of us who disagree with their destructive Pylesque idealism as though we are defenders of Fowler's cynical views (the old "you're objectively pro-Saddam" sophistry). This accusation reveals a despairing failure of imagination, as well as a refusal to listen to what is actually being said. ...

That failure of imagination and refusal to listen -- to critics, to reality -- were on full display in Bush's speech, which concluded with this starkly millennial assertion:

So long as we remain true to our ideals, we will defeat the extremists in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will help those countries' peoples stand up functioning democracies in the heart of the broader Middle East.

Glory, glory hallelujah. Let's loose the fateful lighting of "our ideals." But yet, as tends to happen, the terrible, swift sword has come to supplant the ideals we claimed it served. The soldiers of Company A appreciate that, even if Bush doesn't.

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* The front-lines, in this case, being the living room of a private home. The purveyors of the stabbed-in-the-back myth of Vietnam like to say that war was really fought in the living rooms of America, as the public watched it unfold on their televisions. These same revisionists, hoping to escape accountability for the current unwinnable war, are pitching the same lie about the conflict in Iraq. It turns out the lie is partly true, though, since this war is literally being waged in living rooms, just not in American ones.

** The "Battle Hymn of the Republic" was quite probably the first music I ever heard. It was playing on every radio and television in the hospital the night I was born. I don't remember this, of course, but I have since seen footage of that rendition. The song was sung by two choirs at the Lincoln Memorial, accompanied by the brass section of the U.S. Marine Band and all the residents of Resurrection City. It was the end of a long day, a day that began with a funeral in New York and ended with the only night-time burial in the history of Arlington National Cemetery. That grave context made the song something other than a shallow expression of millennial optimism. It became instead, as it was in the speeches of the man buried two months earlier, an expression of millennial hope. And hope and optimism are not the same thing. I sometimes even think they may be mutually exclusive.

*** Read that speech and you'll see what I mean about the dolchstosslegende.

Expecto Petraeus

Frank Rich writes about the magic spell that President Bush is invoking in the hope it will protect him from his dementor-ish approval ratings:

It was The Washington Post that first quantified General Petraeus’s remarkable ascension. President Bush, who mentioned his new Iraq commander’s name only six times as the surge rolled out in January, has cited him more than 150 times in public utterances since, including 53 in May alone.

As always with this White House’s propaganda offensives, the message in Mr. Bush’s relentless repetitions never varies. General Petraeus is the “main man.” He is the man who gives “candid advice.” Come September, he will be the man who will give the president and the country their orders about the war. ...

This general may well be, as many say, the brightest and bravest we have. But that doesn’t account for why he has been invested by the White House and its last-ditch apologists with such singular power over the war. ...

... the Petraeus phenomenon is not about protecting the troops or American interests but about protecting the president. For all Mr. Bush’s claims of seeking “candid” advice, he wants nothing of the kind. He sent that message before the war, with the shunting aside of Eric Shinseki, the general who dared tell Congress the simple truth that hundreds of thousands of American troops would be needed to secure Iraq.

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NPR's Tom Bowman is a tool -- serving this morning as an "implement, instrument or utensil" for the dissemination of GOP talking points. Here's what he said today about Joint Chiefs nominee Adm. Mike Mullen:

"He will likely bow to Gen. Petraeus, who of course is going to report in September on the progress of the surge, and he will not be calling for, like the Democrats are, for any precipitous withdrawal of U.S. troops ..."

Ah, yes, "precipitous." Way to work the talking point in there, Bowman. Tool.

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Editor & Publisher's Greg Mitchell brings us the strange saga of Basim Ridha, who had a speaking role in David O. Russell's Three Kings in 1999, and today works as an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, overseeing all official executions. Your life is strange. Basim Ridha's is stranger.

Mykelti Williamson as Col. Horn in Three Kings in 1999:

What do you want to do? Occupy Iraq and do Vietnam all over again? Is that what you want? Is that your brilliant idea?

B-b-b-but no one could have foreseen ...

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It's been more than three months since we've heard from Riverbend. I am worried.

Torture

"They say this is a different kind of war," Tony Lagouranis says. "Different rules for terrorists. Total crap."

Lagouranis was a military intelligence specialist in Iraq until he was honorably discharged due to "adjustment disorder." That seems to be a military psychologist's euphemism for still having his conscience and humanity mostly intact.

I've written before about the toll our nation's embrace of torture takes on the men and women ordered to carry it out. Laura Blumenfeld of The Washington Post puts a human face on this toll in "The Tortured Lives of Interrogators."

Blumenfeld tells Lagouranis' story alongside the stories of two other former interrogators. The other two, "James" and "Sheriff," worked for the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Northern Ireland and for Shin Bet, the Israeli security service. Unlike Lagouranis, James and Sheriff convey a cocky bravado, insisting that they have no qualms about the "verschärfte vernehmung"* they employed. James and Sheriff doth protest too much. They come across as deeply troubled, haunted, FUBAR.

"I've got a clean conscience because I rarely use it," Sheriff says. It comes across like a man in a wheelchair boasting that that his legs are not suffering from overuse.

Lagouranis may have gotten out in time to keep his own conscience from atrophying the way Sheriff's has. He realizes that he, like the people he was ordered to interrogate, has come away damaged:

Not the things I saw, but the things I did. You keep saying 'torturing the innocent,' but the two brothers I tortured were guilty. It doesn't mean you should torture them.

That word "should" denotes a moral imperative: You should not torture. Or in the familiar language of the King James Bible, Thou shalt not torture.

Such moral language strikes some as irrelevant. The question for them is not whether or not one should employ torture, but whether or not one needs to. This appeal to necessity is precisely what Sheriff relies on as an opiate to numb his fading conscience. "You leave us no choice," he would say to his victims.

The problem with this, of course, is that torture does not work. It produces misinformation. Practitioners of torture end up knowing less than they knew before. Worse, they can end up thinking they know all sorts of things that are not true. This "works" only if their only goal is to produce false confessions** or to serve as a deterrent, intimidating (i.e. terrorizing) others.

Members of the Intelligence Science Board underscored this point in their recent testimony to Congress. (Their (long) full report is available as a .pdf: "Educing Information: Interrogation: Science and Art.") From the article linked above:

President Bush has insisted that those secret “enhanced” techniques are crucial, and he is far from alone. The notion that turning up pressure and pain on a prisoner will produce valuable intelligence is a staple of popular culture from the television series “24” to the recent Republican presidential debate, where some candidates tried to outdo one another in vowing to get tough on captured terrorists. ...

But some of the experts involved in the interrogation review, called “Educing Information,” say that during World War II, German and Japanese prisoners were effectively questioned without coercion.

“It far outclassed what we’ve done,” said Steven M. Kleinman, a former Air Force interrogator and trainer, who has studied the World War II program of interrogating Germans. ... Mr. Kleinman, who worked as an interrogator in Iraq in 2003, called the post-Sept. 11 efforts “amateurish” by comparison.

I'm inclined to side with Kleinman on the value of looking to America's World War II program as a model. After all, America won that war. Instead, we've been taking as our models the interrogation programs of the Soviet Union and the methods people like Sheriff have employed in the West Bank. Just think about that for a moment: the "Evil Empire" and the poster-child for neverending hostility have become our models for freedom and security. Somewhere in the White House or the Pentagon, someone actually said, "Let's copy what they're doing in the West Bank, because that sure seems to be working."

So torture is morally corrosive and ineffective and, as the example of the West Bank illustrates, it leads to your own military defeat.

Charles C. Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar make all of these points in their op-ed, "It's Our Cage, Too: Torture Betrays Us and Breeds New Enemies." Krulak is a former commandant of the Marine Corps. Hoar is a former commander in chief of U.S. Central Command. They write of the "disastrous consequences" of the Bush administration's embrace of torture, saying it has:

... nurtured the recuperative power of the enemy. This war will be won or lost not on the battlefield but in the minds of potential supporters who have not yet thrown in their lot with the enemy. If we forfeit our values by signaling that they are negotiable in situations of grave or imminent danger, we drive those undecideds into the arms of the enemy. This way lies defeat, and we are well down the road to it.

So torture is ineffective and corrosive, and a certain path to military defeat. On the other hand ...

There is no other hand. Torture is ineffective and corrosive, and a certain path to military defeat. Everyone knows this.

So given that, why on earth does anyone pretend that this is something we should accept or approve? What's the attraction? Why are Republican presidential candidates so desperate "to outdo one another" in embracing despicable and counterproductive measures? What is it about "ineffective and corrosive" that people like Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani fail to understand? What is it they find so attractive about certain defeat?

Here are the fools on parade in a recent Republican presidential debate:

What is wrong with these people?

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* Or "enhanced interrogations." This is the Bush administration's preferred phrase. The name comes from the Gestapo. The tactics come from the Soviet Union.

** If the goal is a false confession, of course, torture is still an inefficient and unnecessary step. Simple forgery will produce a result that is just as credible as a signed confession produced under coercion and duress. This leads me to suspect, again, that the real reason for this use of torture -- for any use of torture -- is that those who order it enjoy it. Are George W. Bush, Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo really such fools that they do not know that torture is ineffective and self-defeating? Or are they simply monsters?

Memorial Day

These are not just numbers.

1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9; 10; 11; 12; 13; 14; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19; 20; 21; 22; 23; 24; 25; 26; 27; 28; 29; 30; 31; 32; 33; 34; 35; 36; 37; 38; 39; 40; 41; 42; 43; 44; 45; 46; 47; 48; 49; 50; 51; 52; 53; 54; 55; 56; 57; 58; 59; 60; 61; 62; 63; 64; 65; 66; 67; 68; 69; 70; 71; 72; 73; 74; 75; 76; 77; 78; 79; 80; 81; 82; 83; 84; 85; 86; 87; 88; 89; 90; 91; 92; 93; 94; 95; 96; 97; 98; 99; 100; 101; 102; 103; 104; 105; 106; 107; 108; 109; 110; 111; 112; 113; 114; 115; 116; 117; 118; 119; 120; 121; 122; 123; 124; 125; 126; 127; 128; 129; 130; 131; 132; 133; 134; 135; 136; 137; 138; 139; 140; 141; 142; 143; 144; 145; 146; 147; 148; 149; 150; 151; 152; 153; 154; 155; 156; 157; 158; 159; 160; 161; 162; 163; 164; 165; 166; 167; 168; 169; 170; 171; 172; 173; 174; 175; 176; 177; 178; 179; 180; 181; 182; 183; 184; 185; 186; 187; 188; 189; 190; 191; 192; 193; 194; 195; 196; 197; 198; 199; 200; 201; 202; 203; 204; 205; 206; 207; 208; 209; 210; 211; 212; 213; 214; 215; 216; 217; 218; 219; 220; 221; 222; 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623; 624; 625; 626; 627; 628; 629; 630; 631; 632; 633; 634; 635; 636; 637; 638; 639; 640; 641; 642; 643; 644; 645; 646; 647; 648; 649; 650; 651; 652; 653; 654; 655; 656; 657; 658; 659; 660; 661; 662; 663; 664; 665; 666; 667; 668; 669; 670; 671; 672; 673; 674; 675; 676; 677; 678; 679; 680; 681; 682; 683; 684; 685; 686; 687; 688; 689; 690; 691; 692; 693; 694; 695; 696; 697; 698; 699; 700; 701; 702; 703; 704; 705; 706; 707; 708; 709; 710; 711; 712; 713; 714; 715; 716; 717; 718; 719; 720; 721; 722; 723; 724; 725; 726; 727; 728; 729; 730; 731; 732; 733; 734; 735; 736; 737; 738; 739; 740; 741; 742; 743; 744; 745; 746; 747; 748; 749; 750; 751; 752; 753; 754; 755; 756; 757; 758; 759; 760; 761; 762; 763; 764; 765; 766; 767; 768; 769; 770; 771; 772; 773; 774; 775; 776; 777; 778; 779; 780; 781; 782; 783; 784; 785; 786; 787; 788; 789; 790; 791; 792; 793; 794; 795; 796; 797; 798; 799; 800; 801; 802; 803; 804; 805; 806; 807; 808; 809; 810; 811; 812; 813; 814; 815; 816; 817; 818; 819; 820; 821; 822; 823; 824; 825; 826; 827; 828; 829; 830; 831; 832; 833; 834; 835; 836; 837; 838; 839; 840; 841; 842; 843; 844; 845; 846; 847; 848; 849; 850; 851; 852; 853; 854; 855; 856; 857; 858; 859; 860; 861; 862; 863; 864; 865; 866; 867; 868; 869; 870; 871; 872; 873; 874; 875; 876; 877; 878; 879; 880; 881; 882; 883; 884; 885; 886; 887; 888; 889; 890; 891; 892; 893; 894; 895; 896; 897; 898; 899; 900; 901; 902; 903; 904; 905; 906; 907; 908; 909; 910; 911; 912; 913; 914; 915; 916; 917; 918; 919; 920; 921; 922; 923; 924; 925; 926; 927; 928; 929; 930; 931; 932; 933; 934; 935; 936; 937; 938; 939; 940; 941; 942; 943; 944; 945; 946; 947; 948; 949; 950; 951; 952; 953; 954; 955; 956; 957; 958; 959; 960; 961; 962; 963; 964; 965; 966; 967; 968; 969; 970; 971; 972; 973; 974; 975; 976; 977; 978; 979; 980; 981; 982; 983; 984; 985; 986; 987; 988; 989; 990; 991; 992; 993; 994; 995; 996; 997; 998; 999; 1,000; 1,001; 1,002; 1,003; 1,004; 1,005; 1,006; 1,007; 1,008; 1,009; 1,010; 1,011; 1,012; 1,013; 1,014; 1,015; 1,016; 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2,590; 2,591; 2,592; 2,593; 2,594; 2,595; 2,596; 2,597; 2,598; 2,599; 2;600; 2,601; 2,602; 2,603; 2,604; 2,605; 2,606; 2,607; 2,608; 2,609; 2,610; 2,611; 2,612; 2,613; 2,614; 2,615; 2,616; 2,617; 2,618; 2,619; 2,620; 2,621; 2,622; 2,623; 2,624; 2,625; 2,626; 2,627; 2,628; 2,629; 2,630; 2,631; 2,632; 2,633; 2,634; 2,635; 2,636; 2,637; 2,638; 2,639; 2,640; 2,641; 2,642; 2,643; 2,644; 2,645; 2,646; 2,647; 2,648; 2,649; 2,650; 2,651; 2,652; 2,653; 2,654; 2,655; 2,656; 2,657; 2,658; 2,659; 2,660; 2,661; 2,662; 2,663; 2,664; 2,665; 2,666; 2,667; 2,668; 2,669; 2,670; 2,671; 2,672; 2,673; 2,674; 2,675; 2,676; 2,677; 2,678; 2,679; 2,680; 2,681; 2,682; 2,683; 2,684; 2,685; 2,686; 2,687; 2,688; 2,689; 2,690; 2,691; 2,692; 2,693; 2,694; 2,695; 2,696; 2,697; 2,698; 2,699; 2,700; 2,701; 2,702; 2,703; 2,704; 2,705; 2,706; 2,707; 2,708; 2,709; 2,710; 2,711; 2,712; 2,713; 2,714; 2,715; 2,716; 2,717; 2,718; 2,719; 2,720; 2,721; 2,722; 2,723; 2,724; 2,725; 2,726; 2,727; 2,728; 2,729; 2,730; 2,731; 2,732; 2,733; 2,734; 2,735; 2,736; 2,737; 2,738; 2,739; 2,740; 2,741; 2,742; 2,743; 2,744; 2,745; 2,746; 2,747; 2,748; 2,749; 2,750; 2,751; 2,752; 2,753; 2,754; 2,755; 2,756; 2,757; 2,758; 2,759; 2,760; 2,761; 2,762; 2,763; 2,764; 2,765; 2,766; 2,767; 2,768; 2,769; 2,770; 2,771; 2,772; 2,773; 2,774; 2,775; 2,776; 2,777; 2,778; 2,779; 2,780; 2,781; 2,782; 2,783; 2,784; 2,785; 2,786; 2,787; 2,788; 2,789; 2,790; 2,791; 2,792; 2,793; 2,794; 2,795; 2,796; 2,797; 2,798; 2,799; 2,800; 2,801; 2,802; 2,803; 2,804; 2,805; 2,806; 2,807; 2,808; 2,809; 2,810; 2,811; 2,812; 2,813; 2,814; 2,815; 2,816; 2,817; 2,818; 2,819; 2,820; 2,821; 2,822; 2,823; 2,824; 2,825; 2,826; 2,827; 2,828; 2,829; 2,830; 2,831; 2,832; 2,833; 2,834; 2,835; 2,836; 2,837; 2,838; 2,839; 2,840; 2,841; 2,842; 2,843; 2,844; 2,845; 2,846; 2,847; 2,848; 2,849; 2,850; 2,851; 2,852; 2,853; 2,854; 2,855; 2,856; 2,857; 2,858; 2,859; 2,860; 2,861; 2,862; 2,863; 2,864; 2,865; 2,866; 2,867; 2,868; 2,869; 2,870; 2,871; 2,872; 2,873; 2,874; 2,875; 2,876; 2,877; 2,878; 2,879; 2,880; 2,881; 2,882; 2,883; 2,884; 2,885; 2,886; 2,887; 2,888; 2,889; 2,890; 2,891; 2,892; 2,893; 2,894; 2,895; 2,896; 2,897; 2,898; 2,899; 2,900; 2,901; 2,902; 2,903; 2,904; 2,905; 2,906; 2,907; 2,908; 2,909; 2,910; 2,911; 2,912; 2,913; 2,914; 2,915; 2,916; 2,917; 2,918; 2,919; 2,920; 2,921; 2,922; 2,923; 2,924; 2,925; 2,926; 2,927; 2,928; 2,929; 2,930; 2,931; 2,932; 2,933; 2,934; 2,935; 2,936; 2,937; 2,938; 2,939; 2,940; 2,941; 2,942; 2,943; 2,944; 2,945; 2,946; 2,947; 2,948; 2,949; 2,950; 2,951; 2,952; 2,953; 2,954; 2,955; 2,956; 2,957; 2,958; 2,959; 2,960; 2,961; 2,962; 2,963; 2,964; 2,965; 2,966; 2,967; 2,968; 2,969; 2,970; 2,971; 2,972; 2,973; 2,974; 2,975; 2,976; 2,977; 2,978; 2,979; 2,980; 2,981; 2,982; 2,983; 2,984; 2,985; 2,986; 2,987; 2,988; 2,989; 2,990; 2,991; 2,992; 2,993; 2,994; 2,995; 2,996; 2,997; 2,998; 2,999; 3,000; 3,001; 3,002; 3,003; 3,004; 3,005; 3,006; 3,007; 3,008; 3,009; 3,010; 3,011; 3,012; 3,013; 3,014; 3,015; 3,016; 3,017; 3,018; 3,019; 3,020; 3,021; 3,022; 3,023; 3,024; 3,025; 3,026; 3,027; 3,028; 3,029; 3,030; 3,031; 3,032; 3,033; 3,034; 3,035; 3,036; 3,037; 3,038; 3,039; 3,040; 3,041; 3,042; 3,043; 3,044; 3,045; 3,046; 3,047; 3,048; 3,049; 3,050; 3,051; 3,052; 3,053; 3,054; 3,055; 3,056; 3,057; 3,058; 3,059; 3,060; 3,061; 3,062; 3,063; 3,064; 3,065; 3,066; 3,067; 3,068; 3,069; 3,070; 3,071; 3,072; 3,073; 3,074; 3,075; 3,076; 3,077; 3,078; 3,079; 3,080; 3,081; 3,082; 3,083; 3,084; 3,085; 3,086; 3,087; 3,088; 3,089; 3,090; 3,091; 3,092; 3,093; 3,094; 3,095; 3,096; 3,097; 3,098; 3,099; 3,100; 3,101; 3,102; 3,103; 3,104; 3,105; 3,106; 3,107; 3,108; 3,109; 3,110; 3,111; 3,112; 3,113; 3,114; 3,115; 3,116; 3,117; 3,118; 3,119; 3,120; 3,121; 3,122; 3,123; 3,124; 3,125; 3,126; 3,127; 3,128; 3,129; 3,130; 3,131; 3,132; 3,133; 3,134; 3,135; 3,136; 3,137; 3,138; 3,139; 3,140; 3,141; 3,142; 3,143; 3,144; 3,145; 3,146; 3,147; 3,148; 3,149; 3,150; 3,151; 3,152; 3,153; 3,154; 3,155; 3,156; 3,157; 3,158; 3,159; 3,160; 3,161; 3,162; 3,163; 3,164; 3,165; 3,166; 3,167; 3,168; 3,169; 3,170; 3,171; 3,172; 3,173; 3,174; 3,175; 3,176; 3,177; 3,178; 3,179; 3,180; 3,181; 3,182; 3,183; 3,184; 3,185; 3,186; 3,187; 3,188; 3,189; 3,190; 3,191; 3,192; 3,193; 3,194; 3,195; 3,196; 3,197; 3,198; 3,199; 3,200; 3,201; 3,202; 3,203; 3,204; 3,205; 3,206; 3,207; 3,208; 3,209; 3,210; 3,211; 3,212; 3,213; 3,214; 3,215; 3,216; 3,217; 3,218; 3,219; 3,220; 3,221; 3,222; 3,223; 3,224; 3,225; 3,226; 3,227; 3,228; 3,229; 3,230; 3,231; 3,232; 3,233; 3,234; 3,235; 3,236; 3,237; 3,238; 3,239; 3,240; 3,241; 3,242; 3,243; 3,244; 3,245; 3,246; 3,247; 3,248; 3,249; 3,250; 3,251; 3,252; 3,253; 3,254; 3,255; 3,256; 3,257; 3,258; 3,259; 3,260; 3,261; 3,262; 3,263; 3,264; 3,265; 3,266; 3,267; 3,268; 3,269; 3,270; 3,271; 3,272; 3,273; 3,274; 3,275; 3,276; 3,277; 3,278; 3,279; 3,280; 3,281; 3,282; 3,283; 3,284; 3,285; 3,286; 3,287; 3,288; 3,289; 3,290; 3,291; 3,292; 3,293; 3,294; 3,295; 3,296; 3,297; 3,298; 3,299; 3,300; 3,301; 3,302; 3,303; 3,304; 3,305; 3,306; 3,307; 3,308; 3,309; 3,310; 3,311; 3,312; 3,313; 3,314; 3,315; 3,316; 3,317; 3,318; 3,319; 3,320; 3,321; 3,322; 3,323; 3,324; 3,325; 3,326; 3,327; 3,328; 3,329; 3,330; 3,331; 3,332; 3,333; 3,334; 3,335; 3,336; 3,337; 3,338; 3,339; 3,340; 3,341; 3,342; 3,343; 3,344; 3,345; 3,346; 3,347; 3,348; 3,349; 3,350; 3,351; 3,352; 3,353; 3,354; 3,355; 3,356; 3,357; 3,358; 3,359; 3,360; 3,361; 3,362; 3,363; 3,364; 3,365; 3,366; 3,367; 3,368; 3,369; 3,370; 3,371; 3,372; 3,373; 3,374; 3,375; 3,376; 3,377; 3,378; 3,379; 3,380; 3,381; 3,382; 3,383; 3,384; 3,385; 3,386; 3,387; 3,388; 3,389; 3,390; 3,391; 3,392; 3,393; 3,394; 3,395; 3,396; 3,397; 3,398; 3,399; 3,400; 3,401; 3,402; 3,403; 3,404; 3,405; 3,406; 3,407; 3,408; 3,409; 3,410; 3,411; 3,412; 3,413; 3,414; 3,415; 3,416; 3,417; 3,418; 3,419; 3,420; 3,421; 3,422; 3,423; 3,424; 3,425; 3,426; 3,427; 3,428; 3,429; 3,430; 3,431; 3,432; 3,433; 3,434; 3,435; 3,436; 3,437; 3,438; 3,439; 3,440; 3,441; 3,442; 3,443; 3,444; 3,445; 3,446; 3,447; 3,448; 3,449; 3,450; 3,451; 3,452 ...

(edited to restore numbers eaten by irreverent Typepad)

Sweet deals

Imagine this happens to you:

Some big Manhattan publisher gives you a $100,000 advance to write the Great American Novel. Then you look at the fine print and you realize that your deal gives you $100,000 every year until you finish the book.

You call to double check. "Does this mean I get $100,000/year forever?" you ask.

"Not forever," the publisher says, "just until whenever you're finished writing." And once the book is completed, the publisher says, you will receive a $2,500 bonus.

This would never happen in real life, of course, because any capable publisher would realize that such a deal would provide a major incentive for you never to finish the job.

But while no publisher is that dumb, the Bush administration is. This, essentially, is the deal the White House has with the Pakistani government for helping us track down Osama bin Laden. Crooks and Liars sums it up:

... the Bush administration pays the Pakistani government $1 billion a year to hunt down Osama bin Laden, and demands zero accountability as to how that money is spent.

The Bush administration is also offering a $25 million bounty for information leading to the capture of bin Laden. Let's do the arithmetic. If you're Pervez Musharraf which would you choose? A one-time award of $25 million? Or 40 times as much this year, and next year, and every year after that?

Let's try one more analogy. Imagine you're Halliburton. You've been hired by the U.S. government to rebuild Iraq's refineries and oil infrastructure. In the meantime, until that job is completed, you've also been hired to supply Iraq with gasoline at whatever prices you see fit to charge. So, do you diligently work to complete the first task, thus killing the goose that lays the golden egg? Or do you do the economically sensible thing and ensure that the lucrative "meantime" lasts as long as possible?

This analogy, unfortunately, is not hypothetical.

I said above that you'd have to be pretty dumb to create these kinds of perverse incentives. That's true, but only if the purported aims of such incentives are your genuine goals. If your actual goal were to prevent these things from occurring -- to ensure that bin Laden is never caught, that Iraq's infrastructure is never rebuilt -- then incentives like this would be just the kind of thing you'd need. Perverse incentives are an intelligent strategy if you're pursuing perverse goals.

One in seven

Will Rogers suggested a simple standard for evaluating any country or community: Are people trying to get in? Or are they trying to get out?

By that standard, as Dahr Jamail reports on TomDispatch, Iraq is a massive failure:

Let's start with the numbers, inadequate as they are. The latest UN figures concerning the refugee crisis in Iraq indicate that between 1-1.2 million Iraqis have fled across the border into Syria; about 750,000 have crossed into Jordan (increasing its modest population of 5.5 million by 14%); at least another 150,000 have made it to Lebanon; over 150,000 have emigrated to Egypt; and -- these figures are the trickiest of all -- over 1.9 million are now estimated to have been internally displaced by civil war and sectarian cleansing within Iraq.

These numbers are staggering in a population estimated in the pre-invasion years at only 26 million. At a bare minimum, in other words, at least one out of every seven Iraqis has had to flee his or her home due to the violence and chaos set off by the Bush administration's invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Syrian officials and UNHCR workers tell Jamail that these estimates are probably too low -- that the number of Iraqi refugees in Syria is probably closer to 1.5 million. The High Commissioner for Refugees has a budget of only $16 million for 2007 for assisting these refugees.

The primary trigger for this crisis was the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, and yet President Bush and his top officials have taken no significant steps whatsoever to share in the resulting refugee burden. To date, the administration has issued only 466 visas to Iraqis. Under recent pressure from the UN, it has said that it would offer an additional 7,000 visas -- but without either announcing the criteria for accepting such refugees or even when the visas might be issued.

This is unacceptable. America has an obligation -- for pragmatic, political reasons as well as inescapable moral ones -- to help these people. Even the minimum threshhold of Colin Powell's "Pottery-Barn rule" makes this clear. And yet America is doing almost nothing to assist these refugees we helped to create. To do so would undermine the attempt to create the perception that steady "progress is being made." To assist, and therefore acknowledge, these millions of refugees would undermine the desperate spin promoted by the Bush administration and its defenders that any apparent bad news out of Iraq is the product of media bias. And so, to maintain the lie that the good news is being underreported, the human suffering of 4 million people is ignored and the debt we owe them is unacknowledged, unpaid.

And every month, another 50,000 refugees flee their "liberated" country. Joining them, soon, will be Riverbend and her family. Anyone who has been reading her Baghdad-based blog for the past five years has seen the abundant evidence of their courage and resourcefulness, and of their love for their home. Yet finally, they have decided, it is time to flee:

It's difficult to decide which is more frightening -- car bombs and militias, or having to leave everything you know and love, to some unspecified place for a future where nothing is certain.

Riverbend suggests that part of what finally spurred this desperate decision was the "Great Wall of Segregation":

Which is the wall the current Iraqi government is building (with the support and guidance of the Americans). It's a wall that is intended to separate and isolate what is now considered the largest "Sunni" area in Baghdad -- let no one say the Americans are not building anything. According to plans the Iraqi puppets and Americans cooked up, it will "protect" A'adhamiya, a residential/mercantile area that the current Iraqi government and their death squads couldn't empty of Sunnis. ...

The Wall is the latest effort to further break Iraqi society apart. Promoting and supporting civil war isn't enough, apparently -- Iraqis have generally proven to be more tenacious and tolerant than their mullahs, ayatollahs, and Vichy leaders. It's time for America to physically divide and conquer -- like Berlin before the wall came down or Palestine today. This way, they can continue chasing Sunnis out of "Shia areas" and Shia out of "Sunni areas."

This wall, and the division and separation of the people of Iraq it symbolizes, is deeply troublesome. It suggests that the current flood of Iraqi refugees -- already perhaps the "most severe refugee crisis on the planet" Jamail says -- is likey to increase dramatically. And it is likely to do so regardless of whether American forces stay or go, surge or redeploy.

Dr. Gregory H. Stanton, the president of Genocide Watch, offers a watchlist of "The Eight Stages of Genocide."

1. Classification
2. Symbolization
3. Dehumanization
4. Organization
5. Polarization
6. Identification
7. Extermination
8. Denial

Go read his entire list and his explanation of each step and consider whether all of these have not already begun, at least in part, in Iraq.

Happy Andrew Natsios Day

With Congress and the White House in tense negotiations over the next $100 billion for the next six months in Iraq, we take time out today to celebrate the fourth anniversary of Andrew Natsios' appearance on ABC's Nightline.

On April 23, 2003, host Ted Koppel invited Natsios, then the director of the U.S. Agency for International Development, on the program to talk about the Bush administration's estimate of the cost of rebuilding Iraq.

Younger readers may not remember Koppel, who's retired now. They may also be somewhat confused by the assumption, universally reported back in April of 2003, that the U.S.-led coalition had "taken control of Baghdad." After all, just yesterday Gen. David Petraeus said that three months of a security "surge" had produced only modest progress in its effort to, well, take control of Baghdad.

Allow me to explain to our younger, or more forgetful, readers that four years ago this month a statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled and beaten with shoes, leading to headlines all around the world prematurely declaring the conquest of the Iraqi capital. What actually happened was that the coalition forces had established a military stronghold in Baghdad's "Green Zone." Equating the existence of this base with the "control of Baghdad," it turns out, is like saying that the existence of an American base in Guantanamo Bay means the U.S. has taken control of Cuba. Four years, hundreds of billions of dollars, and 3,300+ American deaths later, U.S. forces are still hoping to take control of Baghdad, perhaps within the next six months. Or perhaps within the six months after that.

Anyway, back to Andrew Natsios. Here is the transcript of his conversation with Koppel:

TED KOPPEL (Off Camera): Well, it's a, I think you'll agree, this is a much bigger project than any that's been talked about. Indeed, I understand that more money is expected to be spent on this than was spent on the entire Marshall Plan for the rebuilding of Europe after World War II.

ANDREW NATSIOS: No, no. This doesn't even compare remotely with the size of the Marshall Plan.

TED KOPPEL (Off Camera): The Marshall Plan was $97 billion.

ANDREW NATSIOS: This is $1.7 billion.

TED KOPPEL (Off Camera): All right, this is the first. I mean, when you talk about 1.7, you're not suggesting that the rebuilding of Iraq is gonna be done for $1.7 billion?

ANDREW NATSIOS: Well, in terms of the American taxpayers contribution, I do, this is it for the US. The rest of the rebuilding of Iraq will be done by other countries who have already made pledges, Britain, Germany, Norway, Japan, Canada, and Iraqi oil revenues, eventually in several years, when it's up and running and there's a new government that's been democratically elected, will finish the job with their own revenues. They're going to get in $20 billion a year in oil revenues. But the American part of this will be 1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this.

Since then, "the American taxpayers" have spent at least half a trillion dollars -- at least five times the total cost of the Marshall Plan. Chunks of money several times greater than Natsios' figure have simply gone missing and the monthly cost to the U.S. is more than $8 billion.

In 2006, President Bush appointed Andrew Natsios as the administration's special envoy to Darfur.

Back to the Philippines

I'm not at all pleased to be linking to The American Spectator, but they've published a piece by William Tucker that's worth reading: "Iraq and Counterinsurgency."

Tucker isn't optimistic about America's prospects in Iraq:

What we have in Iraq is a series of American fortifications where soldiers live a life that reasonably mirrors conditions back home and then once a day or week put on "full battle rattle" and risk their lives by venturing into what is essentially hostile territory.

Granted we have a lot of people on our side and a sizable portion of the population wants us to stay. ... But no American soldier goes anywhere in Iraq without full body armor and a humvee. Helicopter flights are made at night and under conditions of extreme secrecy. Anyone with a rifle is a potential insurgent and there are thousands of them. There is no margin of safety.

He points out that the models for the current counterinsurgency campaign "are from colonial experiences" and examines what he considers "the best analogy to Iraq," the American experience in the Philippines in the first half of the 20th century, beginning in 1898:

We were anti-colonialists ... and our general public declaration was that we would soon grant the Philippines its independence.

Once in possession of the Islands, however, people began to have second thoughts. Were the Philippines really capable of governing themselves? Didn't they need some political experience? Wouldn't they benefit from the tutelage of an advanced country like the United States? Maybe we should hang on to them awhile.

President William McKinley was firmly in favor while his 1896 Democratic opponent William Jennings Bryan led the opposition. ...

The "insurgency" broke out a year later when two American privates on patrol killed three Filipino soldiers in San Juan, a suburb of Manila. While Admiral Dewey had not suffered a single casualty in the Battle of Manila Bay and the whole Spanish-American War only produced 332 deaths, the counterinsurgency was much costlier.

Over the next fifteen years, 126,000 American soldiers were engaged in the conflict. A total of 4,234 died, along with 16,000 Filipino insurgents. The poorly equipped Filipinos were easily overpowered by American troops in open combat but mounted a formidable guerrilla campaign. Atrocities were committed by both sides. Estimates of civilian deaths, largely from famine and disease, ranged between 250,000 and 1,000,000.

The insurgency lasted fifteen years, on and off, even as we tried to establish civilian institutions. ...

I've written about this parallel before (see "Thrilla in Manila") believing, like Tucker, that we seem to be repeating the mistakes we made 100 years ago.

But if you tune in to cable news, you'll hear near-unanimous agreement about a very different lesson from the American experience in the Philippines. There no one remembers or much cares about the 4,234 American soldiers killed, or the hundreds of thousands of dead Philippine civilians, or the way America stumbled from the ideals of the Monroe Doctrine to become, itself, an oppressive occupying colonizer. According to the Beltway sages, none of that is what's really important.

All that matters to the punditocracy is this: McKinley won the election. Bryan lost. The pointless occupation of the Philippines may have led to slaughter and may have damaged out national interest and corroded our national character, but it was good politics. If Democrats in Congress today don't listen to their advice and get with McKinley's program, they warn, they'll end up losers -- just like William Jennings Bryan.

If a war is popular, they argue -- and to their way of thinking, war is always popular, never mind what the people actually think -- then the war is right. Even if the war is, by definition, unwinnable, you can still pretend you won, shouting down anyone who points out the truth by calling them "the party of surrender." Elections don't usually work that way. In an election, you can't just continually define-down victory until it looks just like defeat. So from the pundits' perspective, wars are easier than elections. It only makes sense then (to them) to focus on winning elections instead of avoiding wars you can't win.

If you want to know where this conventional wisdom conventionally leads, take a closer look at the American experience in the Philippines.

Road to Damascus

March 30, 2007. White House Press Briefing by Dana Perino:

Q So specifically on this one -- this will be the highest-ranking U.S. official to go to Syria since the Hariri assassination, even before that, and apparently she's going to meet with President Assad. Would you have a specific message to the Speaker of the House about meeting with President Assad at a time when the administration has even withdrawn our ambassador from Damascus?

MS. PERINO: Well, again, I don't know if anyone has spoken to the Speaker. I do think that, as a general rule -- and this would go for Speaker of the House Pelosi and this apparent trip that she is going to be taking -- that we don't think it's a good idea. We think that someone should take a step back and think about the message that it sends, and the message that it sends to our allies. I'm not sure what the hopes are to -- what she's hoping to accomplish there. I know that Assad probably really wants people to come and have a photo opportunity and have tea with him, and have discussions about where they're coming from, but we do think that's a really bad idea.

April 2, 2007. Associated Press photo:

CAPTION: Syrian President Bashar Assad, left, meets with a three-man delegation from the United States House of Representatives, in Damascus on Sunday, April 1, 2007. Representatives Frank Wolf, Joe Pitts and Robert Aderholt flew in Damascus on Saturday on a two-day visit ahead of the U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Syria's on Tuesday. Pelosi is the highest-ranking American politician to come to Syria since relations began souring in 2003. The visit came in response to mounting U.S. calls to engage Damascus to bring stability to the Middle East region.(AP Photo/Sana)

That would be Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., and Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala. All Republicans. As you can clearly see, however, none of them is drinking tea.

Here's another shot of the same delegation meeting with Syrian Grand Muftti Sheikh Ahmad Bakr Eddin Hassoun on Saturday in Damascus. The Muftti is on the left, explaining to Rep. Pitts why brown shoes don't make it (AP Photo/Bassem Tellawi).

After spending the weekend railing against Pelosi's trip while ignoring the delegation from his own party, President Bush finally dropped the partisan charade today, saying:

We have made it clear to high-ranking officials, whether they be Republicans or Democrats, that going to Syria sends mixed signals -- signals in the region and, of course, mixed signals to President Assad. And by that, I mean, photo opportunities and/or meetings with President Assad lead the Assad government to believe they're part of the mainstream of the international community, when, in fact, they're a state sponsor of terror; when, in fact, they're helping expedite -- or at least not stopping the movement of foreign fighters from Syria into Iraq; when, in fact, they have done little to nothing to rein in militant Hamas and Hezbollah; and when, in fact, they destabilize the Lebanese democracy.

That's an uncharacteristically articulate expression of Bush's standard don't talk to Bad Guys approach -- the same approach that has produced, among other things, a nuclear North Korea.

Much of the reaction to the White House's previous hypocrisy -- attacking Speaker Pelosi while ignoring Reps. Wolf, Pitts and Aberholt -- rightfully focused on the absurdity of the it's-OK-if-you're-a-Republican double standard. But at least that double-standard got it half right, as opposed to President Bush's amended comment today -- "whether they be Republicans or Democrats" -- which is consistent, but consistently wrong.

I don't know what Wolf et. al. said during their visit with Syria's president, but the visit itself was a good idea. This is how grown-up countries, and grown-up people, behave. Talk first. Only fight if you have to.

And talking with Syria is something that the Iraq Study Group said we would have to do if we are to have any hope of a tolerable ending to our misadventure in Iraq:

Given the ability of Iran and Syria to influence events within Iraq and their interest in avoiding chaos in Iraq, the United States should try to engage them constructively. ...

Like Iran, Syria is content to see the United States tied down in Iraq. That said, the Syrians have indicated that they want a dialogue with the United States ...

Dealing with Iran and Syria is controversial. Nevertheless, it is our view that in diplomacy, a nation can and should engage its adversaries and enemies to try to resolve conflicts and differences consistent with its own interests. Accordingly, the Support Group should actively engage Iran and Syria in its diplomatic dialogue, without preconditions. ...

The United States should engage directly with Iran and Syria in order to try to obtain their commitment to constructive policies toward Iraq and other regional issues. In engaging Syria and Iran, the United States should consider incentives, as well as disincentives, in seeking constructive results.

The problem now is that, thanks to President Bush, America is so desperately entangled in Iraq that we need the help of unfriendly countries like Syria (and, yes, Iran) more than they need our help. Having actively squandered nearly every bit of leverage we might have had in talks with Syria, and having recklessly frittered away much of America's diplomatic influence and respectability, Bush now has the gall to complain that talks with Syria might not produce instantaneous results.