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Three simple points about Iran/NIE
These don't qualify as news, given no doubt voluminous discussion overnight (my time) in the U.S. Still, for my own personal record:
1) The report is unambiguously good news, of the sort we're not accustomed to receiving in recent years from that part of the world. At least it's good on the merits -- more on the politics below.
The Iran-hawks who have said that an Iranian nuke would threaten the very survival of the West should be relieved to hear that the threat is not at hand. The Iran-doves who have claimed that Iran could be turned away from the nuke path through diplomacy, delay, incentive, threat, etc should be grateful for evidence that something other than a U.S. military strike changed the Iranian leadership's mind. If an Iranian weapon would have been bad for America, for Israel, for Europe, and in the deepest sense for the Iranian people themselves, then all of those parties are now better off.
2) For nearly three years, "yes, they will" / "no, they wouldn't dare" arguments about the Bush Administration's intentions have raged within the press and among analysts. The question was whether the president and vice president might actually go ahead and order a preemptive air or land strike against Iran -- despite the absence of clear Congressional approval, despite the obvious lack of support within America's professional military, despite the overwhelming evidence that in the crudest sense a military approach could not work. I've been in the "they wouldn't dare" camp -- and have urged members of Congress to remove doubt by prohibiting use of funds toward this end. Other writers and analysts have consistently said: No, just you wait, it's coming, these guys are determined to get the job done.
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Armenians, Cubans, and AIPAC
A way to think about the Walt-Mearsheimer book and related controversies:
- To the (large) extent that the Armenian-American lobby ginned up support for a pointless and destructive resolution condemning sins of the Ottoman Empire, it advanced its own causes at the expense of larger American interests. The people who did this are mainly from one ethnic group (Armenian-American) and of one religion (Christian, notably Armenian Apostolic or Armenian Orthodox).
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- To the (huge and obvious) extent that the Cuban-American lobby has muscled the United States into its small-minded and punitive embargo of Castro's Cuba these last 45 years, it has advanced its own causes at the expense of larger American interests. The people who have done this are mainly from one ethnic group (Cuban-American) and of one religion (Christian, notably Roman Catholic).
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- To the (ongoing) extent that AIPAC -- the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which calls itself "America's Pro-Israel Lobby" -- is trying to legitimize a military showdown between the United States and Iran, it is advancing its own causes at the expense of larger American interests. The people who are doing this are not from one ethnic group in the conventional sense but are mainly of one religion (Jewish).
To observe these patterns, and warn against them (including the disastrous consequences of attacking Iran), is not to be anti-Armenian, anti-Orthodox, anti-Cuban, anti-Catholic, or anti-Semitic. Nor is it to deny that members of each lobby claim, and probably believe, that what they're recommending is best for America too. But in these cases they're wrong. And noting these groups' power and potential to distort policy mainly means recognizing that James Madison's warnings about the invidious effects of "faction"* apply beyond the 18th century in which he wrote.
* Federalist 10: "By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community."
Update/correction on previous CNN item
For oddball tech reasons, I am unable to update the previous CNN item without breaking all existing links to it. So I'll add the new info this way.
The original item said:
* Michael Ware, usually a very, very tough critic of U.S. policy, narrates a perilous drive through Baghdad and refers maybe 50 times to "al Qaeda" threatening to attack him or Iraqi civilians.
Actually Ware's drive was deep into al Anbar. (Anderson Cooper was narrating the drive to the Baghdad airport -- I'm pretty sure.) Sorry for that misrecollection. The real point concerned Ware's repeated references -- and Cooper's, and those of everyone else during the hour or so of CNN coverage I saw -- to "al Qaeda" (along with Iran) as the adversary in Iraq.
Not "al Qaeda in Iraq," as President Bush himself is typically careful to say. Not "AQI," as the U.S. military typically puts it on its charts and PowerPoints. From CNN it was plain old "al Qaeda."
To U.S. viewers, plain old "al Qaeda" is the organization that attacked America six years ago. I don't see CNN consistently enough to be sure when they began applying this term to fighters within Iraq -- or whether it's a phenomenon of more than this one show. But on the basis of its unvarying use by a number of correspondents on this one show, I would have to assume that the change in terminology reflects a shift in "house style," as we in the media biz call it. Michael Ware himself, whom I don't know but do admire, has been the very opposite of a patsy for the Administration in his reporting from Iraq.
So why the change in CNN labeling? It's a mystery to me.
On the problem of rogue states
Within the last two two weeks, Chinese military hackers reportedly tried to break into secure servers run by the German and U.S. governments. German and U.S. officials have reportedly both complained – for reasons spelled out in this story by David Lague: How can they trust Chinese leaders' assurances of non-threatening intent if they can't be sure the People's Liberation Army sees things the same way? The PLA's successful test of an anti-satellite weapon early this year awakened the same fears.
Yes, having some degree of certainty, of reasonable boundaries, about what a nation might and might not do is an important element of international stability. With that point in mind, think of this: No one on earth can be sure that the U.S. government will not launch an aerial strike or a land invasion of Iran in the next 16 months.
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What I wanted to ask Bill Clinton
(Resurrected from Aspen blog site)
A year ago, I had the chance to interview Bill Clinton on stage at the Aspen Ideas festival. (Description of the oddity of the whole situation here; video archive here.) This year Rick Stengel of Time magazine ably played that role. During the time for audience questions, I queued up to ask Clinton about something he had said. But as the clock ticked down at the end of the session, Stengel announced that there was time for one more question -- and the turn belong to a woman just ahead of me (and, to be fair about it, I'd already had more than my chance to pose questions to Clinton).
Here is what I wanted to ask. Sometime I would love to hear an answer:
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Am I being too rational? The prospect of war on Iran
Starting late in 2004, I have been writing that the United States could not rationally comtemplate attacking Iran. (For reasons laid out in 2004, 2006, and 2007.) Through that time I have been arguing with friends, adversaries, and people I do not know, all of whom keep saying: rational or not, it's coming!
This dispute is strange in one obvious way.
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Blind Into Baghdad: America's War In Iraq
Free Flight: Inventing the Future of Travel
Breaking the News
Looking at the Sun
