text: A Presidential Briefing Memo on the Middle East
  My colleague Flynt Leverett has just published a superb American Prospect article that I discuss below -- but its excellence compels me to start with concerns about the President's key advisor on the Middle East, Elliott Abrams.
  Few would question that Elliott Abrams is a brilliant guy. In many ways, he's a much more sophisticated version of the bombastic John Bolton, who has been quite successful in a pugnacious way at promulgating Jesse Helms' vision of American foreign policy -- as disagreeable and alarming as most find that to be.
  But Abrams is a great strategist. Many like him, but he is a shape-shifter when it comes to figuring out who he ultimately works for and collaborates with. Sometimes his boss is Stephen Hadley. Sometimes it is Cheney himself or Cheney's chief of staff, David Addington. Other times, Abrams works hard to convince Condi's people that he is on their side -- though they know not to trust him. George Bush is so unclear about the direction he wants to go that in times when Abrams needs ambiguity, Bush is saluted as his task-master.
  Abrams is Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Global Democracy Strategy (with a special focus on Middle East Affairs), and he is one of Israel's protectors, defenders, and key stewards in the White House. Frankly, there are many defenders of israeli security in the White House -- and I would be one as well, but not at the cost of long-term stability in the Middle East that secures 'both' Israeli and Arab interests.
  If he was also concerned about America's state of relations over the long term with the Arab Middle East in addition to Israel's security, Abrams' hyper-closeness to Israel would not be a problem. But Abrams has done much to inculcate many in the White House that helping Israel ultimately means not yielding credible progress on an Israel-Palestine deal or not progressing on deal-making with other Arab neighbors.
  Abrams has helpd turn the Middle East into a zero sum game between the US and Israel on one side and Arab states on the other. As Senator Chuck Hagel stated in a powerful speech at Brookings recently, juxtaposing Israel security against our interests in the Middle East is a dangerous "false choice" that must be avoided.
  Elliott Abrams is pushing that so-called "false choice" in his current job and is undermining Condi Rice's efforts as well as long-term Israeli security. He is preempting moves that might lead ultimately to peace and stability in the Middle East, and in the end, he's harming America's foreign policy portfolio -- damaged as that already is from running into a quagmire in Iraq.
  Abrams should be suspended in his current position; recused because of his bias and blind-spots on Middle East policy and assigned a new task -- like getting the federal budget balanced, or some other herculean effort that might satisfy Abrams' pretensions without causing the nation much damage.
  The person the President should consult with in his stead is Flynt Leverett, my new colleague at the New America Foundation (and I should hasten to add here that Flynt Leverett not only does not know I am preparing this post but will probably object).
  Leverett's brilliant expose, "Illusion and Reality:.
  Let me just highlight some of the many points I found illuminating in this important piece. I'm just going to number some of them to help those who don't have time to read the article get the gist of its brilliance:
  1. Leverett opens by describing that he was one of a few who worked most of the night of September 11, 2001 to produce a "diplomatic strategy for assembling an international coalition" in response to the attacks that day. In other words, Powell and others knew that lining up nations on our side -- diplomatically -- was vital for success. In addition, Leverett helped co-author a "comprehensive diplomatic strategy" for supporting a so-called war on terrorism, and this plan included deal-making with states to end support for anti-Israel terrorism in return for "positive strategic relationships with Washington." Developing a credible plan to lead Israel and Palestine towards a credible, two-state solution was also part of this package.
  2. America was to use carrots, not just sticks in moving actors in the international system. By the time the administration had taken its unilateral turn, all that the administration pushed were sticks -- no more carrots. "Traditional allies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia" were implicitly threatened without much regard to our need for their stabilizing influence given other disruptions in the region we were planning to trigger.
  3. Leverett's unsentimental prognosis now reads:Three and a half years after the invasion of Iraq and five years after 9-11, the outbreak of armed conflict between Israel and radical groups in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon has revealed how badly the president's chosen Middle East strategy has damaged the interests of the Unite States and its allies in the region. . .
  4. Leverett profiles the consequences of abandoning the "realist legacy" in the White House foreign policy decision making process and argues that in consequence, "over the last five years, U.S. policy in the Middle East has emboldened radicals and weakened moderates."
  I would personally add to this that our policy has united America's enemies and divided our friends, further undermining America's ability to achieve its global objectives.
  5. Leverett suggests that the administration's democratization agenda -- pursued on the cheap -- has been utterly disastrous. He writes "the administration's three examples of US-engineered democratic empowerment in the region -- Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon -- are all basket cases."
  6. One of the most interesting sections of this fascinating piece was Leverett's confirmation that there is a dramatic fault line between Ismail Haniya and those in government from Hamas in Palestine and Khalid Meshal in Damascus who is in control of Hamas' "external branch." The closer Haniya came to securing de facto recognition of Israel and working out a compromise on such with Mahmoud Abbas, the harder Meshal worked to "re-radicalize the Arab-Israeli arena" and undermine the authority and legitimacy of Haniya. What is incredible is that America let Meshal get away with this -- and accidentally or perhaps intentionally -- the US helped undermine the best chance Israel and Abbas and we had to pacify Hamas and break from it its militant wing, which then might have been isolated and perhaps even crushed by recognized legitimate authority holding power in the Palestinian government.
  7. Leverett suggests that the administration's direction, at this point, is tough to alter. He writes: "Although Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her team seem sporadically motivated to try to take policy in a more realist direction, their impact remains limited to tactical matters." In other words, Leverett is arguing that Rice -- even if she had the right instincts -- does not know how or is unwilling to play a winning hand against Cheney and Co.
  8. Leverett just doesn't suggest that American strategy is completely moribund and counter-productive in the Middle East. He offers a way out, in five parts:a. The United States needs to widen its approach to defusing the current crisis to include direct engagement with both Syria and Iran;
  b. The United States should convey its interest in a broader strategic dialogue with the al-Assad regime in Damascus, with the aim of re-establishing US-Syrian cooperation on important regional issues and with the promise of significant strategic benefits for Syria clearly on the table;
  c. Washington should indicate its willingness to pursue a "grand bargain" with Iran, in which the Islamic republic would accept restraints on its nuclear activities and abandon its support for the terrorist activities of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah in return for US commitments not to use force to change Iran's borders or form of government, to lift unilateral sanctions, and to normalize bilateral relations;
  d. The United States and key partners should articulate a more substantive vision for a two-state solution to the Palestinian question, including paramaters for resolving key final-status issues that would meet the minimum requirements of both sides. This vision should incorporate the Saudi-initiated Arab League peace plan;
  e. While the Unites States should engage moderate Arab partners more systematically on economic reform and human rights, Washington should drop its insistence on early resort t open electoral processes as a litmus test for "democratization."
  Concurring with Leverett, this is what Richard Haass, currently President of the Council on Foreign Relations, has termed "ballotocracy."
  9. Leverett also reminds readers that Kissinger was only partial parent to the kind of realism applied to American foreign policy. He writes:. . .it was the 20th century's greatest Democratic secretary of state, Dean Acheson, who defined a fundamentally realist paradigm for U.S. foreign policy in Europe during the Truman administration that laid the foundations for eventual peaceful victory in the Cold War.
  One of the depressing factors about modern geo-strategic realities is that while Leverett and many others think that the time we are in in the Middle East is actually ripe for "grand bargain" strategic solutions that achieve fascinating and important new opportunities and equilibriums -- there are no Kissingers, Achesons, Brzezinskis, or Scowcrofts in sight to move us there.
  Much like Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation once told to me, Leverett concludes his piece with "realism has become the truly progressive position on foreign policy."
  I hope that some smart policy entrepreneur figures out a way to steal Flynt Leverett's core logic of this piece -- and his systematic treatment of costs and opportunities associated with various policy choices facing America in the Middle East -- and pastes them together for a presidential briefing memo.
  While I am lucky to be working with Leverett at the New America Foundation on a wide array of subjects, it became clear to me after reading this article that this piece really should have been written for the President of the United States.
  Update: Flynt Leverett will be speaking at the New America Foundation about this article on September 5. Email me if you would like an invitation. Michael Tomasky, Editor of The American Prospect and I will both be offering some extra commentary as well.
  Also, if you would like to download a pdf version of this article, do so by clicking here.
  -- Steve Clemons is Senior Fellow and Director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation and publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note.
  Clemons writes: "Stunning article... its excellence... brilliant expose... illuminating... important... brilliance... fascinating piece... lucky to be working with [him]...
  Obviously there's something going on here I haven't been let in on... but come to think of it, it's OK, I don't want to know.
  Meanwhile, the piece makes good points, all of which have been made on this blog at one point.
  Oops, my bad, there's one point I haven't seen here yet: the rehab of big-ass bitch Kissinger as the kind of man to "move us there."
  Oy vey, baby... let's get the war criminals on board and we'll be just fine...
  Kissinger, the man who "empowers the moderates and marginalizes the radicals." hmmm... let me think... Pinochet, the Argentinian junta, East Timor, Cambodian bombing campaign (which gave us Pol Pot). Yep, sounds about right.
  That someone here would hold up Dear Henry as the kind of man we should be emulating is so... what's the word? Yes, that's the one.
  August 22, 2006 10:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
  Exceptional article. Hopefully you contact C-Span about tapeing and eventually broadcasting the New American Foundation discussion in September.
  I particularly appreciated his description of Democratic approaches as Neo-con lite. I suspect that is true among elected officials, but many past appointees as well as factions within the party do have other ideas, and calling them Neo-con lite may help in bringing forth those who are not of that mind.
  August 22, 2006 10:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
  Do you think Leverett actually got paid for that boring, conventional piece of dreck? There's not an original thought in it.
  August 22, 2006 10:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
  Elliott Abrams is "brilliant"? "Few would deny" it? D. C. really is a different planet, isn't it?
  August 22, 2006 10:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
  For the younger and/or less aware, a bit of background on Eliott Abrams follows.
  In the Reagan era Iran-Contra Investigation, Abrams confessed to being a liar, and copped a plea to two misdemeanor counts of lying to Congress in order to weasel out from under multiple perjury charges hanging over his head. GHW Bush pardoned Abrams, as one of his last official acts as President.
  MachoCons, like the also pardoned by GHW Bush, Duane Clarrige, have publicly mused whether Abrams is afflicted with genitalia deficit disorder, because he rolled over and begged like a good puppy when the Independent Investigator into Iran/Contra started applying the thunb-screws.
  So the Republican Party, which attempted to take down a president for lying in a deposition given as testimony in a civil sexual harassment case so frivolous, it was tossed summary judgement, stand fully in support of a man who lied under oath to congress multiple times regarding a presidential administration's waging of illegal war, and illegally supplying known terrorists with modern weaponry in a Faustian bargain to get them to intercede on behalf of American hostages taken by other terrorists, while the President was loudly proclaiming that he'd never negotiate with terrorists.
  Contemporary Conservatism has a preponderate predilection to engage in moral relativism.
  August 23, 2006 4:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
  Are you aware of the recently released document detailing Henry's "Particularly Loquacious Day", engaging in treachery, and selling out South Vietnam to China in a secret meet with Zhou en-Lai?
  When musing about
  the desirability of realists over NeoCons;
  Never forget the Nixon DarkEvil.
  August 23, 2006 4:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
  I dislike Kissinger as much as some of the others here but I suspect that Leverett's reference to Kissinger was intended to persuade conservative readers of the wisdom of taking a more realistic approach to the Middle East. Conservatives would be less receptive to Madeleine Albright, to name one example, as a model.
  But I can't help reading Leverett's article as an obituary of political realism and shudder to think what 2 and 1/2 more years of American ideological fanaticism, incompetence and militarism will to the Middle East.
  August 23, 2006 4:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
  It doesn't rehab Kissinger. He's mentioned in a list of other Secretaries of State.
  Yes, Kissinger is reprehensible. However, if Leverett wants to talk to conservatives, he has to at least name-check him. Sometimes it's necessary to use a softer instrument than a 2x4 to get a point across (and of course, sometimes it's necessary to use the 2x4. this isn't that time though.)
  August 23, 2006 6:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
  I don't see this as treachery, but appropriate realism. The South Vietnamese government (Republic of Viet Nam) was, by then, a series of military juntas, with a powerless National Assembly. Corruption was rampant, down to the village and hamlet level, the level at which most Vietnamese society works. Humanitarian supplies were routinely diverted to the black market by province and district chiefs.
  South Viet Nam, unfortunately, never had a government that was seen as responsive by the bulk of the population. Under the Diems, the government was responsive to the Catholic minority, but actively repressive of other groups in its heterogeneous population.
  It did not take a doctorate in international relations to see that the RVN government had no long-term holding power, and, to use a Soviet phrase I've always found descriptive, the correlation of forces was such that it would take a miraculous change in the RVN for the North (and the surviving token VC not to win).
  Reality is sometimes unpleasant, and deals with the least bad alternative. Had US policy been different, as far back as 1945 with the OSS Patti mission to Ho and others, and the resulting postwar policy did not begin with reinstalling French colonialism, we might have had very different results. One can look at Viet Nam today, and see a market economy with increasing liberalization, under the "Communists". That might have happened decades earlier, without the benefits of Dien Bien Phu, the Tet Offensive, and the desperate withdrawal of US personnel and random allied personnel.
  --
  Howard
  *equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
  August 23, 2006 6:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
  Things are getting rather Toynbee-ish. Great Power at cusp of decline searches for external enemy (terrorism, Iraq) to rally the population. Finding nothing suitable it works to create one (Iran, Hezbollah).
  We are becoming Rome in its later years---a cultural icon but increasingly easy to ignore and not wise to depend on. Political, cultural, and technological innovation will increasingly come from elsewhere.
  Remember the 50s? We did not know much about our apparent enemy, the Soviets, so we encouraged education, technology, and manufacture. Now we think we know what is happening, so those imperatives are set aside as unneeded while we do favors for the rich and powerful.
  We view the various "barbarians" that attacked Rome as anti-civilisation, but of course they were the ancestors of modern Europe. This time differs in that the Vandals aren't at our door, only in far-off theaters. I find Islamists perhaps equivalent to the close-in threat Rome faced, while China is sort of equivalent to the Islamic civilisation that arose at the fringe of Empire and carried forward the learning once promoted by Greece and Rome.
  August 23, 2006 7:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
  Often these things must be repeated before they can sink into the collective consciousness of the powers-that-be, and blossom into common wisdom.
  August 23, 2006 7:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
  KdmFromPhila,
  Shake it off, and then do everything you can to make sure Santorum doesn't return to the Senate, help your local Democratic candidates for House races reach Congress, and sieze the legislative agenda.
  August 23, 2006 7:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
  Well said. Abrams should not be working for the government - even if he was the last person on earth (which he may be by the time George W. Bush gets done messing up the world).
  Tom
  August 23, 2006 8:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
  Realism, liberal internationalism, wilsonism, jacksonianism...
  What utter nonsense!
  Fancy words dreamed up by political scientists to justify the word "science" in their title.
  The reality is that all of these schools of international relations agree on the essentials. For example, everyone at the CFR will agree that that yucky stuff oozing from the Arabian deserts is part of our "vital interest" and therefore we're perfectly entitled to go to war to keep control over it.
  Now you would think that if political science had a diversity of ideas then there might at least one school, represented at the CFR, that might be called "international equivalency" to give it the kind of silly terminology Walter Russell Mead is so fond of.
  An international equivalencist would argue that the US is no more "entitled" to that yucky stuff than China is to the wood of the Rocky mountains. Funny how the basic rules of capitalism cease to apply the minute the merchandise has to do with "our way of life."
  But you won't hear that. Instead you'll take pathetically minor differences (like who likes to insult his allies and who likes to flatter them) and make schools of IR out of that!
  Now before we wax nostalgic about our ancient heroes....
  Except for China, Kissinger's "realism" was an unmitigated string of disasters.
  Dean Acheson? Ah Truman, what's not to like? Hiroshima, Nagasaki, that was a good start!
  And then we had the Truman doctrine (hello Rachel!) which gave us the Korean war -- that we're still fighting 60 years later! -- and down the road, Vietnam (which at least is over).
  But I guess the Marshall Plan made it all worthwhile...
  With such talk, folks, we're stuck in reverse!
  Back to imperialism with a smile versus imperialism with a frown.
  While you pour gallons of ink on the subject, the train is leaving the station.
  August 23, 2006 8:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
  I'm a devoted reader of Steve Clemons blog, in part because it gives a window into how the Washington elite think. And I mean, on both sides of the table..
  In this context, its unclear from reading Steve's blog whether the Bush administration represents merely a slightly more radical than usual leading edge to the consensus. Or whether the Bush administration has managed to drag the consensus over with it.
  Steve consistently has to play a balancing game. After all, these are people he deals with regularly, whose parties he attends, who he invites to panels and seminars, and whose discussions he hopes to participate in. So generally, he has to be really nice to them... thus the effusive, occasionally ejaculatory praise and the careful diplomacy. He seldom says a harsh word about anyone (Bolton is a notable exception).
  On the other hand, the need to perpetually make nice in order to swim in this pond, I suppose, is a mechanism that reinforces a consensus of trite and pedestrian ideas. There's little room for mavericks, a lot of tolerance for fools and crooks, not much scope for innovation or fresh thinking, and a lot of comfort in groupthink.
  None of which amounts to a judgement against Steve. I certainly respect the way he's clung to his moral foundations in the last couple of years, and hope that he continues to do so.
  My assessment is that the insular hothouse nature of Washington policy has not been turning out particularly good policy. The PNAC neocons are the worst examples of this incestuous inbreeding phenomenon. They do need to open up a lot more to new people and new ideas. Hard to accept an idea like that when you're a SMOTU.
  Still, to Steve's credit, he runs his blog, and he allows and even reads comments. So there's a bit of contact with the outside world.
  August 23, 2006 10:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
  I respect your meta-analysis, but I'd respect it more if you offered your own up-or-down critique of Steve's judgment as expressed in his lede --
  Leverett's "superb American Prospect article [whose] excellence compels me . . . ."
  "Superb" and "excellence" are words which go far beyond the requirements of good manners.
  August 23, 2006 10:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
  One problem in South Viet Nam was that in any free and fair election the wrong people would have won. Democracy was our only exit strategy and it was impossible to implement. Sound familiar? The same is true in Iraq.
  A related problem was that the elites that ran SVN were relics from the colonial past like Hong Kong and South Africa. Once colonialism failed, they had no long term chance of survival. Israel, as presently constituted, is also a relic of a time when colonial powers could draw borders and establish regimes at will. Israel needs to be restablished in a manner in line with present realities before there can be peace in the ME. Otherwise, it will survive, like Algeria and Viet Nam and dozens of other colonies, exactly as long as the sponsoring power is willing to devote the resources to its maintenance.
  August 23, 2006 11:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
  The way the game is played, "superb" and "excellent" don't refer to the contents of what is said but to who says it.
  I mean, if the very same piece had been written by Valdron, Steve might have said: "yeah, yeah..."
  But it was written by a former Bush boy, so that makes it amazing.
  And that's my problem with Steve's gushing like a teenage girl. It's deeply anti-intellectual.
  Because what matters then are not ideas and contents, but the characters behind them.
  Anne-Marie Slaughter is one of the worst offenders, occasionally praising the most extraordinary, amazing, mind-bloggling, breathtaking piece of writing, which says that if we were nicer to each other we'd get along better... duh.
  Einstein's theory of relativity, the Queen of the Night's aria, Tiger Woods's swing are amazing, brilliant, superb, fascinating... NOT the insight that Dear Henry would do a better job in Iraq.
  Quibbles, I guess.
  August 23, 2006 11:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
  Yes; but if he wishes to give credit where credit is due, then, as regards Camp David, he should give credit first to Anwar Sadat, who killed some 2800 Israeli soldiers, cured Israel, for the moment, of its overweaning arrogance, went to Jerusalem, and broke with the Arab dead-enders.
  All while foreign affairs experts -- the Leveretts of yesteryear -- were sitting on their thumbs.
  August 23, 2006 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
  Very well, Ellen. Leverett's analysis appears to be both pedestrian and conventional.
  There you have it. Bi-partisan consensus established by Republican and Democratic strategists, reflecting each others views in the insular little world of Washington.
  This is not to say that its wrong. Its merely a point of view. It is typical of Washington group think that Clemons trumpets it simultaneously as brilliant on the one hand, and relentlessly and absolutely conventional on the other hand. His applause of Leverett is not so much that Leverett has articulated new ideas, but rather, that he has distilled and articulated the common ideas.
  There's no indication that Leverett takes strong objection to the administrion's initiatives. Rather, his quarrels are tactical. More emphasis should have been placed on a genuine coalition of the willing. More 'carrots' should have been used to encourage regional states to help us damp the shock waves of invasion and occupation.
  As for future policy, Leverett's hardly far out of line with the neocons. Take Iran:
  The US should use the threat of force to change Iran's borders or government in order to persuade the Iranians to cut off support to Hamas, Hezbollah etc. and to accept restraints on its nuclear program.
  I'm paraphrasing Steve here. If you look to his article, that's what Steve has said, but it isn't the order that Steve has phrased it in. Steve's phrasing is 'kinder and gentler.'
  On the other hand, that's what it boils down to, and its more or less what the Bush administration is doing now... excepting only that the threat of force is pretty hollow these days, and there hasn't been a threat to change Iran's borders... merely its government.
  When you look at it that way, Leverett is in some ways more hawkish and unrealistic than the Cheney bunch.
  But the point is that Leverett's views and recommendations are not radically different in underlying assumptions or overall thrust from that of the Bush administrations. The notion seems to be that there is an underlying uniformity that extends to them.
  What else? "Engage Arab moderates more systematically on economic reform and human rights." Wow. How shocking! That's really going to make waves. But look here, "Drop insistence on early resort to open democratic processes."
  Bit of a contradictory message there, doncha think? What this amounts to, I think, is largely an endorsement of the Cheney status quo. Or do you figure that Cheney is refusing to engage moderates on economic reform and human rights? Well, I guess that begs several questions. But one of the barometers, one of the measuring indicators of how tolerant a society is of moderates, economic reform and human rights lies with an open electoral process... which Leverett proposes to take off the table.
  What does it all amount to? Not very much really. What Leverett proposes is a 'kinder, gentler, smarter' American foreign policy in the middle east along the same lines as established by Reagan/Bush I/Clinton. Bush II can credibly argue that he himself represents a continuation of that policy. The difference comes down to strategic issues and tactics, rather than premises, assumptions, agendas and goals.
  Does Leverett really deserve this adulation from Steve? I'm afraid not. Words like Brilliant should be used more sparingly and for more appropriate works.
  On the other hand, I can't fault Steve his boyish enthusiasm. And if his language is excessive, well, on occasion, I've suffered the same malady (as you well know) with perhaps less benign intent.
  How's that?
  August 23, 2006 12:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
  Why must articles such as these always be prefaced with a description of the person about to be skewed as "brilliant". How brilliant can someone be who is so consistently, and sometimes criminally, wrong about foreign policy?
  Now we sing the praises of a new brilliant star in the constellation - one that despite great obstacles, managed to stay up all night and write a position paper on prospective alliances.
  August 23, 2006 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
  A different planet? It's a different universe in another dimension.
  "We just hired a new foreman down at the plant."
  "MY GOD! The institution I work for has just engaged the MOST BRILLIANT, EXTRAORDINARY, DAZZLING, PROFOUND, INTELLIGENT GENIUS who ever put fingers to a keyboard and tippy typed a policy paper. And he's so DAMNED MODEST TOO! Of course all of here in D.C. are BRILLIANT, but this genius is more BRILLIANT than all of us combined! And if you'd like to hear him make BRILLIANT pronouncements, tickets are still available.
  August 23, 2006 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
  I'd like to point out that the other side of Steve's post here is a scathing and brutal (in Washington terms) attack on Abrams.
  Of course, this must be done in the Washington community way: So no references to Mr. Abrams lack of integrity (a known and admitted perjurer), lack of character, previous criminal convictions and flirtation with treason. And also, it should be leavened with some sweetness, so there's the de rigeur testimony as to Mr. Abram's brilliance and ability.
  But once you read between those lines, he's opening up with both barrels on Abrams.
  Given the relentless ordinariness of Leverett's article, which he praises, and the manifest unreality of his suggestion, I really do think that the proper way to read Steve's post is that he's decided to blast away at Abrams with everything he's got.
  Note that the essay starts off principally discussing Abrams rather than Leverett. Surely an odd beginning if the intent was nothing more than a Leverett puff piece. To praise Leverett, Steven need not slam anyone at all. Yet literally his first breath is a slam against Abrams.
  His second paragraph slams Abrams as a 'shape shifter.' A polite way of saying dishonest, two faced, bushwacking liar. A guy who can't be trusted.
  His third paragraph is all Abrams again acknowledging his pro-Israel credentials, but arguing that his blundering hurts Israel.
  The next several paragraphs continue to dwell on Abrams. It's all Abrams all the time and none of it is pretty.
  And shot and his corpse urinated on, perhaps? Note the words - should be suspended... recused, bias, blind spots, pretensions, damage...
  Even when he finally turns to trumpeting Leverett, he still can't resist getting in a few more swipes at Abrams.
  The gushing praise of Leverett has its roots, ultimately, in the assertion that he's not a complete boob like Abrams.
  Note the explicit comparisons to John Bolton and Jesse Helms, and the reference to 'disagreeable and alarming.' Steve has never concealed his loathing for Mr. Bolton and his 'pugnacious' approach.
  August 23, 2006 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
  Not bad. Not bad, at all.
  August 23, 2006 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
  BLUSH! GRIN!
  August 23, 2006 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
  Interesting. I see a closer parallel with early 20th Century Russia - a hopelessly inadequate Tsar advised by reactionary, ignorant chauvinists. jmo
  August 23, 2006 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
  One interesting unexamined premise in Leverett's analysis is the emphasis on 'moderate' Arabs.
  What exactly is a moderate arab? Or moderate Iranian? Anyone ever met one? Do they bite?
  Okay, I'm being a touch facetious here. But there is a practical issue.
  The term 'moderate Arab' or 'moderate Iranian' is a largely meaningless truism, whose import and significance to policy makers varies by the time of day.
  The technical description that these guys will give you, if you press them, is that a 'moderate muslim' is a muslim who believes in or advocates western values of constitutional democracy, civil rights, openness, transparency, and free market economics.
  Such a person does not actually exist on the Muslim political continuum, much less exist as a 'moderate.'
  Another definition of a Muslim moderate, slightly more honest, is of a muslim of pro-western sentiments within the political hierarchy of monarchy, theocracy or secular dictatorship.
  Note that this definition is not particularly consistent with the prior definition.
  The true definition of a 'muslim moderate', is essentially a muslim who will cater to western interests and do what he is told. Or who will at least speak to westerners and be prepared to negotiate on somewhat generous terms.
  This definition has only a passing resemblance to the other two, and is often contradictory to one or the other.
  Of course, the problem with all of these definitions is that they have no real relationship to the politics of the Arab or Muslim world, they are completely artificial and arbitrary definitions which rely on externalization.
  In a sense, the 'moderate muslim' is not a construct that reflects actual muslim views, but rather, is defined by the western perception of the muslim's relationship to the west.
  Thus, Oliver North travels to Iran to make contact with 'moderate' Iranian theocrats. Saddam Hussein is a moderate muslim, for a while. The house of Saud are moderates. Tyrants, Theocrats, Monarchists can all be moderates, depending on a particular moment in time when they're perceived to be friendly or submissive.
  At the same time, radical or hard line muslims are defined in terms of hostility to the west in one form or another. So, Saddam Hussein, the House of Saud, etc. etc. are also radical at different points in time.
  The truth is that the Washington boys are trying to define muslim politics by a foreign externality, themselves, with no regard to indigenous or local politics.
  Well, obviously that's not going to work. To give you an example, its like trying to divide dogs into different breeds based on plaid and corduroy. (And if you went 'huh?', then that's my point).
  This is not to say that there are not muslims who believe in secular westernization. This is basically what the Baathists were all about. This is not to say that there are muslims who are accommodating to the west. This describes many of the oil rich repressive monarchies.
  It's not even to say that there are not muslims who believe in and advocate western style civil rights, constitutional government, independent judiciaries and transparent elections... But we really hate those bastards. Y'see, the muslims most prepared to engage western concepts of self determination and civil liberty are also those most likely to be opposed to western meddling and submission of their societies to western political and economic interests.
  It is no wonder that Leverett has no use and no interest in fair elections. He is well aware that such elections would be governed by local politics and would produce people whose interests were antithetical to western interests.
  But at the same time, he refuses to think in any larger sense and accepts the tired cliche of muslim moderates.
  The truth is that any muslim from Ayatollah Khomeini, to Osama Bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is a potential moderate... depending on how much we offer or how desperately he needs us.
  The construct however, will not be reliable. Anyone visted the WTC lately?
  If you want to deal effectively with Arabs or Muslims and have any hope of effecting meaningful change, you have to look at Muslims societies as Muslim societies, and not flexible appendices to Western interests. You have to look at Muslim politics in their own terms and in terms of Muslim societies.
  The concept of 'muslim moderates' is simply eurocentric to the point of racism. It's oblivious and stupid, it is a recipe towards ineffectuality and disaster.
  And I notice that Leverett endorses it.
  Such is the nature of the incestuous, oblivious Washington game.
  So, what does it come down to? The term is meaningless and actively dangerous.
  August 23, 2006 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink.
  My sense is that DC is much like the Vatican: the thinking and talking in our imperial capital is so tightly hemmed in from all directions by orthodoxies, platitudes, rules of etiquette, established hierarchies and prevailing ideological requirements, that it takes a very long time for common sense, clear thinking and informed judgment to work their way up the food chain into the privileged perches occupied by approved elite opinion.
  In the Roman Catholic world, some theologian may from time to time develop an innovative approach to the traditional teachings, and truly break new ground and argue against a hoary old doctrine. Then, several decades later, or even centuries, some portion of that thinking finally makes its way into the official doctrinal statements.
  The things Leverett is saying have been said for several years by many people who do not occupy high-level positions at the White House, Congress or the Washington Post. But perhaps Leverett is a Cardinal of the Washington Church, and so Washington movers like Steve are required to receive his words and promulgate them with the appropriate expressions of admiration, wonder, respect and praise.
  I think this essay shows Steve Clemons at both his best and his worst.
  His description of Abrams's role in the Washington power establishment may be accurate. But note that the description is not accompanied by any quotes from Abrams or his associates, any selections from his writings or speeches, or any other pieces of hard evidence. On what is it based then? Gossip I imagine. That's something that Steve seems to be particularly good at accumulating, and I'm grateful that he passes it on to us.
  But the good stuff often comes along with some bad stuff. It may be unfair to single Steve out, since he only reflects the broader Washington culture, but the blatant flattery, embarrassing obsequy, elaborate courtesies and fulsome pre-emptive apologies appear in an unusually high degree in his essays. I typically find that I have to skip quickly through the first three or four paragraphs to get to the meat of the article. The substance of the essays often comes after tedious preambles that remind one of the dedication pages of the books of courtiers in an earlier age.
  I dislike engaging in these personal observations. I only mention Steve's stylistic habits because they tend, in my opinion, to undermine his credibility. For example, in this piece one is left with the impression that Clemons's personal or professional relationship with Leverett might have lead him to take Leverett on as a sort of cause and help promote his career. The take-down of Abrams appears in the context of what appears to be a piece of lobbying aimed at encouraging some unnamed powers that be of helping to push Leverett's into the president's briefings, sack Abrams and replace him with Leverett. And some of his writings on his blog have given me the impression that Steve's obsessive drive to network has opened him up to unscrupulous manipulation by propagandists and operatives. This frequent mixing of personal relationships and political opinion doesn't enhance Steve's claims on intellectual objectivity.
  August 23, 2006 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
  I was also puzzled by the talk of moderates and radicals, and what exactly it means to empower moderates and undermine radicals.
  But another thing that struck me was the apparent contrast between this passage:.
  and this one:
  Neither Hamas’ external branch nor Hezbollah would have undertaken such provocative initiatives without approval from Syria and Iran.
  On the one hand, we are told Hizbollah is a local social movement with deep roots in Lebanon and the Lebanese Shia community, and has no foreign puppet masters. On the other hand, we are told Hizbollah would not even go so far as to kidnap a couple of Israeli soldiers without "approval" from Syria and Iran. While these statements are not actually inconsistent, they do stand in a certain amount of tension, don't they?
  Of course this is an enormously important question for the interpretation of recent events. On one interpretation, Syria and Iran worked to deliberately provoke a conflict with Israel and to escalate tensions and violence. On another interpretation, Iran and Syria only tried to seize opportunistically on events that were rushing ahead of them with a momentum of their own.
  Given the importance of this question, I wish more of the experts who pronounced upon it would offer some actual evidence for their assertions, one way or another.
  The dominant theme in the Leverett piece, it seems to me, is not really the importance of Kissingerian realism or the value of promoting "moderates" in the Middle East. It is the emphasis on the need for both carrots and sticks in our approach to the region. This is a useful point. The Bush administration seems resolutely opposed to exchanging carrots of any kind with the "evildoers" in the Middle East. But I'm not sure what it has to do with "realism" as such. Surely political thinkers of many stripes recognize the importance of horse trading to get what we want in the world.
  August 23, 2006 5:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
  When realist situationalism plays out as three plus decades of deception, it is treachery.
  Not treacherous? As a timeline referent, Fonda's odious adventure to Hanoi occurred one month after this secret meeting. She is still vilified as a traitor who gave aid and comfort to the enemy, but Kissinger had stated that the N.Vietnamese were not an enemy of America, but were instead the real power in Vietnam, and their lack of trust in the peace negotiations was an irritant, interfering with 'business'. He even laid out a rough 'decent interval' timeline that was essential for a successful victory by the North, an interval between American disengagement, and the North's re-engagement of hostilities:
  Now consider the Miller Institute's exhibit of Nixon Administration Documents: "Seeking a 'Decent Interval' Exit From Vietnam" that begins with the HR Haldeman diary entry:
  As a timeline referent, December, 1970 predates the Winter Soldier Investigation by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (February 1, 1971), and the Dewey Canyon III protests in Washington DC (April 19 through April 22, 1971). The Nixon Administration already viewed Vietnam as a lost cause, but for the sake of the '72 election, delayed what their 'realist' world view saw as inevitable for two more long bloody years. The final document from the Miller Institute exhibit is telling:
  To this day the right-side of the political bipolarity blames the left entirely for the fall of South Vietnam. Recently, even Melvin Laird was dug up to propose an Iraqization plan of disengagement, and he pitched the same crap. It was published in the Council on Foreign Relations publication, "Foreign Affairs", in their November/December 2005 issued, and was titled, Iraq: Learning the Lessons of Vietnam", by Melvin R. Laird.
  It seems that even 'realist' Conservatives are unwilling to accept responsibility for their own actions, as Laird was a Defense Secretary for Nixon 1969-1973, and long term House member from 1952 to 1969, where he sat on key committees. Surely some of the responsibility for Vietnam rests upon his shoulders. Yet he claimed in his article that Nixon lied during his 1968 campaign, and had no plan to end the Vietnam War:
  Laird then went on to blame the left for current problems in Iraq, and actually posits that a war for oil is righteous:
  Laird then laid the blame for the fall of Saigon upon the left:
  Who is the revisionist? Another absurdity of this article is that Laird first claims that Iraq is not Vietnam, then titles a whole section "Vietnamization as the Model". What modeling is he proposing? To secretly sell out the Iraq government to Iran, if they agree to wait a couple of years, and then blame the left for 3+ decades?
  Don't think i am supporting the left here, it's just that, to use the realists' terminology, the Present Danger is from these revisionaries of the right, and they are in my line of sight.
  I am a two-party nihlist.
  August 23, 2006 6:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
  This is a 'what if' I agree with heartily. It cuts directly to the chase about the issues I take with covert government action. If our publicly stated goal is to foster democratic processes, then we must accept unplatable election results as valid, and engage in political manipulations openly. There should be nothing to fear from this, if we are speaking the truth. The truth does win in an open free-marketplace of ideas.
  We should have let the French know that Post WWII was also the time to realise it was an era of Post-colonialism. We should not have run away from elections after discovering that Ho was bound to win, and instead given him the financial support that only we were capable of giving. The Vietnamese culture is extremely capitalistic, and buddhist world views tend to be very understanding of democratic legitimacy in a government. To have given this to the Vietnamese early on, would have made America the liberators, and largely gelded anything that the 'red menace' of the Soviet and mainland China could have offered in response, short of armed invasion.
  We can't be SuperPower
  if we don't truly believe
  in truth, justice,
  and the Dreamtime America.
  August 23, 2006 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
  Valdron - Recognizing your name from the Steve and the Bolton battle I need memory help. What was the name of the woman Steve started pushing as an alternative to Bolton? Patricia?? Maybe Steve is doing the same thing here - piling on the compliments here to position Leverett for something specific?
  Also if I think of the times Steve is most effusive it is with former Bush Administration officials who have come out to contest the Administration position. Steve is constantly trying to build the politically and intellectually viable center to influence this Administration and the next.
  While the precise objective is fuzzy, it is very clear to me that Steve is in advocacy mode. Will be interesting to see where it goes.
  Excellent analysis of Steve's slicing and dicing of Abrams.
  August 23, 2006 7:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
  Yes, but even attacks are always prefaced by some qualifier - Kevin Drum is particularly good at this. Is Abrams a "brilliant thinker"? Why would anyone who has been so consistently, criminally wrong for decades, be considered "brilliant"? Wouldn't that indicate that you were not very bright? The pundit community is so parasitical that they seem to always leave themselves an out, just in case the person they're attacking might be induced at a later date to put a good word in for them under similar circumstances.
  August 23, 2006 7:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
  Leverett's failure is that he was not systematic. The system in question is not longer just a bunch of states. A systematic and thus realistic foreign policy would address the states and the non-state actors and forces. It makes no sense to base a US foreign policy on what used to work, reality has changed.
  A glaring example of the inherent illogic is Hamas. Leverett ignores his own recognition of the 2-headed Hamas, led from outside and inside the territories, with a recovery strategy that does not address the reality he noted.
  August 23, 2006 8:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
  Bingo!
  How big do you think that this community is? The whole 'Washington Power Elite'. The thinkers, the self-styled movers and shakers, the pundits, the lobbyists, the secret masters of the universe.
  Christ, basically, its a few hundred, maybe a few thousand. With a few more thousands of hangers ons. That's it.
  'Inside Washington' is a few thousand people, no larger than a middling sized to small town, really.
  They are sitting on a tide of electoral uncertainty. People get elected, administrations are swept in, and swept out. It's uncertain. You know what happens in uncertainty? People cling together, they network, they form alliances, they kiss each others butts, do favours, make trades.
  Because the thing is that when instability and uncertainty is a part of life, then the one favour you did, that one extra compliment you paid, the guy you didn't insult, or the attack you leavened with praise might mean the difference between having a job or getting the next job, and leaving town with nothing but the clothes on your back.
  And of course, when the community is small and closed in, anyone you deal with, you'll see again and again. Faces last a long time. You may be playing musical chairs with the same sets of people off and on twenty years from now. The enemy you make now may hold a grudge and pay it back in ten years or so.
  Here's an example. I once had occasion to call the Regional Director General of Indian Affairs for Manitoba a liar to their face. The horrible thing was that it was actually true on that occasion. Big mistake. Never accuse a liar of lying when they're in a lie... thats the one thing they never forgive (accusing them of lying when they're telling the truth is okay, its nothing personal). A year later, they got their revenge, petty revenge, but revenge nevertheless.
  Multiply that kind of thing by 10,000 and you see why Steve is so careful to speak so ultra-diplomatically.
  All this is simply human nature, nothing more and nothing less. You can work around it, but it'll always be there.
  At its best, Washington is nothing but a gigantic circle jerk for the good of the country. At its worst, its an inclusive daisy chain of self absorption and self satisfaction. Hence Steve's occasionally ejaculatory prose.
  Frankly, I don't even fault Steve or the Washington culture for it.
  I wish they were smarter as a whole. The level of play is frankly distressingly pedestrian. Any fair sized community produces a brain trust of equal or greater calibre.
  But that's life too. True geniuses are rare. As much as we pretend to a meritocracy, its mostly birth and circumstance that places people in Washington, or Idaho.
  The reality is that basketball players are not 65 feet tall. The human range of height is relatively narrow in terms of the average and in terms of shifts to upper and lower registers.
  Intelligence and ability work the same way. They exist within a relatively narrow range.
  There's a group of people in Washington who decide the fate of the world. You'd think that would call for something extraordinary.
  But the truth is that they're not really all that much more gifted than the organizing Committee for the village fair in Tuscaloosa, Oregon. Sure, there might be a more sophisticated level of play in Washington... but it isn't that much more sophisticated.
  Go to a blue collar neighborhood bar, and you'll find roughly the same levels of talent and intelligence in the Bush... or Clinton cabinets.
  Is this cynical of me? Well, show me the 65 foot tall basketball player then.
  The only thing extraordinary about the people who rule our lives is their egos.
  Ah, but I'm rambling. Don't mind me.
  August 23, 2006 8:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
  Thank you muchly. I'm afraid I'm drawing a blank though...
  August 23, 2006 8:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
  In the movie Nadia, there's a line I rather liked. Van Helsing talks about finally ending Dracula.
  "He was like Elvis, fat and bloated with his own self importance, past his prime and not knowing, surrounded by zombies."
  Maybe America is Elvis. Overweight, overmedicated, bloated with sterile luxury, reflexively shooting television sets, surrounded by sycophants, gorged on its own legend, lost in an imaginary past.
  Or maybe its more like Michael Jackson...
  No, way too creepy.
  August 23, 2006 9:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
  Many "valuable points", but I have some general and particular objections.
  The most general is that Steve recommends someone as a better advisor than sinister Abrams and gutless Rice. Well, Powell was there, and he was just neutered and isolated. As long as Cheney and Rumsfeld are there, and Bush listens to them, everything else is a mere cosmetic.
  Actually, Cheney has Bush's ear only as long as Bush wishes it, so ultimately it comes down to the mentality and preconceptions of Bush himself. This dog will not learn any new tricks. The corollary is that it makes no sense to tailor foreign policy recommendations in a way that could be palatable to the White House. Nothing will.
  Somewhat less general objection is taking "democracy agenda" at the face value. You know, there is a Republic of Korea, and Peoples Democratic Republic of Korea -- one of the Korean states does have "democratic" in its name, and one does not. I would not be surprised if the "democratic republic" had regular elections. Eliott Abrams got his spurs supervising civil wars in Central America where Communists or fellow travellers were fighting with rather fascistic military cliques and death squads. Of course, we were on the side of fascists. So when Abrams says "democracy", my least worry is that he means it in a too literal fashion. Just look at our recent handiwork in Haiti. Two years of unnecessary mayhem and eventually some elections, no thanks to us. Fortunately, Brasil is behaving more responsibly than we do. And what we tried to do in Venezuela also does not follow the paradigm of "spreading democracy".
  After Hamas got parliamentary majority, Israel is hunting down their elected members and putting them on trial for the crime of ... belonging to Hamas, which raises no objections from the supervisor of the "democracy agenda". The elections in Iraq were relatively free because we could not afford to fight both Sunni insurgents and Shia militias, so we agreed with the demands of Sistani -- original plans were rather different. How Lebanon was rewarded for his move toward independence we are still observing -- Israel now tries to put in "on a diet", as she did with Palestinians.
  The third objection is that attempts to engage Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Palestinians etc. require some consessions that would go beyond "we will not attack you, just believe us". In case of Syria, that means Golan. In case of Iran, that would probably mean end of sanctions and written committment to non-agressions, while Iran can fund whoever they please. In case of Lebanon and Palestinians, that would probably mean end of assasinations, kidnappings, blockades, theft and violation of the airspace by "our allies in the region".
  Probably it would not be wise to make all these consessions in one fell swoop, but if we want a lot, we should give a lot. Mere projections of force and resolve will just not do the job.
  August 24, 2006 12:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
  I found the usage of the word "brilliant" particularly annoying. Why must every right-wing crackpot thinker be described as "brilliant"? Abrams is not alone here: Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and Scalia have all earned that compliment at times. I've never seen a shred of brilliance from any of them.
  August 24, 2006 7:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
  I agree with you. One thing I've found, is that D.C. reporters and pundits generally don't know any more about a subject than the average political junkie or anyone interested in an issue. In fact, most seem to know less. They all repeat the same misinformation, the same lies, the same spin, the same "sources" - it's disheartening. Of course, when you're a member of the same social circle that you're reporting on, that's all you hear.
  August 24, 2006 7:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
  I believe it's because their idea of "brilliance" is the amount of gossip and fear someone generates and is still elected/pomoted/nominated and/or appointed to some position in D.C.
  August 24, 2006 7:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
  USA Today: Consumers think Guinness-in-the-bottle ads are 'brilliant!'
  Perhaps because of the Guiness campaign the word "brilliant" is not used for less lofty intelectual achievements than before. There are thing that you can find "brilliant!" while still dead sober, but after a sixpack you can find more, and after two more sixpacks...
  Do I hear "two more sixpacks?" Briliant!
  August 24, 2006 8:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
  I think just the fact that Leverett, a former Bush White House insider who helped craft the administration's ME policy, tore apart Abrams and our foreign policy in the ME is an eye opener. I don't find his suggestions and observations that "groundbreaking", they are just very "conservative". He seems to be saying abandon the failed neocon foreign policy and go for a traditional foreign policy of "sticks and carrots" with a heavy dose of sticks...Like George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. I think most disturbing is that Kissinger's brand of foreign policy is being discussed as "moderate". It tells me the whole foreign policy frame of reference has been shifted far to the right of center.
  He also makes it clear that Bush and Rice aren't the ones with the final say on our foreign policy...Cheney and Rumsfeld are making the calls. Which isn't a big revelation...more like the "worst kept secret". But telling nonetheless.
  August 24, 2006 8:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
  Snicker...
  August 24, 2006 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
  The U.S.'s foreign policy in the Middle East continues to falter due to the President's blind spot in the direction of working toward peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. The answer is and will always be a two state solution. Without that, Israel will continue to be a target, terrorists will continue to have an excuse -- however much a pretense -- for their violence, and the United States will continue to be portrayed as hypocritical. The lack of a two state solution is the real "root cause" the President talks about.
  It's time to stand up and say that the President must devote his attention toward finding atwo state solution about. Click to add your voice.
  August 24, 2006 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
  I agree. Sinister is not brilliant. I brilliance was even on the table, Hugo Chavez wouldn't still be in power. Elliott botched that one real good. What will he botch next?
  Neoboho
  August 24, 2006 8:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
  I thought it unnecessary to do anything but add a 4 rating and move on with absolutely nothing else to add to your superb up-or-down critique:
  Reviewing the discussion since I still feel the same way. What can one say to people who see conventional dreck and start debating the magnificence or otherwise of the (previous) Emperor's old clothes.
  BTW Elliott Abrams is a well known "operator" notorious for dismantling most of the gorilla regimes the US supported in Latin America and for having sold Israeli arms to Iran to fund the contras against the Sandinistas. He's also a conservative Jew who regards "Israelism" as a threat to his faith.
  Strikes me as an ideal choice for the job of reversing Leverett's "old think" policies that perpetuated regional stagnation by propping up "moderate Arab" autocracies and allowing "Greater Israel" expansionism to flourish and especially suitable for shouting at Iran a lot while actually moving against Sunni dominated autocracies.
  Bush would have to be an idiot to confront the Israel lobby head on instead of outflanking and marginalizing it. But the extent to which it has now been outflanked and marginalized with everyone complaining that the administration is bad for Israel at the same time as believing it is fanatically pro-Israel could only have been achieved by an operator of rare talent.
  August 25, 2006 9:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
  The internal decision to get out of Vietnam was actually taken at a meeting in 1968 shortly after the Tet offensive. (Documented in the Pentagon Papers - from memory it was mid-May).
  On the same weekend as the Xmas 1972 bombing of Hanoi the US cut off funds from the puppet regime in south Vietnam until it agreed to sign the Paris peace agreement, which finalized the actual withdrawal a few weeks later, with Saigon not actually becoming Ho Chi Minh city until a "decent interval" of a couple of years later.
  The point of all this was to preserve the sense of powerlessness which it is vital for any ruling class to inculcate in the ruled.
  Likewise the decision to get out of the West Bank was taken years ago and recent events in which Israel bombs Lebanon to demand what it had always opposed - an international force at its borders ending the dream of "Greater Israel", bear an uncanny resemblance.
  In backing Leverett's rear guard defence of a grand strategy that imploded with 9/11 the pseudo-left is merely playing its usual role of telling people that the empire always wins and never retreats instead of actually analysing the retreat from empire in the Middle East that is increasingly obvious.
  Promoting democracy instead of "stability" is the exact opposite of what the US has always stood for. Its not surprising that Washington insiders just don't get it and its not surprising that pseudo-leftists just don't get it either.
  They never understood the US defeat in Vietnam and they probably never will. Even with the archives making it absolutely plain that Nixon was retreating from Kennedy's imperial expansion, you still don't get it that Bush is retreating from decades of US support for autocratic stagnation in the Middle East.
  August 25, 2006 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
  You wouldn't happen to be able to proffer a real citation for this would you?
  There is an online html'ed version of
  The Pentagon Papers - Gravel Edition
  Boston: Beacon Press, 1971
  hosted by Mount Holyoke College servers in the namespace of their Ruth C. Lawson Professor of International Politics, Vincent Ferraro. I've used some of his online documents before, and have found them to be faithful scans of the originals. It has also caused me to realise how shortchanged I was in my University Education, since I never had the fortune of receiving instruction from a professor who referred to himself as 'Vinnie',
  I am very sceptical of most conspiracy theories. Usually, they fail a simple logic analysis at at their foundation, because they posit a level of intelligence as the product of group thought, that in the real world has a probability of occurring at a frequency which statistically is insignificantly greater than nil. Still, I would take any proper attribution to the Pentagon Papers seriously, and check it out.
  I am still unsure if your post was serious or not though. Are you actually placing the entire blame for the Vietnam War upon "Kennedy's imperial expansion", and that the die had been cast to give up South Vietnam prior to Nixon's first election to the Presidency in November, 1968?
  Are you really claiming that "Bush is retreating from decades of US support for autocratic stagnation in the Middle East"? This, of course, is evident by his acquiescence when a Saudi Prince slips him the tongue publicly Deep in the Heart of Texas. Or maybe by his slimy attempt to let the management of the Port of NY quietly slip into the hands of a loose confederation of Arab Shieks, otherwise known as the state of Dubai. Or by his unyielding defense of democratic principles inherent in his continuing alliance wuth Pervez Musharraf. Or his past several year alliance with the butcher of Andijon, the Nepotic Kleptocrat, Islam Karimov, authoritarian ruler of Uzbekistan.
  Are you trying to prove that the "Real Left" is as afflicted with Intelligence Deficit Disorder (IDD) as the "Real Right" is?
  Yeah, obviously i visited the website listed in your TPM profile, which by the way, brings up another question:
  who annointed you Speaker for the "Real Left"?
  Offer up a real citation to your Pentagon Papers claim, and maybe I'll think you're worthy of serious consideration, ok?
  August 26, 2006 3:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
  The Gravel Edition, available at Mount Holyoke, and, IIRC, Yale's Avalon Project (the latter definitely an excellent resource for Nuremberg), is a four-volume subset of the originally commissioned 40-plus volume Pentagon Papers set.
  Some of the documents in the full DoD set, but not in the Gravel Edition, have appeared in Foreign Relations of the United States, declassified documents from Presidential libraries often at the George Washington University National Security Archives, the CIA FOIA Reading Room [Note 1], etc. Few of these documents refer to their inclusion in the Pentagon Papers full set.
  Does anyone know if there's been a more extensive effort to index those parts of the full set that are available, or, as unlikely as it may be, that the full set was declassified?
  [Note 1] (not, the first screening test being knowing the difference), has now converted most links from http to https, "to ensure privacy". If one is neither expecting https nor experienced enough to try it, some links, which are still available, may be inacessible if you use a.... rather than. Personally, and having had often excellent cooperation from CIA librarians and historians, it always struck me as more sensitive that the CIA knew I was reading their public records than a third party knowing so. Go figure. It's an obscure enough change that I suspect it was technically, rather than politically, motiated.
  --
  Howard
  *equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
  August 26, 2006 6:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
  Greetings Arthur,
  Who are the players here.
  Retreat from empire may be obvious to some, however, "the players" have not acknowledged it to date. That is to say, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Abrams, Hadley, Feith probably Rice in the end; especially not Iran or Syria and finally Israel all show no indication of retreat from empire. Israel's version is always couched as survival.
  While I agree that destabilizing the ME with the promotion of democracy is the BushCo agenda, I'm still not sure who the rest of your cast of characters is. The 'insiders' do too get it they just don't advertise it - not yet
  Kennedy's "imperial expansion" was not that but as I understood it a response to the Boston Cardinal who told him the President of SVN needed help from those nasty communists and so with no further adieu Kennedy sent 15,000 military 'observers' to get the Cardinal off his back.
  As for Bush and autocratic stagnation, you give him too much credit. BushCo wants market access. That's what this is all about and the corporate kingpins are about to lower the boom on the mismanagement in the ME. After all, they want to know how BushCo screwed up access to Iranian crude oil so badly, not to mention all that oil burning in Iraq.
  August 26, 2006 8:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
  A quick scan of the Mount Holyoke Gravel version of The Pentagon Papers returned two possible records:
  --*--*--*--*--*--*--
  the changes in war, only looped iterations:
  alternations between {conflict<->standstill}
  --reality's sum = continuous descent of darkness
  --no honour to be found, and on the return,
  possessing only the honour which remained.
  August 26, 2006 10:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
  Good summary. This is a four but I can't rate comments when I'm not on dial up for some reason.
  Nixon and Kissinger - as despicable as Bush and Cheney.
  Tom
  August 26, 2006 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
  Actually, there's an earlier McNaughton memo to McNamara as perhaps the most damning single document in McNamara's tenure,
  which I wouldn't quite characterize it as "damned if you do, damned if you don't".
  It's a long document, but the key is McNaughton's justification for US involvement:
  In other words, the war was not being fought to contain the Threat of the Yellow Peril, or to help the South Vietnamese. The fundamental purpose, cut brutally to the chase, was to avoid embarrassment, and, patheons forbid, disrupting the egos of McNamara and Johnson.
  --
  Howard
  *equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
  August 26, 2006 7:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
  The same reason Bush is pitching "stay the course"and "fight Islamofascism" today.
  Tom
  August 27, 2006 5:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
  PseudoCyant found the correct location.
  The meeting I referred is described in section "G. THE PRESIDENT PONDERS" on that page:
  I guess I thought it was May because that was when it was first leaked.
  The mealy mouthed "epilogue" comes shortly after because that verdict marked "the end" and the Pentagon Papers themselves were originally produced to analyse how the US had got into that situation of defeat and how to manage the withdrawal. Everything from then on was about how to manage the defeat, including how to present it as a defeat of the puppets rather than of the US, a task started in the epilogue and understood by most of the world as years of "negotiations".
  Incidentally neither the words "Real Left" nor any claim to be its "Speaker" occur anywhere on the web page for as claimed by PseudoCyannts. Nor does the description of the contents of section K of the Epilogue bear much relation to its actual content.
  That web site does contain lots of useful material that has nothing whatever to do with conspiracy theories and is actively hostile to them. It explains the mentality of "pseudos" spouting leftist rhetoric.
  Although it isn't worth reading the whole 40 volume Pentagon Papers I would strongly recommend carefully reading the whole of that one long page to get a feel for how policy is actually made and of the fact that the US policy makers understood they could not win from shortly after the Tet offensive in early 1968, whereas previously they had been debating various different strategies for attempting to win.
  I am simply saying that the reality of Israeli defeat in the West Bank has likewise been obvious for many years now, not just to pretty well everybody else in the world but also to those whose job it is to deny it while managing the withdrawal. That isn't a conspiracy theory its just the way politics works when empires are forced to retreat.
  August 27, 2006 8:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
  Even so, I continue to learn about what happened as more documents become available. I can't give you an exact figure, but I'm comfortable saying I've read in the tens to possibly low hundreds of books on the theater. I am certain that I've read hundreds of documents, often roughly at the time they were written, from Nhan Dan to the MACV Lessons Learned series. I would strongly recommend against trying to draw conclusions about policy in things this complex from tens of long pages. Hundreds to thousands might make you reasonably conversant. Go up an order of magnitude or more before you get a full sense of the bad decisions made by assorted countries, administrations, political parties, and people.
  *sigh* And Arthur Dent keeps asking me why I won't make an uninformed speculation about whether Israel is or is not, from an Israeli perspective, as a result of the US 2003 invasion of Iraq. Has anyone noticed that unless it's for the sake of humor, I try to avoid all uninformed speculations? -- Howard
  *equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
  August 27, 2006 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
  1. The reason McNamara and others needed, given the failure of all their theories, a detailed study to find out what the hell happened was in order for policy makers to be able to formulate policy for managing the withdrawal. That is why the Epilogue to that study comes immediately after the meeting I referred to and subsequent dramatic announcement by Johnson. For insight into the strategy for managing the withdrawal see the stuff from Kissinger and Chou En-lai etc. I was following this stuff closely at the time. We used to have a song "McNamara's War" to the tune of McNamara's Band. From memory the chorus went something like this:
  2. I guess I did have you in mind in advising not to try to gain insight by reading the whole 40 volumes. You learn to swim by swimming and you gain insight into policy making by making policy. I was engaged in policy making in the anti-war movement and consequently had to study enemy (US government) actual as well as declaratory policy since its no use drafting talking point memos for other people to make propaganda with unless you understand what needs to be said in the light of what the other side is actually up to rather than just what they are saying. Otherwise you get trapped into the sort of obsessive focus on answering cognitively dissonant declaratory policy with total confusion and moral posturing that is seen here. Disengaged "experts" are never much good at either history or strategic analysis because they just don't have a feel for what it's about. I say that having been a visiting research fellow at more than one strategic studies organization in more than one country.
  3. My recommendation to read at least that one long page to get a feel for how policy is made in defeat was aimed at others here who clearly don't do any research at all but just speculate. Sorry if it being in reply to you gave you the impression I was implying you had not even read that one long page. It was obvious that you had from your references earlier in the sub-thread so it didn't occur to me that you might take it that way.
  4. I assume your last paragraph is referring to my exchange with you in "Realism about an international force".
  I have just re-read that topic and the links from it including to this.
  I urge you to read them again too and reflect on whether events in the month since then confirm that I was engaging in uninformed speculation or whether they confirm my warning to you that your speculations about the equipment, tactics, weapons systems and rules of engagement for an international force tasked with suppressing rocket attacks from Hezbollah were completely irrelevant and had missed the point of what was actually unfolding before your eyes.
  August 28, 2006 12:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
  You devoted at least several posts to asking me to speculate on the advantages or disadvantages of US operations for Israel, and seemed frustrated that I wouldn't rise to the challenge. Perhaps that comes from some intelligence analyst training -- you either know your topic thoroughly, or you do not offer uninformed opinions in the absence of tactical necessity. I choose not to speculate on things I have no way to know. Apparently, you believe you have insights into minds that I do not. I have not written one thing about an international force tasked with suppressing rocket attacks from Hezbollah. I have written a good deal on what appear to have been Israeli attempts to do so. In addition, I responded to questions about what an international force might do, and my conclusion is "not much." No, I don't think that I have been missing things that I have analyzed, although there is an unfortunate lack of hard data on Israeli actions. Nevertheless, since the IDF, in many cases, uses US equipment, it's reasonable to extrapolate tactics from the capabilities of that equipment -- and, where possible, when deviations from US doctrine was noticeable. Perhaps I am missing the particular ideological conclusions that you might wish me to reach, or believe everyone should have. -- Howard
  *equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
  August 28, 2006 12:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
  Your argument is not compelling. Your original assertion stated:
  This seems to imply that some sort of shadow government exists which makes the real decisions, and that changes in the Executive brought about as the result of the electoral process do not also cause changes in Governmental actions. Why else would you state that "The internal decision to get out of Vietnam was actually taken at a meeting in 1968" if this was not what you meant? The Pentagon Papers citation offers no documentation that any decison had been made to abandon South Vietnam. Instead it only documents that the assembled group recommended negotiation to LBJ:
  This is a far cry from deciding to get out of Vietnam, and it is amusing that you claim this is the documentation that verifies the decision, but must claim that the succeeding parts of the same chapter are untruthful distortions in order to twist it to fit into your analysis:
  Your citation is:
  The Pentagon Papers: Gravel Edition
  Boston: Beacon Press, 1971
  Volume 4
  -Chapter 2, "U.S. Ground Strategy and Force Deployments, 1965-1968
  --Section 4
  ---V. PROGRAM 6, DECEMBER 1967-MARCH 1968
  ----3. "A to Z" Reassessment
  -----G. THE PRESIDENT PONDERS
  The epilogue you say is 'mealy mouthed' is:
  The Pentagon Papers: Gravel Edition
  Boston: Beacon Press, 1971
  Volume 4
  -Chapter 2, "U.S. Ground Strategy and Force Deployments, 1965-1968
  --Section 4
  ---V. PROGRAM 6, DECEMBER 1967-MARCH 1968
  ----3. "A to Z" Reassessment
  -----K. EPILOGUE
  It is absurdity to claim that Vol 4; Chpt 2; Part 3; subsection G of a document validates your proposition, then state that Vol 4; Chpt 2; Part 3; subsection K of the very same document must be ignored, as it is untruthful.
  Your statement that the lastsuperpower dot net does not claim to speak for the real left is bewildering. The home page of the website states:
  It clearly contrasts and distinguishes itself from a set described as 'pseudo left', and that it exists as a place to discuss what it 'really means to be progressive and left-wing in the 21st century'. How can it claim this if it does not speak for the set; 'Real Left'?
  Then at the bottom of the page under the heading: 'Currently featured material' is the section titled: 'What does the real Left think?' Why would a visitor to this site conclude that it doesn't claim to be a voice for the "Real Left"? The site seems to be positional statements made by an offshoot paleoleft variant. Maybe if the author(s) of the site would move away from the antiquated synthesis based on Marx/Engels analysis, and instead work towards a dialectic distillation that includes a heavy influx of Derrida, there would be validity in their claim of lefty progressiveness...
  Even so, it would not be an appropriate place for me, nor a place where a rational future is likely to emerge. I'll keep hanging in the tube of the Post-Digital Wavefront.
  August 28, 2006 6:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
  Umm - because I speak plain english and do not inhabit the mental universe you do?
  In my universe governments have declaratory and actual policies and take internal decisions before they make external announcements. That is conceptually different from implying some sort of shadow government etc.
  Your approach to discussion suggests there isn't much point continuing with you and I don't intend to.
  I did not answer your challenge in the hope or expectation that you would then keep your promise to take me seriously but simply because it is polite to respond to requests for a citation so I did so. I certainly agree with you that the web site you are so outraged about would not be an appropriate place for you.
  Before signing off I should acknowledge that your claim the words "Real Left" did appear on the page does turn out to be correct, although the block quote you provided more accurately describes the nature of the site and does not bear the interpretation you put on it.
  PS. Didn't notice anything substantive to respond to in latest comments from hcberkowitz below so nothing to add. Except for mentioning that the difference between us reflects the difference between intelligence analysts on the losing side of the Vietnam war and strategic analysts on the winning side. The Vietnam war protest movement in the West, like the people's armed forces themselves, had a lot less resources and a lot more insight. There was never any stage in the war where US government understanding of what was happening and would happen was better than ours.
  PPS. Hope the references cover the points Crissie raised above. The fact that "players" don't acknowledge the difference between their actual and declaratory policies doesn't seem either controversial nor to contradict my position. If the claim about Emporer Kennedy sending 15,000 troops because some priest asked him to was true that would hardly refute the description of "imperialist".
  August 28, 2006 10:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
  Unfortunately, I didn't say a thing about the insights I gained, whether I agreed or disagreed with government positions, and what I may or may not have done to change policy. Instead, you made sweeping assumptions. I did speak to differences between our analytical methods, especially when you suggested it was unneeded for me to read the full Pentagon Papers should they be available. You said one had to go off and make policy, and made various vague referencs to your having been in think tanks in various countries.
  You know very little about my background, experience in policy development, experience in tactical analysis, etc. In an earlier thread on Israel, you pushed repeatedly for me to offer an opinion, even when I said I didn't have adequate research for me to present what I considered an informed opinion. Ignoring that, you sent additional requests for me to give an opinion on a situation where I freely admit I don't have deep knowledge.
  So, you've suggested that I should give uninformed opinions on Israeli internal politics, and that it's inappropriate to do more detailed research where I do have substantial information. Just as an aside, when I seriously study something, I consider the equivalent of reading 40 volumes to be a good start. For Southeast Asia, my reading ranged from the North Vietnamese publications, to MACV internal documents, to cultural history going back to the Trung Sisters. One must not forget primary documents and the autobiography of the man who led the 1945 mission to Ho and others, and the US government decision to support French recolonization.
  I'm willing to do hard but interesting work before drawing conclusions, but you seem to consider that superfluous. If one can reduce most things to class warfare, that, I suppose, is a simplifying approach.
  I find it amusing that you claim one doesn't learn policy by reading about it, but, instead, making it. Isn't that essentially the approach of LBJ and GWB?
  --
  Howard
  *equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
  August 28, 2006 10:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
  Yes, this is a political web site and my approach is to discuss policy as would both LBJ and GBW.
  In discussing policy one has to have a model of what the policies of other actors actually are, as opposed to what they say they are. This benefits from all sorts of intelligence analysis including analysis of force postures and equipment characteristics for what light it sheds on capabilities and intentions. But fundamentally it requires a grasp of what politics is actually about, which most intelligence analysts lack in comparison to an average precinct captain or ward heeler who do see themselves as playing some part, however insignificant, in actually making policy and therefore have some concept of thinking about policy as involving interactions with both the declaratory words and the actual policies of other actors.
  This has to be done in situations of radical uncertainty. Intelligence analysts asked a question can and should say they don't know. Policy makers still have to take decisions regardless (and deciding to nothing is still of course a decision).
  You were not able to contribute anything relevant to the policy discussions about the recent war in Lebanon but instead made numerous posts about weapons systems etc because you were writing as an intelligence analyst rather than a participant in a political web site. I on the other hand was able to predict and explain the outcome a month ago. That was not an "ideological" statement but a very concrete prediction of what would happen backed by an explanation of why it would happen pointing to various actually relevant aspects none of which required in depth knowledge beyond actually following current events.
  Lets pretend for a moment that either of us is interested in the "brilliant" dreck from Leverett and Clemons that this topic is supposed to be about. What is the implicit model that they have and what are they trying to achieve? Basically their model is that changes to the status quo in the Middle East are dangerous and they are trying to restore the old status quo. Nobody would bother writing such dreck if they had the slightest interest in anything other than posturing.
  Is there any likelihood that they could accurately predict anything at all? Nope, because they aren't interested. You have a different version of the same problem. It isn't as bad as theirs or as obvious as with the postings that are just moral posturing and ideological dogmatizing. But its just as pointless on a political web site.
  My point about the song was not as a "source of information" but as an indication of the level of strategic thinking that lay behind simple spontaneous agitprop activities like writing songs in a protest movement that actually understood what it was doing. In order to write those words, the author (a friend of mine) had to not just have an emotional revulsion against war but also a particular conception of what message needed to be delivered, based on a model of what the actual situation was.
  The existence of that song implies an understanding that the essence of the situation in McNamara's war was that "once you are in you can't get out" and this message was being consciously promoted in opposition to "Fulbright and Kennedy's talkity-talk". This was long before the Pentagon Papers were published and at a time when the dominant theme in the anti-war movement was to push for negotiations. It reflected a different analysis that what was needed was not faith in talkity-talk but acceptance of defeat by the US.
  If you continue to be unable to express a political opinion about anything without the level of detailed knowledge available only to historians long after a conflict is over your contributions will be as pointless as the various purely "ideological" posters who are not attempting to shed any light on the situation or as the posturing by Clemons and Leverett.
  August 28, 2006 1:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
  I must apologize, for my remarks were apparently insufficient for you do bestow your full gifts of condescension. Further, I must apologize for daring to recognize Israeli lies or war crimes by inference from the weapons and tactics used, as well as analyzing both militarily useful practices and collective punishment by Hezbollah. My guilt being even further, given, as you appear not to have noticed, the Viet Nam War is over, so there is no urgency that prevents the use of relevant historical research.
  Feeling your displeasure, my body bleeds at hundreds of stigmata, and I die dehydrated. The cold winds of your soul freeze my essence, and, as I die, I shatter into myriad crystalline shards, briefly glistening in the Great Light you shine. My errors being so great that offense goes beyond humanity, pachyderms pound me into dead slime onto which they defecate. Before your brilliance, I am merely a soulless worm, spawned by ten thousand generations of hermaphroditic ancestors, in the rich mud of a bottomless swamp, where, subject to your power, I split into regenerating fragments.
  Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maximum culpa. I am truly sorry that I did not get these rules of participation from Josh, who, of course, should accept on faith anything you say as to the scope of the site. What does he know? He's a mere journalist, where you are a Policy Analyst who Has Made Policy In Several Countries. Why several? Did the first not like your conclusions?
  At the same time, when quick decision is actually required, I find myself quite competent to do things such as, literally, stop incipient explosions. Idly, I wonder how you perform when an accident victim, to whom you might be giving rescue breathing, vomits into your mouth, or sprays blood into your eyes. Would you recognize either of these as signs of possible survival, push down the instinctive reactions, and do what is needed?
  Political sites often lack a reality check from subject matter professionals. You seem to be conflating historical analysis of Viet Nam with current, tactical analysis of the Israel-Lebanon war. In the latter case, I was quite specific in short term political analysis, and the identification of potential war crimes by both sides.
  You attempted to push me into conflating yet a third topic, the advantages or disadvantages of the US invasion of Iraq. When I demurred, you pushed, with no effect since you have no generally accepted authority, moral or otherwise.
  Now, if you want to discuss, in detail, the political as well as military aspects of Sudan and Darfur, I am quite prepared to do so. I am not willing, however, to go blithely injecting opinions about strategy where I do not have sufficient facts, nor a need to do so urgently on a voluntary web site. Historical analysis can be entirely appropriate to many here, as can current intelligence. It just interferes with your Visualization of the Cosmic All, which obviously includes setting the agenda for a site you don't operate.
  Oh, is your anonymity because we would all fall stunned at the magnificence of your recognizable past work, or is it that some of your international clients might be displeased with you?
  --
  Howard
  *equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
  August 28, 2006 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
  I am not and do not claim to be any kind of professional demanding respect for my credentials.
  I am simply participating in political discussions at a political web site.
  So are you.
  Your performance at preventing explosions and rescuing accident victims are even less relevant than your expert knowledge of the subject matter of weapons systems and tactics.
  This site did need a reality check when discussing Lebanon. You did not provide one. The subject matter on which a reality check was needed was not weapons systems and tactics but grand strategy and global politics. (The subject Clemons and Leverett are conspicuously failing to say anything useful about in this topic).
  I do not speak either Arabic or Hebrew and have no special expertize in following either Lebanese or Israeli politics. But I was able a month ago to make a quick analysis of what was going on with concrete predictions that were hotly disputed at the time but have been confirmed by events.
  The background reasoning for that analysis does indeed "conflate" issues concerning US policy on region change including Iraq and Lebanon and the link back to analysis on Iran from March further conflates with lessons from Vietnam.
  It was necessary to do so in order to be able to make the concrete predictions that I was able to make and that you weren't.
  If both you and Valdron could get over your (different kinds of) ego tripping and actually focus on trying to understand what's happening in the world rather than trying to impress people with how clever you are, you would both be quite capable of making accurate predictions too.
  You will win continue to win applause for the way you write here.
  But that is no substitute for the satisfaction of actually being able to get things right.
  Get over it.
  August 28, 2006 10:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
  Of course, if you had less of a need to define the rules for others' postings, you could simply ignore mine. Your idea of getting things right is different than mine. Get over it. I will contribute where I feel I can make contributions, and I'm not going to flounder into your meme of "what's going on in the world."
  And you think I'm trying to impress people? Gee, all I've been doing is starting from known data and extrapolating to actual situations. I guess I just don't think at your grand level of wold currents. So, if you want opinions of things I don't study, go ask some one else. Your need to dictate does not affect my lack of desire to listen to your orders. -- Howard
  *equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
  August 28, 2006 10:36 PM | Reply | Permalink