# Posted 6:27 PM by David Adesnik    

MERRY CHRISMUKKAH! And a happy new year to all. See you in 2006. (1) comments -- Add a comment

# Posted 4:47 AM by Patrick Belton    

LOCAL BEAT FOR LONDINIUM READERS: Happy Christmas to all of our readers and friends! For those of you who are in London and looking for holiday cheer, the schedules are online for lessons and carols and Christmas evensong at Westminster and St Paul's cathedrals, and there are outdoor carols in Trafalgar Square on Christmas eve from 5 until 9. There's also ice skating at the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace and the Natural History Museum, if you're feeling particularly athletic. (0) comments -- Add a comment

# Posted 11:51 PM by David Adesnik    

OXBLOG REUNITES! I just got back from the legendary Brickskeller, where I had the distinct privilege of seeing none other than Patrick Belton, in person, for the first time since he saved all of my worldly possessions from an auto wreck and then picked me up from the hospital back in September.

FYI, Brickskeller is a legend because of its mind-boggling selection of beers. Two years ago, in fact, the Guinness Book of World Records cited Brickskeller for serving more varities of beer than any other commercial establishment on Planet Earth. How many you ask? 1073.

Patrick and I were joined by Jeff Hauser, of the now defunct Hauser Report, who now does things like take Howard Dean on trips to Israel. (Literally. That's not the set up for some bizarre joke.)

Of course, the main activity of the evening entailed listening to Mr. Belton recount his bawdy personal adventures, absolutely none of which I would even think of recounting here on OxBlog, since this is a family values website. But if you encounter Mr. Belton in person, I'm sure he would be willing to share.

Unfortunately, Patrick is headed back to Europe in just a couple of days, so we may all have to wait a while for the chance to see him again. Here in the US, that is. But if any of you are up for a visit to Switzerland, Patrick would be glad to host you at his chalet. Ciao! (4) comments -- Add a comment

# Posted 6:43 AM by Patrick Belton    

THUS EMANUELE OTTOLENGHI: Let's embarrass Iran's evil regime. During this festive season, let's light some Hanukkah candles in front of their embassies. (11) comments -- Add a comment

# Posted 12:56 AM by David Adesnik    

AN ARTICLE IN THE WORKS: I would tell you where it's going to be published, but I don't want to jinx it, since the manuscript hasn't been finalized yet. The topic, however, is one of thorniest issues facing America today: how to deal with friendly dictators, who we are afraid might be replaced by a radical, anti-American opposition.

Don't expect a decisive answer to this question. Rather, what I try to do, along with my co-author, is demonstrate how the United States faced the exact same dilemma during the final decade of the Cold War, when presidents hesitated to push authoritarian allies to reform, lest they be replaced by those such as the Sandinistas in Managua and the Khomeini regime in Teheran.

Although hesitant at first to confront the dictatorships in places such as the Philippines, South Korea and Chile, Reagan ultimately came around to the recognition that deft diplomacy could hasten reform without antagonizing the current regime or bringing to power a radical opposition.

What our article doesn't provide is a detailed assessment of the prospects for democratization in the friendly dictatorships of today, such as Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Rather, our purpose is to provide a conceptual framework for the discussion that shows how American can achieve what pessimists then and now (who often describe themselves as realists) consider to be simply impossible.

Anyhow, I haven't been blogging much since I've had to focus on the article the past couple of days. Thanks for your patience. (4) comments -- Add a comment

# Posted 12:57 AM by David Adesnik    

SO WHY DIDN'T REID AND PELOSI OBJECT? This Week still won't provide transcripts, but George S.'s interview with John McCain is really worth listening to. (Podcast here.)

Again and again, Stephanopoulos kept pressing McCain to justify how the administration could circumvent the foreign intelligence courts when authorizing wiretaps. No matter how times Stephanopoulos repeated the question, McCain kept giving the same answer: the White House consulted with both the Democratic and Republican leadership in Congress before making its decision.

Pelosi has spoken of voicing "strong concerns" when initially consulted about the policy, but that doesn't sound very persuasive. If she didn't object or disagree or contradict, then she should just say that she accepted the decision.

Nonetheless, McCain -- like Condoleezza Rice and Lindsey Graham -- admitted that he couldn't provide a clear legal justification for what the administration did. (22) comments -- Add a comment

# Posted 12:52 AM by David Adesnik    

PRO WRESTLING BODYSLAMS THE MEDIA: Courtesy of Blackfive, with a hat tip to MD. (0) comments -- Add a comment

# Posted 12:03 AM by David Adesnik    

OUR GOVERNMENT SHOULD SPY ON THOSE DOPE-SMOKING HIPPIES, G**DAMN IT! No, on second thought, maybe not. This story has exploded in the administration's face, knocking the good news from Iraq off of the front pages at the most convenient possible moment for the Democrats.

The big question is, why did the Bush administration decide to circumvent the foreign intelligence court even though the court imposes very few limitations on the administration's surveillance privileges?

Even after listening to This Week, Face the Nation and Meet the Press, I still haven't gotten a good answer. On Face the Nation, Joe Biden said that the administration's behavior was simply unfathomable. Bob Scheiffer suggested that this was another Karl Rove stratagem to force the Democrats to defend a soft position on national security. Tom Friedman suggested that the administration wanted to go after people it didn't have enough evidence to get a warrant for.

I think what's wrong about Schieffer and Friedman's explanations is that they don't take into account the context in which the decision was made to go around the courts. It was right after 9/11, at a time when no one in their right mind would have said that there wouldn't be even a single other attack on the American homeland during the next four years.

My best guess -- and it is very much a guess -- is that the administration moved swiftly and aggressively to expand its powers in this way because it expected there to be a real war on the homefront, not just an argument about whether the Democrats or the Republicans have a greater penchant for revisionist history.

Which is not to say that the decision was justified. On that question, I'm going to have to reserve judgment. In fact, after reading Orin Kerr's long and thoughtful post about the legal and constitutional merits of the administration's position, I think I may simply lack the necessary expertise to have any sort of intelligent position on this issue.

Nonetheless, I am troubled by the inability of the administration to provide a simple and straightforward rationale for its behavior. On Meet the Press, Condoleezza Rice kept dodging the issue of the decision's legality by insisting that she isn't an expert. In general, that's a fair enough point. But a Secretary of State should be able to elaborate the basic legal justification for an important White House policy, even if she can't be expected to cite the case law.

(NB: In other respects, Condi did an excellent job. As a candidate, I think she could handle the press with a good bit of panache.)

In a manner similar to the Secretary of State, Lindsey Graham (R-SC) couldn't come up with any sort of straightforward legal justification for the administration's behavior during his time on Face the Nation. As Tom Friedman observed (on that same show),

I think what Senator Graham said was so important and so powerful, which is--who is a Republican and a legal expert, a lawyer, who was basically saying this administration has acted outside the bounds of any law that he knows of...

At the end of the day, what he said was--what Senator Graham said, I think, was very powerful. We have to have answers. You were acting outside the law as we know it.

To a degree, one might describe Graham's comments as an admission against his own partisan interest. At the same time, Graham has begun to present himself as a mini-McCain and seems to enjoy all the positive coverage he gets as a budding maverick. I think Graham is sincere, but so is Joe Lieberman when he disagrees with the Democrats about almost everything.

So where does that leave us? I'm not sure. As Matt Yglesias observed,

I tend to doubt that anything genuinely awful has resulted from the president's little illegal wiretap scheme.

"But," Matt adds,

...the principles being invoked to justify it are extremely troubling.

I certainly agree with the first part (sans "illegal"), although I'm not so sure about the second. Even so, I do believe that if the administration had a greater up-front concern about civil liberties -- rather than demonstrating concern only after the issue has become controversial -- it could have found a way to get all of the necessary powers to fight the war on terror without riding on the borders of the law.

(16) comments -- Add a comment

# Posted 1:34 PM by David Adesnik    

'THE NATION'S FIRST LIBERTARIAN STUDENT NEWSPAPER' is how the Pennsylvania Independent describes itself. Take a look. (6) comments -- Add a comment

# Posted 1:31 PM by David Adesnik    

ANDRE THE GIANT: Even if you've never watched a pro-wrestling match, you probably recognize that name. Thanks to JW, I just found a website dedicated to Andre's memory and achievements. It's worth a read. (2) comments -- Add a comment

# Posted 1:52 AM by David Adesnik    

TWO MILLION: The counter at the bottom of the page says we've now had two million hits since October 27, 2003. All I can say is 'thank you'. There are hundreds of great blogs out there, not to mention hundreds of major media outlets, so we really appreciate your taking the time to stop by. (2) comments -- Add a comment

# Posted 1:34 AM by David Adesnik    

SHOULD YOU INTRODUCE YOURSELF OR YOUR BLOG? Earlier this evening, I attended a little shindig at the home of Matt Yglesias, held in the honor of Kevin Drum, who is in town this weekend from California for a bit of holiday cheer. Matt's home was filled with bloggers, some of whom I'd met before (Jim Henley, Ezra Klein), many of whom I hadn't (Belle Waring, Hilzoy, and others).

As I learned way back at Bloggercon II, there is no proper etiquette for introducting oneself to those one knows online but not in person. Forgetting the lesson of Bloggercon, I once again just introduced myself as a normal human being would, with my first name.

One could thrown in the last name as well, but that sounds weird. To go all out and announce the name of your blog wouldn't just be weird, it would be like saying "my blog is so important and I'm so insecure that I can't introduce myself without telling you about my URL."

Then you get into the conversation, and someone mentions their blog, and you mention your blog (because bloggers can't help talking about their blogs), and then you sound like a bit of an idiot identifying your blog ten minutes into the conversation because the only reason your in this room in the first place is that you have a blog.

Face it. Life isn't fair. (7) comments -- Add a comment

# Posted 1:30 AM by David Adesnik    

SO APPARENTLY I'M CHAFETZ: On Friday night, I went to dinner with one of my colleagues and whole lot of his friends from grad school, none of whom I'd ever met. At one point, I mentioned I had a blog and that it was OxBlog. Suddenly, one of the guys at the table got very excited. He said, "So you're David Chafetz!" I considered it an honor. (0) comments -- Add a comment

# Posted 1:19 AM by David Adesnik    

SO APPARENTLY I'M CRAZY: Well, you already knew that. But I had kept it a secret from most of Washington. Until Thursday, when I started listening to The Ricky Gervais Show on my iPod on the Metro.

FYI, Ricky Gervais (pronounced jur-VASE) is the comic genius responsible for The Office. He's now working on a series of half-hour podcasts distributed by The Guardian. While listening to the first podcast on Thursday, I had to devote all of physical strength to not laughing uproariously out loud when Ricky and and his friends debated whether or not it would be possible to teach a monkey to fly a spaceship by having the ship dispense bananas when the monkey hit the proper button.

I may not have laughed out loud, but I was smiling uncontrollably and people were beginning to think I was some sort of weirdo. Again, not wrong, but not to be inferred from my public laughter, because that was Ricky Gervais' fault.

So here's the bottom line: Listening to Ricky Gervais will make you very, very happy. And who the %&*$# cares if other people think you're crazy? (1) comments -- Add a comment

# Posted 1:04 AM by David Adesnik    

SO APPARENTLY I'M A REPUBLICAN: I wore a bowtie to the office on Friday. Why? Because I had just learned to tie a bowtie while I was in England last week. FYI, when Oxford students take their exams, they have to wear what is known as sub fusc, which includes a white bowtie for men.

Since our office was having its big Christmas holiday party on Friday, I thought that a red paisley bowtie might add to the festivity of the occasion. However, the party was at noon, and when I sat down to have lunch with my colleagues, one of them suddenly asked me, "So are you a Republican?"

Slightly flustered by this question in an environment where most of us try to be moderately non-partisan, I spluttered "No, actually I'm an independent." Then he said to me that he was only asking because only Republicans wear ties. Like Tucker Carlson. Like George Will. And then asked, could I think of any Democrats who wear bowties?

I hesitated for a second and then said, "Yes. Farrakhan." There was a loud guffaw. Game, set, match, OxBlog.

And now that I think about it, there was one prominent Democrat who had a thing for bowties: Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois, pictured above. (8) comments -- Add a comment

# Posted 10:39 PM by David Adesnik    

SO DO THE IRAQI PEOPLE REALLY WANT DEMOCRACY? That may sound like a dumb question to ask on a day when millions of Iraqi voters (even Sunnis) demonstrated once again just how much they care about voting. But, A) OxBlog has never been afraid to ask stupid question and, B) recent polling data helps provide a detailed portrait of precisely what Iraqis think about their political system.

So lets start with a statement of the problem. Both the 2004 and 2005 polls began to probe their respondents' political preferences by asking (in questions #15 and #20A, respectively) what Iraq needs. This year, the number one answer was "a (single) strong Iraqi leader", with 74.8% saying that they strongly agree and 16.1% saying that they somewhat agree.

The second most popular answer was "a democracy", with 73.8% in strong agreement and 16.4% in moderate agreement. So here you get a sense of the problem. The design of these questions lets Iraqis say that their country needs many things, some of which Americans might consider to be mutually exclusive.

For example, the same question asked Iraqis if their country needs a government made up of religious leaders. 48.1 percent agree, either strongly or in moderation. A similar percentage said Iraq needs a government made up primarily of military leaders. In 2004, this series of questions elicited very similar answers.

So what the heck does all of this mean? Fortunately, the poll takers included a number of questions that would force respondents to express their perceptions of democracy in greater detail. For example, question #20B in this year's poll asked:

What do you think Iraq needs after the election planned for December 2005? Please mention only one choice.

Question #20C then asked:

What do you think Iraq needs in five years’ time? Please mention only one choice.

50.9 percent said that Iraq needs a single, strong leader after the elections. But only 30.5 percent said that this is what Iraq will need in five years time. 28.2 percent said Iraq needs a democracy after the December election, with 45.2 saying that Iraq will need one in five years time. The third most popular answer was a religious government, with approximately five percent in favor. In 2004, the numbers were bascially the same.

Thus, Iraqis clearly sense that their is a trade off between democracy and one-man leadership. But if they support a strong man in the here and now, will they ever have a chance to enjoy the democracy they prefer? One problem with questions #20B and #20C is that they do not clearly indicate whether a "(single) strong Iraqi leader" means a dictator. According to the Dr. Christoph Sohm, the director of the organization that conducted the poll (who was quoted by the BBC):

"Their desire for a strong leader within a democracy shows that they want a Konrad Adenauer, not a Saddam Hussein." Adenauer was the first chancellor of post-war Germany.

Presumably, Sohm's confidence comes from the answers provides to questions #21A and #21B:

A. There can be differences between the way government is set up in a country, called political system. From the three options I am going to read to you,which one do you think would be best for Iraq now?

B. And which one of these systems will be best for Iraq in five years’ time?

The three choices respondents had were:

Strong leader: a government headed by one man for life

Islamic state: where politicians rule according to religious
principles

Democracy: a government with a chance for the leader(s) to be
replaced from time to time through elections

Democracy won by a landslide, with 57.2% support in the here and now and 62.0% support in five years time. 25.8 percent preferred a strong leader now, with 17.8 preferring one in five years time. 13.8 wanted an Islamic government now, with 11.8 preferring one in five years time.

Interestingly, the analagous question in the 2004 poll, #17, only gave respondents' a choice between a "Strong leader", "Islamic state" and "Democracy". Democracy also won that round by a landslide, but the Islamic state option broke the 20 percent barrier, bring democracy down to the mid-forties.

Although there is some more data on the subject, this post has covered all of the major points. And the message is clear: The people of Iraq clearly want democracy and clearly understand that dictatorship and clerical rule are not acceptable substitutes. Thankfully, it looks like the Iraqi people will get what they want.

What is much harder to say is whether Iraqis have a sufficient understanding of and commitment to civil rights and liberties in order to ensure that their democracy becomes a truly liberal one. In light of recently discovered torture chambers run by the Shi'ite-controlled Ministry of the Interior, there are obviously great challenges to overcome in this regard.

Nonetheless, such actions may well reflect the tyrannical disposition of only a small- to medium-sized minority. After suffering so much under Saddam, the majority of Iraqis may have an instinctive sense of what it is that democracies consider unacceptable. (14) comments -- Add a comment

# Posted 10:32 PM by David Adesnik    

"DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE POLLS YOU DON'T LIKE!" warns OxBlog reader Ckrisz. The most important of those is the one conducted by the UK Ministry of Defence, a summary of which appeared in the Daily Telegraph.

Its most important findings were that 82% of Iraqis strongly opposed the occupation while 45% believed that attacks against coalition forces are acceptable. You may recognize those numbers as the ones that John Murtha cites in every one of his interviews in order to justify his statement that "We are the enemy."

It's hard to know what to make of the MoD poll since all we know about it are the details published in the Telegraph and because it is radically inconsistent with the findings of repeated polls conducted by both the BBC/Time consortium and the International Republican Institute. (For a listing of polls, click here.)

However, regardless of what you think of the occupation, you should know the details of the MoD poll if you want to talk about Iraqi public opinion, since it represents a critical (albeit lonely) data point for some of those who see the war as a quagmire. (4) comments -- Add a comment

# Posted 11:46 PM by David Adesnik    

ONE OFFICER'S PERSPECTIVE: This morning, Maj. Ben Connable, a Marine Corps veteran about to head back to Iraq for his third tour of duty, published an op-ed in the Washington Post. Connable argues well and passionately for a the importance of victory and of looking past headlines that show nothing but carnage. He made one point that struck me especially:

Open optimism, whether or not it is warranted, is a necessary trait in senior officers and officials. Skeptics can be excused for discounting glowing reports on Iraq from the upper echelons of power. But it is not a simple thing to ignore genuine optimism from mid-grade, junior and noncommissioned officers who have spent much of the past three years in Iraq.

In Vietnam, it was mid-level officers such as Lt. Col. John Paul Vann who taught American journalists to see through Johnson and the generals' party line. Perhaps now there is a latter-day Vann who is quietly advising to journalists to disregard the White House line. After all, Vann himself only spoke through his journalist disciples. Yet journalists today, regardless of their opinion of the war, seem to accept that the officer corps is sincerely optimistic.

It should be apparent, however, that the officers' optimism is not enough to shift the tide of public opinion at home. But consider this counterfactual: What if a majority of officers agreed that the war was unwinnable and made their views quietly known. I think it would destroy the administration's resolve. In a war being fought by volunteers, the volunteers must believe in the cause.

For as long as our soldiers re-enlist for second and third tours of duty in Iraq, it will be hard for opponents of the war to insist that we should bring them home now against their own will. (10) comments -- Add a comment

# Posted 11:29 PM by David Adesnik    

YET ANOTHER PRO-WRESTLING POST: Ninety percent of you will scroll right on down the next post. The other ten percent -- the truly open-minded part of the audience -- will treasure these reviews of some of the pro-wrestling DVD's I've been watching lately.

First up is WWE -- From the Vault: Shawn Michaels. This is a compilation of the Heartbreak Kid's greatest matches, along with some commentary from the Kid himself. And the matches are truly great. Michaels' ladder match against Razor Ramon defined the genre and still seems fresh and creative even though ladder matches are now a staple of the pay-per-view circuit.

The 60 minute Iron Man match against Bret "The Hitman" Hart also deserves its status as a legend. I'd heard that any match that lasts an hour simply gets boring at a point, but this one only gets better. As for those ignorantly deride wrestling as "fake", they should consider exactly what kind of physical conditioning it takes to put on an acrobatic show that goes for sixty minutes straight.

Next up is the re-release of an Andre the Giant retrospective originally from the mid-1980s. Like so many kids, I watched endless hours of television, hoping to see Andre wrestle, but never did. Back then, the stars performed much less often. Thus, I felt quite privileged to actually see 11 matches in a row with Andre. But...

They were terrible. The quality of most pro-wrestling 25 or 30 years ago was nothing compared to what it is today. The pace is far slower, the moves much more repetitive, the wrestlers often out of shape. And Andre dominates every match. Moreover, this disc says almost nothing about Andre as a person. Still, the disc is worth watching for its historical value alone.

Finally, we come to Rob Van Dam: One of a Kind. RVD's first title defense against Jerry Lynn will go down as one of the greatest matches in the history of ECW, if not all of pro-wrestling. There are some other first rate matches here, especially the ladder match against Christian, but Van Dam's suffers to a certain degree from having opponents who just can't match his standard of athleticism. So watch this disc, but don't feel about skipping some matches.

That is all. We now return to our usual discussion of subjects that are dreadfully intellectual. (4) comments -- Add a comment

# Posted 8:59 PM by David Adesnik    

FIRST THE (RELATIVELY) BAD NEWS: WHAT IRAQIS THINK ABOUT US. The place to start our analysis of the recent polls coming out of Iraq is with this this question, #26 in last year's survey, now #32:

Do you strongly support, somewhat support, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose the presence of Coalition Forces in Iraq?

Strong support has fallen slightly, from 13.2 to 12.8 percent. Moderate support has fallen noticeably from 26.3 to 19.4. Moderate opposition has risen slightly from 19.6 to 20.8. And mostly importantly, strong opposition has risen firmly from 31.3 to 41.7 percent. So no one should say that American forces are flat-out popular.

But this low approval rating for the occupation doesn't translate directly into a firm desire for it to end immediately. When asked how long Coalition forces should remain, 25% said they should leave now, up from 15% in 2004. (Question #29 in 2004 and #33 in 2005). Although hardly positive, I think it's interesting that only about half of those who strongly oppose the presence of Coalition forces want them to leave immediately.

What clearly is positive is that 30.9% want Coalition forces to stay until security is restored and 15.6% want them to stay until the new Iraqi army can operate independently. An additional 19.4% want the troops to stay until the government elected this month is in place. In other words, Iraqis understand quite well the necessity of having direct American military support until such time as they are capable of withstanding the insurgency on their own.

In 2004, 18.3% wanted Coalition forces to stay until security is restored with 35.8% wanting them to stay until an Iraqi government is in place. Thus the numbers have changed significantly, although it is hard to interpret that shift. Apparently, more Iraqi now phrase their acceptance of a continuing occupation as an issue of security, whereas it was formerly more of an issue of politics.

Another very interesting question from the 2004 survey was #27:

If you have had personally any encounters with Coalition Force soldiers, was your last encounter very positive, somewhat positive, somewhat negative or very negative?

77.5 percent said they had never had a personal encounter with Coalition forces. The remaining respondents were evenly divided, with 9.3% citing positive experiences and 8.4% negative ones. Although one shouldn't read too much into such small numbers, they cut strongly against the grain of media coverage that portrays the Iraqi people as profoundly antagonized by aggressive American efforts to hunt down the insurgents, even if means breaking into private homes in the middle of the night.

But let's not lose sight of the fact that Iraqis clearly want the occupation to end, almost as much as Americans do. But how intense is that desire? Since politics is driven not just by what people want but how badly they want it, this is a very important question to ask. One survey question that touched on this issue was #8:

Thinking ahead to the next 12 months, what would be the best thing which could happen to Iraq?

33.3 percent said 'security', 19.3 percent said 'peace and stability', 7.6 said 'a better life', while 5.7 said an end to the occupation. When asked what the worst thing is that could happen in the next 12 months, more than 40 percent gave answers related to continuing violence while 8.9 percent said continued occupation.

Finally, there is one more question that was asked in 2004 but not again in 2005, namely whether respondents considered it acceptable to attack Coalition forces (#25). In 2004, 17.3 percent said yes, while 78.0 said no. I'd be curious to see what the numbers are now.

So all in all, what do these numbers tell us about attitudes towards the American occupation of Iraq? Clearly, Iraqis consider the presence of foreign soldiers to be far from ideal. At the same time, a strong plurality recognize that the presence of American forces is absolutely critical to the achievement of peace and security, the objective that Iraqis overwhelmingly consider to be their most important.

From the very beginning, I have said that I would judge the success of this occupation based on the ability of American forces to win Iraqi hearts and minds. Would achieving that objective entail Iraqis' open embrace of our soldiers as their heroes? Ideally, yes. But that hasn't happened.

Nonetheless, if a strong plurality of Iraqis believe that our presence is helping them accomplish their most important objective -- security -- then we have certainly won over their minds, even if their hearts are ambivalent. How many critics of the occupation ever expected that to be the case, or will even acknowledge that it is the case now? (4) comments -- Add a comment

# Posted 11:15 PM by David Adesnik    

INCREDIBLE. JUST INCREDIBLE. On Monday, Oxford Research International (ORI) published the results of a major survey of Iraqi public opinion commissioned by the BBC, ABC News, Time, Der Spiegel and others. The results were so striking that an analyst for the BBC made the unthinkable observation that

The findings are in line with the kind of arguments currently being deployed by President George W Bush.

For the moment, all I will say is that you have to look at the results for yourself. Even better, compare the results of each question to the results of last year's survey, also conducted by ORI. Tomorrow, I will try to provide some more in-depth analysis of the results. But for the moment consider the respondents' answer to the question of

How much confidence do you have in the New Iraqi Army: is it a great deal of confidence, quite a lot of confidence, not very much confidence or none at all? [Question 14 in the old survey, Question 19 in the new --ed.]

The answers were: A great deal -- Quite a lot -- Not very much -- None at all:
2004.......................17.8...................38.2.............. 24.9..................... 9.7
2005.......................36.0...................31.2...............17.9.....................11.7

Wow. (12) comments -- Add a comment

# Posted 9:09 PM by David Adesnik    

GOD OF GAMBLERS, made back in 1989, is an unusual film from Hong Kong starring Chow Yun Fat. Only accustomed to Chow's persona as an action hero, I enjoyed watching him play against type. If I said anything more, I will have said too much. (3) comments -- Add a comment

# Posted 6:50 PM by David Adesnik    

THE ARGUMENT FOR WITHDRAWAL, PART II: Yesterday, I responded to the first half of Barry Posen's argument about why the American presence in Iraq is a liability rather than an advantage. This post will respond to the second half of that argument, which entails a defense of the often heard notion that our soldiers' very presence in Iraq strengthens the enemy. Posen writes that:

Every killing or arrest produces more insurgents...Were the United States not in Iraq, not only would fewer rebels with to come, but the incentives of neighboring governments to capture such people would rise...

The American presence in Iraq seems to have strengthened Al Qaeda politically -- hardly a victory in the global war on terror.

The first sentence in the passage above is one of the very few in which Posen waxes rhetorical in an unfortunate way. If even arresting an insurgent produces more insurgents, then no meaningful response to the insurgency is possible at all.

Perhaps more importantly, does Posen expect that arrests and killings will become less provocative once they are carried out by the Shi'ite soldiers he wants to replace the Americans? Since Posen acknowledges that ethnic fissures are a very serious issue in Iraq, such a proposition would simply not be plausible.

Now what about the idea that if the United States were not in Iraq, fewer foreign fighters will come? This argument rests on the assumption that if we declare victory and go home so will they. But as Posen himself clearly states, the war will not be over if we go home. It will simply be carried on by our Shi'ite allies. Since we know that the foreign fighters are rabidly anti-Shi'ite and hope for the establishment of a new Caliphate, there is little reason to think that they will go home if we leaves the Shi'ites to fight on their own.

On a related note, Posen never confronts the hypothesis that victory will embolden the insurgents, both the foreign fighters and the Ba'athists. As the insurgents themselves explain, American withdrawals from Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia over the past thirty years provide the best available indication that America lacks the resolve necessary to win the war. As a student of history and politics, I think Posen would acknowledge that victors often go on take greater risks. This is not just the case for conquerors such as Napoleon and Alexander, but for democracies such as the United States and Britain. Should we expect any better of the Ba'athists and Al Qaeda?

In other regards, Posen is very good about directly confronting the strongest arguments for staying in Iraq. Thus Posen acknowledges that:

The major strategic problem for the United States with a stalemated civil war is that Sunni Arab areas of Iraq—in particular the vast and lawless expanses of the Anbar province—may become safe havens for al Qaeda. But...Even General George Casey and General John Abizaid, the two most senior officers responsible for the counterinsurgency effort in Iraq, agree that the large American presence stokes the insurgency. Once U.S. ground forces have left Iraq, the nationalist political energy will probably leak from the insurgency. Many Sunni Arabs who have tolerated the presence of foreign fighters may no longer do so.

First of all, I think Posen slightly misunderstands the statements of Generals Casey and Abizaid. They acknowledge that our presence has a provocative effect, but they don't pretend that it is the only effect.

More importantly, I think Posen and others must provide much more evidence in order to substantiate the notion that the insurgency is driven by true nationalism rather than by a narrow Sunni agenda that sees Shi'ite rule as intolerable. Earlier on, Posen himself acknowledges that

Sunni Arabs almost surely see the United States as the agent of their fall from the top of the social order and the American presence as an obstacle to restoring their power and resources.

Exactly. In fact, I might even suggest that if the United States withdraws, the Sunnis will become more tolerant of the foreign fighters because they will recognize their contribution to the insurgents' victory over the United States. Regardless of whether the Sunnis actually want the foreign fighers in Iraq, they will also need as many allies they can get in order to fight the war against the Shi'ites and Kurds, which they will have a chance of winning if we withdraw.

The second major argument against withdrawal that Posen acknowledges is the idea that if we leave, the conflict in Iraq may well escalate from insurgency into a full scale civil war, with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis paying for it with their lives. Posen writes that escalation is probable but observes that

The most likely military outcome of this civil war is a stalemate, and this is what the United States should aim for. Though there may be considerable bloodletting, it is unlikely that any group can conquer the others...

The United States can and should act militarily and diplomatically to produce a stalemate. This strategy would essentially mirror the one used to end the Bosnia war: first building up the weaker parties, the Croatians and the Bosnians, and assisting their military efforts against the Serbs; then restraining the first two parties when they became too greedy and recommending to all three a de facto partition of the country reflecting the military stalemate that the United States (and NATO) had engineered. A military stalemate in Iraq would similarly be the stepping stone to a political settlement based on a loose federal structure.

This analogy to Bosnia strikes me as ironic, since the settlement of its civil war depended on the continuing presence of a NATO-led occupation force that put approximately four times as many troops, per capita, on the ground as the United States has so far in Iraq.

In other words, the lesson of Bosnia is not that stalemates work, but that only Western arms can prevent a horror of almost genocidal proportions.

In summary, I respect Prof. Posen's commitment to a sober and non-partisan discussion of the most critical issue facing America today, but strongly disagree with his arguments. A timetable for withdrawal will neither ensure the rapid improvement of the new Iraqi army nor pacify the insurgents. And a premature withdrawal runs the very serious risk of both facilitating the establishment of Al Qaeda safe havens and initiating a mass-casualty civil war.

There is no question that America is paying a terrible price to fight this war. But the cause is necessary. And I would even say that it is noble. Just two days from now, the people of Iraq will go to the polls once again. Let us hope and pray for the best. (9) comments -- Add a comment