American politics

Lexington's notebook

  • Angry white men

    History repeats itself

    Oct 14th 2010, 20:31 by Lexington

    HAS there every been a time when a spontaneous grassroots uprising on the right, allied to new social media, has changed the political landscape in America as much as the tea-party movement has? Er, yes, as a matter of fact. I was struck by this passage in "Storming the Gates", by Dan Balz and Ronald Brownstein, a book published in 1996.

    These angry white men are one legion in a grassroots movement that has rewritten the political equation of the 1990s, and in the process helped to transform the Republican Party ... An army of conservative grassroots groups has mobilised middle-class discontent with government into a militant political force, reaching for an idealised past with the tools of the onrushing future: fax machines, computer bulletin boards, and the shrill buzz of talk radio. They have forged alliances with the Gingrich generation of conservatives and strengthened their hand as the dominant voice within the GOP family. Like a boulder in a highway, the conservative populist movement has become an enormous, often impassable obstacle in the path of President Clinton. No single factor in the Republican revival ... has been more important than the party's success at reconnecting with and invigorating the profusion of antiWashington and antigovernment movements sprouting in every state.

    Here we go again.

  • Obama's report on himself

    Obama 2.0

    Oct 13th 2010, 21:01 by Lexington

    PETER BAKER of the New York Times has come up with another of his must-read magazine articles from inside the White House, including an interview with the president. The preview is here. Here's one of the early take-aways:

    While proud of his record, Obama has already begun thinking about what went wrong — and what he needs to do to change course for the next two years. He has spent what one aide called “a lot of time talking about Obama 2.0” with his new interim chief of staff, Pete Rouse, and his deputy chief of staff, Jim Messina. During our hour together, Obama told me he had no regrets about the broad direction of his presidency. But he did identify what he called “tactical lessons.” He let himself look too much like “the same old tax-and-spend liberal Democrat.” He realized too late that “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects” when it comes to public works. Perhaps he should not have proposed tax breaks as part of his stimulus and instead “let the Republicans insist on the tax cuts” so it could be seen as a bipartisan compromise. 

    Most of all, he has learned that, for all his anti-Washington rhetoric, he has to play by Washington rules if he wants to win in Washington. It is not enough to be supremely sure that he is right if no one else agrees with him. “Given how much stuff was coming at us,” Obama told me, “we probably spent much more time trying to get the policy right than trying to get the politics right. There is probably a perverse pride in my administration — and I take responsibility for this; this was blowing from the top — that we were going to do the right thing, even if short-term it was unpopular. And I think anybody who’s occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics and that you can’t be neglecting of marketing and P.R. and public opinion.”

  • Jihad and soup

    Islam-baiting in America

    Oct 10th 2010, 15:07 by Lexington

    AS IF the whipped-up hysteria against the proposed mosque in lower Manhattan was not bad enough, there is now a ludicrous and hateful campaign to boycott Campbell's for having the temerity to issue a halal line of soups. The grounds the boycotters give are that the body certifying the soups as halal has been linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. This morning's New York Times has a depressing profile of one of the people stirring the pot of bigotry, but what is worse to my mind is the collusion of supposedly mainstream politicians such as Newt Gingrich in this ugly wave of anti-Muslim hysteria. As for the tea-party movement, with its supposed veneration for the values entrenched in the constitution, what to make of this reported tweet from the Tea Party Nation?

    Campbell's now making Muslim approved soups. Mmmmm Mmmmm not good. No more campbells for me.

    Shaming, and infantile. This must be a hard time to be a Muslim in America.

  • James Jones resigns

    The loneliness of Barack Obama (contd)

    Oct 8th 2010, 14:58 by Lexington

    James Jones, national security adviserTHE departure of James Jones as national security adviser is one of Washington's less surprising surprises. Reports that the towering ex-marine and former NATO commander didn't fit into the informal style of the Obama White House long preceded Bob Woodward's illuminating book, "Obama's Wars", which provided embarrassing detail on his frosty relations with the president's inner circle. Mr Woodward says that the general referred to Rahm Emanuel (then chief of staff), David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs as, variously, "the water bugs", "the politburo" and "the Mafia". He especially resented the easy access to the president enjoyed by his own deputy, Mark Lippert, and eventually forced Mr Lippert to leave. Mr Woodward's book also reports on the personal tension between General Jones and his deputy, Tom Donilon, who will now take his place.

    David Sanger of the New York Times notes that Mr Donilon and the president appear to have the same general view on where the war in Afghanistan fits into American priorities.

    As deputy national security adviser, Mr. Donilon has urged what he calls a “rebalancing” of American foreign policy to rapidly disengage American forces in Iraq and to focus more on China, Iran and other emerging challenges. In the Afghanistan-Pakistan review, he argued that the United States could not engage in what he termed “endless war,” and has strongly defended Mr. Obama’s decision to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan next summer.

    Mr Donilon is not just a seasoned Democratic Party infighter but a foreign-policy intellectual who appears to have read everything. But those who have worked for him say that beneath the bookish exterior he is extremely tough. Just as well, given that the departure of General Jones and his replacement by a civilian close to the president may well risk distancing the White House from the military, and especially from Mr Obama's commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, a registered Republican who has made no secret of his conviction that America should persevere in Afghanistan, no matter how hard the war becomes. Add the likely departure next year of Bob Gates from the Department of Defence, and you see the possibility of a flaming new battle over Afghanistan next summer, not only between the president and the Republicans but also between the president and his generals. One of Mr Donilon's first jobs will be to head that collision off.

  • America and Israel

    Bibi, Obama and Dennis Ross

    Oct 6th 2010, 20:47 by Lexington

    THIS morning's Washington Post has a curious story by Glenn Kessler about relations between Israel and America. Its main point is that Dennis Ross, a Middle East veteran currently attached to the National Security Council, "has emerged as a crucial, behind-the-scenes conduit between the White House and the Israeli government, working closely with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's private attorney—and also Defense Minister Ehud Barak—to discreetly smooth out differences and disputes between the two governments".

    What's curious is that whoever was the source of this story appears to think that it is a fine thing for the White House thus to have bypassed both the State Department and George Mitchell, America's envoy for Middle East peace. This is conjecture, but one can well imagine Mr Mitchell pitching up for meetings only to be told by his Israeli interlocutors that they have just been on the phone to someone more important: the "crucial behind-the-scenes conduit". Pretty undermining, you'd think.

    The pay-off in Mr Kessler's story implies that all is well because, thanks to Mr Ross, a stormy period in relations with Israel has been resolved:

    Then, the U.S.-Israeli relationship nearly came to a breaking point in March over a perceived snub of Vice President Biden during a trip to Israel. The very public disagreement - Clinton called Netanyahu to publicly berate him - was followed by an administration assessment that temperatures needed to be cooled down.

    The administration reacted calmly in June to the deadly Israeli attack on a flotilla of ships headed to Gaza, and then Obama warmly welcomed Netanyahu at a White House meeting in July.

    "Once the relationship was repaired, it was much easier for this channel to flourish," the source said.

    All very intimate and hunky-dory. Mr Ross is a seasoned mediator. But last time I looked the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians had fallen off a cliff because of Israel's resumption of settlement-building in the West Bank.  Might it not have been a better idea to give Mr Mitchell a freer hand, and to have maintained some distance between Israel and the White House, before having Mr Ross "smooth out" those differences?

  • Failing to recognise one's world

    What changes and what stays the same

    Oct 5th 2010, 15:46 by Lexington

    AS A journalist of a certain age I much enjoyed Roger Cohen's sensitive column in this morning's New York Times. A sample:

    Before leggings, when there were letters, before texts and tweets, when there was time, before speed cameras, when you could speed, before graffiti management companies, when cities had souls, we managed just the same.

    Before homogenization, when there was mystery, before aggregation, when the original had value, before digital, when there was vinyl, before Made in China, when there was Mao, before stress management, when there was romance, we had the impression we were doing all right.

    Before apps, when there were attention spans, before “I’ve got five bars,” when bars were for boozing, before ring-tone selection, when the phone rang, before high-net-worth individuals, when love was all you needed, before hype, when there was Hendrix, we got by just the same.

    I sent it to my aged aunt in Johannesburg, who reminded me of "Doggerel by a Senior Citizen", a poem by W.H. Auden:

    Our earth in 1969
    Is not the planet I call mine,
    The world, I mean, that gives me strength
    To hold off chaos at arm's length.

    My Eden landscapes and their climes
    Are constructs from Edwardian times,
    When bath-rooms took up lots of space,
    And, before eating, one said Grace.

    The automobile, the aeroplane,
    Are useful gadgets, but profane:
    The enginry of which I dream
    Is moved by water or by steam.

    Reason requires that I approve
    The light-bulb which I cannot love:
    To me more reverence-commanding
    A fish-tail burner on the landing.

    My family ghosts I fought and routed,
    Their values, though, I never doubted:
    I thought the Protestant Work-Ethic
    Both practical and sympathetic.

    When couples played or sang duets,
    It was immoral to have debts:
    I shall continue till I die
    To pay in cash for what I buy.

    The Book of Common Prayer we knew
    Was that of 1662:
    Though with-it sermons may be well,
    Liturgical reforms are hell.

    Sex was of course -- it always is --
    The most enticing of mysteries,
    But news-stands did not then supply
    Manichean pornography.

    Then Speech was mannerly, an Art,
    Like learning not to belch or fart:
    I cannot settle which is worse,
    The Anti-Novel or Free Verse.

    Nor are those Ph.D's my kith,
    Who dig the symbol and the myth:
    I count myself a man of letters
    Who writes, or hopes to, for his betters.

    Dare any call Permissiveness
    An educational success?
    Saner those class-rooms which I sat in,
    Compelled to study Greek and Latin.

    Though I suspect the term is crap,
    There is a Generation Gap,
    Who is to blame? Those, old or young,
    Who will not learn their Mother-Tongue.

    But Love, at least, is not a state
    Either en vogue or out-of-date,
    And I've true friends, I will allow,
    To talk and eat with here and now.

    Me alienated? Bosh! It's just
    As a sworn citizen who must
    Skirmish with it that I feel
    Most at home with what is Real.

  • The decision to invade Iraq

    History's second draft

    Oct 1st 2010, 18:36 by Lexington

    IF YOU do not already know about the National Security Archive, you need to be warned that it is not what its name implies. This is not an official government organisation but, in a way, the opposite.  It's an independent non-governmental research institute and library located at the George Washington University, which collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. For those who still have a stomach for looking back at the reasons for the Iraq war, it is an invaluable resource. It has just published the second of three planned electronic "briefing books" on the decision-making leading up to the invasion.

    The briefing books take the form of an extended narrative buttressed by notes and original documents, many of which are of course copiously redacted. The NSA summarises the conclusion of its latest book thus:

    Contrary to statements by President George W. Bush or Prime Minister Tony Blair, declassified records from both governments posted on the Web today reflect an early and focused push to prepare war plans and enlist allies regardless of conflicting intelligence about Iraq’s threat and the evident difficulties in garnering global support. Perhaps most revealing about today’s posting on the National Security Archive’s Web site is what is missing—any indication whatsoever from the declassified record to date that top Bush administration officials seriously considered an alternative to war. In contrast there is an extensive record of efforts to energize military planning, revise existing contingency plans, and create a new, streamlined war plan.

    Reading this material and reviewing our own paper's coverage of the period leading up to the Iraq war, I confess that The Economist never pinpointed exactly how and when the United States took the final decision to invade (though we were pretty clear by December 2001 that "today the debate in Washington dwells less on whether to remove Mr Hussein than on when and how"). The moment of decision itself remains a tantalisingly open question. Here's the NSA:

    The evidence that is now available compels a review of the timing of the decision for war with Iraq. This choice surely originated in Washington but soon involved London also. Some Bush officials insist the war decision was made just before the March 2003 invasion. The evidence does not support that construction. Others believe no decision was ever made. Richard Armitage, deputy secretary of state under Colin Powell, observes, “Never to my knowledge, and I’m pretty sure I’m right on this, did the President ever sit around with his advisors and say, ‘Should we do this or not?’ He never did it.” George J. Tenet of the CIA agrees. He wrote, “There never was a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat.” And again, based on conversations with colleagues, “In none of the meetings can anyone remember a discussion of the central questions. Was it wise to go to war? Was it the right thing to do?”

    For those with an appetite, the paper-trail assembled by the NSA, though necessarily incomplete, is well worth looking at. 

  • Military acronyms

    I need a SCIF

    Sep 28th 2010, 22:46 by Lexington

    I'VE been struggling to speed-read Bob Woodward's revealing new book, "Obama's Wars". But it's hard in an age of distractions. I have therefore developed a terrible desire for what Mr Woodward says the government calls a SCIF, in one of which in Chicago President-elect Obama was briefed by his intelligence advisers soon after his electon victory. This is, I kid you not, a Sensitive Compartmentalised Information Facility, designed to prevent eavesdropping, windowless and almost claustrophobic. At least you'd get your reading done ...

  • Worshipping the Constitution

    The tea-partiers' little red book

    Sep 23rd 2010, 15:53 by Lexington

    MY PRINT column this week argues that under the influence of the tea-party movement too many Americans have begun to turn admiration for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution into a form of worship, and that this is unfortunate.  I know it is a trifle impertinent for a Brit to say such things, and I am bracing for the tar and feathers. But there are, of course, many Americans who say so too, and one of those I spoke to whilst writing my piece deserves more attention than the column was able to give him. Michael Klarman, who teaches constitutional history at the Harvard Law School, was a lot ruder than I dared to be when he gave a "constitution day" lecture to John Hopkins last week.

    Professor Klarman made four main points about what he calls "constitutional idolatry". They are (1) that the framers' constitution represented values that Americans should abhor or at least reject today; (2) that there are parts of the constitution America is stuck with but that are impossible to defend based on contemporary values; (3) that for the most part the Constitution is irrelevant to the current political design of the nation; and (4) that the rights that are protected today are mostly a result of the evolution of political attitudes, not of courts using the Constitution to uphold them.

    Point (1) is surely unarguable: the protection of slavery, the restriction of suffrage and so on. Point (2): two senators per state regardless of population, restricting the presidency of a nation of immigrants to those born in America; (3) beyond Congress, the courts and the executive branch today's political system includes a fourth branch, the administrative state, which the framers could never have imagined and which is almost certainly "unconstitutional" in many ways but which no court will ever strike down; (4) when the Supreme Court has ruled to uphold rights it has generally been motivated by changing public opinion, not by a textual study of the Constitution. Judges, Mr Klarman says, are too much a part of contemporary culture to take positions contrary to dominant public opinion, no matter what the Constitution says.

    Sadly, I cannot yet point to a transcript of Mr Klarman's provocative lecture. But before you head off to our offices in Washington, DC, with your tar and feathers, allow me to suggest heading instead for a certain institution of higher learning on the banks of the Charles River in Cambridge, Mass. It has long been full of dangerous revolutionaries.

    UPDATE: A fuller account of Michael Klarman's argument is here.

  • Sharia in Oklahoma

    To the barricades!

    Sep 20th 2010, 12:54 by Lexington

    AN EXCELLENT post about Islamic law in America, and the role of American judges, by my friend the Liberal Curmudgeon.

  • Appropriating the constitution

    The conservatives grab the best songs

    Sep 18th 2010, 16:40 by Lexington

    THE conservative movement is on fighting form at this weekend's Values Voters' Summit in Washington. Two messages emerged from the first day's triumphalist speeches. Message one: you cannot separate social conservatism from fiscal conservatism, because to cut state spending you must stop people from having children out of wedlock, committing crime and so forth. In other words, you cannot cut public spending without remoralising America. Here's Jim DeMint, the senator from South Carolina who has done as much as anyone to engineer the penetration of the Republican Party by the tea-party tendency:

    If you track the correlation between unwed births and things like juvenile delinquency, drug use, dropout, incarceration, unemployment, the correlation is huge, or sexually transmitted diseases or gambling.  You look at these things that are value-related issues.  The costs are in the trillions of dollars that the federal government spends.  And in trying to address these things that the federal government has helped cause, we keep making it worse.

    Fair enough: it's an interesting thesis.  The other message was that the United States has an exceptional political system, an extraordinary history and a brilliant constitution that guarantees freedom like no other country's. Michele Bachmann, the representative from Minnesota, brought tears to her eyes with a peroration about the American struggle for liberty, from Valley Forge to Omaha Beach. After telling the story of a particular act of heroism in the second world war, she ended thus:

    We not only stand on their shoulders, it is now ours to continue that ... link of liberty, forged chain by chain, from generation to generation.  It has never been easy.  It has never been free.  And so now it's ours.  Now it's ours.  And so I ask you, are you up to the challenge?  Are you willing to do your part?  Are you willing to go forward?  Are you willing to honor their memory?  And are you willing to do this so that generations yet unborn will know the unparalleled liberty that has been given, that God has shed his grace on the United States of America?  I ask you that today. 

    I'm not sure I get this. Yes, agreed, it's a great country, a great constitution, worthy of celebration, worthy of protection, amen. But Ms Bachmann wasn't just celebrating it, she was telling her audience that the conservative side of today's political argument stands for all of that, whereas Barack Obama and the Democrats are determined to dismantle it all. That's not just a stretch, it's a lie. But it has the virtue of being a Big Lie, which the Dems had better find an answer to if they are not to be eviscerated in November. Once your political enemies successfully appropriate God, the flag and the constitution, and you fail to win them back, you are dead meat.

    Participants at the meeting were also shown a video made by the Heritage Foundation, singing the praises of American liberty. It's a high-class piece of work, genuinely moving and well worth watching. But, again, I submit that there's nothing to justify the Republicans laying a greater claim than the Democrats to the values the film extols. The point is that the Republicans are working hard to lay that claim, and the Democrats seem to be giving them a free pass. The Democrats need to get their messaging in order, and fast.

    POSTSCRIPT: An arresting fact I learnt at the meeting was that Ms Bachmann has 23 foster children, as well as five of her own. That's pretty impressive.

  • Newt Gingrich and reality

    Gingrich on Obama

    Sep 13th 2010, 15:33 by Lexington

    IN HIS latest over-the-top attack on Barack Obama, Newt Gingrich says that the president is so outside "our" comprehension that you have to understand the "Kenyan, anti-colonial" worldview in order to decipher his thinking. He continues:

    “I think he worked very hard at being a person who is normal, reasonable, moderate, bipartisan, transparent, accommodating — none of which was true ... he was being the person he needed to be in order to achieve the position he needed to achieve ... He was authentically dishonest.”

    Score one for the former speaker. Certainly nobody can accuse Mr Gingrich of pretending to be normal, reasonable, moderate, bipartisan, transparent and accommodating. As for the article by Dinesh D'Souza in Forbes, from which Mr Gingrich plucked this "insight", it is no less deranged. The author concludes:

    Incredibly, the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s. This philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world for denying him the realization of his anticolonial ambitions, is now setting the nation's agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son.

    Messrs Gingrich and D'Souza have a perfect right to express such opinions. But, really, they are well outside my comprehension.

  • Obama's press conference

    A masterful press conference

    Sep 10th 2010, 16:35 by Lexington

    BARACK OBAMA  gave a masterful performance at this morning's press conference at the White House. You have to wonder why he doesn't give them more often; this is only his eighth since becoming president. Plainly, in the course of a wide-ranging question-and-answer session, there was much in the details to quibble over, but you have to give this president credit for his fluency and mastery of detail. On hard questions such as the disappointing results of the stimulus package, the cost implications of health reform and his inability to "change Washington" he frankly, and I'd say winningly, confessed to the limits of what he has achieved so far. The press conference was held one day before 9/11 and the president dealt sensitively with questions about the proposed Koran-burning in Florida and the wisdom of building the misnamed "ground-zero mosque". His peroration about what America owed its Muslim servicemen fighting in foreign wars was especially effective.

    It was interesting that he went out of his way to remind people that he himself was a Christian. I argue in my print column this week that the finding that nearly a fifth of Americans believe him to be a Muslim is in danger of affecting his handling of the war on terrorism in a perverse way, making it harder for him than it was for George Bush to do anything that would look like being "soft on terrorism".

  • A parting shot in Iraq

    One last push in Baghdad

    Sep 10th 2010, 14:10 by Lexington

    AT THE beginning of August as Barack Obama prepared to pull combat troops out of Iraq I asked this question:

    The interesting question about this particular moment is: can America use its remaining military, political and economic heft in Iraq to jolt its politicians into heeding the wishes of Iraq's voters? Should it even try? The prize is potentially huge: a peaceful election that actually succeeded in changing a government peacefully would be a signal achievement not just for Iraq but for the Arab world as a whole. The problem is that as America draws down its forces its ability to influence events diminishes, too. Besides, Iraq is supposedly sovereign now. So by what right can America meddle in its internal politics?

    This morning's New York Times brought the answer:

    The Obama administration is encouraging a major new power-sharing arrangement in Iraq that could retain Nuri Kamal al-Maliki as prime minister but in a coalition that would significantly curb his authority.

    The compromise plan was promoted in Baghdad last week by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., though at a time when American influence is waning and the United States continues to draw down troops. The new plan would alter the structure of Iraq’s government by bringing additional restraints to the authority of Iraq’s prime minister and establishing a new committee with authority to approve military appointments, review the budget and shape security policy.

  • The Afghan exit ramp

    How to leave Afghanistan

    Sep 9th 2010, 14:10 by Lexington

    A YEAR is a long time in politics but not a long time in a guerrilla war, especially if the war is being waged in the barely passable mountains of Afghanistan. That may be why, just a year after Barack Obama's extensive three-month-long review of American strategy in the Afghan war, the debate about how to prosecute it, and how and when to leave, is once again stirring in Washington. After his review Mr Obama concluded that American's national security was still at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan, "the epicentre of violent extremism practised by al-Qaeda". He sent 30,000 more troops, albeit signalling that a drawdown would begin in mid-2011.

    And yet profound doubts about the viability of the Obama strategy are once again swirling through the policy debate in Washington. An impressively succinct report published this week by a bipartisan group convened by Steve Clemons, a hyper-networked denizen of the New America Foundation, says simply that the president's counter-insurgency strategy is not working, cannot work, and is based on a flawed understanding of America's interests in the country. In effect, it resurrects the Joe Biden idea that nation-building in Afghanistan is a fool's errand, and that America can take care of its strategic interests in the country at far less risk and cost by stripping down its ambitions there.

    The authors argue that America should push for a power-sharing agreement between the government and the Taliban, reduce its troop presence, concentrate military operations on hitting al-Qaeda and enlist the help of neigbouring states that share a common interest in preventing Afghanistan from exporting its instability. The nub of the argument:

    Even with significantly reduced troop levels, we can build a credible defense against a Taliban takeover through support for local security forces, strategic use of airpower, and deployment in key cities without committing ourselves to a costly and counterproductive COIN (counterinsurgency) campaign in the south. And if power-sharing and political inclusion is negotiated, the relevance of the Taliban as an alternative to Kabul is likely to decline.

    And even if the Taliban were to regain power in some of Afghanistan, it would likely not invite Al Qaeda to re-establish a significant presence there. The Taliban may be reluctant to risk renewed U.S. attacks by welcoming Al Qaeda onto Afghan soil. Bin Laden and his associates may well prefer to remain in Pakistan, which is both safer and a better base from which to operate than isolated and land-locked Afghanistan.

    Most importantly, no matter what happens in Afghanistan in the future, Al Qaeda will not be able to build large training camps of the sort it employed prior to the 9/11 attacks. Simply put, the U.S. would remain vigilant and could use air power to eliminate any Al Qaeda facility that the group might attempt to establish. Bin Laden and his associates will likely have to remain in hiding for the rest of their lives, which means Al Qaeda will have to rely on clandestine cells instead of large encampments. Covert cells can be located virtually anywhere, which is why the outcome in Afghanistan is not critical to addressing the threat from Al Qaeda.

    In short, a complete (and unlikely) victory in Afghanistan and the dismantling of the Taliban would not make Al Qaeda disappear; indeed, it would probably have no appreciable effect on Al Qaeda. At the same time, dramatically scaling back U.S. military engagement will not significantly increase the threat from Al Qaeda.

    It is easy to find faults. Can the Taliban be enticed into a power-sharing agreement or will it push for total victory, especially when it senses that America is losing its stomach for the fight? If the Taliban controls the ground in Afghanistan, how well could special forces really tackle al-Qaeda there, or collect intelligence on al-Qaeda cells across the border in the tribal areas of Pakistan? Wouldn't the appearance of a defeat for America and NATO embolden jihadist forces globally, or further threaten the stability of nuclear-armed Pakistan? And how readily can the West risk abandoning the people of Afghanistan to a fate that might once again include numerous barbarities, including depriving girls of an education?

    Still, with every new report of setbacks in the fighting or the venality of President Karzai's administration, the likelihood of Mr Obama persisting in the full counter-insurgency, nation-building strategy he set out last year grows dimmer. The authors of the annual Strategic Survey published this week by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies point out that NATO's original limited goal in Afghanistan was to defeat al-Qaeda and prevent its return, a goal that has "ballooned into a comprehensive strategy to develop and modernise the country and its government". The IISS concludes that it may become necessary, and is probably advisable, to move to a more modest "containment and deterrence policy" designed mainly to prevent international terrorist attacks originating from the region.

    And so—Joe Biden may have been right all along, and by the winter of 2011 this may very well be the direction the West is heading in. When the history of the Obama administration comes to be written, one of the most fascinating questions will be exactly why the president jumped the other way in the winter of 2009.

    (Photo credit: AFP)

  • Looking beyond the mid-terms

    The merits of divided government

    Sep 8th 2010, 19:57 by Lexington

    NOW is the time to prepare for a fascinating collision between theory and practice. Looking at the latest polling, and barring a miracle, America will in November have a divided government. Need that be a disaster? Maybe not. Jonathan Rauch of the Brookings Institution has been a longstanding advocate of the idea that divided government is highly desirable. This was his argument back in March:

    The most important political change of the past half century is the Democrats’ and Republicans’ transformation from loose ideological coalitions to sharply distinct parties of the left and right. In Washington, the parties are now too far apart ideologically for either to count on winning support from the other side.

    However, the country’s biggest problems are too large for one party to handle, at least in any consistent way. The Democrats did pass health reform on a party-line basis, a remarkable accomplishment, but they did it by the skin of their teeth and with a Senate supermajority which has evaporated. That is not a trick they can keep performing.

    Under those conditions, the only way to achieve sustainable bipartisanship is to divide control of the government, forcing the parties to negotiate in order to get anything done. That pulls policy toward the center, which encourages reasonableness. And the very fact that both parties sign off on any given policy makes the public perceive that policy as more reasonable, which makes it less controversial and more sustainable. I think a bipartisan health-care reform would have been only, say, 30 percent different from the one the Democrats passed, but it would have been 50 percent better (many of the Republicans’ ideas were good) and 200 percent more popular, which would have made it 80 percent more likely to succeed. (All figures are approximate.)

    That sounds good in theory. But does the theory depend on the personalities involved? Here's an extract from Michael Gerson's argument in this morning's Washington Post:

    On the Republican side after the election, ideology will be ascendant while congressional leadership will be weak. Since no Newt Gingrich-like figure has emerged to direct the revolution of 2010, Republican leaders will be carried along by its current. Boehner will have 40, 50 or 60 new Republican House members for whom any spending is too much, making even the normal work of passing annual appropriations bills difficult. The Senate is likely to have a seriously strengthened Tea Party wing, making Mitch McConnell's life miserable, as either majority or minority leader. Neither Boehner nor McConnell will be in a position to cut deals with Obama without provoking the ideologically excitable.

    Perhaps—but however much a Republican Congress will enjoy tormenting the White House after the mid-terms, the need for the Republicans to be seen to be more constructive and less ideological will grow as the presidential contest of 2012 approaches. That suggests that the Republican leadership will indeed cut some deals with Mr Obama even if the ideologically excitable have to be provoked. As for Mr Obama, he might relish the excuse to cast off the left wing of his own party and tack towards the centre. And the centre, contrary to the wilder Republican propaganda about his "secular socialist" tendencies, is precisely where I believe he would like to be.

  • The invisible health reform

    Silent on health reform

    Sep 3rd 2010, 18:17 by Lexington

    JAMES BARNES in the National Journal has a good piece on one of the biggest puzzles of the Democrats' mid-term campaign. How is it that in his recent speeches the president has had virtually nothing to say about health reform? The White House and the Democrats' congressional leadership spent squillions in political capital last year in order to push the reforms through. The signing ceremony six months ago was conducted with the sort of pomp that accompanied MacArthur's acceptance of the Japanese surrender in the second world war. And yet now the triumph is being treated as if it is an embarrassment. Barnes:

    In a round of political speeches that he gave across the country before he went on vacation on Martha's Vineyard, the president spent most of his time talking about the economy, Wall Street reform, the bailout of the auto companies, high-speed rail, and jobs, jobs, jobs. What many observers called the biggest piece of domestic legislation enacted in generations, health care, tended to receive a passing reference. For instance, when Obama took the stage of the Fontainebleau hotel in Miami Beach for a fundraising reception for the Florida Democratic Party, he devoted a scant 39 words to tout health care reform in remarks that lasted half an hour.

    The White House has presumably decided that its signature legislation is going to be a negative in a campaign dominated by jobs and the economy. Barnes points out that by steering clear of the health issue local candidates will find it easier to separate their fortunes from Mr Obama's, whose numbers have tanked. The trouble with that way of thinking is that it leaves the Republicans free to paint health reform in the most negative possible light. Worse, it suggests that Mr Obama and his party lack the courage of their rather expensive convictions. If the Democrats are too nervous to defend the bill, perhaps they shouldn't have passed it.

  • The peace talks and Hamas

    Bringing Hamas to the table (2)

    Sep 2nd 2010, 18:34 by Lexington

    COMMENTER hpetre responds to my post by asking what the PLO got as a result of accepting all the conditions asked for by the international community. The answer is: tons. The United States and the rest of the world stopped treating the PLO as a terrorist organisation. Yasser Arafat became a statesman. He and his comrades left exile in Tunis and returned to Palestine with Arafat as the head of an embryonic state in the West Bank and Gaza. True, the hoped-for statehood did not follow, but you can't blame that on Israel alone. The Palestinians also made plenty of mistakes, and their own rejectionists, Hamas in particular, did their bit to destroy the process. Hpetre, you are right to say that diplomacy has not yet produced what the Palestinians wanted. But war has delivered even less.

  • Hamas and Sinn Fein

    Bringing Hamas to the table

    Sep 2nd 2010, 14:50 by Lexington

    THIS is straying out of area but with Egypt's President Mubarak staying in the hotel at the bottom of my road in DC and blocking local traffic it is probably permissible.

    Anyhow, I was delighted at the beginning of this week's Middle East peace summit in Washington to hear George Mitchell, America's peace envoy, nail the much-quoted argument that Hamas should be invited into the peace process in Palestine, just like the IRA was in Northern Ireland. This is what he said:

    “Let me say they’re very different… And while we should learn what we can from other processes, each is unique... But on the central point, the reality is that in Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin, the political party that is affiliated with the IRA, did not enter the negotiations until after 15 months had elapsed in the negotiations, and only then because they met two central conditions that had been established. The first was a ceasefire, and the second was a publicly stated commitment to what came to be known as the Mitchell Principles because I was the chairman of the commission that established them.”

    Exactly. Of course there will be no final deal on Palestine without the acquiescence of Hamas, which represents at least half of the Palestinian movement and controls the Gaza Strip. Of course it should be at the table at some point. But Hamas has so far locked itself out of the talks by its refusal to accept the three conditions laid down by the international community: a ceasefire, recognising Israel and abiding by previous agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinians. I understand why agreeing to these conditions is difficult for a movement with Hamas's history. But, please, no more IRA comparisons. 

  • The Tea Party comes to Washington

    Glenn Beck on the Mall

    Aug 29th 2010, 15:27 by Lexington

    LIKE almost every other journalist in Washington I trekked to the Lincoln memorial on Saturday to hear Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin address scores of thousands of supporters from around the country. Like most journalists in Washington, I'm at a loss as to what to make of this rally. Mr Beck had asked for it to be non-political, and so it was, pretty much. Mr Beck and Ms Palin paid an emotional tribute to God, country and especially the armed forces. There were virtually no political placards or slogans to be seen, other than "Don't Step On Me" flags.

    On the periphery of the main demonstration, small knots of dissenters denounced the main event and its participants as "racists". It is indeed both presumptuous and preposterous of Mr Beck to claim the mantle of Martin Luther King and the civil-rights movement for his own noxious style of politics. However, not seeing is believing: I saw no evidence at all of racism at this particular event. It was a good-natured, somewhat solemn, gathering of mostly white and well-to-do people from all over America who for some reason or other saw fit to respond to Mr Beck's plea to show up to "restore" America's honour. The main focus of the formal ceremony consisted of paying tribute to the country's servicemen and veterans, of whom there were many in the crowd.

    The political puzzle that Barack Obama and the Democrats need to figure out is just why such a large chunk of America's white middle class appears to feel that American honour and values are in jeopardy, and why they appear to blame this president for this perceived danger. It is obviously good politics for the Becks of this world to imply that they alone honour the country, its constitution and its armed forces, and that the other side doesn't. But what possible evidence do they have for this claim? Why is it so widely believed? It is not the done thing for pundits to admit this, but I am genuinely perplexed.

  • Barack Obama's foreign policy

    Obama in the world, and in Palestine

    Aug 26th 2010, 16:27 by Lexington

    CHASTENED by the negative reaction to my recent column about Americans on vacation (no more calls for my dismissal, please), I returned from my own holiday this week to write two pieces on American foreign policy: an editorial on American power after the misadventure of Iraq and a column on next week's peace talks on Palestine.

  • The Senate in play

    Could the Democrats lose the Senate?

    Aug 26th 2010, 12:29 by Lexington

    IN A print column last month I suggested cautiously that the Senate and not just the House might be vulnerable in November. There was nothing scientific about it, but I was impressed by the analysis of the excellent Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Now Nate Silver in the New York Times has added his formidable psephological firepower to the debate. He estimates that the Democrats have an approximately 20% chance of losing ten or more seats in the Senate, according to his model. That would cost them control of the chamber unless Florida's governor, Charlie Crist, who is running for the Senate as an independent, both wins his race and decides to caucus with them.

  • A liberal curmudgeon

    Politicians, hypocrisy and the deficit

    Aug 25th 2010, 22:58 by Lexington

    FULL disclosure: he is a friend and former colleague. Moreover, his political views are not always mine. Nonetheless I have been enjoying the fulminations in his new blog by Stephen Budiansky. As his blog's name, the Liberal Curmudgeon, implies, he is almost always grumpy. But his targets range from trendy greens to hypocritical congressmen. He is both a beautiful writer and unsettlingly numerate.

  • Gingrich and the mosque

    A reply from Newt Gingrich on the mosque

    Aug 21st 2010, 20:17 by Lexington

    MY RECENT column on the mosque in New York criticised Newt Gingrich's "mean spirit and mangled logic". Here in full and without further comment (for the time being) from me is a response from the former House speaker's spokesman.

    Dear Editor,

    Lexington’s recent criticism of Newt Gingrich’s opposition to the Ground Zero Mosque (“Build That Mosque”, August 5th) reveals Lexington’s dangerous naiveté about the nature of the threats posed to Western civilization by radical Islamism even as it illustrates the more commonplace shortcoming of grossly misrepresenting Mr. Gingrich’s actual views.

    Lexington essentially argues that as long as you aren’t an Al-Qaeda terrorist, then it’s unseemly for any American to question the motives of any Muslim group who want to build a mosque at or near ground zero.  Gingrich disagrees. Like Lexington, Gingrich recognizes the difference between moderate Muslims and radical Islamists and that the guilt of the 9/11 terrorists does not fall on all Muslims. But unlike Lexington, Gingrich also recognizes that the radical Islamism that drove the 9/11 attacks is more than simply a religious belief. It is a comprehensive political movement that seeks to impose sharia—Islamic law—upon all aspects of global society. Moreover, while some radical Islamists use terrorism as a tactic to impose sharia, Gingrich and many Americans are well aware – even if the Economist’s columnist charged with reporting on American society has not yet figured this out -- that other radical Islamists also use non-violent methods to wage a cultural, economic, political, and legal jihad that seeks the same totalitarian goal of sharia supremacy even while claiming to repudiate violence.

    There are around 2,000 mosques in the United States and more than a 100 in the New York area.  But Ground Zero is not like any other place in America to build a mosque. It is a battlefield where radical Islamists who trade in terror murdered almost 3,000 Americans in an act of war. For obvious reasons, Americans don’t want to take any chances that radical Islamists who trade in political propaganda could come to dominate the historical interpretation of what happened there and why.

    Lexington calls Imam Faisal Abd ar-Rauf, the ground zero mosque leader, a “well-meaning” cleric. Apparently, the British Economist magazine thinks you qualify as “well-meaning” if you believe that “United States policies were an accessory to the crime that happened [on 9/11]”, which is what Rauf said in a [2001] interview on CBS 60 Minutes.  Americans don’t find anything well-meaning about that statement.

    On why he choose Ground Zero to build “Cordoba House” Rauf told CBN last May that "by being in this location we get the attention and are able to leverage the voice of the vast majority of Muslims who condemn terrorism.”  But given the opportunity to do just that in a subsequent interview, he demurred. Asked if he thought Hamas, responsible for murdering civilians, is a terrorist organization could only say “I try to avoid the issues. The issue of terrorism is a very complex question.”

    Rauf clearly seek the Ground Zero location for a propaganda platform but it is also clear that it will not be for the purpose of condemning terrorism.

    There is much more in Imam Rauf’s background to make Americans believe that Imam Rauf wants to build a GZM as an arrogant political act of Islamist triumphalism rather than as a genuine effort at building inter-faith understanding.  If the latter were indeed Rauf’s goal, then why doesn’t Rauf propose building an inter-faith community center at ground zero with a church, synagogue, and a mosque, governed by a board of Christians, Jews, and Muslims? If Rauf is so intent on “improving Muslim-West relations”, then why doesn’t he lead an effort to build the first church and synagogue in the heart of the Muslim world in Saudi Arabia?  Which do Economist readers really believe will improve Muslim-West relations more: one more mosque in America -- but this time at Ground Zero -- or the first church in Saudi Arabia?  Short of that, Rauf’s pleas for religious liberty in the United States (a freedom Saudi Arabia and other Muslim counrties forbid) is rank hypocrisy.  Western editorial and political elites may remain blissfully blind to Rauf’s hypocrisy at the expense of 9/11 victims and their families, but most Americans recognize the hypocrisy and are insulted, which is why in a recent CNN poll, 68%  of Americans oppose the construction of Rauf’s GZM.

    Best regards,
    Rick Tyler
    Spokesman for Speaker Newt Gingrich

  • Barack Obama and Palestine

    Barack Obama makes his push for Palestine

    Aug 21st 2010, 15:35 by Lexington

    I RETURN from holiday just in time to catch a briefing from a senior administration official on Barack Obama's success in at last persuading Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, to start direct talks with Israel's prime minister, "Bibi" Netanyahu. There is to be a grand opening in Washington on September 1st, attended by Messrs Abbas and Netanyahu, with Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah acting as chaperones. Talks between Israel and the Palestinians will then ensue, which the administration expects to reach completion, ie, agreement on a final peace settlement, within a year.

    It is easy to be cynical about the scope of this supposed breakthrough. By getting the two sides back into direct talks Mr Obama has merely returned to where George Bush was after his Annapolis summit of November 2007. Big deal: the direct talks initiated then got nowhere, even though Israel's prime minister at the time, Ehud Olmert, was far readier for territorial compromise than is Mr Netanyahu. Even if, by some miracle, the two men came close to agreement, Hamas is still absent from the table. This means that half of the Palestinian movement would not be party to any deal and will try hard to sabotage one. So indeed will those Israelis in Bibi's governing coalition who for reasons of ideology, security or both vehemently oppose the creation of a Palestinian state. It is better for the parties to be talking than not talking, but a betting man would not favour the chances of a breakthrough to peace.

    That said, it would be a mistake to put the chances of success entirely at nil. When Mr Netanyahu and Mr Abbas hit the inevitable impasse, the Americans, who intend to be actively involved in the process through the person of George Mitchell, will doubtless table a bridging proposal. And this is the point at which the script could begin to depart from the precedent Mr Bush set at Annapolis.

    Mr Bush left his push in Palestine to the end of his presidency, and with the Iraq war to fight never saw the peace process as much more than a distraction or palliative. Mr Obama, on the other hand, started early, and seems determined to persevere despite the pushback he ran into from Israel's friends in Congress after his brutal confrontation with Mr Netanyahu over settlements in the territories. America's president, in short, shows every sign of being a true believer in the necessity of solving this conflict, not least in order to redeem the promises he gave the Muslim world in his famous Cairo speech. A year from now, when the negotiation "deadline" expires, he may be approaching the final year of his presidency—but for all the parties in the region know he might still have another four-year term ahead of him. That will make it more expensive for the Israelis or Palestinians to resist whatever bridging ideas America brings to the table.

    Another point: America's relations with Israel are more than ever focused on the pressing question of Iran and its purported nuclear-weapons programme. The administration has been saying lately that even if the Iranians went hell-for-leather for a bomb right now, it would take them at least a year to build a single device. This suggests that if Mr Netanyahu takes the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran half as seriously as he claims he does, he cannot risk being indifferent, especially over the coming year, to the quality of his relations with the superpower. The administration would surely never express the linkage this crudely, but there is here the making of a grand bargain: greater Israeli flexibility towards the Palestinians in return for ever-closer co-operation against the threat from Iran. As I said, a betting man would not favour the chances of a rapid breakthrough after the Washington summit. The Hamas conundrum is a huge obstacle.  But this meeting may turn out to be much more than a reprise of the Annapolis failure.

    (Photo credit: AFP)

About Lexington's notebook

In this blog, our Lexington columnist enters America’s political fray and shares the many opinions that don't make it into his column each week.

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