"Civil War" Mumbo Jumbo

Well, this changes everything:

NBC to use 'civil war' to describe Iraq
It's the first TV network to adopt the term. Bush has fought its use.

By Matea Gold, Times Staff Writer

NEW YORK — NBC News said Monday that its reporters and anchors would begin referring to the ongoing sectarian strife in Iraq as a "civil war," a move that reflects the news media's use of increasingly stark language to characterize the escalating violence gripping the country.

A verbal label has been applied to what is happening in Iraq by a news organization. What a monumentally important turn of events. Colin Powell has made the bold move, too:

“I would call it a civil war,” Powell told a business forum in the United Arab Emirates. “I have been using it (civil war), because I like to face the reality,” added Powell.

I love that last line. It's a way of indirectly implying that Bush is in a "state of denial" because he refuses to characterize the conflict in that way. Liberals love to think of Bush in that light, and Bob Woodruff even wrote a book with that title. It's dopey, but it seems to make liberal critics feel better, and I kind of enjoy the spectacle.

Reality is what it is, and by some definitions Iraq has been in a civil war since well before the current increased level of sectarian conflict. By other definitions, it isn't. For example, the Wall Street Journal sees the issue this way:

The sectarian violence is a horrible problem. But by any reasonable definition, a "civil war" implies at least two militarily strong factions with a popular claim on political leadership. Neither of those conditions exists in Iraq.

In 1991, the Shiite uprising against Saddam Hussein was a civil war. Here is part of what happened in that one:

Raid Juhi, chief investigative judge for the Iraqi court now trying Mr. Hussein in another case, said during a visit here on Saturday that the court had documentary evidence, and statements from witnesses, showing that at least 100,000 Shiites, and possibly 180,000, died in the 1991 repression.

This doesn't count the hundreds of thousands of children who died from malnutrition and disease from 1991 to 2003 and does not count the additional hundreds of thousdands who would have surely died had we not maintained those no-fly zones for years on end. That's the Iraq that some wish we had back today, but I don't (despite the violence we see today). But that's another story.

Before the Shiite civil war, there was this civil war in Iraq:

The tribunal will then hear a second case, involving accusations that 50,000 Kurds were killed in what is called the Anfal offensive, which reached its peak in 1988.

Another potential conflict that would fit the normal definition of a civil war may yet occur in Palestine, with the Hamas faction (which involves a political structure and armed forces vying for control) fighting with the Fatah faction (which also involves a political structure and armed forces vying for control). My sad guess is that there will be no resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem until that civil war takes places. But that, too, is another story.

Is Iraq in a civil war today? Well, you have al Qaeda bombing Shiite civilians so that Shiite militias will retaliate against Sunni civilians (which they are doing in a big way). In addition, you have Sunni insurgents in the Anbar provice fighting against American forces and Iraqi security forces. The Anbar part of the conflict fits the definition of a civil war, but it hasn't changed much in a long time (contrary to occasional reports in the New York times suggesting that the insurgency is gaining in strength according to all measures). So, if you want to say that Iraq is in a civil war, you should have been saying that for a couple of years now (as some have).

But this argument over the phrase "civil war" -- as if those who are willing to accept reality use the phrase and those who deny reality don't -- is ridiculous. The reality of Iraq remains the same whether you wish to call it a civil war or not, and the reality is more important that the label (yet people are arguing over the label). What follows is what I consider to be a snapshot of the reality of Iraq.

First, I'm sorry to tell you that the month of November saw the worst civilian toll yet in Iraq (corection: the worst civilian toll since we toppled Saddam Hussein):


These numbers come from Iraq Casualty Count, which tabulates deaths reported by the media. The true number of deaths is probably 2 to 3 times what they catch using this method, but their method is sensitive to change (which is why I use their statistics). The blue bars represent the 6 months prior to al Qaeda's bombing of the Samarra mosque, and the red bars represent the months since that critical event. The red bars show that al Qaeda has done what they set out to do, with many of the recent casualties coming from Shiite militias executing Sunnis in Baghdad. [note that the numbers appear to differ from the statistics used by Iraq Casualty Count, but that's because their numbers for August and September are artificially inflated for reasons I have explained before].

Many look at these numbers and think "civil war." That's because, to many (probably to most), civil war means nothing more than a bunch of Iraqis killing a bunch of Iraqis. If your definition is as simple as that, this is civil war. Others look at these numbers and think "failure," and, if your definition of success involves peace in Iraq, I would agree. I very much desire peace in Iraq, but my definition of success is that we leave Iraq in the hands of a government that can sustain itself with its own security forces. If we do that, then al Qaeda will have lost, and al Qaeda having lost is my definition of success.

We need to leave Iraq in the hands of a government that can survive and that considers al Qaeda the enemy. I wish we could also leave Iraq a peaceful place, but that's not going to happen. The pathology there is too deep. All of this fits with what the Iraqis themselves want as well, except for the minority Sunnis (about 20% of the population). They want to be on top of the pile again, and they are happy to work with al Qaeda to get there (though that may be slowly changing).

How is the Sunni insurgency doing in Iraq? That's a separate story, and it's important not to confuse that story with what is happening in Baghdad. The insurgency is not gaining in strength (contrary to what the New York Times helpfully suggests on occasion), as the next two graphs show quite clearly:




US casualties show the effects of the mini Tet offensive launched by the insurgents in October in an effort to get Democrats elected in America (the insurgents are not stupid), but, overall, the strength of the insurgency seems essentially unchanged over a fairly long period of time.

That's where Iraq stands today. Is al Qaeda winning or losing? That's the question you need to ask yourself. In one sense, they are winning. Sectarian violence has increased (because of their actions), those pronouncing the Iraq cause a failure and advocating that we raise the white flag to al Qaeda were recently swept into power in America, and there is talk in the air about withdrawing our troops. Thus, as I see it, al Qaeda is winning this war.

Or they would be, except for one thing: George Bush is still the commander in chief, and he is reiterating his commitment to seeing this battle through to victory. And, so far anyway, the leading contenders for his job in 2008 feel the same way, so if I were an al Qaeda jihadist, I would not be celebrating just yet.

Abandoning Iraq Means Surrendering to al Qaeda

I was amazed to hear President Bush articulating the exact analysis of Iraq that I subscribe to. What is present in his analysis -- and what is invariably missing from the analysis offered by those who believe that our troops should be promptly withdrawn -- is the undeniable role being played by al Qaeda in Iraq. I have repeatedly reminded people of the captured letter written by Zarqawi that spelled out al Qaeda's plan for Iraq, a plan that is currently unfolding exactly as he envisioned. Here is some of what Zarqawi said in that letter:

The Shi'a in our opinion, these are the key to change. Targeting and striking their religious, political, and military symbols, will make them show their rage against the Sunnis and bear their inner vengeance. If we succeed in dragging them into a sectarian war, this will awaken the sleepy Sunnis who are fearful of destruction and death at the hands of these Sabeans.

And here is what Bush said yesterday:

You know, the plans of Mr. Zarqawi was to foment sectarian violence. That's what he said he wanted to do. The Samarra bombing that took place last winter was intended to create sectarian violence, and it has. The recent bombings were to perpetuate the sectarian violence. In other words, we've been in this phase for a while. And the fundamental objective is to work with the Iraqis to create conditions so that the vast majority of the people will be able to see that there's a peaceful way forward.
...
There's a lot of sectarian violence taking place, fomented, in my opinion, because of these attacks by al Qaeda, causing people to seek reprisal.

There is a lot to recommend this interpretation. The recent bombing in Baghdad that Bush refers to, which killed more than 200 people, was just the kind of attack that al Qaeda has perfected: suicide bombers setting their bombs off in close temporal succession in an effort to kill and maim as many innocent men, women and children as possible. That's what al Qaeda does. That's their job (as they see it). The purpose, in this case, is to provoke Shiite militias into attacking Sunnis, and that's precisely what's happening. Al Qaeda wants that to happen because they believe that the Sunnis will then embrace al Qaeda to help them fight back.

Take note of the fact that not one single politician who advocates defeat for America as a major policy objective in Iraq acknowledges the role that al Qaeda has played in Iraq (and will undoubtedly continue to play when we leave). No one should take any defeatist seriously until they do that.

Perhaps you believe that al Qaeda is not in Iraq. If so, then you know firsthand what the psychological defense mechanism called "denial" feels like. Was Zarqawi fomenting sectarian violence or not? Guess not, if al Qaeda is not in Iraq. Except that we know that al Qaeda really did bomb that mosque in Samarra, which started the current wave of fighting:

Iraq Cites Arrest of a Top Local Insurgent
Officials Call Detainee No. 2 in Al-Qaeda Group

By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 4, 2006; Page A01

BAGHDAD, Sept. 3 -- U.S. and Iraqi forces have captured a top al-Qaeda leader who ordered the bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine in Samarra that triggered a wave of ferocious sectarian killings, Iraqi officials said Sunday.

Got that? Al Qaeda was behind this critical event. Here is another important issue to consider:

A U.S. commander said Tuesday that he expects to see "elevated levels of violence" in the aftermath of the carnage last week in Sadr City.
...
He said the U.S.-led coalition has killed or captured more than 7,000 al Qaeda in Iraq "terrorists" since October 2004 as well as more than 30 senior members of the group since July.

Not only did al Qaeda initiate the current wave of sectarian violence, our soldiers have killed 7000 al Qaeda fighters. This number is not too different from what al Qaeda itself admits has happened to its foot soldiers in Iraq:

Al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri, also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, recently acknowledged that more than 4,000 fighters from his group have been killed.

Bottom line? Al Qaeda is fighting us in Iraq, and thousands of their soldiers have died there already. Moreover, they want nothing more than to achieve the victory that would be theirs if Chuck Hagel (the token Republican) and many Democrats (Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, John Murtha, Ted Kennedy, etc.) realize their dream of having our soldiers retreat from Iraq in shameful defeat. If you want to embrace defeat for America in Iraq, that's fine, but you should present your analysis of al Qaeda in Iraq. If that analysis amounts to "al Qaeda is not in Iraq," then your position simply cannot be taken seriously.

If you are still not convinced that al Qaeda is in Iraq, consider how they are doing in the Anbar province. Recent news stories differ to an amazing degree on that score. The Washington Post offers a thoroughly pessimistic view:

Anbar Picture Grows Clearer, and Bleaker

By Dafna Linzer and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 28, 2006; Page A01

The U.S. military is no longer able to defeat a bloody insurgency in western Iraq or counter al-Qaeda's rising popularity there, according to newly disclosed details from a classified Marine Corps intelligence report that set off debate in recent months about the military's mission in Anbar province.

By contrast, the Times online provides a much more optimistic analysis:

Fighting back: the city determined not to become al-Qaeda's capital
Martin Fletcher in Ramadi

A power struggle is taking place in the Sunni triangle, with tribal leaders and coalition forces aligning against a common enemy
...
While the world’s attention has been focused on Baghdad’s slide into sectarian warfare, something remarkable has been happening in Ramadi, a city of 400,000 inhabitants that al-Qaeda and its Iraqi allies have controlled since mid-2004 and would like to make the capital of their cherished Islamic caliphate.

A power struggle has erupted: al-Qaeda’s reign of terror is being challenged. Sheikh Sittar and many of his fellow tribal leaders have cast their lot with the once-reviled US military. They are persuading hundreds of their followers to sign up for the previously defunct Iraqi police.

I'm not sure which story has it right, but both indicate quite clearly that al Qaeda is operating in a big way in Iraq's restive Anbar province.

To summarize: al Qaeda bombed a mosque in Samarra to initiate the current wave of sectarian conflict, it is provoking sectarian carnage in Baghdad to this day, and it is either winning or losing in Anbar province, depending on which reporter you choose to believe. Every credible analyst seems to acknowledge that al Qaeda is there in Iraq, and even liberals would agree that al Qaeda is the enemy. With all of that in mind, how can anyone advocate raising the white flag in Iraq without openly acknowledging who we are surrendering to? There is simply no escaping the fact that withdrawal from Iraq means surrendering to al Qaeda.

I don't think Democrats will acknowledge al Qaeda's obvious role in Iraq because to do so is to automatically argue against their preferred timetable for withdrawal. Oh, wait -- I see that Nancy Pelosi has weighed in on this important issue:

Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Pelosi 'sad' over Bush's Iraq representation

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said Tuesday she feels "sad" President Bush blamed insurgent violence on al Qaeda while he dismissed notions Iraq is in a civil war.

"My thoughts on the president's representations are well-known," Pelosi told reporters while meeting with Deputy Italian Minister Francesco Rutelli. "The 9/11 Commission dismissed that notion a long time ago and I feel sad that the president is resorting to it again."

The mind...boggles. The 9/11 Commission was concerned with the relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq before 9/11. The issue is al Qaeda in Iraq today (obviously). Does Pelosi feel sad because she thinks Bush is lying about al Qaeda in Iraq? Or is she sad because Bush actually has the audacity to draw attention to the fact that the Democratic plan for Iraq amounts to a formal surrender to the very savages who attacked us on 9/11?

UPDATE: It's amazing how the idea that al Qaeda is operating in Iraq in a big way has enetered into the conscious awareness of ordinary news reporters but still seems far from the minds of Democratic policy makers. For example, CNN is reporting this today:

Al Qaeda in Iraq, Vatican trade words on pope visit

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Al Qaeda in Iraq on Wednesday denounced Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Turkey, calling it part of a "crusader campaign" against Islam. The Vatican said the comments showed the need to fight "violence in the name of God."
...
Al Qaeda in Iraq, the most feared Islamic militant group in Iraq, issued its statement on an Islamic militant Web site it often uses to post messages.

I am really interested to know if Democrats think that setting a timetable for withdrawal will set back or advance the cause of al Qaeda. The National Intelligence Estimate that they gleefully leaked to the press says that it would be a shot in the arm for that terrorist organization. Remember that? It said:

...we judge that al-Qa’ida will continue to pose the greatest threat to the Homeland and US interests abroad by a single terrorist organization.
...
Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.

I don't think that setting a timetable for withdrawal will lead the jihadists to believe that they have failed in Iraq. I wonder if the Democrats disagree?

Muslim's are from Mars, We are from Venus

The Muslim world is not the enemy, but I think it's fair to say that one of the main threats to America and Europe has its origins there. Part of the problem is that we might as well reside on different planets.

There are something like 1.4 billion Muslims in the world, and they mainly live in these 49 countries:


The nations in green are majority Muslim, and the nations in yellow have a near Muslim majority. The collective population of these countries is around 1.6 billion, which is more than double the population of the United States and Europe combined (about 760 million people altogether).

Economically, the Muslim world is light years behind America and Europe. Here is a chart that compares GDP for America and Europe combined vs. GDP for the entire Muslim world:



They have twice as many people, but they produce less than 1/5 of what Americans and Europeans collectively produce. As such, the per capita GDP comparison is even worse:



The per capita measure provides a rough proxy of average income levels in these areas of the world. The average person in America or Europe could have their income cut in half and then cut in half again and they'd still be almost 4 times better off than your average Muslim. The difference is mind boggling. A few tiny Muslim counties have a very high per capita GDP due to oil wealth (United Arab Emirates), but for those countries with a population larger than, say, California's, Saudi Arabia tops the list at a per capita GDP of about $13,000 (also due mainly to oil wealth). That's about $20,000 below the per capita GDP of America and Europe.

How did it happen that the Muslim world slipped so far behind the Western world that it is unlikely ever to catch up? Some insights from someone who should know are contained in a speech by the former prime minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, which was delivered at the tenth session of the Islamic summit conference (back in 2003). You may have a slight memory of the event because his anti-Semitism was thinly disguised, and the speech got a lot of attention at the time because of it. But anti-Semitism coming from a Muslim leader is par for the course. Honesty about the state of the Muslim world coming from a Muslim leader is virtually unheard of, so the fact that he was honest about that is what caught my attention.

I've long wondered how, centuries ago, the world of Islam went into reverse gear after initially being somewhat ahead of the rest of the civilized world. Mahathir Mohamad provides a cogent explanation in his speech. I can no longer find the entire speech on line, but I saved most of it and Donald Sensing retained a lot of it here. Some selected quotations from the speech tell the story:

14. The early Muslims produced great mathematicians and scientists, scholars, physicians and astronomers etc. and they excelled in all the fields of knowledge of their times, besides studying and practising their own religion of Islam. As a result the Muslims were able to develop and extract wealth from their lands and through their world trade, able to strengthen their defences, protect their people and give them the Islamic way of life, Addin, as prescribed by Islam. At the time the Europeans of the Middle Ages were still superstitious and backward, the enlightened Muslims had already built a great Muslim civilisation, respected and powerful, more than able to compete with the rest of the world and able to protect the ummah from foreign aggression. The Europeans had to kneel at the feet of Muslim scholars in order to access their own scholastic heritage.

16. But halfway through the building of the great Islamic civilisation came new interpreters of Islam who taught that acquisition of knowledge by Muslims meant only the study of Islamic theology. The study of science, medicine etc. was discouraged.

17. Intellectually the Muslims began to regress. With intellectual regression the great Muslim civilisation began to falter and wither. But for the emergence of the Ottoman warriors, Muslim civilisation would have disappeared with the fall of Granada in 1492.

18. The early successes of the Ottomans were not accompanied by an intellectual renaissance. Instead they became more and more preoccupied with minor issues such as whether tight trousers and peak caps were Islamic, whether printing machines should be allowed or electricity used to light mosques. The Industrial Revolution was totally missed by the Muslims.

This rings true to me. Having your entire population memorizing details like that instead of pursuing math and science would seem to largely account for the economic disparity illustrated above.

Would you like to see a modern day example of this? Look no further than the Ayatolla Sistani's web site. You've heard of him. This Wikipedia entry says that "Since the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, Sistani has played an increasingly political role in Iraq, and Western mainstream media universally call him the most politically influential figure in post-invasion Iraq."

A simplified Islamic code for young people provided by Sistani can be found here, and I pulled one example for your consideration:

ISSUE 416: If someone's shoes are taken, and in their place, another pair of shoes are left, then in the event that one knows that the shoes that are remaining are the property of the person who took his shoes, and this person will be content that the person (whose shoes were taken) takes his shoes in place of the stolen shoes, he can take these shoes in substitute for his own shoes (that were taken). However, if he knows that his shoes were taken unjustly or without right, and if the value of the shoes that are left behind are not more than the value if his own shoes, he can take them in place of his own shoes.

There are many, many rules like this. Looking through them, I can see that you'd probably have to abandon most other intellectual pursuits to memorize them all. And when you finally did, you'd be an adult with no real skills beyond those that a Muslim living centuries ago might have had.

The Muslim world is a completely different world from the one we live in. It's probably more different than we can even imagine, and it makes me worry that our differences might be irreconcilable.

Defeat with Honor

Senator Chuck Hagel is the Republican's Joe Lieberman. Whereas Lieberman -- a Democrat -- capably presents the conservative case for achieving victory in Iraq, Hagel just as capably presents the liberal case in favor of defeat with "honor." In a new column in the Washington Post, he starts by engaging in argument by mere assertion:

There will be no victory or defeat for the United States in Iraq. These terms do not reflect the reality of what is going to happen there. The future of Iraq was always going to be determined by the Iraqis -- not the Americans.

Really? Tell that to Saddam Hussein. Call me crazy, but I think that Americans have had some say already and are going have a further say over the ultimate fate of al Qaeda in Iraq. Amazingly, in his call for ignominious defeat, Hagel makes no mention whatsoever of that terrorist organization -- the one that attacked us on 9/11 and the one that is directly responsible for igniting the sectarian violence that is raging in Iraq. That makes it hard for me to take his position seriously. But if I were going to advocate "peace with honor" (where have I heard that phrase before?), I'd make no mention of al Qaeda either.

Next, he spouts a standard liberal line that you've heard many times before:

And our effort in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate, partly because we took our focus off the real terrorist threat, which was there, and not in Iraq.

Maybe so, but a real terrorist threat exists in Iraq now. The leaders of al Qaeda have declared victory in Iraq as their top priority, they are having a tremendous negative influence there (right now), and we've already killed at least 4000 of their fighters. Hagel apparently believes that we can leave Iraq "honorably" by simply ignoring that reality. Callously abandoning those who have chosen to side with us because the enemy is putting up a tougher fight than we had hoped cannot be described as honorable. As our soldiers in Iraq can tell you, it would be downright inhumane. Simply asserting that the craven abandonment of our pro-democracy allies in Iraq is honorable might make you feel better, but it doesn't make it so.

What will happen if we leave? Nary a word about the massive spike in sectarian violence that would occur (because one would be hard-pressed to use the word "honorable" in light of that reality), but he does sound this optimistic note:

There will be a new center of gravity in the Middle East that will include Iraq. That process began over the past few days with the Syrians and Iraqis restoring diplomatic relations after 20 years of having no formal communication.

What does this tell us? It tells us that regional powers will fill regional vacuums, and they will move to work in their own self-interest -- without the United States. This is the most encouraging set of actions for the Middle East in years.
...
We are a long way from a sustained peaceful resolution to the anarchy in Iraq. But this latest set of events is moving the Middle East in the only direction it can go with any hope of lasting progress and peace. The movement will be imperfect, stuttering and difficult.

The regional powers are his hope for lasting peace? Let's take a quick look at the State Department's list of the world's state sponsors of terror:

Cuba (1982)
Iran (1984)
North Korea (1988)
Sudan (1993)
Syria (1979)

You'll notice that 2 of the 5 countries on that list are the very neighbors that Chuck Hagel regards as offering hope for lasting peace in the region. Iran has been on that list since 1984, Syria since 1979. Hagel makes no mention of these facts, which, again, makes it hard to take his views seriously. Interestingly enough, the editors of the Washington Post had an editorial in the same issue that also had something to say about these two countries:

Needed: A Big Stick
Iran and Syria are waging war in the Middle East. Will the West fight back?


ONE WAY TO understand the deteriorating situation in the Middle East is to contrast last week's assassination of Lebanese Christian leader Pierre Gemayel with the response to it. The assassination was a shockingly audacious attack on Lebanon's democratic forces and their U.S. and European allies. But those Western governments remain in a profound muddle about how to address Iran and Syria, which have been fomenting the destabilization of Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories.

The killers of Mr. Gemayel have not been identified and may never be. But the attack fits snugly into a pattern of provocations across the region by Iran and Syria, which appear to believe that American reversals in Iraq have given them the opportunity to create what Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad calls "a new Middle East" -- one in which their influence and radical ideology will predominate. They would make their client Hezbollah the power broker in Lebanon, restoring Syrian suzerainty. They would use Hamas to block any progress toward an Israeli-Palestinian settlement and perpetuate a continuing, if low-grade, war on Israel. And they would continue to bleed the United States by supplying insurgents in Iraq with arms and sanctuary. Iran meanwhile presses ahead with its barely disguised nuclear weapons program: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently promised to increase the number of centrifuges enriching uranium from the current 328 to 60,000.

Gee, I'm starting to see why Chuck Hagel has stars in his eyes over the fact that Syria and Iran will dictate what happens in Iraq when we cut and run. It gets better:

What's more, no attempt to reason with Mr. Assad and the Iranian mullahs will succeed unless they perceive that the United States and its allies wield sticks as well as carrots. As long as the Bush administration is unable to win U.N. Security Council approval for sanctions against Iran -- or impose them through an ad hoc coalition -- Tehran will have no incentive to make concessions. Mr. Assad will demand that the West concede him Lebanon and call off the murder investigations that would likely implicate him -- unless he worries that his failure to cooperate will result in fresh international sanctions against Syria.

And, of course, with people like Chuck Hagel in ascendancy here in America, neither Syria nor Iran needs to worry about even something as mild as international sanctions. More likely than that is an international conference devoted to figuring out why Bush lied, why American power is the root of all evil, etc.

Finally, the editors make this cogent observation:

Iran and Syria are ruthlessly waging war against Western interests in the Middle East.

Someone needs to alert Chuck Hagel.

Our Progressive Tax Code

I'm not sure how many people appreciate the progressive nature of our tax code. They know that tax rates go up as you make more money, but do they know how that results in a redistribution of wealth? And do they know how the redistribution compares under Clinton and Bush? I didn't, until I looked into the matter.

The following two charts show the share of income received by the wealthiest 20% and the poorest 20% in America. The charts show the percentage of the pie (so to speak) that each group receives. They do not show how the pie is changing -- everyone could be getting richer or poorer. These charts just address the "fairness" issue.

Of course, the wealthiest 20% make much more than 20% of the income (that's what makes them wealthy) and the poorest 20% make much less than 20% of the income (that's what makes them poor). The question of interest is how the numbers break down based on pre-tax income vs. after-tax income. Here's the answer (see footnote below for all of the gory details):


These charts tell you a lot that you should know. First, note how the share of pre-tax income going to the wealthy has been increasing since 1979. It really accelerated during the Clinton years, and had he been a Republican you can be quite sure that the media would had an apoplectic fit over that phenomenon. But he is a Democrat, so my guess is that you are not even aware of the phenomenon.

Of course, it's not Clinton's fault and wouldn't have been the fault of a Republican president who might have presided over the same phenomenon. It's just a reflection of the fact that our economy makes you increasingly better off the more you make. The bottom 20% are not getting worse off (in fact, they're getting a little better off over time), it's just that the wealthier are getting better off faster, so they take home a bigger piece of the ever-growing pie.

What is the effect of our tax policy? You can see that the wealthiest 20% have a lower share of the overall income pie after taxes, whereas the poorest 20% have a higher share of the overall income pie after taxes. In other words, we have a progressive tax policy that is designed to redistribute the wealth, and it does just that.

President Bush took office in year 2001, and he immediately pushed through a tax relief bill that many believed would differentially benefit the wealthy. As you can see, though, it wasn't evident by 2003. Instead, the tax code looks as progressive as ever. Things may have changed with the 2003 tax cuts, but it's worth noting that a common anti-Bush fantasy ("Bush's policies favor the rich") was not yet true as of 2003.

With blips and bumps along the way, the overall income pie is growing for everyone (despite what you may have heard), but it grows faster the more you make. That's why an ever bigger percentage of the national income goes to the wealthy. But income taxes serve to redistribute the wealth, and they have done so as much under Bush as they did under Clinton.

The bottom line? If you want to raise taxes on the wealthy to make things fairer, you are saying that the redistribution of wealth that is evident in these charts is not enough. It's not crazy to hold that view, especially if you feel that the top 20% are not earning their growing wealth and that taxing them further will not hamper economic growth (which would actually hurt the bottom 20% even if things were "fairer").

Having said all that, I'm not sure that fairness analyses like these make sense. If the poorest 20% are getting better over time, and if reducing taxes on the wealthy would make them even better off (by accelerating economic growth), then it would make sense to me to make the rich even richer by doing just that. Bush's 2003 tax cuts (which included a reduction in the capital gains tax rate) probably did directly benefit the wealthy more than the poor, but our economy has been the envy of the world as a result. When the numbers come finally out, I suspect they'll show that things are even more "unfair" than they are today, but the poorest 20% are, in absolute terms, better off than they have ever been. I can hardly wait to find out if that's true.
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footnote: The data can be found here (it's an Excel spreadsheet if you decide to click that link), and they reflect all forms of income, defined as follows:

Comprehensive household income equals pretax cash income plus income from other sources. Pretax cash income is the sum of wages, salaries, self-employment income, rents, taxable and nontaxable interest, dividends, realized capital gains, cash transfer payments, and retirement benefits plus taxes paid by businesses (corporate income taxes and the employer's share of Social Security, Medicare, and federal unemployment insurance payroll taxes) and employees' contributions to 401(k) retirement plans. Other sources of income include all in-kind benefits (Medicare, Medicaid, employer-paid health insurance premiums, food stamps, school lunches and breakfasts, housing assistance, and energy assistance).
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Al Qaeda in Iraq

It was a bad day in Baghdad:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A savage string of apparently coordinated bombings erupted Thursday in Sadr City, a Shiite slum of Baghdad, killing more than 140 people.
...
Bombs and mortar shells struck Sadr City at 15-minute intervals, beginning about 3 p.m., according to The Associated Press, with the first bombing hitting a vegetable market.

The standard analysis of what is happening in Iraq goes something like this:

Sectarian war is raging in Baghdad, with Sunnis and Shiites engaging in ever more deadly tit-for-tat reprisal killings. Prime Minister al-Maliki will not disarm the Shiite militias that are responsible for much of the bloodshed because he needs their support to remain in power.

My own analysis differs quite a bit. The bombings in Baghdad have all the hallmarks of an attack by al Qaeda, as noted in this article. Moreover, the attack fits right in with al Qaeda's plan for Iraq, as outlined in the captured Zarqawi letter from back in 2004. That letter specified this plan:

The Shi'a in our opinion, these are the key to change. Targeting and striking their religious, political, and military symbols, will make them show their rage against the Sunnis and bear their inner vengeance. If we succeed in dragging them into a sectarian war, this will awaken the sleepy Sunnis who are fearful of destruction and death at the hands of these Sabeans
...
If we are able to deal them blow after painful blow so that they engage in a battle, we will be able to reshuffle the cards so there will remain no value or influence for the ruling council, or even for the Americans who will enter into a second battle with the Shi'a. This is what we want. Then, the Sunni will have no choice but to support us in many of the Sunni regions.

How is al Qaeda's plan working? Remember how the recent sectarian hostilities in Iraq were ramped up:

The militia and associated death squads are believed responsible for the slayings of hundreds of Sunnis since suspected Al Qaeda in Iraq militants bombed a revered Shiite shrine in the city of Samarra last February. That attack set off a surge of retaliatory killings between Shiites and Sunnis that have raged all year.

Yesterday's bombings in Baghdad show that al Qaeda's plan is still being implemented, or so it seems to me. Instead of conceptualizing what is going on in Baghdad as Sunni-vs.-Shiite sectarian violence, it's better to think of it as al Qaeda attacking innocent Iraqi civilians, just as they once attacked innocent American civilians (and would be attacking us again if they were not so busy over there).

The Shiite militias will undoubtedly retaliate even more now, just as al Qaeda wants them to. So far, they have avoided the indiscriminate slaughter of Sunni civilians (the slaughter of civilians is al Qaeda's method). Mainly, they have been summarily executing dozens of young Sunni males, and we can probably expect to see a lot more of that now.

Prime Minister al-Maliki is, indeed, reluctant to disarm the Shiite militias, but not because he is beholden to them (at least as I see it). Instead, it's because the militias represent a high-value card that he will not trade in lightly. Maliki is heading to a long-postponed national reconciliation conference next week, where he will meet with insurgent leaders. They will undoubtedly demand that he protect the Sunnis in Baghdad by disarming the Shiite militias. But Maliki wants something from them before he'll do that, namely, an end to the insurgency. That's my theory, anyway.

Meanwhile, the insurgency itself presses on in the Anbar province, much as it has all along. The Sunni insurgents do not indiscriminately attack civilians, as al Qaeda does (and as they just did again). Instead, they attack American troops and Iraqi police and army recruits. Increasingly, however, Sunni tribes seem to have decided that al Qaeda is the enemy:

While the world’s attention has been focused on Baghdad’s slide into sectarian warfare, something remarkable has been happening in Ramadi, a city of 400,000 inhabitants that al-Qaeda and its Iraqi allies have controlled since mid-2004 and would like to make the capital of their cherished Islamic caliphate.

A power struggle has erupted: al-Qaeda’s reign of terror is being challenged. Sheikh Sittar and many of his fellow tribal leaders have cast their lot with the once-reviled US military. They are persuading hundreds of their followers to sign up for the previously defunct Iraqi police. American troops are moving into a city that was, until recently, a virtual no-go area. A battle is raging for the allegiance of Ramadi’s battered and terrified citizens and the outcome could have far-reaching consequences.

Ramadi has been the insurgency’s stronghold for the past two years. It is the conduit for weapons and foreign fighters arriving from Syria and Saudi Arabia. To reclaim it would deal a severe blow to the insurgency throughout the Sunni triangle and counter mounting criticism of the war back in America.

Sheikh Sittar and US commanders believe that the tide is turning in their favour. “Most of the people are now convinced that coalition forces are friends, and that the enemy is al-Qaeda,” the 35-year-old Sheikh claimed in his first face-to-face interview with a Western newspaper.
...
The US military wooed the sheikhs over what one US officer described as “hundreds of cups of chai and thousands of cigarettes”. They agreed that their chosen instrument should be the police force, which was practically defunct thanks to al-Qaeda death threats against anyone who dared to sign up. In June there were only 35 recruits; in July Sheikh Sittar sent 300 members of his 30,000-strong Resha tribe for training.

Last month a record 409 new recruits were dispatched to the police academy in Jordan, and 1,300 are now signed up, many of them former Baathists. The US and Iraqi armies have armed and protected them against al-Qaeda attacks, and as fear of al-Qaeda has dissipated, so the process has accelerated.

My point is that al Qaeda foot soldiers were drawn to Iraq like flies. They are there now, losing ground in Anbar province while succeeding (spectacularly) in provoking carnage in Baghdad. The leaders of al Qaeda see the violence in Baghdad as way to push the Sunnis back into their camp. Just read Zarqawi's letter to see why.

One last thought: the latest bombing in Baghdad should go a long way toward convincing your average Shiite that the militias cannot protect them any better than coalition forces can. The Sunnis in the Anbar province and the Shiites in Baghdad may be coming to same conclusion: they have a common enemy in Iraq, and it's not America. It is al Qaeda. That's our enemy, too, though, unfortunately, with respect to that threat, America's head has been almost fully reinserted into the sand.

Fertility Rates Around the World and Around America

I recently stumbled across this interesting map that illustrates fertility rates around the world:



Yellow indicates a fertility rate that falls at the replacement rate (i.e., countries where women have enough babies to maintain a stable population), whereas red indicates a fertility rate that falls below the replacement rate. Green and blue indicate high and very high fertility rates (respectively). Compare America's fertility rate to that of Europe and Canada.

Why is America so different from our natural comparison group? It could be that the less religious a country is and the more liberal it is, the less likely women are to have children. I wondered if that rule applies within the United States as well. Here is a map of fertility rates by state:



Are women in liberal states less likely to have babies? According to this report, the most liberal sates are as follows:

Based on the Citizen Ideology Index, the 10 most liberal states are Massachusetts, Hawaii, Maine, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, West Virginia, and Illinois.

The states in bold are among the ones with the lowest fertility rates in the country according to the map above. The most conservative states are Oklahoma, Idaho, Nebraska, Mississippi, Arizona, Utah, Montana, Alabama, Wyoming, and Louisiana (that last state seems like it's on the wrong list, but I double checked and there it is). Generally speaking, you can see that fertility rates are higher in these states.

There are obviously a lot of variables that figure into fertility rate (e.g., ethnic make up of a state), but across countries and across states, there appears to be an association between liberal thinking and projected extinction. The usual analysis holds that liberals look to the government to supplant the family, with the inevitable result being that the role of the family begins to dissipate. In other words, according to liberal philosophy, the concept of the nuclear family is an antiquated social model that is giving way to a socially superior model in which the government supplies income, child care, a college education, and so on.

It's probably fair to say that the basic role of the nuclear family (i.e., its very reason for existence) is to care for children. The fact that the common sexual attraction between men and women often yields children presumably explains why society invented the concept of marriage in the first place and then signaled its importance by surrounding the act of marriage with significant ritual. For the most part, America still appears to value this old-fashioned, contra-liberal way of thinking. Even so, this caught my attention:

About 4.1 million babies were born in the United States last year, up slightly from 2004. More than 1.5 million of those were to unmarried women; that is about 37% of the total. In 2004, about 36% of births were out of wedlock.

Wow. 37% of children are born to unmarried women. The article goes on to say that the father is present in only about 20% of the cases. I doubt that women deciding to have babies and then relying on the government to serve as daddy is a healthy model for any society. That's why this article really shocked me:

Marriage is in decline across much of northern Europe, from Scandinavia to France, a pattern some sociologists describe as a "soft revolution" in European society -- a generational shift away from Old World traditions and institutions toward a greater emphasis on personal independence.

But French couples are abandoning the formality of marriage faster than most of their European neighbors and far more rapidly than their American counterparts: French marriage rates are 45 percent below U.S. figures. In 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available, the marriage rate in France was 4.3 per 1,000 people, compared with 5.1 in the United Kingdom and 7.8 in the United States. The only European countries with rates lower than France's were Belgium, at 4.1, and Slovenia, with 3.3.

The trend in France is driven by a convergence of social transitions in both the demographic and cultural landscapes, including this generation's nearly universal estrangement from religion, especially the Catholic Church; massive migration to urban areas, where young adults are more independent from their families; and a society that has become not only tolerant but supportive of personal choice in lifestyles.

The increase in out-of-wedlock birthrates is even more dramatic: Last year, 59 percent of all first-born French children were born to unwed parents, most by choice, not chance. The numbers were not driven by single mothers, teenage mothers or poor mothers, but by couples from all social and economic backgrounds who chose parenthood without marriage vows.

An incredible 59% of children in France are born to unwed parents, and it's probably the case that the father is not around most of the time (though the article does not say).

All of this reinforces a conclusion that I am slowly coming to accept: liberal thinking on social issues is not inherently evil or immoral, but it turns out to be impractical. To believe otherwise is to believe that we have evolved socially to the point where we now understand that marriage is a dated concept and that an especially healthy society is one in which mothers generally choose not to have babies and, when they do have babies, they rely on the state to serve as a surrogate father. Given the already disastrous and ever-worsening condition of European economies, I'm not convinced that these trends reflect an advanced level of social evolution. Instead, it looks like a good idea in the abstract, but one that has been largely invalidated by the empirical evidence.

This is not to endorse a fully conservative approach. The liberal influence might be good one so long as it does not become overly dominant. In fact, I think it is. The same probably holds true for the conservative influence. In Europe, however, liberal thinking is dominant, and that may very well be the root of their massive problems.

Then again, perhaps I am just missing something. Perhaps there is some statistic, somewhere, that shows the liberal Western European model to be superior to the less liberal model that still applies here in America.

What is in Doubt is our Staying Power, Not our Leaving Power

Peter Beinart is an extremely bright liberal thinker at the New Republic. He has a new article on Iraq that I take to be the serious liberal position on the subject (as opposed to, say, the unserious position that John Murtha and John Kerry have adopted). His arguments seem to fit with what I heard Carl Levin saying over the weekend, and they are being echoed by Kofi Annan as well. He sets the context for his argument like this:

Today, the honest arguments for staying or leaving are simply that we can't do the opposite. We can't leave because the prospects of a regional civil war (and, perhaps, a jihadist safe haven) are so horrifying. And we can't stay because our presence can't prevent those things--so why send young Americans to die trying to stop the inevitable?

The we-can't-stay-and-we-can't-leave conundrum does not seem especially serious to me, but at least he's not advocating the extreme liberal view, which involves gleefully embracing ignominious defeat as the major policy objective of our time.

What does Beinart think we should do in light of this can't-stay/can't-leave dilemma? Just this:

At this late date, the United States has only one card left to play in Iraq: the threat to leave immediately. Except for Sadr, virtually no one in Iraq's political class wants that to happen. We must wield that threat as dramatically as possible, and, if Iraq's leaders don't respond, leave as fast as we humanly can.

The idea that we have to convince the Iraqis that we might leave them in the lurch strikes me as borderline laughable. America has repeatedly proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are quite capable of callously throwing good people to the wolves whenever the going gets tough. Not so long ago, we abandoned hundreds of thousands of our friends to a horrible fate in Vietnam. And, in a more recent act of callous disregard following the first Gulf War, we proved our ability to abandon the the very Kurds and Shiites that Beinart thinks we should threaten to abandon yet again. I'm sure they'll be shocked to learn that we are capable of acting in such an inhumane way.

What is in doubt is our staying power, not our leaving power. The leaders of al Qaeda know that perfectly well. They have long been convinced that America can always be counted on to flee in the face of adversity. I have previously referred to their certainty about that as the world's most dangerous theory. The fact that Americans will mercilessly abandon decent people who have risked their lives to work with us is al Qaeda's ace in the hole, and they know it.

Beinart goes on to firmly establish his liberal credentials when he says this:

The vehicle for this last-ditch effort would be a conference of Iraq's leaders and Iraq's neighbors (along with Russia, which has more leverage over Iran and Syria than we do). The goal would be revising Iraq's constitution to guarantee Sunnis a generous share of the nation's oil wealth (which is practically Iraq's only source of wealth).

The idea that the Sunni insurgency is primarily driven by the fact that Sunnis have not gotten their share of the oil wealth reminds me of the equally absurd notion that the Palestinians will make peace with the Israelis if only they would relinquish the West Bank and Gaza Strip to create an independent Palestinian state. To the liberal mind, there is always a deal that will solve the problem. At some point, though, you have to face up to the fact that there just isn't any deal that militant Islamicists will accept. Once you accept that, you enter the post-liberal phase of your life and you can reasonably ask what the next step should be.

The same applies to the idea that we should negotiate with Iran and Syria. Carl Levin thinks that the Iranians and the Syrians fear instability in Iraq so much that they will bargain in good faith and then stick to any agreement they make to help us achieve our policy objectives.

Where does such breathtaking naivete come from? After hearing him make this claim about Iran and Syria over the weekend, I waited with bated breath to hear why he believes such nonsense. What makes him think that those two countries fear instability in Iraq more than they covet defeat for America in that region of the world? Of course, no explanation was forthcoming. Beinart doesn't explain that either. That's because there is no explanation.

Let's consider some recent news about our potential negotiating partner that might help to keep matters in perspective:

TEHRAN: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said the world is “rapidly becoming Ahmadinejadised” and that global leaders have started following in his footsteps, press reports said Tuesday.

“I have travelled to all the continents except for one and I know what is going on out there. Everybody is eager to hear the Iranian people’s message,” the reformist Aftab-Yazd newspaper quoted the president as saying, adding, “The world is rapidly becoming Ahmadinejadised.”

Including, I am sorry to say, America. The Democrats won, and now there is a push to go asking Ahmadinejad for his assistance. In other words, we, too, are becoming Ahmadinejadised. The article goes on to say:

Since rising to power, the president has roused nationalist sentiments and pushed through a populist economic agenda. Ahmadinejad ran on a platform of distributing the country’s oil riches, “spreading justice”, combating corruption and vowing a “new Islamic revolution”.

I wonder what these words mean when they are processed through a liberal mind that believes that Iran will negotiate in good faith? When they are processed through my post-liberal mind, they mean that Ahmadinejad is pushing a “new Islamic revolution.” Call me crazy.

Well, at least Iran has proven itself to be a faithful and trusted negotiating partner by doing things like this:

Iranians Training Qaeda Terrorists to Attack Our GIs

Iran's Revolutionary Guards are training hundreds of Al Qaeda fighters to carry out attacks against coalition forces throughout the Middle East.

The Iranian government has been providing a safe haven for fighters loyal to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terror group since they were forced to flee Afghanistan in late 2001.

But Western intelligence agencies now report that the Iranians are training Al Qaeda fighters at centers that were previously used by other Islamic militant groups, such as the Lebanese militia Hezbollah.

The decision to allow Al Qaeda fighters to train in Iran was made by President Ahmadinejad as part of his policy of attempting to forge closer links with Mr. bin Laden's organization.

The training of Al Qaeda operatives is part of a wider Iranian ambition: to take control of the Al Qaeda terror network by encouraging it to promote officials known to be friendly to Tehran.

But surely they mean us well and that they want to help us create a peaceful democracy in Iraq. And, just as surely, they will live up to whatever agreements they make with us as we agree to withdraw our troops. After all, the North Vietnamese lived up to their side of the bargain and did not invade South Vietnam after we left, and North Korea negotiated in good faith will Bill Clinton when they promised not to develop a nuclear arsenal.

Syria and Iran both want to see America defeated in the Middle East. That's their primary goal, and they will bargain faithfully to ensure that outcome. As I have mentioned before, some liberals in America openly share that goal:

For all of the anguish felt over the loss of American lives, can we acknowledge that there is something proper in the way that hubristic American power has been thwarted? Can we admit that the loss of honor will not come with how the war ends, because we lost our honor when we began it? This time, can we accept defeat?

Ahmadinejad agrees that "...that there is something proper in the way that hubristic American power has been thwarted." Osama bin Laden no doubt agrees as well, and I'd be very surprised to learn that Syria's president holds a different view.

That's their goal, and that's their only goal. So long as everyone keeps that firmly in mind and so long as the negotiating is not done by Democrats who share that goal and so long as everyone understands that it has nothing at all to do with solving the problems we face in Iraq, I'm perfectly OK with holding the international conference that Baker's Iraq Study Group will no doubt recommend.

Let's Draft Babies So We Never Have to Fight Another War

Charlie Rangel is calling for the draft, not because of a military need but to make it less likely that America would go to war (on the theory that if everyone's kids were at risk, Americans would be less likely to endorse military action).

It is, of course, all too easy to call for war when your own son or daughter doesn't have to join the fight. Moreover, going to war when you shouldn't is an error that a president has the power to make. Rangel is trying to reduce the probability of making such an error by drafting rich kids whose parents would pressure the president into being more reluctant to fight. The beauty of his position is that it implicitly conveys the impression that whereas he, himself, cares about the soldiers who have to do the fighting, those who disagree with him don't. It is, quite obviously, the other way around (e.g., it is liberal Democrats who constantly accuse our soldiers of murdering journalists and civilians before the facts are in, who suggest that our soldiers are stupid for choosing to defend America, who believe that our soldiers are mainly torturers and Koran flushers, etc.), but that's another story.

Rangel appears to be a well meaning liberal extremist, but I don't see any evidence that he has thought very deeply about this issue. What's missing from his analysis -- aside from the obvious fact that you don't implement a military draft against the advice of our military commanders just to make a social statement -- is the other kind of error that a president can make, one that has had catastrophic consequences in our recent history. And that is the error of not going to war when you should. When you reduce the probability of making one kind of error (going to war when you shouldn't), you simultaneously increase the probability of making the other kind of error (not going to war when you should). It's amazing how tradeoffs like this are almost never taken into consideration.

If you are too willing to go to war, you'll have another Vietnam on your hands. If you are too reluctant, you'll have another Hitler (think Ahmadinejad here). That's the problem.

It would have sounded like war mongering to confront Hitler in 1938. Had we done that, and had 10 million civilians and 2 million soldiers died before we achieved victory, historians might have labeled the effort a disasterous miscalculation. But that's only because the human imagination would have never been able to conceive of what actually happened thanks to our reluctance to engage a growing threat: 24 million soldiers killed along with 32 million civilians.

So, although it's fair to say that it is all too easy to call for war when your own children don't have to do the fighting, it's equally fair to say that it is all too easy to stick your head in the sand and pretend that a threat doesn't exist when it does. The latter error is the one that Charlie Rangel wants to make in the future, but he should try not to lose sight of the fact that 56 million people died the last time we made that error.

Democrats Should Respond Forcefully to their al Qaeda Cheering Section

I'm traveling for the next few days, so posting will be light. But I just noticed an article by Amir Taheri that is worth a link. Yesterday, I noted that pro-abandonment Democrats stand in opposition to the views of both our military commanders and our foot soldiers in Iraq. Taheri points out -- with detailed quotes -- how compatible the Democratic way of thinking is with the views of the enemies we face.

I cannot for the life of me fathom why Democrats are not bothered when they look at who they oppose and who approves of the way they think. Yesterday, I quoted our patriotic soldiers and their commanders to show who the Democrats oppose. Here are some additional quotes provided by Taheri that help to show who approves of their thinking:

Tehran decision-makers believe that the Democrats' victory will lift the pressure off the Islamic Republic with regard to its nuclear program. "It is possible that the United States will behave in a wiser manner and will not pit itself against Iran," says Ali Larijani, Tehran's chief negotiator on the nuclear issue.
...
Nasser Hadian, another academic with ties to Khamenei, goes further. "With the return of a more realistic view of the world, the United States will acknowledge the leading role that the Islamic Republic must play," he says. "There is no reason for our government to make any concessions on the nuclear issue."

I wish I could argue with him, but if the Democrats get their way, I can't. Taheri goes on to say:

Radical circles are unanimous in their belief that Iran can now proceed with its nuclear program without fear of U.S. and allied retaliation. They expect Democrats to revert to Clinton-era policy and seek a "Grand Bargain" with the Islamic Republic - acknowledging Iran as the major regional power and recognizing its right to the full cycle of nuclear technology.

This perception has boosted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's cause in next month's crucial elections. Ahmadinejad argues that Bush's defeat vindicates his own policy of "standing firm against the Great Satan he hopes to see his faction win control of the Assembly of Experts - a body that can elect and dismiss the "Supreme Guide." Ahmadinejad would thus control all levers of power in Tehran.

Going against the wishes of our generals in Iraq while walking in lock step with the wishes of our enemies throughout the Middle East is not a good place to be, but it's where the Democrats are. On the positive side, though, they just rejected John Murtha, they have no apparent love for John Kerry, and Russ Feingold just decided not to pursue the presidency. Because these are some of the leading anti-military, pro-abandonment, al Qaeda-approved Democrats, perhaps there is hope for that party yet.

There is a noble way to oppose this war: in addition to saying "Oh my God it's all a big disaster, it's an unjust war, we've been defeated, we have to get out" -- which is the essence of the anti-war position -- Democrats should say that they want to withdraw and:

1. explain why they do not care about the sectarian carnage that will result if we do or why they believe that it won't happen (our own generals say that it will, and common sense says so as well).

2. explain why they do not care that the failed state we leave in our wake will be a breeding ground for al Qaeda terrorists.

3. acknowledge that al Qaeda and the Iranian mullahs are cheering the Democrats on and explain precisely why that cheering is misguided.

Instead of this, all we hear is how incompetent Bush is.

In addition to inspiring the enemy, anti-war Democrats should address these 3 issues. They avoided doing so in order to get elected, but now they have some power. It's time for them to stop serving as an inspirational force for al Qaeda even if they want to pull our troops from Iraq.

The Pro-Abandonment Democrats vs. Our Military

I was delighted to see that our military commanders in Iraq are willing to speak the obvious truth to the recently elected pro-abandonment, anti-victory Democrats. They are quite clear about the need to keep our troops in Iraq:

Gen. John Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command, rejected a call from some Democrats for a phased redeployment of forces beginning in four to six months.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Abizaid said such a move would result in an increase in sectarian violence.
...
"It seems to me that the prudent course ahead is keep the troop levels about where they are," Abizaid told the committee.
...
Also rejecting calls for a phased troop reduction was Ambassador David Satterfield, the State Department's senior adviser on Iraq.

"It would be interpreted as a withdrawal of U.S. support," Satterfield told the committee.

That it would. All of this corresponds to what our troops in Iraq are saying as well:

Soldiers in Iraq Say Pullout Would Have Devastating Results

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SYKES, Iraq, Nov. 5 -- For the U.S. troops fighting in Iraq, the war is alternately violent and hopeful, sometimes very hot and sometimes very cold. It is dusty and muddy, calm and chaotic, deafeningly loud and eerily quiet.

The one thing the war is not, however, is finished, dozens of soldiers across the country said in interviews. And leaving Iraq now would have devastating consequences, they said.

What do the troops think about a timetable for withdrawal?

Such a move, enlisted soldiers and officers said, would set Iraq on a path to civil war, give new life to the insurgency and create the possibility of a failed state after nearly four years of fighting to implant democracy.
...
"This is a worthwhile endeavor," said Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of Multinational Division North and the 25th Infantry Division. "Nothing that is worthwhile is usually easy, and we need to give this more time for it to all come together. We all want to come home, but we have a significant investment here, and we need to give the Iraqi army and the Iraqi people a chance to succeed."

"It's still fragile enough now that if the coalition were to leave, it would embolden the insurgents. A lot of people have put their trust and faith in us to see it to the end. It would be an extreme betrayal for us to leave."

It would be an extreme betrayal, but that's exactly what the Democrats want to do -- betray those who put their trust in us because the fight has turned out to be long and hard. They want to go against the advice of our military commanders and against the strong desire of our soldiers fighting in Iraq. Instead of following their advice, the Democrats want to do what al Qaeda wants us to do and what the Sunni insurgency wants us to do as well. I'm a registered Democrat, but this way of thinking is simply alien to me. I don't question the patriotism of someone who thinks this way, but I don't know what to think about them. It's like they're from another planet. I completely understand the primal reflex to withdraw when you experience pain, but I do not understand sticking with that primitive reflex even after you have thought through the issue.

My own view corresponds to the views of our president, of our military commanders and of our rank and file soldiers on the ground in Iraq. Like them, I think it's bad to betray people who have placed their trust in you and to march in lockstep with the wishes of al Qaeda. Just because the fight is long and hard does not mean that we should abandon our nobility, but that's exactly what we will do if abandon the people of Iraq to the savages who want to tear that country apart.

What Americans Think about the Democratic Plan for Iraq

A fascinating new poll has just been released. It confirms that (a) Iraq is the top priority for Americans and (b) the Democrats were just given power even though Americans overwhelmingly believe that they have no plan for Iraq:

While voters in Election Day surveys said corruption and scandal in Congress were among the most important factors in their vote, the postelection poll indicated 37 percent of all adults said the war in Iraq should be at the top of the congressional agenda during the next two years. Nevertheless, 57 percent of all adults in the AP-Ipsos poll said Democrats do not have a plan for Iraq; 29 percent said they do.

That finding strikes at the heart of a Democratic dilemma. The party has been of one voice in criticizing President Bush's strategy for the war but has been more equivocal on how to move in a different direction.

The Democrats proved that Americans will vote for you solely on the basis of idea-free whining and complaining. I never would have guessed that would happen, and if this approach did not offer such a boost for the enemy in a time of war, I'd be applauding the Democrats for their political savvy. Here is how the article summarizes their position:

Democrats such as Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania want a fixed deadline to pull all troops out of the country. Other Democrats, including some party leaders, have voiced support for a staggered withdrawal that demands greater responsibility from the Iraqis.
...
"Everyone agrees that we're going to have to begin redeployment," Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., said of the Democratic position. Skelton, in line to become chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has proposed withdrawing a U.S. brigade for every three Iraqi combat brigades rated fully capable. Skelton opposes setting a timetable for withdrawal but said at least one U.S. battalion or brigade should pull out promptly.

"It should send a clear message to the Iraqi government, the Iraqi people and the American people that we're not there to stay," he said.

Gee, now there's an original new plan: send a tough message to the Iraqi government! Fine. But don't forget about the message you are going to send to the enemy as well. The Democrats never seem to consider that obvious problem. At a minimum, they should explain why they don't think it's a problem, but they never do. Al Qaeda has been predicting that America would send this message from the very beginning. They have been supremely confident that America would cut and run, and I don't think their theory will be disconfirmed by the Democratic plan for Iraq (whatever it turns out to be). And, as I have send before, al Qaeda's theory is the world's most dangerous theory. By contrast, the average Iraqi has never imagined that America would stay forever. Their very realistic fear is that America will abandon them, as we did after the first Gulf War. The idea that we have to send the Iraqis a message to convince them that we might abandon them again is absurd. They already know that. What they need more than anything right now is a message that America has the resolve to stay until Iraq's democratically elected government can remain in power without our help. Sadly, John Murtha and John Kerry and the rest of the Democrats seem more likely to confirm their worst fears by confirming al Qaeda's theory of America.

Liberal Ideology vs. Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection

A new story reminded me what an economic disaster Western Europe has turned out to be:

The French economy slumped in the third quarter as the Airbus crisis began to exact its toll, dousing hopes that Europe would take over as world's growth engine as America slows. Growth sank to zero with an accelerating twist down in September as car output fell 3.1pc and overall manufacturing slid 1pc, far worse than expectations.

I'm always amazed at how few people realize that European economies are, in every respect, far behind the American economy. The only real exception is the budget deficit and cumulative debt. Expressed as a percentage of GDP, America's deficit is about the same as Europe's (even though we pay for our defense as well as theirs). Let's look at GDP growth over the years for the EU-4 (France, Germany, Italy and Great Britain) vs. America (economic data, which I gathered a couple of months ago, can be found here):


On this basic measure of economic health, it is not really a contest. What about unemployment? No contest there either:


Another basic measure of economic health is after-tax disposable income, not pre-tax wages alone (which is what NY Times reporters will focus on when they want to make the American economy seem bad for the average guy). How does Europe compare to America on that score for the rich and the poor alike? As I explained in greater detail here, I found the relevant data in Table A-2 of this report. That table appears to provide just what you would want: "Median DPI [disposable income] per equivalent adult in real 2000 PPP dollars, using OECD PPPs, price adjusted in each nation to correct year." The European income values are for the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Finland U.K., and Belgium. I found similar information in Figure 2 of this pdf report. Here is the income story:


All of these measures are relative to the U.S. median DPI (which is set to 100). Those in the lowest 10% here have about the same disposable income as those in the lowest 10% in Europe. It's almost an exact tie. At the other end of the scale, the highest 10% here have much higher disposable incomes than the highest 10% over there. The European in the middle makes only about 73% of what the American in the middle makes.

It's not much of a contest no matter where you look.

What's wrong with Europe? The same thing that was wrong with states that chose communism as an economic model, though to a lesser degree. The Europeans are not communists, but their generous social welfare state has moved pretty far in that direction. It is not an inherently evil economic approach -- it might even be morally superior in some ways. The problem is that it just doesn't work.

It is important for people to come grips with this reality because Western Europe is the embodiment of the liberal ideal. Even if you think that liberal thinking is morally superior, the empirical evidence would appear to suggest that it is not practical. A statistic that sums up this undeniable fact is fertility rates. As explained here:

The total fertility rate...of a population is the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime if she were to experience the current age-specific fertility rates through her lifetime.
...
The replacement fertility rate is roughly 2.1 births per woman for most industrialized countries...

If women have less than 2 children each, the population is not self-sustaining. I looked up fertility rates in the EU-4 (France, Germany, UK, and Italy) and in the United States. I'm sure you already know that fertility rates are higher in America than over there, but a chart that shows fertility rates over time tells an interesting story. After all, fertility rates in America might be plunging towards zero even if, for now, they are higher than the fertility rates in Europe. As it turns out, it's not that way:


I obtained these data from a variety of sources (here, here, and here). As you can see, fertility rates were once quite high, but they fell rapidly as birth control became more readily available. Now, women can choose how many children they will have, and the numbers appear to have stabilized. In America, they have stabilized at about the replacement rate. In Europe, it's not even close.

Europe's indigenous population is not self-sustaining. And that, it seems, is the culmination of the liberal ideal. It's almost ironic that the numbers look like this even though Europe has especially generous child care provisions. A new article in the Economist has some fascinating things to say about all of this:

Europe's Demographic Doom
...
Generous welfare states tend to reduce the number of hours worked: high taxes mean that workers take more of their pay as untaxed leisure; unemployment tends to stretch out, thanks to generous benefits and reemployment schemes; sick leave and disability insurance reduce the cost of absenteeism; high pensions encourage healthy seniors to retire; and welfare benefits and family leave policies encourage women to spend more time with their children.
...
Governments have largely nationalised the traditional functions of the family, but in doing so they have not eliminated the need for future generations to care for the current ones in their dotage. Unfortunately, the assumption of family duties by the state allows people to free ride on the fertility of others—which they seem to be trying to do in massive numbers. As we've mentioned before, a society where everyone tries to free ride on everyone else is headed for disaster. Europe's safety nets, or at least the pension systems, may contain the seeds of their own destruction.

The Europeans are driving off a cliff, but they don't see it coming because they spend so much of their time reveling in their own moral superiority. I believe that, in their own minds, they are on the cutting edge of societal evolution (to borrow a phrase from Rush Limbaugh), but the forces of natural selection would appear to be working against them.

A Phased Redeployment Plan I Can Live With

I noticed a rather interesting observation about Iraq's prime minister in a news story yesterday:

Mr. al-Maliki wants the Americans confined to bases, where they can be called in emergencies, but he boldly predicted that his army could crush violence within six months if left alone to do the work.

Having our troops available primarily as a 9-1-1 force appeals to me. If the Iraqis feel ready to take on the brunt of security efforts, then perhaps we should consider giving it a try. There is no doubt that our forces will be needed on occasion, such as when the Shiite militias start to ethnically cleanse sections of Baghdad (as when they recently tried to evict Sunni families under threat of death). But so long as the militias stick to their main strategy of killing young Sunni males (i.e., killing the foot soldiers and potential foot soldiers of the Sunni insurgency), it may not be critical for us to intervene.

Don't get me wrong: under this plan, the sectarian violence will get worse. As such, the strategy goes against my humanitarian instincts. But it's what the Iraqi government seems to want, and the Democrats are advocating an even more inhumane approach. Those who want to withdraw our troops altogether (e.g., Carl Levin) seem callously content to allow ethnically cleansing to take place on a massive scale.

Whatever we do, it is essential that our soldiers stay in Iraq, ready to fight. So long as they do, it will be clear to everyone -- including al Qaeda -- that we have not embraced ignominious defeat as a primary policy objective. Instead, we will be perceived as remaining resolute as we turn things over to the Iraqis, which is what the democratically elected government has asked us to do. As I have said before, perception matters, and it matters a lot. Remember these important words from the NIE report:

...we judge that al-Qa’ida will continue to pose the greatest threat to the Homeland and US interests abroad by a single terrorist organization.
...
Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.

But if the jihadists perceive themselves to have succeeded in Iraq -- that is, if the Democrats get their way -- many more fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight (and to take that fight to America). That's why it's important that we stay. That is, if we stay in Iraq and fight when needed, it will be hard to construe our actions as a sign of surrender and defeat.

All in all, Maliki's plan seems like a good compromise solution given the new political reality, namely, the ascension of al-Qaeda-approved, anti-victory Democrats (e.g., John Murtha, who appears to be on track to become the House majority leader, and Carl Levin, who is advocating defeat as a worthy objective, etc.). Murtha and Levin no doubt mean well, but their liberal ideology is going to get us all killed in the long run.

Confining our troops to bases in Iraq will give the Shiite militias an even freer hand than they have now. As I mentioned many times before, those murderous militias are changing Sunni attitudes. Recent polls show that, for the first time, the Sunni civilians are not so anxious for American troops to leave. Now, Sunni political leaders seem to be adopting the same attitude:

Also yesterday, the Sunni defense minister challenged Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's contention that the U.S. military should quickly pull back into bases and let the Iraqi army take control of security countrywide. Defense Minister Abdul-Qadir al-Obaidi said his men still were too poorly equipped and trained to do the job.

The Sunnis seem to understand what will happen to them if the Americans decide to get out of the way, yet the Sunni insurgency presses on anyway. Ironically, by doing so, they are sewing the seeds for their own destruction. Perhaps they will come to appreciate that fact before it is too late.

Conservative Thinkers Weigh in on the 6th-Year-Itch Analysis

Rich Lowry thinks that conservatives are trying to reassure themselves about what was actually an electoral disaster:

Conservatives reassure themselves that the “six-year itch” has cost the party in power roughly 30 seats on average since World War II, so this year’s losses aren’t remarkable. But as liberal blogger Kevin Drum points out, most of the big “itches” came prior to the past 20 years when gerrymandering got more sophisticated. Reagan lost only five seats in his sixth year, and Clinton only five (although he had already suffered a wipeout in 1994). For Democrats to win 29 seats despite all the advantages of incumbency enjoyed by the GOP is a big deal.

The problem with this analysis was pointed out by Charles Krauthammer:

What to say about such a victory? Substantial, yes. Historic, no. Before proclaiming a landslide, one has to ask Henny Youngman's question: "Compared to what?"
...
True, today there is far more -- and more effective -- gerrymandering as computer power and shamelessness both have grown exponentially. So fewer seats are competitive. But that is true only for the House. You cannot gerrymander the Senate...In his sixth year, the now-sainted Ronald Reagan lost eight Senate seats that gave the chamber back to Democratic control.

If there were an especially big 6th-year backlash -- a veritable liberal tsunami that overcame the rock-hard opposing force of gerrymandering -- then it would be odd to see that tsunami restricted to the House. In the Senate, only 6 seats changed hands, and two of those turned out to be coin flips. Had both coins flipped the other way by random chance (as they easily could have), I doubt that people would be doubting the 6th-year-itch analysis. Moreover, Lowry mentions another fact that he just ignores in his analysis: Clinton had few losses in the 6th-year of his term because he had already suffered massive losses (54 seats in the House) in the 2nd-year of his gerrymandered term.

The turnover this year was absolutely typical for a 6th-year election -- it could hardly have been more typical -- so the claim that it was not a 6th-year-itch election depends entirely on the evidence-free theory that gerrymandering is a huge opposing force (not a minor one) and on the theory that some other force explains the lack of a liberal tsunami in the Senate. It seems to me that there was a typical wind blowing in the direction of the out-of-power party. I have no doubt that gerrymandering affected the size of the turnover in the House, but I do have doubts about the magnitude of that force. In theory, it should be large, but in practice, my guess is that it is fairly small (doing more to dampen the effects of random year-to-year fluctuations than to stop real shifts in the mood of the electorate).

Of course, the debate over whether this was a typical 6th-year-itch election is purely academic. Except, that is, for one thing that the incomparable Mark Steyn points out:

You can rationalize what happened on Tuesday in the context of previous sixth-year elections -- 1986, 1958, 1938, yada yada -- but that's not how it was seen around the world, either in the chancelleries of Europe, where they're dancing conga lines, or in the caves of the Hindu Kush, where they would also be dancing conga lines if Mullah Omar hadn't made it a beheading offense.

And that is the key point. Perceptions matter, and whether this was a 6th-year-itch election or not, it was perceived by al Qaeda and Iran as evidence that they are winning their confrontation with America. Unfortunately, on this key front (namely, the political front), that may very well be the case.

Steyn is his usual brilliant self in considering the enemy strategy and the overall implications (key sentence in bold):

The enemy aren't a bunch of simpleton Pushtun yakherds, but relatively sophisticated at least in their understanding of us. We're all infidels, but not all infidels crack the same way. If they'd done a Spain -- blown up a bunch of subway cars in New York or vaporized the Empire State Building -- they'd have re-awoken the primal anger of September 2001. With another mound of corpses piled sky-high, the electorate would have stampeded into the Republican column and demanded the U.S. fly somewhere and bomb someone.

The jihad crowd know that. So instead they employed a craftier strategy. Their view of America is roughly that of the British historian Niall Ferguson -- that the Great Satan is the first superpower with ADHD. They reasoned that if you could subject Americans to the drip-drip-drip of remorseless water torture in the deserts of Mesopotamia -- a couple of deaths here, a market bombing there, cars burning, smoke over the city on the evening news, day after day after day, and ratcheted up a notch or two for the weeks before the election -- you could grind down enough of the electorate and persuade them to vote like Spaniards, without even realizing it. And it worked.
...
Whatever it started out as, Iraq is a test of American seriousness. And, if the Great Satan can't win in Vietnam or Iraq, where can it win? That's how China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Venezuela and a whole lot of others look at it. "These Colors Don't Run" is a fine T-shirt slogan, but in reality these colors have spent 40 years running from the jungles of Southeast Asia, the helicopters in the Persian desert, the streets of Mogadishu. ... To add the sands of Mesopotamia to the list will be an act of weakness from which America will never recover.

Well, some Democrats are ready to run, but it's still not clear that their approach will win the day despite the election outcome.

Post-Election Perplexity

Before the election, I was mystified that America were apparently going to vote for the Democrats merely because they proved themselves to be world-class whiners about the problems we face in Iraq. The fact that they were unable to formulate any credible solutions to those problems obviously meant that they had none to offer. Even after the election, the New York Times appreciates the (non) contribution of the Democrats:

The Democrats will not be able to savor their victory for long. Americans are waiting to hear if they have any good ideas for how to get out of Iraq without creating even wider chaos and terrorism.

It all reminds me of a debate between Al Gore and Ross Perot way back in 1993. Perot was making claims that he'd fix the nation's problem, and he was rhetorically inspiring at times. But Gore hammered him for specifics, which caught Perot by surprise and left him muttering something about raising the hood and getting his hands dirty. It was obvious that he had no specific ideas, and it cost him dearly (as well it should have).

But that was then, this is now. Unlike before, the American public seems unconcerned that the Democrats don't have the slightest clue about where to begin in Iraq. The Times goes on to say:

Criticizing President Bush’s gross mismanagement of the war was a winning electoral strategy. But criticism will not extricate the United States from this mess, nor will it persuade voters that the Democrats are ready to take back the White House.
...
The Democrats will also need to look forward — and quickly. So far they have shared slogans, but no real policy.

This is the New York Times speaking -- a paper that proudly refused to endorse a single Republican for any office -- and they sound a lot like me as I puzzled over how it could be that Americans were about to empower these people. I never imagined that free-floating whining and complaining would be a winning electoral strategy, but it was. The Democrats would deserve some credit for adopting this winning strategy if it did not come at the cost of emboldening the enemy in a time of war.

I really was not surprised to see the Times acknowledge all of this. After all, who could deny that the Democrats are lost in the wilderness when it comes to Iraq? Not even the nation's foremost liberal outlet could do so with any degree of credibility. So they wisely spoke the perplexing truth instead. I was, however, a bit surprised to see this:

Unless America’s exit plans are coupled with a more serious effort to build up Iraq’s security forces and mediate its sectarian divisions, a phased withdrawal will only hasten Iraq’s descent into civil war — while placing American soldiers who remain behind in even greater danger. We also fear that Iraqis will have no interest in anything but retribution, until they see that security and rebuilding are possible. For that reason we have suggested one last push to stabilize Baghdad. That would require at least a temporary increase in American and Iraqi troops on Baghdad streets.

Wow. The New York Times and the Weekly Standard on the same page as they both endorse increasing the number of troops in Iraq. You don't see that very often.

The KKK and al Qaeda Support the Republicans and the Democrats (Respectively)

Michigan just passed a civil rights initiative that bans racial discrimination in the guise of affirmative action. The KKK supported the measure, something that opponents were quick to point out:

The proposal is so radical that it is opposed by virtually every major corporation, chamber of commerce, college, union, religious and major political figure in the state. The only civic or social organization that has wholeheartedly endorsed Proposal 06-2 has been the Michigan Ku Klux Klan.

People bring up the KKK as a way of implying that supporters of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) are racists. Is that fair? I don't think so.

Analogously, many people are pointing out that al Qaeda is cheering the recent electoral success of the Democrats. Many are also noting that the Iranians -- who are pursuing a nuclear bomb and seem dedicated to the destruction of Israel -- celebrated the return of the Democrats, too. Is that fair? Not if they are doing so to imply that the Democrats are terrorist sympathizers. But in bringing up al Qaeda's approval of the Democrats' victory, a different (and valid) point is being made.

If the KKK were a real and growing threat, and if the MCRI strengthened their movement, then the organizers of the MCRI initiative could be rightly criticized for not taking that fact into account. But the KKK is an irrelevant relic, so their views simply do not matter.

It's not that way with al Qaeda. They are a threat (obviously). And the fact that they are celebrating is a real cause for concern. The Democrats are not in sympathy with al Qaeda (any more than MCRI supporters are in sympathy with the KKK), but they act in ways that unintentionally advance the cause of terrorism (hence, al Qaeda's celebratory reaction to the election outcome).

The fact that al Qaeda is dancing in the streets because Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are now in charge of the House and Senate is powerful evidence that the Democrats really are soft on terrorism. I wish it were not true. I wish that the Democrats just advocated a different, but equally tough approach to the problem. But al Qaeda's reaction shows that this is clearly not the case.

Now that they've won back some power, I hope that the Democrats will ponder the meaning of al Qaeda's reaction before they further reinforce the cause of terrorism throughout the world by demanding that we pull our troops out of Iraq. It might be too late:

Start U.S. Iraq withdrawal in 4-6 months: Democrats

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats, who won majorities in the U.S. Congress in last week's elections, said on Sunday they will push for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq to begin in four to six months.

"The first order of business is to change the direction of Iraq policy," said Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record), a Michigan Democrat who is expected to be chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee in the new Congress.
...
Bush has insisted that U.S. troops would not leave Iraq until the Iraqis were able to take over security for their country.

"We need to begin a phased redeployment of forces from Iraq in four to six months," Levin said.

Some enterprising reporter should ask Carl Levin if he read the NIE report that some Democratic activist leaked to tarnish the image of the president as he tries to win a war. If you are going to use the NIE report in that way, it seems fair to ask how a troop withdrawal can be reconciled with what else the report says:

...we judge that al-Qa’ida will continue to pose the greatest threat to the Homeland and US interests abroad by a single terrorist organization.
...
Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.

Will troop withdrawal on a timetable cause the jihadists to perceive themselves to have failed? Or are the terrorists celebrating the return of Carl Levin and others precisely because the opposite is true?

Robert Gates Should Choose His Words More Carefully

Rumsfeld's replacement, Robert Gates, once said this:

"I don't think the president misled the American people. I think intelligence misled the president," Gates said in March 2005, speaking to a conference at Texas A&M, where he is president.

He should have added one more point: "...and I further think that Saddam Hussein intentionally misled our intelligence analysts by deliberately acting like he had WMDs when he didn't." The core deception was Saddam's and no one else's.

It's interesting to recall why Saddam deliberately misled everyone about that:

Iraq kept up WMD pretence 'to deter Iran'

Ex-president sure he was safe from US attack

Jamie Wilson
Thursday October 7, 2004
...
The report also states that Saddam kept up the pretence that Iraq still had WMD capability to frighten Iran, rather than the US or Britain. "He explained that he purposefully gave an ambiguous impression about possession as a deterrent to Iran," the authors wrote.

Isn't that fascinating? Saddam set out to convince the world that he had WMDs. Who could deceive the intelligence community better than a madman who had, 12 years earlier, proven his ability to successfully deceive the world into thinking that he had no WMDs? The following section from the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into pre-war intelligence reveals why he was the perfect liar (IC = Intelligence Community):

The roots of the IC's bias stretch back to Iraq's pre-1991 efforts to build WMD and its efforts to hide those programs. The fact that Iraq had repeatedly lied about its pre-1991 WMD programs, its continued deceptive behavior, and its failure to fully cooperate with UN inspectors left the IC with a predisposition to believe the Iraqis were continuing to lie about their WMD efforts. This was compounded by the fact that Iraq's pre-1991 progress on its nuclear weapons program had surprised the IC.

He surprised us once, and we were on guard about being surprised again. He knew that, and he used it to his advantage.

Based on his past behavior, Saddam knew that if he failed to cooperate with WMD inspectors, no rational analyst could possibly conclude with high confidence that he had disposed of his WMD stockpiles. He had to make sure that the world believed that he had WMDs because he felt it was necessary to deter Iran. Amazingly, he thought he could keep up the pretense because he was unconcerned about a US invasion despite the fact that 200,000 troops were massed on his border. In his mind, France would keep those soldiers at bay. But to everyone else, his decision to remain uncooperative despite the fact that Bush was clearly ready to invade could mean only one thing, namely, that he had WMDs. Saddam Hussein may have been the only person on Earth who believed that Bush would not invade even if the Iraqis refused to fully cooperate with UN inspectors. In his mind, Iran might invade if he cooperated to the point where it became clear to everyone that he still had WMDs.

But my main point is that Robert Gates could have been clearer about who really misled everyone. It wasn't Bush (as Gates correctly noted), but it wasn't the CIA, either. It was Saddam, a man who was more perfectly positioned to pull off a credible lie than anyone on the planet.

Oh, and had we not invaded, would Saddam have kept his nose clean of WMDs? Let's ask him:

When asked, during a custodial interview, whether he would have reinstituted a WMD programme after sanctions were lifted, his answer implied that Iraq would have done what was necessary.

Really? I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you. Had we not invaded, one state sponsor of terror would have had its nuclear bomb (North Korea), two more would have acquired theirs a bit further down the line (Libya and Iraq, neither of which will now), and one more would not have been far behind (Iran). Iran may yet acquire theirs, and the fact that the Iranian ayatollahs are cheering the Democratic victory on Tuesday suggests that they are feeling better about their prospects of achieving that frightening goal. If this issue were up on Tradesports.com, the betting on Iran acquiring its nuclear bomb undoubtedly would have shot up on Wednesday, but Bush is still president and the issue is still playing itself out. Let's hope that the Democrats rise to the occasion and work with Bush to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of a maniacal ayatollah.

Hindsight Can Cloud Your Thinking

Before the election, the betting at Tradesports.com suggested that the Republicans had about a 70% chance of retaining the Senate. After the election, I've seen some people suggesting that this was quite inaccurate given that the Democrats ended up taking control. Actually, the betting was right on the money, and it only seems otherwise because people fail to appreciate that hindsight is much less informative than it seems to be (same principle applies to Saddam's WMDs, by the way).

How could it be that the Democrats took the Senate, yet it was right to believe that the Republicans had a 70% chance of hanging on? Consider this statement by Charles Schumer:

Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, the chairman of the Senate Democratic campaign committee, acknowledged that the Democrats' 51-49 majority in the Senate was the result of the narrowest of victories in six race. "Had 10,000 votes flipped we would have four seats not six," he said.

In other words, 4 of the 6 needed seats were pretty much assured, but, given what we know now, 2 were essentially coin flips in the sense that very minor and unpredictable perturbations could have flipped the outcome the other way. Both coins had to come up heads (so to speak) for the Democrats to take the Senate. They both did, but what are the chances of that happening? Given how close the races turned out to be in Montana and Virginia, each of those two seats had about a .5 probability of switching to the Democrats. The probability that they'd both switch (i.e., that they'd both come up heads) is .5 times .5, or .25. In other words, even given what we know now, you'd have to say that, if we did it all over again, there would only be a 25% chance that the Democrats would take the Senate (i.e., that they'd win both of those races). The electorate was just too evenly split for anyone to predict the outcome with any degree of certainty in those two states.

If the Democrats had a 25% chance of taking the Senate, then the Republicans had a 75% chance of retaining the Senate. And that's about what the bettors at Tradesports.com thought was the case.

Hindsight (in this case, the knowledge that the Democrats won), doesn't tell you what the proper mind set was before the fact. That's an amazingly underappreciated fact. If you flip two coins, you should bet against the prediction that they'll both come up heads. Even if you turn out to be wrong, you made the right bet.

This Election was like an Economic Recession

I don't think I would have guessed this in advance:

The exit polls showed that 42 percent of voters called corruption an extremely important issue in their choices at the polls, followed by terrorism at 40 percent, the economy at 39 percent and the war in Iraq at 37 percent.

I had imagined that Iraq would completely dominate all other issues, but it came in 4th (though essentially tied with the other issues). The fact that corruption came out on top is even more evidence that this election was best conceptualized as a 6th-year itch. Turnover in the Senate was exactly average for 6th-year races (6 seats) and turnover in the House was a bit less than average (28 vs. an average of 36). I guess what you'd really need to see is the percentage of people who voted for the out-of-power congressional candidates -- the Democrats in this case -- in 6th-year elections to see if the results were typical, but the statistics we have so far suggest that this was a prototypical 6th-year itch. The exit polling data reinforces this interpretation.

Except for the policy implications with regard to Iraq (which will not be clear until the anti-war and anti-victory factions of the Democratic party battle it out), the end of 12 straight years of Republican rule in congress is not necessarily a bad thing. In the same way, economic recessions have an important role to play in the health of an economy. Recessions are needed periodically to weed out noncompetitive companies that manage to flourish during economic good times. It's painful for a while, but everyone benefits in the long run. A similar principle might apply to one-party control. The Democrats did not purge their party of the corrupt and the incompetent (e.g., William Jefferson is still alive and faces a runoff after getting the most votes in a field of 12 candidates), but the Republicans just did.

As a concrete example, I'm not sure that George Allen (Republican Senator from Virginia) was really the best the Republicans could do. He famously complained about being bored with life in the Senate, and he ran what most would regard as a seriously flawed campaign. James Webb (the Democratic winner of that race), by contrast, seems like a high-quality individual. So I went to his web page to see his solution for Iraq. I had hopes for something creative and intelligent, but I found this instead:

In the short term, we could move our troops out of the country but within the region –– strong possibilities could be Jordan and Kuwait. This would give us the ability to contain the terrorist threat within Iraq without continuing our occupation. From there, we could then bring them home when we’re sure the withdrawal is working.

When we are sure the withdrawal is working? Sectarian carnage on an even greater scale than we see now coupled with an instantaneous increase in al Qaeda's occupation of Sunni territory would not count as "working" in my book. I wish James Webb would say if it counts in his (because those would be the obvious consequences of withdrawal). Well, I can only hope that Webb was spouting this kind of nonsense in order to get elected and that he will now be much more realistic in his approach to Iraq.

While Webb is taking about withdrawal, I notice that Robert Kagan and William Kristol are talking about talking about massively increasing the number of troops in Iraq:

Instead of looking for a graceful and face-saving way to lose in Iraq, the president could finally demand of his civilian and military advisers a strategy to succeed. Such a strategy would do what previous strategies have not done: provide the number of American forces necessary to achieve even minimal political objectives in Iraq. Such an effort would begin by increasing American force levels in Iraq by at least 50,000.

The objective of this increased force would be to do what has not been done since the beginning of the war: to clear and hold Baghdad, without shifting troops from other contested areas of Iraq. As our colleague, military expert Frederick Kagan, has argued--and sources inside the U.S. military have confirmed--an additional 50,000 troops could secure the Iraqi capital. Once that is accomplished, clear and hold operations could expand outward toward the areas of the Sunni insurgency.

Wow. Not exactly the James Webb solution, is it? I agree that it would be vastly better than withdrawal, but I don't see how it can happen. First, wouldn't the Iraqis have to agree to it? I'm not sure that they would, and if they objected, it would be a disaster. Second, wouldn't the Democrats have an apoplectic fit? They were just elected, in part, on the promise to "do something" about Iraq. Nobody knows what that something is, but I don't think that anyone included this on their list of possibilities. The Democrats would scream in unison that an extra 50,000 troops flies in the face of the "mandate" they just received. A few extra troops might be possible, as William Stuntz argues here, but a massive increase does not seem feasible to me.

We can't withdraw and it doesn't seem likely that we can substantially increase the number of soldiers committed to Iraq. What's needed, then, is (a) resolve -- America once had a large reserve of that, and (b) a continued emphasis on the training of Iraqi security forces. It's the only way out, like it or not. It is taking far too long to train them, and they will never be an impressive force, but the creative solution to Iraq undoubtedly involves figuring out the solution to that problem.

You don't like that? Neither do I, but that's too bad. I wish it were otherwise, but training the Iraqis to handle their own security is the only solution, and we have to stop pretending otherwise. Perhaps this will be the essence of what the Democrats offer once you sift through all the useless, unhelpful and terrorist-pleasing rhetoric about incompetence and the like. If they suggest concrete ways to better train the Iraqis and to do so faster (and, no, withdrawal is not really one of those ways), then the Democrats -- finally -- would be invested in our success in Iraq. All of a sudden they would be doing more than simply emboldening our enemy by standing on the sidelines carping at Bush while he tries to find a way to finish a difficult job.

Is that too much to hope for? Probably. As I said before, the radical anti-victory wing of the Democratic party actually sees America's defeat in Iraq as a major policy objective (because, as they see it, it would humble America and make it less likely that we'd use military force in the future). That sentiment is, I believe, what underlies the urge to withdraw immediately, which is what George McGovern thinks we should do. But the less radical and more realistic anti-war wing of the party wants what Hillary Clinton wants, namely, a way out that does not involve ceding Iraq to al Qaeda and creating the extremely dangerous impression that the terrorists have won. Creating a more effective Iraqi security force is the only way to do that, and it will be very interesting to see whether or not the Democrats advocate that approach (and thereby finally embrace the idea of success in Iraq).

Painful Reality

From Reuters:

Khamenei calls elections a victory for Iran

By Jon Hemming

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday called U.S. President George W. Bush's defeat in congressional elections a victory for Iran.

True, but does he have to rub it in? Still waiting for North Korea to weigh in...

UPDATE:

Al-Qaeda weighs in:

Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed in a new audio tape Friday to be winning the war faster than expected in Iraq, saying it had mobilized 12,000 fighters.

The group also said it welcomed the Republican electoral defeat that led to the departure of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Why must they rub it in? I'm cringing as I await what the North Koreans have to say.

The Democrats: Sending Mixed Signals on Iraq

Two articles give me some comfort that we'll continue to work toward victory in Iraq instead of eagerly embracing ignominious defeat despite the recent election of a Democratic congress. An article in the Washington Post says this:

Even before the election, both Democrats and Republicans had been eagerly awaiting the recommendations of the study group, which is headed by former secretary of state James A. Baker III, a Republican, and former Democratic representative Lee Hamilton of Indiana. The group of mainstream foreign policy experts is not poised to make radical suggestions when it unveils its report, but official Washington has expected both parties to seize on its ideas for political cover.
...
The Baker-Hamilton study group is not expected to call for pulling out of Iraq quickly. Rather, insiders say, the most likely recommendation will be to curtail the goal of democratizing Iraq and instead emphasize stability. That might entail devoting more resources to training and equipping Iraq's military, perhaps by radically increasing the size of the U.S. training and advisory effort.

That does not sound like the Kerry/Murtha plan to turn Iraq over to al Qaeda as quickly as possible. Instead, it sounds like a plan to leave Iraq when the Iraqi government can manage its own security (which has been the idea all along). I'm completely comfortable with that approach.

One aspect of the plan puzzles me, though. The report will apparently suggest that we "curtail the goal of democratizing Iraq." How do you do that? Cancel planned elections? Refuse to provide security for those elections? Forcibly install a dictator? Although I don't get that one little detail, the overall plan sounds just fine to me.

Then there was this encouraging article:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - President Jalal Talabani said Thursday that he had been assured by Democrat congressional leaders during a recent visit to Washington that they had no plans for a quick withdrawal of U.S. forces.
...
“They all told me that they want the success of Iraq’s democratically elected government and continued support for the Iraqi people to defeat terrorism,” Talabani said about his trip to the United States in late September as many were predicting the Democratic congressional triumph in Tuesday’s midterm elections.

“One of them (a Democrat leader) told me that any early withdrawal will be a catastrophe for the United States and the world,” Talabani, speaking from his northern hometown of Sulaimaniyah, told the Dubai-based Al-Jazeera satellite broadcaster.

Gee, the Democrats have "no plans for a quick withdrawal of U.S. forces" and they "want the success of Iraq’s democratically elected government and continued support for the Iraqi people to defeat terrorism." That's the Republican plan, too.

It makes sense to me that it would be that way. As was noted repeatedly before the election, the Democrats have no new plan for Iraq beyond a primal instinct to withdraw. The radical anti-victory wing of the Democratic party wants to act on that instinct, but the party leaders appear to be more reality based. They used the Iraq issue to get elected by complaining without articulating a plan (which was the politically wise thing to do), but they appear to understand what the extremist wing of their party does not, namely, that a premature withdrawal from Iraq would be self-destructive.

If these two articles are correct, then, ironically, our recent "referendum on Iraq" will have almost no effect on that issue (and I, for one, will breathe a sigh of relief). On the other hand, an article in this morning's left leaning MSNBC gives me pause. At first, it seems to fit with the other two articles:

Although both parties want to salvage political and military success in Iraq for its own sake, the war’s prominence as a political issue complicates bipartisan cooperation.

Again, this reporter sees evidence (somewhere) that the Democrats want military success in Iraq. But the article adds this:

Democrats say the first step to repairing the situation in Iraq is putting substantial pressure on its government to take more responsibility. The best way to do this, they say, is by pulling out some troops right away to signal the U.S. commitment is finite.

This is a bit worrisome because withdrawing troops now will send a signal to the enemy as well. And it will send a further signal to many in Iraq who have taken a chance by siding with us. The signal they receive might be this: "we are going to abandon you, just like we abandoned the people of the South Vietnam, just like we abandoned the Kurds and Shiites after the first Gulf War, and just like every terrorist leader in the world has predicted we would."

I wish the Democrats who want to "send a signal" by withdrawing troops would explain why they are unconcerned about the parallel signal that would be sent. Perhaps they have a good reason for not worrying about that. I'd like to hear the explanation. In its absence, the plan looks more like a primitive withdrawal reflex than a well thought out course of action. You have to be really careful about signals you send. For example,

Al Qaeda crows over Rumsfeld

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A purported audio recording by the leader of Iraq's al Qaeda wing gloated over the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as a top U.S. general said the military was preparing to recommend strategy changes.

Imagine how they'll react if we decide to "send a signal" by withdrawing some troops from Iraq. Don't forget that famous little NIE report that even devoted left winger Tim Noah of Slate summarized as follows:

On the plus side for President Bush, it says that if United States military forces withdrew anytime soon from Iraq, then al Qaida would use that perceived victory to recruit new members. That's bad news for any congressional Democrats who advocate removing troops in the near term.

Even so, Fox News is reporting this:

Former Presidential Candidate George McGovern to Discuss Iraq Exit Strategy With Democrats

LINCOLN, Nebraska — George McGovern, the former senator and 1972 Democratic presidential candidate, said he will meet with more than 60 members of Congress next week to recommend a strategy to remove U.S. troops from Iraq by June.

So, it seems clear that there is genuine tension between the anti-victory, McGovernite wing of the Democratic party and the more pragmatic anti-war wing (which reluctantly concedes the need for victory). The idea of "withdrawing some troops to send a signal" looks like an ugly compromise between these two factions. All we can do now is hope that the internal divisions within the Democratic party keep them from engineering defeat in Iraq. I remind you again how the anti-victory wing thinks:

For all of the anguish felt over the loss of American lives, can we acknowledge that there is something proper in the way that hubristic American power has been thwarted? Can we admit that the loss of honor will not come with how the war ends, because we lost our honor when we began it? This time, can we accept defeat?

Scary. Like everyone else, I'll be watching how this internal struggle unfolds and hoping beyond hope that those who are dedicated to our defeat in Iraq -- and I'm not talking about al Qaeda -- do not get their way.

The Left Wants Bush to use his Veto Power

One of the oddest criticisms of George Bush that I have ever heard is that he rarely uses his veto power (as if that, in and of itself, reflects a character flaw). Here is one example:

This has to be one of the central, simple messages of Election 2006: Bush has never vetoed a bill because the law means nothing to him. Without the law our country is gone, and a dictator has replaced what we thought was the presidency.

Well, OK. If you insist. To prove that the law means something to him, Bush must start using his veto power.

Or do you suppose they just wanted him to veto bills passed by a Republican congress?

Anti-War Democrats vs. Anti-Victory Democrats

An anti-war Democrat, as I use the term, refers to a Democrat who opposed the invasion of Iraq (or believes now that it was a mistake) but recognizes the importance of not being defeated there. An anti-victory Democrat, by contrast, is one who has chosen to believe that victory is hopeless (i.e., that defeat is at hand) and who has further chosen to believe that the humbling of America would actually be a good thing. The phrase "anti-war" is often applied to both groups, but they are so different in their thinking that different labels should be applied. One is anti-war, the other, anti-victory.

It is undeniably true that al Qaeda and the Sunni insurgency received a major shot in the arm Tuesday, but the war isn't over. More to the point, the Democrats are a varied bunch, and the anti-victory wing of that party may not be calling all of the shots. I noted this interesting comment in a Reuters article:

With many of the newly elected Democrats somewhat conservative, Reid and Pelosi will likely have to compromise within the party's own ranks.

The phrase "somewhat conservative" may mean "not anti-victory." If so, the situation is a bit less dire than it might seem at first glance.

Also, it is worth noting that not a single viable contender for president could be described as an anti-victory crusader. On the Republican side, Giuliani and McCain both understand the nature of the enemy, both are unabashedly pro-American, and both want only victory in Iraq. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton, despite all of her Bush bashing, is a victory-oriented Democrat.

Let's look at the very latest 2008 Presidential preference poll for the Republicans (McLaughlin & Associates, N=1,000, Nov. 2006 general election voters nationwide):


Not surprisingly, there's not an anti-victory Republican among the contenders. Now let's see who the Democrats like:


As you can see, Hillary is way out on top (Obama doesn't really count because he is still in his honeymoon period). You may not believe her commitment to victory in Iraq, but I do. She uses a lot of standard left wing talking points to bash Bush and Rumsfeld, but on the critical issue -- the one that separates the pro-victory from anti-victory groups -- she says this:

America has a big job to do now. We must set reasonable goals to finish what we started and successfully turn over Iraqi security to Iraqis. We must deny terrorists the prize they are now seeking in Iraq.

Those are the words of a pro-victory Democrat, one who isn't denying the obvious fact that we are involved in an epic struggle with al Qaeda in Iraq. Unlike her anti-victory colleagues, she seems to understand what that controversial NIE report really said. The Democrats leaked the part that said that we are creating more terrorists by our actions in Iraq, but they didn't leak the part that said that leaving Iraq in ignominious defeat (the very goal of anti-victory Democrats) would be the best thing to happen to the terrorist movement since we were chased from Lebanon and Somalia.

Curiously, the Democratic party essentially excommunicated Joe Lieberman because of this very stance on Iraq, but they want to elect Hillary Clinton president. Weird, but true. I think it's because Hillary is more willing to insult Bush than Lieberman is, and to many Democrats, that means a lot. But the point is that she is not an anti-victory Democrat. John Kerry and Al Gore definitely are, yet even in this climate -- in which the Republicans were just swept out of power -- the Democrats are not at all crazy about those guys.

That tells you something. This election was not an endorsement of the anti-victory agenda of the far left. That's not where the American mind is right now. If it were, the Democrats, at least, would be favoring someone like John Kerry for president again. But they favor Hillary Clinton instead. Americans just expressed displeasure with how things are going in Iraq; they did not endorse defeat as a major policy objective. So long as the Democrats in power heed the words of Hillary Clinton ("We must deny terrorists the prize they are now seeking in Iraq") things will probably be OK. In his negotiations with the Democrats, Bush should emphasize that he agrees with Hillary's policy objective with regard to Iraq. If they can all agree on that, the rest is just details.

Averaged Polls are Amazingly Predictive

I watched this race with great interest, not only because I was amazed that America seemed ready to give power to an idea-free party (well, except for their idea to thwart Bush) but also because it was another opportunity to gauge the effectiveness of polling data (in particular, averaged polls). In the end, it turned out pretty much as expected, which means that all that talk about polling data being inaccurate because of oversampled Democrats, or missing cell phone users, or misreading who will show up to vote, etc., was itself inaccurate. Averaged polls tell you what will happen (as explained in more detail below). Two elections in a row have shown that to be true (see this discussion of the 2004 election).

Not only did the polls call it, the results were very consistent with historical trends. As I noted earlier, the party of the president typically loses seats in both houses of congress in the 6th-year of his term. Here is the table showing that phenomenon (counting Johnson as being in the 6th-year of his term, which actually started with Kennedy as president):


Clinton seemed to buck the trend, but that's usually attributed to the fact that he had already suffered unusually heavy losses in 1994 (the Democrats lost 54 seats that year and gained only 8 back in 1996). Gerrymandering might have helped him lose a less-than-expected number of seats in his 6th year, too, but the fact that he also bucked the trend in the Senate suggests to me that the real explanation is that he had already suffered the losses that might have otherwise occurred in his 6th year.

The bottom line is that historical trends would predict the loss of 6 Senate seats and about 36 House seats. As of this moment, the Democrats have picked up 4 Senate seats, and they seem almost certain to pick up 1 or 2 more. In the House, they've picked up 26 seats with 13 still undecided. Give them 7 of those, and they will have picked up 33. These numbers could hardly be more in line with 6th-year-itch expectations.

Back to averaged polls: the best polling information was available for the Senate races. Here is a table showing my last tabulation of the predicted margin of victory in the critical Senate races based on averaged polls along with the obtained margin of victory:


The first 7 states are in red because those were Republican seats that had a chance to switch to the Democrats. Tennessee stayed Red (as predicted). Of the remaining 6, 4 switched to Blue (also as predicted) with two outcomes still in doubt. Those races were too close to call based on the averaged polling data, and they remain too close to call. The averaged polls leaned blue, and the results so far lean slightly Blue as well. All along I've been predicting a Senate pick-up for the Democrats of 5 plus-or-minus 1 based on averaged polls (with my best guess being 5). I'm still predicting that. Lieberman and Menendez both won as well (again, as predicted).

Here is a chart showing the predicted and obtained spreads in these critical Senate Races:


As you can see, the averaged polls were highly predictive of the obtained outcome. The correlation between the predicted and obtained values is .86. The bottom line is that averaged polls are predictive, and you can take that to be bank.

As I said before, this election represents a classic example of the 6th-year itch, not a referendum on Iraq. People are unhappy about Iraq, and they expressed that emotion by electing Democrats who will now thwart Bush every step of the way. They did not elect Democrats because they have a better idea of what to do about Iraq. Agreement is virtually unanimous that they have no such idea. Expect them to do what they were elected to do (i.e., thwart Bush), which carries with it this silver lining.

2006 Mid-term Election Parlays

That's the phrase they use at Tradesports.com, where the current betting suggests these chances for the 4 possible outcomes:

GOP Senate + Dem House = 59% chance
Dem Senate + Dem House = 28% chance
GOP Senate + GOP House = 16% chance
Dem Senate + GOP House = 1% chance

As you can see, according to the bettors, one-party control of both houses is twice as likely to belong to the Democrats (28%) than to the Republicans (16%), but even more likely is a split, with the Democrats taking only the House (59%).

Carrots and Sticks in Iraq

1. Carrot:

Shi'ites offer concession to Sunnis
Hope to reinstate jobs of members of Hussein's party
By Bassem Mroue, Associated Press | November 7, 2006

BAGHDAD -- A day after Saddam Hussein was sentenced to hang, the Shi'ite-dominated government offered a major concession yesterday to Hussein's Sunni backers that could see thousands of members of the ousted dictator's Ba'ath Party reinstated in their jobs.

2. Stick

BAGHDAD - Police found 56 bodies [of young Sunni males] and a severed head in different parts of Baghdad over the last 24 hours, an Interior Ministry source said. The bodies showed signs of torture and bullet wounds.

I added the bracketed phrase based on what I believe to be true. These two stories represent Prime Minister Maliki's plan to bring an end to the Sunni insurgency (according to my theory). The Sunnis have a choice to make: ally with al Qaeda in hopes of staving off the Shiite militias (that's al Qaeda's plan) or finally side with government in hopes of getting them to disarm the militias.

The Sunnis themselves don't like either one of those choices. Their hope is that America will set a timetable for withdrawal so that the Baathists can forcibly restore themselves to power. They need to give up that vision, but I don't know why they would if the Democrats prevail today at the polls.

What The Dems Would Do (is Downright Scary)

I've read every article I can find on what the Democrats would do if they win control on election day (today!). I am transfixed by these articles because everyone -- Democrat and Republican alike -- appreciates the absurdity of the Democratic platform. I've considered articles and columns addressing this question here, here, here and here.

Now, liberal icon Michael Kinsley weighs in on the subject. Not surprisingly, his analysis matches the unanimous sentiments of others who have thought through the issue:

Pelosi's Platform

By Michael Kinsley
Tuesday, November 7, 2006; Page A21

What would a Democratic House of Representatives under Speaker Nancy Pelosi be like? The Republicans have been painting an unattractive portrait of Democrats roasting young children on a spit in the Capitol Rotunda and whatnot. Hoping for a more encouraging view, I picked up "A New Direction for America," a 31-page manifesto released to little acclaim by House Democrats in June. By all means read it. But do me a favor and vote first.

That, in a nutshell, says it all. It fits with the fact that Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry are in hiding as the election nears. Don't look at the Democrats and don't read their plan. Instead, rage at Republicans, vote against them, and hope for the best. Here's more from this man of the left:

For national security in general, the Democrats' plan is so according-to-type that you cringe with embarrassment: It's mostly about new cash benefits for veterans. Regarding Iraq specifically, the Democrats' plan has two parts. First, they want Iraqis to take on "primary responsibility for securing and governing their country." Then they want "responsible redeployment" (great euphemism) of American forces.

Older readers may recognize this formula. It's Vietnamization -- the Nixon-Kissinger plan for extracting us from a previous mistake. But Vietnamization was not a plan for victory. It was a plan for what was called "peace with honor" and is now known as "defeat."

Maybe "A New Direction for America" is just a campaign document -- although it seems to have had no effect at all on the campaign. My fear is that the House Democrats might try to use it as a basis for governing.

We know, we know. Everyone has been saying this in one way or the other (including -- mostly, in fact -- left wing reporters and columnists). How is it, then, that Americans seem poised to put these people in power?

All of this explains why I say that today's election, if it goes as predicted, is more about emotion than reasoned analysis. People are upset that the war in Iraq is not going as well as we had hoped, and they are grasping at straws in an effort to deny that reality. But it is reality, not "incompetence," that we are facing in Iraq, and the reality is that our enemy is much more determined than we hoped they would be. If it were incompetence, then the Democrats would put forward a much more competent plan of attack. Take careful note of the fact that they are unable to do that. It is the real enemy -- not Bush -- that is the problem here.

We are in a war against an amazingly determined enemy that believes that America's unwillingness to fight more than negates their superpower status. Their perceived ace-in-the-hole is summed up more perfectly than I thought possible by Boston Globe columnist James Carroll here:

For all of the anguish felt over the loss of American lives, can we acknowledge that there is something proper in the way that hubristic American power has been thwarted? Can we admit that the loss of honor will not come with how the war ends, because we lost our honor when we began it? This time, can we accept defeat?

Thst's the America that al Qaeda sees. It's also the liberal vision for America that even Michael Kinsley can see.

Where are the "fighting Dems" that DailyKos is always talking about? Instead of lending a hand to al Qaeda by opening up a subpoena-oriented front in the larger war against George Bush, I wish that the leaders of my party would show some interest in fighting al Qaeda, too. Those are the "fighting Dems" that I hope will one day emerge. Perhaps they will after they vent some of their maniacal rage at their own commander-in-chief as he tries to prosecute a war against a vicious and determined enemy. Only time will tell.

A Silver Lining Should the Democrats Prevail

The generic congressional ballot question may or may not be predictive of what will happen on election day, but two things seem clear:

1. The race has tightened in favor of the Republicans as election day approaches

2. The Democrat still enjoy a large advantage

Here is the average result from RealClearPolitics:


You can see what looks like a genuine closing of the gap in the last few days, but it is hard to image that this will change the outcome very much. I believe that last-minute trends like this are common in Americans elections (though I'm not sure about that), and they usually don't mean very much. As such, I still see the race much as they do at Tradesports.com: the Republcains are likely to retain the Senate; the Democrats are likely to take the House.

In the Senate, there are lots of polls. Based on those polls, I'll be shocked if the Democrats take fewer than 4 seats or more than 7 seats. Best guess: 5.

In the House, the information is less clear (because there are fewer polls to average over), but I have to go with the conventional wisdom and predict a pick-up somewhere in the range of 15 to 30 seats. Best guess: 23.

A longer term prediction is that when the Democrats take the House, they'll try to vent some of their pent up hostility and rage by holding endless hearings in an effort to finally bring to fruition their cherished vision of frog marching Karl Rove and company out of the White House in handcuffs. This theater-of-the-absurd will undoubtedly boost Bush's popularity in the last 2 years of his term while decreasing the popularity of Democrats leading up to the 2008 presidential election. And, really, it is the president who will select from the critical choices we face as a country, choices that boil down to this:

1. Accept defeat and sheepishly withdraw from Iraq (and await the steep price we will pay for that somewhere down the line)

2. Stay in Iraq until victory is achieved, no matter how long that might be

If an endless series of goofy investigations nauseates the American public enough to avoid taking any shame-and-defeat-oriented presidential candidate seriously, it will have been worth it. That's the slight silver lining I see on what is likely to be a 6th-year-itch kind of day for the Republicans. If, on the other hand, the Republicans manage to pull a rabbit out of a hat and hang on to both houses, the apparent 6th-year-itch may become an 8th-year itch instead. So the Democrats have a slight silver lining, too, should they not do as well as they expect today.

What the Dems Would Do (and What the Soldiers in Iraq Think)

I've highlighted several articles about what the Democrats would do if they regain power, and it's a pretty ugly scenario even if you are sympathetic to the liberal agenda. Another such article just came out, and it's all about Charles Rangel (who is in line to become Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee if the Democrats take the House). He seems well-positioned to lay out the liberal agenda, as he does here. He has 3 basic proposals:

1. First, accept defeat in Iraq, then cut and run:

Donaldson suggested that Democrats seem to be all over the lot on how to handle the war in Iraq. Rangel countered, "The Democrats believe we should withdraw...This election is a referendum on the president, a referendum on the war. Once the pubic says that there is no place for a military victory, we have to find some way to take our young men and women out of harm's way."

2. Next, raise taxes:

Some Republicans believe Rangel and the committee would undo the Bush administration's tax cuts that are set to expire in 2010. "It doesn't make sense to be increasing people's taxes unless it's part of a bigger package," Rangel said, while refusing to pledge he would not raise taxes.

3. Finally, reinstate the draft:

Rangel reiterated his feeling that the military draft should be reinstated. "I truly believe that if we had a draft system, we would never have our men and women in Iraq. Everyone wants to fight with someone else's children."

Rangel insisted that a new draft should be fair, with people from every part of society coming to a national public service.

Is Rangel's real concern about fighting wars with someone else's children or is he mainly concerned about bringing dishonor on his commander-in-chief? Well, let's ask those "children" to see what they think about the approach that the Democrats, al Qaeda, and the Sunni insurgency all favor (via Instapundit):

Soldiers in Iraq Say Pullout Would Have Devastating Results

By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 6, 2006; Page A13

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SYKES, Iraq, Nov. 5 -- For the U.S. troops fighting in Iraq, the war is alternately violent and hopeful, sometimes very hot and sometimes very cold. It is dusty and muddy, calm and chaotic, deafeningly loud and eerily quiet.

The one thing the war is not, however, is finished, dozens of soldiers across the country said in interviews. And leaving Iraq now would have devastating consequences, they said.

This reporter interviewed dozens of soldiers who are in theater, and they are as logical and realistic as anyone whose thinking is not clouded by anger directed at George Bush. About the notion of withdrawal, they have this to say:

Such a move, enlisted soldiers and officers said, would set Iraq on a path to civil war, give new life to the insurgency and create the possibility of a failed state after nearly four years of fighting to implant democracy.
...
The soldiers declined to discuss the political jousting back home, but they expressed support for the Bush administration's approach to the war, which they described as sticking with a tumultuous situation to give Iraq a chance to stand on its own.

Say what? The soldiers support Bush's approach to Iraq? Get out. More:

"This is a worthwhile endeavor," said Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of Multinational Division North and the 25th Infantry Division. "Nothing that is worthwhile is usually easy, and we need to give this more time for it to all come together. We all want to come home, but we have a significant investment here, and we need to give the Iraqi army and the Iraqi people a chance to succeed."

Try telling that to a confirmed Bush-hater. They can't hear the message because it would reflect well on the president. As you can see, this is not another Vietnam no matter how much the Democrats want that to be true. The soldiers want to stay and win, but the Democrats want to replicate our defeat in Vietnam. More:

"It's still fragile enough now that if the coalition were to leave, it would embolden the insurgents. A lot of people have put their trust and faith in us to see it to the end. It would be an extreme betrayal for us to leave."

But it's what the Democrats want to do. In their minds, we have already been defeated. All hope is lost, and all that's left to do is bring the troops home and rage at Bush for his folly in Iraq.

Why do the troops say otherwise? Maybe the Democrats, like John Kerry, really believe that our soldiers are too stupid to realize the truth. Well, someone is in the wrong here, and I'll let you decide who it might be.

Make no mistake about it: the Democrats want to abandon Iraq, and despite their unwillingness to confirm it in some cases, Rangel and Kerry and Murtha and Kennedy have all been pretty clear about it. And Americans are not fooled:

October 26, 2006
What Democrats Would Do If They Win Control of Congress
Most Americans believe Democrats would set time-table for withdrawal from Iraq

Question: If Democrats win both Houses, would they set a time-table for withdrawal?

82% say it's likely that they would.

Americans are not fooled, and neither are the terrorists and insurgents in Iraq. The majority of Americans say they want to see troops withdrawn, too, but I hope that is more an expression of emotion than it is a well thought plan of action. We'll find out tomorrow.

UPDATE: I think this sums up the Democratic point of view more perfectly than anything else I've read (via RealClearPolitics). I think that even Democrats might agree:

For all of the anguish felt over the loss of American lives, can we acknowledge that there is something proper in the way that hubristic American power has been thwarted? Can we admit that the loss of honor will not come with how the war ends, because we lost our honor when we began it? This time, can we accept defeat?

Finally, Slight Evidence of a Rightward Shift

I was getting ready to make fun of two new polls when I encountered a third poll that gave me pause. First, let me make fun of the polls as I had originally planned to do:

1. Newsflash #1: Nov. 4, 2006 - As President George W. Bush jets across Red State America this weekend, Republican candidates are falling further behind Democratic rivals, according to the new NEWSWEEK poll.
...
If the elections were held today, 54 percent of likely voters say they would support the Democratic candidate in their district versus 38 percent who would vote for the Republican-a 16-point edge for the Democrats.

2. Newsflash #2. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows some narrowing in the Democratic advantage in House races. The survey gives the Democrats a six-percentage-point lead nationally among likely voters asked which party they prefer for Congress. It was 14 points two weeks ago...

So, it seems crystal clear from these two polls that the Republicans are falling further behind the Democrats at the same time that they are narrowing the Democratic advantage. Makes sense to me!

Apparent contradictions like this are to be expected because random error affects the outcome of polls much more than people realize. I was all set to conclude that there is no evidence of a shift in favor of the Republicans as the election approaches, but then another new poll was released. Drudge linked to a new Pew poll that finds this:

A nationwide Pew Research Center survey finds voting intentions shifting in the direction of Republican congressional candidates in the final days of the 2006 midterm campaign. The new survey finds a growing percentage of likely voters saying they will vote for GOP candidates. However, the Democrats still hold a 48% to 40% lead among registered voters, and a modest lead of 47%-43% among likely voters.

The results of this poll are not easily dismissed because the sample size is large (involving more than 2300 registered voters and more than 1700 likely voters). That's a pretty big sample.

I don't see any reason to change my prediction of a 5-seat (plus-or-minus 1) Democratic pick-up in the Senate and a 23-seat (or so) pickup in the House, but at least I finally see a shred of evidence that the race is shifting in favor of the Republicans as election day approaches.

UPDATE: But there's not much evidence of a big swing in Republican fortunes at Tradesports.com, which puts the chances of the Republicans retaining control of the House at 21%. That's as low as I've seen it.

UPDATE II: Then again, Pollster.com has shifted its Senate predictions in favor of the Republicans based on the most recent polling data. Specifically, they've added Maryland to the tossup category:



The Democrats would need to win all four of the tossup races to control the Senate, which does not seem very likely (though it's certainly possible). I guess we can at least say that if the wind is blowing, it's blowing slightly in favor of the Republicans as election day approaches.

Peter Galbraith: Partition Iraq

I just read a fascinating article by Peter W. Galbraith entitled "The Case for Dividing Iraq." I disagree with just about everything he says, but I loved the article anyway because it is so rare to encounter an advocate of this idea who has actually tried to think through the issue and seems to recognize at least some of what is actually happening in Iraq. His core idea is this:

Partition is an Iraqi solution. The U.S. could help make it go more smoothly, but it mostly needs to get out of the way.

A basic problem with this approach -- one so basic as to render it completely untenable -- is that the democratically elected government of Iraq strongly opposes it. Should we declare war on them to make this happen against their will? Should we simply announce that the experiment in democracy has failed and that we are ones making all the decisions again? If not, how are we going to make this happen? A word or two about that would strengthen the case. Simply pretending that it isn't an insurmountable problem by ignoring the issue altogether doesn't help the case at all.

Galbraith goes on to say:

Most Iraqis do not want civil war. But they have rejected the idea of a unified Iraq. In the December 2005 national elections, Shi'ites voted overwhelmingly for Shi'ite religious parties, Sunni Arabs for Sunni religious or nationalist parties, and the Kurds for Kurdish nationalist parties.

That's like saying we should partition America because blacks vote for blacks and whites vote for whites. To say that the Iraqis have rejected a unified Iraq is to ignore what they say when asked directly about these issues, as they were in a recent poll:



The Iraqis were even asked about Galbraith's idea of partitioning Iraq, and the plan has this little problem:

New Poll Finds Iraqis Favor Unity
Overwhelming Majority Oppose the Idea of Segregation
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 19, 2006

Washington, D.C. --A new poll released by the International Republican Institute (IRI) found Iraqis strongly oppose the idea of segregating the country. Seventy-eight percent strongly disagree or disagree with the idea of segregating Iraqis according to religious or ethnic sects. An overwhelming majority, 89 percent, believe that a unity government is extremely important to Iraq's future.

Here are the results of that poll broken down according to religious and ethnic group (red and orange indicate opposition):


The bottom line? We'd have to partition Iraq against the wishes of the people, who strongly support the unity government, and against the wishes of the unity government itself, which strongly opposes the idea. Only the Kurds like the idea, and even their support is not overwhelming. Galbraith could have strengthened his case by acknowledging all of this. Then again, he wouldn't have an article to write if he did.

In any case, let's ignore these fundamental problems and pretend that they don't exist (as Galbraith does). Galbraith has a fair take on the problems that are currently evident:

Al-Maliki leads a religious Shi'ite coalition that includes parties that operate the death squads that kill scores of Sunnis each day. While he says illegal militias should be disbanded, he has vigorously resisted every U.S. operation against them.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials speak of Iraq's army and police as if they were neutral guarantors of public safety. Iraqis see them for what they are: Shi'ites or Sunnis who are active combatants in Iraq's civil war. Shi'ite police units have kidnapped, tortured and executed thousands of Sunnis since the Samarra bombing. Sunni policemen are often insurgents or sympathizers.

All true, but why is it going this way? Here, he does not apply his analytical skill at all and just takes it for granted that ancient sectarian hostilities explain all you need to know. When people appeal to that undeniable reality, they almost invariably stop thinking. Galbraith certainly did, but a deeper analysis is needed.

To his credit, Galbraith does recognize the most important issue from the American point of view, which is that al Qaeda seeks to use Sunni territory as a base of operation. But, after recognizing that, he immediately veers into fantasyland:

One overriding interest in Iraq, however, is still achievable: that Iraq's Sunni areas not become a base from which al-Qaeda and its allies might attack the West. With the security that comes from having their own region, the Sunnis might deal more effectively with the terrorist threat, since continuing violence would prevent economic progress in the Sunni areas. While local leaders are now unwilling to fight the most radical elements of the insurgency when the beneficiary is Iraq's Shi'ites, they may be more willing to do so when it benefits them.

This is a pipe dream. The reality is that the Sunnis refuse to make any concessions whatsoever to the "unity" government, and that is the root of the problem. All else flows from that. It is not "incompetence" or "too few troops" or anything else. It is that the Sunnis are going to steadfastly resist no matter what anyone does, and that's what they would have done regardless of how we approached Iraq. It's also what they'll do if they are given their own oil-free slice of Iraq. To just imagine that the promise of economic prosperity will cause them to oust al Qaeda (and to further imagine that the Sunnis might strike oil in their dry segment of Iraq, as Galbraith does elsewhere in his article) is like a scientist imagining that, to get from step 2 to step 3 in his 4-step derivation, a miracle happens:


Don't assume a miracle to create an exit strategy. Instead, be realistic and assume that the Sunnis are completely, 100% intransigent and that they are going to fight along with al Qaeda until they restore themselves to power. Period. Iraq is much more understandable when considered in that light.

Again, no amount of negotiation and no plan for the future of Iraq (partition or not) is going to change that fact. Making the simple assumption that the Sunnis are 100% intransigent involves no appeal to a miracle. Instead, it involves facing a painful reality. It's what we were wrong about when we liberated Iraq. We knew the Sunnis would not be happy, but we mistakenly thought the same way that Galbraith does (i.e., that they'd eventually negotiate themselves into the best position they could reasonably hope for and then stop fighting). We were wrong about that, and so is Galbraith.

The Sunnis will eventually come around, but, unfortunately, the promise of economic prosperity is not going to do it. This will (from the news 2 days ago):

BAGHDAD - Police found 56 bodies and a severed head in different parts of Baghdad over the last 24 hours, an Interior Ministry source said. The bodies showed signs of torture and bullet wounds.

I believe that these are mostly Sunni males being eradicated by Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army, and it's clear that Maliki is going to let this happen until the Sunnis relent. That won't happen soon, in part because of the expected shot in the arm the Sunni insurgency will receive on Tuesday. They want the Americans to leave so they can focus on their singular goal (namely, to restore themselves to power), and the Democrats who are poised to regain some power on Tuesday think that an exit strategy, not victory, is the goal. The Sunnis are going to see real progress in achieving their main objective when the Democrats use their subpoena power to open a second front against Bush's war in Iraq. It's a race against time, and the main question is whether the Shiite militias will break the will of the Sunni insurgency before the Democrats embolden that insurgency to keep up the fight indefinitely.

Senate Race Update

Here how the Senate race looks today according to averaged polls and the betting at Tradesports.com:


The first 7 states are currently Republican seats. Three are toss-ups and 4 seems certain to go to the Democrats (the names of Democratic candiates are in blue; Republicans are in red). All 3 toss-ups lean slightly to the Democrats. So, it looks like they'll pick 5 or 6 seats, and they stand a chance of picking up 7 (they need 6 to take control of the Senate).

I keep hearing about a late Republican surge, but I don't see any evidence of it. It still looks to me like it will be a standard 6th-year-itch election.

UPDATE:

Pollster.com com shows the same results, but they do it in a more professional way than I do (the 3 toss-up states are shown in yellow):



And here is their look at the House races (the Democrats need to win 216 seats to take control):




Like it or not, that's the reality of the situation.

Another Look at What the Dems Would Do

I just read yet another article on what the Dems will do if they win some power on Tuesday (more about that here). Again, it is written by a reporter who is sympathetic to the left wing agenda. As usual, it is not a pretty picture (even if you are liberal):

What will the Democrats do if they win?

By David Gregory
Chief White House correspondent
...
The issue of what Democrats would do is a major theme in the final days on the stump and on the air.

In Rhode Island, Senate candidate Sheldon Whitehouse tells voters, "We need to effect a responsible redeployment of our troops out of Iraq." In Colorado, congressional candidate Angie Paccione promises, "I will stand up to the special interests." And in New Mexico, House candidate Patricia Madrid says, "I'll work to get rid of subsidies to oil companies."
...
But the White House has bigger concerns about Democratic rule: Subpoena power.

"We certainly will be having hearings and look into how we got to where we are, the war, the cost of energy, and maybe some other areas as well," promises Pelosi.

Democrats with a plan, assuming voters see it their way.

Completely clueless on Iraq (by their own admission) and possessed of a maniacal rage against Bush (hence, their drooling over subpoena power). Well, I make one prediction: if the Democrats take the House and start investigating the administration, Bush's popularity will go up. Having Nancy Pelosi and Charles Rangel on the news every day can only help the Republicans over the next two years.

Krauthammer says it's the 6th-year Itch

Via Instapundit, I see that Charles Krauthammer sees the election a lot like I do. In my prior posts, I've said that the Democrats are on track to pick up 5 plus-or-minus-1 seats in the Senate and around 23 in the House. I also pointed out that in the 6th-year of a president's term, the average loss is 6 Senate seats and about 33 House seats. Here's Charles:

According to the pollsters, pundits and pols -- Democratic and nervous Republican -- a great anti-Republican wave is a-coming. Well, let's assume major Democratic gains: 20 to 25 House seats and four to six Senate seats. The House goes Democratic for the first time in 12 years. The Senate probably stays Republican, but by such an excruciatingly small margin that there is no governing majority.

What to say about such a victory? Substantial, yes. Historic, no. Before proclaiming a landslide, one has to ask Henny Youngman's question: "Compared to what?" (His answer to: "How's your wife?") Since the end of World War II, the average loss for a second-term presidency in its sixth year has been 29 House seats and six Senate seats. If you go back to Franklin Roosevelt's second term, the House loss average jumps to 35. Thus a 25/6 House and Senate loss would be about (and slightly below) the historical average.

It all sounds about right to me, sad to say. And Bush is out there making a point that I've been harping on as well. As I noted earlier today, Iraq is number one on America's list of priorities but not does not even make the top 6 on the Democrats' list of priorities. Yet Americans are going to vote for Democrats anyway.

Bush is out there pressing the Democrats to specify their plan, but they can't do that (because they'd lose if they did):

SPRINGFIELD, Missouri (Reuters) - President George W. Bush challenged Democrats on Friday to offer their plan for winning in Iraq as he swept across Republican strongholds in the U.S. heartland to try to help his party's candidates survive on Election Day.

It makes sense for him to be doing that, but Americans do not appear to be in a sensible mood. They are going to vote for Democrats even though the Democrats are clueless about the number one priority in America.

A Counter-Suggestible Electorate

This has been an interesting election year, in part because the American public reacts to unexpected events in a way that would seem to be the opposite of what you might expect. Consider these 3 examples:

1. About a month ago, the New Jersey Senate Race had Republican Kean leading Democrat Menendez. It was a consistent lead, so it seemed plausible to assume that the Republicans might take that seat away from the Democrats. Then a story came out that seemed like really bad news for Menendez:

N.J. Senator Accused Of Kickbacks
Taped Phone Calls Could Damage Menendez's Campaign

TRENTON, N.J., Sept. 29, 2006

(AP) A childhood friend and close political adviser of Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez allegedly used the senator's name to pressure a psychiatrist to hire a doctor for local government work, according to a transcript of the telephone call, part of which is mentioned in federal court documents.

With Kean already ahead, I thought the jig was up. Instead, Menendez immediately jumped into the lead, where he has stayed ever since. It now seems almost certain that the Democrats will hang on to that Senate seat. Here is a chart showing averaged poll results for that race:


Note that the Menendez advantage materialized just a few days after that supposedly damaging story came out in late September.

2. In Virginia, Republican George Allen held a consistent lead over Democratic challenger James Webb, and then Allen's camp exposed some seemingly lurid quotes from Allen's best-selling books. It didn't seem like a fair tactic to me, but I thought it would work nonetheless. Instead, something surprising happened:



As you can see, Webb was closing the gap during the month of October. But then Drudge sent those explicit passages around the world on October 26. I thought Allen's lead would increase, but a few days later, the polls show Webb jumping into a slight lead. That race is now too close to call.

3. On Monday, John Kerry spoke his true feelings about our troops or botched a joke about President Bush (not sure which). One might have imagined that this would cause Americans to stop all this nonsense about putting Nancy Pelosi and Charles Rangel in charge of things and snap people back to reality. Instead, the betting at Tradesports.com went the other direction. Whereas, before, the Republicans had a 33% chance of holding onto the House, now that value has dropped even lower recently. Here is the trend over the last few days (Kerry made his comment on October 30):


The upshot? The electorate seems counter-suggestible. That being the case, perhaps Bush should say something nice about the Democrats just to see what happens (e.g., "No, I'm sure the terrorists aren't gleefully awaiting a victory by the Democrats on Tuesday"). In light of the polls, it couldn't hurt!

On Tuesday, Emotion Will Prevail Over Reasoned Analysis

Not only are the polls stable, but the analysis of what is going on seems just as stable. And I can hardly believe it. First, here's a snapshot of what Americans are concerned about:




As you can see, Americans are upset about how things are going in Iraq, which makes sense to me. I can't imagine anyone being happy about the fact that al Qaeda has made good on its calculated plan to plunge Iraq into sectarian conflict in order to (a) broaden its base of operations in Sunni controlled areas and (b) demoralize the American paper tiger which, as they see it, will soon put its tail between its legs and ignominiously flee Iraq.

Americans want Congress to concentrate on Iraq, and they seem poised to turn the House (at least) over to the Democrats. From an editorial in USA Today, here's the analysis that has remained as constant as the polls:

Exactly where the newly elected Democrats would lead, however, is something of a mystery. Democratic congressional candidates have been all over the lot on Iraq, from demanding a quick pullout to arguing against a precipitous withdrawal.

Reflecting the lack of consensus and good options, there's nothing about Iraq in the "Six for '06" list of post-election priorities Democrats plan to tackle if they win control of the House. The Democratic Party, like the country, seems to have no clear idea what to do next. It is split between frustration over an ill-conceived, badly executed war and the fear that leaving prematurely could create problems that would haunt the nation for decades.

Iraq is number one on the list of priorities for Americans, but it doesn't even make the top 6 on the Democrats' list of priorities. Iraq can't be on their list because they simply have no idea what to do. Yet Americans seem ready to put the Democrats in power anyway.

What this says to me is that, if the polls are to be believed (and I believe them), Americans are going to cast their ballots based more on emotion than reasoned analysis. They are upset about Iraq, and they are (apparently) going to express that frustration by voting for a party that mainly emotes about Iraq (but does not analyze the situation in any coherent way).

That's why I say that this election is not really best construed as a referendum on the Iraq War. That is, Americans will not be voting in favor of the Democratic plan for Iraq over the Republican plan because, as every single analyst understands, the Democrats have no plan. Even my liberal colleagues -- who cannot wait for the Democrats to gain some power on Tuesday -- do not dispute this.

I think Americans would do better to give power back to the Democrats when they formulate a coherent plan for Iraq that is better than the Republican plan (which is to stay until Iraq can stand on its own feet). I'd like to see a better plan put forward by the Democrats. I really would. I might even vote for them if they do. But casting a ballot for the Democrats because their ability to emote about Iraq seems unwise, and I'm little surprised that Americans are going to do that (at least I think they are).

Nifty Poll Site

If you are a poll fanatic, go to pollster.com. They collect all the polls and have nice graphics as well. And they know what they are doing. For example, they say this:

Why a five-poll average? Results for pre-election polls often vary due to random sampling error as well as differences in methodology (question wording, sampling, the survey mode, or the way pollsters define likely voters). While averaging is an imperfect solution, we believe a five-poll average provides a more reliable snapshot of data available for each race than focusing on only the single latest poll.

Of course, I've been jumping up and down about this very issue as well. They average polls, as they should, and they've done so for the House races as well as the Senate races.

So, what do they predict about the House? The same thing that everyone else predicts. Their averaged polls suggest 221 seats for the Democrats and 188 for the Republicans, with 26 toss-ups. Split the toss-ups evenly, and you have a projection of 234 for the Democrats and 201 for the Republicans. That's a pick-up of 33 seats for the Democrats, which is a bit larger than the projections I've seen elsewhere. But it is right in line with what you'd expect based on the 6th-year itch.

In a few days, we are going to find out how predictive averaged polls really are. I think I already know, but Karl Rove's confident prediction about the Republicans hanging on to both houses gives me pause. I can't wait to run the experiment on Tuesday.

Ralph Peters: Down on Iraq

Ralph Peters, who supported the invasion of Iraq, is writing column after column bemoaning that country as a complete lost cause. His latest column is here, and in it he says:

Iraq is failing. No honest observer can conclude otherwise. Even six months ago, there was hope. Now the chances for a democratic, unified Iraq are dwindling fast. The country's prime minister has thrown in his lot with al-Sadr, our mortal enemy. He has his eye on the future, and he's betting that we won't last. The police are less accountable than they were under Saddam. Our extensive investment in Iraqi law enforcement only produced death squads. Government ministers loot the country to strengthen their own factions. Even Iraq's elections — a worthy experiment — further divided Iraq along confessional and ethnic lines. Iraq still exists on the maps, but in reality it's gone. Only a military coup — which might come in the next few years — could hold the artificial country together.

Iraq is failing if we are planning to leave soon in the same way that you are losing money in the stock market if you are planning to sell when the stock is low. Leaving Iraq now would strongly reinforce the world's most dangerous theory, one that was shared by Saddam Hussein, the Taliban and al Qaeda: America's will to fight is transient.

Conveniently, Peters has convinced himself that we can leave Iraq with impunity:

And contrary to the prophets of doom, the United States wouldn't be weakened by our withdrawal, should it come to that. Iraq was never our Vietnam. It's al-Qaeda's Vietnam. They're the ones who can't leave and who can't win.

Islamist terrorists have chosen Iraq as their battleground and, even after our departure, it will continue to consume them.

I suspect that Peters didn't get the memo, the one written by Zarqawi that lays out al Qaeda's plan for conflict in Iraq. What will supposedly "consume them" in Iraq is precisely what they are trying to achieve: sectarian conflict on a massive scale. They gain from that scenario because, as they see it, the Sunnis will open their doors to al Qaeda even more than they already have. That's precisely why al Qaeda started the fighting that has been in effect for 8 months now. In case anyone has lost track of the basics, here they are again:

1. Zarqawi's 2004 memo stated that al Qaeda needs to attack Shiite civilians to provoke Shiite militias into attacking Sunnis
2. al Qaeda took the extremely provocative act of bombing the holy Shiite mosque in Samarra 8 months ago
3. the sectarian fighting we see now occurred in response to that attack, and al Qaeda continues to attack Shiite civilians to make sure the fighting continues

Leaving Iraq now will ensure that the al Qaeda vision comes to fruition. Pretending that it won't happen is not a good idea. Leaving Iraq is what Peters wants to do, but his columns read more like the emotional outbursts of an understandably despondent war supporter than anything else. Just because you are upset doesn't mean that you should do something stupid.

Peters is utterly convinced that Prime Minister Maliki has signed on to Muqtada al Sadr's militia for good. I have no idea how he can be so sure of that. I suspect that Maliki has taken notice of the obvious fact that the Shiite militias are doing to the Sunnis what no one else has been able to do: transforming their will to fight into a fear for their own survival. Cracking down on al Sadr now would instantly reverse that trend (a trend that shows up in polling data).

Al Qaeda has placed bets, and you have got to hand it to them. They have always bet that Americans have no staying power, and they also bet that they could provoke the Shiites into sectarian conflict by relentlessly bombing their holy sites and their people. Well, the Shiites are fighting now, and the election on Tuesday will probably provide concrete evidence that their other bet was a good one to make as well.

Then again, I notice that, as depressed as people are about Iraq, all of the leading candidates for president in 2008 are hawkish on Iraq (McCain, Giuliani, Hillary Clinton). Al Qaeda should not start popping the corks until that changes.

The Election Outcome Still Looks Pre-Ordained

No matter where I look, I come up with the same result: in the Senate, the Democrats pick up 5 plus-or-minus 1 seats (they need 6 to be in the majority), and in the House they pick up about 22 (they need 15 to be in the majority)

In an earlier post, I noted that independent analysts, on average, predict that the Democrats will pick up 23 seats. An analysis at NPR gave the Democrats 20 seats. Just now, I looked at the RealClearPolitics polling averages for the House races. They show 12 Republican seats leaning to the Democrats plus another 13 Republican seats that are toss-ups. But they don't all look like toss-ups to me. Of those 13, 6 look like clear Democratic pick-ups (based on the polling). So, I'd say that's 18 seats for the Democrats plus another 7 that are toss-ups. Give 3 or 4 of those toss-ups to the Democrats and, once again, you end up with a predicted gain of 21 or 22.

Maybe John Kerry will change the dynamic, but, so far, it's not showing up at Tradesports.com (which still gives the Republicans only a 33% chance of hanging on to the House). That makes me think that Kerry's gaffe will not affect the polls, but we'll see.

Oh, and they are betting on the actual number of seats the Democrats will pick up in the House as well. Right now, there is a 59% chance they'll pick up 20 or more seats and a 37% chance they'll pick up 25 or more seats. In other words, the break-even point falls somewhere between 20 and 25, which fits with what the polls and all independent analysts predict.

I don't want this to be true because my party is simply not ready for prime time. But I'm sticking with this prediction because I can't see the evidence that Instapundit readers see on this score. A poll on that site came out like this:

With over 5,000 votes in so far, 60% of InstaPundit readers think the GOP will keep both houses. 34% see a split decision and only 6% think the Dems will take both.

I am going to be shocked if the Republicans keep both houses, but Instapundit readers won't be!

Sign of the Times

I nearly died laughing when I saw these two links in the middle of an MSNBC story. One links to a story about our commander-in-chief and the other links to a story about our would-be commander-in-chief:



It's not easy being a politician.

NRO Senate Boxscore

National Review Online has been presenting boxscores of the Senate races, much like I have. I e-mailed them early on to complain about their focus on individual polls, which are largely uninformative, and I suggested to them that they should do it more like I do (use averages!). Here is their latest:

SENATE AVERAGES:


As you can see, average scores are presented. That's progress! I'm not sure the same can be said for the fact that the Democrats are on tracke to pick up 5 plus-or-minus 1 Senate seats.

Oh, and I have one more piece of advice for NRO: add Tradesports.com information to boxscore table (like I do!).