A Climate Change Anti-Mandate

A conference on climate change is about to happen in Poland, and John Kerry will attend as an observer:

US ready to climb into hot seat on climate change

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Nations around the world are hoping the United States is set to come in from the cold and take a leading role in the fight against climate change as President-elect Barack Obama prepares to take office.

"It's a very exciting time. It's a moment we have been waiting for, many of us, for some period of time; we intend to pick up the baton and really run with it," Democratic Senator John Kerry told reporters, as he prepared to head to international climate change talks in Poland.

Obama has been "very, very clear that after eight years of obstruction and delay and denial, the US is going to rejoin the world community in tackling this global challenge," he added.
...
The United States, which is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, walked away from the Koyto protocol under the administration of President George W. Bush.

That snub left other nations struggling to define a coherent policy for tackling carbon emissions with the United States left out of the framework.

Last week Obama vowed he would "engage vigorously" in global climate change talks.

As you can plainly see, George Bush screwed up everything by thumbing his nose at the world community and walking away from the Kyoto Protocol. Fortunately, Barack Obama will soon ride to the rescue, and not a moment too soon either. After all, polls show that the world demands action on this issue:

Climate still a top concern despite financial crisis: survey

LONDON (AFP) — The environment remains a top concern despite the financial crisis, according to a global poll published Wednesday that finds 43 percent see climate change as a bigger problem than the economy.

HSBC bank's second annual report on environmental concerns reveals residents of a dozen countries surveyed would like to see their governments take more decisive action to fight global warming.

Three quarters of those polled -- 78 percent -- wanted their countries to reduce their "fair share" of greenhouse gas emissions.

The BBC puts it this way:

'World mandate' on climate action

26 November 2008

An opinion poll in 11 countries has produced what organisers term a "global mandate" for action on climate change.

About half of the respondents wanted governments to play a major role in curbing emissions, but only a quarter said their leaders were doing enough.

In developing countries, a majority of people were prepared to make "lifestyle changes" to reduce climate change.

And the Guardian gets right to the point:

Consumers rank climate concerns ahead of economy

November 26 2008

Consumers around the world want governments to stop haggling and start acting on climate change, according to a survey carried out in 12 countries by a coalition of climate groups.

Despite the looming prospect of a deep global recession, 43% of the 12,000 respondents of the survey chose climate change ahead of the global economy when asked about their current concerns. Worldwide, 77% of respondents wanted to see their governments cutting carbon by their fair share or more, in order to allow developing countries to grow their economies.

And there you have it. The logical conclusion is that whereas George Bush foolishly rejected the Kyoto Protocol, everyone in the world thinks that Barack Obama should come to his senses and get with the program. But that's not really how it is, as the same poll that everyone is touting as a "mandate" clearly reveals.

When it comes to vague generalities, people -- including me -- typically endorse the environmental agenda (e.g., "we should do more to reduce CO2 emissions"). However, the real issue in my mind concerns the major climate-change solution favored by many on the left, namely, the Kyoto Protocol (or some similar agreement). It is not a sensible approach to the problem even if you accept the standard global warming theory because it will accomplish next to nothing in terms of reducing global temperatures, and any tiny gain that may occur will come at great expense. This is not disputed by anyone (if you doubt that, you have not inquired into the matter), but people favor the Kyoto Protocol anyway because at least we would be "doing something." I'm all in favor of doing something, but not doing that particular something. How does the rest of the world feel about it? After all, as noted above, "The United States, which is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, walked away from the Koyto protocol under the administration of President George W. Bush." Is he out of synch with rest of the world on this issue? No, he's not. Here is another report on the same poll that fails to detect the big mandate that others believe they have spotted:

Efforts to support global climate-change falls: Poll

PARIS - There is both growing public reluctance to make personal sacrifices and a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the major international efforts now underway to battle climate change, according to findings of a poll of 12,000 citizens in 11 countries, including Canada.

Results of the poll were released this week in advance of the start of a major international conference in Poland where delegates are considering steps toward a new international climate-change treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
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Less than half of those surveyed, or 47 per cent, said they were prepared to make personal lifestyle changes to reduce carbon emissions, down from 58 per cent last year.

Only 37 per cent said they were willing to spend "extra time" on the effort, an eight-point drop.

And only one in five respondents - or 20 per cent - said they'd spend extra money to reduce climate change. That's down from 28 per cent a year ago.
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Results of the poll suggested that 55 per cent of respondents in the 11 countries said their governments should be doing more by investing in renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar and wave power.

That's more than double the 27 per cent who wanted their governments to participate in Kyoto-style international agreements to reduce emissions.

Only 27% differ from George Bush on this matter and want their governments to participate in Kyoto-style international agreements to reduce emissions? Obviously, when it comes to Kyoto-style agreements, there is an anti-mandate, and that's how it should be.

Yes We Can!

Perhaps I am getting carried away here, but I just ordered me one of these:


You think I'm kidding? I'm not! I don't know if I'll actually put it to use, but it would be nice to join the legions of cars in the faculty parking lot at work that are proudly adorned with Obama/Biden bumper stickers (whereas I never spotted a single McCain/Palin bumper sticker -- and I looked for one every single day walking to the office).

If Obama had announced his national security team and his economic team while he was running for office, then I'd have voted for him, but he'd have lost. What a curious state of affairs.

People keep referring to Obama's chosen advisors as "centrist," but I'll take centrists like these for his national security team any day:

Obama team tilts right, doves keep faith

By JONATHAN MARTIN | 11/27/08

Leading opponents of the war have mostly been silent as president-elect Barack Obama, who first built his national image on the foundation of his early opposition to the Iraq war, assembles a group of national security hands that is anything but a team of doves.

It's a disorienting moment for the peace wing of the Democratic Party, at once elated America selected a new president opposed to the Iraq war and momentarily disoriented by the imminent removal of a commander-in-chief whose every action they've opposed for the past eight years.
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Still, it’s clearly a team that tilts to the right of Democratic foreign policy thought.
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Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton also supported the Iraq war resolution, a vote that Obama framed as a critical failure of judgement during the primary. She's also taken a harder line on Iran than the president-elect—and is in line to be his Secretary of State.

Jim Jones, a retired Marine General who advised Clinton, Obama and John McCain during the campaign and has refused to disclose his partisan leanings, is slated for National Security Adviser. And running the Pentagon? For at least the first year of his administration, it’s virtually certain that the new president will retain Robert Gates—the Secretary of Defense appointed by President Bush.

It makes sense to refer to this team as "centrist" only if you mean "center right."

With regard to Obama's economic team, the term "centrist" seems a bit more applicable, and that's not a bad thing at all. Most important, there is not the slightest hint of left wing ideology among this group of advisors. Investors Business Daily has a sensible take:

A Reassuring Start

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Transition: There could be many reasons for the market's four-session, 20% run-up. But one of the them, we suspect, is a succession of surprisingly nonthreatening appointments by Barack Obama to his leadership team.

Given Obama's public pronouncements and past associations, Americans had every right to worry that his election would signal a great lurch leftward in Washington. And once Congress reconvenes, that may yet happen.

So far, however, most of the signals the president-elect has given suggest he will — as we hoped almost against hope — govern from the center. His appointments, Cabinet and otherwise, look like he's putting effectiveness first and saving ideology for later, if then.
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Hardly a harbinger of change, the New York Fed chief is the current administration's point man on the banking rescue. At Treasury, Geithner should ensure continuity, and his pro-market record, along with the respect he has in Congress, should help smooth the path toward recovery.

Then there's the return of the cerebral Larry Summers, a key member of President Clinton's economic team. At the National Economic Council, he should be a trustworthy voice for fiscal discipline and free trade.

Also welcome is Christina Romer, who will lead research and analysis at the Council of Economic Advisers. Given Obama's support for higher taxes, this is a particularly intriguing choice because she is the author of a major study showing how tax hikes are a drag on economic growth.

We can think of better choices for commerce secretary than New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. But his trips to Latin America and reports that he favors free trade may enable him to correct his party's course on protectionism and help pass pending free-trade pacts with Colombia and Panama.
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All in all, a reassuring start — especially for financial markets that no doubt sold off partly in anticipation of what looked to be the most far-left, pro-government, anti-business administration in memory. Let's hope the market continues to rally in happy affirmation of that old axiom: Appearances can be deceiving.

Appearances can, indeed, be deceiving. In a way, I find this whole turn of events to be somewhat disorienting. I strongly believe that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, yet Obama's past behavior would not lead anyone to predict that he would choose this team of advisors. He did speak a few words about "reaching across the aisle," but I thought he was just paying lip service to the idea. I'm tickled pink that I appear to have been dead wrong about that.

So Ends an Imperial Presidency

As you know, any sober and dispassionate analysis of the foreign policy conducted by this Republican administration over the last 8 years would have to conclude that George Bush was an imperialistic warmonger who lied to the nation about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and then invaded Iraq to steal their oil, establish permanent military bases, and cynically line the pockets of his pals at Halliburton -- all at the expense of the Iraqi people. And the imperialistic conquest is unfolding precisely as predicted:

Iraq parliament passes U.S. security pact

Thu Nov 27, 2008 10:48am EST

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's parliament on Thursday approved a landmark security pact with the United States that paves the way for U.S. forces to withdraw by the end of 2011, taking the country a big step closer to full sovereignty.

The deal, which parliament linked after days of fractious negotiations to a series of promised political reforms and a public referendum next year, brings in sight an end to the U.S. military presence that began with the 2003 invasion.
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"The wishes of different sections of the Iraqi nation have been executed, and this achievement will turn a new page of Iraq's history and will consecrate its sovereignty," said parliament's first deputy speaker Khalid al-Attiya.

And here you thought George Bush was going to remove a genocidal dictator, establish a democracy in the very heart of the Middle East and then transfer sovereignty to the freely elected leaders of Iraq. How utterly naive of your neocon brain to think that way.

The Secretary of Defense

US News and World Report says that Robert Gates will stay on as Secretary of Defense, and they link to several other stories that comment on reactions from the left. For example, Politico says:

The team gives Obama experience in the bureaucracy and credibility with the military, although it could lead to criticism from his party’s left wing that the lineup is more hawkish and less revolutionary than his supporters expected.

Similarly, the New York Times comments:

"Some Democrats who have advised his campaign quietly complained that he was undercutting his own message and risked alienating war critics who formed his initial base of support."

And the Washington Post notes that the choice will...

"...probably disappoint some on the left of the Democratic Party, who would prefer a clear and sharp break with Bush-era policies."

There is no doubt that this is true. For example, Code Pink and other anti-war groups have been lobbying Obama to send Gates packing:

Anti-War Groups Want Gates Out

Nov. 12, 2008

Arms control advocates and anti-war activists are ratcheting up pressure on President-elect Barack Obama to dump Defense Secretary Robert Gates and replace him with a more strident anti-war voice.

Nominating Gates to stay, “would be a violation of the mandate for change that Obama says he represents,” said Medea Benjamin, cofounder of the anti-war group CodePink.

Why are anti-war activists upset? For the same reason that I'm not. Specifically, Robert Gates is a grownup (not a Code-Pink juvenile delinquent) on the issue of Iraq. With regard to al Qaeda in Iraq, he understands the details, which sets him apart from just about every Democrat (including Barack Obama, or so I thought until he started choosing his cabinet):

Al Qaeda Stoking Sectarian Violence in Iraq, Gates Says

WASHINGTON, March 17, 2007 ­ Al Qaeda and other extremist groups have worked hard to provoke sectarian violence in Iraq, yet the situation there cannot be called a traditional civil war, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday.

“Stoking sectarian violence is a conscientious strategy of al Qaeda and some of the extremists,” Gates told reporters during a flight to Washington from U.S. Central Command in Florida. “These big car bombs going off in sensitive places, like the golden mosque, are not an accident. These guys have a very clear strategy aimed at provoking this sectarian violence.”

Gee, ya think? And here I thought it was all just a big ol' civil war, so we should get our troops out as fast as possible. Troop surge? That's ridiculous. Every reasonable person knows that sending more troops will just make the situation worse. Thus, the right thing to do back when sectarian violence was spiraling out of control in Iraq was to oppose Bush's misguided troop-surge policy every step of the way. Right? Robert Gates thought otherwise:

Gates: Iraq resolution helps enemy

Jan. 26, 2007

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday that a congressional resolution opposing President Bush’s troop buildup in Iraq amounts to undercutting U.S. commanders in a way that “emboldens the enemy.”
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“I think it’s hard to measure that with any precision, but it seems pretty straightforward that any indication of flagging will in the United States gives encouragement to those folks,” Gates said, referring to the anti-government forces in Baghdad. He added that he was certain this was not the intent of those who support the congressional resolution.

“But that’s the effect,” he said.

That we'd have such a sensible man staying on as the Secretary of Defense is not something I imagined being associated with an Obama victory. That's one reason why I did not vote for the man. After all, Obama was one of the very people whose actions at the time had the unintentional effect of helping the enemy (according to the Secretary of Defense, that is).

In opposing the troop surge, was Obama just positioning himself to win the election on the theory that you had to act like a defeatist to have any shot of becoming president? Or did he have an awakening along the way once it became clear that he might actually win the election? I don't really care. Whether he did what he needed to do to in order to win or came to his senses after the fact, all that matters to me is that he is now behaving in an unbelievably sensible manner. Had I known he would do that, I might have voted for the man.

On National Security and the Economy, Obama is not on the Far Left

National security and the economy (in that order) are easily the two issues that concern me the most. Because Barack Obama has been "palling around with" far left extremists all of his life and because his short voting record in the Senate indicated that he was one of the most liberal members of that august body, I had every expectation that he'd govern from the far left (because, I assumed, that's who he is). It seemed like sound reasoning to me, and that's why I didn't vote for the man. However, my reasoning seems to have been very wrong. On national security, Hillary Clinton (Secretary of State), Robert Gates (Secretary of Defense), and retired Marine general James Jones (National security Advisor) are leading contenders for Obama's cabinet. If you set aside Hillary's hard-left veer into anti-war fanaticism during the primary campaign, all three of these people are serious about and know the details about Iraq (including the fact that al Qaeda was the major force in creating sectarian violence that once spiraled out of control). Thus, although there was no reason to believe that Obama was anything other than a Code Pink anti-war extremist when he was running for President, it now seems clear that what will change is tone, not substance (if, that is, these people actually are appointed). And that's fine by me.

On the economy, Obama promised to raise taxes on the wealthy, raise taxes on corporations, and raise the capital gains tax rate, all while erecting barriers to free trade. My question was this: are these anti-growth measures even remotely sensible during a time when we are heading into a global recession? Nobody else seemed to care about this, and Obama was elected as president. But here again, Obama does not seem to be behaving at all like his left wing past led me to believe he would behave. First, we have this:

Obama may delay tax-cut rollback for wealthy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama may consider delaying a campaign promise - to roll back tax cuts on high-income Americans - as part of his economic recovery strategy, two aides said on Sunday.

Now you tell me! I completely understand (but do not necessarily agree with) the desire to raise taxes on the wealthy and on capital gains for fairness purposes (e.g., as a means of reducing income inequality). What I do not understand is mindlessly forging ahead with that anti-growth plan as the world economy is plunging into a recession. However, now that we've elected Obama, he is suddenly changing his tune and being a lot more rational about this issue. Based on his past record, I never would have guessed this about the man. Why would I?

With regard to his economic team, well, that's looking pretty good, too, at least on the issue of free trade. Here is a Wikipedia entry about the new director of the White House National Economic Council, Lawrence Summers:

Summers is an ardent proponent of free trade and globalization, and frequently takes positions on a number of politically-charged subjects. This, along with his direct style of management, made him controversial as President of Harvard.

An ardent proponent of free trade? Now you tell me! And here is a little about the new Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner:

At the same time, Mr. Geithner’s current links in the bailout to the two top economic appointees of outgoing President George W. Bush are offset by his close connections to the centrist Democratic policies of former President Bill Clinton and his best-known Treasury secretary, former Wall Street executive Robert E. Rubin. Mr. Geithner served under Mr. Rubin and Mr. Summers at Treasury in the 1990s, and rose to be undersecretary for international affairs.

Rubin protégés in fact are likely to dominate the Obama economic team, to the certain dismay of some Democratic Party liberals and union leaders who disparage the Rubin faction’s devotion to the goals of balanced budgets and free trade.

There is nothing in any of these appointments that seems to resemble Obama's past. I've always been a big believer in the notion that past behavior, not mere words, predicts future behavior. That why I did not see any of this coming in an Obama administration (and it's why I did not vote for him). I think it is fair to say at this point that although one would never have predicted it based on his past behavior, Obama is definitely not going to be the far left extremist I thought that he would be on either national security or the economy.

UPDATE: Christina Romer has been picked by Barack Obama to head his Council of Economic Advisors. Here is a pdf of a research paper she wrote with her husband looking at the effects of tax increases on economic growth. A few quotes:

This paper investigates the impact of changes in the level of taxation on economic activity...The resulting estimates indicate that tax increases are highly contractionary. The effects are strongly significant, highly robust, and much larger than those obtained using broader measures of tax changes. The large effect stems in considerable part from a powerful negative effect of tax increases on investment. We also find that legislated tax increases designed to reduce a persistent budget deficit appear to have much smaller output costs than other tax increases.

Just not what I would have expected from Obama...

Obama is not "anti war"

A few days ago, ABC News reported this news:

Marine Gen. James L. Jones (Ret.), the former head of NATO and U.S. forces in Europe, has emerged as the leading candidate to serve as the National Security Adviser for President-elect Obama.
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Obama wants Jones to have a senior position in his administration, and with Robert Gates likely to stay on as Secretary of Defense, the President-elect has reached out to gauge Jones' interest in heading up the National Security Council.
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But Obama is said to value Jones' advice and appreciates the signal it sends to put someone with more than 40 years of active military experience in such a senior position.

And yesterday, the New York Times made the same observation:

"...while he has yet to name any Republicans to cabinet-level positions as pledged, he is strongly considering James L. Jones for national security adviser, a retired Marine general who appeared at a campaign event with Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, earlier this year."

The job has not yet been officially offered or accepted, and I suspect that the spasms of gleeful celebration on the right over this possibility may nix the deal. Still, the fact that Obama is seriously considering the man and that he values his advice caught me completely off guard.

For several years now -- ever since sectarian violence in Iraq exploded in early 2006 -- the debate over Iraq had a surreal feel to it. On the one side were people like John McCain, who argued that al Qaeda's foreign suicide bombers were extremely lethal and were deliberately killing innocent Shiites in order to provoke sectarian violence. Al Qaeda wanted such violence to occur because they knew it would demoralize Americans and destabilize the democratically elected government of Iraq. The failed state of Iraq would the be ideally suited for use as a base of operations in the aftermath of al Qaeda's glorious victory over the Great Satan. On the left, there was an eerie code of silence of silence about al Qaeda in Iraq. That is, almost all Democrats refused to even consider the details, and on those rare occasions when they did, they responded with non-sequiturs, such as "al Qaeda wasn't even there when we invaded." The classic example of this bizarre state of affairs comes from a November, 2006 interview with Nancy Pelosi in which she was asked to comment on some videotaped remarks by George Bush:

November 28, 2006

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There's a lot of sectarian violence taking place fomented, in my opinion, because of these attacks by uh -- by al Qaeda, causing people to seek reprisal.

THOMAS FERRARO, REUTERS: (INAUDIBLE) blame the surging violence in Iraq on al Qaeda deny the country is in the midst of a civil war?

NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE SPEAKER-DESIGNATE: My response on the president's representations are well known. But the 9/11 Commission dismissed that notion a long time ago and I feel sad that the president is resorting to it again.

This response reflects a profound confusion over the role of al Qaeda in Iraq at the time of the invasion (in 2003) and the role of al Qaeda in Iraq when sectarian violence exploded out of control (in 2006). It's as if she really didn't know that Osama bin Laden had "taken his eye off the ball" in Afghanistan and had committed his foreign jihadists to Iraq. Most Americans did not know that either, but that's only becasue they get their news from places like the New York Times and MSNBC (so their lack of knowledge is more understandable). How could the Speaker of the House be similarly uninformed?

Less than two years later, the editors of the New York Times were only too happy to explain that Bush was, yet again, just trying to hype the al Qaeda threat:

Editorial

Mission Still Not Accomplished

March 20, 2008
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In a speech on Wednesday, the start of the war’s sixth year, Mr. Bush was stuck in the Neverland of his “Mission Accomplished” speech. In his mind’s eye, the invasion was a “remarkable display of military effectiveness” that will be studied for generations. The war has placed the nation on the brink of a great “strategic victory” in Iraq and against terrorists the world over.
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Mr. Bush wants Americans to believe that Iraq was on the verge of “full-blown sectarian warfare” when he boldly ordered an escalation of forces around Baghdad last year. In fact, sectarian warfare was raging for months while Mr. Bush refused to listen to the generals, who wanted a new military approach, or to the vast majority of Americans, who just wanted him to end the war.
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"All evidence to the contrary, Mr. Bush is still trying to make it seem as if Al Qaeda in Iraq was connected to the Al Qaeda that attacked America on Sept. 11, 2001."

Right, that's what Bush was doing, not trying to explain that al Qaeda had chosen Iraq (not Afghanistan) as their central battlefield.

The most heroic effort in this regard was an article in the Washington Monthly entitled "The Myth of AQI," which was quickly endorsed by the ordinarily sensible lefty Kevin Drum. Normal lefties really thought that al Qaeda in Iraq was a myth or, at worst, a minor factor in Iraq's spontaneous "civil war."

On the left, the story was simple, and no details needed to be entertained: Iraq had merely descended into a civil war brought on by centuries of enmity between Shiites and Sunnis. Simple as that. Thus, there was nothing left to do but to get out and stop pretending that the fight had anything to do with al Qaeda. This seemed to be Barack Obama's position as well, which brings me back to the possible appointment of retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones as Obama's National Security Advisor. He headed up a commission looking into the status of Iraqi security forces in 2007, and the report was published shortly before Petraeus testified to Congress in September of 2007. As I read from that report, I have the unreal feeling that Barack Obama is not an anti-war automaton who is disinterested in the details, as almost everyone else on the left is. Instead, I am beginning to think that he merely spoke the words he needed to speak in order to get elected. Now that he is president, he actually seems to want grownups in charge. Here are some excerpts from that amazing report (amazing only because Obama has high regard for the author's views):

Al Qaeda in Iraq was credited with only 15 percent of the insurgent attacks in Iraq at the beginning of 2007, but its attacks were typically the most destructive, sensational, and destabilizing. According to the Department of Defense, al Qaeda in Iraq is responsible for approximately 90 percent of the suicide bombings in Iraq and the kidnapping of more than 250 foreign workers. Abu Hamza al-Muhajir-an Egyptian-has been al Qaeda in Iraq's leader since the death of the organization's founder, Ahu Musab al-Zarqawi, in a Coalition air strike on June 7, 2006. Although al Qaeda in Iraq's leadership is foreign- a reality that members have tried to hide through information operations-its makeup is likely 90-95 percent Iraqi.5 Even so, 80 percent of al Qaeda in Iraq suicide bombings are carried out by foreigners.6 The relationship between al Qaeda in Iraq and the greater al Qaeda leadership in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region remains unclear, but the groups share common goals and openly support one another through the media and sworn loyalty oaths.

Al Qaeda in Iraq has consistently sought to destabilize Iraq and instigate sectarian violence in an effort to oust U.S. forces from the country. Its 2003 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad was a turning point that led many in the international community to reconsider support for Coalition operations in Iraq. Similarly, al Qaeda in Iraq's February 22, 2006, bombing of the Shi'a Askariya Mosque in Samarra was an early accelerant of sectarian violence in Iraq, catalyzing retaliatory attacks against 60 Sunni mosques and the killing of more than 400 Sunnis by Shi'a militias in the bombing's immediate aftermath.
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Finding: Although the Iraqi Army and Special Forces have demonstrated significant progress in counterterrorism capabilities at the operational level, the Iraqi Police Service and National Police have many challenges to overcome and cannot yet effectively contribute to denying terrorists safe haven in Iraq. The border security forces are assessed as being ineffective.39
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Finding: The 'clear, hold, build strategy being implemented by Iraqi Security Forces is on the right track and shows potential, but neither the Iraqi armed forces nor the police forces can execute these types of operations independently.
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The surge, if successful, will play an important role in enabling the evolution of our strategy. There are signs of encouraging tactical successes in the Baghdad capital region, which remains the epicenter of enemy focus and of their competing strategy. Unable to achieve conventional military victory, the opposing forces must rely on spectacular bombing attacks on innocent Iraqi citizens, as well as ISF and Coalition forces. As the international media is mostly Baghdad-based, successful attacks receive disproportionate coverage relative to some very real progress achieved in other areas of the country, such as Anbar province. The result, unfortunately, is enemy momentum in the battle of strategic messaging despite the growing popular rejection of terrorist ideology in that region. The people's outrage at al Qaeda's savagery and their realization that it is a movement not of liberation but of occupation, has helped transform this province from being the most violent to being one of the least violent in Iraq. Coupled with the emerging capabilities of the Iraqi Security Forces and the promise of the Coalition's "clear, hold, and build" tactic, there are some encouraging indications of a positive trend in this region.
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Concluding Thoughts. The Commission wishes to thank Congress for the opportunity to conduct an independent review of the capabilities of the security forces of Iraq. While much remains to be done before success can he confidently declared, the strategic consequences of failure, or even perceived failure, for the United States and the Coalition are enormous. We approach a truly strategic moment in this still young century. Iraq's regional geo-strategic position, the balance of power in the Middle East, the economic stability made possible by the flow of energy to many parts of the world, and the ability to defeat and contain terrorism where it is most manifest are issues that do not lend themselves to easy or quick solutions. How we respond to them, however, could well define our nation in the eyes of the world for years to come.

Well, no kidding. This is the truth about Iraq. It is not arguable. It is the story told by George Bush and John McCain. It is the story that was steadfastly denied (or ignored) by Democrats, including Barack Obama. At antiwar.com, they are understandably as perplexed (but much less pleased) than I am:

Is it really possible that a candidate for president elevated to front-runner status by antiwar voters in the primaries – and elected over a rival who made support for the war the leitmotif of his losing campaign – is enabling the hijacking of American foreign policy by a new cabal of warmongers?

That's childish. To my amazement, Obama seems not to be that way even though there was every reason to believe that he would be (given his uniformly left wing background).

Intelligence Errors

Now that Bush is leaving office, we may find that people will begin to assess the validity of intelligence information in a more adult-like manner and less like intellectual infants. The infantile approach goes something like this:

Intelligence information is error free. That being the case, Bush must have lied about Saddam WMDs (because, as we now know, Saddam had none). Gee, if Bush lied, then there must be some illegitimate reason why he ordered the invasion. Let's see, Bush is a Christian wacko, so he must have imagined himself fulfilling a Biblical prophecy. Either that, or he wanted to steal Iraq's oil in order to line the pockets of Texas oil buddies. Yeah, that must be it.

Bush Derangement Syndrome is almost a thing of the past, so people may come to better appreciate the fact that intelligence information is not error free (and it never will be, even on the big issues -- especially on the big issues). More to the point, errors come in two flavors, and your real choice is to choose which error you'd rather make. The two errors are as follows:

1. mistakenly detecting a threat doesn't exist

2. mistakenly missing a threat that does exist

Most people intuitively understand that both types of error can occur, but few appreciate the fact that the two errors tradeoff against each other. That is, as you become less willing to make one kind of error, you become more prone to making the other. In addition, deciding which error you wish to guard against (and, therefore, which error you are more comfortable making) is the hard job. If you think simplistically, the solution is to simply make intelligence gathering an error-free endeavor, even if the target is a closed police state. But everyone already agrees that our foreign intelligence operations should be as effective and accurate as they can possibly be, and they have a huge budget to help them achieve that goal. The accuracy of our intelligence gathering operation is simply not going to increase by leaps and bounds, and it will always be prone to error. As such, if your stand on intelligence gathering is that it should be more accurate, then you are simply excusing yourself from dealing with the real issue, which is the unfortunate tradeoff between the two kinds of error listed above.

With regard to Iraq in March of 2003 (less than two years after the threat of 9/11 was missed), Bush decided that he was much less willing to make error #2. In fact, as we now know, the intelligence community as whole, having made error #2 multiple times (missing Iraq's nearly completed nuclear bomb in 1991, missing the attacks of 9/11), became less willing to make that error yet again. However, when you adopt that sensible attitude, you implicitly accept an increased likelihood of making error #1 (i.e., detecting a threat that is not there). And that's the error Bush made with respect to Iraq. In light of all that happened since then, it was better to make that error (because, even if wrong, it offered a chance to topple a genocidal tyrant and to bring democracy to the heart of the Middle East) than to accept the possibility of making the other error. The consequences of the other error were potentially catastrophic.

Now it's time to choose your preferred error once again. This time, the country in question is Iran:

Iran Said to Have Nuclear Fuel for One Weapon

Iran has now produced roughly enough nuclear material to make, with added purification, a single atom bomb, according to nuclear experts analyzing the latest report from global atomic inspectors.
...
“They clearly have enough material for a bomb,” said Richard L. Garwin, a top nuclear physicist who helped invent the hydrogen bomb and has advised Washington for decades. “They know how to do the enrichment. Whether they know how to design a bomb, well, that’s another matter.”

What's that you say? There is some uncertainty with regard to our intelligence about Iran's capabilities and intentions? Get out.

Here's the dilemma:

While some Iranian officials have threatened to bar inspectors in the past, the country has made no such moves, and many experts inside the Bush administration and the I.A.E.A. believe it will avoid the risk of attempting “nuclear breakout” until it possessed a larger uranium supply.

Even so, for President-elect Barack Obama, the report underscores the magnitude of the problem that he will inherit Jan. 20: an Iranian nuclear program that has not only solved many technical problems of uranium enrichment, but that can also now credibly claim to possess enough material to make a weapon if negotiations with Europe and the United States break down.

Are they enriching uranium for peaceful purposes, as they claim? Or are they on an inexorable path to making a nuclear bomb? You don't really know for sure, and neither does anyone else, but most reasonable people believe that the Iranians are probably making a bomb. If they make a nuclear bomb, will they behave in a rational manner, as other nuclear powers have since the 1950s, or will they threaten to use it (and, perhaps, actually use it) against their enemies? That is, will they be a threat or not? Again, you don't really know for sure. What you have to decide is which error are you more comfortable living with. Unlike Bush, Obama seems more likely to guard against making error #1. That is, he will be very reluctant to mistakenly detecting a threat doesn't exist. Few realize that this will automatically increase the risk that he will commit error #2 (i.e., mistakenly missing a threat that does exist). I don't really know what he should do, but I do know that his choice is an extremely difficult one, and it will be a long time before we know the wisdom of the choice he ultimately makes.

Boldly Responding to the Crisis

Here's some economic news:

1. Fed lowers its projections for economy

Sees unemployment growing, signals another rate cut may be necessary

Under its new economic forecast, the Fed now believes gross domestic product could be flat or grow by just 0.3 percent this year. GDP could actually shrink or expand by 1.1 percent next year. Both sets of projections are lower than the Fed’s forecasts delivered to Congress in July.

2. U.S. jobless claims jump to 16-year high

Data are more evidence of a rapidly weakening labor market

WASHINGTON - New claims for unemployment benefits jumped last week to a 16-year high, the Labor Department said Thursday, providing more evidence of a rapidly weakening job market expected to get even worse next year.

The government said new applications for jobless benefits rose to a seasonally adjusted 542,000 from a downwardly revised figure of 515,000 in the previous week.

3. Dow keeps dropping

Wall Street slides further as spike in jobless claims keeps recession fears front and center.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Stocks plunged Thursday morning, after a report showing U.S. jobless claims at a 16-year high gave investors a reason to extend the selloff.

News that Citigroup's largest shareholder plans to up his stake in the company failed to lift its shares or the broader market.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU), the Standard & Poor's 500 (SPX) index and the Nasdaq composite (COMP) all dropped in the early going. The Dow was down 160 points, or 2.13%, about 15 minutes into the session.

A rout on Wall Street Wednesday pushed the blue-chip average to close below 8,000 for the first time since 2003.

Obviously, it's a crisis out there (and, for the first time in my blogging career, I actually mean it this time). Fortunately, Obama and our governors are boldly tackling the crisis head on:

Obama vows quick action to curb warming

"You can be sure that the United States will once again engage vigorously in these negotiations, and help lead the world toward a new era of global cooperation on climate change," he told hundreds of scientists, executives, governors and even foreign officials gathered in Los Angeles.
...
But Obama said he felt the United States must adopt mandatory curbs and join the U.N. process. "Few challenges facing America — and the world — are more urgent than combating climate change," he said.
...
Obama reiterated his campaign promise of a system to cap and trade greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. "We will establish strong annual targets that set us on a course to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an additional 80 percent by 2050," he said.


Governors plan joint fight on global warming

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, his counterparts in 12 states and regional leaders from four other countries signed a declaration Wednesday pledging to work together to combat global warming, a move Schwarzenegger said will help push heads of state to curb their nations' greenhouse gas emissions.

If you are a believer in fighting the good fight against CO2-induced global warming, you may be willing to believe that doing so also happens to work as an economic stimulus (coincidentally). Obama allows this convenient notion to cross his mind and then, with apparent seriousness, explains how fighting global warming will create jobs, thereby helping the economy. To assess the validity of that notion, one should look at the recent experience of our neighbor to the north:

Canada Alters Course on Kyoto

Budget Slashes Funding Devoted to Goals of Emissions Pact

By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, May 3, 2006; Page A16

Canada, which has long clung to its "green" image, hosted early work that led to the Kyoto Protocol, in which 163 countries and regional organizations pledged to meet quotas to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions that many scientists believe are warming Earth, melting glaciers and brewing more-intense storms.

Despite Canada's vocal support for Kyoto, its greenhouse emissions have risen by 24 percent since 1990, leading Harper's environmental minister, Rona Ambrose, to declare meeting the goals "impossible."

Ambrose had already cut a variety of programs aimed at meeting the Kyoto standards, including a much-publicized plan that encouraged individual conservation efforts. Business and oil-producing groups from the oil-rich province of Alberta applauded the government's pullback on Kyoto.

Let's be more direct about this:

Topping the list of Kyoto slackers is Canada, which last year became the first signatory country to announce that it would not meet its Kyoto target of a six percent emissions cut by 2012. New oil production in the tar sands of Alberta has instead forced Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions up significantly, as the government has chosen to pursue economic growth as a priority over meeting its Kyoto commitments.

That is, in Canada, it became apparent that the choice was between (a) economic growth or (b) adhering to the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol. That it would be that way was, of course, well known. It's one of the reasons why the U.S. would not sign the agreement. In fact, in 2002, economic reality was already apparent to any Canadian who was interested in the issue:

CANADA: September 27, 2002

Kyoto to cut Canadian growth and jobs - report

OTTAWA - Canada could lose as much as C$16.5 billion ($10.39 billion) in economic growth and 200,000 jobs if the Kyoto Protocol is implemented, the Globe and Mail reported this week, citing draft documents prepared for the federal cabinet.

Pretending that the fight against global warming and the creation of "green jobs" is good for the economy is not an idea that anyone should take seriously. Even the Europeans seem to appreciate this more than the Americans now do:

EU climate goals under pressure as recession looms

Poland has joined Germany in calling for industry exemptions to EU climate rules as a recession in Europe’s major economies is casting doubts on whether Brussels will be able to push through its ambitious CO2 reduction programme.
...
The growing financial crisis in the US, which analysts say will have considerable recessionary impacts on major EU economies like Germany, the UK and France, may also make it increasingly difficult for the Commission to justify higher operating costs for industries.

The fight against global warming entails higher operating costs for industries? Who knew?

Is raising operating costs for industries a good idea just as the world economy plunges into a deep recession? And does it make sense to forge ahead with this fight while, at the very same time, Obama raises taxes on the wealthy, on capital gains and on corporations, all while erecting barriers to free trade? If this is an economically sensible approach during a global economic crisis, the rational completely escapes me.

A New Kind of Imperialism

I am always on the lookout for polling results of the Iraqi people, and I just stumbled across this poll, which involved 26,000 poor families participating in a food aid project. The pollsters received 11,198 completed questionnaires, but I'm not sure that the poll was methodologically rigorous. Still, the results are worth considering. One question of particular interest to me asked about the desired role of the UN in Iraq. You'd think that people in dire need of their next meal would list humanitarian aid as their top choice, but look at these results:


Half the families surveyed want the UN to play a role in helping to maintain peace and security in Iraq. The UN's likely response? Screw you. Everyone knows you can't "impose democracy by force." Yet, in contradiction to that view, the Iraqis just set a timetable for their next election. Obviously, the U.S. did not impose democracy by force. Instead, against the objections of the UN, it offered democracy to the Iraqi people, and they appear to have accepted the offer.

I never really have been able to figure understand the UN-esque "principled stand" against the invasion of Iraq. According to the anti-war crowd, the U.S. illegally invaded a "sovereign nation" and toppled its "internationally recognized leader," thereby setting a "dangerous precedent." In essence, the invasion of Iraq was like Iraq's earlier invasion of Kuwait (i.e., that, too, was an illegal invasion of a sovereign nation in which internationally recognized leaders were deposed). When that happened, everyone agreed that the right thing to do was to restore to power the deposed leadership of Kuwait. And that's precisely what was done. But if our invasion of Iraq was similarly in violation of international law, why were there no similar cries to restore Saddam Hussein to his rightful place as the wrongly deposed, internationally recognized leader of the sovereign nation of Iraq? Or is there some coherent line of reasoning according to which it is a dreadful violation of international law to depose the leader of a sovereign nation, yet that leader should not be restored to power afterwards? What is the principle that states that it is altogether wrong to depose the leader of a sovereign nation without UN approval, yet, if you do illegally depose him, you should immediately put him on trial for his crimes against humanity? I don't get it. To me, there was no principled reason whatsoever to oppose the forced removal of a man who was universally recognized to be a ruthless dictator. Instead, the reasoned opposition was practical, not principled, in nature (e.g., it just won't work, ethnic hostilities run too deep, it will cause an endless civil war, a new dictator will emerge, it will inflame the Middle East, it will embolden terrorist, etc.). But the idea that some sacrosanct principle was being violated just seems preposterous to me, and I think it seems equally preposterous even to those who used that argument to oppose Bush's decision to invade. That's why even the anti-war crowd did not loudly agitate for the restoration of Saddam Hussein to his rightful place as the leader of Iraq when they had the chance to do so. Instead, they insisted that his trial be fair.

According to some, not only did the U.S. "go it alone" and illegally invade a sovereign nation, it supposedly did so as part of an imperialistic grab for oil to benefit Halliburton and US oil companies. As such, the U.S. became the greatest threat to world peace in the eyes of many. But how many imperialistic conquistadors depose a genocidal dictator, set up a democracy in which the conquered people are allowed to vote as they please, and then further allow the democratically elected government to evict the invading forces once security is restored? Here's the deal:

Under the agreement, U.S. forces must vacate Iraqi cities by June, leave Iraq by the end of 2011 and grant Iraqi authorities extensive power over the operations and movements of American forces. It also prohibits the U.S. from using Iraqi territory to attack Iraq's neighbors, like Syria and Iran.

I don't think there is anything left of the anti-war analysis that has not been as badly shredded as al Qaeda in Iraq. That's why you don't hear detailed arguments from that side of the debate anymore. Instead, you hear a bumper-sticker mantra: "end this war." Too late. On top of everything else, Bush did that, too.

Iraq Sets a Timetable for Withdrawal

It looks like Obama will not get his coveted opportunity to "end the war" in Iraq. Here is a screenshot from his Iraq-related web site:


As you can see, immediately upon taking office, Obama will give our military commanders the new mission of "successfully ending the war." Isn't that the strangest way to put it? If successfully ending the war will be a new mission, what was the old mission (in his mind)? And in the process of "ending" a war, is there no distinction to be made between achieving your strategic objectives and failing to do so? This phrasing is just bizarre, and I don't see how any American can be comfortable with Obama's conceptualization of this (or any) military conflict. But Americans are comfortable with it, and I just have to live with that.

Fortunately, it is becoming increasingly apparent that Obama's strange phrasing provides nothing more than a window into the man's view of the world while saying little or nothing about the future of Iraq. Our military leaders don't need a new mission because (a) they already ended this war (by defeating al Qaeda in Iraq), (b) they achieved the major strategic objective of installing a democracy in the heart of the Middle East, and (c) the Iraqi government is feeling confident enough in their own ability to handle security that they just approved a security deal that sets a 3-year timetable for the departure of US forces. I had imagined that the deal would include a clause allowing for the return of US troops should the security situation worsen, but Obama would never send the troops back anyway, so setting an actual timetable was the politically astute thing to do. Setting it at 3 years (not the 16 months that Obama always talks about) also seems like a prudent step to take. Obama is likely to agree to it (he has his timetable, after all), and 3 years seems like a long enough time for Iraqi security forces to become fully mission capable. They are almost there already.

About this new timetable: haven't neocons been arguing that setting a timetable for withdrawal is tantamount to surrender? No, they have been arguing that setting a timetable for withdrawal while you are losing the war is tantamount to surrender. As I often do, let me illustrate the difference:


If you cannot spot the difference between the wisdom of Obama's timetable for withdrawal and the one just approved by Iraq's cabinet, then there is no reasoning with you. Liberals and conservatives alike agree that withdrawal makes sense once the war is over and your side has won. Only liberals argued that withdrawal also makes sense when you are losing the war and the consequences of withdrawal would be a hellacious explosion of genocidal carnage (not to mention a strengthened position for al Qaeda in Iraq).

Obama will not get his chance to end the war in Iraq. George Bush already did, and now he has wrapped up that victory by negotiating the withdrawal of the victorious U.S. military. Bush always said that his was a "victory strategy," and he appears to be a man of his word. I know how much Democrats hate the supposedly outdated notions of "victory" and "defeat," but those concepts remain very real even if they offend liberal sensibilities. Al Qaeda in Iraq has been defeated, which means that Osama bin Laden's major strategic objective for the last 5 years has been completely thwarted (and al Qaeda's rapidly declining reputation throughout the Muslim world reflects their ignominious defeat). The Iraqi people are no longer in the grip of a genocidal madman whose elimination was strongly opposed by most members of the UN (including France and Germany, whose alternative plan would have the people of Iraq still ruthlessly oppressed by Saddam Hussein). Democracy has, indeed, been installed into the heart of the Middle East, a major strategic (neocon-inspired) objective, and the Iraqi people and their government strongly oppose terrorism. Moreover, the Iraqi people, if they are ever asked again, will indicate by huge margins that life is better now than it was under Saddam Hussein.

Bush has a record low approval rating now, but even his strongest detractors must realize, much to their consternation, that this will be Bush's legacy.

UPDATE: I found some reaction on the left to the US-Iraqi troop deal here. Matthew Yglesias says:

At the beginning of 2007, we were locked into a really bitter policy debate with liberals (like me!) pushing for a withdrawal timeline and the President backing a desperation gamble “surge” strategy. It seemed to me that things were likely to get very ugly, both domestically and in Iraq. But the surge’s tactical gains have been sufficiently impressive to eliminate most of the “feel bad” sentiment raised by the specter of a lost war, and the surge’s strategic failure has manifested itself primarily through Iraqi and American politicians all converging around a forward-looking proposal that’s very similar to what American liberals were proposing.

Someone said that men are from Mars and women are from Venus . I think we need to replace "women" and "men" with "liberals" and "conservatives" because I have no idea what Yglesias is talking about. The "feel bad" sentiment? He supports a policy that everyone (including, incredibly, the editors of the New York Times) recognized would lead to a savage bloodbath and, in retrospect, the only problem is that it would have raised a "feel bad" sentiment? It would have been a strategic and humanitarian disaster. More puzzling to me is the suggestion that the troop surge has led to "tactical gains" overlaid on a "strategic failure." I realize that this analysis, such as it is, regurgitates buzz words offered up by Barack Obama, but does it mean anything? What was the strategic failure, exactly? Is Iraq still listed as a state sponsor of terror? Did we fail to install a functioning democracy in the heart of the Middle East? Did we ultimately lose to al Qaeda in Iraq, thereby enhancing al Qaeda's reputation throughout the Muslim world? Or did we do the opposite of that? Did our natural allies (e.g., France, Germany Great Britain, Japan, North Korea, Italy, etc.) all vote in anti-American leaders, thereby destroying those historic alliances, or did they do the exact opposite?

What was the strategic failure, exactly? You might believe that the war was not worth the cost, but it seems impossible to argue that we did not achieve our strategic objectives. If someone does wish to make that case, I wish he or she would actually make it by listing the specific strategic failures associated with our intervention in Iraq. I fear that, if you are on the left, you might say nebulous things like "we've lost our moral standing in the world" or preposterous things like "al Qaeda is stronger than ever" (as if their ignominious defeat in Iraq were inconsequential and as if their reduced standing throughout the Muslim world is of no consequence). Perhaps the strategic failure is that the toppling of Saddam Hussein did not intimidate the leaders of Libya, Iran and North Korea to give up their quests for a nuclear bomb. Libya was the only domino gave up its WMDs and was taken off the list of state sponsors of terror. Is that the strategic failure? Or is there some other failure that I am missing? I'd like to know because, to me, it seems obvious that have achieved a strategic victory, and I can list the strategic gains. I'd love to compare that list to a list of the strategic failures associated with our intervention in Iraq.

I'm not a Democrat Anymore

I guess I just have to accept the already obvious (but hard-to-accept) fact that I'm not a Democrat anymore. On national security issues, this fact has been quite apparent to me for a long time. On economic issues, however, I've never had strong views one way or the other. Lately, that's been changing, and the proposed bailout of the auto industry has finally crystallized my apparently non-liberal views on the economy. Today, I'll just quote from three conservative commentators, all of whom make the same (seemingly obvious) point. First, Jim Manzi:

Bankruptcy for GM

What would it mean to have GM go bankrupt? A change in ownership and a renegotiation of contracts.

The factories, computers, office space, intellectual property and so forth that are now owned by GM would not disappear; they would basically become the property of GM’s creditors. These creditors would sell the assets to the highest bidder. Assuming there is economic value to be created by continuing to operate the company as a business, private equity or strategic investors would buy the assets, shut down some plants, fire some union and exempt workers, and probably use the leverage of bankruptcy court to get a better deal from the unions. The current employees and creditors would be better off if you and I were forced by the federal government to prevent this by paying money to the corporate entity named General Motors, to then be paid to these employees and creditors. Of course, you and I would be worse off in this situation. On balance, if you believe that markets are more efficient allocators of capital than Congress is, the population of the United States would, on the whole, be worse off.
...
A bailout of GM would be a pure exercise of political power to deliver taxpayer funds to one organized group of citizens at the expense of the country as a whole. It should be avoided.

Next, David Brooks:

Bailout to Nowhere

Not so long ago, corporate giants with names like PanAm, ITT and Montgomery Ward roamed the earth. They faded and were replaced by new companies with names like Microsoft, Southwest Airlines and Target. The U.S. became famous for this pattern of decay and new growth. Over time, American government built a bigger safety net so workers could survive the vicissitudes of this creative destruction — with unemployment insurance and soon, one hopes, health care security. But the government has generally not interfered in the dynamic process itself, which is the source of the country’s prosperity.

But this, apparently, is about to change. Democrats from Barack Obama to Nancy Pelosi want to grant immortality to General Motors, Chrysler and Ford. They have decided to follow an earlier $25 billion loan with a $50 billion bailout, which would inevitably be followed by more billions later, because if these companies are not permitted to go bankrupt now, they never will be.

This is a different sort of endeavor than the $750 billion bailout of Wall Street. That money was used to save the financial system itself. It was used to save the capital markets on which the process of creative destruction depends.

Granting immortality to Detroit’s Big Three does not enhance creative destruction. It retards it. It crosses a line, a bright line. It is not about saving a system; there will still be cars made and sold in America. It is about saving politically powerful corporations. A Detroit bailout would set a precedent for every single politically connected corporation in America. There already is a long line of lobbyists bidding for federal money. If Detroit gets money, then everyone would have a case. After all, are the employees of Circuit City or the newspaper industry inferior to the employees of Chrysler?

Finally, the incomparable Charles Krauthammer:

The Bailout's Fault Lines

WASHINGTON -- Finally, the outlines of a coherent debate on the federal bailout...The fault line is the auto industry bailout. The Democrats are pushing hard for it. The White House is resisting.

Underlying the policy differences is a philosophical divide. The Bush administration sees the $700 billion rescue as an emergency measure to save the financial sector on the grounds that finance is a utility. No government would let the electric companies go under and leave the country without power. By the same token, government must save the financial sector lest credit dry up and strangle the rest of the economy.
...
With almost 5 million workers supported by the auto industry, Democrats are pressing for a federal rescue. But the problems are obvious.

First, the arbitrariness. Where do you stop? Once you've gone beyond the financial sector, every struggling industry will make a claim on the federal treasury. What are the grounds for saying yes or no?

The criteria will inevitably be arbitrary and political. The money will flow preferentially to industries with lines to Capitol Hill and the White House. To the companies heavily concentrated in the districts of committee chairmen. To clout. Is this not precisely the kind of lobby-driven policymaking that Obama ran against?

Second is the sheer inefficiency. Saving Detroit means saving it from bankruptcy. As we have seen with the airlines, bankruptcy can allow operations to continue while helping shed fatally unsupportable obligations. For Detroit, this means release from ruinous wage deals with their astronomical benefits (the hourly cost of a Big Three worker: $73; of an American worker for Toyota: $48)...

I not only find myself agreeing with all of this; I find it all so obvious that it need not be said. Yet Democrats disagree. If am far removed from the Democrats on both national security and the economy (which I definitely am), I guess it's time to switch my party affiliation (to Independent!). If I ever find myself opposing gay marriage, arguing that life begins at conception, opposing all forms of affirmative action (not just diversity-based affirmative action programs, which I do oppose), and resisting modest gun control efforts, then I guess I'll join the Republican party. The evil and greedy Republican Party (which is how I viewed conservatives until the last 5 years or so).

UPDATE: An alternative view on the bailout can be found here. The essence of the argument is this:

Panic in Detroit

by Jonathan Cohn

...
One reason for the casual support for letting GM fail is the assumption that bankruptcy would be no big deal: As USA Today editorialized recently, "Bankruptcy need not mean that the company disappears." But, while it's worked out that way for the airlines, among others, it's unlikely a GM business failure would play out in the same fashion. In order to seek so-called Chapter 11 status, a distressed company must find some way to operate while the bankruptcy court keeps creditors at bay. But GM can't build cars without parts, and it can't get parts without credit. Chapter 11 companies typically get that sort of credit from something called Debtor-in-Possession (DIP) loans. But the same Wall Street meltdown that has dragged down the economy and GM sales has also dried up the DIP money GM would need to operate.

That's why many analysts and scholars believe GM would likely end up in Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which would entail total liquidation. The company would close its doors, immediately throwing more than 100,000 people out of work. And, according to experts, the damage would spread quickly. Automobile parts suppliers in the United States rely disproportionately on GM's business to stay afloat. If GM shut down, many if not all of the suppliers would soon follow. Without parts, Chrysler, Ford, and eventually foreign-owned factories in the United States would have to cease operations. From Toledo to Tuscaloosa, the nation's?assembly lines could go silent, sending a chill through their local economies as the idled workers stopped spending money.

Restaurants, gas stations, hospitals, and then cities, counties, and states--all of them would feel pressure on their bottom lines. A study just published by the Michigan-based Center for Automotive Research (CAR) predicted that three million people would lose their jobs in the first year after such a Big Three meltdown, swelling the ranks of the unemployed by nearly one-third nationally and leading to hundreds of billions of dollars in lost income.

Basically, he is saying that we should bail out GM for the same reason we should bail out the financial markets (i.e., the collapse of GM would create a systemic problem, not just a problem for GM). In other words, GM is too big to fail. I'm not sure this is true, but if it were deemed to be true, couldn't the government just find a way to guarantee the availability of credit so that Chapter 11 bankruptcy (rather than Chapter 7 bankruptcy) could be used?

Iraqi Public Opinion about Iraq: Wishing for a Poll Question

Now that the security situation has improved so much in Iraq, I am keeping a sharp eye out for the next poll of the Iraqi people. The media used to conduct such polls on regular basis in their righteous zeal to instruct the world public about the evils of the illegal American invasion and subsequent incompetent occupation. Initially, such polls included a question that I always considered to be the most important one of all because, once the answer was understood, the nature of the debate changed. The answer given to this question never made any sense to opponents of the invasion, and media stories about these polls invariably focused on the answers to other questions (such as whether Iraqis enjoyed seeing attacks on American forces). The question of most interest to me was always this one:

Compared to the time before the war in spring 2003, are things overall in your life much better now, somewhat better, about the same, somewhat worse, or much worse?

I like this question because many believe that we should be apologizing to the Iraqi people for what we have done to their country (a point that was often made on Air America, for example -- back when I could get that show). So far as I know, the last time the question was asked was in a BBC poll conducted in March of 2007. Let me remind you of how things were going back then:


As you can see, the security situation was still close to the worst it ever was. Here is how the Iraqi people answered that question, even then:


In March of 2007, 43% thought life was better (14% much better + 29% somewhat better), whereas 36% thought that life was worse (8% much worse + 28% somewhat worse). In other words, even when violence was at its worst, more Iraqis indicated that life was better under those conditions that it was under Saddam Hussein. Can you imagine how the Iraqi people would answer that question if it were put to them today, now that violence has decreased to unthinkably low levels? Now that Sunnis have joined Shiites in working to maintain security in Iraq? Imagine for a moment that Iraqis would overwhelmingly report that life is better now than when the country was held in the iron grip of a genocidal dictator. Further imagine that being the top story in the news one day. Finally, imagine a poll of the American people. Pollsters like to ask Americans this question:


The fact that most Americans believe that the invasion of Iraq was wrong makes sense to me given that it is only in recent weeks that they have begun to appreciate that we have won the war over there. In addition, I feel sure that Americans are unaware of the fact that Iraqis declared themselves to be better off with their new democracy than they were under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein even when sectarian violence was spiraling out of control. In addition, Americans don't really appreciate the decisive role played by al Qaeda in Iraq, and they certainly do not appreciate the fact that al Qaeda's anti-Shiite suicide bombing campaign and their ignominious defeat in Iraq has cost them dearly in the eyes of Muslims the world over, as this Pew Global Attitudes survey reveals:



Things have gotten even worse for al Qaeda since that time, so the next poll may show even less confidence in Osama bin laden as a result of his failed effort in Iraq.

I can't help but wonder how many Americans would say that the invasion was the wrong thing to do even though (a) we won the war, (b) al Qaeda's worldwide reputation has been destroyed as a result of its failed efforts against us in Iraq, (c) violence in Iraq has now dropped to very low levels (not much different from the level of violence seen in, say, Mexico), and (d) a huge majority of Iraqis say that their lives are better now compared to when they were ruled by a genocidal dictator (which is what I assume they'd say if asked now). If they understood all this, would Americans really say, no, better to have the genocidal dictator still in control in Iraq and al Qaeda still glorified throughout the Muslim world. Perhaps they would, but I'd like to know.

Some will undoubtedly think along these lines: "oh sure, al Qaeda destroyed its worldwide reputation, but what about America's reputation? It has been destroyed as well."

No it hasn't. Even France (like Germany before it and Italy after it) has elected a pro-American leader. Moreover, the welfare of America is not dependent on people saying how much they like America in opinion polls. Also, such polls will undoubtedly improve now that we have elected Barack Obama ("problem" fixed, simple as that). That improvement in world opinion will make people around the world feel better (which is good) but will do nothing tangible for America, just as their negative opinion was inconsequential (and our negative opinion of the French, for example, was equally inconsequential for them). By contrast, al Qaeda depends on the good will of Muslims around the world for its very survival. They lost that good will in Iraq. Now they've lost it in most Muslim nations. As a result, they are spending most of their time fighting Pakistani security forces and dodging missiles fired from Predator drones in the badlands of Pakistan. And the tribes of Pakistan are beginning to turn on them as well.

In any case, when another poll of the Iraqi people was taken in September of 2007, here is how the story was presented by the BBC:

US surge has failed - Iraqi poll

About 70% of Iraqis believe security has deteriorated in the area covered by the US military "surge" of the past six months, an opinion poll suggests.
The survey for the BBC, ABC News and NHK of more than 2,000 people across Iraq also suggests that nearly 60% see attacks on US-led forces as justified.

This rises to 93% among Sunni Muslims compared with 50% for Shia.

The findings come as the top US commander in Iraq, Gen David Petraeus, prepares to address Congress.

That is, the surge has failed, so you can ignore anything that General Petraeus says that might indicate otherwise. At about the same time, a similar message was being sent by Moveon.org, who referred to Petraeus as "General Betray Us" because of the ostensible lies he was about to tell Congress regarding the apparent success off the troop surge.

Missing from this poll was question #2 from the poll conducted 6 months earlier in March of 2007 (i.e., the one that asked about how life in Iraq is now compared to the time before the invasion). The question was missing again in the poll they conducted in March of 2008. Thus, I expect the question to be missing in polls conducted from here on out, and that's really too bad. It would be worth having direct evidence that the Iraqi people overwhelmingly consider themselves to be better off now than they were under the iron grip of a genocidal madman.

UPDATE: Speaking of al Qaeda's declining fortunes:

CIA head says bin Laden isolated, fighting to survive

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. intelligence agencies believe Osama bin Laden is isolated from al Qaeda and spending much of his energy merely surviving, the head of the CIA said on Thursday.

CIA Director Michael Hayden said hunting down bin Laden remains his agency's priority.

"He is putting a lot of energy into his own survival -- a lot of energy into his own security," Hayden said in a speech at the Atlantic Council in Washington.

"In fact, he appears to be largely isolated from the day-to-day operations of the organization he nominally heads," he said.

In recent weeks, there have been several U.S. missile strikes by unmanned drones around the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

During the recent presidential campaign, Barack Obama claimed that al Qaeda was stronger than ever. Americans (like most of the mainstream media reporters who educate them) are so informed that they actually believed his preposterous assertion.

Rhetoric Meets Reality on Guantanamo

I am really looking forward to seeing how Obama deals with the hot-button issues that "anti-war" activists raged about over the last few years. One of those is the issue of Guantanamo Bay:

Obama reviewing how to close Guantanamo: aide

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Barack Obama's presidential transition team said Tuesday it was working though the complicated issues involved in his campaign pledge to close the Guantanamo Bay "war on terror" camp in Cuba.

The Democratic president-elect is already under fierce pressure from human rights groups to close the controversial high-security facility but faces a legal minefield in deciding where to house inmates and how to try them.

"Senator Obama has said that he intends to close the facility at Guantanamo, that's a complicated matter," said his transition co-chair John Podesta.

It's a complicated matter? You don't say. In the superficial debate over Guantanamo, most seemed to be under the impression that the solution was simple: just close it so that we can regain our "moral standing" in the world. But the real debate should have included a discussion about the alternative, and very few people ever went there. That's because there is no good alternative, as I expect you'll discover when Obama finally decides what to about the 250 prisoners held there. The anti-war crowd was united in its desire to close the prison, but they'll surely be divided over the alternative, once it is fleshed out. I'm looking forward to the discussion.

In a related matter, I can hardly wait to see what the Obama administration comes up with on the issue of CIA interrogation techniques. According to the superficial analysis offered by those who think like Code Pink activists, it's all very simple: just refuse to torture detainees, and you can do that by simply outlawing waterboarding. Once that's done, we'll have regained our "moral standing" in the world. Then we can once again walk around "with our heads held high."

Because of its symbolic force, Obama will undoubtedly remove waterboarding from the CIA's bag of interrogation techniques. But my question is and always has been this: what is the harshest interrogation technique that will be allowed for rare use on high-level al Qaeda detainees who are thought to have information about impending mass-casualty attacks on civilians? That is the question that anti-torture activists (and Democrats in general) almost never address. To me, a technique like waterboarding should be allowed under such circumstances. As I see it, it is downright silly to call it "torture" because it passes my non-torture test, which is that we use it on our own soldiers during training. We'd never do with actual torture techniques, like drilling through hands and cutting off fingers. Thus, waterboarding is very harsh -- in the area between gentle interrogation and torture -- but calling it torture is like calling Bush "Hitler" (i.e., it's a stretch).

What's your torture test? When does an interrogation technique cross the line and become torture? That's the question I want Obama to answer, but, like Democrats everywhere, he will never do so (because it would expose the logical problem with his "anti-torture" stance and would take all of the fun out the I-am-holier-than-thou discussion). Thus, I have to wait to see what interrogation techniques are actually approved to see where he stands on this matter. Will he approve interrogation techniques that are one iota less harsh than waterboarding? One iota less harsh than that? Where, exactly, is he going to draw the line? The day that the harshest interrogation is specified is the day that human rights activists will accuse Obama of condoning torture because no matter where he draws the line, there will be those who believe that it should be placed at an even gentler point on the scale.

Interrogation techniques come in degrees of harshness, not pre-categorized into "torture" and "not torture." That being the case, you simply have to draw the line. Unless, that is, you are an out-of-power Democrat scoring cheap political points against a Republican president who drew the line and then asked Congress to draw the line elsewhere if they did not like his decision. At the time, Democrats were not very enthusiastic about doing that. It was just too much fun accusing Bush of condoning torture. Now the Democrats themselves have to draw the line, and I can hardly wait to see what they decide to do.

So far, Obama Seems True to Form on the Economy

On issues ranging from national security to the economy, people keep speculating that Obama was just kidding about how he would behave once he actually takes office and has to govern in the real world. The idea is that he made all kinds of false promises just to get elected, but he won't really squander our hard-fought victory in Iraq, and he won't really work to stunt economic growth (e.g., by opposing free trade) in the midst of a recession. However, on the economy, at least, early indications are that he was not just kidding:

Obama Prods Bush to Aid Detroit

President-elect Barack Obama met at the White House Monday with the man he will succeed in January, and pressed President George W. Bush to take immediate action to help stave off the collapse of the U.S. auto industry and to aid the economy more broadly.

Mr. Obama's focus on the auto industry came as fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill started moving on their own to help Detroit gain access to federal rescue funds allocated for the financial sector. Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan said Monday that he is drafting legislation, aimed for quick passage, that would free up money from the $700 billion Wall Street rescue for Detroit auto makers careening toward seeking bankruptcy protection.

Bailing out the financial industry to prevent a complete collapse of the broader economy is one thing. Bailing out a failing auto industry to protect union jobs at the expense of the broader economy is quite another. Obama wants the government to help an industry that is unable to compete on its own, a move that is likely to make our car makers even less competitive than they already are. On this issue, Obama's liberal instincts appear true to form.

What about free trade? Bush is for it; Obama is against it:

Obama Asks Bush to Provide Help for Automakers
...
"Bush indicated at the meeting that he might support some aid and a broader economic stimulus package if Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats dropped their opposition to a free-trade agreement with Colombia, a measure for which Mr. Bush has long fought, people familiar with the discussion said."...Mr. Obama went into his post-election meeting with Mr. Bush on Monday primed to urge him to support emergency aid to the auto industry, advisers to Mr. Obama said. But Democrats also indicate that neither Mr. Obama nor Congressional leaders are inclined to concede the Colombia pact to Mr. Bush, and may decide to wait until Mr. Obama assumes power on Jan. 20.

Again, Obama's liberal instincts appear to remain fully intact on this issue. The same article also points out that Obama's promised support for the auto industry has nothing at all to do with making them more competitive on the world market. Instead, this is the idea:

Separate from his differences with Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama has signaled to the automakers and the unions that his support for short-term aid now, and long-term assistance once he takes office, is contingent on their willingness to agree to transform their industry to make cleaner, more energy-efficient vehicles.

A noble goal, I suppose, but filling Michigan with green cars that nobody wants -- all at great taxpayer expense -- is an idea that will probably not win the Nobel Prize anytime soon. Then again, Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for doing nothing remotely related to promoting world peace, so you never know.

On taxes, no one doubts that Obama will raise them on the wealthy, or that he'll he'll raise the capital gains tax rate, and or that he'll raise taxes on corporations (by closing "loop holes"). Protecting inefficient union jobs by sending direct aid to failing industries and opposing free trade agreements while raising a host of taxes -- all in the midst of what may turn out to be the most severe economic downturn since the Jimmy Carter years -- is not a plan that makes sense to me. It is, however, a recognizably liberal plan, which means that it is the kind of plan that instinctively makes sense to someone whose heart is in the right place. Maybe I'll be surprised at how well this plan works to stimulate economic growth once it is put into place. I hope so, but, unlike most Americans, I'm not wildly optimistic about Obama's plan for the economy.

UPDATE: I'm in a small minority here:

Most in AP poll confident Obama will fix economy

WASHINGTON – In one of the economy's darkest hours in decades, it looks as if people are taking Barack Obama up on his exhortations for hope and change. Seven in 10, or 72 percent, voice confidence the president-elect will make the changes needed to revive the stalling economy, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll released Tuesday.

If you suffer from "free floating anxiety," it means that you feel anxious all the time for no particular reason. I think Americans might be suffering from a bad case of "free floating hope" (i.e., they are hopeful for no particular reason). I guess that's OK even if I have trouble sharing in the experience.

U.S. Economic Performance During the Clinton and Bush Years

Every once in a while, I take a look at the basic statistics concerning economic growth in the U.S. vs. the other nations of the G7 (the only reasonable comparison group). Those other nations are Japan, Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy and Canada, and I'll call those nations the G6. As a general rule, Americans are a bunch of uninformed hysterics when it comes to evaluating the performance of their own economy, and this is especially true when a Republican is president and the main source of information is the media we have (instead of the media we wish we had). The best way to assess the strength of the U.S. economy is to go straight to the relevant statistics and then look at them over time and over place. If you are a card-carrying anti-Bush hysteric, you will not find this to be a useful exercise because if the numbers make Bush look good, you'll decide that the numbers are hiding the truth, and you'll cite someone who has reanalyzed them to show how terrible things really are. This is just like right wing poll watchers who, before the election last Tuesday, analyzed "poll internals" to show that, in truth, the race was much closer than it seemed and that McCain was about to win. It is understandable to me why people do this. Most people are simply unaccustomed to allowing the data to influence their thinking, so they adjust the data to fit what they fervently wish were true. You should try hard not to do that. Even though data can be flawed, the best approach is always to seek out the best source of information and to then consider the possibility that what the numbers show is the closest approximation to the truth we have.

A basic indicator of overall economic performance is the annual percent change in GDP. As a general rule, a growth rate of 1% is weak, 2% is fine (but nothing to get excited about), 3% is very good and 4% is probably too good to be true. This general rule applies to advanced industrialized economies, not to emerging economies (where much higher growth rates are to be expected). Let's take a look at GDP growth for the U.S. and for the G6 for the Clinton years and the Bush years. The values for 2008 are projected since the final numbers are obviously not in yet (data from the International Monetary Fund):


What you can see is that GDP growth in the U.S. generally exceeds that in the G6, and this was true for both Clinton and Bush. Also evident are the results of two bubbles that popped. Both popped on George Bush's watch, though Bush had nothing to do with either one. The first bubble -- the dot-com bubble -- popped around 2000 and caused a recession in 2001. The GDP figures for the last few Clinton years were probably inflated by that bubble, though he clearly deserves no blame for that. In addition, even without the effects of the dot-com bubble, economic performance during the Clinton years would have been very good. The average percent increase in GDP for the U.S. during the Clinton years was 3.71%, whereas it was 2.3% for the G6.

When the dot-com bubble burst and al Qaeda attacked in 2001, the U.S. economy (and the world economy) faltered. Bush introduced tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, and that probably helped to restore economic growth to more typical levels. Now, a second bubble (the housing/ financial bubble) is popping. This bubble was much longer in the making, it was not George Bush's fault, and it will probably take longer to play out. Even though two bubbles popped on Bush's watch, the average GDP growth during the Bush years comes in at 2.23%, whereas the corresponding value for the G6 is 1.69%. If you are an anti-Bush hysteric on the issue of the economy, you should realize that economic growth has been good on his watch despite two burst bubbles (and U.S. economic growth was considerably better than that of the most reasonable group of comparison nations). Perhaps you have a problem with that, but it is obviously nothing to get hysterical about.

A point that is not understood by many is that the percent change figure makes things look better for the G6 than they really are. That's because, on a per capita basis, the U.S. economy is larger than the economies of the G6. If percent growth in the GDP for the U.S. and the G6 were the same, then it would mean a larger absolute increase for the U.S. economy (even on a per capita basis) than for the G6 economies. The easiest way to understand this is to think about your income and the income of, say, Michael Jordan. If your income goes up by 3%, you could take a decent vacation with the extra money. If his goes up by 3%, he could probably buy an island with his extra money. That is, the same percent increase translates into a lot more actual money if the starting value is high than if it is low. The starting value for the U.S. economy (on a per capita basis) is high compared to that of the G6.

So let's compare the U.S. economy to the economies of the G6 on per capita GDP. Although this is not an income measure per se, it is similar to a plot showing your income vs. Michael Jordan's income over the years. In a plot like that, there would be no "percent change" statistic at all; just the actual income values. Here are the relevant GDP per capita figures (corrected for differences in purchasing power across nations):


As you can see, the U.S. economy has been putting ever greater distance between itself and the other nations of the G6 throughout the Clinton years and the Bush years. This would have occurred even if percent growth in the GDP were same in the U.S. and the G6 (because the U.S. had a larger starting value at the beginning of the Clinton years). But the U.S. also had a higher percent growth, so the distance between the two was somewhat accelerated. It has been that way pretty much continuously since the Reagan years. At the start of the Clinton years, per capita GDP was about $5K higher in the U.S. compared to the G6. Now it is more than $10K higher, and these numbers have already been adjusted for inflation.

Many of you will react to these numbers by assuming that all of the spoils in the U.S. are going to the rich, whereas things are much more fairly distributed in the other nations of the G6. You'll understand, for example, that GDP per capita is an average figure, and an average figure will increase if everyone is getting better off or if only the rich are getting better off. And you'll assume that only the rich are getting better off in the U.S. It's not true, but I can't do everything in one post. I can, however, ask you a simple question: if you think it is true that only the rich are getting better off, what makes you think so? Most people will have heard a story about "stagnant wages" and conclude that's all they need to know. If you've heard such a story, did it come from the mainstream media, or did you investigate the matter for yourself? If you have not investigated the matter for yourself, you should. The data-based truth is usually more interesting than what you get from well-meaning reporters who unconsciously process information through a left-wing filter.

Now, it's Obama's War to Lose

At the CATO Institute, David Boaz says this:

A Sweeping Rejection of President Bush

Bush and the Republicans promised choice, freedom, reform, and a restrained federal government. They delivered massive overspending, the biggest expansion of entitlements in 40 years, centralization of education, a floundering war, an imperial presidency, civil liberties abuses, the intrusion of the federal government into social issues and personal freedoms, and finally a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street that just kept on growing in the last month of the campaign. Voters who believed in limited government had every reason to reject that record. (emphasis added)

Now, he does not say which war, but his list of complaints make me think he is referring to the "floundering war" in Iraq (because that's the war that is hated by those who also perceive Bush as having trampled our civil liberties). If that is the war in question, then his thinking about it seems a lot like Barack Obama's in that it is apparently stuck in time. It's as if we lost that war a long time ago, and the only left to do now is get out troops out of that quagmire as quickly as possible. Let me just briefly remind you how that floundering war is going:




Although Americans are catching on to the fact that we really did win the war in Iraq and that we may really have replaced a genocidal dictatorship with fledgling democracy, many others are still in the dark about it (so much so that they still believe that our effort there is floundering). Like it or not, George Bush won the war in Iraq and introduced democracy into the very heart of the Middle East. Now it's Barack Obama's war to lose.

It is not unfair to say that some on the left are uncomfortable with an American military victory in Iraq and that they see real value in a perceived defeat. Back in November of 2006 -- back when al Qaeda had successfully plunged Iraq into sectarian chaos and the Iraqi people needed us the most -- James Carroll (a columnist for the Boston Globe) seemed genuinely excited about the possibility of America's apparent defeat. In fact, he thought that America's defeat at the hands of the terrorist organization that attacked us on 9/11 would be downright educational:

What it will take to end war

By James Carroll | November 6, 2006
...
It is one thing to feel uneasy about your nation's war, or even to move to a position of outright opposition. It is another to face the harsh fact that the only way out of the war is to accept defeat.
...
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?

As you can see from my chart above, Barack Obama was, indeed, willing to accept defeat because he introduced a bill to withdraw our troops from Iraq just two months later. The difference is that he did not openly discuss the matter in defeatist terms. That is, he proposed to ensure our perceived defeat without coming out and saying something silly like "This time, can we accept defeat?" Fortunately for us (and for the people of Iraq), Bush was not as excited about the prospect of an American defeat, so he ordered a surge of troops that has yielded an incredible outcome that few thought possible.

As I said, now it is Obama's war to lose, and I am really curious to see if he will stick to withdraw-at-all-costs Pavlovian reflex in order to appease the Moveon.org anti-war fanatics or if he will simply adopt the Bush policy of withdrawing in a way that ensures that the hard-fought gains will be maintained. In that regard, our military commanders have some advice for Obama:

Senior U.S. military officials will likely advise Barack Obama to adjust his campaign pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by mid-2010. While promising a 16-month timetable for getting all U.S. fighting forces out, Obama repeatedly insisted on what he calls a "responsible" withdrawal...officers believe the security gains in Iraq would be put at risk if troops were withdrawn before the Iraqi security forces are in a position to protect their own communities and borders.

My best guess is that Obama will find a way to essentially adopt Bush's policy, but he'll describe it in a way that sounds like he going to "end this war" (and he'll strive never to refer to the functioning democracy now in place -- as if Iraq is as bad as it was under Saddam Hussein, contrary to what those crazy neocons believe). Then again, he might just stick to his repeated promise to the American people to withdraw our troops as quickly as possible no matter what. What a tragedy that would be.

Americans Begin to Understand that the War in Iraq will Judged a Success

A mere one day one day after the election, it is amazing to see reporters just presenting facts instead of going far out their way to protect Obama from the harsh reality of his obviously flawed national security instincts:

Iraqi officials were skeptical of the Illinois senator when he launched his candidacy two years ago, pledging to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of his inauguration.

At the time, Iraq was reeling toward all-out civil war, with Shiite and Sunni gunmen battling in Baghdad's streets while rockets and mortar shells detonated in the Green Zone, the U.S.-protected area of central Baghdad where top Iraqi officials live and work.

The prospect of U.S. troops leaving Iraq quickly was popular among American voters but alarmed the Shiite-dominated government, which feared a withdrawal would remove its main pillar of support.

But violence receded after last year's U.S. troop buildup, which Obama opposed.

The only thing missing from this brief synopsis is the fact that the central ingredient in Iraq's slide slide into "all-out civil war" was al Qaeda's foreign suicide bombers who, at the time, were doing nothing in Afghanistan (which is where Obama actually believed that al Qaeda was).

Someday, I believe that these facts will be clearer to the American public than they are now. The reason I think so is that they are actual facts, and usually the facts bubble up into conscious awareness. Now that the distorting force of the election has been removed (and reporters have gotten what they wanted), the truth about Iraq -- and about Obama's judgment -- may finally emerge.

Then again, Americans do not really care that their leaders are capable of winning wars. The first George Bush fought a hugely successful war against Iraq, but when it was over, Americans forgot about it and focused on the economy. When wars are over, Americans act as if no wars will ever be fought again, so past evidence wartime savvy is irrelevant as we move forward into the future.

The same thinking applies to John McCain. It's as if Americans think like this: "Oh sure, McCain's plan has led to an American victory in Iraq, whereas Obama's plan consisted of little more than accepting defeat at the hands of al Qaeda in Iraq. But that's irrelevant. We are in a new era now in which no wars will ever be fought again, so who really cares which man would be the better leader under such circumstances?"

This might not be such a terrible way to think. It is reasonable to assume that Obama will not start any wars, so his war-fighting savvy does not matter much. For example, most people probably believe that McCain would use military force to stop Iran from finishing its nuclear weapon (a weapon that would make it the dominant force in the region). Most people probably also believe that Obama will do no such thing. That's how I think. As such, if Iran is within 4 years of developing a nuclear bomb, then, in all likelihood, it will have its nuclear bomb (and Obama's ability to prosecute a war against them would not matter).

Meanwhile, Americans are finally starting to realize that we are winning the war in Iraq:

War on Terror Update

Confidence About Iraq Hits All-Time High

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Voter confidence about the situation in Iraq has hit an all time high.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 51% of voters now expect the situation in Iraq to improve over the next six months. That’s up two percentage points from the preceding week.

Just 17% of voters now say the situation will get worse in the coming months, while 16% say things will stay about the same.

Forty-two percent (42%) now believe the U.S. mission in Iraq will be judged as a success while 40% hold the opposite view and say it will be judged as a failure.
...
Additionally, on election night, 52% of voters said that the U.S. and its allies are winning the War on Terror...Only 19% say the terrorists are winning the war, 21% say neither side is prevailing.

Although the numbers just keep getting better, 40% still believe that the U.S. mission in Iraq will be judged as a failure. To me, this is reasonable only if you think that Obama will engineer that failure by withdrawing our troops before Iraqi security forces can keep al Qaeda at bay. Otherwise, the idea that the mission in Iraq will be judged a failure -- despite its being a functioning democracy instead of being held in the brutal grip of a genocidal madman and despite the fact that al Qaeda's worldwide reputation has been shattered by its brutality and by its failure in Iraq -- seems rather bizarre.

Well, 100% of of these poll respondents would believe that the U.S. mission in Iraq will be judged as a failure had Obama's national security judgment prevailed. Thank God it didn't, and let's hope that we don't need to rely on his national security judgment in the next 4 years (i.e., let's hope that Joe Biden's scary prognosis turns out to be wrong).

Time to Perform the Liberal Experiment

Once again, the polls just nailed the outcome. This makes 3 elections in a row where that has happened (the 2004 Bush vs. Kerry contest, the 2006 mid-term elections, and, now, the 2008 Obama vs. McCain contest). As of last night, my thought was that Obama would win by 6% plus or minus 2%. That's because the averaged polls had him up by 7% to 8%, but they were based largely on registered voters, not on likely voters (and likely voters are typically a bit more Republican). In the end, it looks like Obama will win by about 6%. Although I was pretty sure that it would turn out that way, my confidence wavered ever so slightly on occasion because so many smart people on the right were suggesting that McCain could pull it out (based on their analyses of poll "internals" and such). I think that otherwise smart people made such claims because they are not accustomed to letting the data guide their thinking, so they let what they want to be true unduly influence what they believe is actually true. This is a pervasive problem no matter what the issue is, so let that be a lesson to you (a really valuable lesson). The lesson is this: data trump theory. No matter what your theory is, the empirical data give you the best indication of what is true.

In the end, I voted for McCain and against the ban on gay marriage. The voters in my state went the opposite way on both issues (though the ban on gay marriage has not yet been officially called). That I voted for McCain will surprise no one who reads my blog because I've made it perfectly clear that I believe that (a) McCain has thought deeply about Iraq and has made rational decisions on the basis of his in-depth analysis, whereas (b) Barack Obama has exhibited virtually no intellectual curiosity about the issue and has instead exhibited a superficial Pavlovian withdrawal reflex. His big idea is that we should withdraw our troops as quickly as possible no matter what, and, from his perspective, no detailed analysis is needed to support that position. Despite this, it was hard for me to cast a vote for McCain because I really do not want another 4 years of young conservatives being appointed to the Supreme Court and to the various courts of appeal. That is, unlike dyed-in-the-wool conservatives, I don't want a court packed with conservatives, and unlike dyed-in-the-wool liberals, I don't want a court packed with liberals. Neither outcome is desirable in a country with 52% leaning to the left and 46% leaning to the right.

Don't be upset that Obama has won. My belief is that his plan for America is misguided in several respects, but I am not so cock sure of my position that I am not interested in the experiment that we are about to perform. Quite the contrary. With regard to Iraq, my theory is that al Qaeda will once again set its sites on Iraq if Obama withdraws our troops according to a rigid timetable. If al Qaeda is still capable of making trouble in Iraq (and I'm not sure that they are), then why wouldn't they? If they again succeed in ramping up sectarian violence, then the wicked plan conceived by Zarqawi may yet succeed. Surely they will try now that there will be a clear timetable for withdrawal (one that does not have any contingency plan for a deteriorating security situation). That's one experiment we are about to perform. On the economy, I cannot understand how one can stave off a recession by increasing taxes on the rich, increasing taxes on corporations, increasing the capital gains tax, and erecting barriers to free trade. All of those measures seemed designed to enhance fairness, not to enhance growth. Enhancing fairness in economic good times is one thing; trying to do that when the economy is crashing down around us is quite another. This is a second experiment we are about to perform.

In both cases, my theory is that Obama's plan is destined for bad results. But data trump theory. Over the next 4 years, we'll have a lot of data to evaluate the wisdom of the Obama approach. Just as with the pre-election polls (which were not necessarily to my liking), I'm going to let the data influence what I think. Perhaps the results will be so impressive that I can join my fellow Democrats in believing that abandoning Iraq (even if al Qaeda makes a comeback there) and raising taxes (even during what is likely to be deep recession) both make sense. Time will tell.

Rethinking the Leadership of the G7

After today's vote, I think I'm going to have to rephrase how I describe the leaders of the G7 nations. Obama fans (and Obama himself) typically claim that America must restore its "standing in the world." This seems like an urgent need to people like Obama and his supporters because of opinion poll result like these from the Pew Global Attitudes Survey:


More recent findings seem to suggest a slight improvement in America's image, but it is still quite negative overall. Thus, it is imperative that we "restore" our image by electing the man who will do what the world wants him to do (e.g., be less inclined to militarily topple genocidal dictators, sign the Kyoto Protocol despite its negative consequences for the US economy and its virtual irrelevance in the battle against global C02 emissions, etc.).

In response to this sense of urgency, I usually ask some simple questions. First, what tangible result will accrue to America if, in opinion polls, people around the world now say that they like us better? I'd like them to respond that way for their own sake (just as we in America feel better when we like the president of France), but I've never been able to identify any tangible gain for America itself.

Second, what matters far more than mere opinion polls are the kinds of poll you take on election day (such as today in America). Do these negative feeling about America translate into the election of anti-American leaders? To find out, I follow who people elect in the nations of the G7 (namely, the U.S., U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Canada,and Japan). These are the democracies with the largest economies in the world. Together, they make up something like 65% of the world GDP (according to this report, at least). The elected leaders of these nations probably have a lot to say about whether or not their countries will cooperate with diplomatic initiatives and bolster economic ties. What is the story with respect to the leaders of the G7 now that George Bush has gone and ruined everything? Do the people of the G7 act on their anti-American feelings, or do they tend to vote for pro-American leaders despite those feelings?

In Italy, we recently had this news:

Conservative leader Silvio Berlusconi has scored a decisive victory in Italy's parliamentary elections, setting the billionaire and staunch US ally on course for his third stint as premier.

The victory is a remarkable return to power for 71-year-old Mr Berlusconi, avenging his loss two years ago at the hand of the centre-left.
...
Mr Berlusconi once said that he agreed with the US regardless of Washington's position. He calls US president George Bush a friend and his return to power is likely to make relations with Washington warmer, no matter who becomes the next American president.

What about Germany and Canada? Their most recent elections were summarized like this:

A Defeat for Anti-Americanism

Saturday, January 28, 2006; Page A20

ACCORDING TO his opponent, Canadian Conservative Party Leader Stephen Harper exposed "an agenda really drawn from the extreme right in the United States." He favored the Iraq war, opposed the Kyoto treaty on global warming, and is a social conservative to boot. He might just become -- heaven forbid -- "the most pro-American leader in the Western world." His victory would -- O, Canada! -- "put a smile on George W. Bush's face." Despite all those scary warnings, Mr. Harper and his party won Canada's election on Monday. That put an end to 12 years of increasingly incoherent and corrupt rule by the Liberal Party -- as well as the cynical and irresponsible attempt of its leader, outgoing Prime Minister Paul Martin, to use anti-Americanism.

Mr. Martin becomes the second G-8 leader in four months to exit from office after discovering that anti-U.S. demagoguery is no longer enough to win an election. Gerhard Schroeder, the former German chancellor, also tried to rescue his political career last fall by parading his differences with Mr. Bush; the result was the victory of Angela Merkel, who has moved swiftly to repair relations with Washington. Interestingly, both Mr. Schroeder and Mr. Martin won previous campaigns by playing anti-American cards, in 2002 and 2004 respectively. While it's not clear that the level of ill feeling toward the United States or its president has changed much in Germany or Canada, it's obviously not the foremost concern of voters fed up with domestic mismanagement -- or, perhaps, political venality.

Italy, Canada and Germany all elected pro-U.S. leaders? Who'd have thought that possible in light of America's "image" in the world? Let's consider the most recent election in France, which has been especially anti-American in recent years:

France Elects U.S.-Friendly Conservative

PARIS, May 7, 2007

(CBS/AP) Nicolas Sarkozy, a blunt and uncompromising pro-American conservative, was elected president of France Sunday with a mandate to chart a new course for an economically sluggish nation struggling to incorporate immigrants and the younger generations.

Who leads Japan these days? Until recently, this guy did:

TOKYO - Ruling party elder and political moderate Yasuo Fukuda is expected to win today's contest for the presidency of the Liberal Democratic Party, a victory virtually certain to make him the next prime minister of Japan in a parliamentary vote Tuesday.
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Fukuda, 71, who would become the first son of a prime minister to take the job, brushed off questions yesterday about his Cabinet lineup on his way to a debate with his opponent, former foreign minister Taro Aso.
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Fukuda is hardly the most charismatic or dynamic politician in Japan. The son of a former prime minister, he prefers gray suits, classical music, and moderate pro-American policies.

Well, he just resigned and we'll see who leads the nation after the next real election there, but I don't see strong signs of an anti-American trend caused by George Bush's policies.

Finally, the United Kingdom. Their most recent elected leader was the staunchly pro-American Tony Blair, and they have not yet held a national election to name his successor. Their current leader is Gordon Brown. He may not be as pro-American as his predecessor, but he is probably a lot more pro-American than some Americans are:

Katie Couric: "Finally Mr Prime Minister, ideally, what would you like the American people to know about you?"

Gordon Brown: "That I'm very pro-American and I've always been so. I feel America and Europe, and America and Britain in particular, because ours is a very special relationship, I feel that America and Britain can achieve so much in the next few years."

In summary, if you count George Bush as being pro-American (which seems fair), then all 7 leaders of the G7 now fall into that category. If they were all anti-American instead (like Jacques Chirac was), then popularity polls showing that America's image in the world is sinking would be more meaningful. In fact, it is precisely because of results like these that I do not attach much weight to America's "popularity" in the world, and I feel no urgent need to "restore" that image so that I can once again " walk with my head held high."

And here is where I'm going to have to change the way I describe the various losing politicians in the G7 elections. In Germany, for example, I categorized loser Gerhard Schroeder as anti-American and winner Angela Merkel as pro-American. In France, I categorized the extremely unpopular Jacques Chirac as anti-American and recent winner Nicholas Sarkozy as pro-American.

Well, starting today, I think I need to be a bit more diplomatic in how I characterize these people because we are about to elect our own Jacques Chirac. That is, ironically, the United States will be the first of the G7 nations to elect someone I might have undiplomatically characterized as being anti-American were he running for president in another country. So, from now on, I'll use different terms to categorize these people, like "proudly-pro-American" and "less-proudly-pro-American," or something like that. The proudly pro-Americans like America the way it is, whereas the less proudly pro-Americans think that America is not, but could be (with the right leader), the greatest nation on earth. Today, the United States seems on track to elect the first "less-proudly-pro-American" leader in the G7.

What an Obama Victory Means about the Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq

I remain amazed by all the talk on the right that the polls are somehow questionable and that John McCain has a real shot at winning tomorrow's election. Perhaps he does, and I'll happily update my thinking about the validity of polls if that happens. However, after following the polls closely for 4 years and checking the final polls against the outcome of the election, I've learned to let them guide my thinking. If I do that this time, I foresee an Obama victory of roughly 6% in the popular vote and an electoral vote total for him well above 300. Check out the map drawn by sophisticated poll watchers here. The various conservative pundits dissecting polls and telling you that McCain has a real shot know much less about analyzing polls than these people do. Like it or not, you have to let the data influence your thinking. If you do that now, you'll anticipate a solid victory for Barack Obama.

An issue that has intrigued me for some time is the status of forces agreement being worked out with Iraq. Here's Bush's view, in a nutshell:

We want our forces to start withdrawing soon, but, to ensure that our hard-fought victory is maintained, we want a clause that allows the Iraqi government to request our help should al Qaeda or other insurgents manage to re-ignite sectarian violence down the line.

Here is the Iraqi view, which is increasingly comical to me in light of Obama's impending victory:

Al-Maliki wants more jurisdiction over U.S. troops and guarantees that Iraqi territory will not be used by the U.S. to launch attacks on neighboring countries, like last weekend's U.S. raid into Syria. Baghdad also wants to remove language that could allow the U.S. to stay beyond the end of 2011.

And here's Obama's view:

Good bye. We're gone, whether al Qaeda re-ignites sectarian violence or not. Even if 3000 innocent civilians are dying every month again (as they were when I introduced a bill to withdraw US forces as quickly as possible back in January of 2007), you are on your own. Feel perfectly free to remove that language that would allow the U.S. to stay in Iraq beyond the end of 2011 because we will be out of here in 2010 (no matter what). And the more than 4000 US soldiers who died liberating Iraq? They died for nothing because I have no interest at all in maintaining what they gave their lives to achieve. Best of luck to you!

If Obama wins (as I obviously think he will), the war in Iraq will be Obama's to lose. George Bush has already won the war, but there remains the question of whether or not Iraqi security forces are up to the job of keeping the peace. They might be, which is why an Obama victory is not the calamity that a Kerry victory would have been 4 years ago. But if they are not up to the job (i.e., if all hell breaks lose when our soldiers leave), the war in Iraq will have been lost by an inexperienced liberal senator from Illinois who was profoundly wrong about the conduct of the war when the fighting was raging back in 2007 and then compounded his previous mistake by ordering a full scale retreat just as victory was being secured in 2009. He must know that, and that's why I think he might not be serious about allowing Iraq to descend into a genocidal hell should al Qaeda manage to make a comeback there. We'll see.

Casualties in Iraq, October 2008

The story of casualties in Iraq is now almost too amazing to believe, but it is a story that is completely misunderstood by the man who is likely to be elected as the next president of the United States. Barack Obama not only misunderstands Iraq (e.g., he thought that the violence reflected a civil war that was mostly unrelated to al Qaeda), he can barely stand to acknowledge the unimaginable drop in violence that has occurred over the last year.

Although Obama is not very interested in America's victory in Iraq, you should be. Take a look at my monthly annotated chart of civilian casualties, which includes figures for the just completed month of October (the source of data and essential corrections are described here):


As always, the dark purple bars represent the months associated with George Bush's troop surge, and the black bar represents the month in which al Qaeda finally succeeded in its quest to ignite out-of-control sectarian violence by bombing the Golden Mosque. For the October casualty figure, I removed casualties from two mass graves that were recently discovered because both involved deaths that occurred several years ago (not in October).

If you are on the left, you probably believed that casualties were not declining when General Petraeus testified that they were back in September of 2007. You also probably believed that the surge would never be able to reduce casualties in Iraq. That's what Obama thought (and, admittedly, so did I). Moreover, like Obama (but unlike me), you probably thought that it would be just a grand idea to withdraw our troops at the very height of sectarian violence, despite the fact that the catastrophic consequences of our surrender were so obvious that even the liberal editors of the New York Times could not deny them:

The Road Home

July 8, 2007

It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit.
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Whatever his cause was, it is lost.
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Americans must be clear that Iraq, and the region around it, could be even bloodier and more chaotic after Americans leave. There could be reprisals against those who worked with American forces, further ethnic cleansing, even genocide. Potentially destabilizing refugee flows could hit Jordan and Syria. Iran and Turkey could be tempted to make power grabs. Perhaps most important, the invasion has created a new stronghold from which terrorist activity could proliferate.

Barack Obama not only favored the withdrawal of US forces, which was bad enough, he actually introduced a troop withdrawal bill that was designed to prevent the troop surge from ever happening. That was a major test of the man's judgment, and any reasonable person would have to give him a grade of F. Even worse, not only did he exhibit profoundly impaired judgment, he did not learn from (or even so much as acknowledge) his mistake. Instead, he breezily asserts that we don't know what would have happened had we surrendered at the height of al Qaeda-induced sectarian violence. That's like saying we don't really know what would happen if a surgeon just walked away from the operating table in the middle of a heart transplant operation that was going very badly. We do know what would happen to the patient, and anyone who suggests otherwise would not be a prime candidate for a physician's license. Yet Barack Obama is poised to become our next commander-in-chief (despite his poor judgment and despite the fact that he appears to have learned nothing from his misguided actions).

Military casualties in Iraq show the same amazing trends that are evident in the civilian casualty figures:


On Wednesday, we will probably wake up to find that our country will be run for the next 4 years by Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. What they have in common, as my chart helps to illustrate, is colossally impaired judgment on the issue of national security, along with an eagerness to accept America's defeat at the hands of al Qaeda in Iraq. Their impaired judgment is directly traceable to the fact that they were completely uninterested in the details about what was happening in Iraq (as I have documented relentlessly on my blog over the last couple of years). What happened to their intellectual curiosity? To them, George Bush's folly in Iraq caused an uncontrollable civil war, and that's all you really needed to know. Throughout the entire troop-surge debate, our future liberal leaders steadfastly maintained what I called an "eerie code of silence" about the critical role played by al Qaeda's foreign leaders and incredibly lethal foreign suicide bombers in the so-called "civil war." They don't seem to know that Osama bin Laden "took his eye off the ball" in Afghanistan and sent his jihadists to evict American forces from Iraq instead. Yet, to this very day, Obama, Reid and Pelosi won't even talk about it. It's surreal.

Well, intellectually incurious liberal ideologues who are uninterested in the details about Iraq will soon be in charge of the country. One can only hope that their prior thinking was warped by a bad case of Bush Derangement Syndrome and that they will think more clearly (and more deeply) once Bush is out of the way.