Letter From The Capitol

Index 6/6/08

2 posts: (1) D-Day + 64: Replaying Reagan--Classics; (2) Obama and the Mideast's "Three Is" + 1: Iraq, Iran , Israel + Syria--Us v. Them.

D-Day + 64: Replaying Reagan

Take a trip down memory lane with the text of Ronald Reagan's legendary "Men of Point du Hoc" speech at Normandy, at the 40th anniversary commemoration of D-Day.  And remember the heroes whose sacrifice saved France, and the civilized world, from the ascendancy of barbarism.  We face a new barbarism today.

Obama and the Mideast's "Three Is" +1: Iran, Iraq & Israel, Syria

Barack Obama spoke to AIPAC last week.  A review of the prepared text fleshes out the senator's very effective oral presentation.  Below are the pulses and minuses I tallied.  I present them in the order they appear in his text.

Pluses.  Obama's elegant address was part poetry:

I saw some of those very images at Yad Vashem, and they never leave you. And those images just hint at the stories that survivors of the Shoah carried with them. Like Eisenhower, each of us bears witness to anyone and everyone who would deny these unspeakable crimes, or ever speak of repeating them. We must mean what we say when we speak the words: "never again."

It was just a few years after the liberation of the camps that David Ben-Gurion declared the founding of the Jewish State of Israel. We know that the establishment of Israel was just and necessary, rooted in centuries of struggle, and decades of patient work. But 60 years later, we know that we cannot relent, we cannot yield, and as President I will never compromise when it comes to Israel's security.

Not when there are still voices that deny the Holocaust. Not when there are terrorist groups and political leaders committed to Israel's destruction. Not when there are maps across the Middle East that don't even acknowledge Israel's existence, and government-funded textbooks filled with hatred toward Jews. Not when there are rockets raining down on Sderot, and Israeli children have to take a deep breath and summon uncommon courage every time they board a bus or walk to school.

Beyond poetry, there are other pluses.  Obama knows Hezbollah & Iran are strangling Lebanon, aided by Syria, which, he notes, pursues WMD.  He called for "full enforcement" of UN Resolution 1701, which Hezbollah ignores; how he proposes to get this enforced is left unsaid.  He labeled his commitment to Israel's security "unshakable," based upon "shared interests and shared values,'" and inextricably linked with America's own security (a linkage that ex-Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu made when testifying before a Congressional committee on Sept. 20, 2001; President Bush addressed the Congress and the nation that same evening, issuing his ultimatum to the Taliban, to turn over al-Qaeda's leaders to us).  Obama pledged to ensure Israel's qualitative military advantage over its enemies.

Of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said this--in stark contrast to many American politicians, in both major parties:

And then there are those who would lay all of the problems of the Middle East at the doorstep of Israel and its supporters, as if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the root of all trouble in the region. These voices blame the Middle East's only democracy for the region's extremism. They offer the false promise that abandoning a stalwart ally is somehow the path to strength. It is not, it never has been, and it never will be.

President Bush and his two secretaries of State would agree as to the centrality of the conflict, and Colin Powell may well believe that Israel is the root cause of our Mideast problems.

As to Iran, Obama calls it the greatest threat to the security of the region, and also states that Iran pursues "a nuclear capability," and thus may ignite a Mideast arms race.  He states: "The danger from Iran is grave, it is real, and my goal will be to eliminate this threat."  He now calls that Iran al-Quds Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, a position he voted against when Congress so labeled it.  He chides John McCain for not supporting his bill in Congress, to impose divestment upon companies trading with Iran, albeit McCain has, he acknowledges, proposed to support divestment; there may be differences in approach that explain Mac's lack of support for Obama's legislative version.  He proposes other unilateral sanctions, indicating a welcome willingness to go outside the UN's sanctions regime.

Minuses.  Obama's desire to pursue Palestinian negotiations from the start of an Obama administration conflicts with his defense of an undivided Jerusalem as Israel's capital.  He is right as to Jerusalem, but does not appear to realize that the Palestinians will never accept this.  Obama asserts that "America is more isolated in the region"--referring to Iraq.  That was a fair assessment in 2006 and early 2007, at the nadir of our quagmire phase in Iraq, but not after the success of the surge.  Iraq is on the way to becoming a modest plus, despite the higher than anticipated cost and America's awful four years between Saddam's fall and the start of the surge.  He suggests that we should have focused on Iran and not Iraq in 2002.  Unlike with his famous 2002 statement opposing the war in Iraq, he offers no quote from back then to indicate that his position was the same in 2002, which suggests expediency at work.  He seems unaware that every American administration, since the 1979 deposing of the Shah, has sought to engage Iran via negotiations, with none succeeding in winning moderation from the mullahs.

Obama asserts that McCain offers the "false choice" of either staying the course" in Iraq or ceding the region to Iran.  But Big Mac is saying that we need victory in Iraq, not merely staying the course; Mac opposed the Bush administration's post-Baghdad, pre-surge policy.  Obama adds: "We will finally pressure Iraq's leaders to take meaningful responsibility for their own future."  Yet, Iraq's leaders already have done just what Obama asks them to do, since the Anbar Awakening of Sept. 2006, including bearing the brunt of military operations and implementing significant political reform, at both the national and local levels.

His strategy for dealing with Iran he frames thusly:

We will also use all elements of American power to pressure Iran. I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. That starts with aggressive, principled diplomacy without self-defeating preconditions, but with a clear-eyed understanding of our interests. We have no time to waste. We cannot unconditionally rule out an approach that could prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. We have tried limited, piecemeal talks while we outsource the sustained work to our European allies. It is time for the United States to lead.

There will be careful preparation. We will open up lines of communication, build an agenda, coordinate closely with our allies, and evaluate the potential for progress. Contrary to the claims of some, I have no interest in sitting down with our adversaries just for the sake of talking. But as President of the United States, I would be willing to lead tough and principled diplomacy with the appropriate Iranian leader at a time and place of my choosing - if, and only if - it can advance the interests of the United States.

Only recently have some come to think that diplomacy by definition cannot be tough. They forget the example of Truman, and Kennedy and Reagan. These Presidents understood that diplomacy backed by real leverage was a fundamental tool of statecraft. And it is time to once again make American diplomacy a tool to succeed, not just a means of containing failure. We will pursue this diplomacy with no illusions about the Iranian regime. Instead, we will present a clear choice. If you abandon your dangerous nuclear program, support for terror, and threats to Israel, there will be meaningful incentives - including the lifting of sanctions, and political and economic integration with the international community. If you refuse, we will ratchet up the pressure.

My presidency will strengthen our hand as we restore our standing. Our willingness to pursue diplomacy will make it easier to mobilize others to join our cause. If Iran fails to change course when presented with this choice by the United States, it will be clear - to the people of Iran, and to the world - that the Iranian regime is the author of its own isolation. That will strengthen our hand with Russia and China as we insist on stronger sanctions in the Security Council. And we should work with Europe, Japan and the Gulf states to find every avenue outside the UN to isolate the Iranian regime - from cutting off loan guarantees and expanding financial sanctions, to banning the export of refined petroleum to Iran, to boycotting firms associated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, whose Quds force has rightly been labeled a terrorist organization.

Strong words indeed, but there are major flaws in his plan.  Obama cites Truman, JFK and Reagan as success stories in negotiation.  He still fails to realize that JFK's major summit effort, the June 1961 meeting with Nikita Khrushchev, was disastrous, emboldening the Soviet leader to erect the Berlin Wall two months after, test the largest nuclear device ever, just five months later and a year after that, emplace intermediate-range nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba, going "eyeball to eyeball" in the world's closes Cold War brush with nuclear war.  He thinks that if his negotiation efforts fail, the world will back him, including, Russia and China.  That those two nations may be perfectly happy to see America tied up in knots with a recalcitrant Iran eludes him.  He believes that the Security Council, where Russia & China have vetoes, as permanent members, would then adopt stronger sanctions.

Below are other factors to be considered in assessing Obama's Mideast stance:

Iran.  American Enterprise Institute scholar Danielle Pletka recounts Obama's senatorial vote against a bill, co-sponsored by Republican John Kyl (AZ) and Democrat Joe Lieberman (CT), designating the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization--which, manifestly, the IRGC is.  This Weekly Standard piece profiles Iranian presidents who preceded Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and finds no moderates, a fact seemingly unknown to Obama's foreign policy team.  Demonstrating that the mullahs have a sense of humor (contradicting the Ayatollah Khomeini's famous remark that "There are no jokes in Islam"), the Iranians have threatened to sue--yes, sue!--countries who assert Iran has violated nuclear commitments, calling such accusations based upon fabricated evidence.

Iraq.  Scholar Fouad Ajami recaps why America went into Iraq.  Ajami states that the allied Arab regimes in the area, and the terror regimes as well, have seen that America can be bloodied, yet persevere.  Ajami offers an Arab proverb, as to the cuts being inflicted domestically, on the departing administration: "When a calf falls, a thousand knives flash."  Ajami also quotes Ambassador Ryan Crocker: "In the end, how we leave and what we leave behind will be more important than how we came."  Pete Hegseth, an Iraq veteran and head of Vets for Freedom (a group he founded to aid vets of Afghanistan and Iraq combat), chides Obama for sticking to stale talking points while neither visiting Iraq nor meeting with Gen. David Petraeus.  Most telling, however, as to how out of touch Obama is, in saying that America has "simply thrown U.S. troops at the problem, and it has not worked."  In fact, Iraqi troops have been carrying the brunt of the fighting for some trip, and with great success.  Yesterday, the United Arab Emirates announced it would name an envoy to Baghdad, a first for an Arab country since Saddam was unhorsed five years ago.  A Wall Street Journal editorial encapsulates our great progress:

For three consecutive weeks, the number of violent incidents have been at their lowest level since the spring of 2004. The number of U.S. combat fatalities last month, 19, was the lowest of the entire war, and Iraqi military and civilian deaths are also sharply down. In the first five months of this year, 4,500 insurgent weapons caches were found, compared to 6,900 for all of 2007. These numbers have sometimes moved in the wrong direction and may do so again, particularly during major combat operations. But the trend is unmistakably positive.

Israel.  The Jerusalem Post reports that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has called for a renewed dialogue with Hamas, dropping his demand that Hamas relinquish control of Gaza.  Abbas also called for elections, upon completion of such dialogue.  A Hamas spokesman praised the move.  Score one for Hamas.  The JP also quotes Israeli PM Ehud Olmert, who met Wednesday with President Bush: "The international community has a duty and responsibility to clarify to Iran, through drastic measures, that the repercussions of their continued pursuit of nuclear weapons will be devastating.  Israel will not tolerate the possibility of a nuclear Iran, and neither should any other country in the free world."

Syria:  OK, so it's not an "I" country, but since when is foreign policy simple?  Former NY Times reporter Judy Miller sees Damascus as favorable to Obama's negotiations stance.  Syrians want an American president who will negotiate without preconditions.  In one respect, however, they closely track American attitudes: As one Syrian pt it: {We] are fed up with over a decade of American leadership in the hands of two families--Clinton and Bush."  Sound familiar?

Ace diplomat John Bolton parses some Obama platitudes about negotiation, and finds them (rightly) wanting.  My favorite: "And the fact that we have not talked to them means that they have been developing nuclear weapons, funding Hamas, funding Hezbollah."  Non-negotiating causes terror, right?

Bolton cites the late Jeane Kirkpatrick's famous "They always blame America first" line from her classic San Francisco Democrats speech at the 1984 GOP convention.  Her label does not fully fit the speech Obama gave, which Bolton could not have heard before submitting his LA Times op-ed.  Meanwhile, Arnaud de Borchgrave spins a "guns of August" scenario with Israel striking Iran, if Olmert is replaced by a hawk, and possible $400 dollar oil.  The latter is unlikely, as the market would never support it.  But the former remains quite possible.

Bottom Line on Obama After AIPAC.  (1) Israel - Obama expressed unwavering support for Israel, something his radical pastor pals would strongly oppose (as have prominent black leaders like Jesse Jackson & Al Sharpton); he also concedes that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not the root of conflicts in the Mideast.  But he shares America's enduring fantasy of achieving a final settlement with the Palestinians, when none is in prospect anytime in the foreseeable future.  (2) Iraq - Obama continues to show no signs of the great military and political progress in the region, and the upsurge in America's regional standing as a result.  (3) Syria - Obama endorses the view that Syria is pursuing WMD; his silence on last September's Israeli air-strike that took out a plutonium reactor inside Syria suggests at least retroactive approval of the raid.  (4) Iran - Obama seems oblivious to the consistent record of failure of negotiations with Iran, conducted by every president since the mullahs took power in 1979--as former Senator Bob Dole once quipped, an Iranian moderate is a radical who has run out of ammunition.  He also believes that Russia & China will allow tougher UN sanctions if Iran remains recalcitrant on nuclear matters; he is willing, however, to implement unilateral sanctions, in addition to UN measures.  He reserves the military option as a last resort.  Most important, he agrees with the Bush administration, and with Senator McCain, that Iran is pursuing a "nuclear capability."  He thus impliedly repudiates the November 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which the Bush administration has backpedaled from earlier this year, and which the British, French and Israeli intelligence services strongly reject.

In sum, Obama cannot any longer be dismissed as a pure naif.  But there are gaps in his grasp of these issues, as befits someone new to national security issues.  And his threat to use force if necessary is simply not as credible as the same threat coming from a President John McCain.

Index 6/5/08

2 posts: (1) Democrats: "Manchurian" in Their Candidate?--The Home Front; (2) Guantanamo: Not the Ritz; Not Alcatraz--The Home Front.

Democrats: "Manchurian" in Their Candidate?

Barack Obama is now the provisional Democratic nominee, formal status awaiting the vote of delegates at the Colorado convention in late August.  In salute to his triumph, here is a link to his campaign 2008 website (bypassing the money solicitation first page).  "Provisional" here is more than a reportorial technicality, as clearly Obama could yet lose his status should some awful fresh disclosure emerge--video of Barack & Michelle applauding one of Rev. Wright's stem-winder sermons.  But the very fact that such a video has yet to see the light suggests that there is not one out there.  So consider Barack quasi-officially his party's nominee.  And as Rich Lowry writes in the NY Post, Democrats have nominated their dreamboat.

And credit Obama with considerable ability, running a campaign that was strategically sound, tactically deft and presented a candidate whose public presentation skills may well be the best in politics today.  Politics maven Jay Cost captures in metrics the essence of Obama's win over Hill: Obama ran a more delegate-efficient campaign.  With rough equality in the popular vote, Obama won 10,807 popular votes per pledged delegate, versus 10,237 votes per pledged vote for Hill--5.7 % more vote-efficient.  Put simply, he played the billiard angles better, leveraging his strength in minority districts to win by lopsided delegate margins Clinton could not match in more numerous white districts, and taking the caucus states handily.

But Obama's winning the nomination tees up the central question of the fall campaign: Who is Barack Obama?  A candidate with a slender resume, academic smarts and high achievement, stints as a community organizer and in the Illinois state legislature, and then three years in the Senate with no major mark to his name--to be fair, it is hard for anyone to make a mark in the upper chamber in such a short time.  But the sparseness of his record makes who he is--his character, judgment and temperament--central to assessing his fitness to occupy the Oval Office.  A Wall Street Journal editorial notes Obama's hyper-liberal voting record, and his awareness that Rev. Wright could be a liability, in keeping him off the public stage when early in 2007 Obama announced his candidacy. 

Manhattan Institute scholar Heather Mac Donald offers more Afro-centric nuggets that explain why Rev. Wright was best sent out to pasture.  Stanley Kurtz on NRO explores Obama's background and rise to prominence in greater detail.  It is disturbing, suggesting that Obama's radical roots are deeply planted.  He emerged from academia believing that a "third way" between integration and separatism must be found for blacks to find their full place in American society.  Integration he rejected, because he concluded that integration meant on white folks' terms.  Obama was not specific as to exactly what that meant.  But the search for a third way, and long-term close association with a radical congregation and their toxic pastors, from whom he distanced himself in stages, reluctantly, until political necessity required that he cut his ties completely, suggests that Obama is not the trans- or post-racial figure that he presents to the American public.

Thus the comparison to the 1962 classic film, The Manchurian Candidate.  Not literally: Laurence Harvey's brainwashed robot assassin in lethal thrall to his sorcerer communist mother is not a full parallel.  Rather, the suggestion is that Obama is not what he seems outwardly to be.  Obama is not controlled by the sinister likes of Reverend Wright or Father Phleger, but clearly his formative years saw him influenced by such figures--strongly so.  Has he since emerged free of such taint?  It seems intuitively unlikely.  And, it may be observed, it seems even less likely as to Michelle, who thinks "downright mean" the country whose whites allowed her preferential admission to two elite academic institutions, and in which she is paid one-third of a million dollars annually for doing "community affairs" for a Chicago hospital--is she paid while campaigning for her husband?.  (As an activist spouse in the mold of Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary, she is, unlike the Betty Ford and Bess Truman model, fair game.)

A New York Times front-pager adds a racial factor to the mix: While blacks are delighted that a major political party nominated a candidate of their race to be president, they also fear that racism will defeat Obama this fall.  Thus the double-edged racial sword of Obama's candidacy: if he wins, it will be perceived by blacks (and white liberals) as a victory over white racism; if he loses, his defeat will be attributed by the same people not to his shortcomings, but to white racism.

Witness one student quoted by the NY Times (parenthetical note at the end supplied by the NY Times reporter):

“People hate black people,” said Michella Minter, a black 21-year-old student in Huntington, W.Va., referring to persistent racism in the United States.

“I’m not trying to be racist or over the top but it is seriously apparent that black people aren’t valued in this country,” Ms. Minter said. “In the last 12 months, six kids were being tried for attempted murder for a school fight, an unarmed man got 51 bullets in his body by a New York police officer, died, and no one was charged, and endless other racist unknown acts have occurred this year.”

(In fact, three New York City detectives were charged in the shooting of Sean Bell, killed in a hail of police bullets on his wedding day in 2006, and were acquitted.)

On the plus side is this reference to a Harlem resident:

“I think it’s a monumental step,” said Mr. Jeffers, 55, who said he had been friends with Malcolm X and other leaders.

The nomination is especially significant for Harlem’s children, he said, because “if they see this, they will think it’s something they can do.”

“Otherwise,” Mr. Jeffers said, “they look up to rappers.”

In a sense, race is the "Manchurian" factor in the fall election, with consequences entirely unpredictable at this remove.

Bottom Line: Concede that Barack Obama is not a full-bore Manchurian Candidate.  But there seems to be more than a bit of Manchurian essence inside him.

Barack: The Movie.  When Barack Obama is portrayed on screen, it will not be by Laurence Harvey (dead 40+ years) or anyone remotely like him.  Think Denzel Washington, of handsome countenance and mellifluous diction.  But Denzel is not running for president, Barack is.  And Hollywood presence can't suffice to justify election to the nation's highest office.  The "Manchurian" mystery must be solved for the benefit of voters, before November 4.

Inside Gitmo: Not the Ritz; Not Alcatraz

The just-retired commander of Guantanamo details accommodations at Gitmo that match vocational and remedial education--Qurans in their native language & Arabic--with daily recreation, movie nights, medical care (including psychiatric) comparable to that given their guards.  Sounds pretty off the charts?  Well, on the plus side, it may be persuading some terrorists to recant--and perhaps even cooperate with their captors.  Said one detainee, after undergoing free back surgery that prevented paralysis: "Thank you, I have been wrong about Americans."  OK, I am still not in love with him either, and I have long championed the selective use of aggressive interrogation techniques on high-level detainees.  But if being nice yields dividends, I am willing to pass out chocolate bars.

Oh, by the way, Dick Morris was on TV this AM, stating that some 50 of 458 detainees released from Gitmo have returned to the fight.

Index 6/4/08

3 posts: (1) The Fifth Noble Warrior Sacrifice--The Home Front; (2) Nancy Pelosi = Barack Obama?--The Home Front; (3) Bushwhacked at the White House--The Home Front.  N.B.,  I will have coverage of the Democratic nomination race later this week, as things settle.

The Fifth Noble Warrior Sacrifice

The New York Sun editors praise the uncommon valor of Private Ross McGinnis, who Monday was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Bush.  McGinnis earned his medal posthumously, as was the case with the four Medal winners since 9/11, whose pantheon he nows joins.  Like two of his illustrious predecessors, McGinnis threw himself on a live grenade, thus saving his comrades.  Most significant is that Private McGinnis was in the gunner's hatch, and could have exited the vehicle and saved himself; instead, he lowered himself into the vehicle and covered the live grenade with his body, thus saving his four comrades.  Paul Smith, Jason Dumham, Michael Murphy, Michael Mansoor, you are joined by a worthy fifth on the nation's roll of honor forever.

Robert Kaplan adds information on the process, using the story of Paul Smith, the first Medal winner since 9/11.  Notable is that higher-ups do not press subordinates to find candidates to gain good publicity of the military.  The process works from the bottom up, with skeptical superiors challenging requests to ensure proper documentation.

Also notable is this: In the 8 weeks after Paul Smith's son received his lat father's Medal at a White House ceremony, there were all of 96 stories in the media.  In the 8 weeks after that bogus Koran story (supposed, but in fact, non-existent, flushing the book down a toilet in Guantanamo), there were 4,677 stories; in the 8 weeks after Abu Ghraib's abuses came to light, there were 5,159 stories on just one of the imbecile abusers (whose name I decline to sully this posting by mentioning it).  Q.E.D.

Finish on the upside: President Bush's tribute at Monday's White House ceremony for Private McGinnis.

Nancy Pelosi = Barack Obama?

The Media Research Center notes recent ramblings from Madam Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, which include (perhaps in her 62nd minute of aykking she was tired):

Whatever the military success and any progress that may have been made, the surge didn't accomplish its goal. … And some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iranians -- they decided in Basra when the fighting would end, they negotiated that cessation of hostilities -- the Iranians.

Iranian goodwill is, of course, a foreign policy oxymoron.  John McCain knows this.  Nancy Pelosi does not get it.  Does Barack Obama?.

Bushwhacked at the White House

With his customary acuity, David Frum nails the root cause of last week's murder by memoir from Scott McClellan: President Bush's misplaced loyalty to his Texas soulmates.  Only Karl Rove proved first-rate.  In addition to the badly over-matched McClellan at press secretary, Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Miers botched the White House counsel job, with the former then botching Attorney-General and the latter an absurd failed choice for the Supreme Court.  And Karen Hughes directing outreach to the Islamic world, telling an audience in the Gulf about...Rosa Parks--yes, that Rosa Parks, being pitched to Gulf Arabs as a confession of America's sins.  Every president has incompetent loyalists, but this administration has had an unusual number of them, testament to the president's managerial dereliction.  Former Bush 43 speechwriter William McGurn wonders if McClellan missed the surge in Iraq.