The Iraqi branch of al Qaida, seeking to exploit the bloody turmoil in Syria to reassert its potency, carried out two recent bombings in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and likely was behind suicide bombings Friday that killed at least 28 people in the largest city, Aleppo, U.S. officials told McClatchy.

The officials cited U.S. intelligence reports on the incidents, which appear to verify Syrian President Bashar Assad’s charges of al Qaida involvement in the 11-month uprising against his rule. The Syrian opposition has claimed that Assad’s regime, which has responded with massive force against the uprising, staged the bombings to discredit the pro-democracy movement calling for his ouster.

The international terrorist network’s presence in Syria also raises the possibility that Islamic extremists will try to hijack the uprising, which would seriously complicate efforts by the United States and its European and Arab partners to force Assad’s regime from power. On Friday, President Barack Obama repeated his call for Assad to step down, accusing his forces of “outrageous bloodshed.”

The U.S. intelligence reports indicate that the bombings came on the orders of Ayman al Zawahiri, the Egyptian extremist who assumed leadership of al Qaida’s Pakistan-based central command after the May 2011 death of Osama bin Laden. They suggest that Zawahiri still wields considerable influence over the network’s affiliates despite the losses the Pakistan-based core group has suffered from missile-firing CIA drones and other intensified U.S. counterterrorism operations.

More will be said about this in the near future, and it remains unknown just how the U.S. government confirmed AQI’s involvement. However, the expansion of al Qaeda in Iraq beyond that state’s borders – evidently for the first time – demonstrates AQI’s strength in Iraq’s post-America phase. Despite years of hunting terror cells and individuals within AQI, the U.S. was not only unable to defeat the AQ franchise, but left it in good enough condition that it has now begun to carry out acts on an international (if still regional) scale.

Along with a testament to AQI’s resilience, the three deadly attacks in Syria over the course of three months show the risk of assuming the makeup of the centers of protest or the active anti-regime population. The risk of al Qaeda and other criminals and terrorists having a presence among the Libyan opposition was intentionally ignored or glossed over during the NATO action there, and the ongoing fighting within that nation and the steady stream of weapons across its borders into neighboring countries in the weeks and months since NATO’s involvement ended demonstrate the problematic nature of that decision. As discussions about aiding the Syrian rebels in any number of ways (from arming them to intervening militarily on their behalf) continue, the likelihood that AQI is operating among the rebels (even without their approval) will need to be taken into very serious account.

Finally, it is worth noting (even if only for its ironic value) that Assad played a role over the last near-decade in arming and supporting al Qaeda in Iraq. Additionally, counterterror analyst Leah Farrall notes that “the most recent place [al Qaeda] is known to have held a “summit” of leaders [circa 2004] was Damascus.”

As with the rest of the developments in Syria, this will bear watching. However, the presence of an active AQI in revolutionary Syria should give all of us pause – particularly those calling for support of the rebels through such means as arms shipments, which have the distinct potential to put firepower in the wrong hands.

Yes, you heard that right: the Senate Majority Leader took a page out of former Rep. Alan “Republicans want you to die quickly” Grayson’s (D-FL) book and delivered that accusation from the floor of the United States Senate.

Naturally, this came only two weeks after Reid called on both sides – the dirty, evil, water-poisoning Republicans and the good-hearted Democrats – to “achieve greater results for the American people.”

Video and transcript are below:

In exchange for extending this middle class tax break, Republicans are insisting, among other things, that we pass unrelated ideological legislation that will make our water less safe to drink. This would allow mercury and other carcigonens [sic] to be put in our water supply. That’s a pretty stark compromise. We’ll give you a payroll tax cut for 160 million Americans if you will let us continue to put things like arsenic and mercury in the water of the American people.

I’d say that rhetoric like this is beyond the pale – which it is, of course – but the media and civility police (inasmuch as they’re different) are busy reserving their outrage for the next Republican “dog whistle” of a comment whose insensitivity and violent intentions only they can hear.

“In dealing with Libya and Syria, consistency need not be the hobgoblin of little minds but can rather be the hallmark of a consistent and coordinated foreign policy.  There are equivalencies to be drawn between the two crises, and once these are recognized we should take equivalent action.  It is not a decision to be taken lightly, but we would not be alone and the cause is just.  We have the unified support of our European and Arab allies.  We have moral and strategic interests at stake.  Rather than whining about the shocking moral turpitude of the United Nations, the President of the United States needs to remember his responsibilities as the leader of the free world–and lead.”

While I have the utmost respect for Dr. Coates, I am hesitant to agree with her in this case.  There is no question that the bloodshed in Syria, which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referred to a mere nine months ago as a simple “police action” and contrasted favorably to the violent crackdown in Libya, has been both constant and staggering (in that same interview, Clinton favorably contrasted Assad to Qaddafi, saying “many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer”).   The death toll in Homs alone has reportedly grown to 3,500 over the last eleven months, and while the Arab League has repeatedly called for an end to Assad’s crackdown, opposition from Russia and China has left the UN Security Council unable to pass even a simple resolution condemning the government’s murderous actions.

As the bodycount continues to rise in Syria, there has been an increase in calls for intervention conducted outside the auspices of the UN.  However, while these calls are understandable on humanitarian grounds, their authors almost invariably neglect to include any details on just what it is they wish to see take place with regard to that intervention.

At Abu Muqawama, Andrew Exum sums up the problem nicely:

“The problem is, for me at least, ‘military intervention’ at once means everything and nothing. On the one hand, the decision to use force to achieve a desired political end is momentous in and of itself. On the other hand, though, I cannot determine whether or not “military intervention” is a good or bad idea until I have some idea of what, precisely, is meant by the term. Analysts who argue either for or against military intervention have an obligation to sketch out the ways in which one could possibly intervene so that we can determine which ways, if any, make sense given the circumstances.”

This is the real question: what would an intervention in Syria look like, and under whose auspices would it be carried out?  In Libya, the most frequently cited example, the UN-approved intervention succeeded in its ultimate goal of preventing Qaddafi from crushing the rebels.  It also succeeded in removing him from power, despite that not being part of the UN authorization (and despite the effort taking far longer than the “days, not weeks” that President Obama promised).

Two points on Libya are particularly worth noting.  First, despite people declaring victory and then tuning out as usual upon Qaddafi’s capture (including, it appears, several of those ‘experts’ who called for intervention in Libya and who are calling for it again in Syria), the situation on the ground is poor and growing worse by the day.  As Anthony Shadid noted in the  New York Times Wednesday:

The country that witnessed the Arab world’s most sweeping revolution is foundering. So is its capital, where a semblance of normality has returned after the chaotic days of the fall of Tripoli last August. But no one would consider a city ordinary where militiamen tortured to death an urbane former diplomat two weeks ago, where hundreds of refugees deemed loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi waited hopelessly in a camp and where a government official acknowledged that “freedom is a problem.” Much about the scene on Wednesday was lamentable, perhaps because the discord was so commonplace.

[...]

The force at the Tripoli airport is the powerful militia from Zintan, a mountain town south of the capital, which played a role in Tripoli’s fall and still holds prisoner Colonel Qaddafi’s most prominent son, Seif al-Islam. By its count, it has 1,000 men at the airport, and one of its commanders there…The militias are proving to be the scourge of the revolution’s aftermath. Though they have dismantled most of their checkpoints in the capital, they remain a force, here and elsewhere. A Human Rights Watch researcher estimated there are 250 separate militias in the coastal city of Misurata, the scene of perhaps the fiercest battle of the revolution. In recent months those militias have become the most loathed in the country.

Second, the “no-fly zone” enforced over Libya was, in actuality, no such thing; as anybody who was paying attention at the time will recall, air power and other standoff weaponry were employed not just to ensure that the skies over Libya stayed clear, but to take out Qaddafi’s armor, vehicles, and troops between Tripoli and Benghazi. As Exum notes in another post:

The balance in Libya was only tipped when NATO warplanes began “enforcing the no-fly zone” by destroying Libyan tanks and armored personnel carriers. (I know those things don’t actually fly, but the only way you can be really sure they won’t grow wings is by dropping a GBU-31 on top of them.)

Of course, the reality – that massive mission creep was necessary to break the gridlock in Libya and push Qaddafi out of power – is frequently obfuscated or ignored when discussing the Libyan “success.”  Writing in the Times a few weeks ago, Robert Pape used Libya and Syria as examples of the need for a “new standard for humanitarian intervention” (which he didn’t go into detail on), while arguing that such intervention is incumbent on America et al if people are being killed as long as there is no danger to the interveners. Along with proposing a “new standard” for intervention without actually going into what that standard should be, Pape misrepresents NATO’s Libya action (which he supports) while contrasting it with a prospective intervention in Syria (which he currently opposes, basically because it would be more difficult and more dangerous). He writes:

“[R]ather than seeking regime change to prevent genocide, President Obama focused on the narrower objective of preventing “a humanitarian catastrophe” and explicitly ruled out foreign-imposed regime change.

These more modest, pragmatic goals sidestepped Mr. Gates’s objections and reflect the emerging new standard for humanitarian intervention. The United States took the lead, but initially only to halt the mass-homicide campaign. And it rightly set goals that would not require an ambitious military commitment.”

Of course, as alluded to above, anybody who was paying attention at the time knows that the disavowal of regime decapitation and change was little more than lip service to the UN resolution that specifically authorized the protection of civilians rather than the overthrow of Qaddafi, in part because it was widely recognized that the protection of civilians from Qaddafi could only be ensured via his removal.

Libya is not Syria – and the ‘Pottery Barn Rule’ is being thoroughly ignored by those who are now focused on the latter, having abandoned the former to militias and growing chaos.  However, the intervention there has impacted the willingness of America, NATO, and the United Nations to approve and participate in a similar intervention in Syria (in an interesting if incomplete piece, Joshua Foust suggeststhat Russia and China are opposing Syrian intervention specifically because of the NATO action in Libya and the severe mission creep it entailed).

More importantly, though, Syria has a functional military with significant firepower and a government that is still largely in control throughout the country.  It has a powerful ally in Russia, which continues to give aid and comfort to Assad’s regime as the violent crackdown continues (and which will continue to do so as long as they consider it to be in their interest to do so, which I think may be a more significant period of time than P.J. Crowley predicts). Further, Syria currently has no Benghazi: rebels haven’t gained control of any geographic area significant enough to use as a refuge or base from which to conduct defensive operations, and potential targets for interventionist air power are interspersed with civilians and rebels, which greatly limits the effectiveness of standoff weaponry while simultaneously increasing the risk of collateral damage by orders of magnitude.  In his New York Times column referenced above, Pape writes:

“Unlike Libya, where much of the coastal core of the population lived under rebel control, the opposition to Syria’s dictatorial president, Bashar al-Assad, has not achieved sustained control of any major population area. So air power alone would probably not be sufficient to blunt the Assad loyalists entrenched in cities, and a heavy ground campaign would probably face stiff and bloody resistance.”

If arming the rebels is a serious consideration, it is important to consider just how that would be carried out, who would be armed, what the response would be (on both sides), and what difference it would make in the overall battle. If employing air power and standoff weaponry is being proposed, then targeting, ordnance control, and the avoidance of collateral damage – as well as the effectiveness of that course of action – must be taken into consideration. If “boots on the ground” is a realistic option to those calling for intervention – well, a whole host of further issues must be addressed, including the risk of a proxy war with Russia that brings along its own risk (however small it might be) of further international escalation.

All of this is not to declare outright that a Syrian intervention to be outside the realm of propriety or possibility.  However, it is incumbent on those who are calling, to use Foust’s term, for America and NATO to become a sort of “Team America for R2P” to address these and other issues that such action faces, and to present coherent and specific plans for the intervention they are proposing.   Additionally, given the current situation in Libya mere months after the conclusion of NATO action there, it is important that conditions in Syria both during and after the proposed intervention, and over the longue duree following the conclusion of offensive operations, be both considered and adequately planned for.

Until then, it is probably best for all involved if the talk of a Syria intervention remains just that, despite the terrible human cost of Assad’s actions.

Times reporter Tim Arango goes on to describe the hardships being suffered by State employees at the hands of the Iraqis (emphasis added):

After the American troops departed in December, life became more difficult for the thousands of diplomats and contractors left behind. Convoys of food that had been escorted by the United States military from Kuwait were delayed at border crossings as Iraqis demanded documentation that the Americans were unaccustomed to providing…

At every turn, the Americans say, the Iraqi government has interfered with the activities of the diplomatic mission, one they grant that the Iraqis never asked for or agreed upon. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s office — and sometimes even the prime minister himself — now must approve visas for all Americans, resulting in lengthy delays. American diplomats have had trouble setting up meetings with Iraqi officials.

For their part, the Iraqis say they are simply enforcing their laws and protecting their sovereignty in the absence of a working agreement with the Americans on the embassy.

While the bolded lines above should demonstrate how ill-advised (and poorly thought through) the State buildup was in the first place, this paragraph jammed into the middle of the article shows just how sensitive our vaunted State employees are to the hardships of “deployed” life:

Within days, the salad bar at the embassy dining hall ran low. Sometimes there was no sugar or Splenda for coffee. On chicken-wing night, wings were rationed at six per person. Over the holidays, housing units were stocked with Meals Ready to Eat, the prepared food for soldiers in the field.

Emphasis added once again, of course. You know who I’m sure is full of sympathy for these poor State employees? Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines, many of whom were deployed to Iraq multiple times, had roughly zero of the niceties the embassy staff enjoys on a daily basis, and would have gladly accepted a half-dozen chicken wings at meal time (not to mention a dip in the embassy pool).

Lest we forget, many of these same diplomats who are complaining to the public through the New York Times about the criminally torturous delay in the delivery of their precious Splenda fought tooth and nail to avoid being posted in Baghdad in the first place. As Bill Kristol and the late Dean Barnett wrote, in 2007:

the State Department found itself enmeshed in a surprisingly intense internal dust-up. Not enough career diplomats at Foggy Bottom were volunteering to serve in Baghdad. To remedy this situation, the State Department announced its intention to assign some foreign service officers to Baghdad, whether they volunteered or not. This announcement triggered an urgent State Department “town hall” meeting that took place October 31, where one Jack Croddy, a senior foreign service officer, spoke out. “It’s one thing if someone believes in what’s going on over there and volunteers, but it’s another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment,” Croddy carped. “I’m sorry, but basically that’s a potential death sentence and you know it. Who will raise our children if we are dead or seriously wounded?”

[...]

What has happened to any sense of decency and propriety when a senior foreign service officer can say such a thing in public? Or when the State Department countenances a meeting that invites such a public display of petulance? Do the foreign service officers in Washington feel no sense of solidarity, if not with our soldiers, at least with Ambassador Ryan Crocker and their colleagues serving in Baghdad? Serving in Iraq is hazardous duty. It seems that three State Department employees have died there since 2004, among some 1,500 who have served or are now serving in Iraq.

At the same time, more State Department employees have been killed by al Qaeda and allied groups outside Iraq, in East Africa and Jordan and elsewhere, in recent years. Does their sacrifice count for nothing? Is the State Department not also involved in fighting these brutal terrorists? Are timidity and grievance-mongering appropriate for senior U.S. government officials engaged in the conduct of the nation’s foreign policy?

It’s certainly the prerogative of government employees not to “believe in what’s going on over there.” But until they resign, they are still supposed to help carry out U.S. government policy.

Now the poor diplomats assigned to the Baghdad embassy have been sentenced not to death, as one predicted five years ago, but to a life with occasionally delayed deliveries of Splenda. The horror.

Back to the Times article. Arango writes (emphasis added):

The swift realization among some top officials that the diplomatic buildup may have been ill advised represents a remarkable pivot for the State Department, in that officials spent more than a year planning the expansion and that many of the thousands of additional personnel have only recently arrived.

So the wizards at State has suddenly realized that constructing a 104-acre, $750,000,000.00 embassy complex and building up the embassy staff to 16,000 people (including 2,000 diplomats and several times more contractors), without running either by the Iraqis first, “may have been ill advised.”

Ya think?

Handel’s letter of resignation is below.

February 7, 2012
The Honorable Nancy Brinker
CEO, Susan G. Komen for the Cure VIA EMAIL
5005 LBJ Freeway, Suite 250
Dallas, Texas 75244

Dear Ambassador Brinker:

Susan G. Komen for the Cure has been the recognized leader for more 30 years in the fight against breast cancer here in the US – and increasingly around the world.

As you know, I have always kept Komen’s mission and the women we serve as my highest priority – as they have been for the entire organization, the Komen Affiliates, our many supporters and donors, and the entire community of breast cancer survivors. I have carried out my responsibilities faithfully and in line with the Board’s objectives and the direction provided by you and Liz.

We can all agree that this is a challenging and deeply unsettling situation for all involved in the fight against breast cancer. However, Komen’s decision to change its granting strategy and exit the controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood and its grants was fully vetted by every appropriate level within the organization. At the November Board meeting, the Board received a detailed review of the new model and related criteria. As you will recall, the Board specifically discussed various issues, including the need to protect our mission by ensuring we were not distracted or negatively affected by any other organization’s real or perceived challenges. No objections were made to moving forward.

I am deeply disappointed by the gross mischaracterizations of the strategy, its rationale, and my involvement in it. I openly acknowledge my role in the matter and continue to believe our decision was the best one for Komen’s future and the women we serve. However, the decision to update our granting model was made before I joined Komen, and the controversy related to Planned Parenthood has long been a concern to the organization. Neither the decision nor the changes themselves were based on anyone’s political beliefs or ideology. Rather, both were based on Komen’s mission and how to better serve women, as well as a realization of the need to distance Komen from controversy. I believe that Komen, like any other nonprofit organization, has the right and the responsibility to set criteria and highest standards for how and to whom it grants.

What was a thoughtful and thoroughly reviewed decision – one that would have indeed enabled Komen to deliver even greater community impact – has unfortunately been turned into something about politics. This is entirely untrue. This development should sadden us all greatly.

Just as Komen’s best interests and the fight against breast cancer have always been foremost in every aspect of my work, so too are these my priorities in coming to the decision to resign effective immediately. While I appreciate your raising a possible severance package, I respectfully decline. It is my most sincere hope that Komen is allowed to now refocus its attention and energies on its mission.

Sincerely,
Karen Handel

Act of Valor began as a recruitment video for the U.S. military’s Naval Special Warfare Command. In 2007, Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh of Bandito Brothers Production filmed a video for the Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen SWCC which led the Navy to allow them to use SEALs for Act of Valor. None of the SEALs’ names will appear in the credits of the film.

Relativity Media acquired the rights to the project on June 12, 2011 for $13 million and a $30 million in prints and advertising commitment. Deadline.com called it “the biggest money paid for a finished film with an unknown cast”. The production budget was estimated between $15 million and $18 million

The discussion surrounding the film has largely been whether it is, in the words of Air Force veteran @JimmySky, “exploitative” – and if so, why that is and who exactly it is that’s being exploited.
According to a recent WSJ story on the film, “the project offered filmmakers access to SEALs as well as military assets, but no funding.” The article also notes that:

the “goals [of the film] were to bolster recruiting efforts, honor fallen team members and offer a corrective to misleading fare such as “Navy Seals,” the 1990 shoot-em-up starring Charlie Sheen as a cocky lone wolf. “In the SEAL ethos, the superman myth does not apply. It’s a lifestyle of teamwork, hard work and academic discipline,” said Capt. Duncan Smith, a SEAL who initiated the project and essentially served as producer within the military.

The article continues:

For two years the filmmakers had inside access to the Navy’s elite and secretive force for an unusual assignment: to create a feature film that starred real-life SEALs—not actors—in lead roles. The movie, “Act of Valor,” is not a documentary. Instead, it straddles reality and fiction, military messaging and entertainment. It features strike scenes written by the SEALs themselves, jarring live-fire footage and a body count that would rival any ’80s action flick. Yet the movie, to be released in February, was designed to set the record straight on a group that the military says has been routinely misrepresented in film.

Now, I need to offer a dual disclaimer up front: (1) I’ve only seen the preview and this excellent albeit brief review by Jeff Quinton, not the movie itself, and (2) I’m firmly biased in favor 0f pro-military (and particularly pro-SOF) films that provide the greatest level of  accuracy that Hollywood can muster.  For example, I thought Black Hawk Down was an excellent film (even if Josh Hartnett was horribly miscast as a Ranger), and I share the community at large’s loathing for ridiculous movies like the aforementioned Charlie Sheen Navy SEALs flick.

The difference between the buzz about Act of Valor and the better of its predecessors appears to be primarily focused on the fact that Act of Valor features active duty NSWC personnel (and that the movie’s advertising blitz has been very vocal about their participation) in a film that has a fictitious story line, as opposed to, say, Black Hawk Down, which told a true story but used actors to do so (rather than “being marketed on the basis of [having] real Rangers“). This, in turn, blurs the line between fiction and reality, while using valuable Department of Defense equipment and personnel to (according to former PAO @FPWellman) make money for Hollywood.

While I understand the concerns, though, I’m far from convinced by them.  Military participation in Hollywood projects is nearly a century old, and the Department of Defense maintains an entertainment media office specifically to provide “U.S. military assistance in producing feature motion pictures, television shows, documentaries, music videos, commercial advertisements, CD-ROM games, and other audiovisual programs.” According to the Armed Forces Press Service:

To achieve maximum accuracy in movies and on television, the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard and DoD have liaison offices to help guide filmmakers through the process. The services operate independently of each other in this endeavor but share office space on the same floor of a Los Angeles building. The Defense Department’s entertainment media division is run from the Pentagon.

“If we decide to cooperate on a project, we stay with them throughout all the scenes that have military or DoD depictions,” said Army Lt. Col Paul Sinor, a public affairs officer with that service’s Office of the Chief of Public Affairs.

This task covers a broad spectrum, from making sure uniforms and equipment are correct to coordinating filming on military bases, said Air Force Capt. Christian Hodge, a project officer with the Air Force Entertainment Liaison Office.

This cooperation has included technical advice, but it has also included equipment and personnel. The F-14s, F-5s, and A-4s in Top Gun were real military aircraft, as were the MH-60s and Little Birds in Black Hawk Down, and the F-22s in Transformers and Iron Man.  However, as obvious as this statement may be, the cooperation goes farther than advice and hardware – it includes people, too.  Every live action shot of a military aircraft, for example, includes active military crew members operating those aircraft. The fact they’re not credited among the primary cast is immaterial; they are participants in the film, just as the Naval personnel in Act of Valor are.  Further, films like Transformers have featured active duty personnel in significant numbers (such as the Airmen serving as extras in this shot), and have provoked little if any consternation as a result.

Given all of this, it seems clear that the real issue is the fact that the film’s advertising touts the participation of active duty SEALs and SWCCs, rather than their participation.  Does that mean, in turn, that the issue with the film is that a conscious effort is being made to make people aware of the presence of active military personnel in the film, rather than featuring military technology without overtly acknowledging the real soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines operating that technology on-screen?

The other issue, raised by former Army officer Tim Matthews, is “the general sentiment…’shouldn’t these SEALs being out shooting REAL bad guys?’”  I think the response to this one is fairly easy: from Blue Angels and Thunderbirds pilots to the Golden Knights, STARS, and Leapfrog jump demonstration teams, tip-of-the-spear military professionals are put to use on a daily basis not in offensive operations, but in operations that improve outreach and recruiting and build civil-military relations (and still more serve in administrative and staff positions, as liaison officers, etc.).  Tim deserves credit for being consistent, as he believes that the “Blue Angels, Thunderbirds, Golden Knights, bands, etc, are a poor use of resources.”  However, these functions will continue to be performed by those who are skilled enough at their military jobs to participate in them, and outside of the fact that it’s on a big screen instead of over an airfield, I see no significant difference between the role of active duty SEALs in Act of Valor and that of that top 0.001% of F-16 pilots in the Air Force that makes up the Thunderbirds demonstration team.

For me, the bottom line with Act of Valor is this: it’s a film that features Hollywood-DOD cooperation just like countless other war and action flicks over the last several decades.  Yes, it’s a film with heavy Navy Special Warfare involvement, so I expect a level of accuracy and attention to detail that is far higher than almost any other military or combat film; yes, it’s almost certain to have a level of energy and action that far surpasses the day-to-day experiences of NSW operators; and yes, it is at heart what it’s always been: a Special Warfare recruiting video. H0wever, I’m simply not convinced that there’s any “exploitation,” “opportunism,” or anything else to be found here besides an action film that uses real operators, real support staff, and real stories to achieve a level of realistic sensationalism that very few of its predecessors have been capable of – and that’s just fine with me.

As noted earlier today, the harpy decided to go Full Romney in her column yesterday.  Called “THREE CHEERS FOR ROMNEYCARE!,” the harpy declared Romney’s signature – and most problematic – legislative achievement to have been a victory for the constitution and for conservatism.  As if that wasn’t enough on its own, Cold Warrior was kind enough to provide a link to the following video, which shows the “detestable harpy” at CPAC 2011 warning that a failure by Chris Christie to enter the presidential race would result in a Romney nomination and a GOP loss to President Obama in 2012:

Evidently Christie’s refusal to enter the race so traumatized the harpy that she not only fled straight into the arms of the man she warned just last year would be a sure loser in the 2012 election, but that she sacrificed any intellectual integrity or consistency in doing so. (Actually, this is an excellent object lesson in the fungibility of such arcane ideas as “principle” and “consistency” when fame and attention are at stake!)

When it comes to Rubin, well, not much needs to be said. The sad descent into self-parody by the Washington Post‘s resident “conservative” blogger is well-known and as firmly evidenced as any event in recent media history. Despite this, Rubin still manages to outdo herself from time to time by posting even more grotesque mental contortions than usual – as can be seen in her commentary in the last 24 hours on the Donald Trump endorsement.

When it had become conventional wisdom that The Donald was on the verge of endorsing Newt Gingrich for president, Rubin declared that the Trump endorsement was proof that Gingrich’s campaign was an utter joke, writing:

Herman Cain, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Sarah Palin and now, it seems, Donald Trump have lined up behind Newt Gingrich. It’s convenient to have a candidate like Gingrich who attracts the unserious, the unpresidential, the uninformed and the unpalatable all in one convenient locale. It saves the time and effort needed to determine who is a credible Republican and who is not (Gingrich supporters). The move is yet another boost for Rick Santorum, who definitely is in the category of responsible and credible candidates (whatever you think of his views) and has been struggling to wean the base off its attraction to Gingrich.

Now, of course, it turns out that The Donald, who as Dan Foster notes “is a tax-hiking, missile-defense-opposing, universal-health-care-advocating, eminent-domain abusing, Dem-donating clown,” will likely be endorsing Mitt Romney.

Oops.

First rule of holes be damned, I’m actually looking forward to seeing how Rubin tries to dig herself out of this one.

UPDATE: Well, here we are – and Rubin’s contortion doesn’t disappoint. She attempts her 180° on the Trump endorsement by writing:

On Thursday, Mitt Romney’s camp tried to solve two problems — foreclose the potential for a rogue Donald Trump and prevent any revival of Newt Gingrich’s campaign…by getting the Trump endorsement”

That’s right. When The Donald was expected to endorse Newt Gingrich, his support of a campaign supposedly proved that campaign’s unseriousness. Now that Trump’s endorsement has gone to Romney, it as all part of Mitt’s Master Plan. Got it?

** I’m using Mike’s nickname for this individual in order to keep from giving her what she wants more than anything else: more attention and more repetition of her name in public fora.

Coulter’s column, titled “THREE CHEERS FOR ROMNEYCARE!” (yes, the title is all caps in the original), provides a defense of Romneycare that simply and completely ignores both conservative objections and the reasons why it has been a dismal failure as policy. For example, she drops the names of people and organizations that supported it at the time, despite the fact that such supporters were few and far between (opposition was much more commonplace), and that many of those supporters have since publicly changed their minds. An example of this is her declaration that “A leading conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, helped design Romneycare, and its health care analyst, Bob Moffit, flew to Boston for the bill signing.” Fine – but what Coulter ignores is the fact that Heritage has since repudiated the idea of an individual mandate at any level, writing in an amicus brief (pdf) filed in a challenge to Obamacare that “since [the passage and implementation of Obamacare], a growing body of research has provided a strong basis to conclude that any government insurance mandate is not only unnecessary, but is a bad policy option.”

Where she does acknowledge the obvious issues with Romneycare, Coulter simply throws mud at “Democrats” for ruining Romney’s beautiful program. She writes:

What went wrong with Romneycare wasn’t a problem in the bill, but a problem in Massachusetts: Democrats.

First, the overwhelmingly Democratic legislature set the threshold for receiving a subsidy so that it included people making just below the median income in the United States, a policy known as “redistribution of income.” For more on this policy, see “Marx, Karl.”

Then, liberals destroyed the group-rate, “no frills” private insurance plans allowed under Romneycare (i.e. the only kind of health insurance a normal person would want to buy, but which is banned in most states) by adding dozens of state mandates, including requiring insurers to cover chiropractors and in vitro fertilization — a policy known as “pandering to lobbyists.”

Philip Klein has deals with this claim appropriately at the Examiner:

This is more silliness. To start, Romney signed the health care law with a smiling Ted Kennedy at his side knowing that Democrats had the votes to override any symbolic line-item vetoes of certain provisions. Furthermore, when he signed the law, he had already announced he wasn’t seeking reelection as governor and knew that it would almost certainly fall on Democrats to implement the law. Part of being a limited government Republican is realizing that once you put the infrastructure in place, successors can always add to it.

Regardless, what he actually signed was bad enough.

Additionally, Coulter puts her derision for members of the conservative movement on full display by declaring that the only reason opposition to the law exists is because the nickname ‘Romneycare’ sounds like ‘Obamacare.’ Seriously.

Of course, that’s not the issue at all – nor is the issue whether or not Romneycare is ‘constitutional’ according to the guiding documents of the United States or of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a straw man Coulter spends the remainder of her column arguing against.

The problems with Romneycare are plenty without adding straw men to the list. Access to insurance has been increased (as have the penalties for not purchasing it). thanks in no small part to Massachusetts’ ability to stick the federal government and national taxpayers with a hefty portion of the program’s tab, but insurance is not care – a fact many casual participants in the health care debate conveniently ignore. The price of care and treatment has skyrocketed, causing the Office of the Attorney General to declare that government price controls (including the requirement that patients pay the difference out of pocket if they see a provider that charges more than the government-approved rate) must be implemented a quickly as possible to stem the rising tide.

The Beacon Hill Institute found that, between Romneycare’s 2006 implementation and 2011:

• State health care expenditures have risen by $414 million over the period
• Private health insurance costs have risen by $4.311 billion over the period
• The federal government has spent an additional $2.418 billion on Medicaid for Massachusetts
• Over this period, Medicare expenditures increased by $1.426 billion

Problems abound besides just these key points, but to understand them in their proper context, it’s important to address just what Romneycare’s three-pronged approach to dealing with the “problem” of the state’s uninsured population, which was relatively low at the time (about 550,000 according to state figures, and 657,000 according to the U.S. Census Bureau), consisted of.  Some of the numbers below reference FY 2008 because a portion of this description comes from an analysis I wrote in 2009, when the program was being used as a blueprint for Obamacare.

First, Romneycare expanded subsidies for low-income (below 300% of the federal poverty line) residents to obtain health insurance. While this sounds like a valuable benefit being provided to indigent Massachusetts residents, the funding for those subsidies was primarily pulled from the state’s so-called “free care pool,” which had provided medical and mental health services to poor Bay Staters at locations ranging from community clinics to emergency rooms, regardless of their insurance status. As an ironic result of this program, more poor residents had access to subsidized insurance, but fewer could afford care when faced with a deductible and coinsurance – meaning the amount the patient had to pay up front before insurance kicked in, and the percentage of treatment costs past the deductible that fall on the policyholder. The burden of paying for service the Health Care Reform Act placed on the state’s indigent population, combined with the draining of resources from facilities that had previously cared for the poor free of charge, left a larger number of poor Massachusetts residents without access to care than before the system was ostensibly “reformed” to help them gain more affordable access to care.

Second, under the Health Care Reform Act, all businesses with over 11 employees located within Massachusetts were legally required to provide health coverage for their workers or face a fine of $295 per uninsured employee. Besides being a flagrant violation of the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) – a federal law that, among other things, prevents states from mandating employer benefits – the employer mandate has failed to fulfill its primary purpose in the eyes of those who pushed for its inclusion in the bill: not enough employers opted to pay the fine (rather than offer health insurance to employees) to cover the portion of the program cost ($45 million) that proponents expected. In fact, by Spring of 2008, only $5 million had been collected from businesses that declined to offer coverage to their workers – an amount less than one-half of one percent of the $1.1 billion the program cost state taxpayers that year. The vast majority of the rest of that cost had to be covered by diverting funds from the “free care pool,” which, again, severely limited the indigent population’s access to care.

Third, Romneycare included its famous individual mandate, making the failure to carry health insurance a violation of state law which that is punishable by a four-figure fine.  That fine, collected along with state income tax, essentially operates as an onerous, regressive tax on the uninsured (despite the fact that those who actually file and pay income taxes are statistically the least at risk of being uninsured). The fine can be avoided if an uninsured individual can prove to the state that “no affordable coverage is available” – something that over 20% of the state’s total uninsured have successfully shown, despite promises that the Health Care Reform Act would bring the cost of insurance down to a level that would be affordable by all of the state’s residents.

A new “independent agency,” called the Connector, was established by the state government to oversee the enactment of the employer and individual mandates and the implementation of health insurance subsidies for the indigent population. Along with monitoring compliance with those mandates, the Connector is responsible for determining what insurance policy each resident must enroll in, be they subsidized or paying full price, and for enforcing a rationing of care to those who qualify for subsidized coverage. Benefits for those who are below 300% of the poverty line (thus qualifying for subsidies) are limited by what the indigent individual is able to pay in terms of premium, deductible, and coinsurance, with those at the bottom of the income pyramid often qualifying for such severely restricted coverage that they would have been far better off remaining uninsured and continuing to receive care at facilities funded by the “free care pool.”

While the establishment of an agency to study the relationship between the uninsured and high health care costs and to help those who qualify for state-administered health coverage programs choose the best fit for their circumstances is not a bad idea in principle – Pennsylvania’s Health Care Cost Containment Council is a good example of one that functions well – the Connector has simply become another regulator, on top of the existing Massachusetts Department of Insurance, that gums up the health care market with excess regulation and adds to the cost of health insurance through the surcharges added to premia in order to fund its continued operation.

As with most government-related oversight boards, the Connector has been beset by requests from special-interest advocates, and it has had a very difficult time saying no to many of them. The result has been the imposition of onerous coverage mandates on the insurance policies state residents are now required by law to purchase. With four dozen coverages that are required to be included on every single policy sold within the state, from coverage for the services of nurse midwives to Mental Health Parity (an innocent-sounding mandate that requires mental health to be covered, dollar-for-dollar, to the same level as physical health), insurance premium and health care costs have skyrocketed under the Health Reform Act. Further, the addition of so many mandates actually caused nearly 200,000 previously insured Bay Staters to lose their coverage status because the prescription drug coverage in their private policies was no longer deemed “up to snuff” by the new gatekeeper of health insurance “quality” in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts’s attempt at health care reform has increased the number of insured residents by 443,000 (covering about 66% of those who previously lacked insurance). However, the program has cost far more than predicted ($1.1 billion in FY 2008 and $1.3 billion in FY09), due in part to the fact that over half of those added to the rolls of the insured qualify for some form of subsidy. As the program was hemorrhaging cash in 2008, current Governor Deval Patrick (D) declared that it would be kept afloat at all costs, even though (quite ironically) the only way to continue funding it was to drain money from the public hospitals and community clinics that had already been providing care, under the free care pool, to those who were now appropriating that funding in the form of insurance subsidies. Further, the state’s redirecting of free care pool funding and imposition of caps on reimbursements for care has created an access problem by dramatically reducing the number of providers available to see and treat patients, regardless of whether those patients have insurance or not – a reinforcement of the fact that insurance, even when it is as universally prevalent as a government can make it, does not equal access to care.

Far from reducing the cost of health insurance, Massachusetts’s individual mandate has driven costs up at twice the average national rate. This was entirely predictable; after all, what can possibly reduce downward pressure on a price more effectively than a legal requirement to purchase it, whatever the cost? According to the Connector, the least expensive price for an insurance policy for a 50 year old non-smoker in 2008 was $3,599 a year ($299.94 per month), with a $2,000 deductible. Next door in Connecticut, that price was just $1,468 a year ($122.36 per month, with a $2,500 deductible) – and Connecticut hadn’t even spent $1.3 billion on controlling and engineering their state’s health care marketplace!

The biggest issue with Romneycare from the conservative perspective, though, is simply the massive expansion of government size, control, and intrusion that it represents. Constitutional or not, similar-sounding to ‘Obamacare’ or not, and effective at expanding insurance or not, the Massachusetts Health Care Reform Act is a law which requires individuals living in the Commonwealth to purchase a good or service, allows the state government to decide what an acceptable form of that good or service is and how it can be used, forces healthy individuals into costly high-risk pools to balance out risk and cost (thereby increasing price and severely limiting choice), and demands that residents of Massachusetts and the other 49 states pay an ever-increasing bill to sustain the ever-growing program.  Whether or not you support Mitt Romney, the simple truth is that Romneycare is in no way a conservative program, and is in no way supportable by conservatives. Period.

On a personal note, I’ve had little use for Ann Coulter for some time now. It’s been clear to me for years that Coulter’s only interest and commitment is herself and the publicity she can garner, not conservatism, the conservative movement, or the GOP. One of my RedState colleagues went so far a few years ago as to call her a “detestable harpy,” and while that may not be the most accurate choice of words to describe her, this latest “contribution” to the primary election discussion simply reinforces Coulter’s lack of direction, conviction, or compass outside of her personal gluttony for publicity.

Mitt Romney: “I’m not concerned about the very poor; we have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of the America, the 90 percent, 95 percent of Americans who right now are struggling, and I’ll continue to take that message across the nation.”

Soledad O’Brien: “I know I said last question. You said I’m not concerned about the very poor because they have a safety net. And I think there are lots of very poor Americans who are struggling who would say that sounds odd. Can you explain that?”

Mitt Romney: “Well, you had to finish the sentence, Soledad. I said I’m not concerned about the very poor that have the safety net, but if it has holes in it, I will repair them. The challenge right now — we will hear from the Democrat Party the plight of the poor. And there’s no question, it’s not good being poor, and we have a safety net to help those that are very poor. But my campaign is focused on middle income Americans. My campaign — you can choose where to focus. You can focus on the rich, that’s not my focus. You can focus on the very poor. That’s not my focus. My focus is on middle income Americans, retirees living on Social Security, people who can’t find work, folks that have kids getting ready to go to college. These are the people who have been most badly hurt during the Obama years. We have a very ample safety net, and we can talk about whether it needs to be strengthened or whether there are holes in it. But we have food stamps, we have Medicaid, we have housing vouchers, we have programs to help the poor.”

While Romney’s intent was clearly to reiterate his focus on the middle class, which has suffered greatly in recent years due to economic troubles and rising unemployment, he committed not one but two major fouls in that statement (as well as a third that is only slightly less severe). First, he committed the cardinal sin of saying, in just so many words, “I’m not concerned about the very poor.” Context be damned, Romney has now provided a direct quote that can and will be used against him ad nauseum for the remainder of his participation in this election. Second, and perhaps worse, he said in almost so many words that not only does he not care about the “very poor,” but the Democrat Party does.

Take a minute to let that sink in. The presumptive nominee for the Republican presidential nomination, in a class warfare/economy/jobs election, said on national television that he doesn’t care about the very poor in our country, but that the opposition party does. As @Slublog noted on Twitter, “The only thing that could have made that Romney quote worse is if he ended it by laughing manically and lighting a cigar with a $100 bill.”

The fact he didn’t mean precisely that is immaterial; you simply can’t say that in a political campaign, particularly when you’re (a) already filthy rich (and have never spent a day of your life in the middle class, let alone as a ‘poor’ individual), and (b) running for the top position in a party that is already portrayed by media and opposition as being unconcerned with any Americans outside of the super rich. Again, the fact that (b) is entirely inaccurate is immaterial; just as every possible Rick Perry gaffe contributed to the narrative that he was incoherent, inarticulate, and mentally challenged, every statement by Mitt Romney that could possibly be construed as being out of touch with (and unsupportive of) “the 99%” adds to the narrative that the rich, white, out-of-touch GOP is preparing to nominate a rich, white, out-of-touch automaton to lead its party and the country.

In an election that will be focused on employment and the plight of working (and out-of-work) Americans, neither Romney nor the GOP can afford to provide any additional fuel for that narrative. In this case, all he had to say was something to the effect of, “My focus is on the millions of Americans who are suffering from the Obama economy.” The fact that Romney instead provided direct ammunition for negative advertising, while talking up his opposition’s support for the same poor he disavowed any concern for, is a major issue.

Of more minor concern is the fact that Romney twice addressed the problems with America’s social safety nets in conditional terms – if the safety net has holes in it, he’ll fix it. That ‘if’ should grate those who have spent the last several months, years, and decades warning of the major issues facing our entitlement programs and safety nets (not least of which is cost, like the $55,000,000,000,000.00 that medicare and social security are currently in debt over the coming 75 year horizon), and proposing solutions to address them.

Of greater concern, though, are the shots Mitt Romney fired into his own feet this morning with his declaration that he doesn’t care about the poor, but that the Democrats do – a simply inexcusable error.

NOTE: Even unofficial Romney campaign spokesperson (and official Romney shill) Jennifer Rubin, who has a typically incoherent response at the Washington Post, can’t explain away such an egregious unforced error on her candidate’s part. Further, Rubin’s final line, ostensibly addressed to “the media,” is the height of irony. She writes, “Perhaps a less crazed approach to covering Romney would restore their credibility.” Ah, self-awareness.

Last night, a joint force from America’s Tier One special operations command conducted a raid on a pirate camp in Somalia, freeing two hostages – an American and a Dane – and killing their captors before exfiltrating north to Djibouti via helicopter.

USA Today‘s lead paragraph captures the mission well, while also serving as the best recruiting pitch for the Navy’s Sea, Air, and Land teams that I’ve seen a newspaper run:

The same U.S. Navy SEAL unit that killed Osama bin Laden parachuted into Somalia under cover of darkness early Wednesday and crept up to an outdoor camp where an American woman and Danish man were being held hostage. Soon, nine kidnappers were dead and both hostages were freed.

The hostages, two aid workers who had been kidnapped three months earlier, were victims of an expanding land-based kidnapping enterprise engaged in by Somali pirates in response to the growing difficulty of hijacking ships in the Gulf of Aden.

“The same U.S. Navy SEAL unit that killed Osama bin Laden,” of course, refers to the Navy’s Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU), also known as SEAL Team Six, though as with all JSOC operations there were almost certainly representatives from other services involved as well (possibly Air Force aircraft, and certainly joint terminal attack controllers and pararescuemen from the Air Force special mission unit organic to JSOC).

As with the bin Laden raid, it is worth noting that what sets this mission apart from any other JSOC or DEVGRU operation is not the fact that it took place, but the publicity it is receiving. Hostage rescue is a core component of JSOC’s special mission units’ capabilities, as are counterterrorism, direct action, and strategic reconnaissance. Further, the operational tempo for special operations units as a whole – both “white” and “black” (with JSOC falling in the latter category) – continues to be incredibly high, making this highly publicized mission just another one of hundreds being carried out around the world every month (according to ISAF, for example, 1,879 special operations raids were carried out in Afghanistan alone in the first eight months of 2011).

Aside from results the raid itself – two hostages rescued unharmed, and nine heavily armed “tangoes” dead – part of the reason this mission is being so highly publicized is the high psychological importance of its success, a position which it holds for two main reasons.

THE GHOSTS OF ‘BLACK HAWK DOWN’

Make no mistake: this raid, and its publicization, sends a powerful message about America’s willingness to put boots on the ground in Somalia nearly two decades after the withdrawal of US forces from that country in 1994.  Though this mission neither took place in “Mog” (Mogadishu) nor in daylight, the success of JSOC’s effort will go a long way to exorcise the lingering demons of 1993′s ‘Black Hawk Down’ incident that left 18 American Rangers and Delta Force operators dead and many more wounded.

This isn’t America’s first action in Somalia since then. As Bill Roggio notes, at least three direct action missions or campaigns have been carried out in Somalia in the last half-decade:

First, US forces (CIA and special operations forces) are known to have engaged the Islamic Courts Union several times in late 2006 and early 2007 when the Ethiopians invaded Somalia in December 2006.

Second, a US Navy warship and US personnel targeted al Qaeda leader Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan in June 2007 off the coast of Somalia’s semi-autonomous region of Puntland. After the USS Chafee opened fire on their speedboats, 35 Islamic Courts fighters were killed.

Third, US special operations forces killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan in September 2009 during a daring helicopter raid in the southern Somali town of Barawe. Nabhan’s body was recovered during the raid.

Additionally, at least nine drone strikes have been carried out between 2006 and the present month.  However, there is no question that this is the highest-profile and most-publicized American mission to have taken place on Somali soil since our 1994 withdrawal, which convinced Osama bin Laden “that the American soldier was just a paper tiger.”  As such, it sends a clear, if indirect, message that the lingering demons of the ‘Black Hawk Down’ incident won’t prevent our forces from operating on the ground in Somalia if there is a mission there that needs to be done.

BOUNCING BACK FROM THE TANGI TRAGEDY

Though special operations forces conducted upward of 2,000 missions in Afghanistan alone in 2011, two JSOC missions in general – and DEVGRU missions in particular – made more headlines than all of the others combined.  The first, both chronologically and in terms of overall attention, was the DEVGRU-led May 1 raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan that resulted in the death of the world’s most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden.

The second, and more recent, was entirely different.  On August 6, when entering an objective area to support a Ranger element on the ground, an Army National Guard CH-47 helicopter carrying JSOC operators, Afghan commandos, and an interpreter was shot down in the Tangi Valley in Wardak Province, eastern Afghanistan.  Not only was it was the deadliest incident and deadliest day of the ten year war in Afghanistan, but the primary force on board was a troop from DEVGRU’s Gold Squadron – different operators than those who had carried out the Abbottabad raid, but members of the same SEAL Team.

If the bin Laden raid had reaffirmed the legendary (some might say “mythic”) status of the Navy’s premier special mission unit, the Tangi Valley disaster acted as a chemical stripper to these commandos’ hard-earned and carefully crafted veneer of invincibility.  Among the 38 killed in that crash were fifteen DEVGRU SEALs and three Air Force special tactics personnel – eighteen operators from Tier One units.

Until last night, that tragedy had been the last highly publicized event involving JSOC in general, and SEAL Team Six in particular, despite hundreds of missions having been carried out between then and the present.  Now, JSOC and DEVGRU are back on Americans’ radars for a positive reason.

On the surface, last night’s successful rescue, which exemplifies the work that special operations forces do on a nightly basis, left nine pirates dead and put two hostages on the road home after a three month ordeal.  Taking a wider view, though, this mission and the publicity it is receiving will go a long way toward exorcising the demons of Mogadishu 1993 and Tangi 2011 that have haunted the American psyche, for similar reasons but in differing amounts, ever since.

“Here’s How the U.S. Could Invade Iran”

“U.S. Said Set to Attack Iran”

“Does [the U.S. President] Plan to Invade Iran?”

“Saudis Deny U.S. Planned to Attack Iranian Oilfields”

“U.S. May Attack Iran Missiles: White House Mulls Ways to Protect Gulf”

“[U.S.] Navy Denies Plan to Attack Iranian Ships in Persian Gulf”

“U.S., Allies Setting Stage to Attack Iran, Says Paper”

“Chavez Warns Against U.S. Attack on Iran”

“Iran’s Top Leader Warns of U.S. Attack”

“Iran: U.S. Attack May Mean ‘Slaughterhouse’”

“Sharon on the Warpath: Is Israel Planning to Attack Iran?”

“Israel Has Plans to Attack Iran, Says London Times”

“U.S. Planning Nuclear Strike on Iran”

“The Coming War with Iran”

“Report: Israel Asks for ‘Air Corridor’ to Attack Iran”

“News from Israel: [U.S. President] Wants to Attack Iran Soon”

“Iran in U.S. Crosshairs”

Do those headlines sound familiar? Judging by the recent deluge of print, web, television, and radio reports and discussions, America and Israel have responded to a growing “drumbeat for war,” as some have put it, and are on the brink of launching an overt military attack on Iran. As the real newspaper and web headlines cited above clearly show, the U.S. and its ally in the Levant have failed to learn the proverbial dangers of a land war in Asia, and are furiously building toward another engagement with another Islamic country.

But wait. The dates on those headlines are, respectively, November 1979, December 1979, August 1980, August 1980, June 1984, June 1987, March 1988, November 1992, November 1993, December 1996, June 1997, August 2004, March 2005, April 2006, July 2006, February 2007, May 2008, and February 2009.

That’s right: the claim that America or Israel is on the cusp of attacking Iran is as old as the Islamic Republic itself. Such assertions have peppered media reports, op-eds, and other commentary for three decades and change at this point – a fact which should give folks pause about taking such claims any more seriously now than at any point in recent history.

Yes, Iran is hostile to the U.S. and its interests, and yes, it is almost certainly working as quickly as it can on the development of a nuclear weapon. However, despite growing hysteria on the part of media and analysts, and despite public debates like that being hosted by Foreign Affairs (the best piece among which is this one by Colin Kahl, former head of Middle East policy at the Pentagon), a western-initiated war with Iran is little more likely now than at any point in the last three decades, if not altogether less so.

HOW MANY LINES IN THE SAND?

This isn’t to minimize Iran’s nuclearization effort as an issue.  President Obama clearly has a decision to make when it comes to dealing with Iran’s apparently inexorable march toward becoming a nuclear weapons state, as will the next president should Obama be defeated in this year’s election. Thus far, the administration has issued firm statements while consistently moving its “red line” of acceptable nuclear progress backward in response to each Iranian action. As Pepe Escobar noted at CBSNews Online:

Let’s start with red lines. Here it is, Washington’s ultimate red line, straight from the lion’s mouth. Only last week Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said of the Iranians, ‘Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No. But we know that they’re trying to develop a nuclear capability. And that’s what concerns us. And our red line to Iran is do not develop a nuclear weapon. That’s a red line for us.’

How strange, the way those red lines continue to retreat. Once upon a time, the red line for Washington was “enrichment” of uranium [Auth. note: As Olli Heinonen has recently noted, the Fordow plant is currently producing 20% enriched uranium – an important step in producing weapons-grade uranium] . Now, it’s evidently an actual nuclear weapon that can be brandished. Keep in mind that, since 2005, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has stressed that his country is not seeking to build a nuclear weapon. The most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran from the U.S. Intelligence Community has similarly stressed that Iran is not, in fact, developing a nuclear weapon (as opposed to the breakout capacity to build one someday).

Why does the standard U.S. response to Iran’s advancement past each impassable line-in-the-sand ultimatum appear to be to shrug, take ten more paces backward, draw a new line, and demand that Iran not cross that one?  The two-fold answer to that is as simple as it is frustrating for those who prioritize non-proliferation (particularly to state supporters of terror like Iran) very highly.

WHY AN ATTACK WON’T HAPPEN: REASON I

First, it is highly unlikely that an aerial campaign would be able to successfully eliminate Iran’s nuclear program, which is made up of deeply buried, hardened targets spread across multiple sites (though Matthew Kroenig has argued in Foreign Affairs that the majority of sites that serve as the most critical targets are within reach of conventional airborne munitions).  Further, attempting to strike these sites would have a net negative effect on the U.S.’s interests; as President Bush’s Director of Central Intelligence Michael Hayden reiterated just this week,“ When we talked about this in the government, the consensus was that [attacking Iran] would guarantee that which we are trying to prevent — an Iran that will spare nothing to build a nuclear weapon and that would build it in secret.”  A certain effect of striking or even eliminating the program (if that were possible) but leaving the regime intact would be to double their resolve to establish a nuclear weapons capability, in no small part because success in that pursuit would provide it the security of deterrence (and the freedom to continue its effort to be a bully in the region and beyond), as North Korea has repeatedly demonstrated.

Given these limitations and first-order effects, the next-best option would seem to be to carry out an operation that simultaneously eliminated Teheran’s nuclear sites and deposed the regime.  This is akin to what FPI’s Jamie Fly and AEI’s Gary Schmitt have suggested, with one major difference: Fly and Schmitt appear to be calling for an solely aerial campaign (augmented, almost certainly, by other conventional standoff weaponry), but with a target list that is expanded beyond sites that are directly related to the nuclear program. They write:

A limited strike against nuclear facilities would not lead to regime change. But a broader operation might. It would not even need to be a ground invasion aimed specifically at toppling the government. The United States would basically need to expand its list of targets beyond the nuclear program to key command and control elements of the Republican Guard and the intelligence ministry, and facilities associated with other key government officials. The goal would be to compromise severely the government’s ability to control the Iranian population. This would require an extended campaign, but since even a limited strike would take days and Iran would strike back, it would be far better to design a military operation that has a greater chance of producing a satisfactory outcome.

With all due respect to Fly and Schmitt, it’s  a very good thing that this suggestion will never come to fruition, in large part because it is one of the worst suggestions that has been put forth to date for dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue.  If simply bombing those sites which can be identified and reached with conventional weapons is an ineffective way of dealing with Iran’s program, then attacking those sites and striking Teheran’s “key command and control elements” from 30,000 feet AGL or from up to 1,000 nautical miles away, then leaving the resulting chaotic mess for the Iranian people (and those still remaining in the military- governmental complex) to clean up and rebuild from is an exponentially more effective way of ensuring that whatever does emerge from the rubble will not in any way be positively disposed to the U.S. and its interests.  In other words, the idea that the best possible option on Iran would be to fly in, break everything (in hopes of prompting regime collapse), and then immediately leave is, quite simply, mind-boggling.

WHY AN ATTACK WON’T HAPPEN: REASON II

This brings us to the second reason why an attack on Iran is as unlikely now as it has been at any time in recent history, if not more: the fact that the only option to truly ensure that the existing program is done away with, and to create the most favorable odds that Iran’s efforts at nuclearization would not be reconstituted in greater secrecy at the earliest possible moment, would be to mount an air-and-ground invasion that deposed the regime; disbanded the Revolutionary Guard; and manually searched for; reported, and destroyed all weapons of mass destruction and WMD production facilities that it found; and trusted that freeing the people from the tyranny of their government and the punishment it had brought, and meted out, upon them would immediately win them to America’s side and its cause.

Does that sound familiar? If not, then George Santayana would like to have a quick word with you, because I’ve just basically described the 2003 coalition invasion of Iraq, and that is precisely why no such invasion of Iran is in the offing at any time in the near future.  Had America not had the experience of “breaking” Iraq, and learning the hard way just how difficult it is to put such a Humpty Dumpty together again, then a campaign against Iran might not be such a far-fetched idea.  However, with Iraq planted firmly in our short-term memory (despite the withdrawal of uniformed troops this December, that effort is still far from over), and with Afghanistan still so unstable that the coalition is once again stepping up peace and power-sharing talks with the Taliban, the simple and unavoidable fact is that there will not be even a fraction of the public, expert, or official governmental support for an invasion of Iran that there was for the action taken against Afghanistan and Iraq last decade.  Additionally, Iran’s geographic location virtually guarantees that militants will stream into the Persian state from every direction in massive numbers, augmenting an organic insurgency and waging a low- and medium-intensity conflict and domestic terror campaign that could well make both  Afghanistan and Iraq seem relatively tame in comparison.

These facts argue very convincingly for the risk of an attack on Iran being as low as it has been for the preceding decades, despite the constant media speculation and hype about a supposedly impending attack that has been a feature of reports and analyses across that period.

WHAT ELSE CAN BE DONE?

This isn’t to say that nothing can or should be done to hinder Iran’s efforts.   As General Hayden recently reinforced, the Bush administration recognized the folly of waging war on Iran (despite the decrepit Seymour Hersh’s repeated – and breathless – claims to the contrary), and moved to focus its overt efforts at counterproliferation on Iran’s economy in hopes of convincing the government to change course and fomenting civil unrest. Though the current president missed an opportunity to side with a budding revolution against Teheran in 2009, this Congress, the Obama administration, and the EU have only strengthened the sanctions on Iran, at grave economic cost to the Islamic Republic (though the effort to prevent Iranian oil from being purchased abroad is being short-circuited by China to its own end, as it is reportedly using the distress sanctions have caused in Iran’s oil market to negotiate a lower price for themselves on Iranian crude).

Sanctions, too, have potential downside.  They can cause a targeted people to become more galvanized or a targeted regime to further tighten its grip on its subject population (just to name two), and to date they certainly haven’t convinced Teheran to give up its nuclear ambitions.  However, between sanctions and a military attack that simply cannot have any guarantee of mission success or positive outcome, but which is almost certain to carry with it massively negative effects (of the first order, as well as second-, third-, and beyond) , the former has to be the preferred option, at least for the time being.  Those sanctions will continue to be augmented by covert operations wherever and whenever possible, but there is almost zero chance that overt military action will also be  added to the mix – again, despite the almost constant media claims to the contrary.

Where we go from here is a very big, very important question.  As Kenneth Pollack put it, “if the Obama administration’s forward progress is clear enough when it comes to its Iran policy, its ultimate destination is not.”  The best outcome, as Hayden and the Bush administration recognized last decade, is regime change within Iran.  “It’s not so much that we don’t want Iran to have a nuclear capacity,” Hayden said, as it is “that we don’t want this Iran to have it … Slow it down long enough and maybe the character [of the Iranian government] changes.”  While sanctions and covert actions have managed to slow Iran’s nuclear progress, short of war only a positive regime change (which is no guarantee) are likely make a real difference in the status quo.

Given the wide-ranging support for the coalition invasion of Iraq leading up to the 2003 start of that war, it is telling that the current debate over Iran includes hawkish voices as well as calls for the U.S. to accept the inevitability of a nuclear Islamic Republic, and to prepare its containment strategy accordingly.  Because of the uncertainty of military success (and the extremely high likelihood that the cost of overt military action would be very steep), and because of the length and general messiness (for lack of a better term) of America’s recent experience with military-led regime change and counter-WMD efforts in Iraq, striking Iran simply will not be considered  an acceptable option by policymakers or the general public.  Sanctions and other non-military efforts will continue, but the likelihood that Iran will become a nuclear weapons state in the not-too-distant future should dictate that the current administration, and the next if the current president only serves one term, develops the most comprehensive possible plan for containment, deterrence, and fomenting positive regime change at the earliest possible opportunity.

While that is a grave future concern, though, the massive guaranteed cost of attacking Iran not only means that such action is not the “least-worst option” that we have for dealing with Teheran’s nuclear ambitions, but it also means that it remains highly unlikely that such action will be taken – again, media hype notwithstanding.

TEN YEARS HAVE passed since terrorists hijacked airliners and flew them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  In that period, America has fought wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, carried out hundreds armed drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen (among other locations), and conducted covert operations around the world, all in the name of what President George W.  Bush termed the “Global War on Terror.”  Terror plots and attempted attacks have been foiled, terrorist leaders have been killed or captured in massive numbers – including the world’s most wanted terrorist himself, Osama bin Laden.  All of this has combined, in the words of President Barack Obama, to “put al Qaeda on the path to defeat.”

Given all this, is it possible that America is actually losing the war on terror? In Bin Laden’s Legacy: Why We’re Still Losing the War on Terror, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, director of the Center for the Study of Terrorist Radicalization at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, argues not only that we are losing, but that we as a nation still fail to understand what kind of a war we are fighting, and what our enemies’ actual goals are.  This is a powerful indictment, and Gartenstein-Ross painstakingly lays it out in a book that is both sharply analytical and accessible to any audience.

A KEY PROBLEM with America’s attempt to wage a War on Terror while safeguarding itself from future attack, Gartenstein-Ross writes, is that our ignorance of the enemy we are facing has allowed us to pursue both goals in a profligate fashion that plays right into the hands of an enemy that sees America’s economy as the long-term target.  To understand the reasoning behind this, we must look to the Soviet Union.  Though myriad factors contributed to the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., its collapse so shortly after its withdrawal from a decade-long quagmire in Afghanistan helped convince Osama bin Laden and other former mujahedeen that they had been the cause of its ultimate defeat.

Now, al Qaeda has taken this strategy of embroiling a much larger and wealthier enemy in a long and costly war of economic attrition and has aimed it at the United States, with no small measure of success gained over the last decade.  “Even though it has lost Osama bin Laden and its safe haven in Afghanistan,” the author writes, al Qaeda’s “fight against America is broader, and al Qaeda and its affiliates are key players in more regions than they were engaged in a decade ago…Meanwhile, the U.S. economy is shattered, it faces an almost unthinkable debt burden, and its policy makers have largely been consigned to arguing with each other on the sidelines while the country’s traditional allies…are overthrown or see their power erode” (p. 200).

IN BIN LADEN’S  Legacy, Gartenstein-Ross frequently employs an Ali-Foreman “Rumble in the Jungle” analogy, suggesting that America’s post-9/11 counterterrorism strategy, such as it is, has taken on the character of a superpower exhausting its expansive but finite resources in a fight against an enemy that is largely resting against the ropes and waiting for the opportune time to strike.  One area in particular in which this strategy can be seen is airline and airport security, an area in which the U.S. has made massive expenditures over the last decade.

“After the 9/11 attacks, the United States poured enormous sums of money into bolstering aviation security,” Gartenstein-Ross writes.  “Yet time and again, terrorists affiliated with al Qaeda have shown how just a bit of technical ingenuity can thwart these expensive defenses” (p.  4).  Examples of this span the post-9/11 period, from the 2001 ‘shoe bomber,’ Richard Reid, to the 2007 sports drink suicide plot in the U.K., to ‘underwear bomber’ Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s 2009 attempt to bring down a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Detroit.  This ability of “al Qaeda’s operatives…to find vulnerabilities in aviation security, which has been hardened far more than any other set of targets,” speaks to the impotence of America’s current strategy of throwing money and technology at our problems (p.  203).

THAT THIS PLAYS right into our enemies’ hands can be seen, for example, in the aftermath of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s (AQAP) successful attempt to slip bombs disguised as printer cartridges past airport security and onto FedEx and UPS cargo planes bound for the U.S.  Though the bombs were found before reaching their destination and being detonated, Gartenstein-Ross writes, AQAP still considered the effort a success, as their mere $4,200 investment (a number that was splashed across the cover of a special issue of the group’s English language magazine Inspire) would likely cause Europe and America billions in additional security technology and manpower to ensure such an attempt did not succeed again.  As AQAP itself acknowledged, their current strategy against the West is the “strategy of a thousand cuts,” each of which costs them very little to produce, but provokes a massive and costly response.  In sum, the author writes, “al Qaeda’s strategy is…to make the United States collapse under the weight of its own defenses” (p.  203).

However, Gartenstein-Ross cautions, understanding that strategy and coming to grips with America’s misjudgment of al Qaeda’s goals in its fight against the West is only the beginning.  “Al Qaeda is an adaptive organization,” he writes, whose leaders not only believe that “relatively small and inexpensive adaptations will continue to thwart its enemies’ defenses,” but that “each time it slips an operative past the security measures designed to detect him – even if that operative doesn’t succeed in killing a single ‘infidel’ – it will force costly and intrusive adaptations upon its adversary” (pp.  202-3).

Beyond his evidence-based analysis of al Qaeda’s strategy against the U.S., Gartenstein-Ross deserves significant credit for including proposed solutions for the issues currently facing America in the War on Terror, particularly at a time when so many articles, books, blog posts, and tweets are dedicated only to identifying, describing, or repeating problems.  Many of his prescriptions are quite solid, and address specific shortcomings that the author has previously identified in America’s planning and execution of the War on Terror.  Examples include understanding al Qaeda’s strategy and its adaptability; reducing the expense of national security through common-sense but difficult-to-implement measures like profiling, analytic reform, and civil service reform; avoiding involvement in military engagements of uncertain scope and purpose, like the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which the author believes severely crippled our efforts in Afghanistan, and the 2011 Libya no-fly zone; and reducing our dependence on foreign oil, though this is obviously easier said than done, and some issue may be taken with the specifics of the author’s recommendations.

However, if Bin Laden’s Legacy has a shortcoming, it is in the real-world practicality of the recommendations made in the longest of these sections, on “Address[ing] the Politicization of Terrorism” (pp.  203-210).  There is no question that, as the author notes, terrorism and security have been used to various ends by both political parties, and that such politicization of the issue has led to what may best be described as a spending contest in the name of being strong on terror while perpetuating the myth of a “zero-risk” paradigm, part because to not do so would be to open oneself up to ruthless attack from the political opposition.

While the current (and historical) “hotly contested partisan atmosphere” makes sober reevaluation of our strategy and priorities in the effort to defeat terrorists abroad and prevent terrorism at home, though, the likelihood that any type of “strong moderate center” brought together to “bring sanity and a sense of purpose to…discussions” on America’s counterterror efforts would be able to actually influence policy is, to put it mildly, very low (pp. 208-9).  Blue-ribbon and academic panels are not in short supply, and very few come out with recommendations that are both sound policy-wise and politically viable. Furthermore, the emergence of moderates does not necessarily drive centrist compromise; instead, it can have the effect of pushing the debate toward one or the other extreme, as those who gravitate toward that center are countered by a political opposition that sees an opportunity to be taken advantage of.

This weakness, though, is a tiny chink in the book’s otherwise solid armor.  Bin Laden’s Legacy is a book which should be read not only by private citizens seeking to learn about the goals that drive al Qaeda and its allies, but also by the strategists and policymakers who have, to date, misjudged and misread our enemies in the War on Terror.  Through all of Gartenstein-Ross’s evidence and analysis, the chief lesson that should be learned from Bin Laden’s Legacy is just how important it is to understand the goals and nature of our enemies, so that we don’t end up playing right into their hands by responding to threats in a way that is natural for us, but inappropriate for the situation.  Though this lesson may seem obvious, as Bin Laden’s Legacy clearly demonstrates, that which should be obvious is definitely not always so.

Bin Laden’s Legacy by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross (ISBN 978-1-1180-9494-5; $25.95) is published by John Wiley & Sons.

This whole idea of personal autonomy, well I don’t think most conservatives hold that point of view. Some do. They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues. You know, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional conservatives view the world and I think most conservatives understand that individuals can’t go it alone.

Now, consider these two quotes from Santorum’s 2005 book It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good, both of which are very telling:

What was my vision? I came to the uncomfortable realization that conservatives were not only reluctant to spend government dollars on the poor, they hadn’t even thought much about what might work better. I often describe my conservative colleagues during this time as simply ‘cheap liberals.’ My own economically modest personal background and my faith had taught me to care for those who are less fortunate, but I too had not yet given much thought to the proper role of government in this mission.

-Preface, p. IX; audio here

And:

I suspect some will dismiss my ideas as just an extended version of ‘compassionate conservatism.’ Some will reject what I have said as a kind of ‘Big Government Conservatism.’ Some will say that what I’ve tried to argue isn’t conservatism at all. But I believe what I’ve been presenting is the genuine conservatism our Founders envisioned. One that fosters the opportunity for all Americans to live as we are called to live, in selfless families that contribute to the general welfare, the common good.

-Conclusion, p. 421; audio here

Though the second quote is the “money shot,” as it were, the value of the first is that it sets the stage for Santorum’s exploration of the role of government in the book. As the second quote demonstrates, Santorum has not only concluded that it is the role of government to ensure that “all Americans…contribute to the general welfare, the common good” by acting as the chief arbiter of charitable resources and their distribution.

This is wrong on several levels. While there is absolutely a role for government in creating and maintaining a social safety net (Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, etc.) for the population that cannot take care of itself (whether that should take place at the federal, state, or local level, and in what measure each, is a different discussion), Santorum’s instinct appears to be to use government to expand that safety net to all who may be in need or want of charity. Further, he accuses conservatives in Congress who disagree with a significantly expanded role of government in enforcing redistributive charity and welfare of being “cheap liberals” who haven’t “though [enough] about” the issue of “the poor” to recognize that making decisions about charity is clearly government’s job to do.

Not only does Santorum argue for an expansion of the welfare state as the proper way to ensure that “all Americans…contribute to the general welfare,” and not only does he dismiss criticisms that his view represents “an extended version of compassionate conservatism” or “big government conservatism,” but he actually claims that increasing the size and scope of government, and its role in growing the welfare state, represents “the genuine conservatism our Founders envisioned.”

I’m not criticizing Rick Santorum for being concerned about his fellow man. However, instinctively turning to government to cure all that ails our society and individuals within it – and calling that a “conservative” instinct – shows a lack of understanding about the role of government itself within our society. Further, his belief that only government is able (and benevolent enough) to ensure that “all Americans…contribute to the general welfare” in an acceptable manner reveals a lack of faith in, and understanding of, conservatism and conservative Americans. Were he to step outside of his more-government-is-the-solution bubble, he would learn, for example, that conservative Americans voluntarily contribute to the “common good” by donating to private charities at a very high rate – much higher than liberals who, like Santorum, look to an ever-expanding government to take care of the poor using Americans’ tax dollars.

Santorum certainly isn’t unique within the community of current and former lawmakers in his faith that government has the answers and the moral requirement to make fiscal decisions (including where charitable contributions are to be made, and in what amounts) for the American people as a whole. However, denying that such a belief is “big government conservatism” (if it is conservatism at all) is only surpassed on the absurdity scale by the claim that such a belief truly represents “the genuine conservatism our Founders envisioned.”

WHAT ROLE DO culture myths – the stories civilizations tell about the beginning of law, medicine, arts and sciences, and civilization itself – have in defining a group’s legitimacy within society? In Founding Gods, Inventing Nations: Conquest and Culture Myths from Antiquity to Islam, Will McCants, a Middle East expert at CNA’s Center for Strategic Students and adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkins University, addresses this issue with an emphasis on explaining the unique development of Muslim cultural beliefs and traditions in the wake of the Arab conquest.

Rather than a dry, linear history, the author presents his study in a comparative format, contrasting the competition for social relevance through control of cultural heritage in three periods of Ancient Near Eastern history: the Hellenistic period following the Alexandrian conquest; the hegemony of imperial Rome; and, of course, the Arab conquest and subsequent Islamic period.

THE CORE COMPARISON that drives Founding Gods is the difference between the existing “high culture” possessed by Greeks and Romans alike from the beginning of their hegemony and the lack of such a culture on the part of the conquering Arabs, and how that difference influenced the cultural actions of conquered elites seeking their role in the new post-conquest society.  At the time of Alexander’s conquest, the Greeks had a centuries-long history of philosophical, medicinal, legal, and other cultural knowledge, which was well-known and well-respected in the Near East (in no small part because of the centuries of close communication and exchange between the Near East and the Aegean, which took place during the period of – and played a significant role in – that culture’s development, as Greek protographers acknowledged).  Because of this, the local reaction to the Greek conquest consisted in part of the composition of etiologies which, while necessarily crediting the Greeks with the high culture they were known to possess, attributed the origin of key elements of that ‘Greek’ culture to predecessors of the indigenous elites themselves.  The coming of the Romans, who in many respects also adopted Hellenic cultural heritage as their own, spurred a similar response on the part of indigenous elites who needed once again to secure their place in the new order created by the latest conquering power.

The indigenous response to the Arab conquest, on the other hand, was very different from that sparked by the Alexandrian conquest and by the advent of post-Hellenistic (but still largely Hellenized) Roman domination that preceded it.  Unlike the Greeks, McCants writes, the conquering Arabs were not associated by native Near Easterners with any specific, respected culture prior to their arrival.  As a result, when seeking to solidify their cultural place the new order that followed the Arab conquest, native elites did not concern themselves with who was responsible for the high culture brought by the conquerors (there was none, so responding to the Arab conquest in the same way that their forebears responded to the Greek conquest would have been very cart-before-horse).  Instead, they concerned themselves with that which would constitute the new culture that had to be developed in the wake of the conquest – a process that took four centuries to complete.

IN FOUNDING GODS, McCants stresses the value to a conquered people of both an umbilical cord to the past and an understanding of the audience to whom cultural connections most need to be communicated.  As might be imagined, that value is greatest during periods in which a culture’s legitimacy and status as an accepted part of society was being called into question.  One specific example of this (out of the many provided in the book) can be seen in the Alexandrian Jewish population living under Roman rule, whose combination of peculiar religious beliefs and success at converting Roman citizens to Judaism led some in the intellectual and legal hierarchy to lash out in an effort to drive a wedge between the Jewish population and the rest of Roman society.  “Since their new overlords had adopted the cultural history and sensitivities of the Greeks,” McCants writes, “the response to these charges by Jews living under Roman rule was similar to that of their earlier coreligionists: stress the antiquity of biblical heroes; emphasize the dependence of the Greeks on these heroes for scientific and philosophical knowledge; and downplay the cultural contributions of the Egyptians, their primary cultural competitors” (pp. 130-31).

The utility of such a defense, and the vehemence with which it needed to be conducted, varied with audience, situation, and desperation, of course. In the case of the 1^st century Alexandrian Jews, the defense employed was “sharper because of the denigration of their cultural contribution to humanity, the depiction of them as outsiders, and the suspicion that their doctrines were undermining the state” (p. 131) by authors like Lysimachus and Apion of Alexandria, who cast the Jews as “misanthropic lepers” who were “foreign and seditious” (p. 130).  The Alexandrian Jewish philosopher Philo lashed out at the Greeks in response, accusing philosophers, scientists, and lawmakers alike – including Plato and Pythagoras – of “copying” and taking “like a thief” principles, concepts, and rules that had originated with Moses, who obviously antedated classical Greek civilization, and whose gifts to society had been handed down through generations unchanged and still in their perfect original form (p. 131).

This line of attack demonstrates the power of a direct line to antiquity and the importance of being able to lay claim to the past when seeking to secure one’s place in a social order run by those who have an existing respected high culture.  Philo’s specific goal was to cut off the Roman writers at the proverbial knees by eliminating the legitimacy they derived from being the cultural heirs of the inventors of law, philosophy, and science: the Greeks – something he sought to accomplish by claiming, in McCants’s words, “that Greek knowledge was built on the teachings of Moses, who was the first lawgiver,” and that “the Greeks were just mimics” (pp. 130-133). This defense, that the Jewish people and their philosophical heritage were more ancient than the Greeks, and that the pagan latter “had stolen philosophy from the Jews,” was also used by early Christians, who “were stigmatized as outsiders who had embraced an alien religious tradition of no account or achievement compared with Greco-Roman civilization” (p. 133-136).

In keeping with their focus on other concerns within the various debates over etiology, and in contrast to the Alexandrian Jews from the example above,  early Muslims did not need to search for a way to credit their forefathers with the initial gifts of the sciences either “to instill a sense of national pride in past accomplishments after being conquered by a foreign power [or] to remind the conquerors of their dependence on the conquered people” (p. 85).  Some, in fact – like the Muslim protographer Ibn Qutayba – actually “encouraged [their] coreligionists to create a parallel cultural system” for the invading Arabs to “supplant” the existing Iranian system [pp. 81-84]).  Instead, McCants writes, they were free to engage in a debate that was less about which culture was responsible for the origin of the sciences and more about whether the knowledge of philosophy, metallurgy, law, medicine, and the hard sciences had been developed by humans (be they Greek, Persian, Babylonian, Jewish, or others) or whether they had been divinely revealed – and in what measure each.

The input into this effort to define the new Islamic culture and connect it to different native intellectual and religious traditions was widespread.  As McCants notes, “at the same time that authors living in Baghdad, Basra, and Kufa were creating genealogies and first that connected the Islamic empire to the Bible and Arabia, Iranians in the same cities were translating histories that connected it to Iran” (p. 108).  The central role played by those whom the Arabs conquered in helping debate and define the culture and culture myths that would, in turn, define Islamic culture itself is unique, and it sets this fascinating period apart from the aftermaths of the major Near Eastern conquests that preceded it.

THOUGH DESCRIBED AS a work that “traces four thousand years of speculation on the origins of civilization,” the text itself is more focused and methodically presented than the jacket summary might lead one to believe.  Founding Gods, Inventing Nations is divided into five chapters, most of which begin with a relatively brief discussion of ancient etiologies and culture myths, with an emphasis on the use and revision of these myths for their own ends by those living under Greek and Roman domination. Following this, the remainder of each chapter is dedicated to presenting key figures and positions in the post-Arab-conquest discussion about what aspects of existing culture myths and etiologies should and should not be a part of the new high culture going forward.  Copious footnotes and a comprehensive bibliography are provided, as is a useful index.

At under 200 pages including bibliography and index, Founding Gods, Inventing Nations is a short but dense work, though it would be incorrect to assume that necessary detail and argumentation have been sacrificed for the sake of brevity. Rather, McCants limits his discussion to only that which is directly relevant to the topic at hand.  In doing so, he wisely avoids a pitfall many others encounter, particularly when it comes to transforming dissertations into initial book-length publications: needlessly filling additional pages with comprehensive (and repetitious) translations of ancient material, much of which is already available elsewhere, and much of which is often only tangentially related to the core subject of the work.  McCants does quote from some ancient cultural myths – as might be expected, given the centrality of that genre to his work – but each translation is relevant to the discussion surrounding it.

Founding Gods, Inventing Nations is a solidly-researched and well-presented book that holds value for students, scholars, and other individuals who are interested in cultural history, culture myths, and the role of the conquered elites in their development.  Additionally, its comparative format gives it particular value for individuals who are seeking a compact introduction to the development of culture myths in the Hellenistic, Roman, and Islamic periods in the Near East.

Founding Gods, Inventing Nations: Conquest and Culture Myths from Antiquity to Islam by William F. McCants (ISBN 9780691151489; $35) is published by Princeton University Press.

The U.S. State Department takes a lot of heat from us on the right, most of which is well-deserved. However, when someone within America’s diplomatic apparatus does something that’s simply awesome, it’s important that we give them credit. The awesomeness in this case is courtesy of the American Embassy in Beijing, which used twitter to strong-arm the Chinese government into releasing accurate data on Beijing smog.

Residents of the Chinese capital have been demanding more accurate air quality readings provided by the local government. The need for improvement was obvious to the naked eye, as “days where buildings a few blocks away can’t be seen have often been described by Beijing officials as ‘light’ pollution” (in fact, only in recent weeks has Beijing begun to acknowledge that the city’s “fog” may actually be, you know, smog).

So what did the U.S. Embassy do to help make this happen? It set up a twitter feed – http://twitter.com/beijingair – that sends out hourly air quality readings taken from atop the embassy compound. Armed with actual accurate information, residents cranked up the volume on their demands for accountability and accuracy in published air quality information, and the local government caved, agreeing to begin publishing environmental information now that was not scheduled to be made public until 2016.

Well done, embassy staff.

However, leaving aside the fact that his positions on most issues have a history of being “multiple choice,” as Ted Kennedy once said, Mitt Romney has two major vulnerabilities to attack – and it just so happens that they are the top two issues of this entire election.

It’s no secret that the key to this election is “the economy, stupid.”  This will be a jobs election, an economy election, and – given the Obama administration’s limited but well-worn playbook – a class warfare election. Business success demonstrates a much-needed understanding of what our economy needs to get moving again, but job creation and relatability are at a premium in such an environment, which is why Romney’s Bain experience is such a handicap.

Is the Republican party pro-market? It is and it should be, which is why serious Republican candidates should be careful just how they hit Romney on Bain, if they do it at all.  However, anybody who doesn’t think ads like this and videos like this will be running day and night throughout the general election (to great effect on the undecided portion of the blue-collar population) is simply deluding him- or herself.  Quite simply, whatever the context and whatever his actual business record, Romney will be hit left, right, and center over the jobs that were eliminated and the people who were put out of work by Bain Capital, and pictures like this will be shown over and over again, until people have had pounded into their heads that Mitt Romney is a wealthy 1%er who bathes in Benjamins and gets his jollies from playing Donald Trump and yelling “you’re fired!” at average Americans.

There’s no question the message war will be unfair and devoid of any context whatsoever that could demonstrate that the Republican nominee isn’t Dr. Evil incarnate. However, Romney’s Bain Capital record basically is sets the ad campaign up on the tee for the Obama campaign and dares them to swing for the fences again and again and again.

This would be bad enough in a “normal” election, when the Republican nominee would (as usual) be painted as a corporatist who cared less about the American economy as a whole than he did about lining the pockets of his corporate fat-cat friends. In an election in which an historically bad economy and historically high unemployment are front and center, choosing a nominee whose record of eliminating jobs can be encapsulated in TV and radio ads, and personified with the faces and voices of those whom Bain Capital put out of work, is simply nonsensical.

Similarly, in an election where a significant amount of passion on the right comes from the prospect of repealing Obamacare, with its bloated price tag, restrictions on patient and citizen choice, and – above all – its legal mandate that citizens purchase approved health insurance, in the state of their residence and at a jacked-up price that results from the community rating that the combination of such a mandate and the requirement that consumers with pre-existing conditions be thrown into the common risk pool makes necessary…and the “inevitable” nominee is a man who boasts a statewide version of virtually the exact same program as the signature legislative achievement of his term as a governor? Just amazing.

This is not to say that Mitt Romney would be the same as Barack Obama if elected (let alone worse), though I’m loath to assume any position or conviction on his part given his history of being so “multiple choice”).  In fact, this commentary has little or nothing to do with how Romney would govern if elected; rather, this has only to do with the campaign and what we can expect.

With that being said, let me sum up by making sure I’ve got this right: in an election in which jobs and Obamacare are the top two issues, the “inevitable” Republican nominee is a person whose business career consisted in no small part of eliminating jobs, and whose signature legislative achievement is the enactment of state-run health care. Is that about right?

If so, God help us all.

A key message that Panetta and Dempsey repeatedly hammered was that the overall force (particularly the Army and Marine Corps) would be undergoing a “resizing” that, while made necessary by budget imperatives, would ostensibly be prevented from leading to a reduction in overall capability by the accompanying defense strategy.  While the “unique global leadership role of the United States in today’s world” would continue to be recognized and acted on, Panetta said, a necessary part of this will be a stronger reliance on “alliances” and an effort to “find innovative ways to sustain US presence” abroad.  Given the resource problems that have been demonstrated by our effort to engage in combat and nation-building efforts in two countries at once over the last decade (not to mention the contingency operations being conducted in several other locations worldwide), it’s clear such deep cuts will have an effect on defense capability, even if America’s military is reorganized and its strategy rewritten with the new budgetary reality squarely in mind.

Given the cuts being made, the effectiveness, comprehensiveness, and workability of the new military strategy is of paramount importance.  President Obama seemed to acknowledge this with a statement that amounted basically to a perversion of an old Rumsfeldian maxim: We won’t go to war with the Army we have any longer, Obama seemed to say; instead, the Army we have will dictate the wars we choose to participate in.

Listeners to the press conference can be forgiven if they experienced a sense of deja vu upon hearing promises like, “The U.S. force will be smaller and leaner, but more agile, more flexible, ready to deploy more quickly, innovative, and technologically advanced.” As buzzwords like “smaller,” “leaner,” “agile,” “flexible,” and “creative” kept popping up, it was difficult to avoid recognizing the blueprint for this “new” force for what it clearly is: basically the same flexible, mobile, and quickly-reactive force that Donald Rumsfeld attempted to form early in the previous decade, when he was Secretary of Defense.
There’s no question that an agile, flexible, etc. military has its benefits, particularly in an age of widely-diffused, rapidly-emerging threats; however, just how that more agile military is designed and arrived at is an important issue, particularly in light of how stretched the total force has been over the last decade. Though long-term counterinsurgency operations will likely be avoided as much as possible in the near future (particularly by the current administration), and though unmanned ISR and offensive operations are being conducted with greater and greater frequency, there is clear danger in drawing down our nation’s force too far too fast, as well as in indiscriminately slashing defense funding.

One subject Panetta did clearly address was America’s ongoing shift in focus away from Europe and NATO, and toward the Persian Gulf and Asia-Pacific region. This suggests that the much-hyped AirSea Battle concept will continue to move forward, likely at the cost of funding, attention, and presence in western Europe and in NATO activities in the near- and long-term future.

Much has been made recently of the potential loss of America’s ability to fight a two-front war should these cuts and reorganizational measures come about. Panetta and Dempsey attempted to staunch that concern by declaring that “How we defeat the enemy may vary across conflicts, but we will have the ability to confront and defeat more than one adversary” at a time (though this claim was met with its share of derision, as may be expected). Though the vast majority of the presser was general in nature, Panetta touched on this topic with a specific example of a necessary capability for the U.S. military of the future: the ability to fight a land war on the Korean peninsula while forcibly keeping the Strait of Hormuz open and trafficable.

Panetta and Dempsey were offered the opportunity by a reporter to expand on the effect that the reorganization brought about by half a trillion dollars in cuts would have on America’s ability to project force internationally in general and in the Middle East in particular.  One reporter asked, point-blank, “Is fighting a land war in Iran off the table as the result of this strategy? Dempsey vehemently responded that “Nowhere in [the new military strategy] does it say we’re not going to fight land wars…it’s matter of scope, scale, time, risk, reversibility.”

The principle of “reversibility” was emphasized repeatedly throughout this vague discussion of cuts and reorganization. In layman’s terms, this basically means that any changes and cuts should be able to be reversed or undone should the need arise. According to Carter, reversibility will be a key consideration in each aspect of the new strategy, including technology and R&D.  However, all involved similarly emphasized the damage that sequestration could do to what is clearly a more fragile military transformation than today’s players sought to let on.  In the third paragraph from the end of his post on drawdowns and budget cuts, Max Boot suggests that “If even one year of sequestration were to occur, major weapons systems (which will be costly and difficult to restart) might be cancelled—and great numbers of veterans (whose experience would be lost forever) might be layed [sic] off.”  In this vein, Panetta saved his own strongest words for Congress, which he warned more than once to avoid the disastrous, across-the-board cuts that would result from the sequestration negotiated in last year’s budget battle, while emphasizing that the cuts alluded to today are entirely separate from (and additional to) those that would have to be made should sequestration occur.

There was never any question that the end of America’s part in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the redoubled efforts by civilian leaders and military brass to move the U.S. military beyond its cold war, conventional state/regional-conflict-based model, would necessitate a certain amount of drawdown and reorganization. Without the specifics that Panetta refused to provide in advance of Obama’s budget drop, it’s difficult to comment further on the coming changes, other than to note what may be an obvious fact: that $487,000,000,000.00 in cuts will invariably affect capability, manpower, readiness, and power projection.  These cuts can either be made intelligently or unintelligently. We’ll know more in the future, but in the meantime we can only hope that these changes were made in the former mode, and that Gen. Dempsey was correct when he declared that “this isn’t the strategy of a military in decline.” If the looming sequester takes place, on the other hand, we may be dealing with a whole different animal in terms of readiness and capability. It’d certainly be nice not to have to cross that bridge.

The particularly well-done infographic will convey more information than its surface-level appearance suggests. One particular example of such a graphic comes to us courtesy of the good folks at the University of California-Santa Cruz. Displayed below, this graphic purports to break down the membership of the U.S. Congress according to population-wide income brackets. On the surface, it’s pretty straightforward, and accurately conveys the very high percentage of sitting Senators and Representatives who fall into the top 10% of the American population in terms of wealth. Now, it’s no secret that there are some pretty wealthy people in Congress, and this graphic clearly demonstrates that. However, it also suggests something else, which astute political observers can probably quickly figure out:


The subtext is twofold, with both parts stemming from the authors’ color choices. First, that Republicans – represented in red on electoral maps with particular commonality since 2000 – are the wealthy, corporatist, out-of-touch representatives of “the 1%,” while Democrats – represented, of course, by the color blue – are the middle-class representatives of average Americans everywhere. Second, and in keeping with the narrative that both Congressional Democrats and President Barack Obama have been pushing at every recent opportunity (link | link | link, just for a few examples), the graphic suggests that Democrats represent a tiny minority in both House and Senate. Neither is true, of course; 29 of the 50 richest members of Congress are Democrats (as are 7 of the top 10), while the Senate is controlled by a Democrat majority. However, though the graphic itself does not purport to address party affiliation in any way, the dual subtexts are clear – and they serve to reinforce the dual narratives pushed from the Oval Office to the media, that Republicans both represent (and are members of) the evil 1%, and control both houses of our bicameral legislature. I personally assume that this is entirely intentional, though it is admittedly an assumption.

Here’s is a database of Congressional wealth. Feel free to search through it on your own, with the caveat that every listing of such wealth is an estimate based on publicly available information.

Based on 2009 data, the Fraser Institute found that the top ten states by percentage of aggregate income donated to charity are: (1) Utah, (2) Georgia, (3) Alabama, (4) Maryland, (5) South Carolina, (6) Idaho, (7) North Carolina, (8) Oklahoma, (9) Mississippi and New York.  The rest of the top half are below the fold:

11. Tennessee

12. Kansas

13. Washington, DC

14. Virginia

15. South Dakota

16. Montana

17. Arkansas

18. Connecticut

19. Colorado

19. Wyoming

21. Minnesota

22. Michigan

22. Oregon

24. Delaware

25. Texas

Those coming in at the bottom of the pack had some New England flavor to them: (45) Hawaii, (46) Rhode Island, (47) West Virginia, (48) New Hampshire, (49) Vermont, (50) North Dakota.

Speaking of what the participants in Liz Warren’s brainchild are doing, let’s take a quick look at Occupy Wall Streeters around the country:

Rape Alleged At Occupy Cleveland (Mediaite)

Elizabeth Warren: “I support what they do.”

Police Investigating Possible Sexual Assault Of Teen At Occupy Dallas (CBS Dallas-Fort Worth)

Elizabeth Warren: “I support what they do.”

Sex, drugs and hiding from the law at Wall Street protests (NY Post)

Elizabeth Warren: “I support what they do.”

Occupy Wall Street Knows Not What It Does Hurting Local Jobs (Bloomberg)

Elizabeth Warren: “I support what they do.”

Is Occupy Wall Street Contributing To Increase In Violent Crime? (Politicology)

Elizabeth Warren: “I support what they do.”

The battle of Wall Street: Violence erupts as police clash with protesters after they force Bloomberg to back down over ‘eviction’ (Daily Mail)

Elizabeth Warren: “I support what they do.”

Occupy Boston Protesters Arrested For Selling Heroin (CBS Boston)

Elizabeth Warren: “I support what they do.”

Protesters accused of living in filth as shocking pictures show one demonstrator defecating on a Police Car (Daily Mail; h/t wennejunk)

Elizabeth Warren: “I support what they do.”

“Zionist Jews…need to be run out of this country!” (NY Post)

Elizabeth Warren: “I support what they do.”

Organizer Behind “Occupy Wall Street” Has History of Anti-Jewish Writing (Commentary)

Elizabeth Warren: “I support what they do.”

‘Time to kill the wealthy’ (Politico)

Elizabeth Warren: “I support what they do.”

Leading Occupy Activist: #OccupyWallStreet Wants Violent Revolution (BigGovernment.com)

Elizabeth Warren: “I support what they do.”

ADL: Stop anti-Semitic calls during Occupy Wall Street rallies (YNet News)

Elizabeth Warren: “I support what they do.”

Shootings way up in two weeks (New York Post)

Elizabeth Warren: “I support what they do.”

Occupy Wall Street gets ‘Getting Arrested’ app (USA Today)

Elizabeth Warren: “I support what they do.”

Occupy Wall Street protesters eat like kings… while rats and drugs threaten Occupy Oakland (Daily Mail)

Elizabeth Warren: “I created much of the intellectual foundation for what they do. I support what they do.”

Two Occupy Portland supporters arrested for tagging (Oregon Live)

Elizabeth Warren: “I support what they do.”

‘Occupy Norfolk’ is struggling to find an identity as some protesters laugh about what the goal of the movement is(CBS Washington)

Elizabeth Warren: “I created much of the intellectual foundation.”

For Locals, Protest Brings Barricades and Sidewalk Bathrooms (Wall Street Journal)

Elizabeth Warren: “I support what they do.”

OWS Supporter Rants Against Israel, Jews (MRC)

Elizabeth Warren: “I created much of the intellectual foundation for what they do. I support what they do.”

Coast Guard member spit on near Occupy Boston tents (Fox Boston; h/t bk)

Elizabeth Warren: “I support what they do.”

‘Police were today probing reports that a woman taking part in an ‘Occupy’ anti-capitalist protest was gang raped in her camp’ (The Sun; h/t VerumSerum)

Elizabeth Warren: “I support what they do.”

Protesters Thrown Rocks, Fireworks at Police (AP)

Elizabeth Warren: “I support what they do.”

‘A Boston Police Department website was hacked. At least 2,000 names and passwords have been posted online. The group claiming responsibility said they support the Occupy Boston movement.’

Elizabeth Warren: “I support what they do.”