It's All About Iran

I’ve said again and again that if you want to understand what the United States is doing fumbling around in Iraq, the answer is “Iran.”

As a world power the United States does not intend to allow another power to dominate the Middle East and its oil.

There will come a time when the Middle East and its oil will not be worth a pitcher of warm spit, but that time is not yet.

And so the United States has deployed its armed forces to prevent Iran from achieving its strategic aim: to destroy Israel and dominate the Middle East. Here is what Amir Taheri has to say, reviewing a book by former Iranian President Rafsanjani.

Rafsanjani seems to be planning to get control of the Iranian Assembly of Experts.

[H]e hopes to lead an anti-Ahmadinejad coalition in next December's elections for the Assembly of Experts - the body that can choose or dismiss the "Supreme Guide," the Islamic Republic's true leader.

Nobody would care about elections in a fairly poor nation of 60 million in the Middle East except for two things.

The first is that the Islamic Republic has had a secret nuclear program for almost two decades while taking the International Atomic Energy Agency for a ride. The second is that the leaders of the Islamic Republic - who felt no discomfort in discussing the use of nuclear warheads and other weapons of mass destruction two decades ago - don't seem to have abandoned their strategy for reshaping the Middle East.

And that is why the United States will be in a convenient strategic position if its troops are in Iraq when Iran goes nuclear. It makes it rather difficult for Iran to rumble across Mesopotamia and the Arabian desert and take control.

How About the 2008 Election?

Enough of the Foley kerfuffle. Let’s talk presidential politics for 2008 and the book The Way to Win by Mark Halperin and John F. Harris.

The Wall Street Journal’s John H. Fund takes a look at their book, and finds there is a lot to think about. Helperin and Harris, as Old Media mastodons, reconize that the

Old Media of TV networks and prestige publications now suffer from "fading power and diminishing options." The New Media
of cable news and the Internet are creating a
"Freak Show," they say, stripping away the
restraints and minor courtesies that used to govern campaigns and public debate.

And at the center of the freak show is good old Matt Drudge ("salacious, reckless, superficial and unfair") whose site possesses “singular power” that any candidate ignores at his peril.

One of the powers of Matt Drudge is that all the Old Media read him.

Of course, there are some of us that believe that if the New Media is a “freak show” then the Old Media is a drugged-out wreck, fueled by privilege and access and outraged at the energy and the talent of the young-uns who seem to operate on a wing and a prayer instead of the proper institutional structure of multi-level editing and fact-checking.

But the 2008 election will be quite a spectacle.

Do The Right Thing

I agree with Tony Blankley. Speaker Hastert should resign over the Foley matter. Because it’s the right thing to do.

Yes, it’s true that the real person to blame is resigned Rep. Foley. And it is true that Speaker Hastert is not Foley’s keeper. And it is true that the congressional pages are not exactly children. But then they are not exactly adults.

And I frankly dislike the bureaucratic gamesmanship we have been hearing for the last few days, with people proposing the exact bureaucratic procedure that House Republicans should have followed in protecting the congressional pages.

It is never going to be possible to devise the perfect bureaucratic procedure to “keep our pages safe.”

On the other hand, as some of the French soixante-huitards, the radicals of 1968, discovered in the end: what matters is process, the dull, boring middle class due process of democratic politics. And the crowning glory of the west is its democratic process, people acting in good faith and insisting that their side of the political divide strives to act in good faith no matter the provocation.

The important thing is to do the right thing. Denny Hastert should resign.

Rumsfeld vs. Rice on Iraq

We’re going to win in Iraq, says President Bush. But what does that mean?

Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Rice have been contesting just that question, writes Rich Lowry.

[There] was a constant tension between Rice and Rumsfeld. She wanted to do more; he wanted to do less.

That is what comes out in Bob Woodward’s new book State of Denial.

According to Woodward, "Rumsfeld said strongly and repeatedly, the Iraqis need to be given the chance to fail and fall on their faces, and only then would they pick themselves up, dust themselves off and come up with solutions."

But Rice wanted to build “a classic counterinsurgency operation,” clearing out the insurgents and presenting Iraq on a platter to the new government.

For my part, I go with Rumsfeld. Every government must earn the right to hold a monopoly of force within its borders. Usually that means it must fight and win a civil war, or at least fight some sort of war.

The United States government earned the right to govern its territory by force of arms against the British and then against the South. The British government is the direct descendant of the power plays after its civil war in the seventeenth century.

And then there were the wars of German unification. Prussia earned the right to head a unified Germany by beating in war first the Austrians and then the French.

Right now, the Iraqi government is clearly a puppet of the United States. It must earn the right, by force of arms, to rule the territory of Iraq.

If “We” win in Iraq, it means nothing. The government of Iraq must win. Until then, nothing has been won.

Page Storm Reaches Hurricane Force

Could Republicans lose control of Congress over an instant message? If they do, it would certainly be the moment at which the internet went prime time.

And according to Carl Hulse and Jeff Zeleny in The New York Times, the issue is resonating with voters. Said Rep Ray LaHood (R-IL):

“The first three questions I was asked when I arrived in Peoria,” he said, “were not about immigration, the war or taxes. It was, ‘What are you going to do about the page program?’”

It’s a beautiful scandal for Democrats, because when gays are concerned its heads we win and tails you lose. If Republicans had publicized and reprimanded Rep. Foley for inappropriate contact with congressional pages before last Friday when ABC News publicized the inappropriate IM conversations that Foley had with a congressional page, then they would have been roundly criticized as the homophobe party.

Now they are being criticized for being soft on child molesters.

Well, right or wrong, there is a higher standard of behavior for Republicans in public life. To adapt the words of British Prime Minister Tony Blair: they have to be whiter than white.

And that’s how it ought to be. If House Republican leaders knew about inappropriate behavior and did nothing about it then they should resign.

Never mind the if, ands, and buts.

Speaker Denny Hastert said: “Would have, could have, should have.”

But that’s not good enough. Not good enough for Republicans.

Why Democrats Prefer Scandal to SoSec Reform

You gotta admit it. The Democrats know how to expose and coordinate embarrassing revelations about Republicans. Right now we have the Foley page e-mail scandal, the new Woodward book scandal, and the NIE leak on Iraq all going full bore and it is still four weeks till the election.

But even a good liberal wonders what it is all for.

In the Washington Post Sebastian Molloy wonders what happened to the Democrats’ principles.

Most Democrats in Congress seem bereft of ideas or the courage to stand up for them. They clearly want power, but they have no principles to guide their use of it.

They are opposed to the Bush Administration’s policies on terror but frightened to vote against them. And then there is Social Security.

A conservative group circulated a petition calling for bipartisan talks on Social Security, with all potential solutions to be part of the discussion. Rather than embracing this eminently sane idea, top Democrats in Congress loudly slammed the door on it.

I have a theory about this. Democrats really don’t want a solution on Social Security. If you privatize Social Security then Democratic voters don’t have to look to the political system for financial support. They will be able to support themselves.

For a cruder look at how this works, read Dick Morris and Eileen McGann on President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

Chavez understands that his power depends on keeping the poor grateful for his handouts.

He buys popularity in Venezuela by distributing massive amounts of oil revenues to the poor. While careful to keep them in poverty by repelling business and deterring foreign investment, he uses his petrol wealth to distribute free food and to pay for imported Cuban doctors in the barrios.

What would be the point of helping the poor become proud and self-sufficient? Much better keep them grateful and dependent.

Fox News: Libs Still Don't Get It

Fox News is ten years old this week, and the liberals still don’t get it. Don’t agree? Then read this quote by Fox News chief Roger Ailes in USA Today, reported by Peter Johnson.

[Ailes] was at a dinner party recently when one of the guests asked him, "Isn't Fox News too conservative?"



"I said, 'Are you comfortable with CNN?' He said, 'Yes.' How about CBS, ABC, NBC? 'Absolutely.' What about The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times? 'Fine.' National Public Radio and PBS? 'Very good.' So I said, 'But this little cable channel is making you crazy?'"

The truth is that liberals don’t want any conservative voice out there. Each of the three network news shows has higher ratings than Fox News, but Fox News is a problem.

But the liberal propaganda works.

Jane Skinner, a daytime [Fox News] anchor, says friends who work at local TV stations around the country are constantly asking her what it's "really like" to work at Fox News.

Get it? What is it really like to have the conservative line rammed down your throat every day by the eevil conservative suits at Fox News?

All this is frustrating, if you are a conservative. But we should be glad. So long as your opponent is grasping the wrong end of the stick you are going to move ahead. Can’t help it.

You start to worry when your opponent starts to get it.

Bill O’Reilly? He’s a ranter. The key is to realize that he is a non-liberal ranter, not a conservative ranter. Hannity and Colmes? One conservative and one liberal. What could be more fair-and-balanced? Greta van Susteren? This is a conservative?

Yep. Fox News is ten years old, and liberals still don’t get it.
It doesn’t get any better than that.