Here's a good round-up of reactions on today's speech. I haven't had time to hear or read it in detail, but my sense is that Bush has hit the right notes: no cut and run.

No sooner had I posted my call to support Spirit of America’s efforts in Iraq rather than green causes, or I got a call from one of Greenpeace’s tele-marketers. No, they’re not reading my blog, but my name is on their list as an erstwhile contributor as seven years in Hong Kong can turn you into a staunch environmentalist. Anyway, I explained the caller politely that our charitable donations are now going to hospitals and schools in Afghanistan and Iraq. Without missing a beat the Greenpeace caller jumped on the importance of saving the Iraqi marshlands, which according to him was an ecological disaster waiting to happen. With that he unintentionally confirmed why I had cooled on the green cause and its highly dogmatic approach: environmental issues takes precedence over immediate human suffering or any other need. It is fine for Greenpeace to stay close to its mission, but to identify the marshlands as the key problem for Iraq, well, that’s a little bit too rich for me.

NOTE: Greenpeace's involvement with Iraq is a little less innocent than I initially thought: Greenpeace Activists Block Military Port in Iraq Protest. Sure that wasn't about the marshlands.

UPDATE: Well, Greenpeace has known about the marshlands all along, but during the Saddam years it stayed suspiciously quiet about it:

Again, the environmental movement knows about this — and used to complain. More recently, however, they have been oddly silent. When President Bush marshaled his list of Saddam's crimes — as part of the public-relations war to rally the world against the Iraqi regime — he didn't get any help from the environmental movement. To the best of our knowledge, no statements of support were offered by the likes of Greenpeace or other such groups, urging the president to rescue the Iraqi marshlands.

To the contrary, many members of these organizations joined the peace movement, where they marched in antiwar rallies organized by far-left groups like International A.N.S.W.E.R. and Not in Our Name.

The season of giving is upon us and the Dorsman family usually makes a few charitable donations to support some good causes. Over the past two years that has meant turning away some disappointed environmentalists in order to help build schools and hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan. Your first port of call for such contributions should be the Spirit of America whose mission it is to extend the goodwill of those advancing freedom, democracy and peace abroad. But above all I think their efforts create hope for a better tomorrow. On that note, take a look at the latest photo dispatch from Michael Yon in Iraq. Give a little bit to the Spirit of America’s efforts so that a new generation can have a little more hope that things will be better tomorrow.

Michael Yon will be on Pundit Review Radio this coming Sunday at 9:00 PM EST to talk about Iraq. Details here.

Oradour-sur-Glane, Lidice, Putten. Rural villages, all caught in an unfortunate confluence of events which ended in horror. Read and watch this gruesome account of what happened in the village of Dujail in 1982.

UPDATE: Day one of the trial.

What the mainstream media didn't bother to explain to you, succinctly addressed by Christopher Hitchens.

According to Condi Rice, it looks like the draft Iraqi constitution has probably passed. Regardless of the outcome, this is the most salient part of the exercise yesterday:

At least 63 percent of Iraqis voted Saturday, she said, an increase of about 1 million voters over the first democratic election in January for a transitional government. Much of that increase, she said, comes from the higher participation of Iraq's minority Sunni Muslims.

If the statement about Sunni participation bears out than democracy and voter participation - rather than bombs and fear - are being viewed by Iraqis as the way forward to determine the future of their nation. The question remains how the total Sunni contingent cast their ballot, and if a solid majority among Sunnis has voted "no" than there are still a number of serious roadblocks ahead. For now the lack of violence and the solid turnout are a confirmation that democracy can be made to work.

Michael Yon is back in Iraq, just in time to cover the constitutional referendum. His latest report is up: The Embed.

The latest dispatch from Michael Yon, here.

... for the good news from Iraq and Afghanistant now that the Chrenk has formally said his farewell. Not only was he a great blogger able to come up with some pretty unique content and ideas, he actively promoted other blogs by regularly linking to them. There are quite a few regulars of Peaktalk who came here by way of that Polish guy in Australia who also proved that blog-design doesn't really matter all that much if you produce great stuff. Best of luck Arthur, and stay in touch.

And yes, the good news series will continue at their new home, Good News Central.

While everyone is linking to Christopher Hitchens’ well-argued defense of the war effort in Iraq, my interest was really piqued by an interview with Victor Davis Hanson who uses a telling historic parallel to defend today’s approach to terror and dictatorships. Here’s an excerpt:

People wonder how Rome could conquer all of northwest Europe with nothing more than four or five legions. The answer is the Romans had a very similar policy to our own: They looked at the most retrograde, bloodthirsty, nationalist leaders—the bin Ladens of the ancient world — and took them out, but with precision and with a lesson. They then offered Roman citizenship and technology to those who sided with them —everything from the benefits of habeas corpus to aqueducts.

The idea of Roman citizenship was not predicated on race or national origin, but inclusive, in the same manner the U.S. military does not represent a particular race or religion, but an idea, a notion of Western inclusiveness and egalitarianism, that can encompass everything from free markets and voting to equality under the law and free speech.

What America has done, then, is take out and discredit these bad guys and then offer Western opportunity and inspiration that can foster popular culture — an internship at Harvard, a web-log in Iraq, a call-in radio show. In other words, people can become “Westerners in spirit” without losing their own pride of religion and nationality.

It's been a while since I questioned the flypaper theory, today Greg Djerejian comes up with no less than ten reasons that explain what's wrong with it. A must read.

It may have gone unnoticed, but there is one blogger who is actually preparing for a combat mission in Iraq. Phil Carter updates you on his preparation.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali points to the limitations of Iraq’s new constitution in a column for WSJ’s OpinionJournal:

Hamam Hamoudi, the head of Iraq's constitution committee, refuses to discuss the article that worries the Muslim women. He also refused to put in the draft constitution that men and women have equal rights, creating a bizarre situation whereby the women had more rights under Saddam Hussein's regime than in post-Saddam Iraq. Mr. Hamoudi insists that women will have full economic and political rights, but the overwhelming evidence shows that when Shariah--which gives a husband complete control over his wife--is in place, women have little chance to exercise any political rights. Does Mr. Hamoudi realize that it took the removal of Saddam and the establishment of a multiparty democracy for men to vote, while if his draft constitution is ratified, women will need the permission of their husbands to step out of the house in order to mark their ballot?

Too much has already been written about this affair, which to me is nothing but a fairly distasteful sideshow that no one should be asked to sit through. There is one, and only one, piece of comment that you need to read and that comes from Christopher Hitchens. Read it, forget Cindy Sheehan and move on to other stuff. Please.

Writer and journalist Steven Vincent was murdered in Basra yesterday. While it's not entirely clear who is behind this heinous execution, it is clear that Vincent's investigative journalism came a little to close to certain elements (Iraqi police, shi'ite hardliners) in a city that has so far been characterized as relatively quiet. When foreign journalists start turning up dead we should realize that the superficial layer of "quiet" may soon give way to some disquieting instability.

If there's one thing I can recommend reading today in addition to the various round-ups (check out Arthur Chrenkoff and Michelle Malkin) it would be Jeff Harrell's lengthy December 2004 interview with Steven. (via Dean).

Whenever there's an update from Spirit of America I try to link to it for I think they're doing a great job. Not just by delivering goods to the Iraqi people but by fostering a bond between them and those who liberated their country:

Organizers said they will be shipping 7,200 individual kits - filled with pencils, pens, markers, paper, sharpeners and glue - and 1,000 hygiene kits filled with toothpaste and toothbrushes, floss, shampoo and soap. The kits will go to two units, the 5th Civil Affairs Group in Al Anbar province and Regimental Combat Team 8, which is renovating three schools near war-torn Fallujah.

These friendships bags may be a small token but they go a long way to develop the spirit that's rebuilding Iraq. If the left had its way, none of this would be taking place.

More good news.

One of the basic flaws of going to war in Iraq was not the decision itself, but the way in which it was sold to the public, something I argued a lifetime ago in Iraq: A Venture Pitch. The reason I bring this up again is that the entire left to right commentariat is weighing in on the Downing Street Memos and the opinions range from the poor and predictable 'impeach Bush' to the informed and sober 'what's new here?'. The latter position seems to be the most compelling one and Jeff Jarvis sums it up nicely:

Of course Bush had decided to invade Iraq long before he said so. No one is surprised by that. The scandal here is not that he invaded Iraq -- a policy decision about which reasonable and unreasonable people can disagree -- or that he was determined to do so as soon as he took office -- what politician doesn't have hidden agendas? -- but that he did such a bad job selling it before and after the fact.

In fact there's a vast array of books and articles widely available which document the decision path leading up to the war as well as a description of the planning that was involved in it (Tommy Franks' American Soldier comes to mind). Again, you can fault Bush for delivering the wrong speech, you can fault Rumsfeld for allocating insufficient troop numbers, but neither the US leaders nor their British counterparts ever acted in bad faith in ousting Saddam.

More here.

Another, real, gulag. This one operated by the Iraqi insurgency:

Marines on an operation to eliminate insurgents that began Friday broke through the outside wall of a building in this small rural village to find a torture center equipped with electric wires, a noose, handcuffs, a 574-page jihad manual - and four beaten and shackled Iraqis.

The American military has found torture houses after invading towns heavily populated by insurgents - like Falluja, where the anti-insurgent assault last fall uncovered almost 20 such sites. But rarely have they come across victims who have lived to tell the tale.

Saddam's weapons, jihad manuals, torture handbooks, what else are those freedom fighters hiding?

The disconcerting saga where a Dutch marine was dragged in front of a court for manslaughter after shooting an Iraqi rioter has today finally come to an end:

The appeals court in Arnhem has acquitted marine Erik O. on charges relating to the death of an Iraqi looter at the end of 2003. The court confirmed the verdict handed down by the trial court by ruling O. did not breach military rules of engagement in the December 2003 incident.

Loud applause broke out in the courtroom on Wednesday morning when the verdict was read out. O. was also seen to hug his lawyer.

As discussed before this always appeared to be a politically motivated case and the over-zealous prosecution efforts that focused on the rules of engagement in a war zone evidenced the inexperience and reluctance on the part of the Dutch government to engage in war rather than 'peace-keeping'. It remains perplexing however that this discussion was carried out by criminalizing a highly decorated marine who had put his life on the line in a war zone. To add insult to injury, the marine was acquitted last October, but the prosecutor's office was so desperate to see the man convicted that it appealed the acquittal. That effort, thankfully, failed today.

Related Posts
And the Dutch in Iraq
No Policing Effort
Rush to Judgment

If you haven't already, do check out Zacht Ei's translation of a Dutch article which contains some very revealing information about Giuliana Sgrena's background. It seems all of this is catching up with the former hostage who is now issuing confusing statements in a futile attempt to salvage whatever is left of her reputation. It's all very reminiscent of those peace activists from all over the world who volunteered to become human shields in the run-up to Iraqi Freedom, but didn't know how fast they should get out of the country when Saddam assigned them to shield military installations.

In the meantime the Italians have resorted to the only option they have left to deflect the blame that's directed at them: create confusion.

UPDATE: There are a lot of theories making the rounds but Chicagoboyz raises an interesting one: what if Sgrena was in on the whole thing right from the beginning in an effort to raise funds for the insurgency? Given her antics this may not be as far-fetched as you would think.

Jim Hake of Spirit of America has posted an update of the various projects in Iraq that they're involved in, and to some of which you have contributed when we raised funds last year. It seems things are moving in the right direction and lots of goods are finding their way to children in Iraq.

Regular readers will know that my dad often sends me packages with clippings from European newspapers or magazines, stuff not readily available online. In all of these there were columns of the noted Dutch commentators Heldring and Hofland, both of whom have blasted the American efforts in Iraq from the moment they were initiated. What a relief it was to read the concluding remarks from their post-election writings which I hereby translate. Here’s Heldring:

The American neo-conservatives believed that Iraq, once liberated from Saddam Hussein, could be turned into a thriving democracy, a shining beacon for the entire Middle East. I have always though this to be a ridiculous idea, but truth be told following the elections where despite the terror more Iraqis participated than expected (more than in Holland during European elections), I have to reconsider this idea.

And here’s H.J.A. Hofland on the American efforts to bring democracy to the Middle East:

For a long time it looked like nothing good was going to be achieved. The elections maybe have told us something different. We can’t disappoint the hopeful Iraqis by getting stuck in our own internal struggles in the West.

Especially the last piece, a clear call for unity in helping in Iraq struck me as a remarkably pointed assessment by someone who represents an elite and a newspaper that was always extremely skeptical of teaming up with partner Bush. It doesn’t mean a change of heart and neither does it imply a beefed up Euro-support for the coalition in Iraq, but we can add these voices to the long list of skeptics who are prepared to put pen to paper and honestly say: “maybe we were wrong”. That unfortunately doesn’t apply to my dad who remains a proud Bush-skeptic but he may be doing that just to wind me up.

Iraq’s election results are in and with the Shi’ite Alliance just shy of a majority it is now imperative that the parties start to work together and build a national coalition. An invite to the Sunnis would be a crucial ingredient for success. Matt Yglesias has some good comments but thinks that a government of national unity would pretty much stifle debate and result in backroom decsionmaking. That, given the current state of affairs, wouldn't be such a bad thing at all. The elections have legitimized the new power arrangements and once all the key decisions have been made (constitution, what to do with Saddam etc.) the voters can be asked to render their verdict. After that Iraq can slowly migrate to a more diversified western-style democracy but as long as ethnicity determines party-affiliation the country's democracy will be fragile at best.

V-Day is upon us and as Kathryn Lopez notes it’s not Valentine’s Day that we’re talking about, it is the event that the creator of the well-known play The Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler, has initiated as a rallying day for violence against women by syndicating the rights to her play around the world for local performances and combine it with a fundraiser which over the past seven years has generated some $25 million.

Irene and I attended one last Saturday and are now part of the army of contributors to this good and worthy cause as we picked up a nice painting at the concurrent silent auction. It was a nice evening and good performance, but we raised our eyebrows a little bit when the program noted that part of the proceeds of the evening would be dedicated to women in Iraq who were suffering since the start of the “US occupation”, but we didn’t worry about it too much although it was indeed a warning sign of things to come. The performance of the evening – by a group of actresses who held individual monologues - reached that point when three women on stage related their harrowing experiences, one in Islamabad, one in Baghdad and one in Kabul. Since the overriding theme was violence against women I could see why disfigurement by acid in Pakistan was part of it as did the violent abuse of women in Taliban Afghanistan, but a woman disfigured by American bombs seemed an odd appearance in this grouping of abuse stories. Indeed, Ensler started to play politics in a disingenuous way which was confirmed at the conclusion of the scene when the narrator pointed out that no one had been brought to trial for violating the women in the scene: no one for throwing acid, no one for the random abuse and one country in particular had managed to evade a court appearance to account for its actions.

The logical step is of course to ask Ensler if she would consider adjusting the next version of the Vagina Monologues to reflect the phenomenal contributions that invading Iraq and Afghanistan have made to the position of women in these countries. But that of course would be politicizing the message…

NOTE: Female suicide bombers would also be an interesting topic for inclusion in the next release, I am sure that it would fall within the parameters of abused women but we would have to check this with Eve first of course.

And talking about drinking, if you haven't already, do read the account of Michael Totten's dinner with Christopher Hitchens.

My SOTU coverage last week concluded with the observation that the behavior of congressmen dipping their fingers in ink to celebrate the success of the Iraqi elections was “borderline” and I wondered whether others would have a similar problem with it. It turns out that Hardblogger David Schuster commented along the same lines:

It was even more surreal to see that some lawmakers, in this incredibly secure and safe coccoon, had stained their own index fingers.

The courage of ordinary Iraqis last Sunday was unmistakable. They were literally risking their lives by standing in line to vote and by getting their fingers stamped with ink. The members of Congress who stained their own fingers and wagged them proudly for the cameras were an affront to that courage.

UPDATE: Marc Cooper didn't like it either:

" ... let me say I was nauseated and appalled by the cheap trick of Republican congress members flashing their purple-ink stained fingers to the camera. I’m someone who praised the Iraqi elections but this was really crave, stomach-turning exploitation"

A reader asks if orange scarfs, to show unity with Ukrainians, is similar and if that's the case there should be grounds to justify it. It's exactly the same thing but I would still argue that it is up to Ukrainians to wear them, not us.

Driving into to town this morning there was an interview with left-leaning Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown on the radio and apparently his inbox was swamped with derogatory notes after he had dared to pose the question in his latest column: What if Bush has been right about Iraq all along? The election had prompted some soul searching:

But after watching Sunday's election in Iraq and seeing the first clear sign that freedom really may mean something to the Iraqi people, you have to be asking yourself: What if it turns out Bush was right, and we were wrong? It's hard to swallow, isn't it?

The anti-war left has, with some qualifications of course, turned the corner. Here’s Richard Gwyn in the Toronto Star today:

President George W. Bush wasn't right to invade Iraq. His justifications for doing so were (almost all of them) either frivolous, in comparison to the scale of the venture, or were outright fraudulent. Having conquered Iraq and deposed Saddam Hussein, Bush and his officials and generals then made every blunder that could be imagined by an occupying power, adding several original ones of their own. But on the defining, fundamental question, Bush was right. He understood that to defeat an idea, no matter how perverse and brutal it might be, it was necessary to have an opposite and superior idea.

He understood, in other words — instinctively rather than intellectually — that the only way to win a war against terrorism was to turn it into a war for democracy.

As I said, it’s too early to expect an unqualified buy-in, but the various reactions from the "other side" since last Sunday are beginning to look encouraging. And with some of the irrationality evaporating from the anti-war and Bush-bashing crowd we may see more support and thus a far more unified approach on national and international levels to wage the War on Terror and spread freedom, in the Middle East and beyond. Those that remain in opposition are now taking a firm stand against democracy, and that can only be territory for the seriously unhinged fringe. Remember the Trotskyites demonstrating against Bush?

Not only has the Bush strategy been validated by Iraq’s general election, it has now been condensed in a workable mantra that should bring many skeptics on board to provide help and support where it is really needed.

UPDATE: Good commentary on the potential for change in and beyond Iraq from the guestblogging team and Michael Totten's site, here and here.

One of Holland’s leading newspapers, NRC Handelsblad, not exactly one to have supported Bush weighs in on the Iraqi elections and looks ahead:

The turnout and relative peace and quiet were an encouragement for President Bush. He was right by arguing to proceed with the elections. But this first, important step needs to be followed up, especially from the American side. The presence of American forces remains a necessity, but an internationalization of the complicated reconstruction of Iraq is urgently needed. We have argued this before, the United Nations, as no other qualified to give legitimacy to such fragile processes needs to get more influence in Iraq’s stabilization and reconstruction. NATO too needs to be deployed militarily on a far bigger scale, for starters by training and building a new Iraqi army.

It’s interesting that the paper notes the need for internationalization - I did the same yesterday - but wastes no time to point out that it is America’s (note that they’re avoiding the term “coalition”) primary responsibility to take charge and that help can only be effected through the UN and NATO. Well there are some NATO countries present but the paper suggests they some are right to pack up and go:

The relative peace in the Dutch sector (in Iraq) on this monumental election day underscores the correctness of the cabinet’s decision to let our troops return home. But our responsibility doesn’t end there. Holland has to evaluate what contribution is does want to give to Iraq. Even after a successful election, it won’t be very quiet and peaceful going forward. And thus contribution form the international community remains mandatory.

While this editorial is able to give credit to Bush it somehow twists and turns the facts into an argument where international help is only delivered after consultation with the UN and NATO and long after America has done all the heavy lifting. It is symptomatic for the general European approach to international crises, we have seen it in Bosnia, and it is precisely why Europe may be an economic powerhouse but lacks the political will and institutions to transform that into political power. Let’s see what happens but the intention to pull out Dutch troops now and await further instructions from the UN or NATO is not encouraging.

The media and the bloggers have been all over the Iraqi elections and I don’t really want to recycle the various reactions around the world or the implications of the impressive turn-out and the solid defeat that was dealt to the insurgents, or terrorists. Last night I watched CNN for a while and it was pretty clear that yesterday’s celebrations will not continue for much longer, in Washington partisan rhetoric resumed almost immediately and the terrorists will likely resume their operations soon.

Still, the election was an important milestone because of the sheer determination of Iraqis to brave the danger and vote. And, it was a booster for the Bush Doctrine to have a nearly flawless election carried out by people starved of democracy for fifty years not long after a US-led invasion. It will not silence all the critics but their arguments have lost quite a bit of strength and three things should now be feasible in a way they weren’t before:

(1) Iraqis’ performance yesterday is the strongest indication yet that the coalition should indeed be able to rapidly build up an Iraqi army or security force that can play an important part alongside coalition forces, eventually replacing them. It was not only Bush, Iraq's national pride got a boost as well, now let's use it.

(2) After the American heavy lifting Bush will be fully justified when he goes to Europe next month to once more ask for on the ground European assistance. His request and supporting arguments have now gained both in strength and momentum. If we can step up in East-Timor, if we can contribute in Bosnia and Kosovo and if we were able to make elections work in Cambodia then surely the world - with or without the UN flag - should now commit itself to help further stabilize Iraq.

(3) Convincing Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Syria and Iran that little is to be gained from an Iraqi civil war should top Condi Rice’s to-do list. This is as true as before the election but the nascent democracy should now more than ever be protected from the regional spoilers and with the massive Iraqi turn-out a few of them may be well advised to start looking inward rather than outward: a domino-effect is in the making.

There are now two more important milestones ahead, the referendum on a new constitution in October and a subsequent general election in December. The preparations for these activities should run parallel to the points outlined above and they will together contribute to a steady draw down of American troops, an imperative that will give another boost to both Bush and the Iraqi people.

A reader writes:

The best indication of success in the Iraq elections (in the coming months) would be if a one party does get the upper hand but still respects the rights of other Iraqis.

Yep. Let's see how the millions of Iraqis have cast their ballot and how quickly the newly elected representatives can get to work.

Not only is the impressive turnout good news, the spirit in which the elections have been conducted is extremely encouraging as well, here' s a snippet from Iraq the Model:

The first thing we saw this morning on our way to the voting center was a convoy of the Iraqi army vehicles patrolling the street, the soldiers were cheering the people marching towards their voting centers then one of the soldiers chanted "vote for Allawi" less than a hundred meters, the convoy stopped and the captain in charge yelled at the soldier who did that and said:

"You're a member of the military institution and you have absolutely no right to support any political entity or interfere with the people's choice. This is Iraq's army, not Allawi's".

But they can vote:

The blue finger or the blue marker, the symbol of freedom and democracy and the sign of a determined people rejecting terror.

The initial reports from Iraq are more than encouraging, turnout apparently stands at well over 70% and even Reuters is compelled to be frank about events:

Suicide bombs and mortars killed at least 33 people, but Iraqis still came out in force for the first multi-party poll in 50 years. While in some areas turnout was scant, in most places, including violent Sunni Arab regions, it exceeded expectations.

Condi Rice confirms:

“Every indication is that the election in Iraq is going better than expected”

This will force even the most skeptical voices to not only acknowledge that freedom in Iraq can indeed work, but that there are no longer any excuses to stand on the sidelines and start helping those brave people who risked their lives today to cast their vote. It will also be a very harsh awakening for Iraq's immediate neighbors and the first reactions from the Arab world are encouraging:

Arab commentators said that the voters had sent a strong message that insurgents failed to wreck the poll. The most upbeat reaction came from the Abu Dhabi-based daily Al-Ittihad, which declared jubilantly "The new Iraq is born today" on its front page.

The Arab News newspaper in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia called the vote "a very historic moment in the country's long history," and said it was "a much needed victory for moderation."

It's still early and there's a lot of work ahead but I expected a far different report when I switched on my laptop this morning.

.

The Iraqi general election is only a day away and Andrew Sullivan asks:

How do we tell if the Iraqi elections are a success? That they happen at all? Surely we should have a higher standard than that. Here are my criteria: over 50 percent turnout among the Shia and Kurds, and over 30 percent turnout for the Sunnis. No massive disruption of voting places; no theft of ballots. Fewer than 500 murdered. Any other suggestions for relevant criteria?

The fact that the elections are proceeding at all and on schedule is a success in my book, despite all my optimism I was leaning towards a postponement. Still, Andrew is right to point out that now that they’re on, we need a higher standard. In addition to all his quantitative criteria I would add one that has more to do with quality and that is a good result. Above all we should hope - and the system of proportional representation is of some help here - that no party gets the upper hand but that at the same time the resulting coalition is strong enough to stabilize the country and neutralize terror while adhering to the basic democratic principles on which the new Iraq will be built. We're hoping and looking for a very fine balance. This is not the answer we will have on Monday morning, but we’ll know if the outcome of the election is likely to support such a scenario.

NOTE: Remember to check out the Friends of Democracy site for news and coverage of events.

It's less than two weeks to the Iraqi election and the question is where to go get good information that complements what mainstream media will be serving up. In addition to some of the well-known local Iraqi bloggers (and this week’s paper edition of the Economist which had an excellent piece with a table detailing all the participating parties), do check out the brand new Friends of Democracy which provides ground-level news and information on Iraq's upcoming election. The site is trying to provide the viewpoint from the perspective of the Iraqi people and comes both in an English and Arab version. Check them out on a regular basis in the weeks ahead I would say.

... to go to the elections in Iraq. As usual, Chrenkoff offers some positive counterweight to the dim scenarios that are making the rounds in the traditional media.

There’s now an abundance of evidence that the fly-paper theory did indeed manifest itself in Iraq according to Michael Ledeen:

Soldiers took fire from heavy machine guns (.50 cal) and came across the dead bodies of fighters from Chechnya, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Afghanistan, and so on. No, this was not just a city of pi**ed off Iraqis, mad at the Coalition for forcing Saddam out of power. It was a city full of people from all over the Middle East whose sole mission in life was to kill Americans.

And there are no indications that there’s an end to this steady influx of zealots from all over the Islamic world. What is often overlooked however is that these folks do not blend in all that well with the local fighters, on the contrary. During the war in Bosnia there were palpable tensions between the beer drinking local Muslims and the Iranian purists who had come to help out their Muslim brethren and no doubt further the fundamentalist cause. And it is also a matter of record that al-Qaeda wasn’t all that well liked when they were contributing to the struggle in Afghanistan, in the end their presence cost the Taliban their hold on power. Now there are reports that Iraqi insurgents are not that happy to find foreign fighters on their side:

"We have concrete information that a sharp division is now broiling between" Iraqis waging a nationalist war and foreign Arabs spurred by militant Islam, said Mouwafak al-Rubaie, the Iraqi government's national security adviser. "They are more divided than ever."

Now I am mindful that the source of this information is the Iraqi government so it may be in their interest to perpetrate this notion, but it does seem likely that former Baathist officers are not exactly singing from the same songbook as al-Zarqawi.

Much has been made about Saddam teaming up with al-Qaeda before the war and although the evidence was flimsy there was definitely a collusion of interests in taking on America. That of course has continued since coalition forces liberated Iraq but now that elections are upon us and the future of Iraq is directly at stake some divergence between the groups is very likely. Mohammed at Iraq the Model has assessed the terrorist capability after the elections as follows:

I expect the terrorists to keep their operations after the elections in the same limited manner we have right now, maybe the frequency will increase but they will not be able to spread their operations nationwide. And they will have to make a decision; either they give up and accept the new situation after the elections, and this will not happen as long as the neighboring countries keep supporting them.

Which brings us back to Ledeen and his call to address the international aspect of terrorist operations in Iraq. If the new Iraqi government with the help of the coalition can drive a greater wedge between the homegrown and imported terrorist groups then we may yet see some real successes in bringing peace and freedom to Iraq.

Thank you. So far Peaktalk has raised $245 and has moved up on the ranks in the blogger's challenge to raise funds for Iraq.

But we have a few more days to go, there are lots of visitors coming through this weekend thanks to Andrew, so I thought maybe you could spare a few bucks to help buy library books for Iraqi schoolchildren. Here's the special Peaktalk contribution site. By contributing a bit ($10 buys one book) you will not only do me a favor, you'll help Iraqi children on their way to help rebuild their nation and lead better and above all happier lives. Come on, they deserve it.

The good news from Iraq, that is. Arthur Chrenkoff has another great edition up here.

And while we are at it, can I ask you again to contribute to Peaktalk's drive to raise money for books for Iraqi children? Go here to contribute. Thanks!

The tipjar button on the left has been there for while now, but instead of sending me some Christmas gifts - which you can always do – we should send something to Iraq. The Spirit of America is organizing a blogger challenge which basically comes down to which blog can raise the most money for Iraq. I have signed up for this and chosen to raise money for Children’s books for Iraqi kids. This is not a random pick, we are building Iraq from the ground up and the best way to do that is invest in a new generation. On a daily basis I see how much my daughters enjoy reading books or me reading book after book for them so that’s why.

It’s time to put our money where our mouth is. Supporting the war effort by writing about it is great but now is the time to ensure that it has not been for nothing. In order to get started I contributed $25 but will put in another $25 if we hit a Peaktalk total of $500 and $50 if we hit $1000. The drive ends on December 15 and you can contribute as little as $5.

Of course you will get regular reminders from me, it's a blogger challenge for a very worthy cause and I think we should really make a difference here, a $1000 buys some 100 books for a children's library.

Come on Peaktalk readers get out your credit cards, checkbooks or call Spirit of America and help educate a new generation of Iraqis by contributing here at the Special Peaktalk contribution site!

The Lancet study claiming that since the US-led invasion some 100,000 Iraqi civilians died has of course been a gift from heaven for the anti-war crowd and whenever I try to explain quietly and carefully the rationale for the war someone will slap the 100,000 number in my face: end of discussion. I never had the material to debunk that number so I was glad a reader sent me an article he had written about it for a European paper. He wishes to remain anonymous, for business reasons, but I googled him and he checks out well. So here are his comments.

The first being that the Lancet – a notable opponent of the war in Iraq – released its numbers five days before the Presidential election, a calculated political move rather than presenting some scientific results. The real problems are however with the statistical methods used by the Lancet. The study used a sample of 7,500 Iraqis divided over 33 clusters, before and after the invasion. Such a sample is hardly sufficient to measure war casualties as violence in war is not randomly distributed over a population.

Looking at violent deaths it turns out that 14 months prior the invasion in the total sample only one violent death was recorded. The Lancet concludes that as a result in Iraq - for the same period - there could not have been more than some 3,000 violent deaths (out of 25 million Iraqis). An odd number bearing in mind that according to Human Rights Watch a total of 300,000 Iraqis perished under Saddam’s rule, averaging about 12,000 per year and this excludes the approximate 1 million that died as a direct result of the wars Iraq fought. The Lancet may have a point here in that domestic repression and killings were probaly higher at the outset of the Saddam regime then at the very end, but 3,000 appears to be a tenuous number.

Then there’s child mortality. The Lancet finds that the number of children dying during the first 12 months after birth has doubled from 29 per 1,000 births before the invasion to 57 after. This is interesting, Unicef in 2002 put that number at 102 per 1,000 on the basis of a far larger sample then the Lancet now uses. So the Lancet would have you believe that from 2002 to 2003 child mortality dropped by 70% while at the same time arguing that it doubled after the invasion.

There are other inconsistencies as well. One of them is that mortality for the entire population prior to the invasion was lower than that recorded by Unicef, that since the invasion the number of children dying from heart attacks increased from 0 to 6,500, for men the number went up by 15,000 and for women it went up by 6,500.

In summary, my reader argues the Lancet's statistical approach is flawed as it pictures too rosy a picture shortly before the invasion. The sample used leads to many conclusions about the period before the invasion in a way that contradicts pre-war results from more authoritative sources. Conclusions for the period after the invasion based on the same methodology are therefore questionable at best.

My Conclusion
It seems a reasonable but not quite comprehensive critique of the methods used. There is a fairly detailed argument that supports the Lancet's findings and it was put together by Crooked Timber who warned that you would have to take a course in statistics to follow some of their argumentation. Although I did well in statistics at school it is outside the scope of this post to render a final judgment of the methods used. The 100,000 number always looked suspiciously high and the obstacles in data gathering will likely make it impossible to come up with an accurate number. Civilian deaths are awful and I was struck by Robert McNamara’s assessment in the Fog of War that if the allies had lost World War II the numerous allied bombings on Japan and Germany would from today’s perspective have made Americans, Brits and Canadians guilty of war crimes and only because the Axis were defeated, the allies never ended up in court. If the Lancet and the anti-war movement can convince us that we should have appeased Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan than they may have a point about unacceptable civilian casualties, but I bet you they can’t.

Today the Dutch formalized their decision to pull their military out of Iraq when their second term policing the Samawah area ends in March. For anyone hastily jumping to conclusions: this is not in response to the Van Gogh murder. The Dutch have in their minds gone over and above their call of duty by completing two tours in southern Iraq and parliamentary support for another one just wasn’t there. It’s disappointing to see one of the willing nations leaving the coalition but that’s where things stand.

The question to be asked is now that the Dutch have woken up to Islamist terror, do they see benefits of a continued contribution in Iraq or do they prefer to focus on homegrown terror? It is an issue that hasn’t really been raised but I suspect that in the weeks ahead we will get a far better sense as to where the Dutch are with regards to the War on Terror, their relationship with a re-elected George Bush and the effectiveness of various security measures implemented by their government since the tragic death of Theo Van Gogh.

The French journalists: still not a word but negotiations have reached a final stage it seems. There are no negotiations underway to secure the release of Margaret Hassan, but at least some ordinary Iraqis have decided to stand up for her by protesting for her release earlier this week. Yet, protests, negotiations, none of it is likely to sway the abductors, but this could be an important change:

Mrs Hassan, who is a Muslim and married to an Iraqi, has been the subject of a wave of sympathy across the Islamic world, with many websites filled with messages deploring her kidnapping.

The jihadist hostage-takers may have overplayed their hand by kidnapping the Iraqi-British CARE worker, providing a glimmer of hope for the kidnapped and the Iraq people.

It's hard to believe but there is good news from Iraq, as usual Arthur Chrenkoff is the counterweight to the endless stream of dreadful and unpleasant tidings.

Since most western hostages have now either been killed or released, the question remains: what happened to those two French journalists? After initially admitting that the attempts to free them failed, the French government somehow has been able to kick start the negotiations with whomever they are talking with:

The French government announced last week that it believed the hostages were still alive and added that indirect contacts had been resumed with the kidnappers. According to an expert on Sunni Arab militant groups who did not wish to be identified, the captors are "under considerable pressure" to release the pair, but want to find a way to free them without losing face.

Again, it's totally within the rights of any government to secure the release of captured citizens although we can question the long-term wisdom of working out an arrangement with jihadists and their partners. It's galling to note however that the objective now appears to be to avoid a loss of face for the terrorists while American and British hostages have literally lost theirs.

Remember that in January I reported on a member of the Dutch contingent in Iraq who got into to trouble after he shot and killed an Iraqi civilian during a riot and was dragged in front of a Dutch judge by an overzealous prosecutor? Suspicions at the time where that some in the district attorney’s office were less than supportive of the Dutch being part of the Coalition, but also that the Dutch military hadn’t really graduated into post 9/11 style warfare: overseas deployments are no longer policing efforts.

Yesterday, after a lengthy procedure the marine officer was cleared of all counts against him. An unfortunate chapter was closed but it remains to be seen how this will affect the Dutch perception of waging war in the new century.

This will make your day: the terrifying faces of forgiveness Part 1 and Part 2 with a surpise appearance by Dennis Kucinich.

It has again not been a great week in Iraq and Prime-Minister Allawi’s comment in an interview yesterday that the January 31 election date was “not sacred” reaffirmed what many have been arguing for a while. There’s a positive and a negative here though. The interim Iraqi government and the coalition have come to the conclusion that only a complete neutralization of insurgency efforts can set the stage for a credible plebiscite and with that a massive attack in Fallujah was launched yesterday. That could rearrange the situation on the ground in a favorable manner and we’ll probably see more activity of that nature after November 2. The negative is the symbolic value of an election delay: jihadists will claim that the insurgency is working and resentment among ordinary Iraqis may increase. Any postponement of plans means an extended, and likely increasing, effort of coalition forces but with a decisive Allawi that at least in the short-term is a positive development.

From day one of the kidnapping of the two American and one British hostage there were two things crystal clear: (1) they were not going to return alive; and (2) any attempt to negotiate with the jihadist thugs that kidnapped them would be exploited to the detriment of our fight against terrorism.

Mark Steyn believes that by painting these notions in his usually straightforward manner the Telegraph thought he was heartless and rejected his column, which now can be read here. Yes, the details are maybe quite gory and highlighting the potential for Blair defeatism in the face of Ken Bigley’s death isn’t going to play well with grieving masses in Britain. But Steyn has done what most of us still can not stomach: confront the essence of the conflict we’re in and argue that a war cannot be subordinate to the fate of anyone, however innocent, caught up in it. Read the whole thing.

Today is not the greatest day for launching some thoughts on politics, markets, elections and terror. Chrenkoff has another Good News from Iraq up, and while you're checking out his site be sure to read his various posts on the Australian elections. Chrenk's on a roll after John Howard's ballot box victory.

This is what wrote about Iraq last year:

My basic contention is that the strategy for Iraq was valid but that the way in which the Bush team formulated, planned and communicated it was flawed. They absolutely have the right ingredients to make it work (the military apparatus, the funds and the vision) and they are on the right track. When many Democrats indicate that on grounds of national security they will vote for Bush, and when we realize that just like 1939 was not 1914, Iraq is not Vietnam, Bush continues to have a phenomenal amount of capital he can draw on. Knowing that he could and should be more specific, within the confines of national security, about the strategy and the various milestones along the way. But like any venture deal, don’t ask about the exit strategy, it’s just too early to tell and maybe Bush and his team should have been a bit more upfront about that particular aspect.

If you read Sullivan today you get the distinct impression that the "phenomenal amount of capital" is eroding rapidly. The November 2 finish line is in sight but it's going to be an intense battle for Bush to get there with a sufficient amount of capital left to clinch the presidency for another term.

By centering its case around WMDs (and the al-Qaeda link to Saddam) as the key reasons for launching the war in Iraq the Bush team set itself up for criticism from day one. Yesterday’s report that by 1991 pretty much all WMDs had been destroyed handed another pyrrhic victory to John Kerry who will jump on it and rub it under Bush’ nose until the latter resorts to his hopeless and endless repeat of the word “freedom”. It is sad but that is the state of affairs.

By disclosing the real reason for blasting Saddam out of his bunker however, the Bush team would have equally opened itself up for sharp and unrelenting criticism. In essence they assumed there would be a sufficient amount of WMDs to retroactively justify the war and surely there would be some Baghdad villas full of terrorists or enemy combatants.

Alas, things worked out differently and it was left to others to build and support the case for Iraqi Freedom. Davids Medienkritik yesterday pointed to the analogy with Nazi Germany and argues that the attack on Saddam was justified:

Haven’t we already tried the “sensitive” diplomatic approach with dictators in the past only to suffer catastrophic consequences?

Good point. An even better point comes from David Warren who argues the following when he’s discussing a new book by George Friedman:

Both Afghanistan and Iraq have been indirect conflicts, justified in a geostrategic calculation that would be impossible to communicate in election-year soundbites. President Bush is trying to do the fighting "over there", instead of "over here", and in my view, he could have started in any one of half-a-dozen Middle Eastern countries, with the same chaotic results, Saudi Arabia being my own first choice. His intention, through judicious regime changes, is to change the overall complexion of the region, to make it impossible for the Jihadis to hide.

It so happened that Iraq offered the best entry into the region: Saddam’s track record as an aggressor, his deplorable record as a bloody tyrant, Iraq’s strategic location, and Iraq’s established contacts with various terrorist groups made him the ideal target for bringing the war “over there”. This at the same time fitted in nicely with the neo-conservative framework of defending America by spreading democracy and free markets abroad. Did I mention WMDs? No I didn’t, because there’s no need to. The unfortunate thing is that Bush started talking about WMDs and finished with his “freedom fest” while the substance of the argument in between got lost and that has now turned him into fair game for his critics.

No progress it seems and now Chirac is paying a political price for conducting negotiations with the terrorists through shady intermediaries. Not only that, the attempt to gain the kidnapped journalists' freedom has failed miserably:

The rescue attempt by an unlikely cast of characters -- a maverick politician from Chirac's ruling party, a former bodyguard for a leading right- winger, and an African strongman -- has been labeled an embarrassing fiasco by the press and a "knockabout farce" by former Socialist Prime Minister Laurent Fabius.

The world has changed and the French model for conducting business in the Middle East has become obsolete. Quelle surprise.

If you have time, read this fairly long piece by Ahmed S. Hashim on the origins of the insurgency in Iraq. I found it via Marc Cooper whose blog I recently discovered and check out regularly. It’s a riveting read and while there are some contradictions in it (the writer argues that the sanctions from 1991-2003 destroyed the middle classes, but the same group according to him is instrumental in funding parts of the insurgency), it is providing us with some good analysis to help understand the current situation. It does however paint a bleak picture for successfully bringing stability and democracy to Iraq.

That bleakness in my opinion is not only rooted in the hopeless way the US administered the place until it handed over sovereignty, the diverse complexity of Iraqi society itself points to a difficult road ahead in reconstructing the place. That society had started to fray long before Saddam fell in 2003 and that leads to two equally defensible conclusions: (1) the invasion and botched occupation by the US-led coalition is compounding the total collapse of Iraqi society; and (2) the foreign presence is a necessary accelerator to stabilize and rebuild a democratic Iraq. It depends on where you stand which one you support, but I would argue that it’s too early to fully justify either, although you will generally find me backing the second one. But one key conclusion from Hashim’s piece is that a collapse of the Saddam regime without foreign assistance could have equally resulted in the very mess Iraq is finding itself in today.

While being extremely wary of making comparisons, only last week I discredited any attempt to compare Iraq to Vietnam; echoes of Cambodia are emerging. A totally wrecked country, an evaporated middle class, kidnapped foreigners, arms available on every street corner, and radical insurgents roaming around with the rest of the world trying to get elections of the ground with the help of the UN: there is some sort of a precedent. That’s why Iraq - and the US effort - is not a lost cause, but we need to far better understand the mechanics of the situation if we want to be successful.

For now the fractured insurgency (Sunni and Shi’a), like so many other revolutions, draws increasing support from the disgruntled masses who, justifiably, want a better future but in their quest end up supporting something that may well be worse than what’s on offer today. Therein lies the insurgency’s weakness and therein lies the opportunity for the US-led coalition to succeed.

In preparation for the foreign policy debate I started to collect my thoughts on why Iraq is so different from Vietnam, but I never got to finish it. And while I was doing it others started to look around for historic parallels of US intervention and seeding democracy, David Brooks for instance discussed El Salvador last week. Still, the comparison with Vietnam is interesting and at the same time it leads to some remarkable conclusions about the road ahead. Let me summarize why Iraq is not Vietnam, in random order:

1. In Vietnam the US fought an insurgent group (Vietcong) supported by a regular army that represented a sovereign state, North Vietnam. This is not the case in Iraq, for now we are dealing with loosely organized terrorists that are backed by, well, loosely organized insurgents from elsewhere. We could point to Iran and Syria but they have nowhere near the pull that the NVA had in South Vietnam. The NVA/Vietcong analogy actually works better for Syria/Hizbollah in Lebanon.

2. In Vietnam the opponent was under the leadership of a leader who had managed to claim the mantle as the sole representative of Vietnamese nationalism. There’s absolutely no equivalent today of a Ho Chi Minh in Iraq, on the contrary there’s a number of ethnic and religious leaders none of whom can lay claim to represent the nation as a whole.

3. Indeed, Iraq is an artificial construct consisting of Kurds, Sunni and Shia as opposed to the fairly homogenous Vietnam.

4. In Vietnam the opponent was supported by a major superpower ensuring an unlimited supply of arms and other support. While the Soviet Union no longer exists, Iraqi insurgents can not claim any large scale institutional support, it has to rely on small and illicit arms traders who, true, may be supported by regional powers but nothing compared to the size and magnitude of the former USSR.

5. The battlefield is different; there are no jungles or densely populated rural areas in Iraq that can serve as a launching pad for well-organized attacks. The battle in Iraq is confined - for now- to urban areas which concentrates the conflict in smaller and easily identifiable areas.

6. In Vietnam the US relied on an army of draftees as opposed to a professional and voluntary outfit that is now fighting the battle in Iraq. We may indeed go back to conscription is some from, but for now that’s not the case.

7. And then you can compare casualties, but given the above aspects they only validate what was clear beforehand: Vietnam and Iraq are two entirely different conflicts.

These are the obvious ones; they are pretty much beyond challenge, although I am open to additions. There are other aspects that make the two conflicts incomparable, but they are assumptions about the nature of the conflict we are finding ourselves in today. They are based on what we have learned since the early beginnings of the Iraqi conflict (1990), the eruption of Islamist terror (2001) and operation Iraqi Freedom (2003). Let me now turn to these assumptions about the current war.

During the relatively peaceful interbellum from 1945 to 2001, the main conflict was between capitalism and communism, and waged, managed and settled at the diplomatic table. Whenever the two superpowers picked up arms to fight, they delegated that to their proxies and Vietnam was nothing more than a regional exponent of that larger struggle, just like the Greek civil war, Cuba and the war in Nicaragua to name a few. What made Vietnam exceptional was the fact American troops got directly involved in a proxy war, an enormous number of US troops were killed and the war eventually was lost: to this date the red flag flies over both North and South Vietnam.

If we treat Iraq as another regional event where the US by default had to pick up part of the effort than it is not a stretch to compare Iraq to Vietnam. The opponents of the war see it that way and therefore argue that as soon as feasible US troops should move out to avoid a Vietnam style quagmire. Those that support a pro-longed stay until well beyond democracy has taken root do not see the war in Iraq as a substitute war where the US and its coalition got in by mistake. They argue it is the very frontline of the clash between liberal free-market democracies and retrograde Islamism. This clash of ideas is in substance similar to the capitalist-communist struggle, in its format it’s very different which is why picking an easily identifiable frontline is preferable once it offered itself up in the form of Iraq. Regional skirmishes will continue unabated (Philippines, Indonesia, Chechnya and the occasional bombing in a western urban center) but the epicenter has been found. That’s why the deployment in Iraq will continue until the roots of the conflict have been neutralized which can only be deemed to have been successful when democracy and liberalism are firmly established throughout the Muslim Middle East.

That’s hardly something to put at the center of your platform when you seek re-election as president of the United States. The prospect of a war that may span generations is not going to excite the average American, nor is it easy to translate the terrorist Osama bin Laden into this notion, at least not during an election. Yet, all of Bush’ actions to date indicate to me that he bought into the frontline argument a long time ago, but for now he can’t or won’t say it. Kerry hasn’t accepted the new reality and lives as if we are still in an extension of that great post-1945 interbellum. To him it’s another Vietnam which is why it is so comfortable for the left to compare that war to Iraq. Based on the facts and the nature of the conflict there can however be no comparison at all.

Today:

A series of bombs killed 35 children and seven adults Thursday as U.S. troops handed out candy at a government ceremony to inaugurate a new sewage treatment plant.

Whoever perpetrated this heinous attack, Arundhati Roy is there to enlighten us on their motives and argue that the “Iraqi resistance” deserves our support:

But at the same time, when you look at the massive amount of violence that America is perpetrating in Iraq, I don’t know that I’m in a position to tell Iraqis that you must fight a pristine, feminist, democratic, secular, non-violent war. I can’t say. I just feel that that resistance in Iraq is our battle too and we have to support it.

I found this baffling comment via Michael Totten who can’t even be bothered to fisk the entire interview with Roy from which the above is an excerpt, but he has a succinct rebuttal:

What's even more astonishing is that a person who supposedly believes in the values of feminism, secularism, and democracy can get a warm fuzzy feeling by cheerleading Islamofascists who would cut off her own infidel head and dump her body into a ditch. And hasn't she ever bothered to notice that the Iraqis who are democratic, secular, and feminist are pro-American?

No she hasn’t. Ms. Roy argues that in order to build a new Iraq we would first have to destroy everything that the American "aggressors and appropriators" together with international relief agencies are trying to achieve on the ground. If 35 children celebrating get in the way of that hallowed objective then so be it. Like Michael, I don’t have the ability to add anything to this, it’s beyond the pale and beyond debate.

UPDATE: Captain's Quarters is not lost for words.

Kenneth Bigley is still alive, the French journalists may soon be free and two Italian hostages have just been released. Good news? Sure, but American hostages invariably end up being beheaded. The terrorists have apparently re-discovered the strategy of driving a wedge between America and Europe. And that, for the long-term struggle against Islamist terrorism, is not good news.

We’re approaching Jimmy Carter’s 80th birthday and so there’s plenty of media coverage talking about his record and underlining his unwillingness to retire. His Carter Center continues to be pro-active around the word and the former President explained why last week during a speech given at Emory University:

It is important for Americans to realize that they live in the strongest and most powerful nation on earth, he said, adding that the United States should be looked upon as a champion of peace, freedom, democracy and a healthy environment.

UPDATE: Carter it appears is focusing on Florida instead.

Entered into OTB's Traffic Jam

It has to be said, any help with the elections is welcome as US Commander John Abizaid acknowledged yesterday that they are not going to be easy with parts of Iraq unable to participate and more violence targeted at disrupting this important coalition milestone. A quick search around the web about this topic yielded many headlines such as this one “It's getting worse in Iraq, Powell says", but if you read his comments carefully he put a distinctly positive spin on events by pointing to the elections in Afghanistan next week:

"And I think we're going to do the same thing in Iraq if we stay the course, if we defeat this insurgency," Powell said. He acknowledged that "yes, it's getting worse, and the reason it's getting worse is that they are determined to disrupt the elections."

UPDATE: Via Sullivan, Tony Blair on the importance of pulling together, regardless of pre-war positions:

"Obviously there will be people who have never been convinced about the original decision. But the fundamentals of the situation in Iraq are absolutely clear. You have a government supported by the United Nations. You have got massive reconstruction. You've got an attempt to bring democracy to the country and you've got these people trying to stop it. I can understand why people still have a powerful disagreement about the original decision to go to war, but what ever that disagreement, surely now it is absolutely clear we have to stay and see it through. Because the consequences of not doing so is that global terrorism will get a tremendous boost. By contrast, if we succeed and defeat these people and help the Iraqis to get what the Iraqis want, then global terrorism will suffer a defeat... So my point to people is: which side should we be on now? You might have disagreed about the conflict, but there is only one side to be on now, and that's the side of people who are trying to bring democracy and hope to the country, not trying to plunge it into terror and chaos."

Jimmy Carter, take note.

One can not begin to describe the inhumane suffering of the hostages in Iraq and their families back home, but I hope to write something lengthy about these gruesome events later.

However, after two horrific decapitations earlier this week the remaining British hostage has now addressed Tony Blair directly by video, begging for his life. The British government has appropriately reiterated that there can be no negotiations with hostage-takers, or death cults which is what we should label these depraved groups. One thing is clear, apart from creating mayhem and instability in Iraq itself events like this start to affect public opinion back home. Consider how the video with hostage Kenneth Bigley ended:

The video then feature three frames of text, written white on black in Arabic and English.

The first reads: “Does a British (sic) worth anything to Blair.”
The second: “Will he try to save the hostage or will he not care?”
A third asks: “Do leaders really care about their people?”

Apparently, Bigley's family has criticized Blair for not doing enough to secure the release of the engineer and it won’t be long before British tabloids will run headlines arguing that Blair has blood on his hands. The impact thus will be primarily on the political feasibility of a prolonged stay in Iraq and the numbers for that are beginning to look discouraging for Tony Blair:

In one recent nationwide poll, 70 percent of those interviewed said they wanted British troops out of Iraq following the elections scheduled to take place in January.

Look at the last part: echoes of Novak’s early pull-out theory? Hard to say but in such a climate the opponents of a prolonged stay in Iraq may indeed force their hand and argue that merely holding an election is a sufficient enough milestone to establish success and get both military and civilian staff out, permanently. With elections in Australia and a bruised Blair, the Bush team will not only have to justify its course in a tight presidential election, it will have to pull out all the plugs to ensure its key partners stay onboard the coalition boat.

UPDATE: In what can hardly be a coincidence it is now reported that the two Italian hostages have been killed. Yes, I forgot Berlusconi.

No, I don’t attach any real value to the Novak piece arguing that there’s going to be a swift pull-out from Iraq come January. Still, there are a number of aspects worth pondering and I am sure the idea of a “cut-and-run” has been floated around in administration circles, if only to envision what effects it would have.

The Bush team is known for drastic steps which appear to be taken on short notice. The sovereignty handover last June was an example of trying to radically alter the parameters of the situation in the hope that it would rapidly improve, which it unfortunately didn’t. If we extrapolate that to January next year there may be those that argue: come what may, we will have elections in January - with or without the Sunni triangle – and at that point we have achieved our goals, we can pack up and go and hand over extra-sovereign tasks to the UN or whoever else is interested. The reason why this is not an unlikely train of thought is that the alternative is indeed a long drawn-out commitment with a lot more US troops, a potential blot on the Bush legacy and a drain on the US economy for years to come.

However, either Novak’s dreaming, his sources may be wrong or it’s a ploy to get a real commitment out of Bush. And commitments he has made, he has staked his entire presidency on it which probably points in the direction of seeing Iraq through. The pressure on the ground, from Kerry, fellow Republicans and the media will however force Bush to come up with tangible results, unlike the symbolic gestures like the sovereignty transfer, and a firm medium term plan. The comments from Novak have indeed put that mission in even sharper focus for all to see.

What stood out in Novak’s column and what convinced me that his message was erroneous was actually this part:

The end product would be an imperfect Iraq, probably dominated by Shia Muslims seeking revenge over long oppression by the Sunni-controlled Baathist Party. The Kurds would remain in their current semi-autonomous state. Iraq would not be divided, reassuring neighboring countries -- especially Turkey -- that are apprehensive about ethnically divided nations.

Shia Muslims seeking revenge is equal to a perpetually divided Iraq and the ayatollahs in Iran would have a field day with this scenario, as will al-Qaeda who will use the remnants of Sunni Iraq as the launching pad for a new caliphate. The very reasons that prompted real-politiker Bush Sr. to let Saddam stay will compel George W. Bush to stay in Iraq now that Saddam has gone.

OTHER REACTIONS: Dan Drezner, Kevin Drum and a passionate response from Iraq the Model.

The one thing I neglected to elaborate on last week, was the surging number of deaths caused by insurgents targeting those Iraqis enlisting in the security and police forces, hitting one of the centrepieces of the reconstruction and rebuilding effort. That combined with the increased number of hostages and the semi-autonomy prevailing in the Sunni triangle contributed to the suggestion that if we want to prevail we need to fix our strategy, soon.

That sentiment was echoed over the weekend, by Republicans no less. John McCain argued a troop increase, questioned the rosy messaging from the administration, reiterated that the coalition will probably be in Iraq for a long time and:

"I think every day that goes by that we don't remove these sanctuaries in Falluja and other places in the Sunni Triangle, the more expensive it's going to be at the time we take this out"

In any case, clearing out these areas is a pre-condition for stabilizing the country and holding elections, Prime-Minister Allawi yesterday ensured that these would take place in January, on schedule. At the same time however Allawi alerted the world that in order for the project to succeed Iraq needed a rapid rebuilding of its economy as the dearth of jobs contributed in no small part to the instability that was felt in many parts of the country. He added that:

“ … that less than five percent of the $18 billion pledged by the U.S. and the $13 billion promised by other countries had been received and disbursed”

It is not clear how these funds are disbursed and if certain milestones need to be met before funds will flow, but it is not unrealistic to expect that a measure of stability on the ground will make it easier to make funds available, attract investment and create sustained employment.

For a good and detailed round-up of events in Iraq, check out Winds of Change which has a mixture of good and bad news.

While I am still enjoying the Sullivanche the debate about Iraq gains in intensity. Of course, the anti-war crowd is decrying the Bush administration and dusting off the Vietnam and quagmire theories, that hasn’t changed. On the other hand, those that have supported the war, like myself, seem to have fallen into two groups. There is a group arguing that everything is on track and there’s nothing we should criticize Bush for, and one group questioning the strategy precisely because they want the US-led coalition to succeed. Debating the situation and the next steps requires a thorough understanding of the situation on the ground, which isn’t all that clear and the news this week just wasn’t encouraging. But there are optimistic voices on the ground, and via Captain’s Quarters a Major in the Marines is updating us from operational HQ in Baghdad:

So, you may hear analysts and prognosticators on CNN, ABC and the like in the next few days talking about how bleak the situation is here in Iraq, but from where I sit, it’s looking significantly better now than when I got here. The momentum is moving in our favor, and all Americans need to know that, so please, please, pass this on to those who care and will pass it on to others. It is very demoralizing for us here in uniform to read & hear such negativity in our press. It is fodder for our enemies to use against us and against the vast majority of Iraqis who want their new government to succeed.

Agreed. But negative reports are coming from different directions, not just the biased media and in many cases the reports are just incomplete. Are we getting the right information on which we can base sound opinions? If staunch Bush supporters question his strategy then they are probably not just jumping on whatever it is that CNN and ABC throw in front of us, note that many Iraqi bloggers are not very excited about what’s going on either. There’s a legitimate question as to why the country after almost 18 months is still not pacified.

In any case there is an acknowledgment from the Bush team that things are not easy but that all efforts are being made to prevail. Colin Powell:

And we are starting to work in Samarra, Fallujah and the other cities in the Sunni Triangle where there is too strong an insurgent presence.

This one sentence tells you an awful lot. That leaves on other issue on the table. Is the election interfering with decision making? There is scant evidence for the latter but it is too tempting for many, both left and right, to probe the idea and ask the questions why things are not moving faster. Power Line calls the suggestion nefarious, but in my mind it remains a valid question.

It’s Saturday and we can digest the weekend papers and let the facts sink in. The intensity of the Rathergate discussion will probably wane next week and we can only hope that that will allow others to jump into this important debate.

The discussion over the deteriorating situation in Iraq is gaining momentum after Andrew Sullivan started to express his concerns earlier this week. Those were brushed aside by Roger Simon who referred to the Belmont Club’s number crunching and concluded with the argument that things in Iraq are not as bad as they look and the obligatory comment that we should stick it out in Iraq, no matter for how long. Sorry Roger, that’s not the point because we all agree on that one.

The point is picking the right strategy to realize our objectives. The ultimate objective is: a free and stable Iraq where a democratic process is able to take root. That objective is under severe pressure as evidence is mounting that the elections scheduled for January are now very likely to be postponed. That’s only a setback on our way to realize our objective. Yet, it could have long term implications because such a delay is likely to be interpreted as a victory for the insurgents, be they Sunni, be they Shi’a. Then the question is: why is the realization of our objectives under pressure? Answer: the strategy is flawed.

The coalition forces have enough firepower to roll-up all the insurgent hotspots and regain full control of the country. That potentially could result in heavy casualties on the coalition side but also among the civilian population which has the following implications:

1. A negative impact on Bush' road to re-election;
2. It might alienate our rebuilding partners: ordinary Iraqis.

The first point is understandable but a war should be fought independent of an election cycle. There’s too much at stake and at this point in time many get killed or taken as a hostage precisely because of the deteriorating mess Iraq is currently in. To let that situation continue for any period of time is dangerous, I don’t think anyone could argue that point convincingly. Greg Djerejian makes some compelling arguments today as to why you can’t let things slip for any pro-longed period of time. Bush is probably gambling that the situation will hold until November 2 – and it might – but it may be a costly gamble. With the passage of time the insurgency gains momentum. David Warren put it bluntly earlier this week:

Election or no election, the Americans must now undo their mistake. They must, regardless of casualties, retake every town in the Sunni Triangle, and clean each one out, properly. Or, go home beaten by the Jihad. There really isn't a third option.

Precisely. So what about the second point? Would an all out attack destabilize the country to such an extent that elections and nation building would come under severe pressure and would be delayed indefinitely? It’s not possible to make a projection here, but given the importance of achieving that objective there are very few options. And with speculation of a civil war in the air it appears that there’s an even greater urgency to engage in rapid nation building. Again Belmont:

Civil war, if it eventuates, will not be result of military failure but from a lack of commitment to create a replacement Iraqi State. If we build it, it will come.

Military failure is unlikely but delaying decisive military action, because of electoral considerations, is dangerous and borders on the immoral. It’s the wrong gamble and will compromise achieving the key objective: building a free Iraq. Unleashing the maximum firepower may be equally dicey but it is the right risk to take. Yes, we should stick it out even if it takes twenty years, but we should adapt our strategy and revitalize our pro-activity to achieve the very basic objectives that underpinned Iraqi Freedom.

UPDATE: Stephen Green has similar thoughts, as does James Joyner.

What was headline stuff only two week ago seems to have disappeared from the front pages, but I check Google News every day: What happened to the French journalists that were taken hostage in Iraq?

It seems that their alleged captors, Islamic Army, have raised the bar for the French government negotiating their release, if the unfortunate journalists were dead we would have known by now. This article raised some interesting points arguing that the French government may have less capital in the Arab world than its frantic efforts to free the journalists seem to indicate. And France did go out of its way to seek the freedom of those kidnapped:

Almost immediately, Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat, Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi -- and even radical movements such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad -- were all appealing for the hostages' release. It was a vivid reminder of the time and effort France has put into constructing a web of relations across the Mideast.

This highlights two things. First the radical elements of the Arab world are not joined together in one conglomerate of outfits who do business together and are willing to adjust their objectives if another member of the group so requests. On the other hand, public figures like Arafat are know to be duplicitous in their statements, but even he has lost so much clout that pleas from his side would fall on deaf ears among a new generation of radical insurgents. Such groups in Iraq, from the Islamic Jihad Organisation to the Horror Brigades of the Islamic Secret Army (who apparently have taken two Australians hostage in Mosul earlier this week) operate in a vacuum that may be hard to enter, even for established terrorists and Islamist radicals. Secondly, France’s influence in the Middle East is rapidly diminishing; notably the ban on headscarves hasn’t helped the deteriorating relationship between the French and the Muslim world. But more importantly, France’s network of friends was primarily built around business and there too patterns have changed. Consider this:

Morocco recently signed a groundbreaking Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. -- something it has yet to do with the European Union, despite French lobbying.

In Algeria, where French companies discovered oil and gas in the late 1950s, Britain's BP PLC is now the leading investor. Similarly, Italians have edged out the French in the energy industries of Egypt and Libya.

This is evidence that the collation of the willing is now starting to reap the benefits from engaging itself in the Middle East, with France starting to miss out on some of the deal flow. Still, even if France had clout, the fate of the hostages would be equally uncertain. Both political and economic power are subject to drastic changes now that older power structures are being dismantled (Iraq) or are under pressure to do so (Libya, Morocco, Palestinian territories).

In the meantime we can only pray for the quick release of the two French hostages and all the other innocent victims who were merely doing their part in the reconstruction of Iraq.

In case you missed it – I did – Naomi Klein’s call to bring “Bring Najaf to New York” has generated a host of reactions, the best one is coming from Hitchens (via Totten) who has ripped her apart concluding that the anti-War left has somehow managed to outdo a conservative Shi’ite cleric in radical rhetoric:

Their applause for the holy warriors comes at a time when wide swathes of the Arab and Muslim world are sickening of the mindless blasphemy and the sectarian bigotry. It took an effort for American pseudo-radicals to be outflanked on the left by Ayatollah Sistani, but they managed it somehow.

In my book this would qualify as a nominee for quote of the year. The underlying truth is sad however. Naomi Klein is the one of “no logo” fame who has actively campaigned for obliterating consumer choice and relegating us to Soviet style consumer good distribution, no logos, no choice: bland generic goods for everyone. Communism at its best. The blurred vision of radical anti-capitalist Leftism has now led them to support the morally bankrupt fringes of the Islamic world. For those looking for evidence that their interests have been aligned with forces bent on destruction of the free world: here you have it.

Sadness and desperation stem from the realization that it is impossible to even engage Klein and cohorts in a rational debate. In addition, she has provided fodder for those who are more than happy to blur the distinction between exercising free speech and treason.

Chrenkoff has another edition of “Good News from Iraq” up, cross-posted at Winds and Opinion Journal. Have a look especially at the economic and reconstruction news, many are contributing to this colossal task, and even better news is that:

Bosnia-Herzegovina, also a scene of war not that long ago, is planning to send a mine clearing unit to Iraq. "Defense Minister Nikola Radovanovic said... the Balkan country has a moral obligation to help in Iraq after all the international assistance it received during the conflict of the 1990s in the Balkans."

This I would call the long-term dividend of peacemaking and nation building efforts. One day Iraq will contribute in a similar vein to the reconstruction of other fledgling democracies. Good news indeed.

It doesn’t come as a surprise that after a number of coalition members have been tested, notably Spain and The Philippines with fairly disastrous results, it’s now the turn of the Dutch. The Dutch government started to doubt whether a continued stay in Southern Iraq would be politically palatable after the first Dutch soldier was killed a while ago. On Saturday a second one was killed and a significant number injured, but staying the course seems to be the prevailing attitude, so far. This is good news but it shouldn’t be underestimated how the Dutch feel about battle deaths, an overwhelming majority in the country believes that the main purpose the army has is peacekeeping and nation-building and when the first bodybags appear it is usually considered time to pack up and bring the boys home.

The casualties coincided with a lethal threat addressed directly to the Dutch and Italian governments by the Islamic group al-Tawhid. It yesterday threatened to attack Italy and The Netherlands if both countries refuse to withdraw troops from Iraq. Addressing Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi directly al-Zarqawi’s group said:

"You have challenged the soldiers of Islam, so expect an Islamic earthquake."

If anything, I am surprised these threats emerge this late in the game. It will be a fairly serious test of Italian and Dutch spines.

Blair may be on the brink, but he delivered a solid speech today again defending his decision to go to war in Iraq. His justification echoes my key argument supporting the pre-emptive war, one that has been sorely missed when it turned out that WMDs could not be found, and that is: given the evidence could we have taken the risk that he had them? Michelle Malkin adds some more pointing to the fact that Saddam was a threat and that, my second argument, international sanctions had pretty much collapsed. These remain the two key arguments justifying the war, we can't repeat them often enough.

Solomonia points us to Thomas Oliphant’s argument that Slobodan Milosevic’s trial under auspices of the UN is legit, whereas Saddam Hussein’s (in Oliphant’s view a US construct) is not. Well here’s some news for Oliphant. The way in which Milosevic was arrested and deported in exchange for a release of foreign aid had very little to do with a legitimate approach. The bulk of the newly elected Serbian leadership wasn’t even aware he was flown out of the country. Justice at the hands of his fellow countrymen evaporated the moment Milosevic landed in The Hague as opposed to Saddam whose judicial journey is the reverse: after questioning the coalition has returned him to the Iraqi courts where he will be judged by his fellow countrymen.

By the way, the news yesterday was that Milosevic was not in great health and his everlasting trial could be discontinued. This would allow Slobo to elude justice, something that probably would not have happened had he been subjected to the swift justice his fellow countrymen are known for.

Megan asks the question, will violence increase, decrease or stay at the same level in Iraq following the June 30 handover? Her guess is a decrease, and I commend her for her optimism but I am not quite sure I would agree. The increased violence of the past few weeks and today is no doubt related to the impending sovereignty change but after that, what really changes? Coalition forces will remain present for a long time and power will fall into the hands of an administration that is viewed with suspicion as its power is rooted in the very presence of those coalition forces. Also, it seems, the availability of weaponry in the country continues unabated. There’s an election scheduled and in a country where power right up to this moment has come from the barrel of a gun there’s a strong likelihood that many will attempt to use the gun rather than the ballot box to effect change.

The basic question though is: what do the various insurgent groups and terrorists intend to accomplish, what are their real objectives? A stable and democratic Iraq that enjoys a strong relationship with the international community is probably the last thing on their list of objectives. In fact it’s the opposite of what they want. As long as their objectives are not achieved violence will continue, and the harder we strive for a democratic Iraq, the harder they will fight back.

What would happen to a coalition officer serving in Iraq who, given the facts, found himself in a dangerous situation, fired at a looting Iraqi crowd, thereby accidentally killing one Iraqi man. I don’t have the answer; maybe a US military expert can enlighten me on what would happen to a US Marine officer, the Dutch however know how to deal with this. They wasted no time to detain the officer in question, transport him back to The Netherlands and drag him in front of a judge seeking to extend his custody. The judge wisely threw out this request pointing out that the evidence was scant at best and that any prolonged incarceration was highly inappropriate.

Horrific though such a civilian death may be, all troops in Iraq are under extreme pressure and any investigation into civilian deaths should be handled carefully before ripping an experienced marine away from his unit, putting him in custody and placing him in front of a bewildered judge. It has a major impact on troop morale as one expert judged:

"It will affect morale in a rather negative way of course. They are operating there in a very unstable and insecure environment. Now they're seeing one of their men sent home suspected of murder and that will only lower morale in my view."

More importantly it leaves the troops on the ground unclear when to use lethal force in a setting that is extremely dangerous and life threatening. As discussed earlier, this incident highlights the ambiguous attitude the Dutch have towards their armed forces and will do very little to help solidify support for the Dutch mission in Iraq. This rush to justice was a preposterous act of arrogance by Dutch prosecutors and deserves as much, if not more, investigation as the accidental death of an Iraqi looter.

Update: The Dutch NRC Handelsblad, not exactly known for its pro-war stance, comes up with a sensible recommendation in its lead editorial today:

For The Netherlands and for him (the prosecutor –ed.) it should be evident that waging war and everything that goes with it is something you have to learn.

Indeed.

James Baker, nicknamed the Velvet Hammer for some and Bush Consigliere for others, has started his trip to enlist sovereign help in rescheduling and forgiving part of Iraq’s crushing foreign debt load. As I suggested last week, the exclusion of some countries from the list of preferred bidders for reconstruction contracts might have been used as a bargaining chip to entice some to start forgiving debt. The controversy generated by that list led me to believe that Baker would have to use all his diplomatic skills in order to make some progress. Well, what a difference a Saturday evening arrest makes. The French have indicated their willingness to forgive some of the debt owed to them by Iraq and:

In addition to being willing to forgive part of Iraq's debt, France also announced it will launch a number of programs dealing with education, health and the training of police forces in Iraq.

"Iraq is not a poor country," Fedotov said. "But I want to stress again that the Paris Club mechanisms are very flexible and provide for measures to restructure and ease the obligations of debtor countries."

Iraq has indeed some wealth in the ground, but now is the time to help them get in a position where they can successfully develop that wealth on their own. And while the Baker effort is very important, we should be reminded that two-thirds of the Iraqi foreign debt, or $80 billion, is held in Arab hands. When are they going to pitch in and help their fellow Arabs? Now there’s a task for the Velvet Hammer.

One issue we can put behind us is the idea that Saddam and his cronies fled to neighboring Syria, a theory propagated by many, including myself, after the war ended in April. Still, the Ba’athist brothers must feel the heat:

In Syria, national TV did not broadcast Saddam's capture - there is too much similarity for comfort between the Ba'ath regime in Iraq and in Syria. Both brought a minority to power in a military coup and kept power by force. "I do not believe Syria is the next objective of the U.S.," President Bashaar Assad said before leaving on a visit to Greece.

Syria is not a direct target no, but the events in Iraq this year should have given Assad Jr. a lot to think about. Can’t immediately think of a historic parallel, but it is not hard to figure out that if change does not come from the outside, outside events may well prompt some movement domestically.

This is the type of news that makes you wonder whether what you have just read on your screen is for real. Saddam captured! I just had a chance to sit down and watch CNN with my two kids, one asking if Wolf Blitzer was Grandpa and the other pointing to Saddam asking: “Is that a monkey?” She is too young to understand but monkey is probably too generous and nice a term for this man, but today he sure looked like one!

A complete round-up of blogosphere reactions to the capture of Saddam can be found over at The Truth Laid Bear. My other recommendation for the day is Wizbang, where Kevin challenges you to beat Indymedia by coming up with conspiracy theories that describe why Saddam was capured today.

A few more thoughts: I had some time to digest this news. With celebrating Iraqis in the streets and a phenomenal jump in the value of the Iraqi Dinar I think today’s events are a huge confidence builder for Iraq and its future. Let’s see how the rest of the Arab world reacts. Especially the way in which Saddam was captured is telling, no firefight, no suicide, no heroism. Any chance of martyr status evaporated on the spot and a likely death penalty will not change that. Saddam falls in the Ceaucescu class and keeping him imprisoned leaves the door open for Baathist remnants to bring him back at some point in time in whatever format. Therefore, the Iraqi courts need to deal with him now in a fair and swift manner, after coalition forces have fully debriefed him.

While everyone was debating if the Pentagon was wise in excluding France, Germany, Russia and Canada from bidding on Iraqi reconstruction work, estimated at $18 billion, Bush was on the phone with Putin, Schroeder and Chirac to discuss comparatively far bigger amounts: Iraq’s foreign debt. Estimated at about $120 billion dollars (the equivalent of the current foreign debt of Russia), with $80 billion to owing to the Arab world. France, Germany and Russia are probably instrumental in trying to restructure and write-off about $40 billion of that amount, it is estimated that France and Russia each are owed about $8 billion by Iraq. Former Secretary of State James Baker has been given the task to talk some of these sovereign creditors into co-operation, but yesterday’s events haven’t made things very easy for the Velvet Hammer:

White House officials declined to say how Mr. Bush explained the Pentagon policy to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, President Jacques Chirac of France and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany. France and Russia were two of the largest creditors of Saddam Hussein's government. But officials hinted, by the end of the day, that Mr. Baker might be able to show flexibility to countries that write down Iraqi debt.

So there’s a way out of this mess: if you write-off some debt we can put you back on the list of the Pentagon’s preferred bidders. Sounds easy but my guess is that Baker will have to use all his diplomatic skills to pull off this one.

Update: A reader points to the Marshall Plan and suggests that France and Germany be presented with a bill for that which, adding interest, would well exceed what Iraq owes today.

The whole Pentagon list issue is bizarre, let’s take an example here. The Dutch did not support the war in Iraq militarily, only politically. No one really knows what that was supposed to mean but the essence was, Dutch forces as part of the coalition were politically not palatable for the Dutch public at large but the government felt it had to support the US on moral grounds. Good, so there were no Dutch troops during the war in March-April and when Tommy Franks dragged a Dutch officer on stage that happened to be walking around at CENTCOM’s operations center there was a public outcry in The Netherlands: “ What was that guy doing there with Franks, weren’t we only supporting the US politically?” After the war the Dutch sent out a contingent of soldiers to help out in Southern Iraq and while I do not know what the price tag is for that deployment, it may very well be comparable to the $225 million that Canada is forking out to help and rebuild Iraq, although I guess it’s much less. The Canadians were not part of the war coalition, but neither were the Dutch. Yet the Dutch can bid for contracts, but the Canadians can not.

I have come out consistently in favor of the Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz approach and I will continue to do that as I believe in their vision for the Middle East. The positioning of Russia, France, Canada and Germany in the months leading up to Iraqi Freedom was disgraceful and counter-productive, but excluding them from a contractor list is petty, short-sighted and vindictive. The portion of the contracts they would eventually end up with is irrelevant; it is the principle and the approach. That approach reflects a lot but hardly the long-term view and that is what we need in Iraq. Let’s see what preferred bidders Angola, Uganda and Samoa will throw into the effort.

A few weeks back I thought about doing a post on the merits of a Bush visit to Baghdad, but never got around to doing it. Well Bush did get around to it and today paid a surprise Thanksgiving Day visit to the troops in Iraq:

“ … Iraq's U.S. civil administrator L. Paul Bremer told the soldiers he was supposed to read the president's Thanksgiving proclamation to them but would instead defer to the most senior person on the premises, Reuters said. At that point, Bush emerged wearing a military jacket to great cheers …”

This is a very important gesture to the troops as well as to the people of Iraq. Following shortly after the announcement of more marines being deployed in Iraq it solidifies this President’s commitment to stay the course.

Update: I had a lump in my throat when I saw footage of the visit on CNN just now; and I think the President had one too. The difference between staged and scripted stuff like the “major combat is over” on the USS Lincoln and an impromptu Thanksgiving visit to the troops in Baghdad is phenomenal and I think we needed something like this to be reminded of that. It also again underlines in what zone Bush is comfortable, in a casual outfit among the guys and gals, shaking hands, padding shoulders. He’s is not just good at that, no, that’s who he is and it reminded me of his Ground Zero visit. It not only makes him a great unwavering wartime leader, it also makes him an extremely likely guy. Both traits will serve him and the US well in the period ahead.

Many reports seem to suggest that the plan to accelerate a transfer of power to an Iraqi authority implies a U-turn in US policy and is a cut-and-run. Not at all, here’s Paul Bremer:

"Our presence here will change from an occupation to an invited presence. I'm sure the Iraqi government is going to want to have coalition forces here for its own security for some time to come."

Which in theory means that US troops will stay for as long as necessary, until such point in time that a democratically elected Iraqi government is stable enough to withstand any direct domestic or regional challenges. That may be a long time and for now it appears there’s a commitment to 2006 on the table.

Steven Den Beste has some good comments in relation to the situation in Iraq, taking those to task who are suggesting that Bush is starting to blink in the face of ongoing terrorist attacks and guerilla warfare. His argument is that the Bush-Bremer team is adapting its plans along the way, showing a healthy dose of intelligence and flexibility when circumstances on the ground change. Yes, the entire effort in Iraq is sound in principle and needs adjustment from time to time, and in that sense is very comparable to any strategic business plan, you set a course and along the road variables change which in turn will prompt you to make some corrections, some of them drastic. That does not mean that the original strategy is basically wrong, if for instance it means that we need to bring in more joint-venture partners to share the risk, fine. The one problem is that with an upcoming election, Bush is facing ongoing media pressure that requires him to adapt and explain the strategy in a way so as to not alarm the electorate, which is what many media are trying to do. Last week I highlighted the fact that in the run-up to the invasion the pitch to the American public and the world at large was weak, and while the message has improved we have to look very carefully between the lines to understand what is really going on. For instance, anyone who believes that a panic has caused the Bush team to reduce the number of troops deployed in Iraq should take a look at this:

The administration is not suggesting that a speedier transfer of power to an Iraqi governing authority would mean an end to America's military presence in the country. Indeed, the reduction in troop levels envisioned by the Pentagon would still leave 105,000 American soldiers in Iraq next year, compared to the 130,000 there now.

While reducing troop levels would help in an election year, the numbers committed should still be sufficient to carry out the long-term strategic goal of stabilizing Iraq while ensuring that a steady handover to a democratically elected Iraqi administration takes place. William Kristol and Robert Kagan, however have serious doubts over this strategy, arguing it is in contradiction with itself: White House wanting to stay, Pentagon wanting out. Not necessarily so, the administration is adjusting plans such that with a slow reduction in US troop numbers, and a revamped strategy to bring in Iraqi security forces as well as international partners things will work out. Some will call that “gambling”, and some will qualify it as “blinking in the face of terror”. I admit, is has a bit of the former, but it surely is not the latter.

Plans are being adapted and we can argue the merits of these modifications but as Kristol and Kagan rightly contend, failure in Iraq would be a strategic calamity worse than America's retreat from Vietnam 30 years ago. That’s why the basic strategy will stay in place, and why there will be many adjustments and adaptations along the way. Fodder for the media, crucial to mission success.

Earlier this week I had to prepare the CEO of one of my venture companies for a presentation to an angelforum, the latter being a somewhat informal gathering of successful entrepreneurs who have made their money in primarily technology and are now willing to drop some of their wealth into new starting companies. Preparation for events like this is rigorous; you’re given ten minutes for the pitch and can only have a PowerPoint of ten slides so you better be very precise about why you’re such a great investment opportunity. Investors want to know everything about your history, product, team, development plans, how you can capture a slice of a crowded market and finally: what the exit strategy will be (IPO, take-over, merger), all in all a lot of information given the time allotment you have. Tough questions follow, and some of them are next to impossible to answer, you generally have a very good idea about your technology and the people that will build and market the end product, but market forces may severely disrupt any well-defined plan. That makes it hard to convince critical and somewhat condescending angels, predicting an exit strategy is something that falls entirely beyond the scope of what one can reasonably forecast. That’s one of the reasons why I long ago abandoned revenue projections (utter nonsense, really) and restrict myself to very conservative cashflow projections for 12 months only. It should also be emphasized that many technology deals end up in a completely different space then where they thought they were going to be, only recently a company here in town that started out as an open-source developer was acquired for a sizeable sum just because they changed gears and came up with some great anti-spam software. In summary, unique concepts and committed people will probably end up somewhere in the success zone, but it is an extremely difficult undertaking to try and convince someone of that impending future accomplishment today.

Why am I telling you this? Because it goes some way to explaining the lack of clarity regarding the longer term plans for Iraq. Dan Drezner and Kevin Drum have a hard time figuring out why the Bush administration is not unequivocally clear as to why we are in Iraq and for how much longer we are going to be there. In a way, Bush has been able to convince his investors this week as Congress chipped in a healthy $87 billion dollars so they at least seem to have bought into the deal and the various milestones along the road. They also must have some notion of an ultimate exit, if not they’re not representing the US taxpayer very well.

If you use the venture analogy then it is clear that from the outset Bush had a clear idea of what needed to be done, which was enforce previous UN resolutions lest the civilized world would resemble an ineffective group of chattering nations without the resolve to execute any of its threats. It all came against the backdrop of the war on terror and the likelihood that Saddam had developed weapons that could easily be acquired and used by terrorists. Good case, and a compelling one if well pitched which I believe it initially was. The Bush pitch ran into trouble when he violated a basic rule of angel presentations, he threw in a few extra PowerPoint slides to bolster his case when he did not directly get his way with the UN and domestically some critics started to raise their voices. Not a good move, since his case was more than persuasive in the first instance and if you can not convince those that you are pitching to, do not try to convince them with some last minute notions that have never been on the table before. The al-Qaeda link springs to mind as does the notion of freedom for the people of Iraq, the latter being especially unintelligent for if it was a valid argument then coalition forces would have at least fifty other nations to liberate. The other instant reason was that it would take the wind out of Arafat’s and Hamas’ sails in their war against Israel. Nonsense, if that were so then America could stand accused of directly interfering in a conflict in which they were also trying to mediate. While I would still agree to the logic of the latter points that were thrown in at the last minute, they did not really stand the test of public scrutiny, especially not when they were taken in context with the other basic reasons, it left many confused and was fodder for the critics.

I have not figured out a timeline, but it seems that shortly before the war the idea of democracy in Iraq started to gain momentum, with a view that it would open up the corrupt and stinking pit that was rapidly turning the Arab world into a mass recruiting ground for terrorists. Rollback terrorism by implementing democracy, if Iraq falls, Syria would follow and so would Saudi-Arabia etc. This was a good argument but one that should have been made in conjunction with enforcing UN resolutions and the threat of certain arms falling into terrorist hands. In other words, that slide should have been part of the Bush pitch right from the very start. But it would be a tough one to sell and the administration must have thought that it would be better to bring out the facts selectively at a later stage in order to not unnecessarily disrupt the mood among the listeners. A pretty serious mistake which is why they have to work so hard now to fix past mistakes. To go back to my analogy, they are now putting out PowerPoints every week, not only to remedy mistakes in past communications but also to bring reassurance as the situation on the ground keeps changing everyday.

My basic contention is that the strategy for Iraq was valid but that the way in which the Bush team formulated, planned and communicated it was flawed. They absolutely have the right ingredients to make it work (the military apparatus, the funds and the vision) and they are on the right track. When many Democrats indicate that on grounds of national security they will vote for Bush, and when we realize that just like 1939 was not 1914, Iraq is not Vietnam, Bush continues to have a phenomenal amount of capital he can draw on. Knowing that he could and should be more specific, within the confines of national security, about the strategy and the various milestones along the way. But like any venture deal, don’t ask about the exit strategy, it’s just too early to tell and maybe Bush and his team should have been a bit more upfront about that particular aspect.

The Iraqi situation has been underreported on this site but given recent developments I will bring it back into the focus of attention. What prompted me today was this rather alarming piece of news from CalPundit which discusses a rumor that the administration may decide to pull out in March next year. The key rationale would be that it would take the wind out of Democratic sails during the campaign and help to repackage the Iraqi operation as a victory for the Bush administration with a limited amount of casualties. I do not believe in this scenario, but it is a scary one as it would hand the Baathist remnants, al-Qaeda operatives and all other loosely organized Islamist terror groups their greatest victory and it would undo all the progress that has been made to date. Although not strictly comparable, the lessons from Beirut and Mogadishu are still valid and it is crucial that we now honor our commitment to the Iraqi people and for their sake as well as our own the US and the world can not turn its back on Iraq in the face of a violent and evil minority that is desperate to turn back the clock. If domestic politics are going to dictate Iraqi policy to the extent that Bush is willing reverse everything that has been accomplished to date, we are in for some unstable and dangerous times. Let’s not forget that although Kevin Drum thinks Bush is a poll-driven man going for risk free policies, he is also a man of very strong convictions who has undertaken a lot of things during his tenure that were far from risk free. Iraq is a case in point and if Bush wants to avoid the harsh verdicts of history that have been meted out to both his father and Bill Clinton who both followed low risk strategies in the Middle East, then he will have to stay the course, no matter how rough it is going to be. And something tells me that both Bush and his pollsters are very capable of explaining that to the American people.

Just watched a rerun of the Bush speech and apart from the staggering numbers (as a finance guy I never like the fact that a request for money comes in well above the upper range of what was expected: $87 billion when the expected range was $60 to $80 billion) the message was clear and centered around what many of us were expecting. The stay in Iraq is for the long term and the assistance of other countries would be more than welcome. It also means that the long term really means an indefinite stay as the speech effectively said : "we’ll be in Iraq until terrorism has been defeated". It was therefore that the President’s invoked the aftermath of the Second World War as it is indicative of what’s going to happen: to this day (58 years and counting) there are US troops in Germany but that did not stop Germany from becoming a free and democratic independent nation. So, the plan is to attempt to build up a group of democratic Middle Eastern allies that will allow American and foreign military on their soils in return for providing security against destabilizing forces. But as opposed to the German example the US troops will not only defend but also be pro-active in the war against terrorism and from that point of view we have only just started, the $87 billion is merely the upfront-fee for a very long project financing with various bumpy and unexpected milestones ahead. But if anyone needed a reminder of why we are in Iraq here it was, and I believe it can not be repeated often enough:

We have learned that terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength; they are invited by the perception of weakness. And the surest way to avoid attacks on our own people is to engage the enemy where he lives and plans. We are fighting that enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan today so that we do not meet him again on our own streets, in our own cities.

I hardly ever post comments on other sites but now that I regularly visit blogs that are more left-of-center, I have started to feel the urge to drop some comments here and there. This is what comments should be about, a place where opposing points of view meet and an interesting discussion ensues, very often comments sections turn into rant-fests with little creative or intellectual content. Last night I dropped a short one on CalPundit’s site where the commentary veered toward branding Bush “thoughtless” given the various obstacles and challenges his administration is now encountering in Iraq. Without trying to debunk the usual anti-Bush rhetoric I summarized succinctly what I believed is the case:

Public opinion is working against sending more troops and Bush is, justifiably, banking on more international involvement. Senator McCain will lead the charge this week to see that more troops and money are allocated to Iraq, but again, the administration is reluctant for now in the face of the public mood.

Bush is sticking to his guns in this case and Dan Drezner points out today that this is one of the key features of the Bush approach to foreign policy: the best way is to stay course, despite widespread public criticism, an approach that has worked well so far. Before radically changing course and expanding the US effort as McCain suggests, Bush is likely to use all other options available before increasing troop deployments. The first option is to continue with the current set-up, the second one is to sub-contract civilian tasks now being carried out by GIs (the Rumsfeld road) and the third option is to seek more international assistance. And then there is the scenario where a mixture of all three is applied which I believe is the most likely outcome. It will not be before all options are completely exhausted that we will see increased US troop deployments.

My father has sent me two thick envelopes with newspaper clippings from the Dutch press, arguing, debating and analyzing the situation in Iraq with a focus on the justification for going to war. The arguments against are well documented and I will not bore you with the endless analyses of US and UK intelligence reports, WMDs or the possible al-Qaeda connection and how a segment of the European press has documented these over the past few months. As I have said before, both Blair and Bush were right but they could have made their case better. Flipping through all the clippings my dad sent me, I did find some interesting stuff, some of it encouraging, some of it evidence of Europe’s continued mode of denial.

There continues to be a notion that it is impossible to bring democracy to a country like Iraq and that, in addition to all the other reasons, the whole effort was ill-defined from the very start and that the chances of bringing stability and freedom to Iraq are wishful American thinking. Maybe, but that does not mean we should not try. Establishing democracy was one of the miscommunications by the Bush team as they instead should have focused on establishing the rule of law. The rule of law, whether it find its legitimacy in a good functioning democracy yes or no, is a prerequisite for restoring civil society in Iraq while at the same time neutralizing any players that seek to destabilize the country and neighboring countries. It is frustrating to see that there continues to be a strong lobby against helping out coalition forces rebuilding Iraq by endlessly referring back to the past, similar to those pre-war objections to remove Saddam with the argument that the West put him in place and that he was an erstwhile ally. Did that mean that we should not have done anything?

What is encouraging though is that many in Europe realize that there is no quick fix in Iraq and that it in the interest of many in the West to pitch in and help rebuild the country. One of the clippings referred to the fact that even the European left is coming to its senses with this great quote from the Dutch NRC Handelsblad:

Even the left-wing parties in Europe are, after a long period of doubt coming to the conclusion that there is a problem if people advocate that a good westerner is a dead one.

The deadly attack on UN headquarters today highlights that the terrorists do indeed not make any distinction between US, UN or UK representatives. The bombing is evidence that if we fail to build up this country and pull out in the face of terror and instability the place may very well destabilize even further and become a breeding ground for terrorism for years to come. We can not flinch, if we do we give Islamist terror their greatest victory on a platter. In a way the attack on the UN underlines the need for all nations that are willing and able to get in and help get Iraq back on its feet again, if there ever is a so-called clash of civilizations then here’s our chance to help avoid and nip Middle Eastern instability in the bud.

Uday and Qusay are now confirmed dead. My guess is that this will help considerably in further stabilizing Iraq. It also confirms that they were not in Syria as so many – like this blog – initially believed. It means that they really had nowhere to run and it could also point us to the location of the old man. The Iraqis are getting closer every day to that clean slate on which they can build a new and free country.

The whole SOTU discussion was bothering me, since if I was going to address it here, it would have meant reiterating the entire rationale for going to war in Iraq and why the Bush administration failed into communicating the pre-emptive dogma to the American people and the world at large. Today, Condi Rice saved me the trouble, here’s the key portion:

The president of the United States did not go to war because of the question of whether or not Saddam Hussein sought the uranium in Africa. He took the American people and American forces to war because this was a bloody tyrant, who for 12 years had defied the international community, who had weapons of mass destruction, who had used them in the past, who was threatening his neighbors, and who threatened our efforts to make the Middle East a place in which you would have stability and therefore not people with ideologies of hatred driving airplanes into the World Trade Center. That's why we went to war.

Thanks Condi. Now there may be a discussion as to how certain facts find their way into the SOTU, but that still does not warrant the out-of-proportion attention given to the sixteen words about uranium sourcing in Africa, again Condi:

So yes, it is unfortunate that this one sentence, this 16 words, remained in the State of the Union. But this in no way has any effect on the president's larger case about Iraqi efforts to reconstitute the nuclear program, and, most importantly, and the bigger picture, of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program.

And she goes on to tell Wolf Blitzer that:

Look, Wolf, of course, anybody involved in this process at this point would have to say there was a mistake here, something went wrong. And we will all go back and redouble our efforts to see that something like this doesn't happen again.

Case closed. Next time work on making the case better and clearer, for it is a good case for a justifiable cause.

It strikes me that some are a little too eager to start using the word Watergate in connection with that other “W” word, WMD. Tonight former Nixon counsel John Dean pitched in by suggesting that the manipulation of intelligence could be construed as an impeachable act. This is a questionable statement as becomes clearer when you read the rest of the short interview with CNN where Dean admits that:

Do you base your policy on intelligence, or is your intelligence used selectively to support your policy when it's a predetermined decision? We had the impression -- after I lined up all those quotes of Mr. Bush -- that he was very clearly relying on intelligence to take us to war. Now, what I'm saying is we don't know the answers to these questions. We won't get the answers for a while, but we've at least started the process. And I'm telling you if you get to the end of the line and you find manipulation of intelligence, that's when you get into the very troublesome area.

The problem with Dean’s reasoning is that he is making the assumption that Bush could be impeached for selectively using or misusing intelligence gathered by the CIA and FBI. If a President is using information gathered for illegal purposes or asks the intelligence community to perform illegal actions that is the area where the nation’s chief executive could get in trouble. The latter was the case with Richard Nixon, as Dean would know. Bush has, as far as I am aware, not instructed the CIA to compose intelligence based on what Bush believed, nor has he used the intelligence services for any extra-legal activities. He has interpreted, as politicians normally do, information prepared for him by a number of government agencies. If Bush has misinterpreted or misread that information there is only one test he will have to face and that test will determine if he can stay in the White House yes or no. That test is not called impeachment, it is called the ballot box and it will be there in November next year. If Dean thinks there’s a problem with the way Bush has entered the war with Iraq he should cast his vote next year for Bush’s opponent and not use a powerful term like impeachment as lightly as he is doing now. Some media might pick it up, you know.

The discussion over the absence of any evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq following Paul Wolfowitz’s interview with Vanity Fair as well as the claims that Tony Blair misled the British public is gaining momentum. It provides an opportunity to those that opposed the war to tarnish the success of operation Iraqi Freedom. If the public relations side had been managed as well as the war itself this annoying discussion would not have taken place.

The discussion could have been avoided altogether if Bush and Blair had been able to communicate, comprehensively, why Saddam needed to be removed. By initially taking the UN route they had to focus on WMDs, which failed to paint the entire picture. That picture would have concentrated on Saddam’s capability to encourage terrorism in all its shapes and forms, his ability to destabilize the Middle East, his stated intentions to develop WMDs, the chemical and biological weapons that he already possessed as well as the need for democratic change in the Arab world at large. While all of these factors were highlighted at one point or another, neither Bush nor Blair did convincingly explain, at a higher level, why pre-emption was necessary and why a policy of pre-emption is an instrumental and justifiable part of foreign policy in a world where the enemy is not willing to subject itself to multinational institutions and agreements. If they had, the discussion on the apparent absence of WMD development would not have taken place and no one would have been in a position to throw mud at Tony Blair, hoping that some of it would stick.

While Bush and Blair are on the right track with pre-emption, the public at large needs to understand that enemies of the free world have never played by any rules other than their own, which is why pre-emption is such a basic tool for survival. The idea that multinational institutions could govern these relations is a post World War II illusion and it is upon the leaders of the free world to explain this clearly and succinctly, recognizing that many continue to have a misguided belief in these institutions. Now may be the time to elaborate on the essence of pre-emptive action as we may need to apply some of it sooner than we would like.

As a parent I can attest to this: the severe psychological strain that results from prolonged exposure to Barney songs. Iraqi prisoners exposed to this are going through hell, no doubt. Both the National Post and the Guardian report.

What I reported on in detail last week was formalized today, Paul Bremer’s appointment as the new civilian administrator for Iraq.

This report has been buried in the news a little bit but it appears that Paul Bremer is going to be appointed as the new civilian administrator of Iraq in which case Gen. Jay Garner would report to Bremer. There are a number of interesting aspects to this appointment. Firstly, the appointment for Bremer is seen as a victory by the State Department over the Pentagon as the latter had been backing Ahmad Chalabi as a candidate for a leadership position. In fact, Gen. Garner is a good friend of Rumsfeld and the new arrangement indicates that the Pentagon may be losing influence on how to reconstruct Iraq. The second interesting part of this arrangement is that it seems that it has been put together as there is no clear Iraqi who could play a leading civilian role alongside Gen. Garner. That would indicate that it could be a while before a suitable Iraqi administrative team is appointed so we may be looking at a far longer US involvement in Iraq then previously assumed. Bremer, by the way, is also one of the top counter-terrorism experts in the US and that may imply that the war on terror could to some extent be managed out of Baghdad by Bremer as the expert on the ground. I would imagine that in the absence of a terrorist threat we could have found someone else to fill this position.

The other interesting part is that Paul Bremer used to be the US Ambassador to The Netherlands from 1983 to 1986 and it that capacity I once had the pleasure to attend a speech he gave at my university back in 1985. There were not that many people attending as The Netherlands, and especially universities, were infected by very strong anti-American attitudes with regards to the deployment of cruise missiles in Europe. For me however it was a great opportunity to hear and learn more about US foreign policy from someone who represented an administration that I deeply admired. Bremer was indeed a civil servant every inch as opposed to a flamboyant politician and there were no bold statements or visionary approaches to foreign policy from his side. I remember his presentation and the Q & A that followed to be clear and to the point without venturing into sensitive areas. That may be a skill set that he will need once he settles into Baghdad. Together with his counter terrorist know-how he probably will be an effective administrator.

The quagmire in Baghdad’s streets did not materialize and neither did the last stand at Tikrit as Saddam’s hometown was captured today without much of a fight. I somehow had that feeling last Saturday evening when CNN reporters were driving around Tikrit unhindered, running into a only a few wandering Iraqi soldiers, some of them even unarmed. With the US now pulling two aircraft carriers out of the Gulf it is evident that Iraqi Freedom is coming to an end. The rebuilding effort is gaining momentum as is the pressure on Syria which I have been discussing below, more on this here. It will take some time but I will not be too hard to do an accounting exercise on Iraq’s military assets and determine what has been destroyed, what has survived and what has gone missing. In the latter case, the missing parts may well be safe and sound inside Syria as is a significant group of former Iraqi leaders.

Great news today and I can write a happy conclusion to my post of March 26. Let's hope that all freed POWs will be able to recover from their ordeal quickly and be united with their families as early as possible.

Peaktalk is not a blog to focus on the military details of operation Iraqi Freedom but yesterday I was truly puzzled as to how the US forces pulled off what they did in Baghdad. The details got lost in all the celebrations and statue toppling, but a Dutch newspaper pointed me to EBO, or Effects Based Operations, you can find the definition here. The idea behind it was to structure the military operations in such a way that it was easier to achieve the political goals. The political goal was not to capture the entire city of Baghdad, but to ensure the complete breakdown of the Saddam regime and its grip on government by attacking its credibility. It had remained credible largely because of the fear it had instilled in the citizenry of Baghdad and it was therefore crucial to let the locals know that they would no longer have to fear repercussions from the regime. At the same time that fear had to be reversed by letting the remnants of Saddam’s forces know that they had better give up any fight as power in the city had changed hands. So US forces primarily attacked the symbols of power and used the most important boulevards for their armored divisions, making them clearly visible. Think of it like this: you can go house to house in Brooklyn but driving a tank over Fifth Avenue will probably have a much bigger impact. Military experts consider this to be a risky strategy, but yesterday it worked out well.

An analysis in English can be found here. Excerpt:

When Saddam Hussein's capital fell to coalition forces yesterday, it was largely the result of Maj.-Gen. Blount pulling off an almost unprecedented military gamble and turning conventional military thinking on it head: taking a major urban centre with tanks and without a lengthy, costly siege.

"They appear to have correctly conceptualized that the assault on Baghdad was essentially a coup d'état. When you have a coup, you basically grab the airport, grab the main government buildings downtown, grab the TV station, claim that you're in charge, and dare anyone to dispute you."

Very impressive and thank God that it worked out so well yesterday.

We are writing history today, and that is now even acknowledged in the Arab press, although not all agree. The Washington Post has a good summary of a confused Arab world, struggling to come to terms with the new world. It must indeed be very hard to see images of Arabs giving their thumbs up to US troops.

To the day, 21 days. No quagmire, no house to house combat and a very limited amount of casualties. Iraqis celebrating the toppling of Saddam’s statue together with American troops captured everything and proves once more that this was a justified invasion. The planning and execution of operation Iraqi Freedom is a phenomenal masterpiece and I believe that the Bush team by staying the course throughout the difficult months leading up to this war and throughout the past 21 days has proven it was right, understood the complexity and delivered. In business we would say: “under promise and over deliver”. Take that Chirac. Take that Schroder. Take that Chretien.

We are not there yet, we may still have a final showdown in Tikrit. The crowd celebrating the toppling of Saddam’s statue was relatively small which means that fear still governs, but I think that the end of his bloody rule will start to sink in with the population at large in a fairly rapid fashion. It is almost over, really.

Pejman today points to the thrill of hearing victorious bagpipes. Well, he beat me to it as I knew this moment would come and I want to share my bond with the deeply emotional and haunting power of the bagpipes.

My father as a war buff took me when I was only a small boy to “The Longest Day”, the epic war movie about D-Day. The movie is a classic in our family and I have seen it many times since. To me the most poignant part of the film has always been the scene where British paratroopers were dropped behind enemy lines the night before D-Day to capture and hold a particular bridge. Their mission was to secure the bridge and hold it until relieved by the British forces that would land on the beaches of Normandy the following morning. The group holding the bridge of course came under heavy fire and it took a bit longer for other British forces to relieve them, raising some concerns about whether they would be able to hold on to that bridge. But when they did, all you saw and heard was smoke, gunfire and in the distance the sounds of the triumphant pipes. As the camera rolled on there appeared a lonely Scotsman, armed just with a set of bagpipes, from the smoke playing the pipes and as the camera cut to the troops holding the bridge a voice over would say “hold until relieved”, hold until relieved”. Well, that is how I remember it and as a small boy I was blown away by that moment, reinforced as it was by the sound of the bagpipe. It was the resonance of hope and victory and it pierced my soul in a very unusual way.

As I grew older I forgot all about the bagpipe, but when I moved to Hong Kong my passion for the instrument was reignited. In Hong Kong with its large Scottish contingent, the bagpipe had made serious inroads, and there were regular performances by the Royal Hong Kong Police as well as the Black Watch regiment, the last British regiment to defend Hong Kong and also the regiment that has been instrumental in capturing Basra over the past few days. The day of Hong Kong’s handover to China was one of rainiest days of that year, very hot and shreds of clouds hung lowly over Hong Kong. When the last Governor, Chris Patten, departed from his residence the wailing sound of the bagpipes added something mystic to the entire scene. “Highland Cathedral” the last tune played magnificently by the Royal Hong Kong Police when the British flag came down brought many, including myself to tears. The force of the bagpipe instilled in me years ago, in a movie theatre watching The Longest Day, came right back. That night when the British had their formal sent off the Black Watch gave one more phenomenal performance and when the Union Flag was lowered in the pitch dark accompanied by torrential rains, a soaked and lonely bagpiper played the last few notes in what was an almost mythical display of pride, nature and deep emotion. It’s hard to convey on paper, but whenever I replay the video of the moment I am deeply moved.

Irene and I married later that year and I wasted no time to book a bagpipe player for the ceremony. I stocked up on Scottish and British CD’s (we so happened to spend our honeymoon in the Scottish Highlands) with bagpipe music and I play them regularly, especially in the car. The music energizes me and it brings back some unique memories. During the summer there are often bagpipers playing downtown and they can always count on a big tip from me.

When during the September 11 memorial in the ruins of the World Trade Centre I heard a deep and moving rendition of Amazing Grace it hit me instantly: “we are going to win this thing no matter what happens, we will win ”. I can easily picture the sound of the bagpipes in Basra although I would love to see and hear and above all feel it as it transcends everything earthly. It conveys a deep human emotion that is hard to get across otherwise and that is why so many are thrilled by the sound of the bagpipes. Bring them out, we will win.

It seems I made a correct assumption the other day, Daniel Drezner has the goods on Iraqi troops fighting at gunpoint. Daniel also has some thoughts on America's ambassador blasting Canada, just scroll down. I do not agree with him, though.

The other day I commented on the fact that the reign of terror perpetrated by Baath party loyalists among Iraqi troops prompted lots of them to fight on. Well, I was only partly right as some of you have pointed out. In fact there are three groups of fierce loyalists that we are facing in Iraq. We have Saddam’s Baath Party fighters and two other groups, Saddam Fedayeen and Al Quds. I believe the latter is the Arab name for Jerusalem so that will tell you what to expect from that group. In addition to terrorizing regular troops to fight on there are two other distinct reasons for fighting on, and these apply especially to the aforementioned hardcore groups. One is sheer loyalism to the Saddamite cause and the other is the fact that most of the members of these groups do not have anything to lose so they might as well die while they are at it. Again, it would compare well to the SS in the final days of World War II, loyalty until death follows.

The one thing I could not get out of my mind yesterday is the POW situation. Falling into Iraqi hands as a prisoner of war is a horrifying and humiliating experience. I keep reading stories from POWs from Desert Storm like this one and I try to understand how they managed to pull through. The conditions under which they were kept prisoner were appalling and the abuse they suffered was gruesome.

The one POW that I keep thinking about is Shoshana Johnson. She is a single mother with a 2-year old at home (why on earth are single parents sent off to a warzone?) and an army cook and probably not well prepared for spending time in captivity. And yes, she is a female captive and she is likely to be exposed to vicious sexual abuse. I can only conclude that she in particular is getting a very raw deal here. No one can probably imagine how someone copes in such a situation, but reading some POW accounts it is apparently a case of mind over matter. Most former POWs were able to switch off their physical being and focus entirely on their mental will to survive. I hope Shoshana and the others (James Riley, Edgar Hernandez, Joe Hudson and Patrick Miller) will muster the force to overcome their fear and physical suffering and survive this ordeal. Let’s all think about them when we have some time and hope and pray for their safe return. Make that a safe return soon.

And the good news is that we have seen no scud attacks on Israel, nor any chemical or biological attacks on US troops. The pre-emption by US special operations teams in the Western Iraqi scud launch zone is a piece of first-class warfare.

Was anyone surprised to see fierce resistance from Iraqi forces over the past 48 hours? Is the Baath regime not collapsing and if that is the case why are so many willing to fight the overpowering US coalition forces? One of the reasons is no doubt the incredible levels of fear instilled in Iraqi forces. Here’s a parallel. During World War II it was evident by January 1945 that Hitler’s Germany was near defeat yet it took another 4 months to finally trounce Nazi Germany and Allied forces very often met incredibly forceful resistance during their march to Berlin. The remnants of the German forces were not only extremely loyal; they were also terrorized by SS units that actively tracked down deserters and others that were unwilling to fight. Executions of German forces by these SS units were common. Whatever happened to Saddam and sons, as long as there is a semblance that they are alive and governing Iraq, there is fear among Iraqis and that fear in turn will continue to fuel the will to fight on the battlefield. Even after Hitler’s suicide it took another 7 full days for Germany to surrender. The days and maybe weeks ahead will be very difficult as we are not up against a poorly organized and ill-equipped army; we’re up against 25 years of instilled fear and terror.

While comparing the war to the endgame with Nazi Germany one other thought occurred to me. Is there any reason to keep Iraq in its current shape and form after Saddam has been defeated? If we are looking for stability and democracy we can either carve the place up into a Shia state, a Sunni state, a free Kurdistan and give some odd bits of desert to Jordan or we can try to preserve the Iraq as is with all the ingredients for continued strife and conflict. Both options have serious drawbacks, the carve-up route will no doubt lead to some heated debate over who gets control over the oil fields and also carries the risk of some radical Shia activity, but we have to remember that Iraq was an artificially designed state in which the Sunni rulers have always been a minority. A carve-up managed by the international community deserves further investigation if only to start settling the Kurdish issue which has been dragging on for far too long.

Good news coming out of Iraq, evidence that US forces are hailed as liberators:

"Americans very good," Ali Khemy said. "Iraq wants to be free."

and

Some chanted, "Ameriki! Ameriki!"

Hope this will continue in other parts of Iraq. It is not a surprise, many have predicted that this would happen and it further underlines that this is a just war.

There is so much news coming from all directions that it is hard to keep track of everything, I spent most of last night watching CNN but do not feel that it is time well spent. You're better of leaving the TV on and do other things, I very often find more useful information online from various news sources as well as blogs. And in the car there is of course the radio and that is how I found out about "Shock and Awe" just now. The latter concerns me, I have a feeling massive bombing is not going to do the trick, targeted "Decapitation Strikes" make a lot more sense.

A new war oriented blog-pool is The Command Post, with various contributors, another one is Back to Iraq. Have a look.

Also, I am swinging from one train of thought to the other. Last night when I went to bed I thought it would be over in a mattter of hours given the fast progress in the south and the upbeat messages of surrendering troops and the likelihood that Saddam and sons were killed, this morning I was not as upbeat when I realized that the Republican Guards may be fighting it out in street to street battles. Again, Shock and Awe does not give me any comfort yet.

Looking around the blogosphere no one really knows, I do not think CNN or FOX really know, so all we can do is digest every snippet of news, draw our own interim conclusions and hope that it will be over soon.

Lots of discussions this morning also on potential War Crimes trials: should we sent the captured Iraqi leadership off to The Hague like Milosevic and friends, court martial them on the spot or go for a hybrid Iraqi/International style court in Baghdad? Chances that anyone of them will be alive to stand trial are remote and if anyone is left: do not sent them to The Hague, do it in Iraq with local help, the Iraqi people need to purge their own institutions as a way to rebuild their country and start a process of national healing. Give them a say in it, it is their country.

I really do not want to waste too much time on the anti-war demonstrations but yesterday's rally in Amsterdam saw the return of Gretta Duisenberg. I wondered what had happened to her and thought that the avalanche of negative publicity had made her retreat from her radical and hateful posturing, but no, she's back. This time she had toned down her anti-semite rants and focused instead on "Bush's shameful behaviour" and stated that there could have been other ways in which to deal with Saddam. Yes, sure. The rally was followed by throwing paint-bombs and stones at the Spanish consulate in Amsterdam. Well, for a change they did not attack the American consulate, someone had probably noticed that Spanish PM Aznar was standing next to Bush and Blair last Sunday. At the same time a rally in The Hague got really out of hand with the burning of an Israeli flag and groups chanting "Hamas". The police subsequently arrested a few members of the Arab-European League who were behind this flag burning incident. It seems there's no longer any debate, it is just getting uglier.

I am glued to my screen. Here's Tony Blair's speech he has just given in the House of Commons. Go read it.

Update: Blair survived, a government motion was just passed. Tony Blair deserved this very important show of support. I wonder how this will affect other nations that are still on the fence.

The irony is now that those who decided not to support the war or tried to wreck the UN resolution are scrambling for a position that will leave them some room to maneuver. This applies in particular to the French who have now said that they will change their perception of the situation once Iraq will start to use chemical or biological weapons.

In the meantime, the Dutch government has restated its position and now says that it supports the war “politically” but not militarily. The latter is an important point as the Dutch Prime Minister stated that Resolution 1441 provided enough grounds to go to war. Fine, so 1441 was good enough after all, a sentiment echoed by Japan’s PM, Koizumi. And in Canada the Prime Minister has refused to take the drastic position that the French had taken by not condemning the war. What I expect will happen is that this positioning will intensify over the next few days and weeks and will fluctuate with the developments on the battlefield. A lot will also depend on what the outcome is for Tony Blair who is facing his party and parliament as I am writing this. There’s a lot going on so I will update regularly with short pieces in the next few days.

For all the discussions and rhetoric over the war, let's be clear on one thing: there are men and women who are going to fight on our behalf. Our thoughts should be with them as well as with their families.

For Americans and Brits, but especially for people who are frustrated that their governments are not supporting this important war here's a chance to do something: support the troops. Over at RWN John Hawkins has started a campaign to leave messages for the troops. Another option is to go to Trooptrax, a project that is sending music to the troops. Peaktalk recommends both strongly.

Update on who is willing to join the coalition of the willing. There are no big surprises here: Australia is in and Canada is out. My native Holland, a staunch atlantic supporter over the years is backing out, the current government led by the Christian Democrats is under a lot of pressure from the Dutch Labour party as they are together building a new coalition government. It seems weird that the Dutch left is leaving Blair out in the cold. I am disappointed. It will be very important now to take a position, shaping the world during and after this war will become the exclusive domain of those that are willing to fight for it. If you're not in, you will be out for a long time to come.

The long wait for a conclusion to the failed attempts to get a UN resolution has yielded a number of very interesting and somewhat unexpected results. The most obvious one is the deep rift between the US and Old Europe which in turn will remove any chance of Britain becoming a solid part of Europe once and for all. It will also have resulted in the irrelevance of the UN as a policy making and enforcing institution, to the extent it ever was. These changes will reshape the international landscape for years to come and, I think, they will change the landscape for the better.

What has also happened is that the anti-war sentiments have become distinctly uglier over the past few months. The past week served up a smorgasbord of invective that, I have to say, is becoming quite scary. Let’s highlight a few:

(1) Democrat Congressman Moran has accused the Jewish community in the US of pressuring the Bush administration to go to war;
(2) In La Habra, California a shrine remembering September 11 was demolished by ‘peace’ activists;
(3) One of the singers of country group the Dixie Chicks found it necessary during a concert to apologize for the fact that Bush was also a Texan;
(4) An extremely sad installment came out of Concordia University in Montreal (was it not the same university where Benjamin Netanyahu was prevented from speaking a little while ago?) were a painting showing the World Trade Center towers protruding from President Bush's unzipped pants was on display;
(5) And to top it all off there is now a threat to create real damage to the Vandenberg Air Force base in California in an effort to disrupt the war.

So we are seeing rhetoric straight out of Adolf Hitler’s book who blamed the Second World War on an international Jewish conspiracy. Comments like this are beyond the pale, especially when they come from a US Congressman. In addition, the memory of more than 3,000 innocent people is being trampled by people who call themselves ‘peace’ activists. And now with threats against US military installations, our men and women on the front line are being endangered.

The above nastiness is an age old dynamic at work. If you can not win the debate, try, slander, try invective, throw out some hate and no doubt some of it will stick. It is the inability of the anti-war movement to conduct a normal debate along the lines of “I do not agree with you because of A, B and C”. It happened in Holland recently where conservative-libertarian Fortuyn was demonized by the larger political parties and branded a racist and even compared to Mussolini. None of this was even close to the truth but the left-leaning political establishment found it impossible to argue with his sharp and well-documented rationale, so the only option left open was slander. This demonization created a climate wherein an environmental activist found sufficient justifcation to pump four bullets into Fortuyn’s head.

Now that their arguments do not longer stand up and rather than try and make a better case the time has come to unleash the devil. This analogy may sound dramatic but we are getting close to more very unpleasant scenes. And if I see this weekend’s peace demonstrations I wonder if they have any sensible argument left. The “blood for oil” slogans for instance were again numerous. Did I not see a video a month ago where demonstrators when asked why if it was about oil we did not take the oil 12 years ago had absolutely no answer, not one of them? And what about “Bush has no congressional approval” Didn’t he get that twice ? I have another great example. Last week I got an e-mail using “years of American occupation” as a an argument against the war. Sure, a continuation of Saddam’s 25 year rule is certainly preferable to any amount of time that you have to live under Americans. Sad stuff, there’s really no other description for it.

The only way to end this debate is to get results and I expect we will see them very soon as war now seems only days away. Yet, I fear that it will not silence some of last week’s hatemongers. Some of them are so full of resentment that they will need very little to bring it out at the next possible occasion. People that trivialize 9-11, people that gladly bring out nazi-like demonization of Jewish citizens are not likely to bow out quietly.

More and more people are getting frustrated over the holding pattern we are in. Mark Steyn is venting his frustrations about this and about the 'peace' movement. I am sure he is well-known to all my North American readers, for the European and Asian crowd: go read him.

My “Voices from the Middle East” post got me thinking. The Arab world is hopelessly divided and now fearful as well, witness yesterday’s meeting in Qatar. They know they have lost the initiative and it will now to a very large extent be up to the U.S. and a few other Western nations to redraw the map in the Middle East. Don’t they at the end of the day have themselves to blame? Why have they not attempted to take matters into their own hands and forged some sort of Arab consensus that would have helped in preventing this war?

They have been backing the wrong horse (Arafat) they have refused to take on the black sheep in their own group (Saddam) and have done precious little against terrorist groups like Al Qaeda. The Gulf War of 1991 should have been a red flag for the Arab world and I clearly remember that during and after that war there was talk about democracy and modernization in the air, Arab nations like Kuwait would change for the better. Yet, very little happened and the voices for change disappeared as quickly as they had arrived on the scene. Yesterday’s meeting in Qatar was a stark reminder that the Arab world has given up the will to shape it own destiny. It is now up to others.

Interesting radio report this morning from the Middle East. The CBC has reporters all over the place and they were trying to paint a picture of what the atmosphere was like in various Middle Eastern locations. CBC is not exactly pro-war but it struck me that none of the reports was making a strong case against the war. On the contrary. The 400,000 Iraqi refugees in Jordan are more than pleased to see things finally moving in Iraq. And the Iraqi’s themselves, what is their biggest fear? An interesting picture emerged from talking to the few people that were willing to speak to Western reporters. Their fear is not the bombs, not the Americans, no, their biggest fear is Saddam. They fear that he will go out with a bang and torch his own country, killing his own people and destroying the few assets they have.

The blog is not even a day old (the first entry says February 27 but here on the Pacific Coast it is still February 26) and there is already an abundance of material to comment on. Just today Canada stepped up to the plate to suggest a deadline by which Iraq should have disarmed or face the consequences. Didn't we already have a UN resolution in place that says that? And are we not drafting yet another one of the same nature? I am guessing that this is the Canadian government's way of saying: "we will join the war effort if Iraq misses our suggested deadline". I could not believe what I was hearing when I heard they suggested a deadline at the end of March. However, Canada seems to be prepared to support the war effort and that is already a lot better than what is coming out of Old Europe.
The anti-war crowd led by Germany rejected this proposal, but so did Washington. This is what happens if you fail to play a credible role in the international scene, no one will really listen to you. Shortly after this "plan" the Canadian Prime Minister took off for Mexico and I hope he did not confuse President Vicente Fox as it appeared Mexico was moving closer to Washington's position and Mexico is a voting member of the UN's security council.
Anyway, it doesn't matter all that much, another UN resolution or no resolution. I believe Washington has a clear timetable and Tony Blair managed to get the House of Commons on side. As the President has said, it will be a matter of weeks, not months.