Here's an interesting videoblog that chronicles the life of a group of young adults trying to lead a normal life in a city where that is increasingly impossible: Hometown Baghdad.

Earlier this week Peaktalk reached its four-year anniversary mark, quietly, without much ado. When I started out, the blogosphere looked very different in those early days of 2003 and many well-known names that helped shaped the online debate - remember Steven den Beste - disappeared from the scene while some opted for a much lower profile. One of them, Norwegian 'warblogger' Bjørn Stærk, an old friend of this site, came back earlier this week with some retrospective thoughts on Iraq, terror and Europe’s cultural conflict in an essay entitled What Went Wrong? He notes:

What we did was the opposite. At every level, from the lowliest blogger to the highest official, war supporters set up filters that protected them from facts they did not want to hear. We saw what we wanted to see, and if anyone saw differently, we called them left-wing moonbats who were rooting for the other side. We defined the entire mainstream media establishment as irrelevant, leaving more biased, less experienced "new" media as our primary source of facts. We ignored reasonable critics, and focused on the crazy ones, so that we could tell ourselves how incredibly smart we were.

I for one have always argued that the idea of the blogosphere replacing the old media was ludicrous to begin with and that independent online forces would rather complement and enrich the daily dosage of news and editorials coming from the entrenched players. And we’re in the middle of that process where certain individual blogs have carved out a permanent niche and others – Huffington, PJM – have been able to establish credible venture backed journals. At the same time the ‘old media’ have become much savvier about participating in the online environment and have also opened their doors to blogger-talent. That, and the passage of time, have contributed to a re-evaluation of the near-certainties as they were propagated by the conservative blogosphere which have now come under some sort of reverse-scrutiny if you like. That is also why we have seen such an increase in recent blogger and pundit ‘mea culpas’.

There are different ways to go about this of course and Stærk is in too much of a hurry to cleanse himself of the fact that he ever supported the war in Iraq. And in doing that he goes as far as arguing that he was part of the very group that helped create the framework for invasion:

Every war must have a war party, a group that actively tries to sell war to the government and to the public. For Iraq, that war party was us - neo-conservative intellectuals, and pundits and bloggers who were sympathetic to them. Without all these people arguing for war, legitimizing it, begging for it, an invasion would have been difficult.

The building blocks for invading Iraq were in place long before intellectuals and bloggers gained the prominence that would allow them to legitimize wars, if they ever did wield that sort of power which I doubt. What Stærk means to say is that one particular segment of opinion making in the post-9/11 world was able to push public opinion in a direction that supported war in Iraq and that may have helped the events as they unfolded. What Stærk subconsciously is saying however I think, is that he was one of those that limited his daily newsgathering to emerging right-of-center blogs and thus constructed a world view that was overly influenced by one source of information. More in particular, by one source of sentiment. Now that is a conclusion that warrants some cleansing and self-examination, not a retroactive assessment of what went wrong with regards to Iraq which is a different matter.

Stærk does however bring up a few valid points about the response to terror and I certainly agree with this part:

The British CCTV system, built partly in response to IRA attacks, shows how eagerly people may trade freedom for security. All it takes is a permanent climate of fear, and the calm, soothing voice of authority telling you it knows how to make you safe. I'm not saying that we've become unfree, or are about to. But I think the path towards it is open. The only response to terrorism we can imagine is to give more power to the state, and once given, that power will be hard to take back.

We continue to underrate this phenomenon and many writers on the right have been derelict in discussing the steady erosion of our freedoms while cheering the 'war on terror'.

The essay ends with some thoughts about Europe and its current predicament and - without using the exact term - the sort of Weimarization that is raising its head in certain European polities. Overall, it is a worthwhile piece, but I am somewhat taken aback by the overenthusiastic self-flagellation that our Norwegian friend has opted for.

UPDATE: Bjørn responds as follows:

It wasn't my intention to say that I - or other bloggers - caused the war as such. We were probably more of a symptom, while the real causation took place in established media and political circles. My point was rather that we were all part of the same current, and also that bloggers made the same mistakes that pundits, influential intellectuals and officials made: Arrogance, armchair speculation, labelling of critics, ideological filtering of facts. This is precisely what seems to have happened at the top, except they filtered intelligence data, while we only had access to the news. So it's absolutely relevant to point out the mistakes bloggers made, even if we might not have made much of a difference. And then again maybe we could have. This was during the warmup of the blog hype - imagine if political blogs had emerged as a force of reasoned debate and critical thinking, instead of just a wilder form of old-fashioned punditry.

As for "self-flagellation", I don't feel guilty, and I am aware of the danger of excessive remorse, and I don't think I made that mistake here. I realize that there were a lot of intelligent and well-meaning people on our side, and a lot of stupid people on the other. It wasn't all bad vs all good. What I do feel is that I've been part of something rather stupid, and that it is only natural to point this out. And I'm also somewhat tired of people who say "yes we made a mistake, _but_". No, we made a mistake, period, and that needs to be said, without excuses. Of course there are valid excuses to make, and valid criticism to make of the other side, but it's somewhat pathetic to never be able to admit a mistake without ending it on a "but". This needed to be said like it was.

This month we will mark four years in Iraq and I will definitely try and be part of the debate about it. The most recent post I wrote about Iraq and the rationale for the invasion can be found here.

Another dispatch from Michael Yon, here. Yon as we all know is one of the independent reporters, but there is also extraordinary news and comment to be had from the more established wirters. In particular John Burns from the NYT who talked to Hugh Hewitt earlier this weekend and outlined the dangers of a hasty withdrawal from Iraq:

My friend said to me, if the United Nations is correct in saying that 3,700 Iraqi civilians died in October, and that’s a morgue’s count. It may be an underestimate, we don’t know. But he said if it’s correct that 3,700 people died in October across Iraq, think about this. You take the American troops away in this situation, leaving Shiite death squads to move into Adamiya in force without any kind of protection, he said it won’t be 3,700 dead in a month, it’ll be 3,700 dead in the night in Adamiya. Now that may be an exaggeration, but it reflects the kind of fears that are quite widespread, amongst Sunnis in particular, but also to some extent amongst Shiites in Iraq, about the consequences of an American troop withdrawal.

The moral obligation to protect innocent lives - the one squandered in Rwanda and to some extent in the former Yugoslavia - is hardly ever the focus of the debate over Iraq. To me, it is one of the core pieces as Burns' example makes clear.

Despite its huge importance, Iraq is under-reported according to Michael Yon. Undeterred, he files the second installment of his Desolate Roads reports.

Jonathan Rauch explains why supporting the surge in Iraq is the best option for now.

Christopher Hitchens explains in detail in an interview with Hugh Hewitt why we can not abandon Iraq. And also, why it is so different from Vietnam. A must-read.

Peter Beinart argues that "George Bush has screwed John McCain one more time". I fear he is right and that he is also correct in arguing that McCain has taken a position of conviction when it comes to supporting the troops surge. But that, alas, may not win you any elections and that is something that will also ultimately affect the Giuliani card.

And McCain is fully aware of the consequences. In the latest edition of Vanity Fair, Todd S. Purdum paints a picture of a man constantly challenged by finding the right balance between political expediency and doing what is right:

McCain says he understands how little public support there would be for more troops. "I read the polls all the time. But does that mean I'm not going to do what is morally right? I look you straight in the eye, my friend, and tell you: I want to be president of the United States. I don't want to be president of the United States so badly that I'm going to do something that I know is not right for the security of this nation and the young men and women that are defending it. So, if this position makes me viewed as too militaristic, or unrealistic, or whatever it is, I will more than happily take those political consequences, because I'll sleep a hell of a lot better."

Well said. Note that these words were spoken before Bush's speech last week.

That is probably the best way to describe Bush's speech last night. Yes, Bush was at his most sincere and honest, trying to connect with both American and Iraqi people in order to come clean about past failures and get some buy-in for this last ditch effort. The best illustration was probably the disavowal of the ”Mission Accomplished” ceremony by stating that “there will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship”. But strained too. The failures in Iraq have put the president well beyond the boundaries of his comfort zone and it showed, painfully.

The question is why this act of penance combined with a new plan arrived this late in the game. And, given the timing we are now looking at, a fairly risky strategy based largely on only a marginally bankable Iraqi government. And while Rudy Giuliani threw in his support for the plan I can remember that only a few months ago the former mayor pointed to an ‘accountable government’ as one of the primary objectives in Iraq. As things stand the best we can hope for is that the current Iraqi government will at least show a measure of accountability to the US. Domestic responsibility has long ago disappeared as an objective for the wavering al-Maliki, if it ever existed.

Still, there is no currency in taking an overly confrontational approach by trying to take Bush down over his latest and probably final effort to make things work. Rhetoric is the provenance of an election campaign and it would be fitting for the Democratic majority in congress to line up behind the plan and make it work. Joe Lieberman has indicated where he stands and got kudos for that in this speech.

It would be preferable to send in more troops and resources, but balancing the political and physical constraints leave little room for the massive build-up that some argue would be required. It should be emphasized that the counterpoints such as ‘enough is enough’ or ‘withdraw and pray for a miracle’ can not at any time be considered as realistic and viable policy options, they are mere emotions. There is too much at stake and too much invested at this stage to let the entire project slip and create a legacy with far graver consequences than Vietnam ever had.

Let’s make a stock market analogy. If you have invested in a significant number of shares of one company and have been pummeled by a brutal market, does it make sense to buy a small portion of the same stock with the expectation to wipe out all of your losses and turn an eventual, profit? And in the interim yield some dividends? Only if you believe in the underlying value of that stock. Dump it and be damned, hold on and expect a bumpy ride.

With tonight's presidential address Iraq is more than ever back in the focus of attention. I will try and collect my thoughts on this over the next few days, but in the meantime make sure you check out Michael Yon's latest and interesting dispatch from Al-Anbar province. The photography is stunning too.

Also, lots from Bill Ardolino who is blogging from Fallujah.

UPDATE: And Michelle Malkin, with photos.

In a very worthwhile column about the Israeli angle:

Might it not be closer to the truth to say that Arab radicalism is the cause of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute – not the result of it? There is no peace because Israel’s neighbors – and too many of the world’s Muslims – cannot accept the right of a non-Arab, non-Muslim minority to live unsubjugated in the Middle East. That is the true “core” of the dispute, and it cannot be fixed by negotiation.

Well it can and should be fixed by a negotiation, eventually. But only one that has substantially different representatives from the Arab-Muslim world at the table than the ones we have become so used to. Frum's analysis drives home a crucial point: resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict hinges to a very large extent on a structural reform of Islam.

The lack of posts this week is not an early Christmas break, but rather the result of a mad dash to get to the holidays in one piece. And having everything done and in place so that we can actually take a decent break. So posting will be somewhat intermittent in the weeks ahead, a bit of a shame as there is an awful lot to comment on.

Especially the situation in Iraq, and with The Gathering Storm Andrew Sullivan has written a piece that should be consumed by both the left and the right. It’s not high end foreign policy analysis, that is not Sullivan-territory, but it suggests a few thought provoking scenarios. Moreover, it underlines my basic theme that the larger conflict we are facing today is one within the Muslim world and one with deadly potential to spill over into our streets. We may have to sit through a number of X-masses where the ‘Peace on Earth’ theme may be further out of reach than anytime in the past fifty years.

Charles Krauthammer's analysis today of the situation in Iraq is I believe on the mark. It pours cold water on the notion to engage Iran and Syria to help stablize the situation and it also gives a clear suggestion for the next steps:

The United States should be giving Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki a clear ultimatum: If he does not come up with a political solution in two months or cede power to a new coalition that will, the United States will abandon the Green Zone; retire to its bases; move much of its personnel to Kurdistan, where we are welcome and safe; and let the civil war take its course. Let the current Green Zone-protected Iraqi politicians who take their cue from Moqtada al-Sadr face the insurgency alone. That might concentrate their minds on either making a generous offer to the Sunnis or stepping aside for a coalition that would.

Even Sullivan sees some potential here:

Maybe there is a realist-idealist compromise out there. Give Maliki two months, then withdraw to Kurdistan. Wait and see if anyone emerges from the slaughter who can deliver order. But don't be surprised if it's someone we really don't like.

Almost any scenario that is out there at the moment has the potential to deliver us someone who we won't really like. But having him within reach from a safe and secure Kurdistan may be preferable to all other options. For now.

On the eve of the general election a major cover-up by the current coalition government has surfaced:

Dutch military interrogators abused 15 Iraqi prisoners in 2003, dousing them with water to keep them awake and exposing them to loud sounds and strong lights, the government said Friday.

The allegation, first reported by a respected Dutch newspaper, shocked ranking government officials and led one opposition leader to compare it to the U.S. abuse of Iraqi prisoners in the scandal at Abu Ghraib prison.

Defense Minister Henk Kamp told reporters that military police had investigated the use of these tactics by military intelligence officers in Iraq in 2003 and found they did not overstep the law.

Well maybe they didn't. But Kamp has been deeply mistaken to keep quiet about only to see the issue resurface days before an election where both his party and his coalition are not exactly expected to do very well. This is an extraordinary gift to both Labour and the Socialist Party and they will milk it for all it's worth, so expect some interesting shifts in the next poll. Remember, around 40% was undecided and even if this turns out to be a non-issue, it will have a material impact on an already highly confused electorate.

NOTE: The Moderate Voice has been covering Dutch events too and here is a useful post on how the left has been changing its approach. Add the latest twist in the mix and they may edge closer to numbers that would allow a Labour-Socialist Party-Green Left coalition. More news and analysis later.

UPDATE: Yes, a burqa ban was put on the table today too. Always a tough proposition and in the current environment it will go absolutely nowhere. It's cheap last minute electioneering.

Not surprisingly, the Iraqi court handed out a death sentence earlier today. This trial has dragged on for far too long and as such it continues to cast a dark shadow over Iraq's ability to heal itself and move on. The appeals phase however may take a few months.

Reactions of course differ depending upon where you look, the US government being content while in Europe the reactions were of a more qualified nature:

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said the former Iraqi dictator should be held accountable for his actions, but added that Spain remains firmly opposed the death penalty. The death penalty is illegal across the entire 25-member European Union.

"Justice has been served for what he did," Balkenende told national public television, adding that the Netherlands also is opposed to the death penalty.

And in France, Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy responded as follows:

“France notes the sentence made by the Iraqi court at the end of the Saddam Hussein trial. This decision belongs to the Iraqi people,” Mr Douste-Blazy said.

He said that France was, on principle, opposed to the death penalty everywhere and held “a constant position in favour of its universal abolition”. The minister said France and its EU partners would attempt to make this stance known to Iraqi authorities.

A unified position about Iraq remains elusive. A full reaction round-up can be found over at PJM, here.

UPDATE: Here is the formal EU position:

The European Union urged Iraq on Sunday not to carry out the death sentence passed on Iraq's former leader Saddam Hussein after his conviction for crimes against humanity.

"The EU opposes capital punishment in all cases and under all circumstances, and it should not be carried out in this case either," Finland, current holder of the rotating EU presidency, said in a statement.

No matter how abject you consider the death penalty to be, to ask Iraqis to not execute Saddam is to ask them to continue to forever live with a dark shadow looming over their society. Iraq's problems are manifold and the troubled nation can not afford a perpetual continuation of the Saddam chapter. It should be closed, soon.

Regular readers will probably remember that a lot of tips for posts come from my parents who – true to their generation's skill set – clip news articles and other interesting stuff and send it to me by mail for further consideration. As a lot of the information that comes to me in this way is not avaialbe online it is actually quite useful. That in particular applies to the endless analysis of the Iraq War by Dutch pundits, clippings where my father does not spare the ink to underline the words ‘failure’, ‘unilateral’, ‘disaster’, ‘more deaths’ and of course ‘Bush’. You see, he and I had our cordial dispute about the war in Iraq almost as soon as the preparations for it were put in place in late 2002.

It has become de rigueur for many right-of-center commentators to start penning mea culpas for supporting the war and a lot of them are quite frankly, insincere or somewhat politically expedient. At the same time the hardcore ‘stay-the-course’ punditry is digging itself in deeper with totally uninformed and highly partisan exhortations. To be frank, I have not done either but so far have decided to say nothing at all which of course is equally questionable.

So where to go from here? Absent any cogent argumentation from either my Dutch or American sources, it is refreshing to see that some Brits somehow get it and are able to wage a healthy debate about Iraq. And remarkably, these are two men from the left, one who has rescinded his support knowing what he knows now to a retroactive neutrality, the other in response reiterates a position of support, fundamentally unchanged since early 2003.

Norman Geras wrote earlier this month:

Had I been of mature years during that time, I hope I would have supported the war against Nazism come what may, and not been one of the others, the nay-sayers. The same impulse was at work in my support for the Iraq war. Even so, I am bound to acknowledge that, though I never expected an easy sequel in Iraq, much less a 'cakewalk', I did not anticipate a failure on this scale, and had I done so, I would have withheld support for the war without giving my voice to the opposition to it.

While that is a balanced and well-written response, it appears to be one that is pretty much risk-free. Oliver Kamm, in a comprehensive post entitled In Defence of the Iraq War takes a far riskier approach by offering his support for the war by revisiting and reinforcing its original rationale. This centers around the failure of Saddam-containment and the prospects of an unleashed rogue nation led by the next generation of Baathist tyrants, Uday and Qusay. Like Norman’s post you should probably read it in its entirety, but I will excerpt Kamm’s awareness of the lonely place he has staked out for himself:

I have appeared on some of these programmes debating, respectively, allegedly progressive and also High Tory opponents of the Government’s foreign policies. One thing on which my fellow interviewees and I, and everyone reading this, will be able to agree is that if the defence in the broadcast media of Tony Blair’s foreign policies is left to me, then Tony Blair is in trouble.

I could avoid all effort and position myself conveniently between Geras and Kamm, or even better, argue that it was better still to wait for James Baker’s report and hide in the media fracas that will no doubt follow its release. Both options would absolve me from providing some clarity and in our journey to find it I believe that, in spite of the grotesque failure of coalition operations, Kamm’s rationale stands, even after three bloody and terrible years.

Michael Yon, who has been an excellent reporter on the War in Iraq, writes a searing indictment in the Weekly Standard about how the US Military is throttling media access:

I believe now as I did then: The government of the United States has no right to send our people off to war and keep secret that which it has no plausible military reason to keep secret. After all, American blood and treasure is being spent. Americans should know how our soldiers are doing, and what they are doing while wearing our flag. The government has no right to withhold information or to deny access to our combat forces just because that information might anger, frighten, or disturb us.

By allowing only a trickle of news to come out of Iraq, when all involved parties know the flow could be more robust, the Pentagon is doing just that.

I suggest that you read the whole thing.

Richard Fernandez at the Belmont Club makes an excellent observation about the French riots:

Some may deride Chirac or de Villepin as appeasers. However the probable truth is that no one has yet figured out how to stop a vigorous ideology in its tracks. The West's own experience with Nazism and Communism shows that both accommodation and confrontation can fuel, rather than retard their growth. There is no magic formula; and perhaps there is no formula.

And that explains why politicians from both sides of the aisle struggle to find the right message, especially when it is election time. The intractability of violence fueled by cultural disconnects and social breakdown – a void nicely filled by religion – calls for a pragmatic diversion to ‘easier’ topics. And that is not just a European phenomenon:

With his party facing a difficult midterm election, President Bush is focusing on the positive this week: a growing economy he is using to try to persuade voters to keep Republicans in power in Congress.

White House advisers say Bush is not trying to change the subject from a deteriorating situation in Iraq, and that he will continue to talk about Iraq and the war on terrorism as the Nov. 7 election nears. But Bush advisers said they think the president should get more credit for recent positive economic news.

It all depends on how you look at it. But I see some eerie parallels in the ways in which both American and European politicians steer away from the hard issues and try to lull the electorate back into a sense of oblivious complacency. In the meantime we have a fully fledged civil war in Iraq and a nascent one in the streets of Paris.

David's Medienkritik has a pretty comprehensive post up on how Germany's weekly Der Spiegel is arguing that the war in Iraq is essentially lost. While that conclusion may be premature and in the case of the German magazine driven by deep anti-American sentiments, it is telling that one of America's sharpest foreign affairs commentators, Fareed Zakaria, is arguing exactly the same thing today.

Michael Yon is back reporting, this time from Afghanistan. Another feature on his much improved site is Frontline Forum which will have direct dispatches from soldiers on the frontlines.

One big conspiracy, according to the online version of Der Spiegel.

The media and Iraq, nicely condensed in another solid Steyn interview.

One reader questioned the Fareed Zakaria quote and offered a piece from Steyn's column in the Jerusalem Post as a rebuttal to that:

A NEW study by the American Enterprise Institute suggests that, aside from the terrific press, continuing this policy would not have come cheap for America: if you object (as John Kerry did) to the $400-600 billion price tag since the war, another three years of "containment" would have cost around $300 billion - and with no end in sight, and the alleged death toll of Iraqi infants no doubt up around six million. It would also have cost more real lives of real Iraqis: Despite the mosque bombings, there's a net gain of more than 100,000 civili ans alive today who would have been shoveled into unmarked graves had Ba'athist rule continued. Meanwhile, the dictator would have continued gaming the international system through the Oil-for-Food program, subverting Jordan, and supporting terrorism as far afield as the Philippines.

Zakaria's point was that at this point in time the cost of the war outweighed the benefits and that an accounting which will see the US and the Iraqi people in the plus will have to wait until some point in the future. In essence, Steyn and Zakaria are not that far apart, it's the way they pick their words that differentiates them.

There's been an endless flow this week of arguments about Iraq from the left and right, the pro-war and anti-war, all making predictable comments. There was thus little incentive for me in linking them, but today I will make an exception for Fareed Zakaria - not someone to be put into one particular ideological box - which is why his conclusion is so encouraging:

There is no doubt today that the costs of the invasion have far outweighed the benefits. But in the long view of history, will that always be true? If, after all this chaos, a new and different kind of Iraqi politics emerges, it will make a difference in the region. Even now, amid the violence, one can see that. The old order in Iraq was built on fear and terror. One group dominated the land, oppressing the others. Now representatives of all three communities—Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds—are sitting down at the table, trying to construct a workable bargain they can all live with.

These sectarian power struggles can get extremely messy, and violent parties have taken advantage of every crack and cleavage. But this might be inevitable in a country coming to terms with very real divisions and disagreements. Iraq might be stumbling toward nation-building by consent, not brutality. And that is a model for the Middle East.

Read the whole thing.

Over the weekend the anti-war crowd was out on the streets again, but the term ‘in full force’ it seems no longer really applies. It has become some sort of fringe movement which acts as a consolidator for a variety of increasingly irrelevant causes such as unreconstructed Marxism and the pro-Castro lobby. Here is an interesting and highly entertaining photo essay of events in San Francisco last weekend.

Canada’s efforts in Afghanistan have given new momentum to the anti-war rallies there although the numbers that braved the northern cold were not that impressive either, the largest event in Toronto attracted some 1000 protestors. It did however lead to one interesting flare up when the desperation of the demonstrators there prompted some of them to argue that life in Afghanistan had been better under the Taliban. This resulted in a swift response from the Afghan ambassador in Canada, Omar Samad:

Obviously these groups have their own views and they're entitled to it," he said. "I have contacted some of these groups. They're sort of reluctant to discuss the issues."

Samad suggested it was hypocritical of opponents to Canada's involvement in Afghanistan to protest now when they remained silent in the 1990s while the Taliban oppressed women and denied children a modern education.

"Where were you when the women of Afghanistan were imprisoned?" he asked. "Where were you when the children of Afghanistan were denied schooling? Where were these demonstrations for human rights and dignity and honour?"

Not in his wildest dreams would someone like Samad have imagined something as utterly perplexing as seeing wealthy and free westerners call for a return to Taliban rule in his ravaged country. Yet, for a brief moment this week that call – and other equally reprehensible statements – made it clear to him how the fragile freedom project in his nation could be endangered. For if the western contributions to it start to incur some unforeseen (and human) costs, then the irrelevant fringe may have some ammunition to restart its journey to relevancy. I doubt it will, but you never know.

This coming Sunday will be the third anniversary of Iraqi Freedom and expect many demonstrations in western capitals built around the ‘Stop the War’ theme. All of these will deliberately ignore the democratic progress made to date in Iraq and will also conveniently disregard the painful lessons brought back to life this week following Milosevic’s death. Via Norm comes this compelling list of arguments from the British Labour Friends of Iraq which debunk the ten key assertions made by the anti-war left. They are the reasons not to attend any rallies. Now, I don’t think any of you was planning to rally against the war, but they make for an interesting backdrop against the unhinged voices that will be out on the streets this weekend. And yes, the left is divided over this issue.

Every week I check into Hugh Hewitt talking to Mark Steyn. It's always good for some unconventional thoughts as well as a good laugh. This week is no different and the discussion centers around Iraq where the departure of George Will and William Buckley from the conservative stay-the-course doctrine takes center stage. By the way, John Derbyshire joined the ranks of those on the right who have argued that it is time to pack up and go. But although taking a different position, Steyn too believes the mission is complete:

The reality is the mission is largely accomplished in Iraq. The problem has gone. What is happening now in the strategic picture is unlikely to be a problem for the United States, even if in the worst case, the country did split up.

The problem has gone and instead another one is in the making, the outcome of which is highly uncertain. If Iraq falls apart or stays united is almost irrelevant to the question of whether it poses an actual threat to the USA. Under either scenario there is an extraordinary high likelihood that the nation(s) will continue to export (and import) instability, in the Middle East and beyond.

If Steyn is right - Saddam gone, democracy established - then US forces should depart now, especially since it is next to impossible to quantify the costs and the length of a continued effort against the potential for instability directly affecting US interests.

But the end-goal has shifted to the broader and moral obligation to ensure a democratic, stable and free Iraq. And that is an effort which requires a long-term commitment. Interestingly, today a Canadian general put that timeframe for Afghanistan at 10 years and there is little reason to believe that that should be any shorter for Iraq.

For both nations, the end goal has changed materially and the only way to secure its eventual accomplishment is broad-based political support. Given that president has only three years to ensure he will not go down in history as another LBJ, plus an emerging split in the conservative commentariat, it seems the capital to fulfill moral overseas obligations is starting to wear perilously thin.

William Buckley argues that the time has arrived to acknowledge defeat in Iraq. Despite the torrent of violence however there is still room for optimism, and it is Victor Davis Hanson who - fresh from an Iraq visit - explains why. Both projections are on the outer bands of pessimism and optimism, but even if we allow Hanson's generous take to prevail, Iraq will continue to be a heavily militarized zone where dissent and ethnic sentiments will have to be suppressed for decades to come. Hardly a democratic win, but neither a loss to Islamist and Baathist troupes.

That describes the city of Dohok in Iraqi Kurdistan. Michael Totten has another worthwhile and revealing report with lots of photos.

Initially it seemed very plausible that Saddam moved part or all of his WMD arsenal to Syria. Later on doubt set in, yet it continues to be a persistent rumor. Barcepundit has the latest and eleaborates.

In Iraq. For live coverage and updates, your first port of call should be Pajamas Media:

To provide the coverage, Pajamas Media – launched last month in New York – is teaming with one of its affiliates, “Iraq The Model,” a Baghdad-based blog authored by Mohammad and Omar and founded two years ago. Additionally, Pajamas has enlisted other Iraqis, including reporters and other bloggers, to provide reports, video and still photography, real-time, from eight Iraq provinces.

One of Michael Yon's photos has been selected by Time's readers as one of the best of the year. Michael comments on his success are here and you can actually see and vote for the photo here.

I've been out all day in meetings, so there wasn't much time to blog. However, here's a story that I've been meaning to discuss all week and which may come to some sort of conclusion tomorrow:

In Baghdad, Sunni clerics and residents of the war-torn city called for the hostage takers to free the four humanitarian aid workers, including Toronto-resident James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, a former Montrealer who had been studying in New Zealand.

American Tom Fox, 54, and Briton Norman Kember, 74, are also being held. All four are affiliated with the aid group Christian Peacemakers Teams.

They were taken hostage at gunpoint in Baghdad on Nov. 26 by a group calling itself the Swords of Righteousness Brigade, which accused them of spying.

The kidnappers have threatened to kill the four men by Saturday unless the United States frees all detained Iraqis. The deadline for the release has been pushed back once. Initially the group demanded the release of all prisoners by Thursday.

Two Canadians, one Brit and one American make for an interesting situation, especially in light of the fact that Canada did not participate in the war in Iraq but is going through a general election. No doubt there is a lot of activity behind the scenes to secure a release of the hostages and I hope that means all the hostages. But as Dr. Shackleford notes, in addition to the four in the limelight today, there are more hostages deserving of media, government and local Sunni and attention.

One of the books in my father’s study I was always drawn back to was “March to the Gallows”, at least that was the translated Dutch version, the original title was The Nuremberg trial: A history of Nazi Germany as revealed through the testimony at Nuremberg. Although I didn’t read all of it, I do remember the photos in it. Especially the one on the last page of the book, a picture of Adolph Hitler with “the man who escaped justice on earth” as a subtitle.

Of course, that memory came back this week when I witnessed a defiant Saddam Hussein taking on his accusers. It almost seems as if the trial has reinvigorated the man that was dragged from a hole some two years ago and although limited in his capabilities, he hasn’t lost his ability to capture the attention and divide his countrymen. It’s not exactly a pretty spectacle and the question is for how much longer this show will drain the oxygen out of other, far more important news from Iraq.

There are merits to putting Saddam on the stand and it fits into the model of drafting a constitution and holding elections: justice western style. Yet, Saddam didn’t stay in total power for so long just because he was a successful bully who had accidentally fallen up the ladder to the upper ranks of the Baath Party. He was made of sterner stuff and it wasn’t a fluke of history either that he didn’t accept some early retirement arrangements offered by Saudi Arabia. Schemes like that are usually tailored to small time dictators such as Idi Amin or Baby Doc Duvalier who was offered a home on the French Riviera. Saddam’s manipulative, charismatic and clever determination - believing he is on a larger mission - puts him in a very different league. Had he succeeded in his military expansion he would have come closer to the group of mass-murdering tyrants all of whom escaped justice on earth: Hitler, Mao and Stalin. And of those three only Hitler committed suicide, no doubt knowing that the Third Reich was indeed history.

Saddam is no coward for failing to put a bullet into his own head. From the day the invasion started in March 2003 he was fully aware of the potential to make a comeback, something we now call the insurgency. And in it, he continues to play a role. However noble our intention to bring him to justice, it would have been far better to rid Iraq of this evil man in exactly the way the Romanians dispatched Nicolae Ceauşescu after the Soviets pulled the plug on him. No due process, no defenders, but executing the dictator and his wife gave the country an immediate opportunity to move on. In that, justice for the entire nation was provided instantly. The longer the Saddam trial drags on, the lesser the chance for Iraqis to move on.

NOTE: Another costly and divisive trial that hasn’t delivered anything as yet and the man isn’t even facing a court made up of his own countrymen: Slobodan Milošević.

UPDATE: Well, someone else is in court in relation to Saddam's crimes and yesterday he heard the prosecution demanding a hefty sentence. In Iraq? No, it was in a Dutch courtroom:

Prosecutors demanded on Wednesday a maximum 15 year sentence for a Dutchman who they say sold chemicals to Iraq knowing Saddam Hussein would use them to carry out poison gas attacks that killed thousands of people.

Businessman Frans van Anraat, 63, is charged with complicity in war crimes and genocide for supplying agents to make poison gas used by Iraq in the 1980-1988 war with Iran and against its own Kurdish population, including a 1988 attack on the town of Halabja.

Sentencing is due on December 23 and it will be interesting to see if the judges will follow the prosecution's demand for this lenghty - for Dutch standards - jail term.

Posted by Pieter Dorsman at 12:00 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)