What's said when it's thought no one is listening

I really like it when people let their guard slip, and show you their baseline assumptions when they don't think you're listening closely. For example, longtime readers may remember this article in USA Today that I pointed to (scroll down a bit, past the fairly accurate predictions), wherein a pair of oil industry analysts wrote, "Iraq's ability to extend its aggressions beyond its borders has been significantly reduced since the Gulf War..." Keep in mind that was in Decemeber of 2002, when Bush, Cheney, et al. were all trying to persuade us of the opposite.

One of the interesting things about Slate is how it's slowly become almost an "insider's-only" rag. Not so much like, say, The New Republic, or National Review, but more like a color supplement to National Journal.

Anyway, they have a think piece about Howard Dean. Or, rather, the reactions to the strategy he used in the (hugely) successful Congressional campaigns just past, in his role as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Here's where the mask slips off:

"There are at least two debates taking place. The first is about resources devoted to specific races in 2006. Could more money from the DNC have tipped those 14 or so House races where Democrats lost by a razor-thin margin? It's impossible to say, since the correlation between dollars spent and success is murky." {emphasis added}

Not only does Slate make this bald assertion by itself -- contrary to the overwhelming trend in political coverage I'll bet you've ever heard in your life -- they go on to cite other insiders making the same analysis!:

"Josh Kraushaar at Hotline makes a good case that only four of those races could have been saved by a late dose of cash."

I've long thought the idea put so succinctly by Jesse Unruh -- "Money is the mother's milk of politics" -- has been highly corrosive to the common, everyday voter's sense of whether they matter. Because, after all, how many of us have large sums of cash available to spend that way? To me, it's been yet another way to discourage hoi polloi from participating.

One can only hope people come to be more aware of what the insiders already know -- "...the correlation between dollars spent and success is murky."

Which means your effort, and your vote, and your participation is just as valuable as anyone else's, no matter how large their bank balance may be.

Tunes

During the snow emergency {ahem} I haven't written much, because I've been working a 60-hour schedule this week.

But throughout, it's been Laurie Anderson running in my head, with a verse from "O Superman." Because she set the Post Office's creed to music:

"Neither snow nor rain
Nor gloom of night
Shall stay these couriers
From the swift completion
Of their appointed rounds..."

(and if you've heard her sing it, you know that's exactly where the line breaks go.)

It's that "snow nor rain" that keeps being slammed in my face. :)

Iraq, Iran, and Syria -- comments from another forum

From a comment thread I'm on over at Making Light (I'm posting this here mostly to make it more findable by me, especially the NPR link):

#70 ::: Hal O'Brien ::: (view all by) ::: December 02, 2006, 04:54 AM:

"Bush has for some time now been refusing to communicate with Syria and Iran... Baker will almost certainly insist that we do so..."

Here's my problem with that:

What's in it for them?

In other words, I can see why we would want Syria and/or Iran to bail us out of this mess, if possible. Trouble is, I don't see any gain on their part to do so. In fact, all of their incentives are against helping us at all.

What's Baker's next move when he insists Bush try to talk to them, and Bush does, and they loudly and publicly tell him to go screw?

#72 ::: Ursula L ::: (view all by) ::: December 02, 2006, 06:15 AM:

Re #70: "What's in it for them?"

What's in it for them is, hopefully, stability in a large nation on their border. Prolonged chaos in Iraq is apt to eventually spill over onto them, and would be almost as bad as having a US controlled puppet government in the region.

A stable US puppet for them is the worst option, because it would be a launching ground for attacks by the US against them, in the way that Kuwait was a launching ground against Iraq.

But a stable Iraq where they have a measure of power, and where the US isn't in complete control, is a far more attractive option. Stable, so it doesn't provide a training ground for their dissidents to train to overthrow them, or serve as a festering conflict ready to spread through the region, but with them having enough control so that the Iraqis can't attack them, and the US can't attack them.

#73 ::: Hal O'Brien ::: (view all by) ::: December 02, 2006, 12:40 PM:

"What's in it for them is, hopefully, stability in a large nation on their border. Prolonged chaos in Iraq is apt to eventually spillover onto them, and would be almost as bad as having a US controlled puppet government in the region."

Again, that sounds like a list of why we would want them to cooperate.

I'm not sure either Damascus or Tehran would agree with the domino theory -- indeed, they might well think Iraq is their domino, about to tip (Iran especially).

Example: Say Iraq is cut into three, one of the parts being a Kurdistan. It's usually presented by the Western press that an independent Kurdish state is anathema not only to Iraq, but also toTurkey and Iran, who have large Kurdish populations. But a Kurdish state carved out of Iraq -- that is, not Iran -- gives the Iranians a place to exercise some ethnic cleansing, and exile the Kurds they have.

That may or may not work -- but I can easily see some among the mullahs who think it might. The US does not have a monopoly on Rumsfeldian over-optimistic folly.

Or, to put it another way: Chaos that humiliates the US (and ties down our blood and treasure) is preferable to many players in the region to stability that doesn't.

There's also the minor problem of, How can either the Sryian or the Iranian goverments do anything with us without being perceived internally to their own countries as "a US controlled puppet government"? If one's goal is stability, is fomenting regime changes that would be even more hostile to cooperation with the US -- for such would be the probable result -- be useful?

#74 ::: Ursula L ::: (view all by) ::: December 02, 2006, 01:29 PM:

The Syrians and Iranians could get away with it if it was perceived as them pushing the US out, saving the US idiots, etc. Creating their own puppets in Iraq.

Essentially us going hat in hand to them, and asking for help.

But I don't think any US administration would be able to swallow its pride enough to do what needs to be done in order to get genuine Iranian and Syrian support and help.

The chaos is leading to a refugee crisis in Jordan, and quite possibly creating internal problems for Iran and Syria as well. Straightforward economic problems, like inflation from having more people making demands on the local resources.

And their people aren't monsters. Most of them see the violence and death in Iraq and are horrified, on a purely human level. If the interventions are clearly not "helping the US" but "kicking out the US and fixing the harm the US did" it will be politically acceptable, as well as humanly desirable.

It's the US political will that would be a problem, far more than the Iranian or Syrian will. The US can'tfix this mess, but no one else is going to be willing to try as long asthe US stays in the way, trying to call the shots. US troops under Iranian or Syrian leadership, taking instructions from people who know the language and can tell civilian from insurgent, might be acceptable, and workable, but the US in charge won't be.

#77 ::: Hal O'Brien ::: (view all by) ::: December 02, 2006, 05:07 PM:

We've gotten sidetracked from my original question, which was, "What's Baker's next move when he insists Bush try to talk to them, and Bush does, and they loudly and publicly tell him to go screw?"

Leave aside how likely that may or may not be (clearly opinions differ) -- What's Plan C?

This isn't purely a speculative exercise. I heard Robert Siegel interview Robert Haass of the Council on Foreign Relationson NPR, and Siegel made similar points to what I have, and Haass made similar points to Ursula's. Whereupon Haass said something along the lines of, "I think it's worth a try."

What I heard in that was (and I could well be wrong), "Look, it's taken us 4 years to come up with a Plan B. We're too exhausted from that fight to come up with a Plan C."

And my point is, the best laid plans of mice and men, etc.

So, what would Plan C look like?