Rove writes in WSJ today that he sees in Obama a stylish politician who enjoys the theatrics of policy but not the substance - I believe a long time ago, when he was still battling Hillary in the primaries, that I predicted that such a style would dominate Obama's presidency - I saw a man who likes the show but would avoid unpleasant details and a man who would be reluctant to make necessary but unpopular decisions for that reason - he's quite happy to throw billions of dollars into a dubious stimulus package because that's popular, that's in his big government/people will love me comfort zone, but meet the 'no easy answers' banking crisis head on? No way. Afghanistan? He had two clear options: draw down and narrowly focus on extremists; beef up and commit to a long term engagement that included Pakistan. What does he do? Settles on a safe half in, half out option that will probably just end up kicking the problem down the road. Iran? Talk, talk, talk - he expects Israel to play ball, but Israel sees that for what it is: we compromise on Iran so that he doesn't have to make the tough decision. [doesn't his seeming intention to wrestle the daunting health care beast to the ground work against this trend? Well... tough one: health care reform is a big liberal, big goverment wet dream and he would be granted sainthood should he pull that off - so fits his profile there - still, quite a daunting task...]

I fully admit that a cautious approach can sometimes be the best - one would be a pigheaded fool not to admit that - but caution borne out of a fear of being unpopular or a reluctance to make difficult decisions? Eventually that will lead to problems...

"... as an evolutionary psychologist he insists that he has figured out American consumerism and knows how to cure it... charming... always with such cleverness there's some one eager to come forward and explain what people need and why they need it... some understanding regarding the how of a people is not the same thing as having figured out the why and certainly not the equivalence of having providence over their deliverance..."

Obama's first 100 days - ah, the phrase steaming pile of horse shit comes to mind - and he's giving yet another prime time news conference to celebrate it! Does anything speak better to the fact that this presidency is more about celebrity than accomplishments?

I need only point to one thing to determine that the Obama presidency so far is a failure - a failure to an objective observer, to liberals I don't question that it's a rousing success - but I point to one thing: the banking crisis.

The shit hit the fan in September, Obama was elected in November but in reality had the election wrapped up by October, he assumed the office at the end of January - and yet it took until March to come up with a plan to fix the banks, a plan that is loved by no one and for every person who sort of likes it there are two who seem to hate it - and now here we are at the end of April and still no one has a clue what the real state of the banks is! Can they survive, should they survive - who knows! Let's just drag this thing along for a few more months and hope everything works out. Obama had one overwhelming priority once elected - fix the banks - and he dropped the ball, worse than dropped the ball, made matters much more complicated by one, demonizing Wall Street and two, promoting egregiously profligate stimulus and budget plans that created such anxiety about how much money the government was spending that combined the two things left the public extremely unsympathetic to the banks needs.

So, as far as I'm concerned, an abysmal failure - I mean, I'm willing to consider the possibility that maybe no one could have managed this situation well - but that's a long, long way removed from declaring that Obama has had a splendid run of things, which seems to be the opinion of the bulk of the press. How many more times do I have to hear how popular he is? His approval rating is right where most presidents ratings are at this point in office - in fact slightly lower than what Carter's and Bush's were at this point - how on earth does that translate into "Oh my god, you don't wanna challenge Obama, he's so popular!" without a determined bias on the part of the press? Obviously, when they say 'popular' they mean 'celebrity' - and the same rules re negativity that apply to Brad Pitt even more so apply to Obama.

My response to Ricks who, believing an Israeli attack on Iran is not credible, quotes Lieberman as ostensibly affirming his position [even though Lieberman is then quoted in interview with Jerusalem Post saying that Iran is key to securing the Middle East]:

Why take an attack off the table? No one wants a nuclear Iran, threat of an attack adds to leverage, so why take it off the table?

Three feasible explanations: it's disinformation; it's a manifestation of confusion or disagreement or posturing among Israeli policy makers; it's a recognition of possibility that an attack would be difficult to pull off and in the end suit Iran's purposes just fine therefore compromising utility of such.

If the latter, would Iran's putative interests trump what Israel ultimately considered to be in its best interests? Are there not reasons why they would want to keep an attack on the table regardless? Consider that keeping the threat of attack viable increases Israel's leverage in negotiations with Washington: Bibi's jaundiced view of the Palestinian issue is at odds with Obama's 'new world order': wouldn't Bibi want to keep the threat alive and hanging over Obama's head if only the better to get what he wants viz the Palestinians?

So, lots of questions, no clear answers - but keep this in mind: Israel has been resolute in its determination to not abide a nuclear Iran; whether that threat was real or just propaganda doesn't matter - if they now do not follow through and intercede to prevent it the perception in the region will be that Israel is weakened; Israel does not like to look weak and will be strongly motivated to compensate [just reference recent invasion of Gaza and how it was fueled by debacle in Lebanon - and that was with a moderate gov't calling the shots] . We're sitting here thinking that the worst thing that could happen is Israel attacking Iran, but imagine a scenario involving an aggressive and ambitious Iran armed with the bomb and a chastened Israel looking to counter a view of it as impotent and ask yourself if that's really the case.

There seems to be a growing tendency for opinions regarding the Israel/Iran question to break down into those who think it certainly will happen and those who think it certainly will not happen - but in reality there's a lot of grey here and it's not at all clear which outcome would prove the more dangerous.

The torture memos - a lot of debate and disagreement in the cabinet about wisdom of releasing them - certainly seems like a big and unnecessary risk, which says to me the main motivation was political - which makes it a bad decision as far as I'm concerned no matter what happens now. As I've said before I find arguments that think the US must make amends for 'bad behaviour' in order to improve 'standing' in the world to be simplistic, specious, unconvincing - and yet there's really no other non-politically motivated justification for parading the memos in front of the masses. Gates supported release against some deep concerns, but apparently only because he thought release inevitable - can't say as I understand that position. Panetta opposed - haven't read anything about what Clinton and Jones thought, but would have to assume from things they've said in the past that they wouldn't be thrilled by the idea.

As for torture and Bush's policies thereof - well, it's a no win situation for the US to be engaging in torture: no evidence that it's an effective way to garner reliable info and so you needlessly put yourself in a position of having to defend something that can't be defended which leaves you looking like an enfeebled hypocrite. That being said, I assume forms of torture - strong persuasion let's call it - have always existed within the security apparatus of powerful countries - the stakes are just too high for that not to be the case - although I guess one could say that if that were the case why did Bush's legal team spend so much effort trying to justify it? Don't know - but regardless, I find all this shaming of the Bush administration and by association the country over 'torture' to be over wrought, naive and bit self serving. Armies throughout history, 'good' and 'bad' ones, have engaged in torture-like activities - there are numerous accounts of the Allies mistreating German prisoners in WWI and II - not to mention what the US did to the Mexicans and Indians and Indonesians in their various 'colonial' wars - and so to act as if it's not in the American character etc etc is just nonsense. What's more, I don't really consider what the CIA was doing to be torture - extreme discomfort is not to me torture - not to suggest it's right - but to me breaking bones, teeth, testicles and any number of other forms of bestial violence one person can impose on another, that's torture - drawing and quartering, that's torture - although, granted, philosophically I may be treading a thin line here. Furthermore, all this talk about how if we engage in harsh tactics our enemies will use that as justification to do the same is a load of horse shit: our enemies are going to behave badly no matter what - just because they may use Bush's foolishness as an excuse to do bad things doesn't at all mean that Bush's foolishness will have caused the bad things to happen - a fallacious argument. Stalin didn't need an excuse to torture his enemies - bad behaviour was a natural extension of his world view.

Torture, at least in an institutionalized form , is not natural to our Western view, to the evolved norms of our civil and open society. Brutality is always a possibility and therefore inevitable, especially given extreme circumstances - but a free people, governed by laws that seek a true justice, will always push back against it - and that's the best we can expect from ourselves. Were the memos released to affirm that? I doubt it - in fact they could have the exact opposite effect by clouding the view with pointless pandering to the ideological extremes of both parties which in turn may foment an unwelcome momentum towards a judicial review that will sow discontent and in the end amount to nothing more than a 'show trail'.

As for why the Bush administration went down the slippery slope of 'enhanced interrogation techniques' - well, the simple answer is that Cheney and his partisans ran that White House and 9/11 unloosed in them a very conservative paranoia concerning the beginning of the end of American power - my guess is that they pursued this 'quasi torture' not because of a firm faith in the efficacy of it but rather because to not pursue it would have been to betray a weakness, to evince a softness that conservatives, not without some justification, have always feared was immanent in democracy and freedom - and liberals. Just think Edmund Burke.

Israel has nuanced its 'Iran first, then the Palestinians' stand - now say they can work with the Palestinians [by which they no doubt mean improve their economic woes] but no final agreement is possible until Iran settled - so nuanced, yes, but in essence same meaning: Bibi is playing hardball. Now, you could argue that they're leveraging the Iran threat in order to be allowed to deal with the Palestinians as they see fit - and given the current conservative government's jaundiced view of the Palestinian issue that scenario is certainly plausible. But I don't buy it: I think they truly believe Iran is the key - and I would guess that they are somewhat skeptical that any agreement made re the Palestinians as 'reward' for not striking Iran would be honoured, or sufficiently honoured, when push comes to inevitable shove.

No doubt why you're seeing Obama administration move quickly to try and get ahead of the story - Clinton saying that Israel risks losing Arab support as regards Iran if they choose to put off dealing with Palestinians. That seems like a hollow threat: one, I don't think Israel believes it's possible to deal with the Palestinians given current circumstances; two, I don't think they care about Arab support re Iran because they know it's going to be there no matter what - Sunni Arabs do not want Shite Persians having the bomb; three, I don't think they believe that Iran is at all amenable - I think they view it as a matter of fact that nothing short of a military commitment will deter Iran from its obvious intentions; and four, I think they're convinced that not even a nominal peace in the Mideast is possible unless Israel is viewed as strong, if not indomitable, and Iran's ambitions, which feed directly into Hamas and Hezbollah, are effectively neutered.

"... patience and determined equivocation are often indistinguishable, especially in the short term... and certainly in the long term patience, if not joined with cunning in a would be leader, is more a liability than a virtue. Fortune will sometimes smile on the dilatory, but usually it just runs them over..."

Interesting - Israel has come out and said they will not deal with the Palestinian issue until the Iran issue is settled. Fairly dramatic move I'd say - hard to step back from it now that it's out there. Between the lines what do I see? Obviously they do not trust Obama to hold Iran's feet to the fire, a sentiment I certainly share - and obviously it seems they understand that if they move against Iran the price they will have to pay is getting a Palestinian deal done - in fact in connecting the two this way I'd say they're looking for the leverage with the US they may feel they need or at least would prefer to have to make the Iran attack possible. I would say they have definitely called Obama's rhetoric and substantially raised - I wonder how much of this has to do with Gates dismissing talk of bombing Iran as idle chatter? - it sure seemed to me that people had failed to grasp the implication of what Gates was saying - Gates himself may have failed to grasp it.

"... foreign policy is about the clash of vested interests - the impact of 'goodwill' on such is tangential at best - unless of course it is a symptom of a decline in relative power - our future status viz China, whether cooperative or antagonistic, will not be decided because Obama built up goodwill in the 'world community' but may be decided because the desire for such pushes our policies in certain directions leading China to perceive us as either weak or strong accordingly - if foreign policy is all about a clash of vested interests then power matters, strength matters, both actual and perceived - goodwill is a mere sideshow. So far Obama, from his meaningless if not dangerously naive rhetoric concerning a nuclear free world to 'the handshake', appears to prefer the sideshow..."

Most in American analyst circles who believe Israel will not attack Iranian nuke sites do so in whole or part because of fuel restrictions hampering Israel strike aircraft that would require staging in Iraqi airspace and the belief that the US would not allow it - certainly a valid point, but, as I've said, a possibly flawed and simplistic interpretation of the way events could unfold and one that assumes Israel has not secretly modified aircraft to overcome the limitations [although I say without having any idea of whether or not such a thing is even possible*]. Regardless of all that, it's interesting that the one plane that could carry out this mission, in fact is perfectly suited for this mission [well, I guess the B2 would be a nice fit as well] has just been discontinued because of lack of relevant utility - the F22**: its got the range and super stealth capabilities to make it an ideal candidate. Not that I know what that means, if it means anything at all - just thought it curious.

* Israel has ordered several special versions of F-16s and F-15s - upgrades having to do with extending range included. Also, IAI, a state owned high tech Israeli air defense manufacturer and the largest industrial employer in Israel, has engineered many upgrades of its own - but from what I can tell these upgrades need to be approved by the US before they can be installed [in fact US and Israel at impasse right now concerning the F-35 over proprietary upgrades Israel wants to add to it]. IAI was developing an Israeli fighter, but project was canceled several years ago. In short, I'm sure Israel could modify planes - but I get the feeling they'd have to break contracts and or laws to do so.

** It should be pointed out that Gates, when he discusses the F-22, keeps carping on the fact that the plane hasn't seen action in either Iraq or Afghanistan as if enough said re its value - damning, sure, but never does it get mentioned why it hasn't seen action ie they cost a lot and there's a limited supply resulting in extreme caution viz deployment - hardly a rousing defense of the system, but Gates is inferring the plane is useless not that it's too expensive to use, a small but important difference I think.

"... no, no, I'm entirely against gay marriage, it's absurd, makes no sense, the arguments rallied in defense of it and that act as if arguments opposing are wholly unreasonable and prejudicial and petty make no sense... having said that though, to stand against it as a political matter seems of dubious merit... possibly better to just get the inevitable over with and thus expedite the shoveling of this malingering farce off to the margins where it belongs... and it's not like I have some anti-gay agenda or carry some deep and irrational enmity for homosexuals, I don't... I just find sham political crusades tricked out with specious rationalizations to be extremely annoying..."

Why thawing relations with Cuba is bad: after enduring several generations under a system that left them poor but happy because nothing was expected of them other than subservience Cubans are ill suited to survive freedom; the goal of thawing relations must be to slowly unwind communism; once unwound from Marxy America will be left having to fix the mess that remains.

Of course it's possible that thawed relations may make it more likely that the communists survive, because of increase in trade, tourism etc etc and therefore good. May also make them less likely to get mixed up in some idiotic scheme with Chavez because they're less in need.

So thawing relations is good. Whatever keeps them a benign communist afterthought is good. I suppose a thaw in relations could do that - so never mind. But it does put Obama in tough spot with Cubans in Florida when he has to explain that his conciliation initiative is about keeping the commies in power. Which brings us back to purpose is to slowly unwind communism - which brings us back to a thaw is bad.

I'm gonna have to pass on this one.

Curious comments form Gates and Israeli Prez Peres - to wit, attack on Iranian nuke sites out of the question. Gates point was that an attack wouldn't succeed, by which he seemed to mean wouldn't entirely abrogate Iranian nuke threat, and that the upshot would be everyone would hate the Jews [he's kidding, right?]; Peres just seemed to need to express his opinons that an attack was not going to happen, that they're committed to negotiations etc etc.

Israel has made it clear that they do not intend to let Iran get the bomb: they've run simulations, practiced refueling options, various leaders have stated openly or strongly inferred that only over their dead bodies would the Persians be allowed to develop nukes - and so Peres' statement is very odd and I have no explanation for it other than he felt the need to get his personal opinion out there for some reason. One could speculate that Israel was always bluffing and Peres speaking marked their new negotiating posture - but why now? Doesn't really make any sense. Could be the case but if so seems kind of ineptly managed, which leads me to believe it ain't the case.

Gates though - his comment about if they do it everyone will hate the Jews is flat out absurd and makes me think this is just the US wanting to get out in front of things so as to try and stay as clean as possible when the shit hits the fan. His second point about the attacks only slowing down and not stopping the nuke program seems to deliberately ignore the notions that one, Israel may be ok with that and two, the show of stength and resolve may be just as important to them as slowing down the program. Think about it: if they allow Iran to develop nukes after all they've said to the contrary then they are gonna look weak and everyone is gonna know that America has sided with Iran against Israel - that's to put it a bit too simply but in essence that would be the message. Does anyone really believe Israel is going to sit still for that? But consider it further: even if Israel does capitulate does that not create a dynamic that could prove just as dangerous? Israel will be chastened, it will look weak and somewhat isolated - it is therefore logical to expect that they will be extra motivated to exhibit strength against their perceived enemies. It is entirely plausible that by stopping Israel from attacking Iran because of fears of what devils could be unleashed you could be creating a scenario where those devils are unleashed regardless - in fact unleashed explicitly because Israel feels its very existence is in peril, the exact dynamic that pertains viz Iran.

Another thought as well: if US was really confident that Israel was going to be governed by them viz attack wouldn't they keep their mouths shut so as to keep up pressure on Iran? I mean, if you know Israel is not actually going to go through with it wouldn't the smart move be to leave the possibility in play? And, for a kicker, let's not forget that most of the Arab states in the region would be pleased if Israel took out Iran's nukes, although publicly they no doubt would make some show of outrage. Considering all these points makes me believe more likely attack will happen than not. Peres' statement can now be fit into a plausible scenario - misdirection, get the Iranians believing the game is going their way.

Having said all that I still find it hard to accept it will happen - and having said that logic still points to it happening - in fact Gates' comments have made the logic of it happening more convincing, not less.

To rethink my take on the F-22, and then to rethink the rethink - meaning, the program ostensibly has been cut, production stopped at 187, even though just a few months ago the Air Force declared they needed at least another 60: 10 squadrons of 24 planes each to fulfill needs of the 10 air expeditionary wings or forces - but after having done some reading up on the F-35 Lightning I decided that, even though the F-22 is a lot prettier to look at than the F-35, I felt I could live with the Raptor being canceled.

Then I read a disgruntled ex-airforce bigwig who basically agreed with my opinion that the best reason to keep the F-22 going was to nurture the the high end manufacturing it necessitates - in essence the Raptor drives the technology forward and America needs to be doing that else the edge will be lost. He also made some other interesting points about the role of the F-22 in AEFs and that no other plane can really fill that role and how the F-35 although a nice plane is still 5 years away from deployment, is untested, and even if it lives up to potential will not be able to fill the advance scout and destroy role that the F-22 was designed for.

And so I don't know what to think now - hard to know where political agenda ends and valid military argument begins. I do know the congress rushed through an 800 billion dollar stimulus plan that is at least half bull shit - some of that could have easily paid for those 60 extra planes - ah. let me see 60x140=8.4 billion, no? I mean, c'mon.

Obama kills some pirates [which the press for their own dubious reasons trumpet as a foreign policy success] and a military analyst wonders why Navy broke SOP by getting in so deep in the first place, to which I respond:

You seem to discount political calculation: Obama, in danger of looking weak given his agenda, must take advantage of opportunities to look strong especially if those opportunities comport with his agenda - likewise, given his agenda, he cannot afford to look weak should events conspire to force such a scenario upon him. To not do anything would have risked making him look weak - once they decided to escalate, the use of force given the intransigence of the pirates was virtually guaranteed because the only thing worse than the hostage being killed by pirates while stalked by a multi million dollar destroyer is having the pirates escape to shore with hostage while being stalked by multi million dollar destroyer - Obama is being lauded for showing resolve etc etc but fact is once escalated the choice is already made. The question is did Obama, possibly deluded by his own agenda, fully understand that? - because the big risk here of course is if the Somalis decide to call his bluff with a 'political' statement of their own and the situation starts to spin out of control - I have trouble seeing how it's to the brigands' advantage to pump up the volume, but then I'm not a Somali pirate.

update: appears that Somalis intend to call bluff seeing as how they've already assaulted four more ships, including an American flagged one - again, the important question here, if it was really against Navy SOP, and I have it from a good source that it was, the important question is why did the Navy decide to interdict? Did they force this decision upon Obama? did he force it upon them? or was it mutually agreed upon?

"...I'm not sure what Israel's refueling options are, I doubt anyone outside the IDF really does - although one assumes we have a pretty good idea of how such an attack would proceed beyond the auspices of American approval. But your claim that if they go through Iraq that 'we would stop them' is curious - we certainly could stop them, but that would be to cross a line that may prove as dangerous as allowing the attack to proceed since we would be emasculating Israel's defense profile and essentially not only giving the green light to Iran to do whatever it wants but also signaling to the rest of the Mideast that Israel's power is on the wane. This surely is the quite valid point of the Slate article: Israel is holding a very strong hand should it feel compelled to act unilaterally..."

Ah - see Europeans have rejected Obama's call for help re Afghanistan - not that there's anything shocking about that - what I'm wondering is if the big speech he gave in Strasbourg the day before being rejected by NATO, where he called for a brave new world free of nuclear armaments, I'm wondering if he was really serious about such an impossible and foolishly naive thing or whether it was just his way of saying 'Hey, my Euro brothers, the cowboys are back on the ranch and the good guys are running things again, so lets all smile and join hands and move the the great enlightenment forward - oh, and by the way, since we're all such good friends now, wouldn't mind some help blowing stuff up in Afghanistan'.

What I'm saying is, was he being a stooge in thinking it is possible or even wise to attempt getting the nuke genie back in the bottle or a stooge in thinking that by sounding all post-modern and progressive that he could somehow charm the Euros into getting their hands dirty in Afghanistan? Christ, I hope it ain't both.

update: appears now the Euros will be sending some help - but minor and only on the policing side, not war fighting - and so obviously this 'offer' was all along their fallback position so as to not look unreasonable.

Lil' Kim seems about set to launch a missile into space which Japan may choose to knock down but the US looks like they won't bother with - and the growing POV on the left is that to do nothing is the best option since Lil' Kim is playing to a domestic audience and an 'aggression' by America would suit Kim's purposes just fine - an argument that does have its merits but conveniently ignores fact that a successful launch of a missile into space will also play well to Kim's intended audience - in short the cloistered masses are going to be force fed a rousing nationalist message no matter the outcome.

A more vexing view of the issue though is to wonder if lil' Kim is merely playing to a domestic audience and we therefore do nothing then doesn't that at least create the possibility that Kim, given the absence of a belligerent American threat to rail against, will come off looking weak and foolish and if that's the case will he not then have ample motivation to up the ante? It's probably true that us shooting down the missile might for a moment serve Kim's purposes - but in the long term are not the benefits to be realized ours? We get to test our missile defense capabilities, we stunt NK's ambitions because if they can't test the technology they can't perfect it - yes, Kim will get to use the 'aggression' to stoke anti-Americanism but that is status quo and so is there really any use or sense to our response being swayed by it? In other words, one, we can't really know what Kim is up to, of what outcome best suits his purposes; and two, we can't really know what message he eventually feeds his oppressed people does us the most potential harm. Therefore our response should be based on strategic practicalities: if more benefits accrue from shooting it down then we should shoot the fucker down and not get caught up in a dubious game of trying to guess how Lil' Kim might try to exploit whichever outcome he's left with.

Having said that I suppose the argument against shooting the missile down is that such a 'provocation' would give Kim all the cover he needs to do some serious sabre rattling, actually mustering troops on the border etc etc, and since no sane person wants a war, even a small skirmish of a war breaking out on the peninsula - well, what you might end up with is Kim having even more leverage than he does already.

On the other hand, not shooting the missile down merely commits you to another round of meaningless rhetoric that will end, since China will not cooperate, with Kim getting what he wants. One view would be that no matter how frustrating this is it remains the safest approach. The other view would be that that this approach amounts to a sort of negative gradualism that ends up enabling what it imagines itself inhibiting: North Korea as a very dangerous and unstable nuclear proliferator and provocateur.  

Ya start to feel that all the countries out there calling for world wide, all encompassing regulations to be thrown over the global financial system are seeking refuge, not from economic crisis, but from their own anemia - you get the feeling that they see this as their opportunity to redraw the margins as a means to rationalize away their own weaknesses vis a vis the US... that this is their chance to cut the US down to something more 'manageable' and allow for the emergence of their longed for world government.

China on the other hand seems to see this crisis not as an excuse that explains away their mediocrity but rather as a vehicle that delivers more decidedly to the fore the looming threat of their immanent power. Europe essentially is in retreat and would like to take America with it, but for China the time apparently is now and the game it seems is very much on.

"... if you're uncertain about your feelings concerning the future that awaits us just ask yourself a simple question... how are ya gonna feel when China puts a man on the moon?... excited, joyful, proud even?... or troubled?... of course it's easy to accuse me of a pathetic Sinophobia or some irrational near racist fixation on the Asian threat... but the reality's a bit more complicated, isn't it?... once ya start thinking about the question..."