Warmed Over Cold Warrior

I believe freedom of speech is a fundamental right. The concept of curtailing a citizen's right to speak about politicians and political issues prior to elections is especially repugnant. That's when speech is most important.

On another blog, I've posted aboutThe Threat to Internet Free Speech from the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, aka the McCain-Feingold Act, and about the proposed FEC Rules to regulate online speech in the 60 days prior to an election. The FEC has acted, doing the minimum required by a court ruling; but that still makes free speech a privilege and no longer a right. Congress created this situation by passing an ambiguous law and should act to fix it by passing H.R. 1606, the Online Freedom of Speech Act. So, I'm repeating a post from my other blog to emphasize the need for pressure on Congress to act now.

As expected the FEC voted to adopt the draft rules on internet political speech, thus imposing the minimum regulation required by the 2004 court decision. As the Wall Street Journal puts it - FEC Won't Regulate Most Activity On Web Under Campaign Law:

"In its initial interpretation of the law in 2002, the FEC said no political activity on the Internet was covered. But a federal court judge ruled in 2004 that the commission had to craft a new rule that at the very least covered paid political advertising on the Internet.

The ruling, and the commission's decision not to appeal it, sparked fears among some Internet users that the panel might adopt broader restrictions. But Toner said the new rule gives a 'categorical and unqualified' exemption to all individual and group political activity on the Internet, except for paid advertising. ........

Hans A. von Spakovsky, appointed to the commission by President Bush in January, said the rule wouldn't have been necessary had the commission appealed the court ruling. He urged Congress to pass legislation exempting all types of political activity over the Internet from regulation."

Bradley A Smith, the former FEC Chairman whom I've quoted before, has this to say here:

"Congress would still do well to pass HR 1606, the Jeb Hensarling sponsored Online Freedom of Speech Act. There remains precious little reason to think that Congress really intended for the McCain-Feingold law to regulate the web. It is also clear that the FEC would be keeping it's blanket exemption from the statutory definition of 'public communication' for the internet, absent the ruling of a single federal judge that it must regulate the web. And it is clear that none of the horror stories spread by so-called 'reform' groups about HR 1606 have come true in the last 4 years, when the position that HR 1606 would enact has, in fact, been the law pursuant to FEC rules."

I agree with both Mr. Spakovsky and Mr. Smith that, while the FEC rules are minimal, they have placed internet speech under regulation and regulations can be easily changed by another FEC ruling. A law, passed by Congress and signed by the President, is a much stronger protection. As my two previous posts have argued, we still need to pass H.R. 1606, the Online Freedom Of Speech Act.

I intend to keep my Congressman aware of my interest in passing H.R. 1606 as soon as possible. Think about doing the same.

There's still a great deal of violence in parts of Iraq, but no signs of civil war in terms of organized armies fighting for control of the country. Much of the chatter about civil war depends on how the term is defined. More interesting is characterizing who is attacking whom to what ends. There is a lot of kidnapping for money and that tracks with the known release of 10,000 criminals by Saddam, making it hard to distinguish criminality from insurgency in some cases.

Strategy Page has another perspective here:

"Deaths from revenge killings now exceed those from terrorist or anti-government activity. Al Qaeda is beaten, and running for cover. The Sunni Arab groups that financed thousands of attacks against the government and coalition groups, are now battling each other, al Qaeda, and Shia death squads. It's not civil war, for there are no battles or grand strategies at play. It's not ethnic cleansing, yet, although many Sunni Arabs are, and have, fled the country. What's happening here is payback. Outsiders tend to forget that, for over three decades, a brutal Sunni Arab dictatorship killed hundreds of thousands of Kurds and Shia Arabs. The surviving victims, and the families of those who did not survive, want revenge. .........

For the last three years, the Sunni Arabs thought they could terrorize their way back into power. Didn't work. Now the Kurds and Shia Arabs are not only too strong to defeat, but are coming into Sunni Arab neighborhoods and killing. ....

The government doesn't want all these payback killings, most of them carried out by men working for extremist Shia Arab political parties. In particular, the Badr and Sadr militias, both backed by Iran, have the most blood on their hands .....

The Shia Arab death squads are basically terrorists, and if there's one thing all Iraqis can agree on, it's the need to stamp out the terrorist activity. This is providing the government with an opening against the Iran sponsored militias. Iraqis, even Shia Arab Iraqis, have always been fearful, and suspicious, of Iran. Iraqi Shia Arabs fought against Iran during the 1980s war, not because they loved Saddam, but because they feared Iranian domination. The Sadr and Badr groups are vulnerable in this area, and the government is apparently going to exploit it."

That's certainly an optimistic outlook on the current apparently chaotic violence. If the Iraq government does leverage the situation to move against the Badr and Sadr militias, it would be a very good sign.

In a post on 'War and Peace', Instapundit has stimulated a very interesting discussion about miltary casualty statistics. you can follow the thread of comments there and another at the RedState blog ,which started it all thusly :

"While every lost serviceman and servicewoman is certainly tragic and should be mourned, the actual statistics tell quite a different tale from the MSM and Democratic doom-and-gloom outlook. Comparing the numbers of lost US military personnel to past years, and past presidential terms, may even be a shock to supporters of the war.

Take a look at the actual US Military Casualty figures since 1980. If you do the math, you wil find quite a few surpises. First of all, let's compare numbers of US Military personnel that died during the first term of the last four presidents.

George W. Bush . . . . . 5187 (2001-2004)
Bill Clinton . . . . . . . . . 4302 (1993-1996)
George H.W. Bush . . . . 6223 (1989-1992)
Ronald Reagan . . . . . . 9163 (1981-1984)

Even during the (per MSM) utopic peacetime of Bill Clinton's term, we lost 4302 service personnel. H.W. Bush and Reagan actually lost significantly more personnel while never fighting an extensive war, much less a simulaltaneous war on two theaters (Iraq and Afghanistan). ....

In 2004, more soldiers died outside of Iraq and Afghanistan than died inside these two war zones (900 in these zones, 987 outside these zones). The reason is that there are usually a fair number that die every year in training accidents, as well as a small number of illness and suicide. Yet the MSM would make you think that US soldiers are dying at a high number in these zones, and at a significantly higher number than in past years or under past presidents. This is all simply outright lies and distortion."

The comments discuss problems with the above comparisons. Some note that the size of the force was much larger in the earlier periods, so the rates per 100,000 are much higher for GWB's period; others note that rates go up as the combat/traing tempo increases or as a smaller force does more; and others cite the improvements in medical care that save many lives among the wounded.

It's easy to do analytic manipulations of these numbers, but that should not detract from a few simple points : first is that lost lives are tragic and the sacrifice is real whether in training or combat; second is that improvements in medical techniques and equipment, as well as training and tactics do save lives; third, the losses are low compared to previous wars and especially so in view of how much is being accomplished; fourth, the media reporting does distort the picture grossly by emphasizing and focusing on a body count with little or no attention to the real achievements in the field.

I'm not really comfortable with polling as an accurate indicator of Iraqi opinion since it can be strongly infuenced by the selection of respondents from specific areas. But, this poll does address the three main sects and may be a useful rough indicator. My main concern is the small number of Sunni respondents since their opinion is apt to relate closely to region and latest events. For example, the Sunni in Tal Afar would probably be much more optimistic after we cleared out the insurgents there AND established a reliable permanent police presence.

That said, you can find the all the data and methodology for this poll at the World Public Opinion site :
"The majority of Iraqis overall view the recent parliamentary elections as valid, are optimistic that their country is going in the right direction and feel that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein has been worth the costs. Sunnis, on the other hand, overwhelmingly reject the validity of the elections, see the country going in the wrong direction and regret the overthrow of Saddam.

The poll was conducted for WorldPublicOpinion.org by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland and was fielded by KA Research Limited/D3 Systems, Inc. Polling was conducted January 2-5 with a nationwide sample of 1,150, which included an oversample of 150 Arab Sunnis (hereafter simply called Sunnis)."

Kurds and Shia results are similar enough to average together and get 80-85% saying the elections were fair, the new government will be legitimate, and Iraq is going in the right direction; only 5-6% of the Sunni feel that way. While 95% of the Kurd-Shia group say it was worth it to oust Saddam, only 13% of the Sunni feel that way. It's interesting that all groups feel more positive about ousting Saddam than they do about the other questions; even twice as many Sunni express a favorable opinion.

There have been many opinions and analysis written about the last three years of the Iraq Campaign. I've read quite a few and have no intention to create yet another. But there is one speech that struck me as both substantitive and straightforward. In his Cleveland speech on the War on Terror and Operation Iraqi Freedom, President Bush conveys the gritty reality of the current campaign, the adaptability and effectiveness of the military, and our nation's accomplishments and challenges - all in the context and importance of this campaign in a major global struggle.

I think every concerned American should read it; but read it not as a Republican or a Democrat, not as a Bush-admirer or a Bush hater, but as an American with an open mind about understanding a vitally important national security issue.

President Bush uses the town of Tal Afar, near the Syran border, as the setting to discusses the impact of the war on Iraqi citizens and the significance of the strategy of clear, hold, and build to them and to us. He does this in simple graphic language that puts you in the scene. He shows how we won; and notes that the town went from only 32,000 citzens daring to vote before we cleared out the terrorists to over 175,ooo afterwards. He emphasizes the statements of the mayor of Tal Afar as further proof of that success, saying:

"One of the most eloquent is the Mayor of Tal Afar, a courageous Iraqi man named Najim. Mayor Najim arrived in the city in the midst of the al Qaeda occupation, and he knows exactly what our troops have helped accomplish. He calls our men and women in uniform "lion-hearts," and in a letter to the troopers of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment, he spoke of a friendship sealed in blood and sacrifice."

He continues by summarizing the state of Iraq campaign and putting it in the context of a global struggle against an dangerous ideology, comparable to our earlier struggles agains fascism and communism. He says it better than I can, so the rest is from the President :

"The last three years have tested our resolve. The fighting has been tough. The enemy we face has proved to be brutal and relentless. We're adapting our approach to reflect the hard realities on the ground. And the sacrifice being made by our young men and women who wear our uniform has been heartening and inspiring.

The terrorists who are setting off bombs in mosques and markets in Iraq share the same hateful ideology as the terrorists who attacked us on September the 11th, 2001, those who blew up commuters in London and Madrid, and those who murdered tourists in Bali, or workers in Riyadh, or guests at a wedding in Amman, Jordan. In the war on terror we face a global enemy -- and if we were not fighting this enemy in Iraq, they would not be idle. They would be plotting and trying to kill Americans across the world and within our own borders. Against this enemy, there can be no compromise. So we will fight them in Iraq, we'll fight them across the world, and we will stay in the fight until the fight is won.

In the long run, the best way to defeat this enemy and to ensure the security of our own citizens is to spread the hope of freedom across the broader Middle East. We've seen freedom conquer evil and secure the peace before. In World War II, free nations came together to fight the ideology of fascism, and freedom prevailed. And today, Germany and Japan are democracies -- and they are allies in securing the peace. In the Cold War, freedom defeated the ideology of communism and led to a democratic movement that freed the nations of Central and Eastern Europe from Soviet domination. And today, these nations are strong allies in the war on terror.

In the Middle East, freedom is once again contending with an ideology that seeks to sow anger and hatred and despair. And like fascism and communism before, the hateful ideologies that use terror will be defeated. Freedom will prevail in Iraq; freedom will prevail in the Middle East; and as the hope of freedom spreads to nations that have not known it, these countries will become allies in the cause of peace.

The security of our country is directly linked to the liberty of the Iraqi people -- and we will settle for nothing less than victory. Victory will come when the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq's democracy, when the Iraqi security forces can provide for the safety of their citizens on their own, and when Iraq is not a safe haven for terrorists to plot new attacks against our nation. There will be more days of sacrifice and tough fighting before the victory is achieved. Yet by helping the Iraqis defeat the terrorists in their land, we bring greater security to our own.

As we make progress toward victory, Iraqis will continue to take more responsibility for their own security, and fewer U.S. forces will be needed to complete the mission. But it's important for the Iraqis to hear this: The United States will not abandon Iraq. We will not leave that country to the terrorists who attacked America and want to attack us again. We will leave Iraq, but when we do, it will be from a position of strength, not weakness. Americans have never retreated in the face of thugs and assassins, and we will not begin now."

Read it all, including the question & answer session.

An earlier post, here and on my R3Blog , generated a comment about the Oxford Research International poll that produced the Iraqi opinion statistics used in the article. We agree that the poll was positive, but the comment asks for more detailed demographic breakout data. Since I don't have any more information than is available at Oxford or the BBC, I thought I'd mention a blogger who is much more knowledgeable about polls and polling techniques and has some interesting data about terrorism.

D.J.Drummond posts extensively on these topics on the PoliPundit and Stolen Thunder blogs. He has begun a Stolen Thunder series onBlood and Bigotry . This excerpt from Part 2 of the series develops a very interesting insight from available data:

"According to the Terrorism Knowledge Base, since the September 11th attacks 45.6% of all terrorist attacks have happened in the Middle East and 57.7% of all fatalities from such attacks (here). North America has only received 0.5% of the attacks and 0.04% of the fatalities. Even Western Europe has only suffered 10.6% of the attacks, and only 1.4% of the fatalities. Only 2.17% of terrorist attacks have been against military targets in that time, while 2.53% of the attacks have been terrorists attacking other terrorist groups. 17.69% of the attacks have been attempts to destabilize governments, with 12.27% against private businesses, 7.34% against police and 6.02% against transportation, like buses and trains.

What this means in plain English, is that the terrorists are attacking Arabs more often than Americans, and civilians much more often than police. The terrorists are trying to destabilize Iraq and Lebanon and Egypt, far more than they are doing anything in France or England or Spain, no matter what we see on TV. The terrorists are worried about the Iraqi Army and Police, and about regular people. One must consider the import of that fact."

I think that's an interesting insight; it's important to keep a broad perspective of events to understand an enemy's intentions and strategy as well as his real strength or weakness.

The New York Times editorial page expresses great outrage over the prospect that ordinary citizens and bloggers could be allowed to speak their mind about politics prior to an election. This ability, which most of us thought was protected by the First Ammendment, is endangered by a recent court interpretation of the Campaign Finance Law. Since the court interpretation is seen by many as not following the will of Congress when it enacted the legislation, the Congress is doing it's duty by stating it's intentions more clearly in new legislation that has strong bi-partisan backing. Up for a vote this week is House Bill HR1606, aptly named 'The Online Freedom of Speech Act'.

But where the Congress and I see freedom, the NYT sees anInternet Campaign Loophole ; ranting that: " For all the avowals to put the brakes on ethical lapses, the House is showing its true colors with an attempt to turn the Internet into a free-flowing big-money trough for uncontrolled political spending."

The editorial is full of overblown and false rhetoric. I could pick it apart, but that's already been done here very well here , and here .

So, I'll content myself with noting that the NYT starts it's rant with a concern about "big-money" "free-flowing" on the Internet. Now that's clearly a false statement about HR1606; but it's probably true that the NYT fears the loss of some "big-money" without it's monopoly on political speech when it counts most. ( Congressman Jack Kingston share that view in his Blog post on "Elitist Media v. Bloggers: H.R.1606").

Wondering if you are getting both sides of the story in Iraq ? Try this article by Richard Nadler in NRO . It's full of interesting facts presented by some smart articulate ex- military folks.

You can learn about things like increases in electrical supply, doubling of oil revenues, enormous increases in cell phones, cars, and satellite TVs; as well as a 60 percent decline of infant mortality and improved access to schooling and medical care. All happening now in post-Saddam Iraq and discussed by Lt. Indyk, returned from a tour in Iraq.

And there's former Corporal Gibson talking about how, in 6 months in 2005, the number of civilian tips informing on insurgents increased from 483 to 4,700, as numerous Sunni tribes declared outright war on al Qaeda. In Gibson's words - "The insurgency in Iraq is being dismantled by the equivalent of a Tips hotline."

A key point about modern information warfare is made by former Marine Sergeant and combat reporter J. D. Johannes - "Everyone knows that the history of war is written by the victors. But the war in Iraq has shattered that truism. In Iraq, history is being written by the losers. Baathist kidnappers and jihadist bombers are planning their operations not to win the war in Iraq, but to win it in America. To that end, they are assessing what American news organizations are willing to cover, and what American reporters are willing to risk. As an immediate result, many of the feeds on the nightly news are coming from Arabic sources that are either non-professional in their journalistic standards or hostile to American policy aims. As a long-term result, the American public is broadly misinformed on a war that Coalition arms and Iraqi democrats are, in fact, winning."

Read the article. If you want to see and hear more from these men, check this post to Watch Some TV and Feel Really Good.

Unfortunately, this is not about the prudish or puritanical; it's about the politically correct and fearful press - and a creeping self-censorship virus that seems to have gone critical in the UK and may in the US.

Start with the UK and this report that : "Mark Steyn’s column is no longer available in the British press; according to the Guardian’s Lionel Shriver, Steyn has now been dropped from both the Sunday Telegraph and the Spectator. And there’s very little doubt that it’s because of his clear-headed, uncompromising writing about Islam."

Perhaps, some are concerned about how Steyn is willing to speak bluntly about current events like the UNC "Road Rage(?)" incident in which a Muslim graduate attempted to run down students in a rented car. In this recent article, Steyn asserts that the (US) media is shockingly ignorant of Muslims among us:
"According to statements taken by the police, Mr. Taheri-azar, 22, an Iranian-born graduate of the university, felt that the United States government had been 'killing his people across the sea' and that his actions reflected 'an eye for an eye.' ..... Taheri-azar is admirably upfront about his actions. As he told police, he wanted to 'avenge the deaths or murders of Muslims around the world.'

And yet the M-word appears nowhere in the Times report. Whether intentionally or not, they seem to be channeling the great Sufi theologian and jurist al-Ghazali, who died a millennium ago but whose first rule on the conduct of dhimmis -- non-Muslims in Muslim society -- seem to have been taken on board by the Western media:

The dhimmi is obliged not to mention Allah or His Apostle. . . .

Are they teaching that at Columbia Journalism School yet?"


Both the UK and US major media press have refused to print copies of the "Danish Cartoons" on the grounds that they did not wish to inflame tensions ( of course, printing text and photos on "abuse" at abu Ghraib was fair game). What messgae does this self-censoring behavior send?

According to one educated view from the UK it's leading to the day when British Muslims form a state within a state: "'It's confirmation of what they believe to be a familiar pattern: if spokesmen for British Muslims threaten what they call 'adverse consequences' - violence to the rest of us - then the British Government will cave in. I think it is a very dangerous precedent.'

Dr Sookhdeo adds that he believes that 'in a decade, you will see parts of English cities which are controlled by Muslim clerics and which follow, not the common law, but aspects of Muslim sharia law.

'It is already starting to happen - and unless the Government changes the way it treats the so-called leaders of the Islamic community, it will continue.'"


Dr Sookhdeo believes Western leaders fail to understand that many Islamic clerics believe they are locked in mortal combat with secularism and that they are following a deliberate plan to achieve dominance for their religion in Western nations: "For example, one of the fundamental notions of a secular society is the moral importance of freedom, of individual choice. But in Islam, choice is not allowable ... . God has laid down the law, and man must obey. ...


In 1980, the Islamic Council of Europe laid out their strategy for the future - and the fundamental rule was never dilute your presence. That is to say, do not integrate. Rather, concentrate Muslim presence in a particular area until you are a majority in that area, so that the institutions of the local community come to reflect Islamic structures. The education system will be Islamic, the shops will serve only halal food, ... so on."

Dr Sookhdeo believes that plan: " is being followed in Britain. "That is why you are seeing areas which are now almost totally Muslim. The next step will be pushing the Government to recognise sharia law for Muslim communities - which will be backed up by the claim that it is "racist" or "Islamophobic" or "violating the rights of Muslims" to deny them sharia law."

To counter this trend : "You have to distinguish between ordinary Muslims and their self-appointed leaders," explains Dr Sookhdeo. ..... "First, it (Government) should try to engage with the real Muslim majority, not with the self-appointed 'community leaders' who don't actually represent anyone: they have not been elected, and the vast majority of ordinary Muslims have nothing to do with them. ......
"Second, ...there should be no compromise over education, or over English as the language of education. ....
Finally, the Government should make it absolutely clear: we welcome diversity, we welcome different religions - but all of them have to accept the secular basis of British law and society. That is a non-negotiable condition of being here."

Even if you don't agree with everything Dr Sookhdeo says, his Three Points of Action strike me as a very wise course for the UK government to follow. And I hope the US will pursue a similar course. Our strength comes from immigrants that have united in a single national identity. Let's reinforce that strength.

It's common to hear calls for Muslims to speak out against the violence being waged in the name of Islam. It's rare when one does. Dr. Wafa Sultan, a Syrian-American psychiatrist living outside Los Angeles, is a brave person who has gone on Arabic TV with her message that violence and extremists are distorting her religion. She deserves a lot of credit for doing so, and ,for telling her story, so does the New York Times:

"Today, thanks to an unusually blunt and provocative interview on Al Jazeera television on Feb. 21, she is an international sensation, hailed as a fresh voice of reason by some, and by others as a heretic and infidel who deserves to die.

In the interview, which has been viewed on the Internet more than a million times and has reached the e-mail of hundreds of thousands around the world, Dr. Sultan bitterly criticized the Muslim clerics, holy warriors and political leaders who she believes have distorted the teachings of Muhammad and the Koran for 14 centuries. ..........

"The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions or a clash of civilizations," Dr. Sultan said. "It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality."

......

"She went on, "We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people."

She concluded, "Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them.""

That view may not be held by many other Muslims, at least not in public. According to another article in the same issue of the NYT, the Danish Foreign Ministry sponsored a conference with Muslims to improve relations but seemed to get only expressions of Anger and Hope:

"the conference prominently featured Amr Khaled, a 38-year-old preacher from Egypt who .... sought to emphasize that 'we are here to build bridges for dialogue,' and suggested that a continuing boycott of Danish goods in Arab countries could stop if Danes and their government reached out with initiatives like help for small businesses, or health care.


Other participants were less conciliatory.


'We are here today, because we want to tell you that every Muslim in the world is very angry,' said Tareq Alsuwaidan, general manager of the Kuwaiti satellite channel Al Resalah.

'We request an official apology from your government to the Muslim nation as it happened in Norway,' he said. He also demanded that the European Union enact a law 'that forbids the insult to religious figures.'"
.........

"Sheikh Youssef el-Qardawi, 79, who is based in Qatar and is host of a weekly show on Al Jazeera television, said the trip to Copenhagen looked like surrender. "You have to have a common ground to have a dialogue with your enemy," he said on Al Jazeera. "But after insulting what is sacred to me, they should apologize.""

I didn't find much "Hope" in the article. Unless it was the hope that the Danes would offer concessions and rewards for bad behavior. That seems to be the primary theme emeging from most such meetings. I suppose that's preferable to the death threats that Dr. Sultan got for expressing her views.

Some pundits and commentators read the political tea leaves and think we are in danger of a stampede away from Iraq. Not an unrealistic fear given the latest barrage of negative publicity about the UAE ports deal, recent polls about Bush and soldier attitudes in Iraq ( even though both are extremely unreliable), and the Congressional actions on the ports deal and NSA (both of which seem to reflect a need for image over substance.) With elections coming up, Republicans are showing signs of confusion about how to stake out an electable position seperate from the President's position. Politicians tend to have good survival instincts and an ear to their public. They also tend to have very short time horizons are can panic when hearing a lot of uncertainty from their constituents.

I don't think it's panic time yet; but it is time to regain the perspective to avoid future panic. It's important to spread the information for a balanced perspective about what we are doing in Iraq and the Mid-East and what the real costs , gains and dangers are. To that end, Victor Davis Hanson's latest essay, The Great Stampede, is worth reading in full at National Review Online; some key excerpts follow:

"For all the tragedy of our fallen in Iraq, if a constitutional government stabilizes in Baghdad, and liberalization follows in the surrounding region, then our losses will not be measured against the far lighter casualties suffered in Panama, Gulf War I, or Grenada, but against the far worse losses of Korea and World War II. ......

The World Beyond
Things abroad simply are not worse after March 2003. Europe is again growing closer to the United States, in part due to its fright after the French rioting, the Danish cartoons, and murders in the Netherlands. Its multilateral alternative to the United States is in retreat, as we see from the humiliating negotiations with Iran, Hamas, and the Russians.


India and Pakistan are closer to us now than before Iraq. China is China; Japan is a military ally as never before. England and Australia are strategic partners; Canada and New Zealand are similarly beginning to follow a wiser course. The world is catching on to Iran, and the theocracy must subvert the new Iraqi democracy or itself be undermined by the nearby democratic experiment.

There is, of course, heightened anti-Americanism in places, but it is largely confined to specific areas. The Middle East Street resents deeply the humiliation of seeing Muslim leaders so easily dethroned. The European cafés abhor the spread of American popular culture and muscle, and are starting to recoil in shock that the world did not turn out to follow the rules of the Hague or the EU charter. And then there is the trans-Atlantic elite, who, after calling for three decades for a more principled American policy, finally got it in spades — but splattered with all the gore and mess that such radical changes always entail.

The Military
Yet another misconception concerns the U.S. military. Almost all the latest grievances against it have proven to be mostly hype. It is meeting its recruiting goals. In the heart of the ancient caliphate, with great sensitivity and tact, it has trained ten Iraqi divisions, after removing a 30-year old fascistic dictatorship with dispatch. If America’s was already the best equipped and disciplined military in the world, it is now also the most savvy and experienced in precisely the sort of asymmetrical war our pundits worry threaten our future. In all the post facto, self-serving, tell-all books by our ex-intelligence agents and diplomats, it is high-ranking military officers who usually escape censure."

Hanson's Bottom Line stikes a cautionary note : "So here we are — close to victory abroad, closer to concession at home." We've been here before, but never before did we have the ability to reach so many with a message of perspective and encouragement.

I think the major media are responsible for a lot of our national image problems worldwide. I've ascribed this to underlying partisan bias and a need to justify group-think about the desirability of always being anti-war. A recent poll showing growing disapproval of Islam struck me as a natural - though unintended - by-product of the media's constant barrage of Islamist bombings and terrorist attacks in Iraq.

I say unintended because I believe the media goal is to arouse anti-war emotions leading to renunciation of the Bush Administration and It's War. The poll suggests an opposite reaction by Americans. But the the damage may well continue in the rest of the world - and that will be a problem for us all in the future.


The Powerline Blog has a interestingly take on the subject that illuminates how the media's inherent biases drive it into actively Rewriting Very Recent History: "This is basically a dog-bites-man story; the Washington Post reports on its poll showing that a growing number of Americans express disapproval of Islam, and a majority now say there are more violent extremists among Muslims than other religions. The Post could have attributed these findings to the fact that lots of people follow the news."
.....
"What I really wanted to comment on, though, was this sentence near the beginning of the Post's article:

The poll found that nearly half of Americans -- 46 percent -- have a negative view of Islam, seven percentage points higher than in the tense months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, when Muslims were often targeted for violence.

That's a false statement. In fact, the restraint that Americans showed in the months after September 11 in not blaming American Muslims for the attacks, let alone carrying out violent attacks on them, was remarkable. Nevertheless, what we're seeing here is history being rewritten. In a few years, it will be commonplace for books, newspapers, magazines and television broadcasts to record as a "fact" that after September 11, "Muslims were often targeted for violence." And I'm afraid that's what our children and grandchildren will be taught in school, regardless of the actual facts."

The following excerpt covers a readers exchanges with the Washington Post reporter. It is fascinating to read; the reporter seems to be totally unaware of how badly he is rewriting history, much less of the impact of his ignorance. The fact that it was published shows considerable editorial irresponsibility as well. So, back to PowerLine :

"It's an interesting window into the thinking of at least one Post reporter:

I emailed the authors with this:

You have your facts wrong. Muslims were not "often targeted for violence" after September 11. In fact, there were remarkably few incidents. By any reasonable definition of "often" you are wrong.

Darryl Fears responded back with this:

Mr. Hanlon, I write about immigration and race, and I covered the incidents. There were thousands of incidents, compiled by both the FBI and by Arab agencies that were deluged with phone calls from people too afraid to call police. Even Indian Sikhs who are not Muslim were beaten bloody. The president saw this and gave a speech and urged calm, which helped. Those are the facts, and they're not very hard to find. - Darryl Fears

And I responded to him with this. He did not reply:

The FBI compiled thousands of incidents? Or the FBI compiled a handful and Arab agencies were deluged with phone calls? They are significantly different. You're making up history, as you want it to be, not as it happened.



The FBI certainly didn't compile a list of thousands of incidents of violence; neither did the Justice Department. The number of incidents that actually involved violence was tiny, in a nation of almost 300 million people. I find it noteworthy, too, that according to the FBI, "anti-Islamic incidents" (both violent and non-violent) jumped in 2001 to "a total of 481 episodes, second only to anti-Jewish incidents which totaled 1043." No doubt the Post will soon be reporting that Jews in America are "often targeted for violence."

Or, more simply, the Post will be able to report that Muslims hold an unfavorable view of the US, making it easier for the Islamists to recruit terrorist candidates.

Care to see some super TV spots about the war in Iraq? Want to feel good about America and what it's doing in and for the World? If you do, then there are eight TV spots you will love.

You can't see them on major media, but you can view them at Americas Majority - TV Ads & Videos . The eight 30 second spots feature real people, American citizens who served in our military forces in Iraq, telling the good news skinny with all the polish, conciseness and impact of the best of professional TV spots.

They are all great and it's a tough challenge is find your favorites. My two favorites are "In 30 Seconds", that use that time to give the most compelling straight-forward explanation of our mission in Iraq that I've ever seen; and "Constitution" that makes you see what's really been accomplished.

Check them out and pick your favorites - there are no wrong answers or losers here. Then tell your friends about them. Get some folks to see and hear these statements about America from Americans who cared enough to do something and are articulate enough to tell us why it matters.

If you can't find any good news about the Iraq campaign, the reason is probably what you read or see on TV; or, rather, what you don't get a chance to read or see.

For a review of some good news and the links to find more, check out this article by Bill Crawford on Iraq on National Review Online:
"Coverage of the Iraq war continues to be overwhelmingly negative. If anything, the pessimism of the mainstream media has increased since the attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra. This isn't because of any dearth of good news, though. For whatever reason, the abundant good work and progress accomplished each day in Iraq are either not reported or underplayed here at home."
...............
"As the polls show, Americans are getting pessimistic about our mission in Iraq, and the mainstream media bear most of the blame for this. Responsibility for reporting the other side of the story in Iraq has fallen to the blogosphere. The following stories highlight the progress we have made in Iraq over the last two months, and the incredible work being done by the men and women of our armed forces, in concert with their coalition allies and the Iraqi Security Forces.
USAID now has a webpage listing some of our successes in Iraq. The entire list is here,USAID."

There really are too many examples in this article to copy them all. but two more points are worth noting.

This :"The mainstream media reports on every terrorist attack in Iraq daily, no matter how insignificant, but what they don't report are the stories of every day Iraqis who are putting their lives on the line to help secure their country.
During a recent operation, two shepherds located twelve munitions sites for Iraqi and American forces:
'Two local sheepherders did just that, directing one search team of Iraqis and Americans to more than 12 sites, where munitions were discovered within a two-mile radius. High-explosive, phosphate and mortar rounds were among those discovered, which have all been used as weapons against Soldiers and Iraqis alike.' "

And this :"The media also can't be bothered to report on operations that prevent attacks, such as this one in Baghdad that led to the discovery of eleven roadside bombs before they could be used:
'Baghdad Soldiers found and destroyed 11 roadside bombs and three weapons caches in the last 24 hours as well as conducted two major offensive operations resulting in the detention of 29 suspected terrorists.'"

Both those examples involved action by Iraqis against the insurgents; and they are not atypical. So, I'll end on this note of media-driven frustration from Ralph Peters, who is touring Iraq and asking here: "DUDE, WHERE'S MY CIVIL WAR?"

PowerLine Blog notes that It wasn't hard for Iran to con the West : "In today's Telegraph, Iran's nuclear negotiator is revealed bragging to Iranian clerics how he duped the West: ' How we duped the West, by Iran's nuclear negotiator.' Philip Sherwell reports from Washington:



The man who for two years led Iran's nuclear negotiations has laid out in unprecedented detail how the regime took advantage of talks with Britain, France and Germany to forge ahead with its secret atomic programme.



In a speech to a closed meeting of leading Islamic clerics and academics, Hassan Rowhani, who headed talks with the so-called EU3 until last year, revealed how Teheran played for time and tried to dupe the West after its secret nuclear programme was uncovered by the Iranian opposition in 2002. .... From the outset, the Americans kept telling the Europeans, 'The Iranians are lying and deceiving you and they have not told you everything.' The Europeans used to respond, 'We trust them',' he said.



Well, the Europeans proved an easy mark for the Iranian con artists and they have completed their nuclear processing facilities at Ishfahan. But there is still the issue of what happens after the case goes to the UN Security council , as seems likely now.

There is an interesting item on that in the Baroness Alexandra von Maltzen blog post that PowerLine credits with beating the Telegraph to this story at All Things Beautiful: MSM Ignores Iran's Admission Of Guilt: "According to Mr. Rowhani, the “danger” of the Security Council is that “once reaching that level, other questions like our missile program, which they are very sensitive about, would also come up. And at the Security Council, one can be sure that Russia or China would not sacrifice their interests with the West to theirs with Iran”, he stressed.

Informed military sources believe Iran has developed new versions of its Shahab 3 ballistic missiles capable of reaching as far as Israel and shores of southern Europe, carrying a nuclear device."

Maybe this UN action won't be just another futile delay on the path to more direct action. One can always hope.

Austin Bay has an outstanding post on The Internet Path to Freedom: Ending Information Isolation . He starts by noting "technological compression — the planet “shrunk” in figurative terms by communications and transportation", citing how the internet can give isolated third world communities unprecedented access to libraries and online markets. He then quotes extensively from this essay by Jonathan Rauch, In Arabic, 'Internet' Means 'Freedom' , which introduces us to an Iraqi scholar who "hopes that a new Arabic-language Web site, called LampofLiberty.org -- MisbahAlHurriyya.org in Arabic -- can change the world by publishing liberal classics."

Translating books like 'Liberalism' and the 'Road to Serfdom' into Arabic seems an unlikely way to transform the Mid-East and break the embrace of a destructive Islamist ideology. But Rauch marshals some impressive facts and statistics to support the prospects of a successful intellectual revolution :

"Intellectual isolation is a widespread Arab phenomenon, not just an Iraqi one. Some of the statistics are startling. According to the United Nations' 2003 "Arab Human Development Report," five times more books are translated annually into Greek, a language spoken by just 11 million people, than into Arabic. "No more than 10,000 books were translated into Arabic over the entire past millennium," says the U.N., "equivalent to the number translated into Spanish each year." Authors and publishers must cope with the whims of 22 Arab censors. "As a result," writes a contributor to the report, "books do not move easily through their natural markets." Newspapers are a fifth as common as in the non-Arab developed world; computers, a fourth as common. "Most media institutions in Arab countries remain state-owned," the report says.

No wonder the Arab world and Western-style modernity have collided with a shock. They are virtually strangers, 300 years after the Enlightenment and 200 years after the Industrial Revolution. Much as other regions may be cursed with disease or scarcity, in recent decades the Arab world has been singularly cursed with bad ideas. First came Marxism and its offshoots; then the fascistic nationalism of Nasserism and Baathism; now, radical Islamism. Diverse as those ideologies are, they have in common authoritarianism and the suppression of any true private sphere. Instead of withering as they have done in open competition with liberalism, they flourished in the Arab world's relative isolation."

"Startling" is an understatment for those statistics (e.g. average of 10 books per year over the last 1000 years; and today a 130-1 per capita ratio of books translated to Greek vs to Arabic). It's hard to comprehend or predict the impact on so isolated a society of a massive infusion of modern concepts of liberal freedom. Rauch's conclusion is that : "The suffocating Arab duopoly of state-controlled media and Islamist pulpits is cracking -- only a little bit so far, but keep watching. In the Arab world, the Enlightenment is going online."

You could call it the Socio-Political Time Compression factor of the internet; and it could become a decisive factor in the information war against terrorist ideologies. Perhaps the State Department should view this as a cost-effective way of preparing the info-battlefield for a small fraction of that supplemental request.

Today's 8pm posting of the DRUDGE REPORT has replaced the Big Headline about "Blair under fire for envoking God in Iraq war decision" with a new Big Headline about "Papers: All Troops out of Iraq by early '07".

Well - Wow! Just when I thought the US media had won top bonkers award for odd reportage, ala the Katrina tapes, the UK media (at least the Sunday Mirror and Sunday Telegraph) steps up to the plate for good old England.

I don't know what is behind this story. But I'm hoping that this Reuters report will win the MSM award for the year's Biggest BU**S**T - UK, US to withdraw Iraq forces by early '07:
"LONDON (Reuters) - The United States and Britain are planning to pull all their troops out of Iraq by the spring of 2007, two British newspapers reported in their Sunday editions, quoting unnamed senior defense ministry sources.
The Sunday Telegraph said the planned pull-out followed an acceptance by the two governments that the presence of foreign troops in Iraq was now a large obstacle to securing peace.
'The British government is understood to be the driving force behind the withdrawal plan but all 24 coalition members are likely to welcome the move, given the growing international unpopularity of the war,' the Telegraph said. ......
Britain's Sunday Mirror newspaper also reported on the planned withdrawal saying it would happen within 12 months."


BUT, we also hear today from Yahoo! News: "Iraq's president said Saturday that he had been assured that American troops will stay in his country as long as needed, .... President Jalal Talabani said Abizaid assured him U.S. forces "are ready to stay as " long as we ask them, no matter what the period is."

AND, then there is this on Bush in Pakistan :"President Bush praised Pakistan’s fight against terrorism as unfaltering Saturday ...... Bush and Musharraf renewed their war-on-terror alliance in a news conference at the presidential palace, ...... “We’re not going to back down in the face of these killers,” Bush said two days after a suicide car-bombing killed an American diplomat in the southern city of Karachi. “We’ll fight this war and we will win this war together.”"

SO, perhaps those seniorDefense Ministry chaps who leaked this story have been talking to their counterparts who are managing W; or maybe W is just blissfully unaware of his firm policy on this subject. OR maybe the Brits just wanted to get Drudge to change that embarrassing Headline. If it's the last one, they won. If it's none and for real, we all lost.

There may still be some articles and editorials touting John Zogby's recent "poll" of our military in Iraq. The poll results seemed unreal based on everything I had read or heard from reliable sources. It now appears that the poll structure and it's results are too flawed, or biased, to be credible. It only takes a few days for knowledgeable bloggers to uncover the truth.

D J Drummond summarizes, with links and facts,The Sad Case of John Zogby: "By now, a lot of people have read Zogby’s latest poll, which purports to support the claim that most servicemen in Iraq want to call it quits and go home. A lot of bloggers have weighed in, on both sides of the aisle, the best in my opinion coming from Bruce Kessler at Democracy Project and Hugh Hewitt. My own opinion on Zogby should already be obvious.

Back in 2004, I caught him cheating on basic methodology and basically excommunicated him from the ranks of serious pollsters. That time, I discovered that Zogby was mixing telephone and online results without announcing the fact, and worse, had apparently been doing this for some time. Zogby also used some of his prior polls to drive demographic weighting for future polls, something frowned upon by the NCPP and the AAPOR.
......
John Zogby may have a future in cable television, but not in professional polling. He’s become a media whore, and has crossed the line beyond which I do not believe he can return to credibility."

Read the whole article and it's links for a solid rundown on Zogby's methods and performance.

As an indication of the speed of blogger debunking, it took Bruce Kesler less than 5 days to go from questiioning the poll's reliability to declaring it BS on his Democracy Project blog. And a lot of military bloggers have been posting outraged comments.

Wonder if the NYT and other mainstream media will correct their reports - on this story or on the AP Katrina tapes lies story about Bush lies?

I see quite a few articles and blogs are celebrating the US-India deal with me. Of course the NYT and some others are stuck too deeply in examining grains of sand to see the sun rising over the horizon.

James Bennett and the Vodkapundit are welcoming India to the Anglosphere. Bennett makes an interesting projection :
"As to where India stands with the Anglosphere, well, that's a work in progress. The key issue at this point is the rate at which English fluency and Anglosphere-linked jobs (IT and call-center) penetrate below the traditional English-speaking elites of India. That appears to be happening at a fast, maybe even exponential rate. At some point before too long (probably between 2015 and 2020) India will have more home users of English than the US; not much longer afterwards, there could be more home users of English in India than the rest of the Anglosphere combined. This (especially given the cheapness of electronic publishing and dissemination) will mean that the bulk of English-language media will be produced in India. (If Bollywood learns how to appeal to US audiences, which it eventually will, that will also be true of visual media as well.) That means that not only will the Anglosphere change India, but India will change the Anglosphere.

Not many people are thinking about what this really means. They should be. Bush's trip to India, and the deal made there today, may end up being the single most consequential act of the Bush presidency."

I Agree! Or at least one of the top two. And add Rich Lowry and The NRO Editors to the chorus.

As expected, President Bush has made a major nuclear policy agreement with India, setting both countries on the path to what may become our most significant 21st century alliance. As this news report states :
"Reversing decades of U.S. policy, President Bush ushered India into the world's exclusive nuclear club Thursday with a landmark agreement to share nuclear reactors, fuel and expertise with this energy-starved nation in return for its acceptance of international safeguards. .....

'I'm trying to think differently, not stay stuck in the past,' said Bush, who has made improving relations with India a goal of his administration. Celebrating their agreement, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, 'We have made history today, and I thank you.'

"The U.S.-India nuclear deal was seen as the centerpiece of better relations between the world's oldest and most powerful democracy and the world's largest and fastest-growing one.
India has more than 1 billion people, and its booming economy has created millions of jobs along with consumer demands that have attracted American businesses. ..... Bush acknowledged that Washington and New Delhi were estranged during the Cold War, when India declared itself a nonaligned nation but tilted toward Moscow. "Now the relationship is changing dramatically," he said."

This agreement has grown from an early Bush administration intitiative to shift America foriegn policy from an Europe-Centric focus to one emphasizing Asia and the Mid-East as well. In doing this, India is the key partner. India shares our democratic political and economic philosophies and is on the path to becoming the world's most populous country and largest economy. It has a higher birth rate than China, has embraced market economics and is investing heavily in educatiing its populace - and we share a common language and political heritage from the British.

There will be many more practical political and diplomatic hurdles to be worked out over the years; but, I believe, this is the event marking a second major paradigm shift for our national policy. I expect this recognition of national interest, friendship and partnering will prove as important to our future as the recognition of the need to wage war against a global network of Islamist terrorists and to deny them the Mid-East as a breeding ground.

In both cases, the key element was the presence of a national leader with the ability to recognize the pattern of global reality, the vision to see over traditional paradigms to a novel approach, and the determination to pursue that path in the face of internal and external obstacles. In my mind, truly great leadership is all about getting the really big directions right and pushing the nation in that direction. I think President Bush is doing that; I think he will fare much better in future history than in current polls.

Both Victor Davis Hanson and Michael Rubin have published very interesting views on the current Iraq situation. I think they are worth repeating and contrasting for some insights and on the problems and on how to proceed. Both articles are worth reading; I've excerpted the key points at length.

In Victor Davis Hanson's opinion - we are at war with ourselves and we are winning in Iraq; so let's not lose it at home :
"Last week the golden dome of the Askariya shrine in Samarra was blown apart. Sectarian riots followed, and reprisals and deaths ensued. Thugs and criminals came out of the woodwork to foment further violence. But instead of the apocalypse of an ensuing civil war, a curfew was enforced. Iraqi security forces stepped in with some success. Shaken Sunni and Shiite leaders appeared on television to urge restraint, and there appeared at least the semblance of reconciliation that may soon presage a viable coalition government.

But here at home you would have thought that our own capitol dome had exploded. Indeed, Americans more than the Iraqis needed such advice for calm to quiet our own frenzy. Almost before the golden shards of the mosque hit the pavement, pundits wrote off the war as lost - . . . . Then the great civil war sort of fizzled out; our own frenzy subsided; and now exhausted we await next week's new prescription of doom--apparently the hyped-up story of Arabs at our ports. That the Iraqi security forces are becoming bigger and better, that we have witnessed three successful elections, and that hundreds of brave American soldiers have died to get us to the brink of seeing an Iraqi government emerge was forgotten in a 24-hour news cycle.

Few observers suggested that the Samarra bombing of a holy mosque by radical Muslims might be a sign of the terrorists' desperation. .......

In sum, after talking to our soldiers in Iraq and our planners in Washington, what seems to me most inexplicable is the war over the war--not the purported absence of a plan, but that the more we are winning in the field, the more we are losing it at home."

While Michael Rubin may agree on that we are fighting ourselves and that the media is part of the problem, he has a very different and disturbingly more subtle take on the current situation. His view is in this AEI Essay:
" Here, though, the White House has lost focus. While journalists concentrate on the daily blood, Iraqis describe a larger pattern which U.S. officials have failed to acknowledge let alone address: Step-by-step, Iranian authorities are replicating in Iraq the strategy which allowed Hezbollah to take over southern Lebanon in the 1980s. The playbook--military, economic and information operation--is almost identical."

On the military front: "Just as the (Iranian) Revolutionary Guards helped hone Hezbollah into a deadly force(in Lebanon), so do they train the Badr Corps, Sciri's militia. The Badr Corps infiltrated Iraq even before U.S. forces reached Baghdad. ......
Iraq's subsequent experience reflects the evolution of Hezbollah tactics. In Lebanon, Revolutionary Guard advisers imbued young Lebanese with a cult of martyrdom. Hezbollah suicide bombers moved with deadly accuracy, ultimately driving U.S. and multinational peacekeepers out of Lebanon. ...... Just as in Iraq, the kidnappers sought both to win material concession and shake Western confidence. Increasingly sophisticated bombs also accompanied Hezbollah's rise. The improvised explosive device has become the bane of coalition patrols.
As in southern Lebanon, what cannot be won through bribery is imposed through intimidation. Neither Hezbollah nor Iraq's Shiite militias tolerate dissent. Constitutions mean little and law even less. In southern Lebanon, Hezbollah is judge, jury and executioner. In Iraq, the Shiite militias do likewise. "

On the economic front : "Force, though, is not the only component of the Hezbollah playbook. In Lebanon, Hezbollah used Iranian money to create an extensive social service network. It funded schools, food banks and job centers. .... While the U.S. Embassy boasts billions of dollars spent, it has little to show ordinary Iraqis for its efforts. Not so the Shiite militias. ... They distribute food and gifts of money, so long as patrons pledge their allegiance. For impoverished Iraqis lacking electricity and livelihood, it's an easy decision.
U.S. officials have no strategy to counter this. ... While Tehran understands the importance of patronage networks, Washington does not. While U.S. funds go to Bechtel and Halliburton, Iran-backed groups address Iraqis' immediate needs. And not only is U.S. policy ineffective, but Foggy Bottom ineptitude has bolstered Tehran. Take Bayan Jabr, a Sciri functionary who, with U.S. acquiescence, became Iraq's Interior Minister: He has transformed the Iraqi police into a Badr Corps jobs program. According to one Iraqi minister, he has employed 1% of the Najaf workforce. These recruits do little, they receive a salary courtesy of the U.S. Congress, and the Badr Corps reaps the gratitude."

The final front is information warfare : "Since 1991, (Hezbollah) has used al-Manar TV to spread its message. Iran founded Al-Alam for the same purpose and succeeded in beginning broadcasts three months before the U.S.-funded Iraqi Media Network commenced. Well-endowed, al-Alam provided cars and video cameras to students, making them correspondents and promising rewards to those providing footage embarrassing to the U.S. mission.
It is in the info-war that Washington has stumbled most severely. The U.S. operates in Iraq as if the country is a vacuum. Sheltered within the Green Zone, diplomats are oblivious to enemy propaganda. Resistance to occupation is Hezbollah's mantra. It is a theme both the Badr Corps and firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army adopted. ... .. They then highlighted U.S. fallibility with images of withdrawal from Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia."

Rubin concludes : "Tehran has a formula for success in Iraq; Washington does not. Victory will require (us) to derail our adversaries' strategy. Iran's methods are clear. Less clear is U.S. resolve. The stakes in Iraq are high, and one side is playing for keeps. Are we?"

Well, there are two very erudite opinions on the current situation. I doubt that we are as clueless as Rubin thinks; but he has identified areas where we need to take action. Most importantly, we need a much better info-war effort. Whether that is really viable in the face of active opposition by American media is the question. Our media and many of our politicians don't seem to feel the need to be "playing for keeps".

I recall one of Rumsfeld's admonitions for solving the apparently unsolvable was to "enlarge the problem". So, maybe we should be (are?) looking at Iran as part of an actionable solution.