Rantingprofs

On a Personal Note

I don't generally put personal information on the site, but I very much want to publiclly thank the students of the Political Science Honor Society at Emory University here in Atlanta, and the faculty of the Political Science department, for inviting me down to speak, and for being such warm and gracious hosts. I had a wonderful time, met smart and lively and lovely people, and could not have been treated with greater kindness -- and a room full of students turned out on a suddenly warm, beautiful February Friday afternoon to listen and to ask great questions, too.

My only complaint is that when the reception after my talk involved not just brownies, but brownies with fudge sauce and whipped cream, well, that just meant it would have been rude of me not to partake, don't you think? Emory placed me in a compromising position.

Or, anyway, that's my story.

And I'm sticking to it.

Why Not Here?

Be sure to check out David Brooks column in today's Times. Here's the key section:

Then in Iraq, there is actual politics going on. The leaders of different factions are jostling. The tone of the coverage ebbs and flows as more or less secular leaders emerge and fall back, but the amazing thing is the politics itself. If we had any brains, we'd take up Reuel Marc Gerecht's suggestion and build an Iraqi C-Span so the whole Arab world could follow this process like a long political soap opera.

It's amazing in retrospect to think of how much psychological resistance there is to asking this breakthrough question: Why not here? We are all stuck in our traditions and have trouble imagining the world beyond. As Claus Christian Malzahn reminded us in Der Spiegel online this week, German politicians ridiculed Ronald Reagan's "tear down this wall" speech in 1987. They "couldn't imagine that there might be an alternative to a divided Germany."

But if there is one soft-power gift America does possess, it is this tendency to imagine new worlds. As Malzahn goes on to note, "In a country of immigrants like the United States, one actually pushes for change. ... We Europeans always want to have the world from yesterday, whereas the Americans strive for the world of tomorrow."

Stephen Sestanovich of the Council on Foreign Relations wrote an important essay for this page a few weeks ago, arguing that American diplomacy is often most effective when it pursues not an incrementalist but a "maximalist" agenda, leaping over allies and making the crude, bold, vantage-shifting proposal - like pushing for the reunification of Germany when most everyone else was trying to preserve the so-called stability of the Warsaw Pact.

As Sestanovich notes, and as we've seen in spades over the past two years in Iraq, this rashness - this tendency to leap before we look - has its downside. Things don't come out wonderfully just because some fine person asks, Why not here?

But this is clearly the question the United States is destined to provoke. For the final thing that we've learned from the papers this week is how thoroughly the Bush agenda is dominating the globe. When Bush meets with Putin, democratization is the center of discussion. When politicians gather in Ramallah, democratization is a central theme. When there's an atrocity in Beirut, the possibility of freedom leaps to people's minds.

This idea that what we are witnessing in Iraq is actual politics is vitally important, and constantly underplayed in the press. They cover the jostling as one group then another pushes ahead, they note that no group can achieve true dominance, but in a region where "elections" tend to produce winners by 95 plus % margins, the mere fact that alliances have to be formed is the real victory.

The idea that all of this should be televised is a brilliant one. It's not too late, and a satellite channel that covered those floor debates would send a message, completely independent of the substantive content of the debates, that would be like a shock wave through the region. The jihadist movements in various countries might never recover, and neither would the various autocracies and elites holding back reforms because "now is not the time."

The less political freedom in these countries the better the environment for the radicals, because the only place where there is any room for discontent to be expressed is in the mosque. If people could speak freely in the coffee houses, the universities, or on the phone, if they could write freely in the newspapers and the magazines, the entire ground shifts.

Be Careful What You Wish For

I will fix all these links when I get home, but until then, just out of a sense of whimsy I guess, check out this article. And remember to be careful what you wish for. [I'm home, link now fixed.]

Throw Away That Eyeshadow Ladies

Link all fixed.

You know I had to mention this one, even if it is a day old.

So, apparently the Washington Post was impressed with the outfit Condi wore for an appearance she made in Germany.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived at the Wiesbaden Army Airfield on Wednesday dressed all in black. She was wearing a black skirt that hit just above the knee, and it was topped with a black coat that fell to mid-calf.

Question for the reporter: is there another color coat that's appropriate for a black outfit? Just askin'.

The coat, with its seven gold buttons running down the front and its band collar, called to mind a Marine's dress uniform or the "save humanity" ensemble worn by Keanu Reeves in "The Matrix."

That's a bit heavy-handed, don't you think?

As Rice walked out to greet the troops, the coat blew open in a rather swashbuckling way to reveal the top of a pair of knee-high boots.

Swashbuckling. Read: She doesn't look like any Secretary of State we've ever seen. Madeline Albright may have been a woman, but she had the decency to not look attractive.

The boots had a high, slender heel that is not particularly practical. But it is a popular silhouette because it tends to elongate and flatter the leg. In short, the boots are sexy.

Good God, the reporter just comes right out and says it explicitly. Condi Rice had the nerve to try and dress attractively while performing official Secretary of State-type duties. I mean, how dare the woman?

Rice's black high-heel boots: As a fashion statement, absolutely powerful. (Michael Probst -- AP)

That's not me, that's in the Post article, but I don't think he's talking about the kind of power that means the President takes your calls.

Rice boldly eschewed the typical fare chosen by powerful American women on the world stage. She was not wearing a bland suit with a loose-fitting skirt and short boxy jacket with a pair of sensible pumps. She did not cloak her power in photogenic hues, a feminine brooch and a non-threatening aesthetic. Rice looked as though she was prepared to talk tough, knock heads and do a freeze-frame "Matrix" jump kick if necessary. Who wouldn't give her ensemble a double take -- all the while hoping not to rub her the wrong way?

In other words, she doesn't dress to hide the fact that she isn't 65. Note the line about the brooch. I never found Madeline's pins all that feminine, but whatever. I never found Madeline all that non-threatening, either. Let's remember that during the Clinton years, she was the administrations great hawk. People did refer to Kosovo as "Madeline's War," after all, so let's be fair here. The fact that a woman is a bit older and a bit more heavy set hardly means that because she doesn't look as if she can't do a "Matrix jump kick" she's not a threat when she has the ear of the President of the United States, making the entire premise of the article -- Condi is a new kind of Secretary of State merely because she dares to continue to appear sexually attractive -- so patently absurd. But I do find it enormously entertaining that it is the Washington Post, with its reputation, deserved or not, as a supposedly liberal newspaper, that is here providing such grist for the feminist mill.

Rice's coat and boots speak of sex and power -- such a volatile combination, and one that in political circles rarely leads to anything but scandal. When looking at the image of Rice in Wiesbaden, the mind searches for ways to put it all into context. It turns to fiction, to caricature. To shadowy daydreams. Dominatrix! It is as though sex and power can only co-exist in a fantasy. When a woman combines them in the real world, stubborn stereotypes have her power devolving into a form that is purely sexual.

This from a woman reporter? So, she can't be as powerful as Madeline after all. Because, looking sexual, in the end, means that no one will really take her seriously. Theyll be too busy with their fantasies. Is this where feminism leads us? Because men are still sexists, if a woman dares to do her job while indulging in the pleasure of looking attractive, she will fail. Not because of her own inadequecies but because the men around her will, still, never be able to take her seriously, but will see her only as the object of their own fantasies. So, we can all fool ourselves into believing that Condi's "charm offensive" trip to Europe paved the way a few weeks ago for a successful presidential trip. But in reality it was a failure. For, looking great, all she accomplished was to tease Jacques and Gerhard and the others, to become the object of their daydreams.

Is this really the end point of feminism? If you want to succeed as a woman, you'd better ugly yourself up? so much for that great new eyeliner I was congragulating myself on finding.

Rice challenges expectations and assumptions. There is undeniable authority in her long black jacket with its severe details and menacing silhouette. The darkness lends an air of mystery and foreboding. Black is the color of intellectualism, of abstinence, of penitence. If there is any symbolism to be gleaned from Rice's stark garments, it is that she is tough and focused enough for whatever task is at hand.

It's slimming, you boob.

Countless essays and books have been written about the erotic nature of high heels. There is no need to reiterate in detail the reasons why so many women swear by uncomfortable three-inch heels and why so many men are happy that they do. Heels change the way a woman walks, forcing her hips to sway. They alter her posture in myriad enticing ways, all of which are politically incorrect to discuss.

But the sexual frisson in Rice's look also comes from the tension of a woman dressed in vaguely masculine attire -- that is, the long, military-inspired jacket. When the designer Yves Saint Laurent first encouraged women to wear trousers more than 30 years ago, his reasons were not simply because pants are comfortable or practical. He knew that the sight of a woman draped in the accouterments of a man is sexually provocative. A woman was embracing something forbidden.

Rice's appearance at Wiesbaden -- a military base with all of its attendant images of machismo, strength and power -- was striking because she walked out draped in a banner of authority, power and toughness. She was not hiding behind matronliness, androgyny or the stereotype of the steel magnolia. Rice brought her full self to the world stage -- and that included her sexuality. It was not overt or inappropriate. If it was distracting, it is only because it is so rare.

Apparently, because any woman who so indulges, can never truly succeed.

Bit Too Convenient

I apologize, but I've tried four times, and I can't get typepad to open up the option to let me create a link here, so let me just tell you that this is based on an article prominent on the Washington Post's home page.

My question is this: What to make of Egyptian President Mubarak's sudden change of heart, and decision to allow multi-candidate presidential elections for the first time in roughly, oh, since he's been around? Clearly it's a move designed to get us off his back, but the cave was so total and so rapid that I'm just a bit cynical on this one.

My prediction? Many candidates: little permitted campaigning.

Open Thread: Greetings From Atlanta

Well, I've stolen a few moments, and I'll post what I can, but while I begin that process, it strikes me that a period while I'm out of town and posting is low is the perfect time to ask a question I haven't asked for awhile (and probably should stop and ask periodically).

I realize the number of posts per day has been down lately (and there just isn't much I can do about that, I'm afraid.)

That aside, what would you all like to see done to improve the site?

Test

I am currently giving a presentation about blogging, and I want to demonstrate posting. Please ignore. Now, a random link.

On the Road Again

Off to Atlanta for a fun gig at Emory.

Posting unlikely for the rest of the day; probably but intermittent for the rest of the weekend.

Not Scary Enough For Front Page News

Yesterday I posted about a front page story in the Times, the second story in fact, co-written by John Burns and Dexter Filkins, with a screaming headline about an "Islamist" taking control of the new government, and all the information tempering that headline's claim buried way deep.

Today there's a far more temperate article, with a far more temperate headline, written by Burns alone. It appears on page A-10. (You can understand the article being stuffed in the Iraq section, though. After all, they had to find room on the front page for this. And this. For the national edition?)

The article begins:

Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi stepped up his bid to remain in office on Wednesday, announcing the formation of a secular coalition that he and his supporters say will seek to outmaneuver Shiite religious parties as a new transitional government is formed.

That was in there yesterday, it just wasn't emphasized.

So, there's an effort underway to split the new government along strictly religious/secular lines.

Second paragraph:

The move came a day after the Shiite alliance that won a bare majority of seats last month in the national assembly named one of its leaders, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, as its candidate for prime minister. Mr. Jaafari leads the Dawa Party, whose official policies call for the "Islamization" of Iraqi society, but he has insisted that any government he heads will reach across ethnic and religious lines and take a moderate position on the role of Islam and other divisive issues.

So, with Burns writing alone, Jaafari is immediately, right up front, described as a complex and nuanced figure, and there are none of those ambiguous "ties to Iran" suggestions.

The third paragraph is very, very interesting:

By establishing the secular coalition - which he called a "national democratic coalition which believes in Iraq and its principles" - Dr. Allawi signaled his readiness to mount a potentially polarizing battle. At a news conference on Wednesday, he hinted that this would include attempts to lure defectors among secularists from the Shiite alliance's list of candidates, stripping it of the two-seat majority it won when it took 140 of the 275 seats in the new assembly. (My emph.)

My, they don't seem quite so dominant when their majority is actually explained, do they?

Want to talk about not being dominant?

But the complex political arithmetic that lay behind Dr. Allawi's challenge appeared likely to work as much against him as for him. The interim constitution, deeply influenced by American constitutional precepts, contains a web of checks and balances designed to force alliances, including a provision that effectively requires a two-thirds majority in the assembly to name a prime minister and cabinet.

Alone, the Shiite alliance - formally known as the United Iraqi Alliance - is more than 40 seats short of this bar. It will need support from one or more of three other groups in the assembly: a Kurdish alliance, which moved up to 77 seats on Wednesday when it was joined by a Kurdish splinter group with 2 seats; Dr. Allawi's group, with 40 seats; or 9 other parties that among them have 18 seats.

But assembling a two-thirds majority looks like a much tougher order for Dr. Allawi and his group, the Iraqi List. He is hoping to win the backing of the Kurds, but would still need to attract as many as 50 or 60 of the Shiite alliance's elected members, perhaps more, to win the prime minister's post.

Many Iraqi politicians think it more likely that Dr. Allawi's aim, and that of the main Kurdish leaders, is to persuade the Shiite alliance to form a government that draws its support - and its cabinet ministers - from all of the main groups in the assembly.

So much for the clerics pulling the strings narrative that was underlying yesterday's themes.

The upshot is likely to be a national unity government. Which the Shia have been calling for all along.

Not very scary at all.

One complaint -- of course the day's violence has to be covered as well.

The wide reach of the insurgency was demonstrated Wednesday with confirmations of at least 22 deaths across a 200-mile stretch of central and northern Iraq. One death was of an American soldier who the United States command said had been killed by a bomb near the town of Tuz, 130 miles north of Baghdad. Tuz lies on the road to the oil city of Kirkuk, where at least five of the day's fatalities occurred.

The command said another soldier was killed Tuesday in a vehicle accident during military operations in Anbar Province, where the Marines began a new offensive on Sunday.

Other victims on Wednesday included three Iraqi soldiers killed by insurgent mortars that hit their bases north of Baghdad, a policeman shot by insurgents as he ate breakfast in a Kirkuk restaurant, and at least seven civilians, two of them killed by a car bomb aimed at an American convoy in Kirkuk.

In Mosul, the police said that American soldiers shot dead a civilian in a pickup truck that got too close to their convoy. Such incidents have grown more common as insurgents have stepped up their use of suicide car bomb attacks on American armored columns.

The police said they had found four other bullet-riddled bodies in three cities north of Baghdad. An Iraqi soldier and a civilian were found near Al Hajaj, and a policeman at Shirqat. A Sudanese man working as a translator for American troops was found dead in a village near Samarra.

In Baghdad, insurgents killed two government officials. An Interior Ministry official said one was a senior official in the ministry's passport division who was killed in a drive-by shooting at his home.

It seems as if whatever the enemy does it will be described as effective by the press.

If there are a large number of attacks, that's the metric of success.

If there are fewer attacks, but they're spread over a wide geographic area, that's the metric of success.

If there are a few attacks but they're large, then casualty levels will be the level of success.

This is ridiculous.

Last night in an interview. the Chair of the Joint Chiefs said (transcript not yet available) that there are now only about 60 attacks a day -- but only about half of those are effective, meaning they accomplish some level of damage to life or property.

What do American, coalition and Iraqi forces have to do, what standard of success is stable and not fluid, to impact the effectiveness of this enemy, before they get credit for having influence on the enemy by the press?

Credit Where It's Due Department

Ive repeatedly complained that despite the fact that over and over and over again the press had made clear that it will be the quality of Iraq's nascent security forces that will determine when and how American forces can home, there has seemed to be virtually no interest in doing serious reporting on the quality of Iraqi security forces -- if you define "serious reporting" as going out and seeing for themselves. Those outlets with reporters who speak Arabic are obviously particularly on the hook for this, but any American outlet can speak seriously to American military trainers, yes?

Well, last night 60 Minutes Wednesday, that much maligned show, did exactly that, sending a reporter out to investigate the Iraqi police commandos currently in Mosul -- a city where the Iraqi police have been particularly hard hit -- and to do so through both going out with the cops and speaking at length with the American trainers embedded with the cops.

She makes clear early on that the hopes of the trainers didn't initially rest on especially high standards.

"Now if you look at them, and I look at them all the time when we're on missions and stuff, and look at their fingers. And they're actually holding their fingers out of the trigger and their weapons are on safe," says Doug. "They're trying to point them in a safe direction -- doesn't always happen, but they're working towards that."

Yes, that's right, initially it was a win if these commandos weren't shooting themselves or one another.

But the piece also makes clear that a little perspective is called for. An awful lot is being asked from these men compared to what would be asked of, say, American troops at comparable stages of their career.

Police commandos are the reinforcements that the Iraqi government has sent from Baghdad. But when the commandos arrived, they were little more than a rag-tag bunch of guys, according to the Green Berets, who had to train them almost overnight.

"Looking at these commandos and their level of training and expertise, how long before they were able to do this thing on their own?" asks Logan.

"Six months. I would say six months of steady training," says Doug. "It takes an American soldier eight or nine weeks to learn how to march. We’ve only been training them for three weeks and we’re taking them into combat. You can’t expect in three weeks to grasp everything."

But they’ve grasped enough to take the lead on raids like this one -- when the Iraqi commandos burst in on Hamed Latif, who was wanted for the murder of four Iraqi policemen. He was arrested along with his father and older brother. All three were delivered into Iraqi police custody at the brigade headquarters, where the commandos cheered their success.

The Iraqi police publicly claimed that under interrogation, Hamed, 24, had confessed to killing dozens of people. And they said he’d given up valuable information: the top terrorist leader in Mosul would meet with his lieutenants at a local mosque the following day.

Since I've already brought up that program of airing taped confessions on television, it's interesting that that also came up last night -- and again was described as a raging success, both as regards the population and as regards the new police.

Mosul also got to see Jawb when the Iraqi authorities paraded him and other prisoners on local television. This new tactic of publicly shaming captives has been criticized by international human rights groups, but Warren, one of the Green Berets, told 60 Minutes Wednesday it had been well received by the people.

"The hotlines into the TV station have been ringing off the hook," says Warren. "People are turning in people left and right that are involved in the insurgency."

And back at the base, 60 Minutes Wednesday asked the Green Berets what effect showing the accused insurgents on TV was having on the Iraqi commandos.

Keith said it had motivated them. "They're seeing them on TV and they're like, 'Hey, I was responsible for that.' Because they actually had the hands on, and they were there on the target," says Keith. "And since they can see an effect between seeing a guy that they've put away on TV and hearing the word on the street since elections, 'Hey, we're actually glad that they're here.'"

The upshot is that this intense training is allowing the Iraqis to take the lead, something that feeds on itself and gains momentum. The piece also ends with a note of respect for these men that is all too often missing in the media. The number of American casualties is carefully tracked, of course, and there are many Americans who demand that Iraqi civilian casualties be taken note of as well -- but why aren't we more careful about taking note of Iraqi military casualties?

If we were we wouldn't be hearing absurd claims that the Iraqis weren't willing to fight for their country, that our forces were doing all the bleeding and dying over there. Because it simply isn't true.

The Green Berets were conspicuous by their absence as they let the Iraqi commandos run their own show – and the people seemed to welcome them:

Were they surprised at the way people reacted towards the Iraqi police?

"Absolutely. It was amazing the reaction they had," says Darren. "Some comments that were made to the commander was that they should come every day and do this."

There may not be a more dangerous job in the world right now than to be an Iraqi police officer. Last year, approximately 2,000 policemen were killed in the line of duty there, and hundreds more police recruits were murdered before they even finished their training.

So, thank you, CBS, for taking a serious look at the efforts to train Iraqi security forces. Let's hope it's the first of many.