Category Archives: Republicans

Iraq: The Devil is in the Big Picture, Not the Details

Hillary Clinton, Iraq, Middle East, Republicans, War

Are there any limits to stupidity in politics? Not really.

Hearings on the war in Iraq this week saw Senator John McCain insist on, wait for it…more troops. Gen. John P. Abizaid, top American military commander in the Middle East, disagreed, although his innovation was to suggest that training the Iraqi military be made “more robust.” Yes, that’s right. All the Iraqis need is a bit more of what’s been worse than useless so far.

Lindsey Graham of South Carolina followed McCain’s cues—he always does. And in such undazzling company, the Hildebeest dazzled. “I have heard over and over again, ‘the government must do this, the Iraqi Army must do that’,” warbot Clinton complained to Abizaid. “Can you offer us more than the hope that the Iraqi government and the Iraqi Army will step up to the task?”

When it comes to Iraq, the pols fetishize details, hang hopes on minutia and forfeit a deeper understanding of the place and people. The devil is not in the details—more troops, or better training for Iraqis—but in the big picture. The government of Iraq doesn’t stand apart from the governed; it reflects them.

The divisions that have riven the region for four millenniums are mirrored in the current government, and will continue to hobble every successive government that hunkers down in the Green Zone, where it’ll forever be forced to take cover, incapable of governing Baghdad, much less the rest of the country.

The Nuts and Bolts of Bolton

Democrats, Neoconservatism, Republicans, UN

I had the opportunity to see John Bolton in action, as I was in Europe earlier this year, where the UN receives considerable coverage. Over in Europe, they seem to love the sight of pompous bureaucrats waddling in and out of expensive eateries.
Libertarians opposed Bolton’s nomination as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for, as far as I could tell, ideological reasons. They were rankled by his neoconservatism. Nevertheless, what I saw of the man, who has been serving as our envoy to the U.N. under a temporary “recess appointment,” surprised me (I had accepted libertarian arguments for his rejection out of hand ). He was tough, intelligent, and focused. He did the US’s bidding very effectively.
I was quite surprised at the discrepancy between the derogatory description of Bolton (here for example) and what I saw of him in the course of his duties at the UN. He did not appear to be acting as an ideologue, but as a shrewd, tough diplomat.

Andrew Salivates

Islam, Media, Middle East, Republicans, The Zeitgeist

On a meta-level—process, not content—Hugh Hewitt’s interview with Andrew Sullivan about his new confused book exposes Sullivan as arrogant and hysterical. His manners are abominable. How Hewitt put up with Sullivan’s strutting, I don’t know. Why would he tolerate such rudeness from a guest? Is Sullivan that important? (Not to me. I have no interest in someone so “discerning” as to claim, as Sullivan did during the interview, that Jesus, Mohamed, and Socrates are part of the same search for truth.)

I’m happy Sullivan has finally come out against Bush’s dastardly doctrines, although it seems to me that he considers the war more of a logistic than a moral nightmare—the war is bad because it’s going badly, not because it’s bad. The fact that he seconded the decision to invade Iraq may have something to do with this qualified condemnation.

Would it be unfair to put Sullivan’s temper tantrum at the Republicans down to their excessive religious meddling and lack of enthusiasm for gay marriage? (There’s nothing wrong with split infinitives, by the way.) You tell me. (Sullivan is a gay-marriage activist–I’m not, as you can glean from “Marriage and the Manufacturing of Rights“–and is himself “engaged to be married.”)

Overall, his views are hardly conservative–but then that applies to the views of very many contemporary conservatives.

Conservatives in Name Only

Conservatism, Morality, Political Philosophy, Republicans, Sex

“The sexual shenanigans of Mark Foley and their cover-up are less indicative of the collapse of conservatism in the Republican establishment than is the Iraq misadventure.

True, if establishment Republicans had the faintest affinity for conservatism, they’d have rid themselves of a member more at home in the Man/Boy Love Association. But more significantly, they’d quit pouring American blood and treasure down the Iraqi drain.

To follow the dictionary, a conservative is someone who seeks to preserve existing institutions, or to restore traditional ones. It is not that he disdains constructive change; rather, he wants it to grow organically from its cultural and political soil. A real conservative would therefore never graft democratic institutions onto a society in which adversaries have always assassinated—not outpolled—one another…”

The excerpt is from my new WorldNetDaily column, “Conservatives in Name Only.”