We do elect our leaders to make these kind of judgements, and McCain got it wrong. He is trying to soft-pedal it now, but he spouted off just about as much misinformation about Iraq as did the Bush Administration. He was totally wrong about Saddam's connections to al Qaeda, about Chalabi, about the anthrax, and many other things.

When it comes to a momentous decision like whether or not to go to war, I want a President who looks at the reasons and then decides whether or not to do it, not a President who decides to do it and then looks for reasons to justify the decision.

Putin's invasion is to this election what 911 and Saddam were to 2004. The Times is re-righting the wrong war. World's changed since then-- Russia's now atop the agenda. Voters will get this, even if Iraq-obsessed journos do not.

Tep, I agree Putin's invasion is important, but you are mixing metaphors around because 9/11 and Saddam were two very, very different things (an actual attack against us on the one hand, and a nasty dictator who was over-hyped as a threat to the US on the other hand). I realize that in 2004 the American public did not yet see the difference, and maybe they will not see the difference in 2008, but it is much too early to say whether the people in general are going to consider this a vital issue.

I have gone back and forth about this, mostly in my own head, and the proper course of action is not simple and obvious. Tough talk is not going to get us to a solution, because the Russians know that we are not willing to trade New York for Tbilisi, or Kyiv, and maybe not even Warsaw or another NATO capital, whatever our NATO obligations might say. So McCain can say what he wants, and maybe it feels good, but what is he really going to do? Commit to airstrikes against Russian troops? Or just speak loudly and carry a small stick? The latter plays well domestically until you realize that we keep backing down.

Actually, I think the solution is obvious but not at all simple:

1. Build an alternative EU-wide energy distribution system so that Russia cannot isolate any western or eastern European country: energy blackmail of one is energy blackmail of all. Include Ukraine in this if there is time (it may be too late).

2. They're (Europe) going to have to build more tanker and LNG ports to be able to have more input into the system, and sock away some Euro to deal with the price shock when Russia decides to do "necessary pipeline maintenance" in response to Europe defying them, because the only way to strike back at Russia is to stop buying its oil and gas (well, maybe if you can convince the IOC to take away Sochi 2014, but good luck with that).

1&2 imply a tension between national/regional security and free enterprise -- it may be cheaper to buy oil and gas from Russia, and so that is what the free market will do, but there is a cost to doing that, and only government will bear the cost of the more expensive but more secure alternative. Private enterprise will go for the highest profit regardless of long-term national/regional security (not a criticism, just a statement - we should always keep in mind what markets are good for, and what they don't do well).

3. If you can do 1 & 2 in time, *then* you can think about where the military red line in the sand is where you tell the Russians they cannot cross it. Maybe Ukraine, but maybe only countries that are already in NATO. And you can tell Putin to jump in a lake, if you are willing to pay the price involved in not buying Russian oil and gas, and are a lot richer than Russia, as Europe is.

None of this helps Georgia one bit. Also, the US can't do much except be a cheerleader or facilitator/backbone in this process, because like it or not Russian ambitions will not be contained unless Europe chooses to pay the price of containing them. And I mean the economic price, because energy is where Russia's real power lies, not in its military.

So I think the real question we should be asking, assuming that we agree that sending US troops to kick the Russkies out of Georgia is a really dumb idea no matter how satisfying it might seem in a non-nuclear fantasy world, is which of our Presidential candidates has what it takes to lead the US toward less dependence on oil, and convince the Europeans to pay the price needed to let them stare down the Russians? I don't think McCain is the one to do the first part (the drilling noise is for political points; I see no real commitment from McCain or the Republican party to the measures we actually need to take to leave us less susceptible to energy blackmail). And I don't think he is the guy for the second part, either, because that will take vision and charisma that McCain doesn't have. His appeal is strictly domestic, I think.

Whether or not Obama can articulate something like this and sell it to the public is another question. And maybe I've neglected a hole in my thinking that you could drive a GAZ truck through, but if so I'm sure I'll hear about it....

The Germans are the key player here. Right now, most of the German elite, esp the Social Democrats, are essentially pro-Putin. (Look at that whore of an exChancellor, now on the payroll of the most corrupt energy company on the planet, the slush fund for billionaire Russian pols known as Gazprom.)

If the Germans can't be persuaded to stand up to Russian aggression, then the basic assumptions of the post-Cold War era in Europe are finished. Those are that every nation, incl those on Russia's borders, has the right ot determine its destiny, and that the best way to ensure freedom in the west was to ensure, with the huge carrot of EU membership, the survival, expansion and success of freedom int he east. This was the moral premise, the guiding spirit, in fact the main rationale for the EU.

If the EU leaders can be so easily cowed into turning their backs on nations such as Ukraine that ardently desire not only freedom and democracy but also EU membership-- and NATO membership is the logical guarantee of such freedom-- then the EU project is, while not dead, seriously compromised and without any real credibility beyond the original EEC core.

The return of Soviet behavior by Russia toward its neighbors = the death of Europe. Not the death of the trading bloc, not the end of European prosperity, but the death of the ideal of a morally coherent, integrated, proud European entity.

The stakes are huge. The Germans know this. They're sweating bullets now. They talk a good game about lofty ideals; now we'll see what they're made of.

"which of our Presidential candidates has what it takes to lead the US toward less dependence on oil, and convince the Europeans to pay the price needed to let them stare down the Russians?"

Well, I've long expressed on these boards, and paid no small price for saying it, my belief that a man who shills for King Corn and the reactionary, stupid and disastrous ethanol boondoggle -- while sneering at offshore drilling -- is not exactly a paragon of leadership on the energy front.

As to convincing the Europeans, again, I note that Europeans who've heard him speak are underwhelmed. His rhetorical tropes about his dad and his amazing lifestory simply don't impress hardened, cynical, world-weary Europeans who instinctively distrust people-- esp Americans -- who talk about themselves a great deal, or utter meaningless yankee flapdoodle tripe like "I also know that I love America..." Especially when the speaker is supposed to be talking about not himself-- it's not a Rotary Club dinner, recall-- but about history, which Obama mangled in his Berlin speech with his idiocy about a "united world" defeating communism.

As to understanding of history, Obama showed, painfully, how completely out of his depth he was and is on this region, the stakes involved, the nature and behavior of the Putin bandit regime, when he mimicked Bush's idiocy about "both sides" being in the wrong here. McCain has his flaws but he understood who was aggressor, understands the stakes, and long ago pegged Putin as a KGB hack and bully. I'm pretty sure which one most American adults over 30 will trust.

No one has a good prediction here, but one candidate has an excellent, accurate _description_ of what's happening, and the other is, like Bush, way out of his depth. Obama and Bush have made themselves look like Jimmy Carter and McCain look like Ronald Reagan.

That's one hell of a tall mountain Obama's going to have to climb between now and November. I don't see him clambering up it. Maybe he'll have some depth and knowledge of the region by 2012, though.

Tep, I know that arguing with you about Obama is pointless, so I won't -- I'll just state for the record that I don't agree with you.

But ethanol and offshore drilling are sideshows. We have about a 4:1 ratio between consumption and production, if I remember the numbers right, and McCain is acting like turning that into 3.7:1 solves the problem and will lower your gas prices today. Utter nonsense, and meanwhile he and the Republican crowd are once again sneering at conservation. Mocking correct tire inflation and proper maintenance is slightly a different form than Cheney calling conservation un-American, but same basic idea.

Expanded offshore drilling is going to have to come sooner or later, but it comes with environmental costs, and anyone treating it as the centerpiece of the solution either does not understand the problem, or is not to be trusted. So I think the move to package drilling with other measures that will be less popular but more effective is actually a pretty good move. Lord knows the Republicans won't vote for what we really need unless you can hold something over their heads.

People who follow E Europe closely have known-- and US presidential candidates certainly should have known -- well before Obama's Berlin trip that Germany was a pivotal state in a storm that was gathering over E Europe long before this election campaign began.

If ever there was a setting for a speech about the challenges facing the West in an age of vicious autocratic capitalism, esp one dominating Europe's energy supplies, Obama's speech to Berlin was the occasion.

Consider also: Obama was speaking in the capital of a nation with a very complex and morally challenging (or maybe I should say challenged) position in Europe today, given that it is at one and the same time former aggressor against Ukraine, Poland and every other hinterland state and also the biggest enabler of our own era's bully intent on crushing all freedom and independence for the nations in the path of Hitler's lebensraum.

We're told that Obama loves complexity, irony, paradox. Did Obama not see the irony of Germans as passive allies, like Stalin in June 1941, enabling Russian bullying and aggression today?

They say that Obama's moral understanding is deep, refined. Before he went to Germany, did he not see the disastrous moral compromises that the German elite are making in their rush to become vassals of state-owned Russian energy companies-- and in the case of the ex-Chancellor, on the payroll of a Russian octopus whose orgy of official theft makes Enron look like a Junior Achievement project?

Me, I look at Obama's insipid and shallow performances in Berlin and in Hawaii re Georgia, and I see only two possible conclusions. Either the man is _not_ deep, his understanding's rather shallow, in fact, OR he's been completely oblivious to the history and contemporary politics of East Central Europe and Russia.

I don't know which one is the case, but either explanation for his performance is enough for me to feel terrified at the thought of him trying to play chess with Putin.

Tep: Do you mean to imply with your systematic impeachment of Obama vis-a-vis Europe and Russia, that McCain is somehow better in this regard, or are you still waiting for a "Draft BIden" movement.

Interesting argument, Tep.  But you start this dialogue by dismissing Iraq as a sideshow and criticizing journalists for obsessing about it, to the neglect of the main event in Russia.  

Although we often disagree, I rarely feel so compelled to protest as I do in this instance.  

It is absurd to make such statements while so many American troops are still in Iraq, engaged in a difficult and dangerous mission that some people thought was necessary for our national security just a few years ago.  If you are convinced that Iraq is just the irrational obsession of journalists, would you object if we brought the troops home now?

The justifications for invading Iraq were never as shallow as the arguments over the past four years for continuing the occupation.  In that time we have sacrificed the lives of thousands of Americans, and squandered billions of borrowed dollars. The fact that such sacrifices have been extracted from Americans on the basis of delusions, disinformation, and deliberate deception may be an inconvenient truth, Tep, but it doesn't justify the casual attitude expressed in your first comment above.

Obviously, Russia has taken advantage of our mistake in Iraq.  One wonders whether it will serve Russian interests or not -- whether Ukrainians will be intimidated or provoked to seek stronger ties to the west (as the Poles have done).  These developments are important to our security, and we can't afford to ignore them - but let's not dismiss Iraq as a journalistic obsession, eh?  

Neil

Tep,

Re your last comment on Obama's "insipid and shallow" response to the Russian invasion of Georgia, I was actually quite satisfied with his approach.  Unlike John McCain, Obama took a low-key approach which is what candidates for office should do at such a time.  The temptation to play politics with a foreign policy crisis is one that real leaders resist - from that perspective, Obama's restraint was far more appropriate than McCain's buffoonish bluster.

Would McCain have been willing to send troops to push Russia out of Georgia?  

Do we really need another President who speaks loudly but hasn't got any stick at all?

Neil

Just a note on terminology: McCain can't be evolving into a neocon because he was never a liberal or a Democrat.  He's evolved into a paleocon in the mold of Dick Cheney.

purcellneil- Precisely.  Iraq might have been a sideshow before we invaded and occupied it, but now it's a quagmire that's draining our national strength.  To say nothing of the lives lost, it's a giant money pit and it's breaking the Army.  Russia is a serious problem (when did suddenly everyone agree with me that Islamic terrorism is not the major long term threat we face?), but the longer we stay in Iraq the less capable we are of dealing effectively with it.

Russia may be the house on fire, but Iraq is the empty fire extinguisher.

A few modest points:

--Both McCain and Obama have floated ridiculous, shallow, and misleading "solutions" to the energy crisis, the war, and resurgent Russian imperialism. Par for the election-year course. But it is a blatant falsehood to quote Obama as saying  "both sides are in the wrong". He did nothing of the sort. He called for restraint on both sides which, under the circumstances at the time, made a great deal of sense. He followed up with the same empty condemnations of Russian actions as everyone else.

--Iraq and 9/11 have always been more connected than leftists choose to understand, in much the same way FDR's decision to make our first major response to Pearl Harbor attacking Italian and Vichy French troops in North Africa. In a global war, enemy states that can be taken out should be. When they are sitting on crucially strategic real estate, even more so.

--The ability of Europe, and in fact the entire industrialized world, to deal with energy supply problems of the sort that may be created by Russia's use of "the oil weapon" is the excess capacity in the Persian Gulf. We all need more tankers, more LNG ports, and more refineries in order to get through the transition period between now and legitimate alternative energy sources, but before that we need to resolve the problems in Iraq and Iran so that they can once again pump and export up to capacity. We're not going to be able to do that with satellites and cruise missiles.

--In actual fact, "...the EU project is, while not dead, seriously compromised and without any real credibility outside the original EEC core."  And many here would say within it too.

Robt P - funny, Obama's supposed advisor (though apparently not on Russia) Zbigniew Brzezinski doesn't agree with you. Here's Zbiggy, quoted in Politico today:

"Brzezinski added, "I thought that the first comments" by Obama "were perhaps too general and didn't perhaps address sharply enough the moral and strategic dimensions of the problem." Obama's later statements, he said, struck the right tone.

"In the meantime, McCain was able to leap into the timing gap," Brzezinski continued. "Timing in all these things, timing, tone and ability to crystallize the issue sharply, is what is important."

Over the past week, McCain has has offered a Reaganesque tone, declaring that "we are all Georgians" and that "it's very clear that Russian ambitions are to restore the old Russian Empire."

Ah, someone still defends the Iraq - 9/11 "connection."  

"In a global war, enemy states that can be taken out should be."   I wonder if many Americans really are willing to fight the many wars this strident philosphy would embrace.  

I wonder also if we need to be "in a global war" at all, but I will point out that the analogy to FDR and WWII is among the weakest and most tired ploys of the discredited neocons.  

I would also point out that the Iranians (and the resurgent Taliban) are the principal beneficiaries of our misadventure in Iraq - so much for taking out enemy states.    

I suppose the "9/11 connection" is one of those frauds that will never die.  It seems an effective salve for the consciences of those who wanted this war, and would otherwise now be eating crow.  It is easier to swallow the fraud, I suppose.

Neil  

Zbiggy's veiled reference to Obama's lightness on f-p issues is unmistakable, and is worth pondering: "timing, tone and ability to crystallize the issue sharply, is what is important."

What evidence is there that Obama can "crystallize the issue sharply" as regards the very difficult situation now emerging in eastern Europe? In his one foray into the history and lessons of the Cold War, he made a complete hash of the matter, claiming that a "unified world" defeated communism. In his first attempt at handling a difficult E European foreign policy crisis, he fumbled it.

Zbiggy knows that Obama needs some schooling. Other Democrats in their heart of hearts know this as well. The logical thing to do is to give Obama that schooling in the Senate, and let him run again for president when he's up to speed.

Politico article link where appeared Brzezinski's rather arch comments about the ability to crystallize the issue sharply: www.politico.com/.../12592.html

McCain may be offering a Reaganesque tone, but beyond making such statements it is not clear that he is proposing to do anything.  "We are all Georgians" suggests an imperative to act in their (our) defense - is McCain calling for a military response to the invasion of Georgia? I hope Bush comes out tonight and says he is considering a proposal from Senator McCain to send 100,000 troops to Tblisi - better yet, I hope he calls for new taxes and a draft to fight the McCain war to save Georgia.

Zbig thinks it was smart of McCain to jump into the "timing gap" but it seems to me he jumped into a "thinking gap."  Of course, we are not going to do anything about Georgia - they are on their own - so McCain can rattle sabres all he wants without consequences.  It may even get him some votes - a trick Obama might well learn if he stays in the Senate till he's an old man.

Reagansque - what a laugh!

"is McCain calling for a military response to the invasion of Georgia?"

The chess board has many pieces. See comments above re Georgian pawns and Polish bishops....

You know Tep, I'm not wanting to get into a pissing match with you here, but not too many months ago were reliably hectoring about how only Asia and India were important going forward and Europe was not.  Asian century and all that.

However all of a sudden, Russia and Europe - and Germany (Germany!) are suddenly the be all and end all of F-P.

Now I'm not belittling the seriousness of whats be going on over in the Caucuses, and personally think Europe is going to figure a bit more in this Century than you appear to.  However since, by your own statements Russia is a declining power, how do your sudden interest  in Obama (who actually isn't President right now) getting an education on Europe over the next 4-8 years in the Senate?  Isn't Europe, like, not Asia or India where the action is going to be?

And by my statement of "Germany!" above (a country in which I have lived and have some affection) I'm referring to the current big deal being made of their regrettable but eminently understandable decision at the time to start taking cheap Russian gas and oil.

Yes, the Germans didn't like nukes in their backyard (and in Germany, you're much more likely to actually *have* it in your backyard than in the US) and didn't feel that they had a long term waste storage solution.  So what?  In the same vein, the US (and by US, I mean Republican congresses and presidents) doesn't (or didn't) like oil rigs off shore and torn up land inland and so keep on buying cheap oil from the Saudis, who, as I recall, pour money into anti-US madrases and may have been disproportionally represented in the 9/11 hijackers.  Also regrettable but understandable.

We'll see how the Germans react to the invasion of Georgia.  However I'll put more money on them weaning themselves from the Russians before we wean ourselves from the ME.

tep--thanks for the link, but you should be under no illusion that your pathetic attempt at sleight-of-hand with Brzezinski will let you off the hook for what was either a reeeally sloppy-language attempted slur, or a flat out lie. I repeat:

"...it is a blatant falsehood to quote Obama as saying 'both sides are in the wrong'. He said nothing of the sort. He called for restraint on both sides."  There is a huge difference, and you know it. Was McCain snappier and more quotable? Sure. Did Obama say anything like what you said he did? Absolutely not, and Brzezinski certainly didn't say he did, either.

neil, please make a list of "the many wars" we would have to fight if the criteria for opponents was that they repeatedly invaded and/or launched missiles on their neighbors, developed and used wmd's to kill tens of thousands, committed genocide, dragged the US and its allies into a war then violated the ceasefire agreement along with 16 other Chapter VII Resolutions, and did all this while sitting on the real estate that produces most of the oil and most of the terrorism. I eagerly await your list.

When you're done with that, perhaps you'll explain how we could otherwise have defeated "the Taliban", who are the traditional fighters of the Pashtuns, a group of about 41 million traditionally wild and ungovernable people on both sides of the Afghan/Pak border in perhaps the most difficult terrain this side of Antarctica, where they have successfully defeated all comers since Alexander the Great.

Once you've done this, we'll have a better handle on why Americans traditionally find Democrats untrustworthy when it comes to national security issues.

Now, now, Mr P. Don't get angry at me; talk to Brzezinski. His comments are clear enough. We can read.

nari - fair enough, you're right: Putin's power grab has changed things for the immediate term. I knew he was a thug but I didn't expect him to overreach as much as he has. It's a stupid move on his part-- if he were smart he'd have done everything in his power to create an alliance with China-- the economic basis is there, he has a chance to neutralize a major rival for his eastern territories before they're swallowed up, and of course he can wrongfoot the US if he does so-- but for some reason he's foolishly obsessed with bullying little ol' Georgia and Ukraine. Apparently he thinks that he has a window of opportunity here that may be closing as history turns against poor old, demographically shrinking Russia. Stupid, but shto delat'?

Obviously, since I have consistently supported the war in Afghanistan, I recognize that we do have enemies in the world and good reason for fighting some wars.  However, if my memory does not fail me, Syria, North Korea, and Iran have been on the enemies list for most of the past 7 years.  

I see that you have refined your philosphy somewhat in your latest remarks, so that the term "enemy" in this context of justified military invasions has been substially expanded and revised.  Now there are only two problems - we don't agree on the definition and we don't agree whether it fitted Iraq in 2002 (when Bush decided to invade that country).

Perhaps we would also disagree whether simultaneous wars with each of these "enemies" would be objectionable to the American people - do you really not see that as too many wars?  How many would be enough for you?

Your standard for trustworthiness suggests that only a warmongering madman would earn your trust.  Would you be planning to vote for McCain by any chance?  

Neil

tep--have you lost your mind?  Brzezinski said Obama's first comments "were perhaps too general". You quoted Obama as saying "both sides were in the wrong", which I know, as I heard Obama's remarks, you simply made up out of whole cloth, and which by no stretch of anyone's imagination means the same thing as what Brzezinski said. I can accept that you made a mistake rather than simply lied, but trying to defend it with such bullshit is really way beneath you.

neil--there is a big difference between being on some vague, rhetorical "enemies list", and actually being an enemy state with which we have gone through a full legal process both in Congress and the UN to declare as such, invaded, signed a (subsequently violated) ceasefire with, and continued to carry on combat operations and a variety of other war-like actions against for over a decade. My "philosophy" hasn't changed one iota since we began arguing about this years ago. Iraq was, and remains, a very special case.

Syria, North Korea, and Iran are certainly not friendly powers, but we are not at war, and I have repeatedly written that to attack any of them under the current circumstances would be folly of enormous proportions. You can, and have, made a good case that it was also folly to invade Iraq in 2003 with insufficient forces to stabilize the situation, and to carry on for a couple of years in blind disregard of both decent planning that had been worked on for years at State and the Pentagon-- and I would agree with you. But to persist in the patently false, if politically convenient, notion that the decision to invade in 2003 was based solely on the devious manipulations of a clique in the White House is misleading and counterproductive. Most of the public and most of the Congress, along with Parliament, and the analogous authorities in most of the world's important democracies agreed in 2003 that it was imperative to put an end to the regime of Saddam Hussein, and they were right.

Now, Bob, don't go all Sullivan on us. I didn't say that Obama said "both sides were in the wrong." You're the one who's making things up. I quoted Brzezinski's rather arch and professorial observation that Obama's statements failed to evince a proper degree of "moral and strategic" awareness. Zbig's estimation came from Obama's  oddly casual remark, "I think it is important at this point for all sides to show restraint and to stop this armed conflict" and his patently stupid following assertions that

a) "Georgia's territorial integrity needs to be preserved. And.."

b) ".. now is the time for direct talks between the various parties on behalf of stability."

"On behalf of stability," eh? What does that mean?

Putin wants "stability." Sakashvili, Yushchenko, the Poles, the Balts Swedes and anyone else who opposes Putin can therefore be said to oppose "stability." Anyway, when does someone respond to aggression with an appeal for not peace but "stability"?

Also, isn't it kind of, y'know, stupid to propose "direct talks" between "the various parties"? What multiple "parties" did he have in mind? The French? Ossetian warlords? Was he thinking of the negotiations after the end of WWI?

Finally, in view of what's transpired, these two statements together show a degree of incoherence that make you think Obama must have had a hell of a lot of fun in hawaii, or he's way out of his depth. The "direct talks between the parties" have resulted in a complete farce that has brought not stability but a continuation of Russian advances (and murder of innocents, but who's counting) toward Gori.

Mr Powell

Your repeated denial of the obvious problems with our path to war in Iraq - and your mind-bending theory that we were already at war with Iraq before the invasion - combine to create the special status you choose to wrap around the events that have transpired there since March of 2003 (you know, the time the rest of us think this war actually started).  It is nearly impossible to discuss the practical realities given the metaphysical distortions underlying your arguments, but let me try to point out to you that Iran was at least as great an enemy as Iraq was in the months prior to the 2003 invasion. What made Iraq a "special case" is that Bush, Cheney and Rice told America that Iraq was behind 9/11.  Had they blamed Iran, we could be policing the streets of Tehran now, instead of Baghdad.  

You talk about trustworthiness but seem not to appreciate that the fundamental dishonesty of the Bush administration and its case for war with Iraq has raised the bar for future military engagement -- we won't be drawn into another war so easily.  Don't you see that the Russians and Iranians and others know that and are taking advantage?  You don't trust the Democrats, but it is the Republicans and their neocon cheerleaders who sold us this war.  You live in that glass house, you know.  You might think about that next time you are tempted to accuse us of being less than trustworthy.

Neil

tep--please re-read your post of 18 Aug 7:34 am and get back to me. You not only said it, you put it in quotes.

neil--the irrefutable fact that a state of war existed between the US and Iraq from 1991 is only a "mind-bending theory" to those who are ignorant of the facts, or those whose political bias is so strong as to make facts irrelevant. Your "the rest of us" does not include the vested legal authorities of the US, Britain, and the dozens of other democratic states that supported the 2003 action, nor does it include the hundreds of thousands of US troops who served in the Persian Gulf during the period in question (some of whom died in the process), nor their millions of loved ones, and it certainly doesn't include the Iraqis, perhaps a million of whom died due to the embargo we enforced which was itself an act of war. Please name another country besides Iraq against which we have taken such actions, which as I'm sure you know included the periodic bombing of its capitol and denial of its airspace during three consecutive US administrations of both political parties.

The view you espouse is insulting to those who served, and to the intelligence of the American voter, a clear majority of whom according to Gallup supported "invading Iraq with US troops in an attempt to remove Saddam Hussein from power" for the entire time in question. I'm still waiting for your explanation of how "Bush lies" were responsible for that support reaching the level of 70%--in 1993!

Sensible Democrats face an uphill battle to overcome the well-established opinion of many Americans that the party can't be trusted with national security exactly because of such nonsense. Underlying it is the even larger problem of contempt for the intelligence and judgment of the American voter. Dems on the left have been making excuses for their political incompetence for decades by suggesting that the only reason for Republican successes is voter ignorance, racism, gullibility, etc. This kind of elitism communicates clearly, and remains a substantial handicap that I, as one who usually votes Democratic, would like to see changed.

Bob

Anyone else think that we were in a state of war with Iraq throughout the past 17 years, and that the invasion of Iraq should be seen as merely a continuation - possibly an escalation - of the Gulf War of 1991?  Or is Mr Powell bending his mind to fit the policy, as I assert above?

If one accepts Powell's premises, was it necessary for President Bush to seek authorization for the March 2003 invasion, or was it within his war powers to act unilaterally?  In other words, if a state of war already existed, couldn't Bush simply send the invasion forces any time he chose, as early as January 2001?  

Anyone else think RP is off his rocker?

Actually, neil, given the ceasefire violations he didn't really need to. See Clinton's '98 offensive, not to mention Bosnia and Kosovo.  Bush sought re-authorization for  prudent political reasons. Bush also spent more high-level Cabinet time and energy at the UN than any president since Truman shoring up the legal case, culminating in the under-appreciated diplomatic masterpiece Resolution 1441.

It was unfortunate that the Bush people worked so hard to "sell" an action that most of the evidence shows was widely approved of by the public already, and for years. By filling the airwaves with every justification they could think of, they provided an opening for opponents of the policy to focus on the ones that proved weak, as given the number some of them inevitably would, to misrepresent the entire operation. As you routinely do.

We can have a show of hands if you like, but if you want real data I suggest you refer to the Gallup polling I've cited. Or for a concise and readable summary, Google Lord Goldsmith's finding for Parliament published on the front page of The Guardian in mid-March 2003.

It's entirely possible that I'm "off my rocker", but in terms of this question I've got excellent company in the persons of several former Secretary's of State, a big majority of the contemporary US Congress, and the analogous leadership of Britain, Spain, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Poland, Czechia, the Baltic states, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Romania, Bulgaria, Georgia, and a number of other democracies. Your argument features no evidence, but a lot of hot air from the likes of Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, and Noam Chomsky. I'll take my company any day.

Bob  - I don't know where the post is you're talking about, or why you're directing yet more attention to Brzezinski's put downs of young Obama, but you'd do better to address Zbig than to address me.

What I have to say about BHO is of little consequence. What Zbig has to say is potentially devastating for BHO's hopes. If one of the party's foreign policy mandarins is saying our candidate has trouble "crystallizing the issue" in matters of war and peace, surely it's a sign that millions of Democrats are having misgivings about this man as C-in-C.

Including high-information voters in the battleground states ie voters whom Obama's people expect to win without any real effort. Don't be surprised if the polls reveal, as they did in 2004, hundreds of thousands of split-ticket Dems in deep blue metro counties in FL MI CO PA....

Bob,

You seem to be a nice fellow, and I respect your ability to stand by your viewpoint, even if it is clearly delusional.  I submit to you that Bush and Cheney would never have asked Congress to authorize the use of force if 1) it were not absolutely clear that the invasion of Iraq would have been illegal without such authorization, and 2) if it were not also clear that Americans would support that invasion.  

Fact is, they did seek such authorization.  So it is reasonable to assume they were not as confident as you seem to be.  That should make you uncomfortable, Bob.

They took care of the second condition through a series of well-documented deceptions.  You may claim that the deceptions were not made with knowledge and intent, but Bush and his team made the statements that deceived the nation, the deceptions clearly served their policy aims, and even the Brits concluded that the intell was being distorted to fit those aims.  Polling in late 2002 showed that people believed that Saddam was involved in the 9/11 attacks, a charge that Dick Cheney made repeatedly and was echoed throughout the right-wing media - in short, the deception worked.  It is inconceivable that Americans would have supported the invasion without that deception.  

You seem to be saying that Bush was wrong on both counts - he had full legal power to invade Iraq in January 2001 if he had wanted to, and that the American people would have supported him - even without the ginned-up intell, the inflated mushroom cloud rhetoric, Curveball, Chalabi, aluminum tube fantasies, yellow cake forgeries, and bogus meetings in Prague.  

The best counterargument I can offer is simply to point to the facts.  Bush sought Congressional authorization.  He aggressively put forward a pile of phony intelligence and 9/11 charges, which produced the public support he needed.  And - in the end - when Americans saw that it was all a fraud, the number of Americans supporting the war came down substantially -- essentially, all that are left are dead-enders like yourself and those who equate supporting the troops with supporting a war policy that may not, on its own, merit that support.

It is a bad combination for democracy - arrogant leaders and a citizenry who will not hold them to account.  

You speak of trustworthiness, but ignore the breach of trust that is at the very root of this war.  

I can understand those who believe our security interests require us to finish what we started in Iraq; I can even understand those who hated Saddam's terrible regime enough to forgive the deceptions that enabled his removal and execution.  What I do not understand is the reluctance of Americans to hold their government accountable for such a gross violation of our trust, and for the failure to consider whether some actions of our leaders may constitute illegal acts or even war crimes.  

This is where national security hawks lose the argument, Bob.  Sure, they start out with our trust, but then they over-reach.  They condone anything and everything, without reflection, without nuance, without apologies.  Nobody is accountable.  Given that much rope, we end up invading a country only to find out that - oops, we made a mistake; we decide the Geneva Conventions are "quaint" and we sing, only half in gest, about bombing Iran.  

Come November, this has to stop.  I don't know whether I trust Obama, but I know what to expect from McCain - four more years of belligerence, incompetence and lies.  

It's time for a change.

Neil  

tep--this is not rocket surgery. Simply scroll up on this thread to your post of 18 Aug 07:34 am.

neil--I'm sure you're a nice fellow too. You are welcome to believe whatever you like based on your ability to read the minds of  various national leaders, intuit their motives, and speak for the great mass of the American people without a shred of supporting data as to what they knew, wanted, believed, etc. You should not imagine that this kind of slipshod construct of rumor, lies, innuendo, and political spin bears any relation to actual history, or carries any particular political weight.

We went to war with Iraq for entirely legitimate reasons with the overwhelming support of Congress and the American people they represent. This war is nearing the resolution that was postponed, unconscionably in my view, by a combination of misguided good intentions, wishful thinking, intellectual laziness, and political expedience. There is plenty of blame to go around for why, but at the end of the day if we can't resist the depredations of regimes like Ba'athist Iraq when they threaten our vital interests, there is little hope for the future of civilization.

I expect, and welcome, a "change" in November. But I fully expect Obama to pursue a policy in the Persian Gulf that is far more cognizant of geopolitical reality than many of his supporters seem capable of, and that means building on what's been accomplished so far in Iraq.

"I'm still waiting for your explanation of how "Bush lies" were responsible for that support reaching the level of 70%--in 1993!"

I'm thinking some of Saddam's political and military behaviors had a strong influence on popular opinion in 1993.

I'm also thinking that opinion supporting invasion waned significantly until at least 2002.

I'm also thinking of a special letter that was released in those days, which proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Saddam provided direct material support to one or more of the 9/11 attackers; the same document which has recently been shown to be, beyond a reasonable doubt, a complete forgery with ties to the Bush Administration and the CIA.

Finally, I'm thinking that I have to agree with Neil on this one...if we were actually at war with Iraq, the Authorization would not have been required, and from what I can tell Bush would not have wasted the time getting "approval" to invade Iraq if he did not absolutely to.

RP, I will give you kudos on handling Tep, though.

GSpinks--

I have absolutely no interest in defending the Bush administration--on the contrary. I think they have done more to set back the cause of liberal internationalism than any in living memory. But I have a big interest in factual history. It is unmistakably plain that the war in Iraq was started by Saddam Hussein, not George Bush (either one of them, in fact), and attempting to twist reality in order to make it appear that he did does a disservice not only to history, but to the cause of holding Bush responsible for the multitude of errors he actually made in the prosecution of the war.

I'm not privy to Bush's rationale for requesting additional Congressional and UN Resolutions, but it seems to me a pretty safe assumption that it was simply seen as sound politics to do so. There was little doubt that the additional Congressional authorization would be overwhelmingly approved as of course it was, and if we can believe the statements of those voting for it that approval was based on the rather extensive Congressional access to intelligence and, in the case of many of them, years of experience in dealing with Ba'athist Iraq. No Senator is going to depend on the White House to tell them what to think on major national security issues, nor do they need to. After over a decade of funding combat operations against Iraq to the tune of about $70 billion per year, it's highly unlikely that any votes were swayed by some letter. It's also wildly illogical to suppose that anyone in Congress or most anywhere else both supported the invasion of Afghanistan AND thought Saddam was directly behind 9/11.

On the polling, it's true that Gallup's numbers show a fall-off in support for invasion between '93 and '01, but they never fell below a majority. The issue wasn't exactly front and center for most Americans who didn't serve in the Gulf or have loved ones who did in spite of the ongoing combat ops and the horrendous effects of the embargo they were enforcing, but when Clinton launched Desert Fox (which can hardly be seen as anything other than an escalation of a war in progress), public support rose again. I am frankly puzzled that anyone can look at our actions in Iraq after 1991 as see them as anything other than evidence of an ongoing state of war.

RP,

It seems that on some issues we are as agreed as the day is long. You make an excellent case for yourself, and I can respect your position.

My only issue is with accusing Bush of "sound politics". While it is, by and large, an acceptable presumption to make of an experienced politician, I have not seen enough these last 7 years to believe that one can attribute "sound" practices of any sort to Bush's decision making process. While Bush has occaisionally done things which can be attributed to sound politics, I have seen no overarching pattern of such practices such that I can comfortably conclude he practices sound politics.

As for the ongoing actions against Iraq, I see no reason to view it as other than a multilateral containment strategy executed largely via diplomacy and economic sanctions. Although, I can see where this could be considered a form of war, I prefer the older term "diplomacy".

Liberal internationalism has never been consistent with unjust war -- and the invasion of Iraq meets the definition of unjust war in its initiation and execution.  What sets back liberal internationalism is its occasional lapse into jingoistic militarism.  Fighting the wrong war is a hard way to learn the lesson, but even fools learn when the lessons are inescapable.  

I'd just like to stipulate that "sound politics" doesn't necessarily mean "good policy". It's my read that much of the trouble we've had in Iraq is due to the fact that the Administration insisted on running the war as if it were a domestic political campaign, which they are pretty skillful at, rather than a war, at which they clearly are not.

I am completely mystified as to how anyone could be reasonably well-informed about what was going on in Iraq before the invasion and consider it anything other than a war, if one of relatively low intensity. We deployed hundreds of thousands of troops,  killed a million Iraqis with the embargo, denied a significant portion of the nation's airspace with warplanes, interdicted its shipping with a huge fleet, routinely rocketed and bombed its military forces, encouraged and aided (if insufficiently) uprisings and breakaway regions, and periodically launched massive missile strikes into its capitol. I can't think of a single instance in history when such actions were not universally considered "war". I guess this is an example of the power of political bias to alter perceptions.

Keeping our word in terms of enforcing the ceasefire and Chapter VII Resolutions in the face of over a decade of comprehensive violation and defiance by one of the worst regimes of the last century is the polar opposite of "unjust", although it was probably unjust to wait so long to effectively do so. Given Iraq's behavior, one must conclude that anyone who sees it as "unjust" would not support any war anywhere except perhaps one started by an invasion of our country. This may be "liberal", but it's certainly not "internationalist".

robt P - "...not rocket surgery....Simply scroll up on this thread to your post of 18 Aug 07:34 am."

Um, Bob? Is everything OK? There's no post on this thread at "18 Aug 07:34 am". There are indeed posts of mine at 08:41, 9:50 and a link to Brzezinski's article provided at 10:06am, but nothing at the time you mention, and none of those posts of mine state what you accuse me of stating. Again, I referenced * * * Brzezinski's * * * remarks.

You can win applause fromt he likes of GSpinks with this exercise in cyber-strawmen, but methinks you'd do better to respond to actual comments instead of those of your imagining.

Starting with Prof. Brzezinski's comments about Young Barack's difficulty in "crystallizing the issue", a weakness we've seen in many forums, Saddleback most recently, where he cannot rely on his teleprompter.

tep--no grandstanding here. Maybe the thingie changes the time to local, in my case CET. In any event, the post in question is the fifth from the top after two by Jeff Frey and two previous by you. Paragraph 5. Says Aug 18 07:34 am on my screen....

As I said above, "Was McCain snappier and more quotable? Sure. Did Obama say anything like you said he did? Absolutely not, and Brzezinski certainly didn't say he did either."

McCain has gained about five points on this deal a near as I can tell, and deserves to have done so--it certainly didn't hurt that his remarks were delivered from a formal platform in a dark suit while Obama appeared in sports clothes from Hawaii. I expect the lesson will be taken on board by Obama.

But the idea that there is any real difference between either guy on the substance of this issue is not a case anyone can make. When it comes to the chess game, my money's on Obama. McCain's a great guy, but I think his game is more likely to be checkers.

OK, fine, got it, hatchet: buried. Peace.

Deal. By the way, I think you get the Financial Times--check out Clive Crook's excellent Monday piece on this subject (also available on his blog at theatlantic.com. Sample:

"It was disappointing, though unsurprising, that the McCain and Obama campaigns both saw Georgia through the prism of electoral politics rather than seeking to unite on the issue. McCain was agitated and militant--alarmingly so, it must be said. Obama was circumspect, called for restraint on both sides and consultation with allies, and in effect said nothing. McCain's campaigned underlined his toughness and experience; Obama's emphasized their candidate's calmness and refusal to shoot from the hip. An approach that combines these stereotypical attitudes is needed."

Reminds me of the drink once served at the bar of the Taos Inn, the "Cowboy Buddha", described on the bar menu as "rugged yet serene."