When You Can't Say "I told you so"

With the recent chaos in Egypt and Libya, I imagine Mitt Romney would love to get up on a podium and proclaim "I told you this would happen. I warned America that the Obama administration's interventionist policies in the Mid East would only lead to disaster..." But of course he can't because he did no such thing - in fact, he has only criticized Obama for not being interventionist enough, for being too timid about overthrowing our friends and ushering in "democracy." So what's he supposed to do now - how can he attempt to take advantage of this obvious opening? He can't, really, except to sputter about whether or not Obama apologized.

And is Romney still actually running for president? It's hard to tell - he seems unable to come up with a single argument to actually convince anyone why he'd be a better president than Obama, other than his own mega-competence, which seems to get undermined at every turn in this campaign. I think, in his own mind, he's pretty much done with the campaign, and is now just hoping that various financial, diplomatic, or domestic meltdowns pave his way into the Rose Garden. Because right now, he's making Bob Dole look like Harry Truman.

Huma You Trying to Kid?

Michelle Bachmann is in big trouble - this time for going after Hillary Clinton's longtime deputy, the Muslim woman named Huma Abedin.

I don't know much about Huma, other than the tabloid stuff. She's married to the weirdo-Jewish-ex-congressman Anthony Weiner and has long been rumored to be Hillary Clinton's lover.

Bachmann sent a letter (or something) expressing concern about possible Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the State Department (a notion that sounds fairly preposterous at first blush), and in particular points towards Huma. And of course the lovely Michelle does not always inspire much confidence in her grasp of the material she discusses:)

Bachmann's thinking apparently runs something like this: Our State Department over the last year oversaw the destabilization of the friendly Mubarak regime followed by the election of a Muslim Brotherhood president in Egypt. Meanwhile, several of Huma Abedin's family members are connected with the Brotherhood. So Bachmann seems to think, "Hey, wouldn't this be worth looking into?"

I have to admit that the first I heard about this was via John McCain's fevered denunciation of Bachmann and stalwart defense of Huma, which makes me immediately suspect that Bachmann's crazy idea may not be so far-fetched after all, since John McCain is about as consistently wrong on foreign policy as anyone can be.

Meanwhile, Ed Rollins, Bachmann's former campaign manager, has taken the gloves off as well.

Shame on you, Michele! You should stand on the floor of the House and apologize to Huma Abedin and to Secretary Clinton and to the millions of hard working,loyal, Muslim Americans for your wild and unsubstantiated charges. As a devoted Christian, you need to ask forgiveness for this grievous lack of judgment and reckless behavior.

Wow! That's some condemnation! It's hard to imagine that Rollins can even imagine a more heinous crime that might inspire him to greater censure.

This is one of those controversies where the only thing actually discussed is the righteous indignation of the outraged - it's pretty hard to find anything much about what spurred it, except of course from the point of view of the outraged, so unspeakable is the offense.

So to repeat, I don't know much about this Huma Abedin, but I suspect neither do any of those so eager to jump up and defend her. Bachmann might be a little out of line here - but only a little. Those condemning her, on the other hand, are completely off the rails.

Dealing with Syria and Iran - a Message?

The Times has a couple interesting - for the Times, anyway - articles on Syria and Iran. On Syria, it's the first account I've seen in the mainstream press attempting to provide a balanced look at the situation there. The article describes the sectarian nature of the insurrection and contrasts nicely with Tom Friedman's bizarre twisting of the story yesterday ("the opposition in Syria began as a largely peaceful, grass-roots, pan-Syrian movement for democratic change...[President Bashar al-Assad] wanted to make the conflict about his Alawite minority versus the country’s Sunni Muslim majority as a way of discrediting the opposition and holding his base").

On Iran, the article discusses American analysts assessment of the outcome of an Israeli strike on Iran. While hardly dire, the outcome looks to be quite a mess for the U.S. I would expect such analysis to go completely unheeded by the administration.

Except that perhaps the Times is trying to get word to the White House - back off from Syria, and keep the pressure on Israel to hold off on any strikes. I can't see Obama as the kind of guy who wants to deal with wars and international turmoil - he seems much more comfortable worrying about whether black students get suspended too much from school and how to increase Pell grants to urban students. But he is apparently easily intimidated into taking action based on "human rights" concerns. So maybe the Times is trying to tell him something none of his advisers ever would.

Anatomy of a Coup

Speaking of the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, didn't the transformation of Mr. Mubarak into the Evil Man of the Middle East seem to happen faster than Dr. Jekyll could turn into Mr. Hyde with a drink of his special potion? Who was beating those war drums, anyway? Let's look at how the New York Times viewed Mubarak over time. Was he always a dictator? I searched the Times for all articles containing the words "dictator" and "Mubarak", and what I found was a pattern that would have made Hearst himself smile.:

Note that the two words were seldom used in the same article (and not once in all of 2010!) until January 2011, when they were used 12 times then in February 48 times! Note also that prior to January 2011 the graph shows annual counts, while it's monthly thereafter - so the incidence of the use of those 2 words now occurs on a monthly basis about as frequently as it used to occur annually before 2011. But the difference is even more stark - if you look at the actual articles before 2011, the word dictator was almost never actually applied to Mubarak himself, but was used to refer to a different autocrat in the region - Mubarak nearly always being referred to respectfully as "President Mubarak."

Where's the Challenge in That?

Tom Friedman, the great cheerleader for the Tahrir Square uprising, today discusses the Great Dilemma now puzzling our Foggy Bottom cogitators given recent developments: Is the now politically-dominant Muslim Brotherhood a modern, moderate force pretending to be radical to its backward Egyptian constituency; or a radical Islamic force pretending to be moderate to the international community? Friedman, of course, argues that surely, both are right! And of course he has no second thoughts - no regrets whatsoever - about the overthrow of the clearly moderate Hosni Mubarak. And why should he - it's all good.

In short, the days of dealing with Egypt with one phone call to one man just one time are over. This is going to require really, really, really sophisticated diplomacy with multiple players — seven days a week.

Yeah, who wants our foreign affairs to be easy? That's like rooting for a football team and wanting them to have easy victories every game. Are you a true sports fan, or just a "homer"? Not Tom Friedman - he's a foreign policy aficionado - he's no "homer".

Wishful-Politik

U.S. foreign policy continues to be in safe hands. In a speech she gave a few weeks ago (but that I only just heard about tonight in a gushing report on NPR), Hillary attempted to explain the unexplainable - our Mideast policy. She gave a little FAQ apparently, including this Q&A:

What will the United States do if democracy brings anti-U.S. governments to power? "The suggestion that faithful Muslims cannot thrive in a democracy is insulting, dangerous, and wrong. They do it in this country every day," Clinton said. "Parties committed to democracy must reject violence; they must abide by the rule of law and respect the freedoms of speech, association, and assembly; they must respect the rights of women and minorities; they must let go of power if defeated at the polls; and, in a region with deep divisions within and between religions, they cannot be the spark that starts a conflagration. In other words, what parties call themselves is less important than what they do."

I love that - "The suggestion that faithful Muslims cannot thrive in a democracy is insulting, dangerous, and wrong." What she means of course is "the suggestion that faithful Muslims cannot thrive in a democracy is insulting - and therefore dangerous and wrong." There's a lot of "musts" in there too - none of which have ever been followed in any MidEast Islamist state - ever. So is the plan to bomb these new governments when they ultimately fall short? No, they not. While it's silly to imagine that the administration has any particular goals in mind in stumbling upon its foreign policy, one theme can be expected to act as a guiding force: no government which professes an animus against the West - in particular those openly hostile to American interests - need fear our intervention. Thus Syria, Iran, Cuba, Korea, Venezuela - completely safe from our interference. Of course that's only right - no government, friend or foe, should fear our intervention provided they do not threaten or attack us. But it would be ideal if governments that are actually friendly towards us should feel safe as well.

Does the Times Editorial Staff Owe Glenn Beck a Collective Apology?

Tumult of Arab Spring Prompts Worries in Washington

While the popular uprisings of the Arab Spring created new opportunities for American diplomacy, the tumult has also presented the United States with challenges — and worst-case scenarios — that would have once been almost unimaginable.

--unless of course you're a ranting lunatic like, say, Glenn Beck --

What if the Palestinians’ quest for recognition of a state at the United Nations, despite American pleas otherwise, lands Israel in the International Criminal Court, fuels deeper resentment of the United States, or touches off a new convulsion of violence in the West Bank and Gaza?

Gee, yeah, what if - but who could have foreseen that?

Crises like the expulsion of Israel’s ambassador in Turkey, the storming of the Israeli Embassy in Cairo and protests outside the one in Amman, Jordan, have compounded a sense of urgency and forced the Obama administration to reassess some of this country’s fundamental assumptions, and to do so on the fly.

Like the fundamental assumption that a stable government, internationally recognized, that has been in power for decades, is presumed to be the legitimate representative of that country? Oh that's right, that assumption was already thrown out the window back in February. Yes, an apology would be appropriate.