Several more positive steps have recently been made in support of the elections. First, the Americans have decided to put 12,000 more troops in until after the election (at least). Second, Allawi is on another campaign to get support for the election. This time he is in Jordan. Jordan now says it backs the early elections. In Jordan he is meeting with many Sunni leaders, party and otherwise. These include some of the Sunni tribal leaders with whom he has had past relationships. They evidently find it more comfortable in Jordan these days.

There have been some interesting new ideas about how the elections might be carried out in stages, so-called "rolling elections". After the first elections in the safer areas, security forces would be brought in for short periods in one area after another until people had had a reasonable chance to vote everywhere. While people elected in the first round would meet before the completion of the process, it is thought that they might agree to dealing with non-binding measures that could easily be changed when they meet after the completion of the process.

Many academics continue to believe that we have lost already in Iraq, partly because of the record there and partly because of the general proposition that insurgencies like this do not fail. This is a respectable argument. However, my judgement is that this election will take place regardless. If it does get a reasonable turnout most places, or is repaired some way, then we will be faced with a new situation \emdash a government now considered legitimate by more than 50% of Iraqis will be the enemy of the insurgents. Clearly, many cases in the past, such as Sri Lanka, suggest this is not the end of the story, but it should certainly change the parameters.

The "Fride" research organization in Madrid has provided a useful rundown on the elections in Afghanistan, recent and future. In the presidential election, the fact of significant opposition was important, as was the estimated 70% participation. The campaigning was short and not very meaningful, with most attention being given to trying to obtain concessions from Karzai as a price for withdrawal. Still, some important regional personages opposed Karzai, and two or three overwhelming won in their local areas. The fact, however, that they were largely unknown outside their home territories gave a tremendous advantage to Karzai. The results showed good turnout countrywide, and for women it was higher than expected, except in a few extremely conservative southern areas. Karzai generally did especially well in urban areas. He also won Herat, a surprise (although throwing out Ismail Khan a few weeks ahead of the elections may have accounted for the difference between results here and in the areas won by the Uzbek and Hazara leaders). The Tajik leader Qanooni did not win any large areas, but won 95% in the Panjshir, the center of the resistance against both the Soviets and the Taliban.

Looking toward the elections later this year, the analysis points out that the irregularities in the election that were insignificant with Karzai's overwhelming victory, would not be insignificant in closer elections. 2005 elections will be for district councils, provincial councils, and the lower house of parliament. Since none of these institutions exist at present, carrying out such elections successfully presents quite a challenge. There is a real danger that the local militias of the warlords and captains of the drug trade will be able to capture too large a proportion of the positions for the health of the society. Karzai has shown himself adept at making deals with local powers. Let us hope he can change his approach to get beyond this point. Nevertheless, recent polls show a great deal of popular confidence in the system and the process. Let us hope that the international community can help them attain the brighter future that they expect.

Tuesday, the Times reported another CIA report from Baghdad, supposedly secret. (The leak proofing of the Agency does not seem to have helped. It judged that the security situation was bad and likely to get worse. The main impediments were the lagging ability of the Iraqi security forces and the inability of the government to get economic development going. It has evoked a rejoinder from the Ambassador who says we are doing much better than this estimate. But in military and intelligence circles there is a lot of support for the individual who composed it upon leaving his position in Baghdad. The American government continues on the surface to be upbeat about everything.

The latest news is that the effort of the Ayatollah Sistani to bring the different Shiite parties together for the election seems to be failing. A group of parties calling themselves the "Shiite Council have decided to break away from the United Iraqi Alliance that Sistani has sponsored. The disputes are over which parties get the higher positions on the election lists. Most of the people we have heard of before, including Chalabi and Muqtada al-Sadr are staying with the Alliance that is dominated by the Dawa and Sciri parties (the two older wings of the Shiite world in Iraq, the latter being a party considered dominated by Iranians. The Council's chief objection seems to be that there are too many foreigners or exiles in the Alliance list. Although many parties are in the Council, their makeup is unclear. They seem to be more nativist and antiforeign than the main stream, but this is just an impression. Postscript: The next day the report is that the parties have made up, and indeed the project of having one large list including nearly everyone is back on the burners. It is also reported that several Sunni parties are preparing their lists even after they had opposed going ahead with the January elections.

Kristof in today's op-ed piece takes aim at the Administration's campaign claim that it has the support of many countries in Iraq. Thirty countries have soldiers in Iraq now, although this number will be down to 27 by next month. Eight of our partners have less than one hundred soldiers involved. To get a feeling for what was going on, Kristof talked to the Estonians in the government and outside. He found that they do not intend to increase their force above the 55 they have there now. The major reason is that the population is very opposed to the war. They allow the mission only because they feel it is an insurance policy in case Russia threatens them again. Kristof's belief is that except for Blair's British support this is pretty much the case in the rest of the Coalition. They are just making a show in support of a cause they do not believe in. In fact, many Estonians think the Americans are as bad as the Russians, but better for them because further away.

Two members of the Defense Intelligence Agency have reported to their Agency, who forwarded the report to the Pentagon, that prisoner abuse has apparently continued long after Abu Ghraib was exposed. Last June they saw prisoners being brought into a detention center in Baghdad with burn marks on their backs and damage to their kidneys. They saw a prisoner being badly beaten up. When they complained to those in charge of the detention center, the DI officials were threatened by those in charge, their photographs confiscated, their car keys impounded, their email screened, and they were warned never to report the information. Reports have also surfaced that the FBI has severely criticized coercive techniques that continue to be used at Guantanamo Bay.

It appears to me that prisoner abuse, often including torture by any definition, has become so much a part of standard operating procedure in some American interrogation and detention facilities that it will take a major effort to change the picture. Abuse and cruelty has become an integral part of the working culture of those inflicting the punishment. If we do not go beyond the surface and attack this problem honestly soon, then America’s reputation will continue to take heavy blows, and unity within the country as well as our erstwhile alliances will be still further eroded.

Friedman’s Op-Ed in yesterday's Times offers an interesting hypothesis on the origin (or at least one origin) of the suicide bombers, of which there seems to be an endless supply in Iraq. He sees the problem beginning with the terrors of the Saddam regime, the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War, and then the ten years of economic decline under Western sanctions in the 1990s. Iraq went from being the country with the most developed middle class in the region to a country of unemployed, without hope, a country from which the middle class and opportunity had essentially emigrated. The result was that when we attacked, we were faced with an already deeply humiliated and hopeless population, one who young people in their desperation had in many cases turned to extremist religious movements, either Shi'a or Sunni. He points out that unlike the situation in Palestine, these bombers commit suicide anonymously, indicating to him the extremity of their desperation. Our worst intelligence failure in his mind is the failure to understand this development in the minds of the people that we attacked. It suggests the complexity of understanding either friends or foes, a complexity that goes far beyond "understanding the culture" in the sense that this understanding is imparted in graduate schools.

So much of the world continues to be convulsed by struggles for independence, freedom and rights. We see these struggles as struggles for "democracy", but that is more often our spin than that of the people involved. Frequently, "good government" and "security" are higher priorities than we might expect. But in the realm of individual opportunity, of individual lives rather than nationalistic romance there is a calculus that runs the other way, toward entrance to wider world rather than encasement in small independencies.

Yesterday's paper offers democratic and independent Armenia as an example of a people that "got what it wanted" and yet the people today do not feel they have what they wanted. Independent Armenia drifts. Young people feel trapped in an unimportant place without prospects. Many, young and old, look back to a time when they belonged to the Soviet Union, and they could look forward as individuals to playing a much more positive role in Moscow than they can now. They even treasure the fact that they were educated in Russian and could contribute to that culture. Many people in small European countries have had similar feelings as they emerged into independence. But now with the new Europe developing, their hope is in a new nationality and culture that transcends the limits of their small states. At least the new Europe helps. But Armenia has no such out. It is geographically trapped next to Georgia, another small country in a similar position, and Azerbaijan with which Armenians have little in common aside from mutual antipathy.

One can imagine that these same problems are apparent, or will be apparent, to many Iraqi Kurds as they consider their options. Many Kurds have participated in the larger Iraq society. Indeed, even now the foreign minister of the Interim Government is a Kurd. Yet Kurds want their freedom, their independence. Perhaps the solution would be for all the Kurds to carve out a greater Kurdistan, but this is an unlikely and dangerous perhaps.

One thinks of the dilemma of Taiwan. The Taiwanese are divided between those who developed a different culture with the help of the Japanese occupation in the first half of the twentieth century and those more purely Chinese who came from the mainland. To some degree these two regional cultures have melted together. Still, today, with the more purely Taiwanese in the majority the country strives for a future that is both Chinese and not Chinese. No longer do they see Taiwan as "China", with its aspiration to reclaim all of China (much as the Armenians dream of a greater Armenia and the Kurds of a greater Kurdistan). But now this ruling group strives for a separate state, a new country, with a different dialect and a different connection to the world. Unlike Armenians, and more like the Iraqi Kurds, the Taiwanese independence movement has little support from the outer world and faces a looming danger of invasion and absorption. If the United States were as dedicated to self-determination in our day as Wilson was in his, we would actively champion the Taiwanese independence movement, and perhaps even Tibetan and Uighur independence movements. Yet today we are more wedded to our relations with the great and looming China, for the sake of what we used to call "the mighty dollar" (which rings a little hollow now).

Today's paper carries an Op-Ed by two experts on World War II's Office of Strategic Services (OSS) that was headed by William Donovan. Interested readers can find a somewhat fuller discussion on-line at this web site.

The main thrust of the argument is that intelligence was much more productive when it was run by a bunch of skilled amateurs who really had the goals of the effort in view, as contrasted with their personal advancement in a large bureaucratic organization. The OSS grew out of an effort by President Roosevelt to improve the foreign intelligence available to him at the beginning of World War II. Then, as now, intelligence was riven by many feuds among agencies, and none of them wanted to share their sources or power with upstarts. The FBI and the military service intelligence groups were the main culprits. Up to the end of the war, this new agency that was supposed to be handling intelligence gathering directly for the President was not granted access to information coming from the breaking of most Axis codes, it had no role in Latin America, and was largely frozen out of the Pacific Theatre of operations by the opposition of leading admirals. Nevertheless it persisted, and did good work developing working relations with the British. It also had a research and intelligence branch that recruited the best and the brightest from American universities, allowing the country to have a much better idea of the enemies they were facing. The OSS also developed an action unit that conducted a wide variety of secret operations behind enemy lines. At the end of the war, Truman was quick to dissolve OSS. Donovan had a poor reputation as an administrator, hated bureaucracy, and was personally disliked by Truman. Since Donovan relied so heavily on the Ivy League for his staff, it is possible that there was a cultural gap here as well (which continues today between the Midwest and Southwest and New England).

But what seems most useful today in thinking about how intelligence should be restructured goes back to the thirties when Roosevelt began to use Donovan as a personal "reporter" on what was going on in the world. He sent him to England to see how resilient they might be, and so forth. The reports back were directly to him. It seems to me that in the highly bureaucratized Washington of today with everyone with their own personal as well as ideological and national agendas, this model might be useful as a supplement. If a President could find a group of five or so persons of different political persuasions who would work silently for him throughout the world as his eyes and ears and personal advisors, he would be in a much improved position to make informed decisions. These advisors should be essentially nameless. They should either be beyond retirement age or have other professions they could easily go back to. One of their tasks should be to find out what people in the existing intelligence communities in this country and elsewhere "really think". They should be able to move comfortably through a variety of cultures and political systems, reporting back what they think is going on or likely to go on. They should be able to have informed opinions on the capabilities of action agencies or military services that might be enlisted in performing needed secret or nonsecret operations.

The Shi'a coalition is back together apparently. Their new list, which includes Kurds and a few Sunnis, is referred to as "The Alliance". It has now ranked its list. Number 1 is al-Hakim, the leader of SCIRI, the mainline organization with Iranian connections — although it denies any such connection. Number 7 is Shahristani, a spokesman for Ayatollah Sistani. Chalabi is Number 10, a remarkable transformation for an exile (since 1958) who was the darling of the Pentagon before the war, then condemned, and later accused by the Interim government of crimes. Some Al-Sadr candidates are also in the top 25 positions. One can assume that Dawa leaders make up many of the others in this elite group. It is assumed that much of the government that will be established after the election will be made up of persons in the top 25.

Dr. Sharistani, the spokesman for the new Alliance at yesterday's press conference, showed the group's moderation by discussing for the first time in these circles the difficulty of holding an election in Sunni areas with violence at a high level. Suggestions are being made that perhaps there could be a rolling election in which the election in certain areas would be delayed while security forces are brought in temporarily. Another sign of moderation was the presence of Sunni Arabs and Kurds on the platform as the Alliance was announced. One of the seven persons on the platform was Fawaz al Jarba, who is a former Iraqi army major, a Sunni Arab, and leader of the Shamar tribe, one of the largest in Iraq.

Two experts in the American security community, apparently with Iranian backgrounds, offer in today's Times an appraisal of the growing role of the Revolutionary Guards in the Iranian power structure. (Ironically, the Revolutionary Guards seem to have developed in parallel with the Republican Guards of Saddam Hussein. They serve much the same purpose: an elite military force with special responsibility for preserving the regime in power — in this case the ruling clergy of Iran.) Over the last fifteen years the Guards have gradually increased in number and equipment, and now have even their own navy. Making up about a third of the numbers of the regular army, they appear to be the most formidable force in the country. The Guards control the development of the missile programs and it is thought that the Guards are the ones guiding the development of nuclear weapons and opposing anything that would restrict this development. Their political power has been growing in tandem. Former members make up a third of the parliament elected this year. One of their leaders may run for President in the up-coming May election. And they oppose further development of the regular army. And like many armies in the less developed world, they have considerable business interests.

The conclusion of the analysts is that there are real and potential fissures between the Guards and their one-time creators, the establishment clergy, as well as between the Guards and the other armed services. They advise the United States to develop a "nuanced policy" that exploit these and other potential rifts.

For the first few chapters I thought that Anonymous was just another self-important spook who wanted to tell the world how musch he knew and how wrong everyone else is. On, finishing the book I conclude that he is that, but that he is also much else. His thesis is wrong-headed in many respects, but it deserves being taken seriously.

A principal contention is that we are in a war with the Islamic world led by Ussama Bin Ladin. We need to recognize that this is a war and fight it with no holds barred. To Scheuer, this means a Sherman to the sea approach. We failed in Afghanistan evidently because we did not kill enough Afghanis. Only if we are absolutely unconcerned with the death of Americans and Muslims will we succeed in this bitter fight. To do otherwise, is to succumb to the weakneed pacifistic, internationalist lobby that enervates the country. This is a position that we must all understand, but reject. It is also a position many Americans hold, and that the interrogators that flaut the Geneva Conventions clearly hold.

He also argues that Bin Ladin should not thought of as a terrorist. He is a military and spiritual leader who has made clear his goals. he is not out to destroy our freedoms. he couldn’t care less. He made a consistent list of demands, including especially get out of the Middle East and stop supporting Israel as well as the non-Islamic tyrants that rule over Muslims in the area. He believes that Ussama is right that we have carried out an anti-slamic policy in the region and that we have been foolish to continue in this direction. But he says, we are a democracy, we can decide what policies our leaders folly in the area. Therefore, we are as a people behind the policies that both bin Ladin and Scheuer find abhorrent. In a sense, in his eyes, he is justified in attacking the twin towers, just as we would be justified in bombing Afghanistan back to the stone age (assuming it was not there already). This a position that I can agree with to a limited degree: our policies are a major case of what bin Ladin is attacking. In today’s news, for example, a new tape has bin Ladin calling for attacks on the Saudi leaders and the destruction of the oil fields in Saudi Arabia.

Where Anonymous goes most seriously wrong in where he believes himself to be most knowledgable: his understanding of Islam. He sees us loosing the war with Islam in Afghanistan and Iraq. In fact he sees Iraq as the greatest of gifts to bin Ladin. For it reinforces the idea that the “Crusaders” are out to destroy Islam. He notes that Bin Ladin refer continually to the responsibility of every Muslim to fight for God against the oppressor. He notes that Muslims cannot accept or understand the idea of a separation of the tate and church because in Islam they are the same. This is a correct reading of Islamic texts, but a misreading of history. In the year and a half I spent studying Islam I came to realize the great gulf between the theoretical Islamic world and the real Islamic world. It is commonly supposed that the Ayatollah Khomeini was reestablishing a true Islamic state with his concept of the “Faqih” as the true ruler of the ‘Umma. However, what is remarkable in Islam is that Khomeini had almost no historical precedent. The mixed group of secular strong men, princes, and military leaders ruling Islamic countries today is much closer to the historical record of Islam. Islamic theorists have always reiled against the people in power as unislamic and they have had almost no effect. Regardless of how bloody minded the Muslim extremists are, and they also have had historical precendents such as the Assassins of the Middle Ages, they have seldom been able to win over the general population -- and it is quite likely they will fail again. For a fuller discussion of Scheuer’s book see the accompanying review.

One of the primary problems afflicting "our side" in Iraq is the difficulty we have in controlling the movement of insurgents. Unlike insurgents of the past, most of this movement is by car or light truck. One example of the seriousness of the problem is the report that the insurgents regularly pay Iraqis for making attacks with money that is brought in regularly from Syria (from which much of the war is directed). Another example is the report of two very destructive suicide vehicle attacks in Najaf and Karbala yesterday. The assumption seems to be that the vehicles involved came from the southern edge of the "Sunni Triangle". Without knowing what measures are in place or planned to control such movement, let me make a suggestion.

We control the air, and with few trees in Iraq and little cloud cover, we could regularly and effectively see from the air every vehicle in Iraq, stationary or in movement. The proposal is to require that every vehicle in Iraq be required to be (1) registered and (2) have on its roof in paint that can be seen at night the registration number. After a month period during which all vehicles would have to be registered and emblazoned with their registration numbers, air reconnaissance could start rapidly building a data base containing the location of every vehicle in the country. Once this database is established, planes patrolling over the country, and especially along the more important ways in from Syria and above the road systems of the "Sunni Triangle" could establish the location of every vehicle, updating this regularly whenever movement is noted. It should be possible to gin up a computer program to distinguish standard movements from suspicious, reporting the latter down to units on the ground that could then check suspected vehicles. The use of false identification could be reduced by continuous monitoring that was able to note any vehicles that had unrecorded numbers or duplicate numbers. Vehicles operating not in accord with the law would be subject to impoundment.

Critics might raise many objections. The suggestion is certainly in need of many refinements, especially those that experience would suggest. In any event, the system would obviously be perfected over time.

Sunday's Times gave a good summary of what might be described as the "order of battle" for the insurgents. The current estimate is that there are 11,000 to 20,000 insurgents. Of these 2200 to 3300 are hard core supporters of Saddam and the Baath Party. Many of the leaders are in Syria. They are assisted by 6100 to 10,000 part-time supporters. These are often paid on a per-job basis for their attacks. Their goal is a strong government recreating the authoritarian, Sunni-Arab, Baathists past. The Islamic extremists are mostly Salafists, persons with views similar to the Wahhabi, but not now identified with them. Perhaps 700 insurgents are aligned with al-Qaida and al-Zarqawi, mostly in the Mosul area. One of the main leaders here is Muhammad Sharkawa, formerly a member of Ansar. Perhaps 2000 other extremists or Jihadists operate separately from this structure. The Islamic extremists hope to ensure a weak government that will eventually be replaced by a Taliban type regime. American also estimate that there are 2900 in al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, mostly in Baghdad. It seems doubtful that these should be seen as part of the insurgency now.

Today's paper reported a terrible day yesterday, with more than 60 killed. The targets were ordinary Shi'a in Karbala and Najaf and election officials in Baghdad. It seems clear that the major focus has shifted to killing Shi'a, thereby kindling a sectarian war that they are sure they can win, and killing Iraqis connected with the election effort. An encouraging sign is the fact that the going price for getting a person to fire a grenade at Americans has gone up from $50 to $200. But in all these figures, what one does not get is where the suicide bombers are recruited. This seems now to be the main tool of the insurgents, a tool used mostly against Iraqis. The insurgent decisions to concentrate on Iraqis may have a short-term pay off, but in the longer term it would seem bound to reduce sympathy for their cause.

Th reader may also be interested in looking at the American forces order of battle. It is interesting to reflect that the Coalition forces taken together, and assisted by the newly trained and sometimes feckless Iraqi government forces add up to well over 200,000. Given the stardard 1:10 ratio said to be required when fighting a guerrilla war, this should be an adequate force if deployed intelligently.

As I have referenced several times, Professor Juan Cole at Michigan offers perhaps the most informed and useful blog on the Iraq war from an academic viewpoint. He knows Iraq well, particularly the history of its Shi'a community.

It is encouraging to find that his most recent posts seem to have a different tone from those earlier in the year. He is more friendly and supportive of the American effort than he has been in the past. Reading on, this seems to reflect the decision by the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi Shiites to support the electoral process. He is scathing in his denunciation of the statement by Khomenei of Iran that the Americans and the Israelis were behind the attacks in Najaf and Kerbala. He points out once again that the Iraqi Shiites are uninterested in such statements. They are Iraqis and do not take kindly to outside Iranian interference. It is his thought that the insurgency has all along been primarily a Baathist effort, and that the attacks in the holy cities should also be ascribed to the Baathists. These attacks were, incidentally, also denounced by the leading Sunni clerics association.

Cole remains bothered that there is too much violence for the elections to be held in January. If large numbers of Sunni Arabs voters are kept away from the polls, this will make any constitution that came out of the process suspect in the eyes of many. However, unlike the New York Times which in its recent editorial called again for a postponement in view of our evident inability to control the violence, Cole believes this has to be balanced against the strong support of the Kurds and Shiites for having the elections as soon as possible. As he says, "the U.S. has to make the Shi'a community happy". The growing closeness of the U.S. and the Shi'a is suggested by the following note: "The U.S. has been fighting Sunni Arab guerrillas in Babil province to stop their attacks on Shiite locals and pilgrims, an action warmly supported by Iraqi vice president Ibrahim Jaafari and other Shiite leaders."

Cole repeats a discussion with the Iraqi education ministry. Apparently the situation has improved quite a bit. Many Baathists who were formerly excluded from teaching are now back teaching again while a number of non-Baathists who excluded from teaching by the Baathists under Saddam are also now teaching. Many schools have been repaired and new ones are being built. There are 6 million students and 370,000 teachers, giving an overall ratio of 19/1, although some schools are still in want of teachers.

In the international relations area, the Jordanian and Egyptian foreign ministers are warning Iraq against the possibility of a sectarian state, while Iran has closed its borders because it thinks Iraq is too dangerous for pilgrims!

Do not misunderstand. Cole is still very down on the war, how it has been initiated, and how it is being carried on (he even has a note on where one can contribute clothing for our soldiers in Iraq). He points out the dangers. The chief one being that the Shiite leaders will not be able to continue to restrain their followers from striking back at the Sunni Arabs, thus inviting a more thorough explosion. He also points out the danger that Saudi Arabia will be hit with more attacks by al-Qaida, particularly of its oil lines. This may become particularly serious when a generation of battle-hardened Jihadists return from Iraq if and when things quiet down there.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies in one of its latest releases characterizes recent American steps, such as the invasion of Iraq, as well as its one-sided Middle Eastern policy more generally, as helping the al-Qaida recruitment (supporting the thesis of Scheuer recently discussed in this blog). Iraq may well be seen in retrospect to have been a valuable proving ground for Jihadists if they later fan out over the world in pursuit of globalist objectives. However, the report also points out that the ideology and focus of al-Qaida appears to be in flux. They have some positives, but also negatives. They are dispersed more than they were and seem to be less under the direction of the center. Many of the groups that work with al-Qaida, for example in Southeast Asia, have reason to work with it tactically, but they do not have the global goals of the parent organization. This has two implications. First, such groups can be dealt with on a bargaining basis. Second, they are unlikely to be interested in using weapons of mass destruction.

The report believes that efforts against al-Qaida have reduced its effectiveness in the short run. However, in the longer run it sees the need for a change in U.S. policies that will make it less possible for al-Qaida to picture the West as an eternal enemy of Islam (again Scheuer's thesis). This needed change is referred to as moving toward more emphasis on "soft power" rather than "hard" (this is not an argument Scheuer would make).

On a sober-sided talk show the other day, a retired military officer was interviewed on the subject of how long we would be in Iraq. His answer was that it would be ten or fifteen years before our soldiers could leave. The argument was that the violence was simply not going down and the Iraqis we were training showed no signs of being able to pick up the slack. This argument has three possible bases.

(1) A lack of understanding of the war. The authority has not yet realized the extent to which the insurgency in Iraq is a response to the presence of foreign troops as much as to any other factor. He also has no concept of the extent to which the American population is tired of the war and is bound to grow increasingly tired if the promised elections lead to no change in our commitment.

(2) A confusion of the war in Iraq with the war against al-Qaida. The authority believes firmly that what we are fighting is primarily a Islamic Jihadist movement aimed at the United States. This being the case Iraq is just as good a place to engage the enemy as any other.

(3) Imperialist dreams. The authority is really entranced by the idea that we need to establish at least a semi-permanent base in the Middle East from which we can coerce the entire area while we convert the area through force and persuasion the area to democracy.

The fact is we are fighting a well financed Iraqi nationalist and Sunni Arab insurgency. This being the case, one of the primarily preconditions for ending the insurgency is the withdrawal of American forces. This may not end the insurgency, but without it, there is no way to end it. Accepting this analysis, once the Americans leave, the Kurds and Shi’as will have to work out a modus vivendi with these Baath forces or continue an endless fight against them. The eventual answer may be a de facto or de jure splitting up of the country, Yugoslavia style. In either case, we should not see preventing this or solving these relationships as our problem. (Many in the world may say “You broke it, you fix it”. But I do not think most Iraqis will feel this way. They want once again to be the decisive force in their country.) These are Iraqi problems and we should encourage them, possibly with international assistance, to solve them.

The United States will never recapture its role as the last resort for the preservation of world peace as long as it is identified with Iraq and our forces are tied down there. The American people are only prepared to do so much. And with a commitment anything like that we have today in Iraq, we are neither able to defend adequately our interests nor world interests in the many hot spots that fizz and bubble around the world.

If we have not already begun the process, we should begin talks with the political leaders of Iraq (and this includes the Ayatollah Sistani in spite of his disclaimers) about a time table for our orderly withdrawal. We should complete the training of Iraqi forces now in the pipeline and improve the performance of forces already “trained”, but then let them take over as we withdraw. The new parliament will write a constitution. By the time that is completed toward the end of 2005, we should announce victory and retire.

Last night Zbigniew Brezezinski, one of my personal heroes, was interviewed on the Lehrer show as to what he thought was going to happen in Iraq. Unfortunately, he seemed to have it all wrong. First, he thought that there was little chance that a successful election could be held under the circumstances. Second, he thought that the system that emerged if the process went forward would be a theocracy that would be a long way from being a democracy. Walter Russell Mead, another foreign policy expert that sat with him demurred. He said, rightly, that the situation was more hopeful and that it was unlikely that the Shiites would set up anything like what they had in Iran. The fact is that the doubters, the good guys that opposed the war, have allowed their opposition to get in the way of their judgment. The bloody mess is just that. But it does not mean that it is hopeless. It may well be that Iraqis have become so inured to killing over the last generation that their response to the daily toll in their country is not as overwhekming as it would be for more fortunate or pampered Americans. It certainly does not mean that we are fighting Islam in Iraq, in a version of Sam Huntington’s war of civilizations (a common belief of many pundits), nor that the bad guys will necessarily win. What it does mean is that a lot of blood is yet to be spilled.

Today’s paper has a fascinating piece on the reactions of minorities in northeast Syria to the chance for democracy in Iraq. Minorities in this case mean Armenians, Assyrian Christians, and Kurds. It even included repressed political minorities such as the communists (what an irony that they should be looking to us to bail them out). The reporter was amazed at the optimism of their leaders. What they saw was a chance for democracy not only in Iraq, but in Syria as well. They believed that events in Iraq had already started to weaken the controls they have been living under. (Remember that the other branch of the Baath party has been in control of Syria for more than a generation now.) The goals of these leaders are quite different. The Kurds are rejoicing in what they see as a chance for an autonomous Kurdistan. There has already been dancing in the streets for this goal (suppressed of course by the police). The Christian groups, on the other hand, see the possibility for a more democratic Syria in which they would have something more like equality than what they have had.

At this point, it is only a dream, a spark likely to be extinguished. But it does show that the ideological team behind Bush, with its dream of a democratic Middle East emerging from Iraq, is not as foolish as most regional and foreign policy experts here and abroad have believed. Of course, there is still a long way to go.

The juxtaposition of initiating an open-ended war without adequate international support in Iraq and the cutting of taxes while the deficit and trade balance were carrying the country toward a fiscal cliff led me about a year ago to recommend that we place a surcharge on the U.S. income tax. This would have the double effect of reducing our fiscal haemorrhaging while making all Americans feel a part of what was going on in the Middle East. To me there was an eerie sense that we were hiring the young to go off and risk their lives while most Americans went on “living it up”. The Indian Ocean Tsunami seems to me to have some of the same urgency about it. If we as a country are serious about helping the millions of people affected around the Indian Ocean, then we should be willing to act as a community, a community in which all contribute, to help those who need assistance in the short or long term. It would do the Americans good to have it announced that a surcharge would be placed on this year’s income tax for all Americans. All the money raised by this surcharge would be used to replace the money needed now to help the affected people. We need to have symbolic gestures like this to make us all realize we are one people united in serving not just our own pleasures but the greater world around us. The gesture might also improve our reputation as a people, especially if placing such special occasion surcharges on the income tax were to become a standard part of American tax policy.

Today’s Times brings back the discussion of the Kurdish independence movement in Iraq. It describes the three largely Kurdish provinces of Iraq’s northeast, governed by the Kurdish Regional Government, as to all intents and purposes an independent country. They have been independent in one way or another since 1991 and today are more unified and stronger than ever. Their security forces are the most effective non-coalition forces in the country. They have managed to preserve near total exemption from the violence in the rest of the country. Investment is pouring in, especially from overseas Kurds, but also from Turkey. The reporter said that he saw very few flags of Iraq but Kurdish flags were everywhere. It is a largely secular society with a booming economy. A new luxury hotel is going up in the capital, Erbil.

Kurdish leaders speak of the desire of the Kurds to remain in Iraq in a loose federal system. But one gets the impression that this is just the diplomatic discourse of leaders who know that the United States is unlikely to accept greater demands. The attitude and behavior of the people suggests they will accept little less than effective independence. Meanwhile, these same leaders are demanding that Kirkuk, an important city because of its surrounding oil fields, be turned over to them. They speak of the need to have an accepted right to the oil resources of the region, a right that the defense minister for the regional government says would allow them to triple the size of their forces (to 240,000!). At least 100,000 Arabs have been driven out of the Kirkuk area by the Kurds since the defeat of Saddam. This was simply payback for a Saddam expulsion of Kurds in the recent past. Kurds are reoccupying their old houses and lands. But it has generated a resettlement problem.

The flash point could come very soon. In the U.S.-initiated constitution that Iraq lives by now, the Kurds are guaranteed a right to veto any provisions they do not like (such as reducing their autonomy). But the Shiites have suggested that these rules cannot last beyond the January election. They have indicated they want a country at long last that they will rule and the Kurds must stay in it. The United States and other powers, near and far, have indicated there should be Kurdish autonomy, but this seems in the words of Condoleezza Rice and others to be more like the autonomy of California than what the Kurds have in mind.

But what do the Kurds have in mind? There is no example that I know of in the world that really fits their idea of autonomy. We could look at Albania and Montenegro in Yugoslavia/Serbia, but these hardly seem to be viable examples. A better example, ironically, might be Taiwan, a country that the world has decided to treat as part of China, but is able to maintain itself as an independent state in spite of that. What the Kurds, sheltered behind a seasoned and successful armed force of their own, and with enough money to maintain it, seem unlikely to accept is a country “occupied” by a largely Arab army answerable to Baghdad.

Ambassador Galbraith, a person who has worked with the Kurds independently and for the American government for years, and served as Ambassador to Croatia after it separated from Yugoslavia advises us here to support an essentially autonomous Kurdistan, covering it with the fig leaf of federalism. He argues that geographically separate and distinct peoples cannot be forced to live together in a unified state, a fact he says he found out in Yugoslavia. Yes, we all found it out. But where does that leave federalism? He appears in his heart to want Kurdish independence, but he believes the unwillingness of Turkey, Iran, and Turkey, all with large Kurdish minorities striving for autonomy, to accept true Kurdish independence makes the achievement of anything more than a very limited autonomy impossible. The long and bitter Kurdish struggle in Turkey had its roots in a communist movement, and has resulted in extreme violence on both sides. The Turkish army is naturally apprehensive about an independent Kurdistan. In Iran, the short-lived Kurdish Mahabad Republic after World War II was briefly supported by the USSR. Their leadership was essentially nationalists and tribal; their leaders were from the same family that rules in half of Iraq's Kurdistan today. There does not seem to be a strong nationalist movement in Iranian Kurdistan now, but the population is Sunni and is apparently quite opposed to Shi'a rule from Tehran. An independent Kurdistan in Iraq could be a spark that could blow apart the current regime in Iran.

Some parting thoughts. The outside world overwhelmingly accepts the idea that the Kurds should not be allowed to secede from Iraq. One small chink in the armor is an Australian Senator who argues for complete independence. It must also encourage the Kurds to find that Turkish companies have been more than willing to engage in the reconstruction of the country. On this front, the Kurdish leadership has been most accommodating, resisting any idea that they would help the struggle of the Kurds in Turkey for independence. On the other hand, there is a large Kurdish population in Mosul, a city now partially occupied by Kurdish forces but outside the area they normally claim, and perhaps a million Kurds continue to live in Baghdad. In any messy breakup of the country Kurds outside Kurdistan could suffer, or at least there could be large population exchanges.

My feeling is that the United States should think long and hard about supporting an independent homeland for the Kurds. We have supported the independence of Israel under much more doubtful circumstances, and we have come to feel that Israel is our only true ally in the region. Kurdistan and the Kurds, if we stay by them and do not abandon them again, could become another long-term ally in the region. Of course, we have our eye on the larger prize of a stable, pro-American, democratic Iraq. Maybe so. But in the pursuit of this dream, we should not lose site of the current reality of a secular Kurdistan that wants to be in our corner.

Today’s paper points again to the extreme difficulty of controlling opium production in Afghanistan. The country has now become the leading producer of opium in the world. Only three percent of its irrigated land actually produces opium, but return from this crop can be as much as thirty times that of wheat, the traditional crop. The results are what we have noted in many other hard drug producing countries, particularly in South America. In Colombia, drug production and the drug trade have made impossible the institutionalization of democracy and the “freeing” of the country as far as the majority of the rural people are concerned.

The drug trade in Afghanistan has produced hundreds if not thousands of instantly wealthy persons, and provided them with armed retinues. In the province on the southwestern tip of the country discussed in today’s paper, the whole economy has been essentially taken over. The trade here is primarily through Iran into Europe. The Iranians are doing their best. They have financed the building of many Afghan police stations on the border to help. But whatever successes the control programs have, the drugs keep coming. The warlords controlling much of the country outside the cities are financed in large part by drugs. And as fast as drug/war lord is replaced or removed others take his place. Kabul has said that it will move energetically against the trade. With the help of the British they are eradicating crops and arresting growers and traders. The problem is that facing hunger, eradication makes more enemies than friends, both for foreigners and the government.

Out of a population of 30,000,000, nearly 80% live an essentially subsistence existence in rural areas (perhaps 2,000,000 of these are still refugees, primarily in Pakistan, but most will return to rural areas). Twelve percent of the country is listed as “arable”, but much of this has returned to desert in recent years due to overgrazing, erosion, and drought. The average rainfall is twelve inches. Dry farming with this rainfall at this level on rocky soils often fails. Small irrigated patches along creek beds provide the major sustenance. Only three percent of the country remains forested. An agricultural revival program is being pursued with foreign assistance, irrigation channels are being reopened. More of this should be done. But for most Afghans it won’t be enough to give them a living even in spare Afghan terms.

We must come up with an approach that does more than eradicate opium or try to force people back into growing cotton or subsistence crops. The first fact that must be faced is that most rural Afghans do not have enough land to support themselves in an average year raising food crops. They need a cash crop to make it through the hard years. Second, Afghanistan does not have enough water or arable land (nor a good enough transportation system nor viable potential markets) to make possible another cash crop with anything like the return of opium. The solution for Afghanistan must come through a rapid change from a barely functioning rural subsistence economy to a rural economy based on small manufacturing (as a first step to an eventual change from a rural to an urban society). This is obviously easier said than done. But the Afghan government and its friends should not keep butting their heads against the geographical facts of the country. If we were not so enamored of a free trade regime that transfers production from the wealthy countries primarily to China, we could conceive of ways to guarantee markets for certain chosen items for, let us say rural Colombians and Afghans, with the European Community, Russia, and the United States buying predetermined amounts of what is produced. We then could invest in getting such production started and building the required infrastructure. (The next job is to figure out what production might be viable.)

There are again many discussions of the fact that violence is not abating as the elections come nearer. Violence directed at all those involved with or guarding the election process seems actually to be increasing in intensity in the Sunni Arab areas. Iraq’s President has discussed the possibility of postponement; the defense Minister has talked of it in Cairo; the Prime Minister even spent time on the phone with Bush discussing the problem. It is hard for the Americans to allow a delay as long as the Ayatollah Sistani says no. What the Americans face is that they now have the Kurds and most of the Shi’a on their side, and these groups, particularly the Shi’a leadership, are counting on the January elections giving them control of the country. Even a follower of Muqtada al-Sadr in Sadr City is now campaigning for a new ticket that will support al-Sadr’s cause if elected (this in addition to the twenty or so Sadrites already have on the list of the more general Shi’a establishment). Delay, and we may begin losing them. Hold the election, and we will at least look good to this large “constituency”.

The problem with delay is that a short delay is unlikely to change the situation very much. On the other hand, a long delay would reinforce the idea that we are simply an occupying power, that we have no intention of actually leaving. This idea would be easy to sell in the already anti-American Sunni Arab world, and might start being believed elsewhere as well. Meantime, the Coalition determination to stay no matter what would be weaken as time passed. What, then, could be done to make a short delay more useful?

Perhaps the place to start would be to make a much greater effort to seal the border with Syria while at the same time putting more pressure on Syria to stop the movement of men, materiel, and money into Iraq. The Syrian government might even be encouraged to arrest or expel some of the Iraqi Baath leaders in Syria that are maintaining the violence. Another approach would be to allow Shi’a militias to be reactivated. These could be used to guard main thoroughfares and squares in Baghdad, as well as being deployed along major transportation arteries. They could be paid for their efforts: in the past they have consisted largely of unemployed young men. Of course, they would not be the best of troops. But they might do as well as, and be able to supplement usefully, the police forces that are now the weakest reed in the election protection effort. These two measures, along with the already occurring increase in American forces, could conceivably bring the violence down immediately before and during an election held in April instead of January.

The discussion of the apparent ability of the Republican Party in the last election to capture the “values” issue has confused and alarmed many democrats. Slowly most Democrats are coming to realize that in fact the election was not won on the basis of the adherence of voter’s to “family values”. It probably had much more to do with a perception that George W. Bush was more of a leader. (Now, dear Democratic reader, set aside your own visceral reactions to the President. The important issue here is what the average voter thought. Bush seemed more decisive. So he makes mistakes, but don’t we all.) In fact, in state and local elections the Democrats came out slightly ahead of the Republicans.

What is most curious about the discussion is this insistence on the importance of “family values” when speaking within a political context. As far as politics are concerned, the important values are not family, but “community” or “civil”. Those involved in political affairs at the national level have traditionally assumed that the issues appropriate to families are within the purview of individuals or families, and are most appropriately dealt with there. When these values are not up to the task of socializing successive generations, then there is a network of personal or family counselors, religious or secular, to help define and instill family values that alone make this process succeed.

To turn to the issues of Iraq and Afghanistan on which this blog has concentrated, the problem is not that the Iraqis or Afghanis have insufficiently developed “family values”. What they lack is a sense of responsibility and commitment to wider national communities. We will help in these countries in so far as we assist in the development of community and civil values, even sometimes at the expense of family values.

Political systems exist because there is a need for a mechanism or institution to deal with common issues that go beyond what individuals and families can do acting separately. This concept that there is a higher community interest is what makes it imperative that all people pay their taxes, vote in elections, respect the laws of their community and nation, and serve on juries when called upon. It is also imperative that the community, or in the large, the nation-state, considerable the welfare of all its members, all its citizens, and when they see they are in need of better security, better health services, or better schools, that they pool together community resources to provide these. In recent years, this common responsibility, this set of community values, has been most commonly espoused by the Democratic Party. This is why this is the party that believes in the strengthening of welfare, educational, environmental, and health systems that benefit all people and all generations — even if this requires repealing tax cuts, thereby increasing over the short-term the “pain” of a few.

When the nation-state is no longer the appropriate institution to deal with issues that transcend its borders, then other mechanisms and institutions must be developed to deal with issues on the trans-national level. That is why we have the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations, and a plethora of other international bodies. These are imperfect institutions, but they are increasingly necessary institutions, and the development of more encompassing community and civil values are the only ways in which we will as the human community be able eventually to make these institutions serve the purposes of all. This is why the Democratic Party believes that the United States should play a responsible leadership role in the growth of the institutions of the World Community, even if this means compromising at times the absolute sovereignty of the American state.

Much of what is said here would not go over well with all constituencies in the United States. But it is the responsibility of Democrats to define what they stand for, to define the values that lie behind the policies they applaud. Only then can they embark on the great educational effort that any campaign, political or otherwise, requires.

In today’s Op-Ed, Thomas Friedman takes a highly realistic, but somewhat questionable view of what we are about in Iraq. He essentially says that the freedom we are bringing the Iraqis is the freedom to kill one another if they wish to. He argues that what we have now is Iraq is a civil war. Essentially our job now is to get through the election so that we might transfer the full job of fighting the civil war to the Iraqis where it belongs. If the Iraqis cannot put together a civil compact that will allow them to end the war, then God help them. We do not have the responsibility of staying until they are up to the task — which may be never.

Friedman asks "What kind of a majority are the Iraqi Shiites ready to be — a tolerant and inclusive one, or an intolerant and exclusive one? What kind of a minority do the Iraqi Sunnis intend to be — rebellious and separatist, or loyal and sharing?" Unfortunately, these questions already have their answers. Neither side, nor the Kurds to the side, will be all that idealistic. If we rely on their kindness and good faith, the game is lost. How they will view the pros and cons of not so promising alternatives is another matter, one that Friedman does not go into.

But this raises the question again, "By What Right Did We Launch This War"? If as Friedman says, the Iraqis did not want liberation in our sense, and if we cannot make them want it, then what was a achievable goal that made the war worth it to the Iraqi people and the Americans? Yes, Saddam was terrible. He killed lots of Iraqis, he held them down. But within this shell many lived reasonably successful lives. We had it in our power to keep Saddam away from weapons of mass destruction and improving marginally the standard of living of average Iraqis. It would have cost less for all concerned. We should make these calculations again when we are faced with a similar temptation to end tyranny. (By the way, I believe life in North Korea is a good deal worse than that in Saddam's Iraq. So here we go again. . . )

This morning's paper tells us that 325 non-Iraqis have been captured in Iraq. It goes on to say that these persons are not considered by the American Government to be "protected persons" under the Geneva Conventions. It is proposed and assumed that they will be warehoused in yet another Guantanamo-like detention facility. Leaving aside the torture and mistreatment that has been reported at these facilities, the continuation of the Guantanamo approach leads to some alarming consequences. (For readers who wish to go into this discussion at greater length, consider the following excellent discussion produced by the International Committee of the Red Cross.)

The United States is playing fast and loose with the definitions and standards that have been developed through the Geneva Conventions and international practice. In fact, there is no category of persons that are assumed by the Conventions to be completely "not protected". What has been done is suggest that there are no protections for captured persons who are not engaged in lawful combat but yet acting against our interests in a war situation. These include spies, military or not, civilians casually attacking our forces or interests, or combatants not in uniform or under the organized control of an opposing army. A lawful combatant is one fighting us in a normal military situation. An unlawful combatant is one attacking us outside those parameters. The Geneva Conventions do assume that an unlawful combatant is not imprisoned in the same manner as a regular soldier. His care is not subject to the same standards. And, unlike a normal Prisoner of war", he is subject to trial for his actions, often a military trial. During World War II, the United States captured some German saboteurs landed by a Uboat. They were tried and executed. The Supreme Court affirmed our right to do so, and it is this precedent that has been used to justify recent governmental actions against unlawful warriors.

There are two problems with the approach. First, because the persons captured are not regular prisoners of war, international law does not thereby give us carte blanche to do anything we wish. International rules against torture and the mistreatment of persons in custody still apply. Second, persons detained outside the normal rules for prisoners of war have the right to a trial. There is no right to indefinite incarceration without trial in either American or international law.

The American government argues that in a world of terrorists, the whole world is the battlefield. Therefore, it would be most imprudent to allow persons suspected of being terrorists back onto this new field of battle. There is some justice in this argument. Yet it conflicts with the opinion of much of the watching world that believes that persons innocent of any provable violent actions should not be jailed indefinitely without access to lawyers and due process. The fact that the U.S. government appears to agree with this position if the person is an American citizen appears to support the international view. American citizens in Guantanamo are being given lawyers and trials, if slowly and reluctantly.

In spite of the antipathy of the Administration and, unfortunately, a large part of the American public, to international institutions, the eventual solution to this problem must come through the development of international means of processing the cases of these persons. This may require a new kind of court and new kinds of international detention facilities. It may also mean that some persons are let out into the world to commit more mayhem. But our system of justice allows this to happen frequently with those processed by our courts. And the alternative of not treating this running sore in international relations, and maintaining ever-growing facilities incarcerating persons whose crimes have never been adjudicated, may be a much worse alternative.

Whatever happens, the opponents of American policy in this regard, whether domestic or foreign, need to get beyond just criticizing what is occurring and start working toward a resolution of what is a real problem.

The interviews with the two French journalists who were held for several months by the Islamic Army of Iraq is enlightening. They seem to be a mixed group of Baathists, former army and Jihadists with some training in Afghanistan. They claimed they were not the same group as Zarqawi's, but that they worked with them at times. The reporters noted that their captors seem well supplied with both money and weapons. They were amazed at how easily their captors seemed to be able to move through the countryside and towns both north and south of Baghdad. They were not all bin Ladenists, but some were. And their objectives are similar to his, except for the particular Iraqi aspects. Their captives saw bin Laden as wanting to overthrow the Egyptian and Saudi regimes, defeat the Americans in Iraq, drive a wedge between the United States and Europe, recreate an Arab Caliphate (remember the last Caliphate was actually Turkish), and carry out a long-term war with the West, but a war seen as essentially defensive.

Two pieces on today’s Op-Ed page continue to hammer away at what the authors assume to be the foolishness of holding the election this month. The general argument believed by many in the American opposition (including unfortunately Brezezinski) see our policy misguided partly because they assume that it will inevitably lead to a theological state, possibly one dominated by Iran. For regular readers here, I do not need to argue this issue again: a Shiite controlled state is not necessarily a theocracy. I do, however, believe that the Kurds will not allow this to happen in any event. Their leaders are quite secularist and would find such a state cramping, even if not theological.

A more serious argument against moving doggedly ahead is put forward to Larry Diamond, an old friend who had a part in the early arrangements for a democracy program in Iraq. Larry believes that an essential mistake was the idea to have only one district with proportional voting. He claims that he and many fellow experts on democracy opposed this. The decision came in part from the UN, but perhaps Bremer had a part in it. It was argued at the time that trying to divide the country into districts would be too time consuming and lead to too many political squabbles (which noticing what happens in the U.S. does not seem unlikely). There also was a desire by the Shi'a leadership to have many overseas voters, a desire hard to fulfill in a the country newly divided into geographical election districts.

What Diamond brings to the discussion that is new is the fact that many Sunni groups have been meeting regularly to develop a common strategy for getting the election postponed. One of their planks is to try to get the single district approach rescinded so that geographical representation based on districts might be instituted. They feel that if the election planners could do this, then after several months districts would have been created and voting could proceed district by district. In this case, the Sunni districts would receive the representation that the government records would show that they should get and not the representation given by a light vote. (That is, if Baghdad had 20% of the population but only 10% of the vote, it would still receive representation as though it had 20% of the vote with the geographical district approach.) He claims that the main Sunni leaders have agreed that if the voting is postponed for a few months and the districts established, then they will rescind their call for a boycott of the election. If all this is true, he makes a good case. Now we have to see if Allawi or the Americans currently calling the shots (pardon the expression) in Iraq will listen.

In yesterday's paper, William Powers writes that the failure of the Liberian state offers an opportunity for the international community to mount a long-term assistance program for Liberia at the same time that it permanently preserves the country's unique biological heritage. Most of the world has not realized it, but because of the lack of development, and in spite of the continual fighting among a collection of armed groups, governmental or otherwise, Liberia has managed to preserve a valuable stretch of West African rain forest.

Under his "Peace for Nature" solution (based on the more modest "debt for nature" approach that has been used in several countries), Liberia would agree to convert a large part of the country into a United Nations biosphere reserve, zoned for both strict preservation and multiple use. This would mean a commitment of the international community to at least a 20-year stabilization program that would preserve the peace and educate the people in peace-loving ways. The idea is attractive, but seems naive as presented. If only it was this easy to bring peace to an area.

Yet, perhaps the idea can be built on. The world is facing a crisis of "failed states" that includes Haiti, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly "Congo", then Zaire). There are a number of other possible candidates for this appellation, particularly in Africa. Taking an "environmental imperatives" approach to "failed states" or states with apparently intractable economic or political problems offers opportunities for long-term coordinated international assistance that might otherwise be lacking. The problems that would be addressed by the international guarantors are of two quite different kinds. First, in states such as Liberia and Congo, the program would be based on establishing large, internationally protected conservation areas, with high-return development activities concentrated in relatively small areas (what in the suburbs we refer to as "clustering" or "conservation zoning"). Second, the whole of states such as Haiti and Nauru would be defined as "environmental reclamation areas". Here the international community as well as many international private agencies would undertake to rebuild the country environmentally, socially, and politically.

After seeing "Hotel Rwanda" yesterday I was reminded of the situation of the Sunni Arabs in Iraq. With not more than 20% of the population, they have traditionally been the rulers of the area, a position magnified by Saddam Hussein, especially after the Gulf War. The assumption is that with the upcoming election the Sunni Arabs will lose this preeminence; the Shi'as are set to play the major role in the future. Given this judgment, the continuing violence of the Sunni Arab community (both Jihadist and secular Baath) would seem to be a hopeless attempt to reverse history. The Sunni Arabs do not see it that way, and there are many historical reasons not to agree with them.

Rwanda was traditionally ruled by the Tutsi with about 14% of the population. They ruled over the other 85% who were classified as Hutu. Supposedly the Belgian colonialists benefited through accepting this arrangement, but it is an error to imagine they created it. In 1959, three years before formal independence from Belgium, the Hutus revolted, killing and displacing Hutus. When Rwanda became independent, it was easy for them to cement their ascendancy through elections. During the next 30 years, they continued to press their advantage, killing thousands of Tutsi and driving hundreds of thousands out. By 1990, Paul Kagame had organized Tutsi refugees in Uganda into an army and invaded Rwanda. Peace agreements held for a few months, but they were followed by renewed hostilities in 1991 and 1992. A more enduring peace was then bartered with the help of a small U.N. force. Yet during the next two years Hutu extremists organized thousands into popular militias and instigated a hate campaign on the premise that all Tutsi deserved to be killed. They used the radio to help organize and recruit adherents. Then in 1994, the death of the Hutu President in a plane crash was blamed by the extremists on the Tutsi. This was used as an excuse to start a well-planned extermination campaign that between April and July 1994 killed over 800,000 Tutsi, as well as many thousand Hutu "traitors". This genocide led the Tutsi refugee army along the border to start a new offensive. In a couple of months they had conquered the country and driven out the army and the Hutu militia along with two million civilian Hutus (most of whom have since returned). Paul Kagame and his party easily won elections in 2000 and 2003, which I doubt were free and fair. But why should they be? They no doubt feel they have earned the right to once again rule over the Hutu.

The lesson I take from this is that popular majorities, such as the Shi'a, even when they are able to organize militias such as al-Sadr's "Mahdi Army", may be no match for more highly motivated, organized, and confident majorities such as the Sunni Arab community. Leading a few thousand people who believed they have the right to rule and are used to ruling, Paul Kagame was able to overcome a much larger majority community with both a national army and a large militia. The Sunni Arabs on the basis of their actions against American and Iraqi governmental forces may well be another minority community that cannot be denied (unless we stay permanently). It is true that they will be largely shut out in the upcoming election. But the leaders of the resistance know that and welcome it. They know that democracy is not the route that they can take to reestablish their community's power. It is rather through the better organization and institutionalization of their community that they can once more rise to the top. They may have a good shot at success.

In North Carolina, General Vines is training 10,000 military advisors for Iraq. He wants to teach them about Islam, and so has assembled a group of books that they are all to read before they leave. Unfortunately, among these books is Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Huntington is a well-known Harvard professor and his recent work in this area has led to a great deal of commentary. The General certainly cannot be faulted for assigning such a book. However, assigning it is misguided, and along with a number of other recent writings by those who claim to be knowledgeable on Islam and what we are facing is likely to have a pernicious effect — particularly because of its Harvard origin.

In the book, Huntington predicted that the 21st century would be characterized by violent struggle between the civilization that had dominated the 20th century and those that were now rising up to challenge it. He particularly saw the Sinic and the Islamic as potential foes. Wars between Western Civilization and Islam, for example, were seen as all but inevitable. His predictions regarding the struggle of Western and Islamic civilizations has particularly struck observers because of the events of the last few years.

The problems with the Huntington analysis are many. First, "a civilization" is an arbitrary category difficult to define in space or time. The term was developed primarily to apply to ancient civilizations that at least had the terminological advantage of being separated more clearly in space and time than is the case today. Secondly, Huntington reads history in terms of the struggle of civilizations. A better way to read history would be to recognize that most wars were actually within civilizations, or along the periphery of civilizations against less civilized peoples (for example the story of how "the West" represented primarily by Rome moved northward to incorporate the British Isles and Scandinavia into its sphere). World Wars I, for example, was primarily within Western Civilization, with the rest of the world bit players. Third, at any one time, the peoples that are loosely lumped together as belonging to civilization X or Y are often quite diverse, speaking a variety of languages, believing in a variety of religions, and living on many different economic levels. Fourth, whatever may have been the situation in the past, today the leading sectors of all so-called civilizations are actually living more within the confines and assumptions of Western Civilization than those of their own. Paul, the manager of Hotel Rwanda, for example, did not take part in the massacre of Tutsis because he had culturally moved beyond that level. To him the calls to action by the radical Hutus were nothing but dangerous nonsense. People such as Paul are much more common in leading circles outside central Africa than they were in Rwanda. The leaders of many Muslim states are Muslims in little more than name. They hold on to their traditions just as many educated Christians or Hindus hold on to their traditions. But these traditions are not determinative of their actions in the real world. Even in Iran, a country often held up as an example of an implacable enemy, recent visitors find that the people in the street are more pro-American than anti-American. Certainly the lives they lead would be unrecognizable to the Ayatollah Khomeini. In Iraq, our main enemies are actually former Baath officers, representing a distinctly secular and anti-religious movement that only uses Islamic slogans to gain nationalistic support. The Kurds are under secular leadership. Surprisingly, the Shiites that are our best allies in the run-up to the election are also the community in Iraq with the best religious credentials.

This being the case, we should not be letting our soldiers be indoctrinated with the idea that Muslims are irrevocably against us by virtue of the fact they belong to another "civilization". Kipling said in another age that "never the twain shall meet", but in our age, they are meeting, they are living together, they are moving to America, becoming professionals, establishing relations with their relatives in Iraq. The vast majority of Muslims everywhere are individuals, pursuing individual goals, moving about, getting connected, going on line, and spending very little time thinking about how to destroy Americans.

The fact there is an al-Qaida that does want to attack us because they think we interfere too much in Islamic countries must be recognized and dealt with. We should realize there are many people who have adopted their ideas. But if we consider how little has really happened in the United States since 9/11, we might begin to appreciate the fact that the millions of Muslims in this country, even when mistreated by overzealous immigration and security personnel, are not about to sign up for a holy war. Some no doubt are, but so few that Bin Ladin has been unable to put them together long enough to carry out the continual series of attacks that he has promised and that alone should change the way we approach the world.

As the days toward the upcoming election drag on, we hear a steady drumbeat of reported assassinations, roadside bombs, attacks on police stations, attacks on anyone in any way connected to the election. Yet we also read of the continuing hope of the Iraqi people that the election will mean something. Seven to eight million are expected to vote in the country, another million overseas. It is now estimated that 2/3 of the people of Baghdad will participate. Half of these are expected to vote for secular parties; half for religious. Perhaps a million overseas Iraqis are registering at considerable expense and expected to vote. Among the overseas, there are few reports of killings or fears. Particularly in the United States, the Iraqis seem happy to have the opportunity. Fear does not stalk the community. For Americans, used to a soft, carefree life in the suburbs, it seems inconceivable that the potential Iraqi voters in Iraq could be this blasé about the dangers, so ready to face the possibility of death from unknown enemies. Candidates are campaigning, if only in secret. They are assisted by the fact that voters are voting for parties rather than individuals, thereby reducing candidate exposure. In the toughest areas they have decided to have registration and voting occur at the same time to reduce the exposure of the voters before election day.

My belief is that the vote will take place on January 30; in most of the country it will be a success; the Shi’a candidates will win overwhelmingly, but they will not be a unified force within the parliament; Sunni Arab and Kurdish leaders will be given a role in the resulting government. After this God only knows. It may all break apart again. Elections are by no means the end of the game. We can only hope that we can with a little urging from the new government find a graceful exit.

If this is pulled off, some heroes in heroic organizations need to be recognized. In Iraq, it is the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq and their thousands of employees working with the assistance of the United Nations. Outside Iraq, it is the International Organization for Migration, a group associated with the United Nations that has done a phenomenal job in just a few weeks. And again back in Iraq, it is the more than a thousand candidates that have allowed their names to be put on party lists, and finally it is the millions of individual voters willing to take a chance on democracy. I know, talking this way sounds too much like George, but we have to be prepared to admit that his foolish faith appears at this moment to be not entirely foolish.

Another way to look at this is to think back on the story in today’s paper of Iraqis coming as far as 900 miles to register in Nashville, only to have to come back another 900 miles in two weeks to vote. And think about their hopeful and relaxed attitude. One can draw two obvious conclusions. First, the Iraqi insurgency is extremely weak in the Iraqi community in the United States, so weak as to hardly make their opposition to the election known. Second, the international “enemy”, the al-Qaida that does have its supporters in Iraq has not been able to make much progress in extending its operations to this country. There is still the possibility of a couple of al-Qaida spectaculars in America (the inauguration is an obvious time of danger), but even if these are brought off, the American public can be reassured by the easy-going confidence of the Iraqis amongst us that the country is not a honeycomb of Islamic cells planning our destruction. If they are here, they are few and scattered, with limited long-term capacity.

Yesterday’s optimism surrounding the election discussion needs to be corrected in several regards.

First, the idea that there were going to be a million Iraqis voting outside the country was apparently wildly off. By today’s figures it appears the election board will be lucky to get 100,000. This changes the picture considerably. Does it mean that overseas Iraqis are uninterested? Does it mean there has been coercion in overseas communities? Does it mean that election organization (for example with only five places to register in the United States) was massively inadequate? I do not know.

Secondly, there seems to be a darker mood in Iraq than I was reporting. An Iraqi government official says that if not enough people vote (apparently he means Sunni Arabs), it is likely to lead to civil war. A U.S. intelligence report sees a great deal of violence after the election. The report also considers the probability of civil war to be substantial. At the same time, reports are that the Shiite parties are posed to demand from the Americans a time table for leaving after the election. Condoleezza Rice and other American officials say that there can be no time table. It depends on how well the Iraqis do in establishing their own security forces. Here, too, there is much dissension. Condi tells the Senate that we now have 120,000 trained Iraqi security forces; Senator Biden says that we are lucky if we have 4000. And so it goes.

What to do about China?

Zhao Ziyang, the head of the Communist Party of China in the 1980s, fell from favor with the real leaders of the country in 1989 because he favored treating the students demonstrating in Tiananmen Square less harshly. Since then he has been under house arrest and seldom allowed to be mentioned. Now he has died. His death has hardly been acknowledged, obituaries are not allowed, eulogies are erased from web sites and chat rooms in so far as the authorities can get to them. A private memorial is being allowed, but no one important can come. His long-time aide has been prevented from leaving his house to attend.

This is the China that much of the world is trumpeting as the coming leader of Asia and perhaps the world. This is the China where an amazing percent of consumer products consumed in the West are now being manufactured. This is the China where economic growth is supposed to be laying the basis for a transition to democracy. But life in China seems so far from democracy. Its leaders thumb their noses at demands for more civil freedoms, let alone political. The Western media are quick to criticize Putin’s Russia, but Russia today has far more freedom than China. The totalitarian practice of erasing history, of creating nonbeings, is no longer practiced there.

How do we get a handle on the problem of China? How do we help China become part of modern civilization before it gets any more powerful? I do not know. But we could begin by taking down a few bridges, by emphasizing the differences between Taiwan and China, and by reducing our interest in trade, free or otherwise.

If this election succeeds at all in the most challenged provinces it will be a true miracle. I hope the Bush team has his staff praying hard. 90,000 election kits are being sent out to 5500 polling places in the next few days. 200,000 poll workers have been trained. Each polling place consists of a room with a variety of tables that each person must come by. When it is over, the workers will sit down and count the votes, shipping the results (and the ballots?) to Baghdad over the next few days. Now each voter has to have his finger marked with a special dye that will last at least a week. This all in a country in which major roads even in the better areas are seldom safe, and where the insurgency has claimed that voters are traitors to the country and/or Islam. If you had seen insurgents active in your area, would you go to the polling stations? Would you take the chance that someone might stop you and demand to see your finger? One hopes that Iraqis are made of sterner stuff than you or I.

Richard Clarke of Congressional Hearing fame was the leading person in the war against terrorism before 2002. His book, now more than a year old, tells of his struggles within several administrations to get them to listen to him and his friends, a cabal within government that was obsessed with the danger to the country of terrorists, and particularly of Ussama bin Ladin and al-Qaida. He got further with the Clinton people than he did with the Bush, even though he was for a time allowed to continue his work alongside Bush's National Security Council. Bush's people never took him or his ideas seriously. There were many reasons, but one important one was that they simply did not accept ideas or issues or approaches that they associated with the Clinton years.

He is a harsh critics of many of the entrenched persons and approaches of the FBI and CIA, as well as the too predictable reactions of the Pentagon and the military brass. Many heroes from these agencies shine through the narrative, but the overall picture is negative. The CIA and the FBI and their subdivisions remain more interested in turf than in the national interest. The Homeland Security Department was a failure from the beginning: poorly planned, poorly staffed, given impossible jobs with no additional money and very little time to accomplish its objectives. His harshest criticism is of those in the Administration who came into office determined to conquer Iraq no matter what. For them, 9/11 was a handy excuse. This may have not been the case with Bush himself, but he sees Bush as an essentially unfocused figurehead unwilling to really try to understand anything. Our conquest and continued involvement in Iraq has enflamed the Islamic world and trained a new generation of terrorists much as the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan did. The reader has probably heard these opinions of Clarke from the news media and his appearances before Congress. On the negative side, in the book he appears self-interested, conceited, cocksure of everything. He no doubt overinflates his importance at critical junctures in the story. One might not like working with Clarke, but fundamentally he means well, is very knowledgeable, and should be listed to.

He believes the country should be spending a great deal more on homeland security than it does. Even the first responders have been starved for funds (NYPD had to reduce its police force after 9/11). New intelligence resources, even a new analytic agency should be developed, preferably separate from the CIA and the FBI, but possible housed within the latter. Someone has to deal intelligently with the intelligence stream and no one is! He would like to see us spend more on the propaganda wars, doing the kind of things that we managed to do in the cold war in our struggle against communism. He is a little too sanguine about efforts to reform Islam from the outside, but he is more helpful when he agrees with Anonymous on the necessity of modifying our actions in the Middle East in a way that will reduce hatred.

His identifies the countries we should be targeting in the region as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. He considers Iran to have been and be much more important in the support of terrorism (Hezbollah especially) and the development of nuclear weapons than Iraq. This does not mean that we should invade Iran. It means that we should take it more seriously through an approach that would work both with the present leadership and work to replace that leadership. He agrees with Friedman (today's Op-Ed) that Iran has a large number of pro-Americans. We have to help them create a democratic state. But we must do it in a way that does not seem to make Iranian students into CIA agents. I agree, but it is a difficult proposition..

As hard as it may be for the many doubters of President Bush’s poorly planned adventure in Iraq to believe it, it appears now as though the election may come off reasonably well and that the aftermath will not be a disaster.

This last week apparently attacks tapered off. This is not much help to those still being killed, but it is a good sign. I assume violence will intensify again, with a crescendo on the actual voting days.

While all this takes place, Iraqi politicians are moving in surprisingly positive directions. The leaders of the top Shi’a parties have announced that if they win, they do not intend to set up a religious government of any kind. There will be no “turbans” in government positions. They intend to establish a secular state because that is what they feel the people of Iraq really want. This state will not require women to cover up as is the case in so many other Islamic states. These statements go considerably beyond what Sistani has suggested before. They seem aimed at pleasing the Sunni Arabs (who partly for nationalist reasons fear an Iranian state), the Kurds who have developed a quite secular way of life in their enclave and do not want to lose that, and of course the Americans who have all along feared the Ayatollahs taking over a la Iran (in spite of the assurances by such as Juan Cole that this is not what the Shi’as want). Now we should be careful. It almost seems too good to be true. We must remember that Khomeini was believed at first to want such a relatively secular state too. His first Prime Minister was a member of the old liberal opposition to the Shah. But this did not last long. Just a thought.

In the Sunni Arab community, some leaders are continuing to stand for election while others say their followers will not vote. However, most of them say that they will in any event have a hand in writing the Constitution. In other words, they are not rejecting the process of movement toward a new state that is to occupy 2005. How they will participate, and whether they will be satisfied with their part is another question.

With the possibility of an amicable development of relations among the major groups in Iraq it seems to me that thought should be given to developing a federal system. As readers will remember, I have always insisted that the Kurds should be allowed to have a state of their own. But without American support this seems unlikely.

A fallback position has always been strong autonomy for the Kurds within the new Iraq. Curiously, the interim constitution states that if any three provinces do not accept the constitution (meaning the amount of autonomy granted to the three) then the new constitution will be invalid. This clause was put into the constitution to satisfy the Kurds with their three provinces. But now it appears that the Sunni Arabs have noted that they dominate another three provinces, and that this clause also gives them a veto.

I would think that a good solution would be to have four regional governments, each with considerable autonomy. These would be the Sunni Arab provinces north and west of Baghdad, the Kurdish provinces in the Northeast, Baghdad itself, and the rest in a large Shi’a province in the center or south. (They may want more, so why not.) Regional governments are always in danger of being crushed by the center or flying off into independent states. So it is how to know how this would play out in the end. But there is a lot of inter-group hostility in the country and this might be a way to assuage it. The hardest problem would be to figure out what to do with the Peshmurga, the very strong militia that the Kurds count on to defend their interests. The Kurds would feel mighty exposed without it. But how would this fit into the new scheme of things?

The Bush doctrine as developed in his Inaugural Address on January 20 was a remarkable statement of his approach to the world. In many ways it mirrored long held beliefs of Americans. But it some ways it fell short of outlining the path to a free and peaceful world that he believed he was describing.

The first problem is that he does not go beyond the false assumption behind his policy and the thinking of many commentators that America is hated and attacked because the attackers live in tyrannies. As has been discussed here frequently, writers such as “Anonymous” and Clarke argue convincingly that it is because of American policy, particularly in regard to Israel and Saudi Arabia, that we were attacked. There is little suggestion in the speech that we are going to change our policies in these regards.

Another problem with the Bush doctrine is that it defines “freedom” primarily as democracy. It is true that “self-government” is mentioned, but this generally seems to be interpreted as the development of a democratic system for established states. The reason to make this point is that the Wilson doctrine which Bush has echoed concentrated on “self-determination for all”. This led to the breaking up of states, particularly in Europe. Wilson felt that all peoples should be able to govern themselves. He evidently also believed that peoples given this right would inevitably develop democracy, which unfortunately many did not (or their democracies soon collapsed). There is no hint in Bush’s statement or in the conduct of our foreign policy during his administration that we are going to stand up for the many peoples around the world that are struggling for self-government, whether or not this means democracy. This includes the Tibetans, the Uighurs, the Chechens, the Kurds, the people of West Irian and the Acheh in northern Sumatra or the people of Darfur. It includes many peoples scattered across Africa that never asked to be put into the states they now find themselves in. One doubts that Bush will move to “free” these peoples.

Confining himself to existing states, then, does Bush really mean that he is going to tell the leaders of the Gulf Sheikhdoms, of Saudi Arabia, China, Pakistan, and so many other states with which we and or allies have developed a modus vivendi that they must change into democracies? No, he does not mean this. He means to say that we cannot have good relations with any state that does not treat its people “decently”. This is a good human rights standard with which few can quarrel.

Words have consequences, especially when they are American words. An expert on Iran argued that the reason the Shah caved into the opposition in the late 1970s, a retreat that led directly to Khomeini, was that the Iranians had listened President Carter’s affirmation of human rights, a affirmation that led the opposition (originally liberals) to believe they could test the regime as they had never before. If the same thing were to happen in Pakistan or China or Saudi Arabia, the outcome might not be what we would like. It also might not support the expansion of freedom in the long run.

My conclusion is that the speech was a surprisingly good statement of ideals. But using the forum that he did, it was perhaps too blunt, too likely to be misinterpreted. Once given, we must step back a little and tread lightly into the free new world.

The Department of Defense has let it be known that for some time it has been taking a direct role in the gathering of intelligence in front line situations such as Afghanistan and Iraq. The newspapers point out that this is part of a long-running turf battle between the CIA and the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency). It seems to me that what Defense is doing makes sense. If we have troops in an area, then the intelligence service most closely related to those troops should be the one that has responsibility for intelligence gathering for those troops. Ideally, each part of our defensive establishment, whether it be special forces or homeland security, whatever unit is meant to act offensively or defensively should be directly connected to an intelligence capability. The situation is quite different for strategic intelligence. Here the CIA and the Department of State’s intelligence bureau should be the main sources of intelligence. For in this case the intelligence gathered should go to the top and then back down to the action agencies.

Last night Juan Cole and another expert on the Lehrer news show suggested that the election would be a success if more than 40% of eligible voters participated (in the range of the “success” of the recent Palestinian vote). Considering the fact that at least half the Shiites and most of the Kurds are outside the violent areas, this suggestion seemed encouraging. The percentages that might be imagined are: 65% of Kurds (or 12% of total), 60% of half of the Shiites (or 20% of total) and 30% of half of Shiites (12% of total) and 10% of Sunni Arabs (or 2% of total). This should add up to a total vote of 46%. I expect that well less than a third of the potential “overseas vote” will actually come in. However, in my own calculations this doesn't mean much. There simply were too few polling places in most countries (5 in the United States for example). In spite of heroic efforts most people could not make this effort.

My hopes were raised when I noted that the areas of violence in Baghdad had greatly declined in Sadr City over previous months while holding the same in the rest of the city. However, by today’s paper we learn that al-Sadr’s lieutenants are telling their people not to vote (even though some of the Mahdi Army are on the lists). This strikes quite a blow at my confidence. So we will see. Generally these things turn out better than expected.

If the election is widely viewed as a failure, then there will be a demand on the American home front that we leave (the insurgents have this right).

Whatever results Sunday brings, many will be forced once again to do their moral calculus. Was it worth it? This has been the question throughout human history. Sometimes it clearly was not. World War I with its terrible slaughter of young men on both sides did not advance any human cause very far. World War II and the Civil War, on the other hand, are more complicated.

The immediate answers depend on who you are and where, on your fate and that of those closest to you. Some people in Iraq would take any chance, give up everything, even their own lives to get back at Saddam for what he did to them or their families. Others feel the same about the Americans. But neither of these feelings make a war “worth it” unless there is a real improvement in the lives of those who come afterwards. President Bush tells the Iraqi people that a broad and wonderful future is opening in front of them. Some believe it, especially it appears those Iraqis who live outside the country. But that American soldier’s family in Iowa, does it believe it? Do they care that much that the Iraqis have a chance to build a freer society? Were they willing to sacrifice their son? Is not the President pursuing the goals of a grand plan over the bodies of ordinary people who have not been adequately consulted? How does America conduct foreign policy in a world in which sometimes people will be killed on both sides without adequate consultation?

In spite of a great deal of sniping by some commentators (such as Herbert in the NY Times and Juan Cole in his excellent blog), the election in Iraq was a great occasion for Bush, for the Middle East, and for the Iraqi people. The defenses held. People went into the streets, and they voted. The heroism of people in much of the country was truly astounding — voting as the mortars went off in the background.

The most amazing renunciation, the one that got us to this point, was the order of the Ayatollah Sistani to his followers to not fight back when they were attacked. The result was that several insurgent attempts to ignite sectarian war got no where at all. The other was his order to all Shi’a to vote, an order that in Baghdad seemed to override the last minute attempt of some in the Mahdi Army to discourage voting.

Of course, we do not yet know the particulars. In some areas many Sunni Arabs voted; in others very few did. The statement of that overall 60% voted is subject to modification. It may well be much less. But it will certainly turn out to be more than 40%, which was the “success” figure some had indicated. It was true that many people had a confused ideas of what they were voting for. But the fact they did not know individuals seems beside the point. They knew of the lists, and seemed remarkably able to distinguish among hundreds of lists. Many of the voters did not want to be seen as Shi’a or Sunni: they were Iraqis and voted as Iraqis. Of course, these distinctions are important, but I think that foreigners in an attempt to make sense of what they are seeing sometimes do overemphasize such differences. Many Iraqis, especially in the major cities, are secular. They want a secular society and care less for these divisions. Perhaps the most important fact was that Arab television in the days before the election and on election day turned its attention to the election, reporting it in full and sometimes with positive commentary.

By the middle of February the results should be sorted out. Then the new Assembly will be established. Lots of bridges must be crossed. But I suspect that before the Assembly is established, the heart will have gone out of the insurgency. It will go on, but decline in intensity. The new government will feel more confident than the one it replaces. The people will feel more confident, and with that the Iraqi governmental forces. I suspect that in the new euphoria there may well be calls for the United States to work out a withdrawal time table.

The tough times for Iraq’s democracy will come when the United States is largely out and the groups begin fighting among themselves (which may include Shi’a versus Shi’a). Many peoples are not good at compromise and compromise is the most essential attribute of democracy.

Yesterday Peter Galbraith wrote an impassioned plea for an essentially autonomous Kurdistan. Today Leslie Gelb follows it up with a less clear but nevertheless supporting case for a constitution that writes in a large role for the Kurds. This has been something that Galbraith (sometimes with Gelb) has been promoting for a long time. It seems to go back to his experience in Yugoslavia where the country was blown apart because it could not accommodate such ethno-nationalist longings.

Galbraith was one of the first to blow the whistle on the use of chemical weapons against the Kurds. He has worked on the problems of East Timor as well as Iraq and Yugoslavia and is now associated with an institution committed to the struggle against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. He has lately been mounting quite a campaign. One of his arguments for Iraq is that our other more pressing security concerns, such as that relating to nuclear proliferation, compels us to rapidly develop a viable exit policy (See article in the New York Review of Books here in which he writes: “From my experience in the Balkans, I feel strongly that it is impossible to preserve the unity of a democratic state where people in a geographically defined region almost unanimously do not want to be part of that state.”

His thesis now is that the American government has been keeping their head in the sand on this one. They do not want there to be a Kurd problem, so are willing to accept the sweet nothings that Kurdish leaders feed them. Yet the old head of the Kurdish mountaineers, Massoud Barzani, said in an election day interview that “I am certain that there will be an independent Kurdistan and I hope to see it in my lifetime.” It is most reporters on the ground that the Kurdish people as a whole have no use for Iraq. Much of their area does not even fly the Iraq flag. It only adds fuel to the fire that the worst mistake in Sunday’s election appears to have been the failure to deliver about 200,000 ballots to prospective Kurdish voters in the north.

Galbraith curiously seems unwilling to draw the final conclusion from his analysis. He wants the United States to insist on a constitution that gives the Kurds great autonomy within an Iraqi state. This is just what he knows has not worked in these situations. Now the world faces even the splitting off of Montenegro from Serbia, one of the two last acts in the miniaturization of Serbia.

It seems to me that while we struggle with different federal solutions, we should be making a parallel effort to convince all the states in the region that an independent, democratic Kurdistan is better than a festering sore like Northern Ireland, the Tamil resistance in Sri Lanka, or the Basque provinces of Spain. It should also be pointed out that it will reduce the relative size of Iraq by 20% and reduce the size of their economy (presuming the Kurds get all or part of the Kirkuk fields). It will also mean that secularism will dominate politics in an area adjacent to Turkey, which will serve one of the main needs of the Turkish military that fears more than the Kurds the growing militancy of Islam in the region.

At a minimum, we should be sure that we never end up training or even leading troops that are dispatched by Baghdad to put down a Kurdish resistance. We should also abandon the idea of establishing a permanent Middle Eastern military base in Kurdistan, a dream floated back at the beginning of this adventure. In extremis, we could and should provide an aerial cover for Kurdistan, much as we did in the Saddam days, if at some future point this becomes necessary.

The recently reported speech of an American General in San Diego that sometimes it was just fun to shoot people has received the usual warning from generals higher up in the command structure, as well as a great deal of negative public commentary. However, what anyone who values humanity and morality must realize is that many people in our military service, the police at all levels in this country, and those employed in local, state, and federal prisons have a vicious streak that is only with difficulty kept under control. This is widely understood, and even sometimes applauded by the general public. While the media were tut tuting about the treatment of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, as well as similar behavior in other restraining areas set up to assist our “war against terrorism”, I have heard ordinary people with no military connection say, in effect, “they had it coming to them”, “this happens in war” etc.

As a civilized society we must try to reduce such events on three fronts. First, we must of course enter into any war with great reluctance, be prepared to finish it quickly, and to return any prisoners we may have to their societies. Sheer time in the field and length of contact is one of the greatest culprits. Secondly, we must make clear by example that the American government respects international agreements meant to reduce unnecessary killing and brutality in war. This commitment must be communicated down the chain of command, and to all those services such as the CIA that also employ violence. This has not been adequately done. Officers higher up the command structure, civilian or military, must be held responsible for lapses and punished adequately.

Finally, we must make it clear to the American people that the abusing of people in custody, whether in a military or civilian setting is a serious crime. Allowing the International Court to have jurisdiction over Americans would help bring home the lesson. But baring this, we must improve the means by which we employ and keep employed persons in police or prison work within the United States. I realize that these are not jobs most people want. But I also realize that in many communities these are positions that run in families and characterize certain subcommunities. It is in these that the most unfortunate attitudes toward the “other” are passed on from older to younger until a culture develops in which almost anything goes. This was, in fact, one of the aspects of what happened at Abu Ghraib. More must be done to break this cycle, to reform such subcultures, perhaps even to exclude people with certain backgrounds from such work.

An Op-Ed in Friday’s Times discusses in detail the lack of medical services at the Abu Ghraib prison. This was not an occasional or early-on problem. It was a day in and day out problem over a period of months. It turns out that the medical people accepted the idea of putting a leash on some of the more psychotic prisoners because they had no psychologist to prescribe antipsychotic drugs and they lacked the usual restraining devices. More generally, the prison hospital lacked basic supplies. It often ran out of intravenous fluids and even had a dentist do a heart surgery. When they ran out of the standard blood sugar tests, they simply guessed the right dose of insulin from the appearance of the patients.

This is only the latest chapter in a long history of Pentagon incompetence attending the Iraq adventure. It started back when the SecDef told his people to ignore the State Department’s well thought out plan for what to do after the invasion. This led to confusion in planning at the start. After one poorly planned false start on the civilian side, Bremer was brought in to run the show. One of his first actions was to disband the Iraqi Army and dismiss all people from leading positions in the civil service that had Baath Party connections. Since in Saddam’s Iraq nearly everyone with any education worked for the government, this meant that the best and the brightest and well as hundreds of thousands of less well endowed were suddenly out of work. It also meant that a large part of the populace understood their pensions to be cancelled. This disenfranchised group became the heart of the insurgency and has remained so.

Lack of planning, of thinking through what might happen, led to a more general inability to imagine any problems after attaining a quick victory. The most critical mistake was to underestimate the force that was needed in the field (several generals had this right but no one was listening: Rumsfeld’s light and nimble modern army was the fashion of the day). This led to sending insufficient forces to Iraq. This meant in the first instance that the thin forces that had to hold Baghdad initially had neither the ability nor the orders to protect the country’s archaeological heritage from looting — even though looting on a smaller scale had accompanied the first Gulf War. Lack of adequate planning also included the failure to provide body armor for many soldiers in the field. This led to many people raising money in the States to purchase body armor for their soldiers. Poor planning and inadequate forces in the field led to a massive failure to secure ammunition storage sites throughout the country. It is true these were more numerous than anyone expected, but still when the military learned of the existence of unsecured major sites, many continued to be left unguarded. Even in recent months, we have been told again and again that the vehicles used to transport our military have not been armed adequately — this more than a year after we learned from experience the insurgency’s widespread use of roadside bombs. Even today, one notes in photographs from the front that vehicles often have jury-rigged armor plates bolted on to them.

These massive failures of planning and inability to respond to what was happening in the field should be investigated in full by the military forces, the Pentagon, and Congress. An honest evaluation and accounting may require waiting until a new Administration comes into office. It may not. There are several top Republicans very concerned about the record. As a result of the bungling, many Americans and Iraqis have unnecessarily lost their lives. The war has been unnecessarily drawn out. It has been unnecessarily costly. Before such incompetence is confronted and remedies are carried out, we should never again take off on such an adventure, no matter how appealing it might seem. Let’s put our dreams in quarantine until we are prepared to fully accept their costs and implications.

Today's paper describes a process of reorientation in Japanese strategic thinking. For many years Japan has seen itself as a junior and most pacific (no pun) partner of the United States in world affairs. Later, with the Japanese "miracle" that made it the second power economically in the world, Japan began to assert itself more. But this assertion took the form of seeing itself as an Asian power that could develop a more many-sided relationship with the world. This meant in the first place better relations with China. However, within a few years the Japanese leaders began to realize that China would soon pass them up, becoming the dominant power in Asia if not the world. Admiration of China began to change to fear of China (except for the business class that often sees things only in terms of a corporate pocketbook). The Japanese have also begun to resent the fact that the Chinese government continues to support, even perhaps instigate, Japan-bashing whenever sports teams or other peaceful missions visit China. The Japanese feel it is past time for the Chinese to still treat them as their WWII enemy.

So Japan has apparently decided to revivify their military and diplomatic relationships with the United States. Coincidentally, there is a strange pro-Korean cultural movement in Japan. Taken together, we may be able to glimpse the outlines of a new set of alliances forged by the rapid rise of China economically. One can hope that in coming out of its isolation Japan will also develop stronger ties with Russia and India ("the enemy of my enemy is my friend").

The problem for the world is a serious one. China represents a fourth of the world. It is growing at a great rate, but growing without the democratic, human rights, or environmental disciplines that have been incorporated into the development process elsewhere (yes, even in the United States). As it stands, China is the one country the United States does not have a clue as to how it will contain in the 21st century. Experts can talk all they want of "deterrence", but I suspect the Chinese have more usable deterrence now than we have - and ABM is not going to change that equation much.

Against the major threat of the USSR, we used NATO, an alliance of advanced states that taken together made our power seem much more credible. If not an explicit alliance, we will need something like NATO, perhaps based on Japan, in the environs of China. In this kind of environment, China can more acceptable grow and meld into an international system of states responding to similar economic and popular trends. Without such an environment, its leaders are likely to become too obsessed with their own power, provoking in turn obsessions in other states with the danger of China, an interplay of reactions that could have disastrous consequences for all.

In an Op-Ed entitled "The Human Rights Case Against Attacking Iran" Shirin Ebadi and Hadi Ghaemi, two Iranians much concerned with human rights in Iran argue that attacking Iran would be a major setback for human rights in the country because it would make its human rights campaigners appear to be traitors to the general Iranian public. It is easy to understand their case. One does not know, of course, whether they are writing this because they or their coworkers are still in Iran. The reason for the Op-Ed might then be a form of both personal and movement self-defense. Even if true, this does not make their case illegitimate.

They make the point that there is a lot more human rights activity in Iran even now than Americans suspect. In recent months groups called the Center for the Defense of Human Rights, the Association of Journalists for Freedom of Press, and the Students Association for Human Rights campaigned for the release of journalists and were ultimately successful. Many other indicators of relative freedom in Iran suggest that Ms. Rice's characterization of human rights in Iran as "loathsome", as well as the Freedom House rating of Iran as "6, 6, not free" is simply mistaken. (Freedom House ratings since 1989 have unfortunately reflected the interests of the American government as much as the degrees of freedom being reported.) Iran is clearly not less free than Egypt, Azerbaijan or many other states rated more highly. It is surely not to be compared to Congo (Kinshasa).

I believe that the writers' concerns about an American invasion are not justified at present. Yet the talk and bluster that has been addressed to this issue in the United States in the last year may in itself damage the human rights cause in Iran.

This raises the question of just what the United States can effectively do to change human rights behavior in another country. When that country is as powerful and self-assured as China seems to be today, the answer may be "not very much". When a country is relatively weak, the human rights problems sufficiently egregious, and the rest of the world agrees with us, then quite a lot can be accomplished, as in East Timor, the Balkans, or Afghanistan (let us not judge Iraq yet for just a bit). But in these cases military interference or threat was realistic, effective, and relatively cost-free for those concerned. This is obviously not the case for Iran. The case of the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellite empire brings up another set of issues. This seems to have been an implosion that in my judgment was caused by both economic failure over many years and the rejection of the system by the intellectual classes on which its legitimacy was ultimately based. Outside news sources and contacts played a part, operating on Soviet opinion over a very long period, but evolution within the USSR was probably the most critical factor. It was a cultural shift. It should be noted that in those successor states that were least affected by contact with "the West", such as the Central Asian Republics, human rights is at least as poor today as it was under the Soviets (except perhaps for religious freedom).

The Soviet example is relevant for Iran, but not completely so. Like the western part of the Soviet Empire, the Iranian intelligentsia and the country's middle class are much affected by Western culture. The number of Iranians educated in the West before Khomeini was much higher than that in the old USSR, and to some degree this tradition continues today. However, economically Iran continues to do well because of its oil reserves. It is suffering by comparison perhaps, but not suffering in the same way the Soviet peoples were. Moreover, the support of the present Iranian regime is not based on a secular intelligentsia as in the Soviet world. The basis is rather a religious class able to generate consider grass-roots support among the masses. The young within this religious class are also said to be restless, but to what degree I am not sure. They probably are not the mainstay of the human rights organizations the authors mention.

We need to develop both short and long-term policies for improving human rights in other countries. These need to be tailor made for each situation. They should have both a governmental and a nongovernmental aspect, and by "nongovernmental" I mean a really independent effort such as Amnesty International might be involved in.

An Op-Ed today by Sandra Mackey raises serious issues about the Kurdish intention to incorporate Kirkuk and its extensive oil fields into their new "federal" territory. This is particularly significant in light of a growing Kurdish confidence that they will have a more decisive role in the new Iraq than would have been imagined.

The author points out that in the fifties the Turkmen were the largest ethnic group in Kirkuk while today this position has probably shifted to the Kurds. Their demand that the city and its environs become a part of their sphere is equally resisted by the Turkmen. Behind the demands of the Turkmen is the Turkish state. Turkey has a well-known interest in confining Kurdish territory because of fear that a powerful Kurdistan would re-ignite the demand of the Turkish Kurds, who may make up a fifth of the population of Turkey, for a more independent status. But Mackey also points out that Turkey has never accepted the accession of Kirkuk to the Iraq state, something that was engineered by the British in the 1920s after the Turks felt that their new borders had been established. Thus, they feel they have a right to intervene in Kirkuk that goes beyond the Kurdish issue and their sentimental attachment to folks they feel are like themselves (although whether "Turk" and "Turkmen" are actually the same is unclear to me).

What is particularly problematic for American leaders, military or civilian, is that we have made assurances to the Turks that we will not abandon their interests and allow the Kurds to push forward. Turkey is in NATO and it has stood with us strategically on many issues (although it played hard to get when we wanted to invade Iraq). According to Mackey we have told the Turks we are not going to allow the Kurds to take Kirkuk, and are reinforcing American troops in the area for this very reason. If this is so, then we may find ourselves fighting the only reliable friends we have in Iraq because we have other fish to fry. It will not be a happy ending to our current flirtation with the Kurds and their quite reasonable dreams of at last having a land of their own.

A new study estimates that there are 480 nuclear weapons in American control on bases in Europe. These are said to be relatively small nuclear bombs meant to be carried on fighter bombers. They are the last holdovers from the thousands that America had in Europe when it was facing off against the Soviets. Apparently, in the nineties we said that we would take them all out. Some of our top generals, including our top NATO commander, really doesn't want them there. I assume this is because he sees them as useless in any role he can imagine and keeping control over them vis-à-vis terrorists is a headache he does not need. Yet others in high positions in Europe and one presumes in the United States are loathe to bring them all home. What they are said to want is an ability to quickly launch nuclear weapons against anyone or any country threatening the use of, or using, weapons of mass destruction against the United States or its allies. Of course, we have plenty of nuclear weapons on submarines and so forth, but they are larger and so perhaps considered "less usable".

Meanwhile, we continue to insist that no state other than the existing nuclear powers be allowed to have, or even threaten to have, nuclear weapons. A few favored states have a right to nuclear deterrence, the rest do not. This argument sells well in Washington, but not everywhere. (The French would agree with us on this. They have always loved nuclear weapons and would be the last to give them up. Nuclear power is another one of their favorite causes.)

The problem with nuclear deterrence, or the use that deterrence imagines, is that it is based on politically unusable weapons. There has been a moratorium on nuclear use since World War II. No one really wants to break that moratorium — certainly not in the short time frame suggested by the need to keep these weapons in Europe. Even though the air carried weapons are relatively small, varying in size from a third of a kiloton to over 100 kilotons (Hiroshima 12.5), any use would be bound to be massively destructive at least in limited areas, with radiation effects over a larger area. The political fallout would be hard to predict but likely to be considerable. If the objective were the destruction of something connected with an organization such as al-Qaida, those associated with our target might actually welcome such a demonstration because of its negative consequences even for the countries they are in. If we used our weapons against a country that had actually used W.M.D., it might make more sense, but not that much.

It has long seemed to me that we should be able to develop and make clear to all interested parties our intention to keep on hand a massive non-WMD destructive capacity that would be used as needed against any country actually using WMD. (It could also be used preemptively, but the example of Iraq makes that strategy look rather poor for the time being.) We can, in fact, be massively destructive when we want to be. We also have conventional weapons that can dig below the surface. This capacity was not well demonstrated in Iraq or Afghanistan, but this had more to do with poor targeting than weapon characteristics — and one would not want to count on a nuclear deterrent similarly afflicted by poor targeting. It may be that nuclear deterrence still has some credibility against a country with the size and armament, nuclear and otherwise, of China. But in bargaining or fighting most of the world, backyard terrorists and other evil guys, it seems past time we stopped making nuclear threats and clearly got out of the business.

Richard Posner in an impressive Op-Ed today points out the reasons why the Administration has been unable to fill the position of Director of National Intelligence. Robert gates, the most obvious candidate said no thanks. Posner thinks he knows why. He says that the legislation has been carefully worded so that the new Director will have all the responsibility and none of the power. He is sure to be blamed if there is another al-Qaida spectacular. But he would have been unable to do anything effectively to avoid it.

One of the organizational glitches that Posner points to is that sitting on top of all the other intelligence agencies, the new Director is to have a staff of 500. As he notes, this means that any intelligence that is gathered under the new system will have to make its way through yet another level or two in the bureaucracy, making more than ever the unlikelihood that it will reach the President or anybody else that might do something about it.

As has been argued here often, the bureaucratic changes that are needed are to tie the intelligence more closely to those who might act on the intelligence. Useful intelligence is not something that exists in the ether or in written memos. It is something that real people react to, impelling them to ask for more information, to pin down and verify, and tie together bits of information. But above all it must be connected directly to those who are expected to act on the intelligence. This is why I suggested some posts back that the Pentagon taking over some of the gathering of intelligence in the field from the CIA was a good idea. If Special Forces has units in Afghanistan that need more intelligence on who is who or what dangers are developing around them, they want military units to be doing the work, not persons answering to a different command structure.

Instead of complexifying things with Homeland Security and an overarching National Intelligence Directorate, what we need is a handful of trusted advisors working with the President and Homeland Security whose job it is to be on top of, and actively engaged in, the intelligence work of the FBI, CIA, Pentagon etc, and be able to directly interact with any units of these organizations or others whose job it is to act both passively and aggressively on the basis of such intelligence. This trusted group of advisors would have the responsibility of directly contacting agents in the field organizations of the established intelligence agencies here and abroad, finding out what they know, seeing the areas in which they are deficient, and advising at several levels up to and including the President on how to remedy the deficiencies they have discovered.

The American campaign against the International Criminal Court (ICC) is back in the news. Samantha Power in today's Op-Ed points out that the decision of the international community to try to bring the crimes against humanity committed in the Darfur region of Sudan to the ICC at the Hague is being blocked by a coalition of Sudanese intransigents and American hardliners. She finds this ironic since the United States has been the major power most willing to condemn what Sudan has been doing. However, when it comes to actually making a case against the criminals, it is the United States that insists that a new court be set up somewhere in Africa to handle the case. This is in spite of previous American criticism of the United Nations war crimes tribunal in Tanzania on which such a court would be modeled. Taking the American suggestion would mean a considerable delay in the trial, be more costly, and set up a court with a less adequate and capable staff.

This campaign is being undertaken by the Administration as part of its more general strategy to undermine the ICC in every way possible. We have of course not joined the Court (standing tall with Sudan on this). We have also been going to all the countries with which we have military assistance arrangements, requesting and sometimes demanding that they agree to Bilateral Immunity Agreements. These agreements, of doubtful validity, mean that we and our partner state agree that we and they will not surrender a long list of people (identified by position) to the ICC for trial. Congress has also passed an American Servicemember's Protection Act according to which American forces will only take part in international peacekeeping if there is a prior agreement granting impunity for American peacekeepers. The act even allows the American government to "take all necessary steps" to enforce this impunity if this becomes necessary.

There is an argument that since the United States is the ideological target of many groups around the world, including some members of the United Nations, there is a danger that charges would be brought for specious reasons against American personnel. This is the reason that the Clinton administration also refused to join the court, although without mounting the determined campaign against it of the Bush people. American fears should be eased by the fact that the ICC would not be able to carry out a death sentence no matter what the crime, suggesting thereby that even great miscarriages of justice could be corrected without a disaster for the Americans concerned. Against the rather theoretical likelihood of this actually occurring in a court based in the Hague (Netherlands has supported the Iraq adventure more than much of Europe, and the judges are mostly educated in Western traditions), is the fact that our refusal to take part in the Court and the subsequent campaign against it is going directly against American policy in other respects, such as achieving a world under law. It also makes us few friends. Recently both Senators Biden and McCain have announced that they support our adhering to the ICC agreements. Both want more safeguards, but believe that we should press forward to achieve these so that we can become a part of the process.

The unfortunate reason that lies behind the Administration's intransigence is its desire to play to the prejudices of its base against the United Nations and the small but influential neocon lobby that identifies the United Nations as the enemy of Israel. Millions of Americans actually believe that the United Nations has an army ready and willing to attack the United States and enforce UN law as a replacement to American law. The investigations being carried on in the Congress to undercut Kofi Annan have the same virulently anti-UN origin. (It is too bad the United Nations bureaucracy actually is open to a great deal of criticism). What the United States must eventually realize that while we might be able to rule the world for now, for the longer term we will have to rule with the assistance of others. Our long-term future as the leader of the world has to be as the leader of the United Nations. After some time this role will subtly change to that of a leader of the United Nations. There is actually no other game in town. We must begin now to reestablish our credibility in the UN, help it in the strengthening of its agencies, and then move forward.

The Bush administration has outlined a forceful, even aggressive, initiative aimed at democratizing the world. American resources and patience are no doubt insufficient for the task. Yet to state the thesis at all takes the President beyond the idealism of President Wilson when he strove to create a world of free states. Wilson assumed that newly independent states would develop into bastions of free government. President Bush assumes that the adoption of formal democratic processes by the world’s political systems will necessarily bring freedom to the peoples living under these systems. Like Wilson, the ideal world he imagines will be a world that has transcended war. As proof of this proposition, President Bush often quotes from the latest "finding" of political science: no free people fights another free people.

The most questionable aspect of the proposals of both Wilson and Bush is their unwillingness to face the fact that modern democratic processes, encapsulated in the phrase "free and fair elections" do not bring freedom to communities within established political boundaries where the demographics mean that these communities can never win a "free and fair election". As Ambassador Galbraith has repeatedly pointed out, the Kurds of Iraq have campaigned since before World War I for a state of their own in what is now Iraq . Yet the United States has in the end always turned away, letting them slip again under the domination of the more numerous peoples controlling the lowlands. Galbraith fears that we will once again betray the Kurds.

Yet if we do, we will be consistent with our larger understanding of what the Administration includes and excludes from its concept of "freedom". Washington repeatedly makes tepid attempts to improve the human rights situation in China. But what it does not do is make it clear that the Uighurs, Tibetans, Taiwanese and others caught within what the world accepts as China’s borders have as much right to live in freedom as the Han Chinese.

Africa south of the Sahara is a boiling cauldron of nationalisms. Conventionally, if a colonial power established a border to serve its interests in the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries, then the world community feels that it must avert its eyes from the fact that the resultant "state nationalisms" of countries such as both Congos, Sudan, Somalia, Ivory Coast, even Nigeria are meaningless or even hated by many of those forced to live within artificial borders. India has grown into a beacon for democratic aspirations in the developing world. Yet many peoples along the fringes of India have no more feeling that they are Indians than you or I. Indonesia is a creation of nineteenth century colonialism. We hear much of the long struggle of the Acehnese to have an independent state. Less attention is paid to the peoples of West Irian who have at least as much right to a separate existence as the people granted independence across the border in Papua New Guinea. In fact, the ways of life and languages and religions of the Irianese are much further removed from general Indonesian culture than those of the people of Aceh. Yet in our desire to have good relations with what is now a more or less democratizing Indonesia, we are unlikely to hear many rude suggestions from the Bush Administration relating to the freedom of West Irian.

The administration has been much more forthcoming in its advice to the Russians concerning their problems in Chechnya. Apparently, since we frequently fail to view Russia as an ally in our march to a free and peaceful world, we have a freer scope for expressing our deepest ideals.

Hidden within these lines, there is no argument that the United States and its allies, willing and unwilling, should begin stirring the pot of insurrection in the world’s many diverse hot spots. But there is an argument that in advancing the general and noble cause of freedom for all peoples, we should carefully consider the multitude of remaining questions of unresolved ethnic nationalism. We are not going to achieve a world in which freedom equals democracy equals peace until we address more effectively than we have the challenges posed by the continued existence of peoples forced to live within borders not of their making. For better or worse, these peoples will play an important role in the turmoil of the 21st century.

Yesterday brought an Op-Ed detailing one of the darkest pages of our post-9/11 campaign. This is a program labeled "extraordinary rendition". It consists of secretly capturing people thought to be associated with Islamic terrorists, putting them in special executive jets which are in a service labeled the "Special Removal Unit" and transporting them to countries that agree to extract desired information from them. It is assumed that in these countries, such as Syria and Egypt, methods will be used that are forbidden in the United States itself. An example is given of a person returning to Canada who was intercepted in New York and, handcuffed, sent off to Syria, tortured and interrogated, and eventually returned after the Syrian said he had no information to give. The implication is that this is often repeated process. When added to all the other information about Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, it adds up to a terrible indictment of American behavior against persons given no legal chance for review or complaint. I have no idea whether this information is as reliable as newspaper accounts seem to suggest. But for the purposes of this discussion, let us assume that it is true, or true enough.

The difficulty with the case of the accusers is that they argue that this is all madness, occurring because of the pleasure it imparts to our enforcers, or perhaps simply because the agencies involved can get away with it. Morally the issues would be simple and straight-forward were this actually so. However, it may be that out of every ten cases of this sort that yield unimportant information, there is one from which vital information is extracted. Al-Qaida has not been able to mount a major attack in this country since 9/11 in spite of repeated threats. The general public really has no idea why this is so. One reason may reasonably be thought to be the result of the efforts of the FBI, CIA and other secret agencies since 9/11. If they have prevented another 9/11, then the moral case becomes much murkier.

This analysis reminds me of the arguments that we must go through in regard to capital punishment. It is also reminiscent of arguments about the possession of nuclear weapons, combined with threatening to use them under extreme conditions. We might ask, for example, whether the deterrent maintained against the Soviet Union and they against us during the Cold War was the primary reason that a major nuclear war (which would have eclipsed by several degrees of magnitude World War II) never occurred. Most people in the 1950s assumed it was bound to occur. C.P. Snow famously said in 1958 that if nuclear weapons were not abandoned they would be used in ten years. Today many countries, including North Korea, and by indirection several others, maintain that their only defense against aggression is the threat that they will use nuclears against any attack.

It seems to me that the only way to establish a strong moral case against the use or pretended use of nuclear weapons or the use or employment of torture, however this is arranged, is to say that we, that is the United States, will not employ such tools of policy regardless of what advantages we might get from their employment. We must face the fact that adopting such policies can have major costs, that we will be giving up useful tools. Yet in my mind these risks must be taken if we are to build a more humane world.

The picture we have of North Korea is turned on its head by the internal propagandists of the DPRK. Before we discuss in what respects, readers need to recall that the people of the North are completely barred from receiving any information from the outside. All electronic means of communication, such as radios and televisions (few) are preset to bring in only government stations. The police regularly check to see whether users are altering their equipment to evade this ban. There are essentially no private organizations, schools, or churches in the country. People are not allowed to leave the country. Penalties are severe. If a person is apprehended for evading such laws, he may be tortured and killed, and his entire extended family may be sent to prison for life. (A recent article in the Observer summarizes the more general human rights situation.) Of course, in spite of this, some information gets through. If this were not so, we would not have the phenomenon of thousands risking everything to get across the river into China (and thence if lucky to South Korea). Many have tried this route more than once, thereby providing even more information.

This post is inspired by a recent Op-Ed pointing out that the people in the DPRK are given a propaganda line quite different from that beamed to the outside world. What they hear is not so much that the North is seeking peace while the rest of the world seeks war (the external line), but rather that the rest of the world is scared to death by the power and vigor of the DPRK. Both the envoys of Clinton and Bush are shown in North Korean media as groveling before the representatives of the DPRK, admitting to them that "you are also a mighty superpower". North Korea's representatives are shown receiving food aid from the outside as "atonement" for the crimes of the capitalist states. The North Koreans were certainly not surprised about the recent announcement that the country has nuclear weapons. They have been told for years that they have weapons that can destroy any foreign nation in a day. Propaganda outlets repeatedly show the U.S. Capitol under missile attack. The people are proudly told that DPRK representatives signed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty in 1985 for diplomatic reasons and then "simply ignored it". In a self-congratulatory pose, they have labeled this strategy as "attack diplomacy". Whatever else this means, there is no reason to believe that the North Koreans leave an opening in their own view of the world for meaningful concessions.

We are faced then with even more of a puzzle than we may have thought. In the 1990s after years of famine many experts were writing that the North was about to collapse. The question became what to do when it happened. (Many alternatives did not look too pretty.) Today, there is less talk of this. There have been some economic developments in North Korea in special zones close to the borders using outside money (and even labor — partly because Northerners simply are not well enough educated for a modern work force and partly because the North wants to avoid the ideological infection of having Northerners work alongside people from outside.) The hope is that this investment and opening will eventually change the North. But at the same time, by reducing the seriousness of the economic problems facing Pyongyang, it takes off some of the pressure that might otherwise cause it to break up. There is no way to know if the country actually has a nuclear weapon. By this point in weapon development, most "nuclear states" have had a test that was recorded elsewhere. As far as I know there is no record of a nuclear explosion in North Korea.

Today's paper tells us that the United States is well on its way toward developing a diplomatic strategy meant to strangle the DPRK if it does not cooperate. Many other countries are evidently willing to cooperate with us in this effort. A main area of interest is how to cut off the country's role as a supplier of drugs and arms to world, partly through increasing control over its ability to have banking and exchange facilities available to it. Japan is passing a law that requires all ships to carry liability insurance against spills and other accidents. No DPRK ships have such insurance and may be unable to obtain it. This would severely constrict trade. We are speaking in other venues of a general quarantine, often as related to the unwillingness of North Korea to accept international rules in relation to nuclear weapons. Whatever approach, when another famine occurs, we must be prepared for the same kind of criticism that accompanied similar efforts in regard to Iraq. The trouble with these programs is that absolute governments see to it that the people at the top are not affected, while the millions down below suffer. Yet in my mind, we must develop an action strategy. We say we are not pushing for regime change; perhaps we should be; certainly Pyongyang says we are. The human rights case here is much stronger than in Iraq, and unlike what the actual situation was in Iraq the ticking of the time bomb on the festering sore of this regime is much louder.

What happens if in spite of all this we succeed? If we succeed through a "Prague Spring" scenario, then we and the South can negotiate with the ones who replace the Juche regime. But if the result is civil war between progressive and conservative elements of the regime, and the bulk of the country becomes a revolutionary and humanitarian disaster, then who will come in? Ideally, the South Korean army would come in and reunify the country. They are a tough bunch and there would be brutality, but their invasion might be the best alternative for everyone concerned. South Korea is a modern and democratic country. But just for this reason, would China acquiesce? It invaded once before in the bad old Cold War days. Times have changed. Yet would it want a democratic, potentially much more powerful Korean state on its border? One way to avoid the problem would be with a United Nations force. But this would have to be a large force with a long-term, Bosnia-like mandate, and I do not see the United Nations stepping up to the plate.

The elections results are not that different from what had been predicted. Perhaps 58% of eligible voters voted. The United Iraqi Alliance (Shiite grand alliance promoted by Ayatollah Sistani) received 48%, the Kurdistan Alliance received 26%, and the Iraqi List (non-ethnic, secular, Allawi's party) received 14%. A variety of other parties took the rest. The Kurds did somewhat better than expected simply because a higher percentage of Kurds voted than any other group. The Sunnis did poorly because their voting percentages were so low. In Anbar province west of Baghdad only 2% of eligible voters voted. The only place with significant Sunni voting was probably Baghdad itself. The President, Yawar, a Sunni received 5% of the vote.

The analysis coming out, generally based on Iraqi sources, suggests that the United Iraqi Alliance is going to have to compromise a good deal to be able to govern. It also must be remarked that the Alliance includes groups with widely varying agendas (for example from secular to fundamentalist). It could easily break up.

But what is most worrying this writer is the evident feeling of the Kurds that they won the election. They are demanding that the head of one of their two factions, Talabani, be made President. They are also sure to renew their demand for the Kirkuk area and its oil wealth. Their demands may be justified, but whether or not, it implies that if they are not met, the Kurds will simply pack their bags and draw their own borders for a new state. Not a bad outcome in theory. But if this means real division of the state, it could mean war. The Shiites are likely to fight to retain Kirkuk and a unified country.

Another worrying aspect of what is happening is the fact that the resistance, the insurgency, is still active. Only now it is more than ever concentrating on killing Shiites and Kurds. Americans seem to be less important targets. It is deliberately trying to enflame an ethnic war because it evidently feels it can win on the battlefield. Where this goes I do not know. But all these strands and possibilities are likely to place coalition forces in some nasty and dangerous situations. They do not want to find themselves fighting Kurds or Sunnis, or vice-versa.

The Spanish foreign policy association (FRIDA) has published a short discussion of the structure of the Iranian foreign policy decision-making apparatus, particularly as this relates to the question of nuclear weapons and/or power. It points out that:

"There are several governmental bodies within the Iranian political system with influence over foreign policy design, including 1) the Velayat al Faqih – Spiritual Leader and Chief of State (Khamenei), 2) the President (Khatami) and the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Kharrazi); 3) the National Security Council (headed by Rowhani), 4) the Expediency Discernment Council (headed by Rafsanjani), and 5) the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the Majlis, or Parliament. Furthermore, both the Islamic Revolutionary Guard or Pasdaran and the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance have the ability to influence the decision-making process."

The recent negotiation have been led by Rowhani instead of Kharrazi, reflecting once again the relative weakness of the President and the ministers under him. However, the author suggests that Rowhani is actually representing the "Servers of Reconstruction", which is a party answerable to Rafsanjani. This is a reasonably pragmatic group, even though they, Khomenei, and even Khatami have been forced by events, such as the bellicose statements of Americans and the apparent overflights by American spy planes, to talk a tough line for the benefit of the media.

Khatami's weakness is partially the result of his lame duck status. Elections in June will bring in a new president. He will have completed the maximum of two terms. It is unlikely that anyone more liberal will be elected, unless it be his brother who nominally heads the Islamic Participation Front that brought Khatami to power. A better possibility as far as the nuclear negotiations are concerned might be a return of Rafsanjani to the Presidency. He has more stature than the alternatives and is considered a pragmatist by all concerned. He would have enough status to actually work out a deal with the Europeans and Americans in regard to nuclear energy or weapons that would be less likely to be criticized by Khamenei or the radical Islmists and extremists.

What is notable on a meta level about this analysis is its picture of a relatively open and many-layered Iranian governing system. Although not a fully functioning democracy, this picture is about as far as we can get from what we understand of North Korea. We can and should work with, and respond to, the possibilities. The advice for our policy vis-à-vis North Korea is less clear.

Iran and Syria have grown closer together as American pressure on both countries has increased. It appears, however, that the new strategic alliance just announced between the two countries is hardly new. They maintained this alliance during the Iran-Iraq war although Syria was too weak to really help Iran. They have also worked together in supporting Hezbollah, the Party of God, both to strengthen its role in the multiethnic politics of Lebanon and in the struggle against Israel. It is important to realize that unlike Hamas with its Sunni affiliations, Hezbollah has Shi'a affiliations, hence its support from Iran.

What has not been mentioned recently in the press is the fact that Syria is actually run politically by a heterodox Shiite minority (the Alawites) within the Baath party (originally the same party as that in Iraq). The present ruler and his father, both Assads, have led this faction since the 1970s. The most dramatic event in their rule was the attempt of the Muslim Brotherhood (a Sunni group incidentally related to Hamas) to throw off Alawite rule in 1982. The revolt started in the Sunni stronghold of Hama. Al-Assad decided to put down the revolt in Hama by leveling the city. It is estimated that he killed at least 30,000 people. There have been few attempts at revolt since.

The Alawites, or followers of the Prophet Ali, are related historically to the Ithna Ashariya or twelver sect of Shiism, the sect dominant in Iran and among the Shi'a of Iraq. The Alawites are one of the surviving sects from a splintering of groups in the Middle Ages that also produced the Ismaili of Aga Khan fame and the Druze of Lebanon. Many Muslims regard them as heretics and hardly Muslim (as extremist Sunnis also regard the Ithna Ashariya of Iran and Iraq). But they are actually much more heterodox than traditional Shiites. They seldom attend mosques and often drink wine, even as a ritual. They also preserve Iranian customs such as the celebration of Nowruz (New Years). Like the Baath of Iraq, they are very secularist (which has a better fit with their religious traditions than the Iraqi Baathists who are mostly Sunnis, or at least from Sunni families).

It should therefore not be surprising that the Syrian government, dominated by what is in effect another Shiite sect, should feel an affinity for the Iranians that they may not feel for the rest of the Muslim world. Right now there is an important cleavage (not often mentioned by their leaders) between the conservative, ostensibly highly religious Iranian governing class and the heretical, secular leadership group in Syria. However, if Iran moves in the secular direction a large percentage of its young people would like to see, one can imagine even closer ties between Damascus and Tehran in the future. On the other hand, if democracy actually breaks out in Syria, the Alawites will be thrown out and the relations of the two societies will sour. We shall see.

Latest report is that the Kurds are pressing their advantage very hard. They want to increase their territory considerably beyond the three provinces they controlled under Saddam. They want to keep their peshmerga military and forbid any other military forces from entering their area. They want all ministries of the central government in Kurdistan to be Kurdish, with only loose connections to the central government. They want to be able to veto any taxes that the central government might levy on Kurdistan or their citizens. They want control of the Kirkuk oil fields, etc. etc. More generally, they demand that the federal state organized under the new constitution should be a secular state. The Kurds are demanding that one of their leaders should be the new President of Iraq. If this is not done, they assert, they will feel they are being treated as second-class citizens. Some Shi'a leaders are beginning to say that the Kurds are demanding too much, as well they might say.

Apparently, the Kurds want to be independent in all but name. They do not want the "name" because they fear invasions by the Turks or Iranians who are not likely to allow an independent Kurdistan. The trouble is that the level of regional independence they are demanding is unlikely to work for very long. There are few if any examples of such a loose relationship lasting. The United States before the Civil War and Switzerland before the Sonderbund War of 1847, were not as loose confederations, yet both ended with a war. If a nation cannot exist "half-slave and half-free" perhaps it also cannot exist "half-religious and half-secular".

The logic of the situation if they keep pushing this hard is that the Shi'a will end up with little reason not to have an Islamic state if that is what they want. He may not want it, but with the Kurds living in a world of their own, there will be little in the way of political power to block Ayatollah Sistani from seeing to the writing of a Shi'a-centric constitution. Thus, by demanding separation in most of political life, the Kurds will have cut themselves off from having a role in determining the position of Islam in the state. They will then be even less likely to play a constructive role in Iraq than they are prepared to play now. This downward spiral may lead to a complete breakup and/or Civil War. Meanwhile, the Sunni Arab insurgents, no matter how religious some of them are, will not be drawn into cooperation by the vision of an Iraq even more dominated by Shi'a than it would be if the Kurds played a more active role. Without the peshmerga, the Shi'as and the governmental forces will be less able to fight Sunni insurgents — even assuming all is quiet on the Kurdish border.

What role the United States will or should play in all this is hard to say. Negroponte must be happy he is coming home.

The Iraq expert Juan Cole sums up the election results as follows:

1. United Iraqi Alliance 140 seats 51 percent
2. Kurdish Alliance 75 seats 27 percent
3. Iraqiya (Allawi) 40 seats 14.5 percent
4. Iraqiyyun (Ghazi al-Yawir) 5 seats 1.8 percent
5. Cadres and Chosen (Sadr) 3 seats 1 percent
6. Turkmen National Front 3 seats 1 percent
7. Islamic Action Council (Shiite) 2 seats 0.7 percent
8. Communists 2 seats 0.7 percent
9. Kurdish Islamic Bloc 2 seats 0.7 percent
10. National Democratic Alliance 1 seat 0.3 percent
11. Mesopotamian National (Christian) 1 seat 0.3 percent
12. Welfare and Liberation (Juburi) 1 seat 0.3 percent

A few comments on the list. The United Iraqi Alliance is the group put together by Ayatollah Sistani so that the Shiites could form a united front for the election. Its two main groups are the DAWA (itself divided) and SCIRI. The Iraqi National Congress of Chalabi was included and it may have won ten seats. The members of all these parties were forced largely into exile by Saddam. In the case of SCIRI, they went primarily to Iran and many of its supporters are thought to be, or accused of being, close to the Iranian government. Sistani appears to have wanted to be sure that expatriates did not dominate the result, so reduced the numbers placed near the top of election lists that were from these parties. The result is that even taken together they do not form a majority of the UIA's 140. Another note is that Muqtada al-Sadr played a very complicated role. One the one hand he opposed voting and some of his people still say the election was illegitimate; on another hand, he was given a major share in the UIA's winning list (15 or more); on the third hand, 3 seats went to "Cadres and Chosen", a Sadrist party that may or may not support Muqtada. Iraqiya is a secular party headed by the present PM, Allawi; Iraqiyyun is headed by the present President, Yawir. It is interesting to note that the secular vote was quite large. By and large we can include as secularists the Kurdish Alliance, Allawi's group, the Communists, the Christians, and Chalabi's faction within the UIA. There are surely others within the lists of the winners, particularly women. This means fifty percent or more of those elected (275) may well be secularists.

What Cole in his latest posting finds hard to understand is why Jaafari from the Dawa has not been acclaimed yet by the UIA as its consensus candidate for PM. Chalabi's candidacy still seems to have a chance and Cole finds this surprising. In fact, earlier on, Cole said that Chalabi had no chance. (Cole always downplays Chalabi and apparently hates him.) One reason he adduces for Jaafari's failure to win by acclamation is that by law 46 of the UIA seats had to be given to women and women are very suspicious of anything that sounds like what went on in Iran. Chalabi may be able to pick up as supporters many of the women, the Kurdish Islamic Bloc (Shiite) and, strangely, the seats won by Muqtada (strangely, because he is the most fundamentalist of the Shi'as).

With the Sunni Arabs and the Kurds lying in wait in the wings as the Shiites try to work out their candidate for Prime Minister, the end result, and even more what the end result portends, is far from clear.

Yesterday's newspaper offered some sobering information on the state of the insurgency. A Brooking's Institute analysis of the state of the war, regularly updated with new information, shows that in most economic, opinion, and casualty measures, there has been remarkably little gain. Of course, this is looking at January as the last data entry point and so fails to record much that is relevant about the election period and its immediate aftermath. Nevertheless, fuel availability and electricity supply have declined over the last few months. Iraqi civilian casualties have gone up. The percentage of Iraqis wanting the Americans to withdraw quickly has gone up while optimism has gone down (again this does not reflect the election results adequately). The only remarkable improvements have been in consumer items such as increases in telephone subscribers and car traffic. There has been a modest increase in the estimate of the number of actually effective Iraqi security forces. Yet the number of insurgent leaders still at large has declined only slightly.

This analysis dovetails with another report in the same paper that the insurgency has changed its focus. Concentration is now on destroying infrastructure, especially water and electricity, in Baghdad and its environs. They are striking simultaneously at so many points that it is hard for the government to keep up. All agree theirs is a markedly successful and well-planned effort, probably advised by Saddam's former officials in these sectors. Defense against this kind of attack is notably difficult and the government and American side seem somewhat confused as to how to respond. In addition to these strikes, the suicide bomb campaign now focuses mainly on Shiites, particularly those frequenting mosques. This is apparently the work of the Jihadists, intent on starting a religious war which they are sure they would win. The simultaneous reduction in attacks on Americans probably results in part from the fact that casualties taken in such actions take too high a toll on insurgent forces.

The insurgency appears to be bankrolled, and in part directed, from Syria. Most of the Jihadists recruited in Europe, especially for suicide missions, appear to come through Syria. Now we have an opportunity, especially after the revulsion in much of the world at the Lebanese bombing, and the relatively good international press leading up an elected Iraqi government, to press the Syrians much harder. More pressure should be put on them to effectively close their borders, and arrest or expel from the country those persons helping support the insurgency. The funds of the insurgents now residing in Syrian banks could also be frozen.

In today's paper, Kristof again attacks what he calls the genocide in Darfur, a province of western Sudan. He shows pictures and tells us again that as a country we must respond. He briefly lists what he calls the "technical answers", including trial of the leaders at the International Court at the Hague, sanctions against Sudan, freezing the assets of Sudanese leaders etc. But he argues that what we need to stop the genocide is not technical solutions but "indignation", an answer that he apparently expects to be expressed through letters to Congressmen.

My feeling is that no matter how terrible the crimes, indignation won't get us very far if we do not have an effective solution in mind. The problem in Rwanda was not just that the world was inattentive, but that Western leaders were understandably hesitant to start off on open-ended adventures in Africa, no matter how grounded and funded. It is significant that the problems in Rwanda were largely resolved only after Tutsi forces were able to retake the country. Serious fighting and crime continues across the border in the Congo (with perhaps more victims than in Darfur), but the level in Rwanda itself is acceptable. The international presence that has been established in Congo is insufficient to accomplish much; the troops sent in are so undisciplined that they have themselves become part of the problem.

This suggests to me that we must build solutions wherever possible around identifying a local actor and going with it, even if the actor is not perfect either morally or organizationally.

We should remember the Kurds we protected in their mountains in the 1990s with the no-fly zone and the Albanians we protected largely through the use of air power. Using such examples, we need to develop a set of strategies, accompanied by the identification of the necessary forces and matériel, that would be able to provide rapid protection to areas such as Darfur. In Kurdistan, our support worked because we stuck to our policy and the Kurds had enough forces on the ground to uphold their end. The Darfur independence movements are more doubtful. But they have been in the field for some years and they have a direct and real interest in the outcome. We should make a decision to both support them and protect them, with the commitment of no more than minimal American force on the ground. Use of air power here is difficult because of the distances, but relatively easy because of the lack of cover in the relatively treeless area. The "protection" would extend to the considerable international charitable work that is being carried on today in Darfur and Chad under very difficult conditions. Ideally, we would intervene with the assistance of NATO, the United Nations or the African Union. But the fact is these potential allies have a poor track record of actually doing anything. African forces are in Darfur now, but they are not doing much.

First, we would hope to stabilize the situation. Then we would food and medical assistance and local development reach a sustainable poverty level. The goal in the long run would be a vote for independence under outside supervision somewhat as happened in East Timor. To move forward effectively, we would need to mend or maintain fences with the larger African and Arab world. Their leaders condemn actions against an African state or a Muslim state etc. Our job would be to simply point out to them the gravity of the situation, reiterating that everyone affected is both African and Muslim (unlike what was happening in Southern Sudan).

One should note that we should regularly draw clear policy distinctions between situations that "deserve" outside intervention because of the gravity of the crimes against the people. The Taliban invited our intervention by their record, even leaving aside 9/11. In a sense Saddam did deserve what he got. Certainly the leaders of North Korea will deserve whatever happens to them. (The feckless leaders of the Congos deserve intervention but not for the same reasons.) We should make clear that only a very high level of inhumane behavior will cause the United States to intervene. (This certainly does not include situations like that in Iran. Iran's leaders are not torturing and killing en masse or willfully neglecting the interests of their people.) We need by our actions and pronouncements over a period of years to develop these distinctions, so that when we need the world leaders to believe what we say our purposes are when we intervene, enough of them will.

Almost inadvertently Bush has become the "democracy president", or perhaps better "the world campaign for democracy president". He has done more to harm than help the fundamental concepts and assumptions of democracy in this country. Yet he strides the international stage as the great hero of democratization. It is an inadvertent role because without 9/11 the small group of neocons in the White House that loom so large today would not have played a major role in his administration, except perhaps for a part in strengthening the pro-Israeli inclinations of the government.

After 9/11, Bush managed with the help of local warlords to drive the Taliban into a minor role in Afghanistan. The new government in Kabul is not firmly in power, but it has done well in the circumstances and Karzai has been legitimately elected President. In Iraq, at great cost to all concerned Bush has managed to bring the country out from under the control of a monstrous dictatorship, hold elections, and proceed on a road toward democracy. There may be many ruts still to navigate in this road. But so far we and the great majority of the Iraqi people are moving forward.

He has used this motion, and the reverberations of his own simplistic rhetoric, to expand his goals to the democratization of the Middle East, and beyond that to the democratization of the world. He goes, for example, to Europe to mend fences with his insulted and recalcitrant allies and the even more difficult Russians. He succeeds in some measure. But beyond this he makes the theme of his trip support for democratization, with an appeal to the Europeans to join with him. He then lectures Putin on the ways in which he has not lived up to the democratic ideals that he expects to characterize European states. He ties this discussion together in a way that suggests that Putin and Russia should be accepted as full-fledged participants in Europe if they do live up to these ideals. He has developed an approach to foreign aid to the underdeveloped world that is meant to reward countries that control corruption and move in a democratic direction. (Of course, he includes in his definition of democracy a "free market" and other shibboleths of his ideology.)

In the Middle East, reports from many countries indicate that the hatred engendered by the attack on Iraq has been partly replaced by growing interest in democratic reforms in many countries. Saudi Arabia has held local elections, a small step but an important one for them. The Palestinians have held the most democratic election in their history. And relations between Palestine and Israel are again on an upswing. In Lebanon, the assassination of a leader has led to a massive movement bent on restoring democracy to the country. This morning we read that Rice has refused to attend a planned meeting in Egypt because of the recent jailing of an Egyptian opposition leader. Gestures such as this will play well in much of the region, inspiring hope that American rhetoric is more than simply propaganda.

The emerging reality is that President Bush could go down in history as the American who democratized the world. If so, his performance will echo that of Reagan, for like Reagan he has been disparaged by the knowledgeable for his foolishness and his ideological blinders. With all these failings, and perhaps partly because of them, he accomplished great things on the world stage (taking the principal steps that led to the dissolution of the USSR). If we do begin a sustainable movement toward universal democracy under Bush, it will confuse and infuriate many Democrats, including myself. How can the actions of such a simpleton, such a liar, a person who misled the American people and tried to mislead the world end up benefiting humankind? Perhaps we better let the future sort this out.

A major reason for Bush's success is the fact that we are more than most Americans realize actually the only superpower, the only state that the rest of the world needs to take seriously. The leading states of the past seem pretty feckless today. On the shore of the Atlantic, some of them have put together Europe, which is good for them, but the effort has sapped their international energies. Japan is still a great economic power, but beyond that it carries little weight. The comers, China, and later India, have not yet reached the point where they can have competitive influence on the international stage. Thus, Bush and his successors may continue for some years to be able to make peoples everywhere respond to their every word. Carried forward responsibly, an era under our hegemony could be good for all peoples. But this era will have continuity only if we can maintain the basis at home that makes it possible. If the Administration fails to live up to its financial, economic, and social responsibilities, a crisis of confidence will spread at home and abroad. If the home base of this great superpower falters because of a combination of debt and inadequate spending, its overseas adventures and marvels may wither as the base that makes them possible shrinks.

Reading in Kenneth Pollock's excellent account of Iranian-American relations, The Persian Puzzle, and considering the account of the situation in Basra in a recent piece by George Packer in the The New Yorker I have come to realize there is another picture of American-Iranian relations than that I have expressed previously here. This one is painted in much darker colors, and has as its ground the fact that even Iran under the Pahlevis imagined itself to be a temporarily poor state that deserved to be a great power.

Long before al-Qaida declared war on America, identifying it as the enemy of Islam, Tehran had declared its own war against us. Their thinking derived from many sources, including a common Iranian misapprehension of America's attempts to influence events in Iran after World War II, an Iranian sense of thwarted greatness, and a bitter Islamic hatred of everything non-Islamic. This stance was perpetuated after the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, the person who had most deeply held these views and who had used these views as a key basis for his own power. In the jihadist mythology, America and Israel were identified, and both were labeled crusaders much as Bin Ladin was to do later. They saw America as attempting with the help of Israel to conquer all the Middle East; they saw Iran as the only country that could stand in their way. This line was perpetuated by people around Khomenei, the religious successor to Khomeini as the great leader or Faqih. Only by hewing carefully to the popular "Imam's line" could they establish their credentials to rule, because they did not have adequate religious credentials on their own.

Conceiving themselves to be in a state of war since the hostage crisis in Tehran, Iran has made a persistent effort to export its revolution throughout the area. It supported terrorism in Lebanon and Israel, and across the world even in Buenos Aires where Iranian agents made two major attacks on the Jewish community. Tehran has been the major supporter of the Hizbollah based in Lebanon, as well as a major supporter of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. It was evidently behind the killing of Israeli leaders that scuttled the peace process in the 1990s, because Iran saw the peace process as aggression against Islam. In some aspects of this effort Iran and Syria have been allies, in other aspects, not. Tehran had a hand in the attacks on Marines in Lebanon that led us to remove our forces in the 1980s, and was responsible for the explosion at the Khobar barracks in Saudi Arabia that killed many Americans.

Iran understood the Iraq-Iran War of the 1980s to be engineered by the United States with the hope of crushing the Islamic Revolution in Iran. They believed that America's accidental shooting down of a civilian airliner in the Gulf toward the end of that war (during a brief period when Tehran was throwing away its navy in a hopeless attempt to drive us from the Gulf) as a deliberate act. They saw America's abandonment of the Shiites at the end of the Gulf War as another attempt to deny Shi'as the chance to extend their revolution to Iraq. Recent Iranian actions in Iraq have not seemed particularly aggressive. However, it must be remembered that the Iranians have believed since the hostage crisis that the United States was looking for any excuse it might find to invade and punish Iran. Realizing the disparity in military force, it has talked tough when it felt it could, but calmed down when military forces seemed to be getting too close. As long as we are in Iraq, it is likely to adopt a moderate stance to the political process there. But this could change if the opportunity presents itself. It is reasonable to understand their efforts in Iraq as another chapter in what they view as their long-term struggle against the United States.

Packer's piece in the New Yorker, combined with other accounts. suggests that Iran's hands-off policy may change at any time. According to Packer, the British have allowed the Iranians and their money to flow freely across the border, setting up political and quasi-military units throughout the area. They have begun to enforce more stringent social behavior on the civilian population in the manner of the Taliban (although with much less stringent rules). Many of these Iranian efforts have not been well received by the locals. But yet the Shiite combined ticket won overwhelmingly in Basra. Even though it was put together by the quietist Sistani (originally from Iran himself), the leaders of the two major parties and even their armed militias spent the last years of the Saddam regime in Iran. Muqtada's Mahdi Army may or may not be pro-Iranian, but we know that another element on this combined ticket was put together by Chalabi, the one-time American favorite who was later accused by the Americans of passing information to the Iranians. He recently bought a house outside Tehran.

Iranians and the current Shi'a leaders of Iran have a deep sense of history. What is now Iraq was a central part of the Iranian Sassanian dynasty. The Shi'as are a "new" part of Iranian history. They forcibly converted Iran in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Gradually, with Iranian help, the Shi'a increased in Iraq until by the time it came under the British control, they formed a majority. The centers of Shi'ism are in Iraq, but the heart of Shi'ism is in Iran. The Iranians may well feel they are entitled to play a major, if not an occupying role in the country, and the Sunni Arabs may be the only ones who can stop them. Stay tuned.

As readers of this blog know, I have often pointed to the reality and even desirability of a Kurdish state emerging from today's Iraq. There are many problems with this scenario, including the opposition of the United States, the opposition of neighboring states, and the likelihood that a Kurdish attempt to create a new state might plunge Iraq into a possibly interminable war.

Now along comes James Glanz of the New York Times with a long piece on Basra and the new south in the "News in Review" section of this Sunday's edition. One does not know whether to take Glanz seriously or not. It is worrisome that the New Yorker piece mentioned in the last posting on the situation in Basra has almost no overlap with the Glanz discussion. Let's remember this, but leave it for now.

Glanz paints a picture of a newly emerging sense of community consciousness in Basra, and beyond that of the south. Many of the people here, he writes, want to have their own place in the world and forget Baghdad. He says that the new southerners imagine three different versions of a separate south. The first, the one most appealing to the powers that be in Basra (or what he sees as the powers that be, largely rich merchants I believe), is essentially a city state based on Basra and its surroundings. Their model would be Singapore with a little bit of Las Vegas thrown in (apparently some years back Basra was the casino playground for the rich of the Gulf). The largest southern state that he maps out would include Karbala and Najaf, essentially all the overwhelmingly Shi'a parts of Iraq. Another version would be a compromise between these two.

The economic base for such a new configuration appears promising. Some of the larger international companies, such as Kellogg, Brown, and Root are moving their operations to Basra. They find the atmosphere more accommodating, and appreciate the less anti-foreign and more open attitude. Basra also sees itself as a part of the Gulf. One interesting aspect is that the head of the Shaykhi Shiites is resident in Basra, making another tie with the Gulf countries that also have many Shaykhi communities.

(It should be noted that the Shaykhis are another interesting component of the patchwork that is Iraq. Like most Iraqi and Iranian Shiites, they are ithna ashariya or twelvers, but unlike the others they believe in attaining spiritual knowledge through intuition rather than rationalization from texts. It was the Shaykhis that laid the groundwork for the emergence of the Bab in the nineteenth century, and the Bab was the forerunner of Bahaiullah, the founder of Bahaism that has its world headquarters in Israel. For most Muslims, Bahais are heretics and persecuted as such. Turning to another aspect of the patchwork, the tribes of Iraq overlap everything else. They are composed of sections with different religious allegiances, and even overlap with the Kurds. Tribal leaders are the ones who can guarantee your personal safety if you are in trouble, not the religious leaders. I have also seen little discussion of the Yezidis in the news. Their religious beliefs have Islamic, Zoroastrian, and pagan aspects. Several thousand Kurds are Yezidis. Apparently some modern secular Kurdish leaders looking for another basis for differentiation see Yezidiism as the true Kurdish religion. We could go on and on. There are many different Christian groups, an array of Sufi orders within the Muslim community etc.)

What is exciting to me about the idea of a Shiite state in the south is that this would take the pressure off the Kurds. It would mean that a peaceful reformation of the country might be possible with a Sunni-Shi'a, largely secular state centered on Baghdad, a secular Kurdish state in the north, and a Shi'a, but not necessarily theocratic, state in the South. All would get what they really want, and no major group would feel it was being unfairly dominated by another. The biggest sticking point might be the division of the oil resources, for these are not uniformly distributed. If the Kurds do get the Kirkuk area in the end, then I believe the new Iraq centered on Baghdad would be the state with the least oil.

All this offers a new vision. Whether there is any reality in it remains to be seen.

In "the Persian Puzzle", mentioned here before, Pollock concludes that the most serious crisis facing the United States in its Iran Policy is the danger that Iran will become a nuclear power soon unless we act expeditiously. He rates the likelihood of the Iranians becoming a nuclear power in the near future very high. After going over the history of efforts to control the Iranian program, and outside efforts of influence the political process in Iran for this and other reasons, Pollock comes to several conclusions. First, the Europeans and the rest of the world are unlikely to step up to the plate with effective action through the IAEA, Security Council etc. They have shown by past behavior that they are more interested in trade than anything else. Second, the only really good way to end the standoff would be for a new government to come to power in Tehran. But as a policy solution this has two subproblems. First, we do not know how we could effectively cause governmental change. The Persians have such a pervasive suspicion of the United States that anything we might try would be likely to have more negative than positive consequences. Any attempt to support antigovernment or "liberal" forces in Iran would undermine their position, tarnishing their reputation, and perhaps causing their execution. The second subproblem, related to this one, is that a new, non-theocratic Iran might be as interested in nuclear weapons as the theocratic — as the example of the shah suggests. Third, invasion would be too dangerous, and we lack the capability to undertake such an effort in the near future. Attacks directly on the nuclear facilities, either by the United States or Israel, would be more feasible. But we would find ourselves quite alone, we would make the enmity of the Iranians even greater than it is now, we would cause the Iranians to enter into a no holds barred terror campaign against us, and we might fail to destroy enough of their program to accomplish our objectives. These considerations lead him to suggest a complex policy containing both carrots and sticks, attempts to change of regime without direct intervention, and so on. He does not have much faith in this complex policy, one essentially woven from the pieces of the other alternatives.

After this rather dark discussion, Pollock concludes with a discussion of how we might live with a nuclear Iran. He points out that we have learned to live with the other nuclear states. Iran claims that it wants the bomb for deterrence, primarily deterrence of the United States, and there is little reason to doubt this at this point. Once they had the weapon there objectives could change, but his judgment is that for the foreseeable future we would be able to deter any Iranian ambitions to aggressively use their deterrent. I find this cold comfort, particularly since proliferation is unlikely to stop with Iran.

To my thinking the best way to stop Iran would be to stop North Korea. States can give up nuclear programs, even weapons. We have seen this for South Africa, Libya, and several of the former republics of the Soviet Union. If we forcibly brought North Korea's program to an end, Iran might well see that it was in its interest to follow the same path. As Pollock suggests, while the world would condemn an invasion, or preemptive strike, on Iran, it would be much more willing to accept such actions against North Korea, just as it went along with our destruction of the Taliban. North Korea has a truly terrible regime that has been responsible for the death, torture, and starvation of hundreds of thousands of its own people. Its leaders are unpredictable and dangerous. To consider such action we must unfortunately wait until things have settled down in the Middle East, thus freeing up our military resources. We must also gain the confidence and cooperation of South Korea, a country whose people have a strange love-hate relationship with the north. Their opposition is also based on the fact that Seoul and a large percentage of South Korea's population is within range of North Korean guns, even without nuclear weapons. Before any attack, we might need to evacuate a large area of the South. Yet if we are serious about stopping proliferation, and this is the greatest short-term danger the world faces, we need to take effective action somewhere, preferable against a state that for other reasons should be brought down.

We have tried diplomacy with North Korea with even less success than Iran. But instead of a massive attack against North Korea's forces or nuclear facilities, we might combine threats with a campaign of subversion, an approach that Pollock rightly thinks would be counterproductive for Iran. Subversion would not be counterproductive against the DPRK because there is no reason to think that we would be weakening antigovernment elements in the regime or society. As far as the outside world knows, there are no groups allowed to exist in the North that are in any way antigovernment. We would have little to lose if a policy of regime change failed. Many North Koreans seem to know in spite of the news blackout that their government is unusually repressive. The number of people willing to take the risks associated with escape to China across the river remains high no matter how ferociously the government tries to block their escape. Last April's train explosion near the Chinese border was probably a serious attempt to kill the Kim Jong-il. This suggests that a campaign of this sort could just start something that we could fan into a change of regime that would obviate the need for a major attack.

Pollock's account of the repeated problems in the tortuous relations of the United States and Iran is softened somewhat by reference to the cooperation of Iran with the United States during its recent Middle Eastern adventures. Tehran both hated and feared the Taliban and were glad to see it brought down. They hated with an even greater intensity Saddam Hussein for the disastrous war he had waged against them. Even before our attack in Afghanistan, Iran had urged more help for the Northern Alliance, a group of warlords that they themselves helped considerably before and during the conflict. They provided logistical support for our efforts, even basing for our planes early on. In Iraq they have made a major effort to control their friends in Iraq to prevent their fighting the Americans. What they apparently want in Iraq is a state free of Hussein and under Shi'ah control. They do not expect a theocracy such as they have, but do expect a much more friendly and less threatening state, a state that will once again allow the easy movement of Shi'a in and out of the country.

Given this general picture, Pollock also points to some problems. The main problem stems from the fact that Iran evidently has a large and effective clandestine service operating in both countries. During the Afghan campaign, their units began to take an active role in many parts of the country. The United States had to sit down with the Iranians and make an agreement that they would stay in their own sphere of interest in the western part of Afghanistan. They then pretty much lived up to that. This service has also been very active in Iraq. Their activity has been mostly one of organization rather than direct action. One exception was an attack on an Iraqi police unit in Falluja that had captured some of their agents. The Iranians attacked from four sides with fifty men, making a diversionary attack at the same time. American officers were astounded, rating this the best organized attack they had witnessed. Pollock uses this as an example of what the Iranian could be doing in the country but have opted not to. (Makes one think.) Pollock also recounts the history of Iran and al-Qaida and Afghanistan. First they intercepted and imprisoned several al-Qaida escaping across the border. (They hate al-Qaida as much as we do, but for their anti-Shiism.) Later, however, they allowed some al-Qaida to remain in the country and even to mount actions in Saudi Arabia. The game being played here is unclear to Pollock.

The continued presence of nuclear weapons and the ever-present threat that they will spread to other states, and even to terrorist groups, presents a clear, long-term danger to all peoples. It is true that more traditional, conventional weapons, as well as biological and chemical weapons, can be extremely destructive. But the potential destructiveness of nuclear weapons is of quite a different magnitude than conventional weapons. The use of one small nuclear weapon might have relatively little impact. Yet it would break the convention against using these weapons in war that has held since 1945. And a single use would open up possibilities of escalating use and counter use that might easily lead to a world that few of us would want our children to live in.

There are two primary reasons that a nation uses to justify the maintenance or acquisition of nuclear weapons. The first is to deter the use of nuclear weapons against the nation or one of its allies. The second is to deter any attack by a stronger state. In the hands of advocates of nuclear weapons, this argument was extended by an earlier generation to argue that nuclear weapons were the key to universal peace. However, the amount of war and destruction that has nevertheless occurred under this "nuclear umbrella" in the last fifty years has weakened the case for "peace through the bomb". A third, generally unspoken, reason for acquiring or maintaining nuclears is to enhance or preserve a nation's prestige and "weight" in the world. This is certainly a major reason that France developed its forces. After the demise of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a much weakened Russia, Russia's maintenance of a substantial nuclear force has stood out as one of the few ways in which it can still see itself as a major power in the world. When Iran considers developing nuclear weapons, we should remember that the present regime, just as the shah's regime that preceded it, has long searched for a way to emerge as the key regional power in southwest Asia. When it sees India and Pakistan to the east developing nuclear weapons and notes the presence of nuclear weapons in Russia to the north and Israel to the west, Iranian leaders might well feel that without nuclear weapons Iran cannot attain its goal of being taken seriously as a regional power.

The case for the possession of nuclear weapons as a means of preventing an otherwise stronger state from attacking, with or without the use of nuclear weapons, is weak when the attacking state also has nuclear weapons. If nuclear use by the attacker is deterred, all are in luck. If it is not, then the defender has to decide quickly whether or not to carry out its explicit or implicit threat to respond with a nuclear counterattack. While there are many clever scenarios that show how a defender might use nuclear weapons in a "tit-for-tat" manner that would not lead to mutual suicide for the warring states, the danger that such an exchange would get out of hand would be likely to tie the hands of the defending state, even if it were losing on the battlefield.

A deep contradiction exists between the reliance of the United States on a massive nuclear force as a means to deter nuclear (or major WMD) attacks on the United States and its allies, and the commitment of the United States to stopping growth in the number of states with usable nuclear weapons. For we are telling states without nuclear weapons that they are not to be allowed to have them because their possession would be dangerous while we are allowed to have nuclear weapons because in our hands they are not dangerous. We are also saying that these aspiring states will not be allowed the weapons even though this means that they must remain "second class" states for the foreseeable future. The argument that nuclear weapons are not dangerous in the hands of the present nuclear powers is particularly weak if we consider the problems Russia has had in maintaining and securing its weapons, and the certitude that as long as we maintain our nuclear forces, Russia will continue to maintain theirs.

The only long-run means for the world to find its way through the maze of nuclear weapon possession and hope for possession is for the leading nuclear power, the United States, to work effectively toward the goal of a nuclear-weapon free world. It should do this in two steps. First, it must reopen the argument that another use of a nuclear weapon in wartime would be a crime against humanity. Secondly, it must work with the other nuclear powers and quasi-powers to reduce over a period of years the number of nuclear weapons in their inventories to zero. Only when this process is undertaken and is sufficiently advanced that it becomes believable to all will we attain the high ground from which we can effectively tell other states that they are not to be allowed to have nuclear weapons.

The initial problem with this approach is that the major nuclear powers have taught themselves over the last fifty years that they need nuclear weapons to deter possible nuclear use or threat of use by possible enemies. The question then becomes how these powers, and particularly the United States, can unlearn this teaching. Progress in the United States will not be made by preaching to our leaders that deterrence is unnecessary. It will only be made when they begin to have confidence that we can produce and maintain highly trained and effective conventional forces that can achieve, and appear before the fact as though they can achieve, our deterrence objectives. We have developed a wide array of strategic and tactical systems for the gathering and real-time dissemination of battlefield intelligence. We have developed a catalog full of small units that can be inserted and resupplied behind enemy lines. We have shown in our last few battlefields that we can achieve remarkable results through the air with ever more accurately targeted and more effectively constructed conventional weaponry. If we were to harden this capability and increase the number and effectiveness of this weaponry, then we could hope to respond, and appear as though we could respond, to the use of nuclear weapons against us with massive but relatively surgical attacks that would not on our side break nuclear conventions.

We have a long way to go to before we can build an adequate basis for a switch to nonnuclear deterrence. Along the way, and in combination with phased nuclear weapon reductions that involve all powers, we should reach out to allies and even potential enemies with offers of assistance in the transition to reliance on nonnuclear deterrence forces. What is proposed here will be a hard sell both at home and abroad. But as the only "superpower" in the world, it is incumbent upon us to lead the world down this road.

A recent 60 Minutes on Sistani led me to look him up on the internet where he has a web site in several languages (www.sistani.org). Although originally from an Iranian family with a long history of religious study, Sistani has spent most of his life in Najaf. There he studied, rose through the ranks, became an assistant of the leading Ayatollah of the day (al Khoei). On his death, Sistani took his place in Najaf. In 1994, Saddam forbid him to continue his activity in this role. The result was he diversified, beginning to support through his foundation many scholarships in Qom, Iran. These have been continued after he resumed his activities in Najaf. In addition to the support of many students in Iraq and Iran, his foundation also does charitable work (for example, in support of destitute Afghans in Iran). He and al-Khoei have been identified with a quietist approach to Iran, and thus always looked askance at the activist approach associated with Khomeni and now adopted by the Iranian theocracy. This does not mean that Sistani does not think Islam should play a critical role in the life of an Islamic people, it merely means that religious leaders should not have direct political roles in society. It also does not mean this is a particularly "enlightened" Islam. If the reader goes to the Sistani web site, he will see that the thousands of people who are said to visit it daily are looking for practical advice on the minutiae of living as a Shiite Muslim. For example, the exact ways in which one should ritually bathe in different situations are described. He does seem, however, to be relatively easy-going on the question of shaking hands with non-Muslims, something the strict are always doubtful apart because of the impurities of non-Muslims.

Many feel that Sistani is seen as a threat by the present Iranian regime. He has more widely accepted credentials than any of the leading clerics in Tehran. From the above discussion it would appear that he is pushing his cause in Iran, hoping perhaps to solidify his position as the spiritual leader of all Ithna Ashariya Shiites. What this means politically we do not know. We also do not know what he sees as his actual political role in Iraq. He plays a quietist role, but how quiet in future political life in Iraq, and even Iran, we do not know.

For some years now the world has been moving toward more widely practiced freedoms. There has been and always will be some backsliding among those countries that achieve for a time a high "freedom rating". Right now we are interested most directly in what is happening and has happened in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The critical problem for Afghanistan is the increasing dependence of the economy on the growing, processing, and overseas distribution of opium. Opium is now over fifty percent of the economy and represents nearly all of the nation's exports. This dependence of the farmers is reflected in a growing ability of the warlords to maintain their armies and control in much of the country. There is no easy way out of the box in which the country finds itself. I suppose the country could have a fully functioning democratic narcostate, but experience in Colombia and elsewhere casts doubt on this outcome. The end result may be a state pressured by the United States to act forcibly against opium in ways that neither the people nor the warlords will accept. This would seem to give an opening for a Taliban comeback.

The critical problem in Iraq is that of often hostile communities that are likely to find it even more difficult to live together under democracy than they were under authoritarian rule. The country could either split up or relapse into a prolonged state of violence between ins and outs, Sunni Arab and Shi'a, Kurds and the rest, Fundamentalists and secularists — and within each of these groups many subgroups struggling for a place in the sun.

The more general problem with democratic transition, and one reason why we now notice some "backsliders" is that the measures of freedom or democracy are faulty. (Freedom and democracy are not the same thing, but this is a difficult discussion that I do not want to enter into here.) One free and fair election accompanied by several independent newspapers are sometimes enough to get a rating of "free". But the real test of democracy is bound to come later. Remember that nearly every former colony in the post-colonial world came to independence after a free and fair election. The first post-colonial government was, then, "democratic". But too often there was either a coup or political and social conditions that did not allow for the first generation of leaders to be displaced through democratic processes, and sometimes both. The most recent example may be what happened in Zimbabwe after it finally became free of British control, direct and later indirect, and Mugabe was elected. Democracy has been on a downhill trajectory in the country ever since. The test of democracy must, then, be at least a minimal degree of democratic continuity. A country should not really be considered a democracy until there is an election (and accompanying campaigning, free media etc.) that allows for a change in leadership to a new party, or to something approximating a new party.

These comments suggest that the road to democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, or elsewhere in the Middle East, may run into boulders that we have not yet noticed. We should be looking out for them as we press forward. But this does not mean that real possibilities are not opening up, that there may, in fact, be a democracy coming back to Lebanon and developing in Palestine. We should also not undervalue the "partly free" or controlled democracies that may come first. These can represent real progress for the people concerned, just as we have seen in Malaysia and Singapore. For the near future, such democracy may be an attainable and desirable way station on the road to freedom for many peoples.

The sad story in Monday's paper of the inability of the Pentagon's procurement system to provide adequate body armor to the soldiers in Iraq and the equally sorry performances in the provision of armored humvees or even in the retrofitting with armor of humvees and other vehicles, or in the provision of already tested devices to make it the electronics in roadside bombs inoperable is complemented in recent media by the story of the enhanced use of torture by the CIA and the Pentagon after 9/11. In this latest chapter, the torture has been an integral part of a policy called "rendition", that is the sending of suspects, often not charged with anything, to foreign countries where they will be made to talk. The countries chosen for such visits may not even be allies (for example, Syria), but they have the distinction of being known for the use of methods of torture that American officials feel they should avoid themselves because of American law and international commitments. Then there is today's article in the Times about the inability of the government to stop the sale of guns, including high-powered automatic guns, to known or suspected terrorists in the United States. Most of the people who applied for such guns lately were cleared for purchase. My friends also tell me of a recent talk they heard on the Plum Island center for the study of exotic viruses and bacteria. The speaker detailed many ways in which Plum Island, a small government owned island laboratory that harbors such friends as the Ebola, is actually less secure today that it was years ago. Extremely hazardous materials are regularly brought in an out by truck, with little securing along the way, and there is little protection on the island against a raid by terrorists.

These sad stories tell us many things about our government. When combined with the inability of the government to rationally address the deficit while insisting on cutting taxes while ignoring a decline in the dollar, this suggests that our political leaders and perhaps even our political system are not up to the challenge of leading the world while protecting the country against the inevitable blowback from our foreign adventures. Yes, as the only superpower we do have responsibilities. But in the long run we can only fulfill these responsibilities if our leaders are willing to tell the American people, and especially the wealthier taxpayers among them, that playing our role in the world requires sacrifices by all Americans. To be sustained, military and police actions require a strong economy to back them up. Handling the inevitable load of prisoners produced by our actions and by the terrorists, domestic and foreign, requires procedures and arrangements that can be sustained in terms of the body of national and international law on which our leadership depends. Fighting effectively in difficult environments requires the streamlining of procurement procedures that go beyond the "business as usual" approach that the Pentagon too often accepts. Controlling terrorists in the United States requires a new understanding of the requirements of security at sensitive facilities; it requires setting aside support for NRA positions long enough to enforce new controls on the availability of arms to suspected terrorists.

Today's paper reports that in the first month after the end of quotas on apparel and textiles (January), China managed to flood the world market in an alarming manner. Imports of these items nearly doubled compared with the previous January. Meanwhile 12,000 jobs were lost in the American textile industry in January. Last year, America's trade deficit with China was $162 billion, the largest deficit ever run by the United States with any one country. (The European Union countries was affected similarly with the end of quotas, showing an increase of 46% in imports in this area in January.) Even before this latest information, the flood of inexpensive goods into the United States, both legitimate and fraudulent, has been remarkable. The trend has been hastened by the decision of big marketers such as Wal-Mart to make China their major source of goods. For many kinds of goods, the American consumer has often found that he is either unable to buy what he is looking for that is not "made in China" or that he must pay a prohibitively higher price for the non-Chinese goods. Some discussion of these issues is available here.

The American government has done little to stem this trend. It has talked to China about revaluing its money to increase the relative cost of its products to importers. But China has made little response to this and other suggestions. It is well known that working conditions in China are very poor, wages are very low, environmental considerations are routinely ignored, and the government subsidizes many industries to get ever larger shares of the market.

It is past time the wealthier countries realized that the dream of a world unencumbered with trade barriers of any kind is not a world that they can live with if they are to maintain the standards they have managed to attain over the last half century.

Referring back to another recent posting, unless the economy and financial strength of America and its allies are maintained, the country will neither be able to afford to defend its interests nor undertake efforts to right the wrongs of the world, expand the boundaries of liberty, and improve the health and well being of the poorest sections of the globe. These latter may be responsibilities eventually accepted by China as it climbs to the top of the pyramid of economic and later military power. But recent experience suggests that taking on such responsibilities is unlikely to be high on the Chinese agenda for some time. Meanwhile, it is up to us.

At a conference on terrorism just concluding in Spain, Kofi Annan outlined in a few words a comprehensive strategy for fighting terrorism. In its simplicity, directness and balance his talk might be a useful starting point for all governments concerned with terrorism. The full text may be found here.

The Secretary-General organizes his talk around five D's: dissuading groups from choosing terrorism as a tactic; denying terrorists the means to carry out their attacks; deterring states from supporting terrorists; developing state capacities to deal with terrorism; and upholding human rights during the struggle against terrorism.

Dissuasion involves attempts to show any group that has taken up or is thinking of taking up terrorism that it is wrong under any circumstances. Deliberately killing civilians cannot be justified in any way, even as a defense against so-called "state terrorism". Civilian and religious leaders must clearly denounce terrorism.

Denying terrorists the means includes measures against money laundering and denying access to nuclear materials and other WMDs. States can be deterred by maintaining a firm line against all states that harbor or support terrorists. State capacity to counter terrorism, especially in poor states, must be strengthened with international assistance. Among the capacities for effective governance that Annan especially emphasizes is strengthening public health capacities everywhere, which he regards is the first line of defense against the possibilities of biological terrorism.

Finally, the Secretary General emphasizes the importance of upholding the principles of human rights during the war against terrorism. He strongly supports a recent proposal to create a special rapporteur to report to the human rights commission on the "compatibility of counter-terrorism measures with international human rights laws".

We should note that the approach is notably hard-headed. He does not begin, as too many analysts have, with proposing to treat the so-called "causes of terrorism". Although well aware of the crying needs of Africans and others, he does not consider "want" or "state terrorism" as a justification for terrorism. His argument is that we have to be clear. No group is justified in attacking civilians to advance its cause.

In the latest edition of IISS's "Strategic Comments" series, a summary is offered of the state of the Iraqi insurgency as well as thoughts on how well we are doing. Let me paraphrase, and comment on, what it has to say.

First, the insurgency is continuing at a vicious rate. (The viciousness is particularly serious for the Iraqis. To put our 1500 military deaths in perspective, I note that today's paper reminds us that in 35 days, 6800 marines were killed on Iwo Jima toward the end of World War II.) Deaths of Iraqis are a much more serious problem. Leaving aside those killed in the initial invasion, the figure is probably well above 25,000. Over 3000 Iraqi security personnel have been killed since last June. Other civilian casualties continue at a high rate, with attacks increasingly targeting the Shi'a. Infrastructure attacks have also been increasing recently. The summary also points out Iraq's extraordinary murder rate (killings not directly connected to the insurgency: 90 per 100,000 — the next highest rate in the region is Jordan's 7 per 100,000). One of the reasons the Iraqis have been so against us in many areas has been the rise in ordinary crime of all kinds.

Intelligence on the size and nature of insurgent forces remains very poor. The balance between the Islamists and the Baath is unclear, as is the difference this actually makes. Many participants are simply criminals doing it for the money (and pay per incident has been greatly inflated recently). But many are also suicide bombers, and these are presumably not doing it for the money.

Clearly, the United States has decided to shift the bulk of the fighting to the Iraqis, but it has not been very successful in doing this. They still have few effective units aside for the Kurdish Peshmerga. We would also like to "fight" the war politically. American commanders are apparently trying to negotiate in secret with the Baathists, but with what results we do not know. They apparently had more success with al-Sadr. Most commentators believe that we clearly need more troops. But in view of other commitments, we do not have excess forces to send to Iraq and this situation is not about to change.

We are now in a box that is hard to get out of. Soon we are likely to be asked to come home, both by the Iraqis and by American Congressmen. Yet we have a long way to go before the violence is sufficiently under control to turn it over to the Iraqis. A consoling thought is that the problems may be as severe on the other side. According to today's Times, the "al-Qaida in Iraq" (Zarqawi) organization on its web site shows increasing concern that the Iraqis are no longer understanding their mission. They repeatedly try to explain why they are still killing. Recent arrests of Baath leaders in Syria and the possible change in Syrian willingness to cooperate also offers a glimmer of hope.

A knowledgeable commentator on North Korea points out that none of its neighbors are pushing for change in its execrable political system any time soon. The reasons are many. First, there is no evidence that there are any individuals or institutions that would be able to take over if the current regime fell. There is practically no independent business class. The army is the favored institution, but its leaders have shown no managerial or creative capability. Everyone is so used to simply doing and saying what the government demands that it is doubtful that there could be any short-term adjustment. The most likely immediate result of a government collapse would be a worsening of the availability of food, medicines and other supplies, with no one equipped to receive or distribute what aid came in. For these reasons, and because of the past behavior of the North Koreans, South Korea and China, and to a lesser extent even Japan, can expect millions of destitute North Koreans to flood across the country's borders after a breakdown of the Kim family regime.

Meanwhile, there is some evidence that the North Koreans are at last beginning to get at least a little information on what is happening in the outside world. Yesterday's paper reports that cell phones are being used along the Chinese border by many people. (They bury them in their gardens when not in use to avoid police sweeps.) Chinese merchants smuggled thousands of used video recorders across the northern border after DVDs replaced them in Manchuria. Somehow tapes of South Korean movies and music have come in along with the video players. They have become so popular that Pyongyang has launched propaganda campaigns inveighing against the foreign styles in clothing, language, and other customs that people pick up from the tape recorders. This is, of course, all illegal. A favorite tactic of the police is to surround an area, cut off the electricity, and then move in. As a result they are able to arrest many whose video player stopped in the middle and they were unable to get the banned tapes out of them. The main effect that the tapes have, however, is not the transmission of styles but rather the transmission of backgrounds that show a society in the south that is infinitely better off than that in the north. The claim that North Korea has created a "worker's paradise" rings increasingly hollow.

It would seem to me that the Kim family regime cannot long remain in its present form. The next generation is coming on, and the "Dear Leader"'s three sons are said to be contesting the succession. Perhaps this is the opening for change. Military commanders, no matter how servile, have in other situations grabbed power in crises. This might also happen. A popular movement might suddenly arise around some incident leading quickly to uncontrollable crowds in the streets. This seems highly unlikely to experts, but it is still a possible route. History suggests that all it takes is for a repressive regime to lose its confidence in such a crisis, to hesitate. There is probably such a wealth of suppressed hatred among the North Korean people that any opening, any softening, ironically any showing of respect for human rights, could lead to an explosion. In any event, the United States should be engaged in urgent negotiations with all of North Korea's neighbors on the definition of possible transition scenarios and the ways in which the United States and neighboring states could most effectively respond during and after a transition crisis. It would be a sad commentary on the world if the streets of Pyongyang were one day running in blood while the rest of the world stood by timidly watching until the last resister was hunted down.

In today's Times, Thomas Friedman points to the many fallacies in the way in which the present Administration interacts with China. He sees the most pressing problem to be the financial insolvency that we have been led into. For short-term political gain, the American government has allowed our deficit to balloon. In this crisis China, has become the second largest holder of American debt and its share its likely to rise. If it called in the "bill" during a Taiwan or other confrontation, the U.S. government would be hard pressed to do anything other than default. He also points out that China's growing thirst for oil is what drives plans for more Alaskan oil. His sources suggest that eventually China and India will drive prices above 100$ a barrel, putting more and more money into the hands of "some of the world's worst governments". Meanwhile the Administration is cutting the budget of the National Science Foundation, thereby making America less competitive in another dimension. Friedman does not even get into a discussion of the destruction of American manufacturing through the much too generous free trade policy, that hears no evil and sees no evil when it comes to China's wage, benefit, and environmental policies, or China's unwillingness to control the stealing of intellectual property by its citizens.

Clearly, Friedman believes that we must put our house in order and regain scientific leadership. he suggests, among other things, that we place a $1 a gallon tax on gasoline to help close our budget gap and reduce dependence on the oil producing countries.

I would add another thought. We need to improve the balance in the world before our necessarily brief stint at the helm of affairs passes away. Here's one way. The United States has been improving its relations with India, offering, for example, help with a nuclear plant to improve its energy situation. At the same time, India is improving its relations with Iran and Pakistan. This latter has reached the point where there is an active plan to develop a gas pipeline across Pakistan, for the benefit of Iran, Pakistan and India. The United States opposes this out of its general hatred of Iran and its fear of its nuclear program (analogous to the programs that we have effectively now approved for Pakistan and India). The suggestion is that the United States make a conscious decision to strengthen South Asia as a counterweight to China. Pakistan and India are now in a friendly "cricket" phase. Both are deemphasizing their religious differences. We should make every effort to support this process, not heavy handedly, but quietly by our actions. This would be a major way to help support the development in a large part of the world while lessening the danger that China poses to all its neighbors, as well as the United States, in the long run.

The new Homelands Security Department under Michael Chertoff seems to be making a good start. The Department has come up with a reasonable list of the most likely terrorist and natural disasters that the country will have to face. Natural disasters are included in the list because they will have to be responded to in ways analogous to responses to terrorist attacks. Fifteen representative "nightmares" are defined, the casualties estimated, and the economic impact predicted. Some nightmares produce only fatalities and wounded, others have primarily, or in one case only, economic impact. The nightmares are: the detonation of a nuclear device in a large city; aerosolized anthrax released in several cities simultaneously; a flu pandemic spreading from China (not terrorist); pneumonic plague released in city facilities; chemical blister agent sprayed over a football stadium during a game; attack on oil refineries releasing massive amounts of toxic gas; release of sarin gas into the ventilation system of a large city; infiltration of an industrial storage facility leading to the blowing up of tank containing chlorine gas (17,500 dead); 7.2 magnitude earthquake on a fault running through a major city; category 5 hurricane hits major city; bombs set off with radioactive caesium at several points in a city; handmade bombs and suicide vehicles are used to attack a sports stadium and emergency room; liquid anthrax is used to contaminate ground beef; terrorists infect farm animals with foot and mouth disease at several locations (huge loss of livestock); cyber attacks on financial institutions over several weeks. One could argue with the list. But at least it is an attempt to consider a variety of dangers and then presumably game the responses of the many local and federal agencies that would be involved. One hopes that as far as the human-caused events are concerned the lists will help with developing counter strategies and tactics. One can only hope that such lists do not put ideas in the heads of potential terrorists whose response might be "Why didn't we think of that?" This is a danger that must be weighed, and we can only hope it was.

This list brings to mind the fact that we have not had a major attack in the country since 9/11. It is a very frightening list, for it would appear that many of the possible terrorist acts, and many others they bring to mind, would just not be that hard to organize and finance. Why, given the size of the Muslim community in this country (Arabs and otherwise), has not al-Qaida been able to recruit in this country the extremely small numbers necessary for terrorism or slip them through our still quite open borders? (This is not a statement that any significant part of the Arab or Muslim community should be thought to be potential traitors. If there are one and a half million Arabs in the country, I assume that not more than one percent, 15,000, would be open to radical Jihadist arguments, with one hundredth of one percent, or 150 persons, actually recruitable.) Yet as far as the pubic knows plans for such attacks in the United States have seldom if ever been discovered since 9/11. On the other hand, many such plots have been discovered in Spain recently, and some in France and elsewhere in Europe (although often these are more targeted, traditional terrorist attacks rather than ones meant to simply cause fatalities and destruction). This suggests that terrorist plots along some of these lines might have been discovered in this country since 9/11 without being publicized. Perhaps Spain is simply more up front about the achievements of their security forces.

Another possibility is that Bin Ladin, in spite of the fearlessness of his rhetoric, is actually not pushing too hard for another spectacular in this country. It may be that our efforts in Afghanistan to catch or kill him are at an "acceptable level" right now. He can live with them in some security. But he knows that after another spectacular we would come after him with little regard for the niceties of respecting borders or avoiding casualties in tribal areas. So, ironically, we might just have an unspoken agreement with al-Qaida that protects both our homeland and theirs. This would be a form of bargaining with terrorists that I had not considered.

As I have argued recently in these postings, the strength and health of the United States has an important influence on the near-term health of the world. This brings us to today's column by Kristof on what he calls the "Captains of Piracy". The compensation of top executives in American firms is now out of hand. If this pattern continues, the competitive position of the United States, and ultimately its economy, will be down the tubes. Kristof reports that the bonuses for CEOs rose last year by 46%, often irrespective of the performance of their institutions. Since 1993, the average pay of CEOs for the top 500 companies in Standard and Poors tripled to $10 million (many other countries, including Japan, Great Britain and Germany continue to pay much less). Paying such compensation is not a trivial expense, even for large companies. A recent Harvard study found that public companies today devote about 10% of their profits to compensating their top five executives, up from 6% in the mid 1990s. If we look at long term trends in the relation of ordinary worker pay to that of top executives we will find that in 1980 it was 42/1, in 1990 85/1, while today it stands at 301/1. These comparisons suggest that the United States is no longer either socially or economically competitive with the rest of the world. The insistence of the current Administration that even in the face of these great disparities, the country should reduce the tax burden on the richest of the rich is mind boggling.

It has been argued that the greatest strength of America is its "soft power", a term that some in the Administration pretend not to understand. Soft power is the power of example, the power that comes from being the society that the rest of the world wants to imitate. Anything that lessens the attractiveness of American society in the eyes of the world reduces the country's soft power. Ultimately this means that America will no longer be the country that everyone wants to move to, or at least be educated in. Our "superpower" status will be stripped of everything aside from the sheer military power that we can put into the field. As the economy sours as debt overcomes it and the dollar weakens, the forces we can field will no longer be so exceptional: we will no longer be able to play our role. And with no country in a position to replace us, the world will relapse into a melange of warring states, each trying to become "Number One".

Sunday's Times magazine carries an extensive discussion of the case of a former member of the PKK, Ibrahim Parlak. He had settled in Michigan, had a dearly loved daughter of seven, opened a restaurant and become a well liked member of the community. Suddenly he was picked up, declared to be a terrorist, and now faces deportation for his "crimes". There is no doubt that as a young man in Turkey's Kurdistan, he joined the resistance movement, then know as the PKK. He worked for them in Germany and then tried to reenter Turkey to assist them on the ground. Captured after six months, he was tortured for weeks. He finally caved in, leading the Turkish authorities to a store of weapons. After serving his sentence, he escaped the country, believing that both the Turkish authorities would continue to mistrust him while the PKK would treat him severely if they caught him. He sought and received asylum in this country on this basis. One reason for our reopening of his case is that in the interim the PKK was put on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations.

The PKK is a tough, guerilla movement that has campaigned for many years for Kurdish rights. It was impossible in the near past and is still difficult for Turkish Kurds to legally and nonviolently struggle for their rights. This means that Kurds, like many separatists before them (Minutemen?), have taken up arms against the government, fighting in endless skirmishes with casualties on both sides. Terrorist actions have characterized many such movements throughout history. According to the State Department's current standards, the Stern Gang and the Irgun that fought for Israel's independence in the 1940s would have been put on today's list of terrorist organizations.

If we look at how and why the State Department puts groups on its list, we will find that the ostensible standards are quite unobjectionable if unrealistic. But what is most critical here is the third criterion for inclusion on the list. This reads: "The organization’s terrorist activity or terrorism must threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security (national defense, foreign relations, or the economic interests) of the United States." Not too bad if observed in a commonsense manner. However, in many cases actions against individuals are based on a warped reading of this criterion. The PKK has never had any interest in attacking the interests of the United States, unless we define the interests of the Turkish government as necessarily also the interests of our own. We are not only partial to Turkey. In 2002, the ETIM, a Uighur resistance movement in China was added to the State Department's list of terrorist organizations. (It was already on the UN's terrorist organization list; the UN simply adds any group that a UN member state submits to it.) Again, the Uighurs have no legitimate means of actually improving their status in northwest China. The fact is that the interest of the United States in better relations with China and Turkey is decisive in these designations, not whether the group is actually working against our interests.

The prosecutor Parlak's hearing declared, "He's not a freedom fighter. He's a terrorist. Parlak is not a freedom fighter. He's a terrorist." This repetition seemed to satisfy the judge. She declared his stay at an end (now on appeal — Turkey will not take him). The ignorance Americans involved in the INS, Homeland Security, and the FBI (the bureaucracies involved in this case) of the struggles for independence of peoples everywhere is astounding. From a more reasonable perspective, they would understand Parlak's story to be as follows: "He took up arms against the Turkish government because as a Kurd that was the only way to struggle for the rights of his people. He carried arms at times, engaged in fire fights, was captured, tortured, served his time and was released. He and his family decided he better get out. He did. He made a new life in the United States." We have now destroyed his life and the faith of an entire community (largely American by the way; he avoided Kurds) that because of an inability to understand that the whole world is not like Peoria. As the defense attorneys said, soon we will be jailing those who fought the apartheid government in South Africa. (Actually we won't: they are generally not Muslims, and the American government is friendly with the winners in that struggle.)

Sometimes we tire of definitions. But this time it is important. We must know what a terrorist is, and why he or she is a terrorist. We must know what an enemy of the United States is, and know the difference between being an enemy and being a terrorist. We must know what a struggle for independence is, and know when other than violent means are closed to a people it will turn to violence, however unfortunate that may seem. We must know how to distinguish between pasts that make a person's existence among us dangerous and pasts that can be counterbalanced by changes in behavior and situation. Parlak and many others picked up in the post 9/11 hysteria were making a contribution to their communities. Some were not, some were spreading hate or at least too open to messages of hate. These should be separated from the community or carefully monitored. But we are a long way from being able to make these distinctions. Until we seriously make this effort, we may lose as much from our officious diligence as we gain.

Kofi Annan has publicized the results of a report he commissioned on reforming the United Nations. Three issues are especially important in my view. The first is the definition of terrorism. Annan wants a definition that defines all attacks on civilians as terrorism. The problem with this is that it still does not deal with the idea of state terrorism and/ or terrorism in wartime. I do not see important progress being made on this. The second is the proposal to replace the present UN Commission on Human Rights with a smaller Human Rights Council that is elected by the General Assembly by a two-thirds vote. This would replace the current system in which member states are selected on a regional basis, with the unfortunate result that some notable human rights violators, such as Sudan, have ended up on the Commission. This would be an important change if doable. (His proposal to change dramatically the amount of money the wealthy countries devote to development and other third world problems is unlikely to fly, although on the margins he might be able to make a difference.)

Annan's most important proposal is for change in the makeup of the Security Council. This is important because of the international importance of the Security Council and because this is the proposal that seems to have the most general backing among major states. He wishes to either change the number of permanent members or establish a semi-permanent member category that would allow a greater range of countries to expand their role on the Council. Greatest interest is in the first alternative. Here the proposal seems to be that there should be six new permanent members. Most agree that four of these should be Germany, Japan, Brazil, and India. These four are now actively lobbying for this change (they have been pushing something similar for a long time). Then there is the thought that two African states should be added. Possible choices would be South Africa, Egypt, and Nigeria. (Kenya appears to also want to throw its hat in this ring.)

There are several problems with this approach. The first is there seems to be little discussion of taking away the veto from the permanent members. Therefore, increasing the number of permanent members would add to opportunities for blocking UN action in crises, because blocking typically occurs when the interests of permanent members are directly or at least politically involved. The organization's paralysis would not be cured by such a change. There is the problem that no African candidate is stable or developed enough to play its part beyond a regional role (South Africa has about half the GDP of Switzerland, Egypt considerably less than that, Nigeria a third of Egypt's.)Given recent history, none of them are likely to be able to perform at a high level in regard to human rights. The same can be said of China, but this choice for a permanent member is one the UN is saddled with. It is already the case that at least two African states are represented in the Security Council at all times (on a revolving basis, with two year terms). Perhaps the need to improve representation for Africa could be addressed at least temporarily by making the OAU a permanent member.

One way to reduce these and other difficulties would be to revise the charter so that the veto powers of permanent members were reduced, with the reductions greater for the new members than the old. For example, before India can made a permanent member, Pakistan will have to be mollified. This might be accomplished if the veto power of India were lessened. India could be granted the veto except where its interests and those of its neighbors were directly involved (for example in regard to Kashmir). Without these and many other compromises, I do not see the suggested reformations going very far.

The United States has decided to more directly interfere militarily with the growing, refining, and shipment of opium in Afghanistan. Before now, American forces were supposed to only interfere when they came across drugs in the course of other work. Now they will specifically target the problem. The current consensus is that 85% of the world's opium now originates in the country (seems doubtful, but the figure is repeated often). The U. S. government feels that its intervention will be judged a failure if it ultimately leaves with the country effectively in the hands of narcotics lords.

The problem is that we have tried this approach before against the growers and distributors of opium and its derivatives (such as heroin), as well as other drugs such as cocaine. Success has been difficult in every case. But to the extent that we have succeeded, the growing, refining, and distribution of the drug simply shifts to new countries and new routes. As long as we do not make a significant dent in the market in the developed world, prices will stay high, and some people, somewhere, will supply the needs.

Meanwhile, what is happening in the country? The poorest countries turn to opium or other drugs because they are so much more profitable than alternatives. As long as such countries were really composed of autochthonous villages that produced the food and clothes they consumed, there was no market and drug income was unnecessary. If the crops failed, the people starved. But today everyone is a consumer, even the peasant in a distant Afghan valley. The people feel they need some income both to cover the shortfall in local production of foodstuffs and to buy the "necessities" of the outside world, whether these be new medicines or Nikes. Once they enter this world, they find that they can both assure their food supply and obtain more goods from the outside world if they drop their subsistence crops and take up a cash crop. In Afghanistan, this has led to a very large percent of the people changing from the culture of wheat to that of opium.

The only ways the government and the United States know to change the equation are to kill the opium crops, punish people for growing opium, and arrest opium dealers and refineries, thereby reducing the chance for farmers to gain from their illicit crops. Whether in Colombia, Peru, or Bolivia, the end result is that large parts of the rural population become estranged from the government, seeing it as the enemy. When the United States takes a more direct part, then the United States becomes the enemy, with the local government being seen as the tool of the United States. This problem is exacerbated when the inevitable happens: people are killed in the course of anti-drug missions in the country, and people claim (sometimes with justification) that the destruction of crops has poisoned their fields, sickened their animals, contaminated their foodstuffs, and even killed their children.

It is true that we do not wish to leave behind another Colombia. But it is also true that we do not want to undermine democracy in Afghanistan by making it seem that the supporters of democracy (local and foreign) are the enemies of the people. Nor do we want to simply drive the drug problem elsewhere in the developing world.

The solution, as many have said, lies in giving the people viable alternatives to growing opium. But except on a very small scale, these viable alternatives have not really worked out. It seems to me that before we start to tighten the screws militarily on the production of opium in Afghanistan, we should do more than we have to develop these alternatives, whether they be new crops (and ways to market them) or new ways to make a living, such as expanding light industry. I realize that this is all easier said than done. But the emphasis of the antidrug effort simply must be changed.

The news has been full of the Kyrgyzstan chapter in a developing democratic wave. A few years ago the country and its ruler were considered the most democratic in Central Asia. But after familial and other corruption and a questionable parliamentary election, the situation unraveled. A popular movement began in the south, the poorer and more religious area. It spread rapidly to Bishkek, the capital. Soon, the police abandoned their posts and the President fled the country with this family. The newly elected parliament (the one the protesters rejected) and the old parliament (elected at a more promising time) have begun meeting on separate floors in the parliament building (confusing since some people are in both old and new parliaments). But the popular coup has stalled for now. The Supreme Court has not registered the new parliament and the new interim PM elected by the old parliament is not sure he has the right to rule. Demonstrations for the President have occurred. Stay tuned.

Whatever happens, the movement to reject the announced election result was inspired in part by events recently in the Ukraine and before that in Georgia, where the outcomes were rejected and the rejections legitimated by new elections. A legitimating second election did not happen in the Philippines in the 1980s when Marcos was thrown out after an election that the opposition claimed was rigged. (As one of the observers of that election I do not know that it actually was. Where I was Marcos clearly won on the basis of ballots counted — but how free the average voter felt he was in making his choice is another question.) Many of these movements look back to the popular movement that finally got rid of Milosevic in Serbia in 2000. Today, we have examples of popular movements in Lebanon and Zimbabwe, and may see one in Egypt.

This democratic fervor and ferment is generally to be applauded. However, we must remember that mob democracy is not the same as constitutional democracy. The revolutionary birth of a nation such as occurred in the French Revolution is not something we would want to see repeated. It is important to not be too quick to endorse such movements, taking sides only when there is a high probability that the result will be a stable, responsible government.

Today's paper has an Op-Ed on strengthening NAFTA as a counterweight to China. It does not seem to make much sense for two reasons. First, the economies and capabilities of the United States, Mexico, and Canada are simply too different. In particular, we cannot afford to make the Mexican border into an irrelevancy in the near future. The suggestion that this is the kind of international reorganization we should favor rests on an outmoded territorial idea of the basis of international organization. The states that are closest to one another today are not those that are geographically closest, but rather those that are politically, morally, and economically closest.

A similar geographical concept is behind the thought that NATO be expanded in its membership and functions. Both suggestions have in common the idea that the United States faces long-term international problems that can only be handled by more intensive international cooperation outside the United Nations. The United Nations is an important organization, one that will always be needed because of its universality. However, the membership of the United Nations is so disparate that the issues on which effective action can be taken through the United Nations are limited. When it comes to foreign aid, it is difficult to effectively coordinate and develop policy when the poorest of the poor are part of the decision making process. When it comes to massive human rights violations, such as those in Sudan, the problem has often been that the perpetrators are actually members of the UN commissions that are supposed to suppress the violations.

My friend Jim Huntley has written extensively on developing a democracy-centered international organization built along the lines of NATO but having a global reach that would include Japan. However, there has been resistance to this idea in many quarters, partly because it appears to be another American attempt at hegemony, something that led the French to partially withdraw from NATO years ago.

The OECD, on the other hand, has its headquarters in Paris and has never been considered to be under the thumb of the United States. Its thirty members include all of the new European community, Japan and South Korea, as well as NAFTA. The purposes of the OECD (an organization set originally to help administer Marshall Plan assistance0 are to coordinate economic policy, particularly as it relates to development assistance to the less developed countries. Its relatively wealthy members work to improve economic and social conditions within it membership and throughout the world. It struggles against bribery and responsible government everywhere and regularly puts out reports of the social conditions, environmental policies, and educational standards in member states.

The OECD would seem to me to be the best available base from which to build a more effective parallel organization. Its strong statistical branch should help the United States maintain the standards of the rest of the developed world, while we can gradually help member states develop more coherent and congruent positions on the international issues that interest us. A expanded OECD could form a kind of caucus within the United Nations, with the end result either pressing the UN for more effective action or organizing more effective action on its own — if necessary military action to solve international problems. If we nurtured and respected its membership, this could become the group of states that could give the United States the muscle and moral strength that it will need to stand up to an emerging China down the road.

In last night's Lehrer show three experts agreed that the security situation in Iraq was steadily improving. Violence was down, while what remained was directed primarily at Iraqis, especially those in the security forces or wishing to be in them. The Iraqi security forces, for their part, were slowly but steadily becoming more capable, and thus more able to take over from the Americans. But the discussants also agreed that it would be a long time before the Americans could leave. There was still too much violence for the new state to survive.

Meanwhile, the election produced a balance of forces that has led to an alarming failure of the America-sponsored political process to move forward. The Kurds and the Shi'as cannot agree on critical issues, such as the status of Kirkuk, the Kurd's percentage of oil income, and the secular/religious balance. Complicating the picture are the Sunni Arab leaders who now say they must have at least one vice-president and receive as many critical cabinet posts in any new government as the Kurds (in spite of having elected very few members of parliament because most Sunni Arabs abstained). Given this impasse, the holdover government is apparently barely functioning, and the confidence of the people declines with every passing day. Some of the Shi'a parliamentarians are beginning to have second thoughts against backing the relatively conservative Ibrahim Jafari to be the new Prime Minister. Chalabi may be at work here: Muqtada al-Sadr is said to be one of the doubters (if we believe that these two have continued their strange relationship).

At the same time, Sheikh Harith al-Dari, perhaps the most influential leader of the Sunni Arab community insists that he will continue to support the insurgency until the Americans announce a date by which they will be gone from the country. Setting such a date is something the Shiites (other than al-Sadr) have not pressed for because they do not want to fight a war with the Sunni Arab community. They also do they want the Kurds to separate themselves entirely from the state, an event that could also spark another internal war. Many Americans, including myself, have thought a definite date for departure would be helpful. It might take the wind out of the insurgency. But one cannot be sure; certainly no one in our government talks that way.

China has recently come out with a human rights report on the United States. It is available in English here. China intends this to be counter-propaganda against the State Department's annual human rights report that always has many negative things to say about China. (Even though their report is ostensibly developed as propaganda against the American Human Rights report, I doubt if average Chinese have access to the American original.)

However, it is useful for Americans, and indeed all peoples, to examine and think about the ways in which the United States can be said to fail to live up to the high human rights standards that we expect the rest of the world to attain. It is significant that the primary sources for the Chinese report are reports on leading American newspapers. Their treatment is often unbalanced, but it is generally based on relatively noncontroversial data.

The Chinese report emphasizes problems in personal security in America, pointing out the high level of violent crime and the large number of people in American jails. There is also a good deal on how inmates are treated. They point out the high levels of poverty and joblessness. They point to the difference in the ways in which different races live in the United States, pointing out how the inferred racial discrimination is against the very words of the Declaration of Independence. They point to high rates of rape, emphasizing particularly sexual crimes against children. (As is often the case with these discussions, there is no reference to things being better in China or elsewhere — lack of useful statistics is probably one reason.) The Chinese report particular faults the United States for its treatment of foreign nationals, beginning with the mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The interested reader should go the full document referenced above. One cannot agree with the Chinese advice that given these shortfalls in our behavior we should give up our report, but one can agree that "the United States should reflect on its erroneous behavior on human rights and take its own human rights problems seriously". Would that there could be a cross-cutting world of such reports. There could not be a better kind of competition.

The Republican attempt to intervene with due process in order to save the life of an unfortunate but essentially unsalvageable woman in Florida might suggest an unwillingness to take the kind of difficult and tough decisions that doctors so often feel called upon to make. However, in the military-terrorism-foreign affairs-treatment of prisoners realm, the Administration is laying the groundwork for even tougher actions. First, they appointed Ambassador Bolton as American Ambassador to the United Nations. This is in spite of his well-known record of disparaging the usefulness of the organization and his stated position that we should only support the United nations when it supports our interests. This record is so egregious that a number of high-placed persons who have served in the foreign service and in policy positions in previous administrations have written a letter to Senator Lugar opposing his nomination. Second, President Bush has appointed Ambassador Negroponte to be director of directors for America's intelligence agencies. Negroponte has two sides. On the one hand, he loyally carries out whatever policy those above him wish him to. (He might or might not have told Bush the truth about Iraq: he finds out what is expected and then does it.) On the other hand, he has been the coldest of cold warriors. He resigned from a Vietnam policy position in the 1970s because he felt Kissinger had sold out the South Vietnamese (he did, but the importance with which he took this does show a rather unusual stance). As Ambassador in Honduras, he was according to those who worked with him at the time, notably unconcerned with the actions of the groups associated with the United States in the anti-communist struggle. The ambassador that preceded him in Honduras has accused him of discouraging reporting to Washington of torture, abductions or killings by the units he was supporting. Although an ambassador, he seemed actually to be part of the CIA in this position. As another acquaintance has said, Negroponte thought that to defeat the Russians in the Cold War anything was permissible. There is a fear that in the present fearful climate of the so-called "war on terror", he will evince the same kind of attitude.

The world is suffering from the continuing pressure of the dead weight of the past. Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Hindus are entranced by texts written long ago, in contexts very different from the modern world, by people who could not have any understanding of the ways of thinking that educated people everywhere now take for granted. We must clearly affirm that neither the Torah nor the Christian Bible nor the Quran are the word of God. Pick up any one of these texts and read for a while. Even those who believe that God exists in some form cannot believe that God would have sent down messages meant for all time that were so clearly related to the time and place of their recording or transcription.

People have always been killed and tortured in the name of religion. But that this should continue, that it should threaten the very existence of American democracy based on the separation of powers should cause everyone to pause for a minute. In a desire to embed multiculturalism in our society and institutions, many liberals concluded years ago that questions of belief should not be raised in polite society. "Everyone has their own book, and they have a right to follow what it says." But we can accept this no longer. When the book of the Jews is read to grant them all of Palestine while the book of the Muslims leads them to understand that they have a god-given right to the same territory, we outsiders, the interpreters of our day, must come clean. We must clearly declare that no religious book has the authority to guide anyone today.

In the United States, fundamentalists — Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, and Jewish — insist that the findings of verified science in field after field must be dismissed because they are not found in their holy books. The result is that millions of "schooled" Americans reach maturity deeply confused about the meaning of the modern world and how to react to it. Many Christians have been taught to believe in a violent second coming, a belief so strongly advocated by some that they would be glad to see an all-out war of Jews and Muslims in Palestine — it would herald the glorious end of time. Some Christians have even seen nuclear war in this light, believing that it is actually what the Book of Revelations leads up to. Elite American policy makers cannot blithely carry the country forward and maintain the peace as long as these dead weights continue to pull us down.

In the Middle East, fundamentalist Islam continues to teach that women are inferior, that they were put on the earth to serve men and bear children. As the history of Pakistan has demonstrated, no matter how many liberals rise up to leadership positions in Muslim societies, there is always the danger that a politico-religious group will be able to undermine the progress toward equality that fitfully occurs. "Real democracy", in the sense of free and fair elections, may carry such societies back to the Middle Ages. I have always felt that the Draconian measures of the Turkish army to keep religion out of politics (Islam cannot be mentioned in a political context) cast doubt on the sincerity of the commitment of the Turkish elite to democracy. Now, however, I wonder if such Draconian means are not essential in the Islamic context for the world to grow up.

All peoples must eventually mature into educated modern peoples free of the burdens of the past. If they do not, their leaders will not be able to work out a means to face the escalating difficulties of a world whose relentless material expansion threatens us all.

The Chinese government has launched an initiative campaign within China intended to prevent Japan from becoming a permanent member of the Security Council (along with Germany in the one current proposal). They hope to have enough signatures that the government can say that it simply cannot agree to making Japan a permanent member. China is apparently upset by recent Japanese support for an American position on Taiwan, as well as what goes into Japanese textbooks about World War II. (I would hate to know what goes into Chinese textbooks).

Whatever the sins of the Japanese, Japan is still the second largest economy in the world. It has made a major contribution to many international programs in the last few years, including both those promoted separately by the United Nations and by the United States.

As I pointed out before, the United States needs to set about developing an effective, long-term method of controlling the growth of Chinese power in the world. Taking a firm position on this issue in support of a permanent seat for Japan would make a good start. It should be made clear to other candidates such as Germany, India, and Brazil that China is standing in the way of the expansion of the permanent membership. We might also start talking about alternative ways of establishing world order and marshalling world opinion on critical issues in ways that by-pass the Security Council if it is not to be expanded. Plans for expanding the functions of the OECD (previous post) is one approach. New modalities for regulating international trade that would decrease the advantages China seems to have is another. Whatever we do, we should act in such a way that China becomes isolated on this issue and is forced to pay a diplomatic price.

The latest of a series of reports, the "Silberman-Robb" report makes a scathing indictment of the intelligence system both before and after 9/11, before and after the attack on Iraq. Like previous reports, it makes many suggestions for improving the performance of system or systems, many based on failures to adopt or implement successfully previous recommendations.

It is hard to know what to add to all the commentary that has poured forth on the unclassified portions of the report. (One of the problems is right here: so much is classified that judging what is really being said becomes unduly difficult.) But what strikes an outside observer most forcefully is the simple fact that too much advice is flowing forth. How can organizations that have just been restructured several times since 9/11 (several changes within each organization plus new CIA direction plus incorporation of much of the effort into Homeland Security plus the setting up of an intelligence czar over the whole intelligence community) incorporate this advice effectively?

Given this caveat, many of the suggestions seem useful in themselves. The major thrust is integration, "Let's get the different parts of the structure talking with one another." One small part of the problem in this area is illustrated by a report of a continuing feud between a new center for terrorism threat analysis and the CIA's counterterrorism unit. The government had proposed a National Counterterrorism Center. But the units that were meant to contribute to this failed to do so effectively. Its head finally reported that lack of cooperation made it unable to fulfill its mission. It is perhaps not helpful that the new Commission report proposes several more such integrative agencies or units. One gets the feeling that the problem is simply unmanageable and may only get worse. (The intelligence muddle is just one example of how hard it is for a President to actually run the country however well meaning or even however intelligent he might be.)

Before leaving the issue, let me mention a couple of recommendations that might do some good because they seem to lie outside already established turfs. One is to set up within the Director of National Intelligence's Office (DNI, remember the acronym, you'll be hearing it a lot) a long-range research and analysis group that would look into general issues more deeply than is generally the case. Second, the Silberman-Robb report recommends setting up an independent, nongovernmental think tank to play the devil's advocate, to challenge the intelligence agency's views. This seems a great idea, although how the clearances required to know what the intelligence community is reporting to the President and other top officials would be handled would be a serious problem. Ultimately, the problems of the intelligence community are several — bureaucratic intransigence, overlapping jurisdictions, inadequate humint, and relatively low general intelligence and education. The think tank might help to at least ameliorate the latter.

After a several days gap in postings, we should revisit the situation in Iraq. There has been a series of encouraging news items. The violence appears to be down. Coalition casualties are less than they were, although still substantial. The decline in coalition casualties also means a decline in Iraqi civilian casualties, although those caused by the insurgency remain at a high level. Another way of judging is by the number of incidents reported daily or weekly. These too seem to be down, although the military is worried by the size of some recent attacks, such as that on Abu Ghraib.

One of the most hopeful signs was a sermon by a leading Sunni opponent of the war telling young Sunni Arabs that they should join the new security services so that the community would not have to face so many evil people (read Kurds or Shi'a) in the new army and police forces. One could read this as no more than a plea for more insurgents to infiltrate these services, but no one seemed to read it that way.

On the political front, the parties seem to have finally gotten together so that the political process can move forward. They have selected a Sunni Arab speaker of the national assembly. They have selected a leader of the Kurdistan Alliance to be President, and a Sunni Arab (already in the interim government) and a Shi'a leader to be vice presidents. It is presumed that they will select al-Jaafari, a somewhat conservative Shi'a party leader, as the new Prime Minister.

These results have not gone over well with everyone. In spite of their lack of voting and consequent small representation in the Assembly, the Sunni Arabs seem to have gotten their share so far. The Kurds appear very happy, while others find this disturbing. They see the Kurds getting too much, which apparently means that they have gained some still not revealed assurances about the incorporation of the Kirkuk area and its oil into the Kurdish realm.

The greatest dissatisfaction is being expressed by those Shi'a and Kurds who demand that the interim government be replaced immediately by a government appointed by the new leadership. The reason is simmering hatred of the Allawi regime because it has allowed some of the old Baath members back into government positions. Their demands seem precipitous, coming before a new cabinet is established. More than that they reflect an unwillingness to accommodate the old ruling strata of the country, one of the primary groups behind the insurgency. For all its faults, the Allawi regime did hold out an olive branch to the Sunni Arabs, something these dissenters would evidently lop off.

Iraq is not in the clear yet, but it is getting there. The problems for the next few months are (1) resisting overly ambitious calls for American withdrawal, (2) writing a constitution giving the Kurds rights that they and the rest can live with, (3) finding an acceptable balance of secular/religious interests in the constitution, (4) reducing violence enough for the country's infrastructure to really make a recovery, and (5) holding a referendum on the new constitution (set for October, but it may be delayed), and then (6) electing a new assembly under the new constitution. The world wishes them well.

Kristof is once again beating his fists against the indifference of the outside world to the crimes against humanity in the Darfur region of Sudan. Thousands of natives are killed and mutilated and starved to death while the world reactions hardly go beyond mincing steps that do little to change the situation. He is incensed in his latest column particularly by the rape of women and girls, rape that not only persists with little legal challenge but also destroys the girls involved socially and legally in ways not imagined in the West. The latest news is that the victims of rape in Darfur are being imprisoned for having illicit relations outside marriage. Before their arrests, they were already thrown out by their families and divorced by their husbands.

Kristof's solution is for the United States to put more pressure on its allies and the United Nations, to increase the size of intervention forces. He seems to forget the numerically worse horrors that have been going on in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo now for some years. Unlike Darfur, the United Nations has had an army there for several years and has granted it a much more active mandate than the African Union force in Darfur. Yet those on the ground, such as representatives of Doctors without Borders people, report that violence remains the main danger for the people, that the effectiveness of the UN forces seldom extends beyond the major towns.

Instead of continuing to apply Band-Aid, the world needs to hold a major conference on Africa. Such a conference would not duplicate the Berlin Conference of the 19th century but it should be as far reaching. The conference should go beyond discussing modes of intervention. It should create the means and the will to occupy and administer those parts of Africa that are likely to remain festering sores indefinitely. There needs to be a form of recolonization, which was, in effect, what the UN Trusteeship system that dated back to the League of Nations was all about. In much of Africa, the colonial blueprint of the nineteenth century needs to be torn up, to be replaced by a new blueprint more in congruence with the divisions among African peoples. These new divisions must be wards of the international community, much in the way that Bosnia remains today.

The more generalized and longer term problem that Kristof addresses in his discussion of rape is the inhumanity of so many peoples, particular Muslims, in their treatment of their women. The formerly Muslim woman in the Netherlands who has recently stood up to her tradition, rejected it, and now wants the Western world to join her has made the point heroically and forcibly. She risks death for the cause of Muslim women and we should applaud and support her cause. Political correctness and multiculturalism should not cause anyone, liberal or not, to accept as unchangeable and worthy of respect customs and attitudes that are seriously demeaning to a segment of the population, whether this be an ethnic minority or women. We must be prepared, as the Turkish generals that transformed Turkey were prepared to do in the 1920s, to delegitimize such customs. Western campaigns against female circumcision seem to be having an effect, partially because this practice is not in the Quran or the most accepted hadith literature. Success against many of the other attitudes and practices demeaning women in Islam may also be successfully campaigned against for the same reason. Perhaps the "honor killings" of wives, daughters, or sisters may be delegitimized for without touching the most essential traditions. Unfortunately, some anti-feminine strictures, such as the idea that it takes the word of two women before a court to equal that of a man, exist in the general body of Muslim law. Any international campaign to right such wrongs must begin with the easier and move to the more difficult, but the world should develop a willingness to educate and retrain people away from moral underdevelopment as much as from material underdevelopment. This development strategy should also be introduced in the trusteeship period as described above. Such a use of "colonialism" was often practiced by the British, most famously by their prohibition of the Hindu suttee in India.

A recent posting gave an incorrect picture of the insurgency situation. Although many more civilians and Iraqi security personnel are being killed than members of the Coalition forces, according to the latest American figures it is still true that the majority of attacks are directed against Coalition forces. Nevertheless, it is also true, as that posting stated, that the number of attacks has been declining since the elections.

This brings us back to the question of where the insurgency is going. A few days ago, Muqtada al-Sadr took his people into the streets again after a long rest, denouncing Americans and demanding that they pull out. The event was in Baghdad. The numbers were impressive, but not as great as the organizers had hoped. Its organizers managed to keep their people nonviolent. It was probably just an attempt to show that the Mahdi Army was still a group that had to be reckoned with, and not really a turn toward supporting the insurgency.

Meanwhile, with fits and starts the politicians seem to be getting their act together. A major Sunni Arab leader went to see the Ayatollah Sistani to thank him for his attempts to avoid Shi'a attacks against Sunnis. This leader was not part of the die-hard Sunni Arab faction, but still a good step. The Iraqi security forces seem to be steadily becoming more and more active and effective. Talk of immediate American withdrawal has generally quietened

All of which leads to the question of how the insurgency will be able to preserve itself. It is still remarkably effective. But for how long? The fanatic Muslim side of the effort continues to get reenforcements from outside the country. But the old Baathist officers who have had most of the money and probably been the most effective militarily must be thinning out through killing and capture. Their sources of funds in Syria are sure to dry up eventually.

To be sustainable at a high level, insurgencies generally need outside support, or at least a fairly open highway for support to flow in. In spite of some accusations, the only side that has been shown to provide regular access is the Syrian. One doubts if it is in the long-range interest of Syria to allow this to continue at the level it has in the past. Syria's leaders belong to a relatively secular Allawi sect of Shiism, one with little love for the Ithna 'Ashariya Iraqi type. Only a general dislike of "the foreigner" motivates them to go along with the insurgency traffic. One can only assume that sooner or later other considerations are likely to change the balance against continuing support for the insurgency.

Which brings us back to the young men willing to risk their lives continuing the fight. Do they still have a theory of victory? It is hard to imagine. About the only fairly coherent one I can think of would be based on the hope that the three major ethnic groups will break apart over the writing of the constitution and the insurgency with its forces already in the field will be able to pick up the pieces. First, one can assume the Americans, disappointed with this result and unwilling to fight the ethnic groups to hold together a disintegrating Iraq, will decide to leave. Then, the insurgency will again establish its supremacy over the Sunni Arab community. Then it will go on to subdue the Shi'a in Baghdad and the south. Finally it will be the turn of the Kurds in the north.

The Muslims extremists associated with Zarqawi have a more diffuse goal. They just want to kill the "enemies of Islam", whether they be Americans or Iraqis. Iraq seems to be as good a place to do this as anywhere. They may have hoped to inflict a major defeat on the American devils in Iraq. As this hope fails to be realized, they can be sustained by the more general faith in their righteousness. But if their secular allies desert them and the Iraqi community becomes more hostile to their presence, their effectiveness and long-term viability as a movement in Iraq will diminish.

One can only hope that the Americans and the new system of government in Iraq can understand the hopes and fears and strategies of the insurgency in such a way as to hasten its withering into insignificance.

Today's paper (April 18) has a valuable Op-Ed making the argument that the United States should cease its opposition to a gas pipeline that is being worked out by Iran, Pakistan, and India. The argument is made on several levels. First, America needs the cooperation of India and Pakistan, and it needs for these countries to develop and preserve good relations with one another. Second, India, and to a lesser extent, Pakistan need more energy sources and Iran is the most easily available and affordable source. The three countries are working out the agreement and the financing — they do not need us. Finally, natural gas is the most easily available energy source for India from the viewpoint of global pollution.

Instead of welcoming this initiative, however, the United States is opposing it in an automatic, unthinking attempt to oppose whatever Iran does. At the same time as we are blocking them in this regard we are also requiring the Iranians to give up part of their efforts in the nuclear area — and this is at the same time as we are proposing to help the Indians develop their nuclear power capabilities. If we carry through on the latter, we will infuriate all our traditional allies, all of whom we have tried to block from efforts to support (and profit from) nuclear power in the developing world.

The authors advise the U.S. government to change its stance in regard to this issue as others as well. Their suggestion is supported by an unrelated report of the IISS (in their "Strategic Comments" series, 11,2). They report that in recent years Iran has pulled back from its support of terror, particularly outside the Middle East. Iran has been reluctant to take an active role in Iraq and is likely to remain reluctant. The IISS paper argues that Iran is offering the United States an opportunity to improve relations. If we really want to keep Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons, this is an opportunity we should take advantage of.