While I’m on an anti-Brownback theme, I noticed a bit of election-year pandering by Sen. Whole Life.  Brownback voted for the Ensign amendment to the appropriation bill for the State Department.  The amendment eliminates a small rise in U.N. peacekeeping funding.  Personally, I think this amendment is just fine.  What is a little surprising is that Brownback, the champion of Darfur, would vote to weaken proposed funding for U.N. peacekeeping when a new peacekeeping mission has been authorised for Darfur.  It isn’t really that surprising when you consider that no Republican presidential candidate wants to be seen voting for increasing U.S. funding of U.N. operations when he has primaries that he wants to win.  Nation-building and peacekeeping may be all the rage in certain limited circles on the right, but rank-and-file Republicans don’t care for them and they really don’t like the U.N.  The amusing thing is that Brownback has voted the right way this time, but his career of internationalist activism and “bleeding-heart conservatism” will still be held against him.  Given how poorly he’s doing overall, he might as well have voted against the amendment and remained true to his sappy foreign policy vision.

Ross noted approvingly that Sam Brownback once again argued for his three-way “soft partition” plan at the debate yesterday, and followed up here.  Well, yes, Brownback did that, but then he has done this at virtually every debate since the campaign started.  That would mean, as a matter of making a “contribution” to the debate about future Iraq policy, that Brownback has apparently won every debate this year for lack of meaningful competition.  You don’t need to be an enthusiast for this year’s debate formats or a Brownback critic to question this assessment.  Tommy Thompson also made similar “contributions” to the debate about political strategy. His “contributions” included calling for impossible things to be done (Maliki should call a vote on the U.S. presence! provincial governments! they should share oil revenues!) without giving any explanation of how any of these things would happen.    

Along with Joe Biden, Sam Brownback is one of the main proponents of “soft partition” and has been since the beginning of the year.  He flirted with Sen. Warner’s modified “surge” plan, which earned him no end of grief from the jingo platoons of the blog and talk radio right (“don’t embolden the enemy!” they cried), and he was even confused by some with someone who marked the beginning of the Great Antiwar Republican Crack-up.  The reactions to Brownback’s very minimal moves away from the administration’s position do tell us how miserable the state of the debate inside the GOP is, but they also draw our attention to the superficiality of the proposals Brownback has endorsed.  I mention these things because it has been my impression that Sam Brownback’s Iraq proposals have been concerned with positioning Brownback as one who can be critical of the way the war is being waged without having to explain why his proposals would achieve the goal of “victory” that he has declared to be necessary.  I get the impression that he has embraced “soft partition,” just as he dabbled with Sen. Warner’s “Anbar, not Baghdad” mini-“surge,” because he would like to say that he does not support the status quo and instead supports some other unworkable scheme whose merits he cannot actually explain.  If a united Iraq has been the fetish of the administration, a federalised Iraq has become the fetish of “realists” and centrist Democrats alike.  There is no sense that those arguing for a federal or partition solution can say why their “solution” is going to stabilise Iraq.  If one of the fears of the anti-withdrawal crowd is that the country will collapse into chaos and warlordism, nothing in a federalising or partition plan prevents this, and indeed any partition, whether “soft” or “hard,” will encourage the centrifugal forces already unleashed in the country.  (Incidentally, the “Awakening” and the arming of Sunni insurgents are also contributing to centrifugal tendencies in the name of pacifying Iraq; what they are doing is setting up nicely, well-armed enclaves of people who have even less incentive to collaborate with other Iraqi groups than before.)  Supporters of “soft partition” support it for the same reasons the ISG report received support–it is something different!  It is a change!  So, you will pardon me if I find Brownback’s “contributions” underwhelming as usual. 

On a slightly related question of allegedly antiwar Republican Senators who are not, in fact, against the war, can I just say how strange I find Steve Clemons’ enthusiasm for Chuck Hagel?  Of course, I find anyone’s enthusiasm for Chuck Hagel to be very odd, but it is always stranger coming from such a vocal opponent of the war.  I might expect David Broder to lavish praise on Chuck Hagel’s willingness to “transcend” partisanship, but I still expect a little more from foreign policy experts.  Mr. Clemons notes that Hagel is probably retiring and will not fight another election.  This is more bad news for the GOP (Nebraska does not actually have much of a recent record of voting Republicans into the Senate), but I confess that I don’t see what it is that the Senate will be losing that is so invaluable with respect to foreign policy.  This is someone who, in his time in office, never saw an intervention that he didn’t like, even when he saw all of the potential problems that might arise from it.  His prescience about problems in Iraq in 2002, rather than making him seem wise and insightful to me, underscores just how irresponsible and conventional the man is when it came time for him to cast a vote.  From the perspective of a war opponent, Hagel’s retirement and likely replacement by a Democrat would make it that much more possible for the Senate majority to have enough votes to push for some real change in policy. 

Hagel has talked a good game at times, but consider this strange remark from Clemons:

Hagel was the boldest in my view in fighting George W. Bush on the war.

When exactly was he fighting Mr. Bush on the war?  When he voted for the authorisation?  When he gave his little speech about shoe-sellers?  I am genuinely mystified at this idea that Hagel has been some great champion of the resistance to Mr. Bush.  He has proved to be something of an annoyance to the administration, but that’s it.

A couple years ago I was discussing the question of Kosovo independence with a friend of mine (yes, this is what I talk about in my spare time), and I submitted that it was likely that an independent Kosovo would, sooner or later, be faced with Serbian military action.  He was skeptical that the Serbs would seriously contemplate such a course, but I thought it was a distinct possibility, and it is becoming only too likely.  Really, it is inconceivable how it could be otherwise, given the symbolic, historical and cultural importance of Kosovo to Serbs.  Given the significance that pious Orthodox believers attach to the death of Tsar-Martyr Lazar and the non-negotiable claims to the territory that Serbian nationalists have, no Serbian government could accede to the detachment of Kosovo even if that government were inclined to do so (and the current one is not).  The demand for Kosovo independence by the “international community” is obviously an outrageous one, an extraordinary example of meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign state in contravention of all of the rules by which the so-called “community” is supposed to be governed.  (There is a bad precedent for it in the separation of East Timor, which was an unwise move at the time and which created a scarcely viable ward of the “international community” whose example can only encourage the numerous separatists inside Indonesia, and repeating the error of Timor would be even more dangerous in a region where there is a very live Albanian irredentist movement.)  Kosovo independence also has potential for reigniting or exacerbating separatist battles around the world and serving as a precedent for revising territorial boundaries based on ethnic demographic change and majoritarian self-determination (something that might be of a little direct concern to us since Calderon declared that wherever there is a Mexican Mexico is also there).  The post-war international settlement has largely held because the major powers have not lent their support to revanchist, revisionist and irredentist political movements and have not tried to back up irredentist claims with their own power.  In the Balkans, this has not been the case.  Do the major powers really want to unleash another round of upheavals in the Balkans like those of the 1912-1923 and 1990-1995 periods?  If the Western powers do, they will pursue the reckless course on which they have been embarked in the drive to make Kosovo independent.

You don’t need to be Dr Strangelove to think that striking Iran would be better than letting it go nuclear. ~James Forsyth

No, you could be John McCain or Hillary Clinton.  It is debatable whether their states of mind would be much of an improvement over Strangelove.

Arnaud de Borchgrave had this item in his latest:

A ranking Swiss official, speaking privately, said, “Anyone with a modicum of experience in the Middle East knows that any bombing of Iran would touch off at the very least regional instability and what could be an unmitigated disaster for Western interests.”

This is the crucial point–anyone with a modicum of experience.  Of course, none of the major candidates for President really has this, and the foreign policy advisors whom the major candidates are consulting seem to have had a pretty appalling record when it comes to policies they have supported in that region.

Supporters of Sen. Larry Craig with the American Land Rights Association are calling for a boycott of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul Airport.

The Battle Ground (Washington) based association says airport police who arrested the senator in a men’s room sex sting are responsible for weakening private property rights in the West. Craig is a Republican member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. ~Seattle P-I

And I thought I had trouble when I was a kid with people who couldn’t spell my last name properly.  This is just bizarre.  Good to know that the Chavistas are tackling the crucial problems of the day.

Via The Plank

His announcement is something strange to behold.  He tells us that he thinks that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are “not outdated.”  Well, that’s a relief.  Rehashed Reaganisms follow.  He is in favour of low taxes, free markets and life.  I’m glad that he’s running a “different kind of campaign,” as I might otherwise have difficulty detecting the new and interesting angle that Fred brings.  Much of the ad is Fred rattling off his resume, which doesn’t make much sense (people already know that he is on Law & Order!).  The entire thing feels like a mock-up, as if Fred will come out the next day to say that it was all just a big joke at our expense, or maybe a new kind of reality entertainment.  He then brings in the meaningless pablum about unity that you’ve probably already seen.  And why does the man shake his head as if he’s having some sort of mild seizure?  Isn’t he an actor?  Can’t he deliver a recorded speech better than this?  More unity babble follows.  All in all, I don’t think it’s going to satisfy very many people who have been waiting patiently for the start of his campaign.  As for me, I just find the entire thing to be hilarious.

P.S. The announcement video is quite long for an online announcement at roughly 15 minutes.  He just keeps talking.  I think Mike Gravel’s YouTube video of the campfire was shorter. 

P.P.S. He bobs his head around all the time.  It’s very distracting.  In his other public appearances, he hasn’t done much of this.

Since he has never imputed bad faith or shabby motives to his opponents, I guess this Will Wilkinson post really puts Ezra Klein in his place.  Oh, wait…never mind.

Concerning the specific dispute over why respectable economists routinely put their arguments on The Wall Street Journal op-ed page, I don’t think that either Klein’s incredulity or Wilkinson’s mockery gets anywhere near the real answer.  It isn’t a question of credible people lending support to a “laughable ideology” or credible people who are ideologically inclined towards the paper’s editorial views publishing in a comfortable venue.  Prominent, respectable economists submit articles to the WSJ op-ed page because the paper is one of the most widely-circulated national newspapers whose main focus is reporting on business and finance.  A huge percentage of WSJ readers, whose politics are happily not always that of the immigration-cum-imperialism crowd who write the paper’s editorials, is made up of people who make their living working for corporations or investing in the market (or both) and who want to have informed commentary about developments in the economy.  Economists publish their op-eds in the WSJ to reach an audience that is going to be interested in what they have to say.  And supposedly clever schemes of building up the empire of the supply-siders really has nothing to do with it.

But his supposed “visit to Anbar Province” was in some ways even more cynical — and accepted even more gullibly by the media — than his June 2006 visit to Baghdad. There, at least, he actually set foot on Iraqi soil.

This time, Bush visited Al-Asad Air Base — an enormous, heavily fortified American outpost for 10,000 troops that while technically in Anbar Province in fact has a 13-mile perimeter keeping Iraq — and Iraqis — at bay. Bush never left the confines of the base, known as ” Camp Cupcake,” for its relatively luxurious facilities, but nevertheless announced: “When you stand on the ground here in Anbar and hear from the people who live here, you can see what the future of Iraq can look like.” ~Dan Froomkin

Thank goodness we have the Kagans of the world to inform us of the profound significance of such events, since we might otherwise mistake them for absurd PR stunts designed to deceive and mislead the public (as usual).

Why don’t we have more politicians like Saakashvili? ~Andrew Sullivan

Because God is merciful and does not want to punish us with such a terrible scourge?

I jest, but only slightly.  I don’t dislike Saakashvili just because of his strange admiration for Stalin (apparently de rigueur for Georgian nationalists these days), his belligerent posturing, his lickspittle relationship to Washington or the calamity of a “reformist” government that he runs.  His “national” movement is also a creature of the Open Society Institute, that Soros-created monstrosity, and he is a close chum with the likes of both McCain and Soros.  For that matter, he seems to be one of those Westernised people who go back home and try to impose foreign models on their home countries.  Something about these people bothers me at a visceral level.  Did I forget to mention the part about his wife saying how he is like Beria?  She said, in a moment reminiscent of something Elizabeth Uhrquhart might have said, ” I think my husband is the right person to frighten people.”  Yes, why can’t we have more politicians like Saakashvili?

I have also seen a member of his government in action at a recent conference on the Caucasus, and let me just say that I was not impressed.  His Minister for Education had come to tell us about all the wonderful new reforms instituted by the government.  One of the audience members, herself of Georgian descent and a self-declared friend of reform, challenged the minister with a question about the closing down of rural schools under Saakashvili’s education reforms.  She asked very simply when the government intended to reopen these schools.  The minister responded with the kind of dismissive character attack that is only too familiar, accusing the questioner of being a sneaky admirer of the old system under Shevardnadze, which was, of course, complete nonsense.  The conversation deteriorated from there.  Nonetheless, Georgian government propaganda had been delivered, and her job was done.  Why can’t we also have an Education Secretary as condescending and oblivious as Georgia has?