Next thing you will be telling me that the Chinese prefer dictatorships due to their Confucian backgrounds.

Posted by: Aaron at May 22, 2006 02:32 AM | Permalink to this comment

Here's a link to this interview at MSNBC.

Posted by: Bitter at May 22, 2006 02:42 AM | Permalink to this comment

Sounds to me like a comment about Israel rather than Iraq. It's Israel embarking on a chancy period with a non-military figure at the helm, and it's Israelis who have (for good reason) a history of wanting to elect generals.

Who Iraqi's are likely to respect as leaders is a tough question. One of the hallmarks of democracy is that people have to be willing to respect the office of the leader. The structure of government provides the continuity and authority, not the personal authority of the office holder. If Iraqis have a history of respecting (i.e obeying) generals, maybe it's because the Baathist generals had the power to kill them. Maybe a general who is bound by laws would look particularly weak and contemptible.

Posted by: Matt Chanoff at May 22, 2006 06:34 AM | Permalink to this comment

Maybe they just want Saddam back?

Posted by: frank wallace at May 22, 2006 03:34 PM | Permalink to this comment

Greg, do you honestly believe this crap?

It's incredibly insulting, is what it is. Not exactly something to keep me here after I decided to drop in after being away for a while to see what new "insights" you had.

Unbelievable.

Posted by: anon at May 22, 2006 04:47 PM | Permalink to this comment

Or a desire by Israel to have 'our SOB' in charge of Iraq. Remember that Saddam was only objectionable to the right in the US because he was insubordinate. As long as he behaved, right-wingers were happy with him.

Posted by: Barry at May 22, 2006 08:54 PM | Permalink to this comment

slew of good posts greg,
keep it up.
d

Posted by: dave at May 23, 2006 06:59 AM | Permalink to this comment

The problem is that this quote is unrealistic....

But somewhere in the bevy of leadership there should also be uniformed people who are prominent and who would command the respect of the population.

The problem lies in the fact that the Iraqi leadership does not want a non-sectarian state --- and any military officer that would be acceptable to the leadership would "lead" a state that was not only authoritarian, but used the military to enforce religious law. Basically, we'd have Iran.

And I don't think that is what Bushco (or Israel) is looking for.....

Posted by: p,lukasiak at May 23, 2006 10:04 AM | Permalink to this comment

And I don't think that is what Bushco (or Israel) is looking for.....

At this point it might be more a question of what they'd settle for.

Back when it was first getting obvious iraq had gone south there was a lot of talk about setting Allawi up as "Saddam lite". Except -- him and what army?

Now we have an army to give him, or give somebody. He could declare that the iraqi government is a loose coalition, and individual provinces are responsible for their own religious laws. That would cut down on a lot of problems if he could make it stick. And with the army, he could. (And of course his army can go anywhere it wants in that loose coalition, and fight whatever insurgents want to challenge him. It isn't like it's a loose coalition for *him*, just for the iraqi legislature.)

Allawi would need the secret police on his side. I don't know whether he could get them, but he was secret-police for Saddam before he got Saddam mad at him, so he'd jprobably know whether he could get them behind him.

Saddam Lite. If it happened, who in the USA would argue that we should keep fighting for democracy in iraq? Not the anti-war guys.

Posted by: J Thomas at May 23, 2006 03:52 PM | Permalink to this comment

Y'mean after all the gas about how we were gonna re-engineer the whole region via a gleaming Iraqi democracy, it turns out that we might end up installing another strongman? Gosh, whoever could have guessed at such an outcome?!?

Posted by: sglover at May 23, 2006 06:04 PM | Permalink to this comment

For all the praise heeped upon the new Iraqi Cabinet, it seems very imcomplete with the three most powerful posts, Defense, Interior & National Security (Is that going to the ministry in charge of the new Secret Police?) vacant. Halevy's comments strike me as sensible. Problem is any Iraqi general is probably going to be a Sunni and associated with Saddam's regime to some extent and therefore unacceptable to the Shiates. It is not a good sign, to put it mildly, that these three posts are going unfilled for now.

Posted by: David All at May 23, 2006 10:59 PM | Permalink to this comment

Don't they have any atheists in that country?

or put in a Zoroastrian or something.

I keed.

Posted by: Aaron at May 24, 2006 10:43 AM | Permalink to this comment

Surely, culture plays a huge part in stable governance. Certainly, Iraq was long ruled by a military-style dictatorship which conditioned its political culture. Undoubtedly, symbols have an enduring effect upon a nation. These are facts.

Using these facts to create a stable political society is an example of an exceptionally clever prudence. What can be wrong with that? It’s exactly what good governance is about: using the tools of statecraft to create a good outcome.

Among the post-modern Left, it is unsavory to speak of “national character” or to presume a human nature. But of course, this is a fatal contradiction. The Left constantly makes judgments of “national character” and of human nature, even as they impugn these very concepts. Arab society is timocratic in nature, as Patai’s “The Arab Mind” demonstrates. Their national character is still similar to the traditional “big man” societies.

We should recognize Iraqi national character, and the universal propensity of human beings to follow symbols. Adding a few uniformed soldiers “somewhere in the bevy of leadership” does not make a timocracy. Using national/cultural symbols to improve governance is the very definition of prudential politics.

Posted by: Jeff Younger at May 24, 2006 04:18 PM | Permalink to this comment

note: ignore anyone who is from the far right who attempts to characterize "the left"....be it "the post modern left" or any other version of "the left". They really don't have the first fucking clue about the left.

Posted by: p,lukasiak at May 24, 2006 04:30 PM | Permalink to this comment

Note: ignore people who avoid dealing with criticism by recourse to ad hominem, unwarranted inference, and vulgar language.

Posted by: Jeff Younger at May 24, 2006 05:47 PM | Permalink to this comment

This mysterious "Left" which disbelieves in human nature -- is it an obscure southern religous cult?

Posted by: frank wallace at May 24, 2006 10:31 PM | Permalink to this comment

Whoever they are, I'm gonna ignore them. Unimportant.

Posted by: J Thomas at May 24, 2006 11:38 PM | Permalink to this comment

We should recognize Iraqi national character, and the universal propensity of human beings to follow symbols. Adding a few uniformed soldiers “somewhere in the bevy of leadership” does not make a timocracy. Using national/cultural symbols to improve governance is the very definition of prudential politics.

Dr. Goebbels admires your shrewd grasp of what the untermenschen really understand and desire.

But how come, just a couple of years ago, you right-wingers, with your scholarly knowledge of Iraqi history and culture, were assuring all us weak-kneed war sceptics just how easy this little desert adventure was gonna be?

The war advocates' have been proven wrong time after time after time, on the broad assurances, and in the details. I dunno why you guys think you speak with any authority at all.

Posted by: sglover at May 25, 2006 06:43 AM | Permalink to this comment

Just a small selection from my bookshelf: Lyotard, Habermas, Focault, Derrida, Lacan, Rorty, Stanley Fish, Carol Gilligan, Andrea Nye, Mary Hawkesworth, Heidegger, Catharine MacKinnon, John Stansfield, Bataille

Polylogists, postmodernists, left-wing, deniers of human nature.

Surely these names are not obscure! Surely, I am not better schooled in leftist political philosophy than you leftists.

Go ahead, ignore them!

LOL

Posted by: Jeff Younger at May 25, 2006 06:52 AM | Permalink to this comment

Dr. Goebbels admires your shrewd grasp of what the untermenschen really understand and desire.

Yeah. A guy writing stuff like this attacks my credibility.

Of course, when we get down to actual reasons --- that's all the left has to offer.

And it really shows on this blog.

Posted by: Jeff Younger at May 25, 2006 06:58 AM | Permalink to this comment

But of course we all ignore "the left". They have nothing to offer.

Here on this blog it's just us folks, no "the left" here.

Posted by: J Thomas at May 25, 2006 02:21 PM | Permalink to this comment

I was going to ask, are any of these maligned but mysterious "Leftists" around? Or are they the modern-day bogeymen, like the "commies", imaginary but especially useful for inspiring fear in small children and people of, well, similar intellectual development? :)

Posted by: frank wallace at May 25, 2006 07:31 PM | Permalink to this comment

I was going to ask, are any of these maligned but mysterious "Leftists" around? Or are they the modern-day bogeymen, like the "commies", imaginary but especially useful for inspiring fear in small children and people of, well, similar intellectual development?

Well, if I understand our resident genius, Jeff Younger, they're all devoted followers of Michel Foucault and Catharine MacKinnon. Why, that's gotta number upwards of *hundreds* of people, who've cunningly begun their betrayals from the very jugular of American power -- its semiotics and women's studies departments. Chilling, eh?

Posted by: sglover at May 25, 2006 08:18 PM | Permalink to this comment

Heidegger was a Right-Winger.

Posted by: NeoDude at May 25, 2006 08:54 PM | Permalink to this comment

I think what Halevy was saying, in a diplomatic way, was that Maliki's govt. is an undistinguished collection of hacks who have been put in office mainly because they are unlikely to accomplish anything and therefore disturb the current very delicate political set in an Iraq that is undergoing a low level civil war. With the Defense, Interior and National Security Ministires still unfilled, hopes that this cabinet might actually do something to improve Iraq's chaotic and murderous situation seems relatively small. A good post on the new govt can be found at http://talismangate.blogspot.com under the heading for May 23, with tittle "A War Cabinet with no Leaders", which I believe sums things up exactly!

Posted by: David All at May 25, 2006 10:59 PM | Permalink to this comment

LOL

David All, I'm not laughing at you. Thanks for a reasonable post. You are of course correct, but I'm not sure Halevi was being very diplomatic.

Hehe. The mysterious left seems to be busy messing about with European politics.

I’ve read Leftists denials of human nature, but I’ve never before read Leftist denials of Leftism.

I guess the European Anti-Capitalist Left doesn’t exit, not do its member parties Bloco de Esquerda (Portugal), Deutsche Kommunistische Partei (Germany), Espacio Alternativo (Spain), Esquerra Unida i Alternativa, (Catalunya), Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (France), Red/Green Alliance (Denmark), Respect (England and Wales), Scottish Socialist Party (Scottland),
Socialist Party (England and Wales), Socialist Workers Party (England and Wales),
SolidaritéS (Switzerland).

I suppose The Party of the European Left doesn’t exist, nor do its member parties Communist Party of Austria, Party of Democratic Socialism (Czech Republic), Estonian Social-Democratic Labour Party, French Communist Party, Party of Democratic Socialism (Germany), Coalition of the Left, the Progress and the Movements (Synaspismos and Greece), Workers-Party (Hungary), Communist Refoundation Party (Italy), Socialist Alliance Party (Romania), Communist Refoundation (San Marino), Communist Party of Slovakia, Communist Party of Spain United Alternative Left of Catalonia (Spain), United Left (Spain), Swiss Party of Labour (Switzerland).

Perhaps the European United Left–Nordic Green Left doesn’t exist, nor do its member parties Progressive Party of Working People, Komunistická strana Cech a Moravy, Vasemmistoliitto, Parti Communiste Francais, Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus, Kommunistiko Komma Elladas, Synaspismos, Sinn Féin, Partito della Rifondazione Comunista, Partito dei Comunisti Italiani, Socialistische Partij, Partido Comunista Português, Izquierda Unida, VänsterPartiet, Socialistisk Venstre Parti, Déi Lénk, Parti Suisse du Travail, Bloco de Esquerda, Folkebevaegelsen mod EU.

Those non-existent Leftists seem to be very busy in South America.

Strange.

Posted by: Jeff Younger at May 26, 2006 03:39 AM | Permalink to this comment

Jeff,

I am very much on the right. I vote Republican. I'd rather stick a nail in my eye than be forced to read Foucault, Derrida, Habermas or the lot of them.

Nevertheless, I do not fall into the Lawrence Harrison/Huntingtonian wing of "the right" that argues that Spaniards, French and Italians are lazy because of some "Ibero/Mediterranean-Catholic culture," or that Asians prefer authoritarianism, that the Belarusians and Central Asians only care about "order," even if it means being beaten by secret police, or that Iraqis will have no clue what to do, and will spend their time wringing their hands with worry, unless a general in a uniform tells them what to do.

If that's your definition of "the right," count me out.

Posted by: anonymous at May 26, 2006 04:43 AM | Permalink to this comment

Well, I also used to be on the right, until being on the right came to be equated with supporting torture and secret police and removing habeas corpus. After "right" came to look like "Stalinist" I didn't qualify so much....

Posted by: frank wallace at May 26, 2006 07:14 AM | Permalink to this comment

Getting back to the original post, I´m still wondering waiting for Greg D to weigh in with his take.
Also, phrases like "command the respect of the population" don´t exactly mesh with what I would call "democratization".

Posted by: Laserjpb at May 26, 2006 12:02 PM | Permalink to this comment

I was going to ask, are any of these maligned but mysterious "Leftists" around?

ME! I'm a charter member of the Bush - haters club. And proud of it (especially since half of America has managed to catch up with me finally).

My point re: JY was simply that he was talking out his ass --- the fact that he has a bunch of books on his shelf that take a wholly academic approach to social issues, etc. doesn't mean he has the first clue about how "the left" operates in the real world. (For instance, I don't know anyone who considers marriage to be "rape" --- we get what McKinnon was saying from an academic perspective, but recognise that she writing in purely theoretical terms. JY obviously doesn't get that.)

***********

Looking forward to Greg's take on Haditha (my take -- send the murderers to be tried at the Hague) and the Bush/Blair press conference (my take -- I'm torn between the desire to have someone bright and articulate like Blair leading this country instead of the buffoon in the White House, and fearful of what more a bright and articulate version of Bush might have managed to destroy in this nation....)

Posted by: p,lukasiak at May 26, 2006 06:00 PM | Permalink to this comment

I kinda agree that this was more a shteck at Olmert and Peretz than at Maliki.

I really dont see any names among Iraqi generals who would be like an Iraqi Rabin, or Sharon. Even among the Baathists, I dont think Saddam let any general stand out like that.

But i guess when an Israeli says something negative about whats happening in Iraq, thats unimpeachable? I dont think so.

Posted by: liberalhawk at May 26, 2006 07:44 PM | Permalink to this comment

Which Iraqi national character would that be? Kurdish? Sunni? Shiite?

I am suprised that JY didn't include Chomsky in his collection of "leftist" authors. I am left-of-center, and I haven't wasted my time or brain cells reading them, other than Chomsky. I am sorry I read him, too.

It is not suprising that someone who believes in "national character" would apply similar thinking to a disparate group of people who do not worship at the altar of George Bush's leadership.

Posted by: TomS at May 26, 2006 08:05 PM | Permalink to this comment

It seems to me that the idea of a national character might have a faint-to-moderate value if you're talking about European nation states with centuries of homogeneous history (French, Hungarians, Brits). Or maybe Vietnamese or Han Chinese or something. But when you're talking about nation states glued together by colonial and post colonial power grabs (Hutus and Tutsis; Sunni, Shia and Kurds) you're on awfully thin ice.

Posted by: matt chanoff at May 26, 2006 09:28 PM | Permalink to this comment

Haven't we had quite enough sage Israeli advice in the Middle East already?

After all, using their interoggation techniques at Abu Ghraib worked so well, and they are a model example in managing THEIR factions!

Posted by: Skip at May 29, 2006 11:18 PM | Permalink to this comment

Skip, if the Israelis are so brutal in their interogation techniques, how come the US sends prisoners to friendly Arab states, i.e. Egypt & Saudi Arabia, to be tortured instead of Israel?

Also Israeli democracy may be untidy, but so far it has worked pretty well, and has never put an idiot like Bush Jr. in charge!

Posted by: David All at May 30, 2006 02:23 PM | Permalink to this comment

Skip, if the Israelis are so brutal in their interogation techniques, how come the US sends prisoners to friendly Arab states, i.e. Egypt & Saudi Arabia, to be tortured instead of Israel?

Also Israeli democracy may be untidy, but so far it has worked pretty well, and has never put an idiot like Bush Jr. in charge!

Posted by: David All at May 30, 2006 03:07 PM | Permalink to this comment

Also Israeli democracy may be untidy, but so far it has worked pretty well, and has never put an idiot like Bush Jr. in charge!

"Bibi" Netanyahu?

Overall, though, your point is sound. There's a lot to dislike in the way our alliance with Israel has evolved, but even a critic like me has to admire the responsiveness of their political system. Whether that's due to their parliamentary government, or the small size of their country, or both, it's something that Americans should envy.

Posted by: sglover at May 30, 2006 03:16 PM | Permalink to this comment

The obvious reason not to send prisoners to be tortured in israel is that word might get out and then it would be an awful propaganda disaster, probably worse than Abu Ghraib.

Good point about israeli democracy, though. Only -- given that our system *has* given us Bush, at this point I don't think we're competent to take israeli advice. Perhaps they might give us very good advice but if we tried to follow it we'd mess up. This is a good time to follow a basicly libertarian approach, and try to get our government to take as few initiatives as possible for a few years.

Posted by: J Thomas at May 30, 2006 03:25 PM | Permalink to this comment

So J Thomas it is okay for Islamic prisoners to be tortured as long as it is done by their fellow Moslems and not by the infidel Christians & Jews?

Agree with J Thomas about the uselessness of the Israelis or anybody else offering advice to this utterly imcompetent Administration!

Sglover: Your comment about Netanyahu is well taken. This raises an interesting point: What is worse a somewhat competent & intelligent malevolent leader or one that is completely clueless?!

PS: Apologize for the double post above. Will try to remember in the future that the error message usually means that the post will take a while to be in the comments section.

Posted by: David All at May 30, 2006 10:20 PM | Permalink to this comment

David, I don't say it's OK for us to torture prisoners ourselves, or ship them to muslim countries to be tortured, or for that matter ship them to south america or eastern europe to be tortured.

And if we *do* make the mistake of torturing them, it's also a mistake to let the word get out. Usually the bad results we get from being a nation that's known to do torture is worse than any improvement in intelligence gathering we might possibly benefit from.

And finally if we do make the mistake of torturing, and we make the mistake of letting word out that we're torturing, it's even worse if the world finds out we're doing the torturing in israel or using israeli torturers. Speaking purely in practical terms, ignoring any moral considerations, this is a surefire way to get arabs mad at us. It isn't like they believe our occasional pretense of being an evenhanded broker between israel and other semitic nations. But this level of hypocrisy would be breathtaking.

What is worse a somewhat competent & intelligent malevolent leader or one that is completely clueless?!

One of the age-old questions. Which is better, mean or stupid?

Posted by: J Thomas at May 30, 2006 11:54 PM | Permalink to this comment