Jews Behaving Badly

From the Department of Self-Promotion: Why is it so damn hard for some people to get married in Israel?

Kosovo and the Democratic Party

Peter Beinart has a pretty smart column in the new issue of the new (and much improved) TIME magazine about the future of Democratic Party foreign policy. (I offer this praise despite the unfortunate Prince reference that closes the piece). Beinart dials back the clock to 1999 and the non-UN sanctioned fight a US-UK NATO-led coalition waged against Slobodan Milosevic. It was around the success of this venture that Tony Blair articulated what he deemed his “doctrine of international community” – and what others termed “The Blair Doctrine.” Beinart describes it thus:

In a globalized world, bad things that happen in other countries spread more quickly to our shores. Genocides spawn refugees, who destabilize their neighbors. Corruption sparks financial meltdowns, which rock the world economy. Pandemics hopscotch across the globe. Blair’s answer was for Britain and the U.S., working through international institutions, to intervene more aggressively in the domestic affairs of other nations: to strengthen their financial and public-health systems, to push them toward capitalism and democracy, and in cases of extreme neglect and abuse, to take over the nation-building process by force.

Much of the Democratic Party foreign-policy elite (Holbrooke, Albright, Lake, etc.) more or less subscribe to this premise. The problem: a large part of the base of the Democratic Party does not. Beinart cites some compelling German Marshall Fund polling to prove his point that Democrats are turning inward. The heroes of the grassroots left are people like Virginia Senator James Webb who believes the U.S. should “send American forces into harm’s way only if the nation is directly threatened.”(It should be noted that others sketched some of the contours of this trend a year or so ago.)

Beinart basically punts when it comes to prescription. But his body of work suggests that he is pulling for the Blairite vision to prevail. All of this underscores the fundamental tension that sits at the heart of the Democratic Party: Will the radical excesses of the Bush era be confronted by the radical excesses of a left all too hasty to abandon anything that might be (inaccurately, most often) tarred as neoconservative? Or will it be met with a measured response that begins the work of resuscitating the legitimacy of the very liberal principles that have been soegregiously abused and debased by this president?

Not Going Well

The whole world is wincing. The surge isn’t working. Iraqi insurgents can blow up the country’s heavily-fortified parliament at will.

Bush talks of standing with a “fledgling democracy,” and it’s hard to argue with that sentiment when the attacks on it are so brutal. But supporting and defending a constitutional democratic order from outside attack is one thing. What do you do, though, when the attacks come from inside and the new constitutional order is fundamentally disputed? And what do you do when the agents of that constitutional order have long ago adopted tactics as brutal as its opponents, and seem to care more about sectarian supremacy than liberal democracy?

Vagina With Teeth

No, really….vagina with teeth.

(Hat tip: Norm)

“Betrayed”

Perhaps you have noticed that the New Yorker has recently revamped its online presence and is offering much more substantial fare. Of particular note is a Q&A George Packer conducted recently about his stirring April 2 article about the plight of Iraqis who bought into the promise of a democratic Iraqi future. One reader asked Packer what accounts for the incompetence of the American administration of postwar Iraq.

This is an excellent question, and a huge one. It might require a book to answer. On every trip to Iraq, I have met remarkable American individuals in military and civilian ranks, but, like most people I have talked to about Iraq, I am stunned by the level of general American incompetence there. It obviously has to do with leadership. Richard Armitage, when I interviewed him, placed the blame on a complete lack of accountability at the highest levels. But I have also come to believe that Iraq represents a larger failure than just that of individuals in the Bush Administration or the Administration as a whole. Across the board, American institutions have failed. A war on this scale puts a whole country to the test, like a human body that’s been slack for a while and then is suddenly exerted to the limits of its strength. In Iraq, we’ve failed as a country.

Go read the whole thing.

Discuss Among Yourselves

I have been a bad blogger. Unfairly burdening my ever-so-capable partner with the sole responsibility of keeping this operation afloat. I am not prepared to re-enter the fray in earnest. But in the meantime I offer an interesting factual tidbit that came as news to me.

Approximately 7% of males are born without all or part of their foreskin. If you happen to be a member of this 7% and you decide to convert to Judaism you will have to undergo, in place of the traditional circumcision, a hatafat dam brit, a ceremony that entails a light prick of the penis.

Which begs the question: What is a “light prick” of the penis?

Where Are the “Good” Iraqis?

“The good people of Iraq are trying desperately to transform their country from one ruled by fear, repression, and tyranny into a democracy that upholds the values of equality, tolerance, human rights, and the rule of law.”

–Iraqi President Jalal Talabani

Talabani’s passionate essay for FP magazine is worth reading in full, if only for an alternate view on the debacle unfolding in Iraq. Talabani says that Iraq is every democracy’s fight and that losing is not an option. In the words of Mandy Rice-Davies, “he would wouldn’t he?” And yet Talabani’s basic sentiment is much of the reason I, for one, supported continued engagement in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But if the past two years have proven anything it’s that Iraq is not a concept that inspires enough solidarity for Iraqis not to kill each other and squabble endlessly, and that the number of Iraqis who truly want, let alone are trying desperately to transform their country from one ruled by fear, repression, and tyranny into a democracy that upholds the values of equality, tolerance, human rights, and the rule of law is exceedingly small. Things might have been different with more troops or better tactics, but how long can Talabani ask other democracies to expend blood and treasure for a constitutional order seemingly and violently opposed by the great majority of his people?

Cower, Iranian Nit-Wits!

“Boarding two helicopters, they left for their base in Devon, where they are to be debriefed and to undergo medical and psychological checkups, said Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the chief of the defense staff.”

-from the New York Times, emphasis most assuredly mine.

Sir Jock Stirrup!!! Is this a belated April Fool’s joke on us limeys? How did we get from Bomber Harris to Jock Stirrup? No wonder the Dinner Jacket feels he can snatch up British sailors with impunity. Can Sir Jock at least please change his name to Sir Biggus Dickus? What’s the name of our field chief marshal one wonders – Lord Muffy Jodhpur?

(Above: image of what Sir Jock must look like.)

Poppy Don’t Preach

“Large areas of Uruzgan remain Taliban havens. The local government, plagued by corruption, remains so weak that it does not yet have a significant program against soaring poppy production, which helps underwrite the insurgency.”

-from the New York Times, emphasis mine.

Groan. If you think you can fight the war on the Taliban and the war on drugs at the same time, or that the latter is somehow essential to the former, lay off the counter-insurgency crack pipe. This is really simple, kids: if the Taliban is willing to pay Afghan peasants cash-money for the country’s one major cash crop, those Afghan peasants are going to grow and sell those opium-producing poppies. It would be one thing to bomb their best customers if you were willing to step in and buy the product yourself, or at least pay them off not to grow poppies. But if, instead, you bomb their best customers and you spray their poppy crops with pesticides you’re going to get some pissed-off, Taliban-supporting peasants. Even a brain on drugs can understand that simple logic.