Like many influential causes before it, the "tea party" movement appeared on the scene uninvited by the political establishment. Democrats in the White House and in Congress recognize it for what it is - a spontaneous and pointed response to the Obama agenda - but some Republican leaders still aren't sure what to make of it, as tea partiers have risen on their own and stirred up trouble in GOP primaries. Tax and spend rinos.
Sometimes in politics it's easier to recognize foes than friends, and this may be why Democrats have been quicker to figure out the movement's potential. They know that in November's midterm elections, Republicans will gain mightily from a growing discontent with the administration, which has disappointed the independent voters who made the difference for Barack Obama in 2008.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/04/2010 13:15 ||
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#1
Pubs need to understand -- Tea Party isn't going to give them votes. Pubs have to earn it.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/04/2010 13:40 Comments ||
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#2
Wonder what Petraeus thinks of the movement.
Petraeus + Mitch Daniels or Paul Ryan would be a sure winner, methinks
#3
Democrats in the White House and in Congress recognize it for what it is - a spontaneous and pointed response to the Obama agenda
Don't be surprised if they stay around. They enjoy the support of disenfranchised Demoncrats, Republicans, and Independents. They are unhappy with Washington--not just the Democrats. Obama might ought to be careful what he wishes for.
#4
One of the interesting dirty tricks political tactics used by the Clinton democrats in '96 was to induce Perot to run again.
They spent alot of time insulting him, etc. counting on the fact that his ego couldn't take it.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
04/04/2010 15:15 Comments ||
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#5
Seems to me the press, including UK press, is going just a bit too gaga about the possibility of a Petraeus candidacy. I wonder what that is all about.
#6
Gorb, "When the people see a strong horse and a weak horse, they will back the strong horse."
--ObL
What's left of the MSM is beginning to look for a popular backup/alternative to Obama who can sell papers, attract eyeballs etc. They realize that most of their readers/viewers have become bored by the empty suit in the White House, and they're just beginning to look around for the Next Big Thing in US politics.
God forbid it should be a Tea Partier or a GOPper.
#7
"Seems to me the press, including UK press, is going just a bit too gaga about the possibility of a Petraeus candidacy."
Luckily, gorb, Petraeus isn't.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/04/2010 17:11 Comments ||
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#8
Luckily,gorb, Petraeus isn't.
To his great credit. The man increasingly looks like the only intelligent adult leader in the executive branch. If he had a running mate who was expert in economic and fiscal issues-- Paul Ryan, say, or Mitch Daniels-- he'd be a pretty compelling candidate for lots of people who are disgusted with our political class.
#9
lex, I don't think anyone knows what his politics might be. Keep in mind that military officers are not always "Conservative" in their beliefs. Some haven't a clue when the public tells them to f### off, you work for me.
#10
As long as people think the TEA Party (and the trunks) are about taxes, they have not gotten their point across. We don't have a tax problem. We have a spending problem. And this means getting control of three out of control spending programs, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. If these are not mentioned, it's all eyewash.
#2
Hillary Clinton, America’s secretary of state, was in Canada last week. She criticized Ottawa for not inviting aboriginal groups to a meeting on the Arctic, and for not including the facilitation of abortion in the Canadian government’s “maternal health” initiative to developing countries.
Steyn is great with words. At the risk of being politically incorrect, I'll still say: These people are trying to be annoying to everyone in the world with their smug, smarmy, arrogant manners. What a bunch of condescending and patronizing twits. Well they might as well put up with it too. We' ve had to tread water and suffer through it since January, 2009. Hopefully this bunch will get their comin uppins in November elections.
#3
It's funny that Obama's actual foreign policy is the isolationism Bush promised he'd do but didn't (because of 9/11), to raucous lefty/media axis sneers.
Americans have never been so disgusted with their politicians. More than three-quarters of Americans disapprove of Congress. President Barack Obama's favourability ratings have slumped to below 50 per cent and he is no longer trusted or believed by many who voted for him.
Republicans are faring little better and the growth of the Tea Party movement reflects the widespread disgust with Washington and the political class. Incumbents across the board are vulnerable in November's mid-term elections
Many voters yearn for an outsider, someone with authenticity, integrity and proven accomplishment. Someone who has not spent their life plotting how to ascend the greasy pole, adjusting every utterance for maximum political advantage.
In this toxic climate, perhaps the only public institution that has increased in prestige in recent years is the American military. Its officers are looked upon, as General George Patton once noted, as "the modern representatives of the demi-gods and heroes of antiquity".
Where better to look for Obama's successor, therefore, than in the uniformed ranks? Not since 1952, when a certain Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe during the Second World War, was elected President, have the chances of a military man winning the White House been more propitious.
Within those ranks, no one stands out like General David Petraeus, head of United States Central Command, leader of 230,000 troops and commander of United States forces in two wars. Having masterminded the Iraq surge, the stunning military gambit that seized victory from the jaws of defeat, he is now directing an equally daunting undertaking in Afghanistan.
Petraeus, 57, has survived the collapse of his parachute 60 feet above the ground. After he was shot in the chest during a training exercise and endured five hours surgery, the then battalion commander refused to lie in hospital recuperating. Demanding that the tubes be removed from his arm, he declared: "I am not the norm."
A Princeton PhD, he has revolutionised the way America fights its wars, inculcating the doctrine of counter-insurgency in a new generation of officers who have finally put the ghost of Vietnam to rest. At West Point he qualified for medical school just to prove he could, never bothering to apply.
The problem is that Petraeus appears to have no desire to be commander-in-chief. His denials of any political ambition have come close to the famous statement by General William Sherman. The former American Civil War commander, rejecting the possibility of running for president in 1884 by stating: "I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected."
Yet speculation about "Petraeus in 2012" persists. The White House is wary of him just as President Bill Clinton was wary of General Colin Powell in 1995. Rumours that he wants to run have even reached Downing Street.
At a recent appearance in New Hampshire - which happens to be the state in which the first presidential primary will be held in January 2012 - Petraeus was emphatic.
"I thought I'd said 'no' about as many ways as I could. I really do mean no," he insisted when asked if he was destined for politics. "I've tried quoting a country song 'What part of 'no' don't you understand?' but I really do mean that...I will not ever run for political office, I can assure you." Almost Shermanesque.
Some note, however, when the future President Barack Obama was asked in February 2007 if he would serve his full six-year term in the Senate (due to expire in 2010), he responded: "If you get asked enough, sooner or later you get weary and you start looking for new ways of saying things." When asked directly if he would run for the White House in 2008, he said flatly: "I will not."
There's little reason to doubt the sincerity of Petraeus's denials. He recently confided that he has remained so steadfastly apolitical since he became a major-general that he has not voted. And he has maintained a much lower profile since the Bush administration, when he became closely identified with the former President.
This month, in an interview for a lengthy and laudatory profile in Vanity Fair, he evens praises Obama as being "everything that everyone says he is... exceedingly bright, very focused - and very competitive, by the way".
Petraeus, wire-thin and an accomplished runner, is known for being one of the most competitive men on the planet and he lacks nothing in the self-assurance department. No one has ever accused him of being deficient in his sense of patriotism.
Whether as an independent or as Republican, he could be a powerful presidential candidate and a potentially accomplished President. He may not want to run but if the clamour to draft him grows he might just find the call of duty - not to mention the contest of a lifetime - difficult to resist.
#1
A man of honor knowbetter than to hang with whores.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
04/04/2010 11:35 Comments ||
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#2
Whores begin to look pretty respectable when you look around at some [not all] of the politicians we have in Washington.
The problem is that Petraeus appears to have no desire to be commander-in-chief. I hope he reconsiders. He has been about service to his country for his entire career. I would hope he would see the need for an honest man of integrity in the Whitehouse and serve his country once more.
#3
If everything he and troops did in Iraq and Afghanistan mean nothing when the Donks do away with the Constitution back home, he'll have to ponder what 'service' and 'oath' mean.
#4
"Republicans are faring little better and the growth of the Tea Party movement reflects the widespread disgust with Washington and the political class."
Be careful of the narrative here, folks.
This one line, out of all in the article, is the one to raise a red flag. The MSM pundits here and abroad will push this "third party" crap whenever and wherever, and in full overdrive, because they know that it can only hurt conservatism this time around.
Petraeus or anyone else third party reelects Obama, it's that simple.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
04/04/2010 16:47 Comments ||
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#5
"the Donks do away with the Constitution back home, he'll have to ponder what 'service' and 'oath' mean. "
Proc2K, that though has been on my mind as of late, and wondering what all that time and service are worth, now that it appears the politicians are destroying what I and others defended.
#6
The MSM's yearning for a liberal, sophisticated four-star military man-turned-politico resembles the yearning among gay males for proof that a macho, hetero hearthrob is secretly gay.
Hence the MSM narrative that Colin Powell was a closet liberal, and the nascent MSM narrative that Petraeus is a closet Israel-basher. Then the failed narrative that Wes Clark was somehow a serious, credible national leader instead of a self-deluded flake.
Watch the emerging MSM narrative about Petraeus. After the failed effort to show him as a Palestinian advocate, the bloggers and the NYT will probably try to paint him as a secret peacenik who wants out of Aghanistan, or a domestic progressive who seeks higher taxes and redistribution of income and supports gay marriage etc. Good luck with that one.
#7
I re-read the Vanity Fair interview again. I noticed several things I hadn't noticed before. Some of these quotes may reflect the authors viewpoint rather than Gen. Petraeus':
1. His doctoral thesis concerned Vietnam, work that led him, along with other young military thinkers, to question the army’s conventional view of that war, which tended to place the blame for failure on civilian leaders and the press. As the critics saw it, the failure had been one mainly of strategy: the military had gone about it all wrong. What had been needed was an approach that came under the broad heading “counter-insurgency.”
My understanding of the Viet Nam war is that a vigorous counter-insurgency program was in effect during the war--particularly early on.
2. The senator who complained that the generalÂ’s testimony defied belief, Hillary Clinton, invited Petraeus to her Washington home shortly before being sworn in as secretary of state. The two of them sat before her fireplace and over drinks tacitly agreed to forget past differences and return their relationship to one of mutual admiration.
He is a better man than I. I tend to find it difficult to get chummy with people who try to destroy me. That said, it is probably a credit to Petraeus to see a "bigger picture" in which he tries to accomplish the larger goal of winning a war.
3. His relationship with Obama, in particular, has deepened. “I think the president has proven to be everything that everyone says he is,” Petraeus says.
Same comment as 2.
4. He has brought an expansive vision to his new job, just as he has done in the past, pushing the Obama administration to rethink its approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the broader context of the region. He relies on the cooperation of Arab nations, and so must cope with their unhappiness over AmericaÂ’s inability to make progress in peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
I'm suspicious that this attitude plays into the long stated game plan of the Muslims of destroying Israel. I'd be suspicious that Petraeus might harbor Arabophile attitudes.
#10
With all due respect, ladies and gentlemen....this nation already elected one leader that people saw as the embodiment of their hopes, dreams and aspirations because he looked great in a suit and said pretty things. How did that work out for ya?
Look, do any of you really know where he stands on the issues? I don't think so. For all you know, he's the polar opposite of what you want as a president, even though he seems to be a very capable general. The man has said he doesn't want to run and isn't interested. Please take him at his word and find someone else.
#11
If everything he and troops did in Iraq and Afghanistan mean nothing when the Donks do away with the Constitution back home, he'll have to ponder what 'service' and 'oath' mean.
He, like every other service person and most of us old retirees will have to decide just how much we're going to honor our oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States, and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same". There is NO AUTHORITY for the Democrats or any other political party can abolish the Constitution, nor is there a legitimate way for Congress to do it. The attempt to abolish the Constitution would be a supreme act of treason. There are about 15 million of us that would "take up arms" against those that would try (I hope!). That SHOULD include every active duty officer and enlisted currently serving, plus the Reserve and the National Guard. Unfortunately, I think the Donks are just stupid enough to try.
Keep your weapon ready, and your ammo close at hand - we live in interesting times.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/04/2010 21:47 Comments ||
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#12
With all due respect, ladies and gentlemen....this nation already elected one leader that people saw as the embodiment of their hopes, dreams and aspirations because he looked great in a suit and said pretty things. How did that work out for ya?
One without a real record other than a Hollyweird narrative and another with a long record that tells what a man is or isn't. In the end we have to make a judgment on anyone presented to us. I guess you'd prefer someone the RNC will foist on everyone with the motto - This or Obama.
Part of the the attraction is that he is one of very few who doesn't 'seem' hungry for power for its own sake. Depending on who you read either Washington and Eisenhower weren't interested either or did a damn good show of not. Either way, those worked as best as we could expect.
#13
I guess you'd prefer someone the RNC will foist on everyone with the motto - This or Obama.
Hardly. You can play amateur shrink all you want with this, but the fact remains....you don't know his private political views, you are assuming that they will be the best ones for the country (and maybe even mesh with yours), and you are assuming that he doesn't mean it when he says he's not interested in running. You even state that he doesn't "seem" to be into power for its own sake.
That's a lot of assumptions there, and way too many for my taste. Sorry.
The gentleman has stated he's not interested. Take him at his word, find another worthy candidate who you don't have to "assume" so much about, and gird up for 2012.
The perplexing irony of Barack Obama's presidency is that even as conservatives attack him as a crazed socialist, many on the left are frustrated with what they see as the president's accommodationist backtracking from campaign promises.
The difference between the two sides is that the left's complaints are more, as they liked to say in the days of George W. Bush, reality-based. Obama has done things - or, more often, failed to do things - that have understandably disappointed various constituencies.
The latest irritant is Obama's move to expand offshore drilling. "[T]he White House is in the process of antagonizing yet another key Democratic constituency," liberal blogger John Aravosis wrote after Obama's announcement.
And then there are:
Unions unhappy that their top legislative priority, the Employee Free Choice Act, is stalled and that they had to swallow an excise tax on insurance plans as part of health-care reform.
Gay rights advocates frustrated with the languid pace of progress on repealing "don't ask, don't tell" and incensed this week when the Obama Justice Department filed a brief defending the policy's constitutionality.
Women's groups upset about the abortion restrictions in the new health-care law.
Civil libertarians infuriated about the administration's legal positions in the war against terrorism, from indefinite detention to warrantless wiretapping to military commissions.
African American groups concerned that the administration has not done enough for minorities, particularly in the area of job creation.
Hispanic groups bemoaning the lack of action on immigration reform.
The president remains overwhelmingly popular with liberal Democrats. His problem, such as it is, is with what one party strategist called the "activist infrastructure."
Obama ran as, well, Obama - a relatively unknown but charismatic vessel into which Democrats of any ideological stripe could pour their hopes. Disappointment was inevitable. No flesh-and-blood president could live up to the imagined heights of candidate Obama. If the swooning left had read Obama's policy manifesto, "The Audacity of Hope," it would have gotten a peek at Obama's style as president, elevating the achievable over the perfect.
Given his supporters' "extravagant unrealism, there was no way he could fulfill all those promises - not in his first year, not in his first term, not ever." Obama's decision to put all his chips on health care guaranteed that those with competing priorities would be frustrated. The unexpected length of the health-care fight only aggravated that reaction.
Galston points to another factor underlying unhappiness among Democratic Party constituencies: the "asymmetrical polarization" of the political parties. Unlike the GOP, which has consolidated its conservatism, the Democratic Party is ideologically diverse. The Democratic base lacks an ideological majority. Some of the party's core voters are destined to be disappointed some of the time. Yeah, the trunks are 'consolidated'.
Such unhappiness may drain energy and money from campaigns, but it's hard to imagine a primary challenge to Obama similar to Ted Kennedy's effort to oust President Jimmy Carter in 1980. After all, Obama managed to secure passage of health-care reform, albeit without the vaunted public option. We'll see if that was an asset, or liability.
Then again, Obama faces the worst of three worlds. Conservatives see him as the reincarnation of Karl Marx. Liberals are frustrated by what they perceive as one sellout or another. And independents, disgusted by partisan bickering, worried about the economy and nervous about health reform, don't perceive any moderation.
Not exactly a comfortable place for a president to be.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/04/2010 00:00 ||
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"Conservatives see him as the reincarnation of Karl Marx."
Naaahhh, we don't respect him that much.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/04/2010 0:20 Comments ||
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#2
"Some of the people, some of the time," don'tcha know...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/04/2010 0:22 Comments ||
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#3
Some of the idiots people, all of the time, Mr. Murcek. :-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/04/2010 0:25 Comments ||
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#4
The Washington Post doesn't yet list the disgruntled Dems who are supporters of Israel.
They also don't list the disgruntled Dems and independents who think the stimulus funds were wasted on Chicago like pork barrel projects.
The retirees who will lose their medical drug prescription coverage haven't even shown up yet but this is another incipient block of the disgruntled that will become a reality in the next 12 months.
Posted by: lord garth ||
04/04/2010 1:00 Comments ||
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#5
It's the unemployment rate, stupid. If it doesn't get below 8%, he's a one-term president, regardless of anything else.
#6
Explore the one term President concept. Explore the Doinks losing their majority after November.
And explore Obama drifting slowly down like a wet turd in the bowl for three long years...until he hits bottom.
#7
Perhaps Obama is NOT socialist enough for the 'reality-based' activists, but is MORE than socialist enough to cause all kinds of economic and political problems? Not terribly perplexing, IMO...
from an election viewpoint we are probably talking about a lot of votes in Florida and New York
given that Florida is a purple state anyway, there are almost certainly enough disgruntled pro Israel dems there that Obama would lose that state in 2012 to almost anybody saner than Pat Robertson
however, there needs to be a lot more disgruntling before New York would be lost to Obama in 2012
Posted by: lord garth ||
04/04/2010 8:33 Comments ||
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#11
In today's NY Post, tax hikes on small business amount to about 25%. That's causing a great deal of "disgruntlement."
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/small_biz_big_tax_Tm9zntbp2I339WyBwwOgzK
#19
The difference between the two sides is that the left's complaints are more, as they liked to say in the days of George W. Bush, reality-based.
Yep, Obamacare is unreal, alright. Like the stimulus, cap 'n trade, amnesty, adding 10% to the Federal land, shutting down new offshore drilling, raising taxes, buying GM, etc. etc.
Bambi isn't making anyone happy except his puppet-masters.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/04/2010 17:05 Comments ||
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#22
Shades of Jimmy Earl Jr. By 1980 Jimmah had PO'd labor, left-libs, Jewish Dems, and conservative white southerners (including evangelicals alarmed by the IRS move to tax previously exempt fundie ministries). His only really loyal supporters were afr-americans.
The only hope for Barry -- aside from a steep drop in unemployment, which is v. unlikely imo -- is for the GOP to fracture. Could happen, and the MSM is desperately trying to play this up at every possible juncture, but I doubt it. Most voters know that the Dems under Barry have zero credibility on fiscal matters and next to no cred regarding reducing unemployment.
#24
Ya know, maybe the electorate will learn there is no such thing as a free lunch, and grow up to stop whining when they don't get their way all the time.
Just like they did after Carter....
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/04/2010 17:57 Comments ||
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#25
Imagine Petraeus being drafted
From what I've heard, despite being an insightful strategist, Petraeus has a reputation for being a less than consistent and admired combatant commander among those who've served with him.
#27
CNN + FOX > PERTS > collectively, its gonna be years [short of war] before America sees an unemployment rate at or below FIVE PERCENT again???
HMMMM, HMMMM, wid UNIVERSAL JIHAD = ISLAMIST CONQUEST + SET UPS FOR PRO-US-VS-ANTI-US OWG-NWO, GLOBAL SOCIALIST-GOVTIST ORDER, etc, IMO a safe guestimate offhand would be minima 20-30 years???
Give or take a few Asteroids + Massive Super-Solar Flares.
Amnesty International's Secretary-General Claudio Cordone is defending jihad when it occurs in "self-defence." The issue arose after Amesty International suspended Gita Sahgal, one of its senior officials in London, for expressing the view that Amnesty's collaboration with former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzem Begg "fundamentally damages" the group's reputation. Sahgal pointed out that "to be appearing on platforms with Britain's most famous supporter of the Taliban, whom we treat as a human rights defender, is a gross error of judgment." (And worse, I would have thought)
Begg isn't just Britain's most famous Taliban supporter. According to Steve Emerson and Tom Joscelyn, he is also a friend and supporter of Anwar al-Awlaki, imam to some of the 9/11 hijackers, and an inspiration to both the Christmas Day bomber and the Fort Hood mass-murderer.
Following Sahgal's suspension for criticizing Amnesty International's alliance with Begg, supporters petitioned the organization on her behalf. That led to Cardone's spirited defense of Begg. He argued that Begg advocates detainees' due process rights within "the same framework of universal human rights standards that we are promoting," Attempting to reconcile this extraordinary claim with Begg's association with violent jihad, Cardone asserted that advocacy of "jihad in self defence" is not antithetical to human rights.
Sahgal's supporters promptly pointed out that the concept of defensive jihad "is a thread running through many fundamentalist and specifically 'salafi-jihadi' texts." For example,
it is mentioned by Abdullah Azzam, mentor of Osama bin Laden, and founder of Lashkar e Tayyaba. It is the argument of 'defensive jihad' that the Taleban uses to legitimize its anti human rights actions such as the beheading of dissidents, including members of minority communities, and the public lashing of women.
There are, then, "human rights" activists who fairly can be said to share al Qaeda's values, and the head of Amnesty International is one of them. Fortunately, as Sahgal and her supporters illustrate, there are human rights activists, including harsh critics of the U.S., who are as appalled by those values as we are.
[Asharq al-Aswat] Perhaps Jalal Talabani hasn't been the ideal president for Iraq over the past four years but nobody can claim that it is because he is a Kurdish president that Iraq's ties with Arab states are deteriorating. Tariq al Hashimi, one of two Iraqi Vice Presidents, whose term is coming to an end, suggested not appointing another Kurd to the presidential post so as not to hinder reconciliation with the Arabs. This remark could be described as racist, especially coming from a politician who is complaining about detestable sectarianism and its elements in Iraq and who based his electoral presentation on the idea of an Iraq for everyone.
Let us suppose that the Arabs really do not want another Kurdish president to head the Iraqi republic but an Arab; would it be right for the Iraqis to bow down to an order like this? Nobody outside [of Iraq] has the right to dictate to the Iraqis who they should choose as a president or to fill presidential positions unless the nominated candidate is hostile against other Arabs, in which case the decision remains in the hands of the voters.
If the Arabs are proud of historical leaders such as Salahaddin al Ayoubi and are not critical of Ayyubid rule of half the Arab world, then what harm will it cause them if another Kurd rules Iraq, especially as it is the Arabs who are against the idea of Kurdistan seceding from Iraq and insist on a united Iraq with Kurds and Arabs. In this case, the Kurd becomes Iraqi and it is his right to assume any position his people choose him for.
The leader of the Kurdistan region Massoud Barzani sought to justify Talabani's suspicious visit to Tehran by saying that he was not invited to the Arab Summit -- suggesting that there is some kind of Arab racism against the president because he is Kurdish -- and that Talabani responded to their boycott by visiting Iran. I am not sure that the Arab Summit held in Sirte, Libya deliberately neglected Talabani and failed to invite him. I believe that the problem is an internal Iraqi one that relates to the fact that there are two principal positions; prime minister and president. According to the rules, the invite should have been extended to the Iraqi government. The evidence is that the Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, who is also Kurdish, was present at the Arab Summit and represented Iraq. When he planned to withdraw because the Libyans were receiving expelled Iraqi Baathists, all the Arabs present tried to dissuade him. This is how Minister Zebari continued to participate in the conference.
The problem with the two principle positions also exists in Lebanon and the two positions also clash over invites to the summit. Let me remind you of the chaos that ensued at the Arab Summit in Oman when both the then Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and the late Prime Minister Rafik al Hariri insisted on attending the summit. Both sat down and were at odds. The same thing happened at the Beirut Summit.
My interpretation of the Arab aloofness is that the Arabs are searching for an excuse to keep away from Iraq's shifting sands. The Arabs don't care about who becomes president as long as he is not hostile towards them. Despite his disturbing closeness to the Iranians, President Talabani did not antagonize any Arab or Arab government. Also, the Arabs did not boycott Iraq because the president is Kurdush; in fact they boycotted when [Ghazi] Al Yawar, who is of Arab origin, was head of state. Matters have changed since. Today, Arab-Iraqi ties are less divided and everyone is waiting for the security and political situation [to improve] and the situation will not change much regardless of whether there is a president or a prime minister.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/04/2010 00:00 ||
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"Hashimi Wants an Arab President"
And a pony!
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/04/2010 0:23 Comments ||
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[Asharq al-Aswat] Things are happening very fast in Iraq in order to form a government there; Nouri al Maliki is running, Ayad Allawi is rushing, Ammar al Hakim is courting Allawi to annoy al Maliki, whilst Moqtada al Sadr is flirting with everyone and the Kurds are watching the scene carefully from their mountaintops with eagle eyes and are ready to pounce.
Iran is casting a spell on Iraq so that Iraq does not become entranced by nationalism and abandons the cloak of Tehran. Turkey is also casting a spell in order to prevent a replay of the old battles between the Safavids and the Ottomans that were taking place in Baghdad for centuries. Turkey's eye is on the Kurdish dream and an Iranian attack. Syria does not want its bitter enemy Nouri al Maliki and once again it pulled out the "pan-Arabism" card by backing Allawi, whereas Jordan and Saudi Arabia would hate to see Iraq formed in accordance with Iranian specifications.
Allawi's electoral list was victorious over everybody else, but the victory seems somewhat worthless due to the games and the half-plus-one issue. Despite all the uproar and the confidence and despite al Maliki's control over government, he has not accepted the shock of defeat and has continued to act aggressively. Sometimes he requests that all Iraqi votes are recounted "manually," which practically means putting an end to the momentum created by such a political circus, and at other times he threatens to eradicate his opponents on the pretext of affiliation to the Baath party. What he has overlooked however is that his hostility is not towards the Saddamist, Baathists, Takfirists, etc, as he always states, but rather against the Shia current. Moqtada al Sadr cannot stand him because of his continuous fight against him, and the same goes for al Hakim because of al Maliki's despotic approach. Because of this, his Sadrist opponents and others call him mini-Saddam.
We are still amid an ocean of interaction, and the race is taking place between Allawi and al Maliki to win over the Kurds, al Sadr and al Hakim, whilst Iran is trying to control the new climate, and meanwhile Turkey, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan are not letting Iran play unilaterally this time. Iraq is going through a difficult democratic labour and it is feared that it will give birth to a faltering democracy only for sectarian blocs to monopolize power, or that a crippled government will take over as is the case with the Lebanese government. In the case of Lebanon, the government gained no benefits from al Hariri and his allies winning the parliamentary majority, as Hezbollah simply stuck its tongue out or rather brandished its weapons and considered the document [that states who won the elections] worthless. In fact, Walid Jumblatt was the first to prove the document's insignificance when he visited Damascus.
It is feared that the same thing might happen in Iraq, and the election results and the significance of the victory will become worthless. At that point, a sick government will surface and it will be one that cannot take a single step forward without carrying out a thousand manoeuvres against those who introduced the "two-thirds quorum" heresy. Another possibility is that matters could come to a standstill and opponents might return to the language of violence and weapons. If that was not possible for the March 14 masses in Lebanon then it is definitely possible with regards to al Maliki's opponents as it has happened before.
Iraq deserves to be a new example, not a disfigured imitation of Lebanon whereby Iran becomes the official sponsor for Iraq, just as Syria was for Lebanon.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/04/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
EASTER WEEK + WEKEND = MORE GEOPOL TESTS FOR THE BAMMER.
"What will happen in Iraq"? > Might wanns ask RUSSIA = VLADVEDEV iff it loses CHECHNYA? Ala CHINA-VS-USA over TAIWAN, i.e. TO DEFEAT THE US = USN CARRIER IN TAIWAN, CHINA MUST DEFEAT THEM OTH BEYOND TAIWAN IN JAPAN, GUAM-WESTPAC + HAWAII, ETC. AT NEXT HIGHER LEVEL, DITTO STRATEGY FOR RADICAL ISLAM???
To wit,
FREEREPUBLIC > YOUTUBE > [Caucasian Emirate]RUSSIA: NEW VIDEO WARNS OF MORE SUICIDE BOMBERS, unless Russia stays out of CHECHNYA + MUSLIM REGIONS OF CAUCASIA. Demands that RUSSIANS STAY IN RUSSIA, NOT MUSLIM CAUCASUS; + warns that iff Muslims in Chechnya + Caucasia are attacked, RUSSIA WILL BE ATTACKED.
VIDEO > 'Tis only a matter of time before MUSLIMS IN USA + UK + INDIA, etc. start demanding their Rights + form their own Muslim State [Sharia] widin these countries.
#3
There is a lot of potential meddling in Iraq. Iraq could blow up into a large mideast war if they are not careful. We have given them the gift of independence from a ruthless, murderous, dictator at a great cost to the U.S. in our young men. I just hope Iraq appreciates what it has and preserves it.
What a heady whirl of a month it has been for Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the world's most fabulous jihad kingpin and leading proponent of genocide. Everyone seems to want a piece of him, in a good way, of course. American enemies, American "allies" -- they're all palsy-walsy. Where that leaves Uncle Sucker is another matter.
First, the enemies. At the end of February, A-jad was off to Damascus -- ah, Damascus in February -- for a joint summit with Bashar al-Assad to denounce the United States and Israel, and then, a group summit, or "war council" as Arab media called it, with both Assad and Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah. All three denounced, for variation, Israel and the United States.
Then, it was quick back to Tehran for a two-day conference with the Palestinian "resistance" all-stars, as translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute: Hamas head Khaled Mash'al (who told Iranian Ayatollah Khameini "if the resistance breathes ... today it is by virtue of Khameini"), Islamic Jihad leader Ramadhan Shallah (who doubles as an entry on the FBI's most wanted list), and PFLP-GC leader Ahmad Jibril (like his colleagues, an all-around great guy).
Talk of a third intifada was bandied about while, MEMRI notes, "Ahmadinejad made particularly virulent anti-Israel statements." MEMRI ought to know; the group translates scores of them. A-jad's remarks no doubt thrilled the genocide-eager crowd: "Zionist regime ... purge the region of your existence ... insult to all humanity ... racist group... not committed to a single human principle ... their presence on even a single centimeter of Palestine and the region leads to ... consecutive wars ... Zionists are the source of all wars ... end of its road ... downward slope ... completely dead end ... completely eliminated. ..."
Brilliant stuff. Another speech like that, and they'll all be ready for the "peace process."
As MEMRI notes, "Iran has been noticeably ratcheting up its efforts to arouse the Palestinian resistance organizations against Israel," thus boosting "its position in the Islamic world." But in spite of Gen. David Petraeus' assertion that the Israeli-Palestinian issues "set the strategic context within which we operate in the Central Command [region]," there are in fact other contexts involving Iran that have nothing to do with Israel, and everything to do with us.
I'm talking about Iran's relationships with our putative (non-Israel) allies in the region, the ones American troops have actually died for, Afghanistan and Iraq.
In March, Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai visited A-jad in Tehran to make merry for the Nowruz holiday; then, following Karzai's three-day visit to Beijing, Karzai reciprocated, giving A-jad what the New York Times called "the red-carpet treatment" in Kabul where he "delivered a fiery anti-American speech inside Afghanistan's presidential palace." That would be the same presidential palace that is ultimately protected by U.S. troops. With Karzai at his side, A-jad "accused the United States of promoting terrorism."
Kind of takes the bounce out of the "surge" to have your own puppet pull your strings.
And what did Karzai say back? According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Karzai riffed on brotherly love, praising "Tehran for spending hundreds of millions of dollars in rebuilding roads, providing electricity, education and health care in parts of Afghanistan." No mention of Iran's generous military assistance, including improvised explosive device assistance, to the Taliban.
RFE/RL continued, noting suspicions in Kabul over Iran's "investments in Afghan media and support for Afghan Shi'ite communities, in particular the Hazaras," who "now enjoy a major share in the Afghan government and are also making significant progress in education and private sectors -- partly because of generous assistance from Iran's clerical regime." Great. Anyone want to bet that Iran won't be the big winner again at the end of America's latest "surge?"
Back to A-jad's busy whirl. Even as he was shaking Kabul's dust from his boots, he was preparing to receive a delegation from Iraq. Seems that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is trying to build a parliamentary bloc large enough to transform his whisker-close second-place finish in March elections into ultimate victory -- and what better place to do Iraqi political horse-trading than in Iran?
Last week, Maliki delegations visited A-jad in Tehran and Moqtada al-Sadr in Qom. Gee. Maybe someday, if we "surge" long enough, Afghanistan's elections can be worked out in Iran, too.
Jonah mentioned this the other day in his column, but the tireless Andrew Breitbart returns to the theme, to devastating effect.
On March 20th, something truly extraordinary happened. On the eve of the health care vote, a group of black Democrat Congressmen (eschewing the private tunnels they usually use to cross from their offices to the Capitol) chose to walk en masse through a crowd of protesters, confident that the knuckledragging Tea Party goons they and their media pals have reviled for a year now would respond with racial epithets.
And then, when the crowd didn't, the black Congressmen made it up anyway. Representative Andre Carson (Democrat, Indiana) insisted he heard the N-word 15 times. He's either suffering from the same condition as that Guam-flipper from Georgia, or he's a liar. At a scene packed not only with crews from the Dem poodle media but with a gazillion cellphone cameras, not one single N-word has been caught on audio. (By contrast, see my post yesterday for how easy it is to get it on tape when real epithets are flying.)
I disagree with John Lewis (Democrat, Georgia) politically but I have always respected him as a genuine civil rights warrior. And I feel slightly queasy at the thought that he would dishonor both the movement and his own part in it for the cheapest of partisan points - in the same way I would be disgusted by a Holocaust survivor painting a swastika on his own door and blaming it on his next-door neighbor over a boundary dispute.
But that's what the Democratic Party has been reduced to - faking hate crimes as pathetically as any lonely, mentally ill college student. Congressmen Carson, Lewis, Cleaver and the rest have turned themselves into the Congressional equivalent of the Duke University stripper. Except that they're not some penniless loser but a group of important, influential lifetime legislators enjoying all the privileges and perquisites of power, and in all probability acting at the behest of the Democrat leadership.
Isn't that what societies with functioning media used to call "a story"?
Apparently not. As they did at Duke, the brain-dead press went along with it - and so, predictably enough, did much of the Republican leadership.
Posted by: ed ||
04/04/2010 20:25 ||
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#1
The dhimocrats are pathetic and racist. They believe that all non-white races can only be raised up with help.
I call bullshit.
We are all human and we make our own human choice. If someone with a darker skin color chooses to raise themselves out of poverty and excel, they can do it with their HUMAN spirit. If they chose not to, they made their same HUMAN choice.
They are not slaves. Not machines. They have free HUMAN will.
Let them chose their own destiny.
And fuck all race baiters. I condemn and despise thee.
#2
The real crime here is that they whore out the charge of racism for their own partisan reasons.
The next time an act of real Racism does occur people are going to view it much less seriously they may even ignore it or laugh it off with the assumption that its just another race card being thrown.
And that would be much the fault of each these congressmen and their Media lapdogs.
By whoring out the race card - they make it just that much harder for the real victims of racism.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Don't let the tea party go Perot
The perplexing irony of Barack Obama's presidency is that even as conservatives attack him as a crazed socialist, many on the left are frustrated with what they see as the president's accommodationist backtracking from campaign promises. 
Amnesty International's Secretary-General Claudio Cordone is defending jihad when it occurs in "self-defence." The issue arose after Amesty International suspended Gita Sahgal, one of its senior officials in London, for expressing the view that Amnesty's collaboration with former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzem Begg "fundamentally damages" the group's reputation. Sahgal pointed out that "to be appearing on platforms with Britain's most famous supporter of the Taliban, whom we treat as a human rights defender, is a gross error of judgment." (And worse, I would have thought)
What a heady whirl of a month it has been for Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the world's most fabulous jihad kingpin and leading proponent of genocide. Everyone seems to want a piece of him, in a good way, of course. American enemies, American "allies" -- they're all palsy-walsy. Where that leaves Uncle Sucker is another matter. 
