Here's Rep. Jim Moran blogging at HuffPo yesterday (which is creepy enough given the HuffPo community's shameful response to the attempt on Cheney's life, eloquently described by Dean Barnett as a "paroxysm of joy diminished only by the fact that Cheney did not die"). Moran is writing about Murtha's "slow-bleed" strategy:

They suggest that efforts such as giving our troops 1) mandatory home base time with their families between deployments -- 365 days for the Army and 270 days for the Marines 2) sufficient training and equipment and 3) mandatory face to face physical, mental and emotional health evaluations upon their return from combat -- a standard practice before this Administration came to power -- will demoralize our soldiers and turn the Middle East into a cauldron of blood and chaos.

Actually, Murtha's strategy, as described by Politico.com, isn't about improving readiness, but hamstringing our military commanders in Iraq:

Top House Democrats, working in concert with anti-war groups, have decided against using congressional power to force a quick end to U.S. involvement in Iraq, and instead will pursue a slow-bleed strategy designed to gradually limit the administration's options. . . . It would restrict the deployment of troops to Iraq unless they meet certain levels of adequate manpower, equipment and training to succeed in combat. That's a standard Murtha believes few of the units Bush intends to use for the surge would be able to meet.

And then there's this little tidbit, a statement from Moran on the floor of the House in the early days of the American-led NATO campaign to oust Milosevic. A resolution had been put forward that would have required Clinton to seek Congressional authorization for the use of ground troops should the bombing campaign fail in its objectives. Said Moran,

Mr . Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this resolution, which would prohibit funding for ground forces unless deployment is specifically authorized. The only narrow exception provided in this measure is for rescuing US service personnel.

This resolution would undermine our ability to achieve NATO objectives in Kosovo and, more importantly, would send the wrong signal to President Milosevic about our resolve in the Balkans.

I encourage my colleagues to consider the ramifications of this resolution, which limits our country's military leaders. If we are to ensure a stable Europe and stop the atrocities, then we must destroy Milosevic's ability to wage his campaigns of ethnic cleansing.

I know, I know, when Democrats go to war it's different. But take that last line, replace "Europe" with "Iraq" and "Milosevic" with "al Qaeda," and you get the picture. Doesn't Murtha's plan "send the wrong signal" about our resolve to ensure a stable Iraq and stop the atrocities? Not for Moran, who wants only to see "our troops coming home and an end to this Administration's ill-fated, misguided military adventure." Why not just cut off funds entirely then? Because, call it what you will, this is a "slow-bleed" strategy.

A friend sends along this interesting analysis of the relationship between North Korea and Iran, the two remaining members of the axis of evil. The author, Alon Levkowitz, is a lecturer at the Department of East Asian Studies at Tel-Aviv University.

According to Levkowitz, there is ample evidence of nuclear cooperation between the two regimes, and Iran appears to have provided much of the finding for the North Korean missile program. The returns on that investment were apparent in Iran's proxy war with Israel last summer. And there's little reason to doubt that the close relationship between the two will hasten Iran's nuclear capability.

Another example of the cooperation between the two states involved reports of the joint development of an advanced version of the C-802 cruise missile, used by the Hezbollah in the last Lebanon war against the Israeli battleship "Hanit". On July 4, 2006, North Korea held missile testing that included the failed launch of the Taepodong-2 (ICBM) missile and other upgraded short and middle range missiles. According to foreign sources, an Iranian delegation participated in the missile tests.

These events provided yet another indicator of the continuing missile collaboration between the two states. Such cooperation not only increases North Korea's domestic export, but also allows Pyongyang to share information and benefit from missile experiments in Iran while avoiding political costs of conducting flight tests on home ground. Furthermore, the partnership contributes in advancing North Korean missile sales to other customers in the Middle East, such as Syria and Egypt. . . .

During the last two decades, nuclear experts and political delegates from North Korea and Iran have held visitations and increased the technological collaboration between the two states. Delegations from both countries have visited Pakistan as well. According to intelligence communities, Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan has provided the knowledge and some of the hardware for both the Iranian and the North Korean nuclear programs. Foreign intelligence sources even stated that the North Korean nuclear program was partially funded by Iran. The increase in Iranian financial assistance to the North Korean nuclear program, in conjunction with a decrease in other foreign assistance to that country, has made Iran an important ally to North Korea. According to intelligence reports, the nuclear test that North Korea conducted in October 2006 coupled with the sanctions on North Korea, Security Council resolution 1718, and the tension between Iran and the United States will further increase the nuclear collaboration between Iran and North Korea.

You can read the full analysis (pdf) here.

Pretty unbelievable, but perhaps the Senator has been leafing through old issues of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

Here's the video from yesterdays hearings of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

And Michael Ledeen extends a hearty welcome to "the newly minted neocon from Michigan."

The Baghdad Security Plan is showing some early signs of success. Deaths from sectarian related attacks have dropped dramatically since December. "The number of bodies found this month in Baghdad--most shot and showing signs of torture--has dropped by nearly 50 percent to 494 as of Monday, compared with 954 in January," reports the Associated Press. "The figure stood at 1,222 in December, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press." Four additional Iraqi battalions are expected to report to Baghdad over the next two weeks, boosting a security presence.

The U.S. and Iraqi government are working to divide and conquer the Mahdi Army as Muqtada al-Sadr, its leader, is taking shelter in Iran. Sadr's Iranian backed Mahdi Army is behind a significant number of the sectarian murders, and has destabilized the Iraqi government. Asharq Alawsat has confirmed that Multinational Forces Iraq (MNF-I) is "holding talks with commanders of Muqtada al-Sadr's Al-Mahdi Army with the 'Iraqi Government's blessing,'" as well as "several Iraqi armed groups."

Rabita, an Iraqi newspaper, reports that in yesterdays attack at the Ministry of Public Works, the bomb was placed under Vice President Mahdi's seat, and the person that detonated the device was inside the ministry. That ministry is run by Muqtada al-Sadr's political bloc, and the speculation is that the attack was a hit by Sadr (I reported this was likely the morning of the attack.) Ghazi Al-Anbari, a ministry undersecretary, died from wounds sustained in the attack.

The Habbaniyah bombing last weekend highlights the divisions within the Sunni community and in the insurgency in Anbar province. "Senior commanders of the Islamic Army in Iraq, the Jaish Al-Mujahideen and the 1920 Revolution Brigades" were killed in the Habbaniyah bombings last weekend, according to the Al-Badeel Al-Iraqi website. The tribal leaders were upset and cursed al Qaeda for the attack. “May God expose the privates of their women and families, like they have done to ours,” said the son of an Al-Bu Nimir clan leader.

On the security front, Iraqi and Coalition forces continue to target al Qaeda cells, and have pressed operations against the violent Shia cult known as the Army of Heaven. The Coalition killed 8 al Qaeda and captured six during raids in Baghdad, Taji, and Amiriyah. Samarra police detained 4 members of an IED cell. Iraqi police and Army units inn Diwaniyah captured 157 members of the Mahdawiyah, or Army of Heaven, the apocalyptic Shia cult that attempted to killed pilgrims in Najaf at the end of January. The Hilla SWAT police captured another 8 members of the cult. The terrorists struck back as 10 were killed and at least 20 were wounded in a carbomb attack in a market in Baghdad.

On the Iran front, Mike McConnell, the new director of National Intelligence, told the Senate Armed Services Committee "it was 'probable' that Iranian leaders including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were aware that weapons known as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, had been supplied to Iraqi Shi'ites." Iran is also considering joining a regional summit hosted by Iraq, which will include Syria and the United States.

The referendum on the fate of the oil producing city of Kirkuk has been delayed for two years, reports Azzam. The Kurds and Turkmen have fought over the status of the city. The Kurds want Kirkuk to be a part of the semi-autonomous Kurdish confederation.

You can read more news from Iraq at billroggio.com.

On February 21st, sina.com, the largest Chinese-language infotainment web portal, carried a story titled “U.S. Air Force General Says China, Iran and Venezuela Should Be Regarded as Threats.” It discusses an article--“China, Iran Top USAF’s Threat List”--recently published in Defense News that describes in detail remarks made by General Michael Moseley, Air Force chief of staff, at a February 8th Air Force Association conference.

Shortly after the story was posted, reader comments began pouring in. By Tuesday morning China time, there were more than 3,500 of them. The overwhelming majority bristle with rage. Below are translations of two representative responses.

The opinion of the four-star general speaks volumes about the hostility the U.S. harbors towards China. It would be great for China if Iran had nuclear weapons. The more countries there are with nuclear weapons, the better it is for China, because it would decrease the odds of a direct China-U.S. conflict.

The United States is deploying F-22s in Okinawa. Treacherous indeed are its intentions. We should act tough, like Russia. Aim medium-range missiles at the Okinawa airport where the F-22s are. If the F-22s invade our air space and violate our sovereignty, our medium-range missiles will strike the airport… By deploying the F-22s in Okinawa the United States is trying to provoke China and disrupt the regional security balance. That is intolerable. We should demand that the U.S. withdraw its F-22s; otherwise, we will deploy medium-range missiles in North Korea, or Venezuela, Cuba and Iran.

In a similar vein, the February 26th edition of People’s Daily published an article titled “In the Face of the ‘China Threat Proposition,’ China Cannot Choose to Remain Silent.” The piece was authored by Jin Yinan, deputy director of the Strategic Research Department at the PLA National Defense University, which operates under the direct jurisdiction of the Central Military Commission. Jin’s work bears the subheading “China never issues threats to others; China is never intimidated by threats from others.”

Jin Yinan contends that the “China Threat Proposition” has been circulating since the late 19th century, beginning with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882--a time when China was actually on the decline. Therefore, he argues, it is a notion that defies logic: “The United States has its military deployed around the world. Its aircraft carriers are cruising all over the globe. Its military budget accounts for half of total world military expenditures. It has more satellites in outer space than do all other countries combined. The United States Navy has announced its intention to control 16 strategic sea lanes, seven of which are in the Atlantic…two in the Mediterranean…two in the Indian Ocean…and five in the Pacific… This pretty much covers all major waterways in the world. Since the end of the Cold War, in addition to its so-called ‘surgical strikes,’ the United States military has engaged in the following large-scale operations, all of which can be characterized as wars: the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the Afghan War, and the Iraq War.”

The article concludes with a declaration: “We have no choice. We must be pro-active, especially when others are trying to smear us. We cannot give up our right to speak… We Chinese never issue threats to others; we Chinese are never intimidated by threats from others.”

That should be a relief to any Taiwanese who mistakenly thought that the 900 ballistic missiles pointed at them from mainland China were meant to serve as some kind of threat.

From the Washington Post: Europe's Runaway Prosecutions, by David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey.

From the Los Angeles Times: Going it alone because we have to, by Max Boot.

From Slate: The Tehran Option, by Shmuel Rosner.

From the Washington Post: Justice for Darfur, by Angelina Jolie.

From the Examiner: Another front on the Sunni-Shiite war, by Olivier Guitta.

Rich Lowry posts this email from a “Pentagon intel guy":

Since my job at the Pentagon is to follow and report these kinds of things- there are several trends we are seeing lately.

1) Definite and measurable decrease in number of sectarian killings within Baghdad: From nearly 1,400 to 680 in the last two months.

2) We are killing and capturing increasing numbers of Sunni insurgents and Al Qaeda fighters. And when I say "we"- I mean Multi-National Forces Iraq as well as the Iraqi Army, the Iraqi Police Commando, and the newer "National Guard"/Territorial Forces in Anbar.

3) The recent bombings in ANBAR demonstrate red on red kinetic operations. Something which has been rare until the last few months. More and more Sunni tribes are pledging fealty to the Iraqi government and the Coalition and turning their back on the insurgents/AQI. This has caused them to be targeted.

We have seen the enemy bomb police recruitment drives, and now mosques of "apostate" Imams and Sheikhs who have sided with the Americans. This has happened twice in the last week. While the mainstream media considers this more proof of failure- it is actually a sign of the precarious position the terrorists are in. They need the Sunni population to protect them and shelter them. If they are now butchering them like everyone else- this could be a turning point in the relationship. This is crucial to watch. We need to protect the tribal leaders who have come over to us- and AQI knows that it is a death sentence for them if they can't stop it.

We posted this morning on the hundreds of Huffington Post comments railing against the failure of the Taliban to kill the American vice president. It seems that HuffPo caught on, closing down and cleaning out the comments, but not before they became a major embarrassment to the site.

Dean Barnett has preserved a few choice comments over Townhall, and Mark Steyn has some interesting thoughts on the matter over at the Corner.

The Democratic party's embrace of the Huffington Post, which routinely invites Democratic Congressmen, Pelosi and Murtha included, to blog on the site, makes this whole thing stink even more. Now that they've been forced to shut down the comments section on a story about at an attempted assassination on the vice president of the United States, Arianna ought to ask herself how she attracted a readership capable of spewing such vile, and violent anti-Americanism. And if the Democrats are smart, they'll stay away from the site altogether.

Two weeks ago we linked to this story about a software malfunction on the F-22 that delayed a squadron of the stealth fighters from being deployed to Japan's Kadena Air Base.

Now reader Bill Walsh sends along a link to this story from Daily Tech explaining what went wrong. It seems that crossing the international date line prompted a system wide computer crash on multiple aircraft.

But while the simulated war games were a somewhat easy feat for the Raptor, something more mundane was able to cripple six aircraft on a 12 to 15 hours flight from Hawaii to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. The U.S. Air Force's mighty Raptor was felled by the International Date Line (IDL).

When the group of Raptors crossed over the IDL, multiple computer systems crashed on the planes. Everything from fuel subsystems, to navigation and partial communications were completely taken offline. Numerous attempts were made to "reboot" the systems to no avail.

One of the most advanced weapons systems in the world, and it tripped over an imaginary line.

Less than two weeks after the official announcement of the Baghdad security plan, “reporting of sectarian murders is at the lowest level in almost a year,” and “170 suspected insurgents have been arrested and 63 weapons caches of various sizes have been seized," reports Stars and Stripes. Bomb attacks have decreased by 20 percent.

Over the past 24 hours, Iraqi and Coalition forces have pressed raids against al Qaeda in Iraq targets. Yesterday, U.S. forces captured 15 al Qaeda, including an emir (equivalent to a battalion commander in the U.S. military), during raids in Baghdad, Ramadi, Mahmudiyah, and Samarra. The Iraqi Army detained 6 insurgents near Baqubah. Today, 11 al Qaeda, including an emir, were captured during raids in Baghdad, Mosul and Ramadi.

One reason for the decrease in sectarian attacks is the pressure being placed on the Mahdi Army. While Muqtada al-Sadr is hiding in Iran, Iraqi and Coalition forces continue to dismantle his Mahdi Army. U.S. and Iraqi troops conducted raids throughout Sadr City, Muqtada's stronghold in Baghdad, and 16 Mahdi fighters were detained. The rumor in Baghdad is that Sadr himself is "doing some very deadly housecleaning," as "Mahdi Army members have been disappearing or turning up dead in the Sadr City, Kadhimiya, and Baladiyat areas of the capital." But Iraqi and Coalition forces have been conducting a shadow war against Sadr since last summer, maintaining the fiction that only "rogue elements of the Mahdi Army" are being targeted.

Two major attacks have occurred in the past 24 hours. The most significant was an explosion yesterday at the Ministry of Public Works, which nearly killed Adel Abdul Mahdi, one of Iraq's two vice presidents, as well as Riad Ghraib, the minister of public works. Twelve were killed and 42 wounded after a bomb placed in the ceiling of a ministry conference room exploded. Mahdi and Ghraib were both "lightly wounded" in the explosion, and were treated for "scratches" at a U.S. military hospital. An American intelligence source informs us that al Qaeda and Sadr are the prime suspects. Today, an IED attack outside of a Ramadi mosque killed 15 civilians and wounded 9, including women and children. Al Qaeda recently targeted a mosque in Habbaniyah, and assassinated an imam that spoke out against al-Qaeda.

The evidence that Iran is supplying weapons and explosives to insurgents and militias continues to mount. Iraqi newspapers are now reporting on this development, and are blaming Iran for fueling the violence in Baghdad. A significant find linking weapons and explosives back to Iran was discovered by the U.S. Army in the violent Diyala province. The cache included Iranian made C-4 explosives and mortars. "The explosives were found alongside enough bomb-making materials to build 150 EFPs [Explosively Formed Projectiles] capable of penetrating heavily armored vehicles, according to the expert, Maj. Martin Weber." This latest find follows an MNF-Iraq briefing that provided further evidence of Iranian munitions and support being supplied to insurgents and militias, as well as evidence that Austrian Steyr HS50 sniper rifles purchased by Iran had found their way into Iraq.

There have been two disturbing pieces of news from Britain in recent weeks. The first came earlier this month when the King Fahd Academy, an Islamic school in Acton, admitted that it uses some pernicious textbooks. The books refer to Jews as "apes" and Christians as "pigs." When confronted by the British media, a school official refused to discontinue using the books, explaining that "These books have good chapters that can be used by the teachers. It depends on the objectives the teacher wants to achieve."

That statement is probably true, as far as it goes. The King Fahd Academy is, as you might have guessed, funded by Saudi Arabia.

The second story appeared last week in the London Telegraph under the headline "Father killed family for being too western."

Mohammed Riaz was a 49-year-old man living with his wife and four daughters in Lancashire. An immigrant from Pakistan, Mr. Riaz was concerned because his eldest daughter, a 16-year-old girl named Sayrah, said she wanted to be a fashion designer when she grew up. He also worried that his other three daughters, ages 13, 10, and 3, might not want arranged marriages. So one night last October, while his family was sleeping, Mr. Riaz sprayed gasoline throughout his home. And set it on fire. His wife and four girls died. As a Telegraph story noted, Mr. Riaz "centred his life on the local mosque." (After setting the fire that killed his family, Riaz set himself on fire, too. He was rescued by emergency responders, but died two days later.)

Honor killings, anti-Judeo-Christian propaganda being taught in schools funded by foreign countries. Such is the state of affairs across the pond. Mark Steyn looks smarter every day.

From Bloomberg:

Shoichi Nakagawa, the policy chief of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party said China's rising military spending may cause Japan to fall under the country's influence, the Sankei newspaper reported earlier today, citing his comments.

``If something were to happen to Taiwan in the next 15 years, then within 20 years, Japan might become just another Chinese province,'' Nakagawa said yesterday at a speech in Nagoya according to the Sankei.

Nakagawa characterized annual increases in Chinese military spending of between 15 and 18 percent as a ``serious situation,'' the newspaper said.

From U.S. News: Maintaining Perspective, by Fouad Ajami.

From the Arizona Republic: Cautious Optimism on Iraq, by Jon Kyl.

From the New York Times: Billions over Baghdad, by John B. Taylor.

From Politico: Pelosi Falls Short On Election Promises, by Daniel W. Reilly & Jim VandeHei.

From the Washington Times: Ex-CIA official urges silence after spy 'sting' by Bill Gertz.

After seeing the headline on Drudge, "Attacker Was Trying to Reach Cheney," for some reason my fist thought was to see how the Huffington Post would handle the story. He may be the vice president of the United States, but to the lefties at HuffPo, Cheney is every bit as evil as Mullah Omar, and twice as dangerous.

Well, the comments don't disappoint, here's the very first one:

"Cheney's spokeswoman said he was fine"

Fu@#.

If you head over to HuffPo you can read at least 100 more just like it, each lamenting the fact that the Taliban couldn't assassinate the vice president of the United States.

And remember, this is where Nancy Pelosi blogs when she wants to get her message out, and John Murtha, too. This is their base--people who would celebrate a successful attack on the life of the vice president.

Over the weekend, Coalition forces were tipped off to a major weapons cache in the turbulent province of Diyala. According to Capt. Clayton Combs, who commands the 1st Cavalry unit which raided what he called "an IED factory," the cache included 15 122-mm rockets, two dozen 120-mm mortar rounds, mines, anti-aircraft ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades. Combs also reported the discovery of some 150 machine-milled copper plates that are necessary to build the explosively formed projectiles (EFPs)--the most deadly form of IED--that have killed so many U.S. military personnel in Iraq.

The copper plates, Combs said, we're of Iranian origin, as were the rockets and mortars, which were dated to 2002 and 2006. Though the Captain was careful not to point the finger directly at the Iranian government, as the Los Angeles Times reported, the press briefing was "the latest attempt to link the deadliest form of roadside bombs in Iraq to components manufactured in Iran."

A U.S. soldier sets up a display of seized bomb components.
U.S. military officials said the components were clearly Iranian-made. (Courtesy of AFP/Getty Images)

This story is a few days old, but offers some insight into the mind of the world's most reclusive dictator. From the blog China Rises, which is an otherwise excellent resource on life in mainland China, comes this bizarre story of Kim Jong-Il's war on Japanese automobiles.

In one of the stranger items out of North Korea lately comes this new report that Kim Jong Il has issued an edict ordering most Japanese cars in the country seized.

According to South Korea’s semi-official Yonhap news agency, Kim grew angry when he saw a Japanese car stalled and blocking the road. So he ordered Japanese cars impounded. The event occurred Jan. 1 as Kim was going to visit his father’s mausoleum.

The upside: If the recently negotiated nuke deal leads to a thawing of relations between the United States and North Korea, America's struggling automobile industry may finally find a market where it can compete with the likes of Toyota.

Starting this week, Bill Roggio, who edits the excellent milblog The Fourth Rail, will be contributing daily updates on Iraq to the WORLDWIDE STANDARD. Also, each week Roggio will provide a longer synopsis of security developments in Iraq to THE DAILY STANDARD. The first of those is now posted here.

Roggio is one of the best writers and reporters on military affairs and we're thrilled to have him on board.

Over the last fiscal year, the United States Navy shelled out more than $1.7 billion for development of the DDG 1000, the Navy's next-generation destroyer, and in FY 2007 the Navy plans to spend an additional $3.3 billion, making the DDG 1000 the single largest procurement program in the Navy's budget this year. What are the taxpayers getting for their money? Well, for starters the DDG 1000 is, in the words of Ed Geisler, vice president of Raytheon and DDG 1000 Program Manager, a "poster-child" for cost management. At a time when the Navy's other major shipbuilding program, the LCS, has been temporarily suspended while the Navy examines the reason for major cost overruns, Geisler boasted that the DDG 1000 is currently on-schedule and a whopping 4 percent under-budget.

The economics of the DDG 1000 aren't nearly as exciting as the technology it promises to deliver, but at more than $3 billion a copy, many have questioned just how worthwhile an investment the ship is in comparison to its predecessor, the DDG 51 Arleigh Burke class destroyer, which is roughly half the price. Geisler was confident that the ship would live up to the hype.

As Geisler explained, the initial investment in designing the DDG 1000 offers the hope of substantial savings in building and operating the ship. The ship's automated systems, which Raytheon designed, will mean a reduction in crew numbers from 370 sailors for DDG 51 to a mere 143 for DDG 1000, including helicopter pilots and UAV operators. Over the 35-year life of the ship, that ought to save the Navy nearly half a billion dollars in personnel costs. Furthermore, the ship's "open architecture" computing systems make this the Navy's first "plug and play" vessel, which ought to offer significant savings for any upgrading of the ship's systems.

What really excites though is the DDG 1000's promise of unparalleled combat capabilities. And like the Air Force, the Navy is going stealth. Geisler says of the ship, "the radar signature is in the single digits as a percentage when compared with the current class of destroyers." That means that, to an enemy radar, "the 600 foot destroyer will look like a small fishing boat." Raytheon has achieved this feat by eliminating right angles from the ship's superstructure, which is also made from a composite of wood and plastic rather than steel to further reduce the ship's signature.

The advantage of a small radar signature is amplified by the ship's advanced dual band radar, which Geisler says has been successfully tested and "performs better than any radar in service today." The Navy claims that tests have show the radar to offer 15-times greater detection against sea-skimming targets, 20 percent greater firm-track range against all antiship cruise missiles (which improves survivability), a 10-times increase in maximum track capacity, and dramatic improvements of performance in jamming environments. The combination of the ability to see without being seen gives the DDG 1000 "the warfighter advantage" of being able to "shoot the archer." Geisler says the DDG 1000 will be "able to detect a threat before they detect us...there isn't a ship in the world that can do this."

The DDG 1000 has an ultra-quiet and extremely survivable hull design which has been successfully tested on scale models. The ship's dual-band radar has also been successfully tested. And only last week Raytheon and BAE successfully tested the ship's MK57 Vertical Launching System. And the DDG 1000's Advanced Gun System (AGS), which has been touted as a solution to a critical gap in the Navy's volume fire capability, will be able to fire 10 155mm Long Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP) each minute. Using a rocket motor to boost the projectile's range, the LRLAP will also use GPS guidance to increase accuracy by a substantial margin.

DDG 1000 is supposed to be upgraded with an electromagnetic rail gun some time after 2016, which would represent a major advance in capability--more than tripling the range of the AGS. Raytheon is not the lead-contractor on that project, however, I wasn't bowled over by Geisler's enthusiasm for the new technology. He did say he was "optimistic" that the system's technical problems could be overcome.

The Navy is set to take delivery of two DDG 1000 destroyers in 2012, though how many more Zumwalt class ships will be ordered after that is anyone's guess. Still, with Democratic Rep. Gene Taylor--whose district includes Northrop Grumman's Pascagoula Shipyard where one of the DDG 1000s is being built--now holding the chair of the House Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee, it seems likely that Congress will continue to fund what the Navy has described as the the centerpiece of its future surface combat fleet.

Update: This post originally stated that "Defense Daily reported late last year that Raytheon's AGS program has been plagued by inconsistent results. Said Admiral Michael Frick, 'What [Raytheon hasn't] been able to do to date is show that they can do it [hit the target] every time,' though he qualified his remark by saying 'That's a reliability issue not capability issue.'" Frick was referring to the ERGM munition which the Navy does not plan to use on DDG 1000.

Conceptual drawing of the DDG 1000. Notice the absence of any antennas on the ship's superstructure, as well as the inward-sloping "tumblehome" hull, which is more survivable than a traditional hull, and also reduces wave-induced movement, making the ship less easily detected by radar.

From the Wall Street Journal: The Choice on Iraq, by Joseph Lieberman.

From the Telegraph: Hatred of America unites the world, by Niall Ferguson.

From the Washington Post: Deauthorizing Iraq, by Robert Novak.

From the Christian Science Monitor: Europe warms to US missile shield, by Jeffrey White.

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Quandary in Iraq, by Jack Kelly.

Among the items included in the Pentagon's supplemental funding request for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan is nearly $400 million for two F-35 Joint Strike Fighters and an additional $146 million for one CV-22 Osprey. The Air Force request explained that the F-35s would replace one F-15 and one F-16 lost in combat operations.

In a letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne, the contents of which were first reported by Politico.com, McCain knocked the request:

In an emergency supplemental, you are proposing to replace combat loss with unproven platforms that not only are not yet operational but will also ultimately cost a lot more than they do now . . .

Both the JSF and Osprey are controversial, next-generation programs that require considerable congressional oversight . . . Your including the requests to procure both aircraft types in an emergency supplemental effectively insulates these programs from this committee's routine oversight. This is inappropriate.

What I find most troubling about the request is that for $400 million, the Air Force could have requested an F-22, which is a far superior aircraft and is already in production. Also, the F-35, especially the Air Force variant, should cost no more than $50 million each. The whole purpose of the F-35 was to provide the Air Force with an affordable alternative to the F-22. If it stops being affordable, than there isn't much point to the program. Which all just proves McCain's point--major military procurement programs require a great deal of Congressional oversight.

McCain's letter is also just good politics, making clear that he is fulfilling his responsibilities as ranking member of the Armed Services Committee despite the rigors of his campaign for president. John Kerry was criticized for his prolonged absences from the Senate during his run for president. And as I mentioned here before, Senator Clinton is on no less than five Senate committees, including the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities. It will be interesting to see if she follows McCain's letter with one of her own, just to let the public know that she, too, can find the time to fulfill her responsibilities in the Senate--that she doesn't devote all her time to fending off criticism from the likes of David Geffen.

Israel's political and military leaders are facing a crisis of confidence. The consensus view in Israel, as Peter Berkowitz wrote in THE WEEKLY STANDARD just a few weeks ago, is that Prime Minister Edhud Olmert, "and even more his hapless defense minister, Amir Peretz, as well as Lieutenant General Dan Halutz, an honorable man who only two weeks ago resigned as chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces--had proved themselves in the Lebanon war last summer unfit to continue to lead the nation."

Hapless indeed. Yesterday Peretz was inspecting troops in the Golan Heights alongside the IDF's new chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi. According to press accounts, "Peretz gazed through the capped binoculars three times, nodding as Ashkenazi explained what he was looking at."

What's wrong with this picture? (Effi Sharir / AP)

From the AP:

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) -- A tour bus of U.S. senior citizens defended themselves against a group of alleged muggers, sending two of them fleeing and killing a third in the Atlantic coast city of Limon, police said on Thursday.

One of the tourists--a retired member of the U.S. military aged about 70--put assailant Warner Segura in a head lock and broke his clavicle after the 20-year-old and two other men armed with a knife and gun held up their tour bus Wednesday, said Luis Hernandez, the police chief of Limon, 80 miles east of San Jose.

The two other men fled when the 12 senior citizens started defending themselves. The tourists then drove Segura to the Red Cross where the man was declared dead. The Red Cross also treated one of the tourists for an anxiety attack, Hernandez said.

The tourists left on their Carnival cruise after the incident and Hernandez said authorities do not plan to press any charges against them, saying they acted in self defense.

I'm sure the guy feels terrible that he killed the would be mugger. Still, the story is easily as inspiring as Dikembe Mutombo's--maybe Bush can recognize him at the next State of the Union.

On Tuesday night, David Gergen moderated a forum at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government that featured five Harvard veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The event was billed as a special tribute to the roughly 100 veterans of those wars who are currently enrolled at the Kennedy School and Harvard Business School, and the audience was overwhelmingly supportive of the troops, if not their mission--at least there was no visible evidence of antiwar sentiment.

The evening began with a moment of silence for those who had given their lives in the service of their country and featured a uniformed ROTC color guard, rifles and all, which, despite the nature of the event, seemed somewhat out of place given that Harvard hasn't allowed ROTC on its campus since the late 1960s. Once the discussion got underway, the soldiers and Marines on stage pulled no punches in addressing the situation on the ground, even though Lieutenant General Douglas E. Lute, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was sitting right in the front row. One Marine, who had been severly wounded in Ramadi, spoke about his unit's role in the Iraqi elections of October 2005--the polling station was attacked 9 times and only 12 votes were cast. In the next election in December, his unit stayed away from the polls and more than 50,000 votes were cast.

Another Marine, Captain Maura Sullivan, had served in Falluja. She spoke eloquently about the challenges of being a female officer in a combat zone, but her tone belied her claim that gender wasn't an issue. She was simply more passionate, emotional, and empathetic than the other speakers. I don't think women should serve in combat, but I walked away from the event thinking that such traits would be an asset more than a liablity.

Gergen himself was downbeat on our chances for success in Iraq, and kept asking the troops questions that were framed by references to "crumbling support at home." But the soldiers and Marines insisted that they "didn't pay attnetion to what was going on outside" Iraq. And there was some support among them for the surge.

Of course, in the People's Republic of Cambridge, an event conceived with the sole purpose of honoring the service of Harvard's students and alums could not pass without the expression of some antimilitary (though not antiwar) sentiment. What was surprising, however, was that that sentiment came not from students, or faculty, but a member of the press. It was left to Don MacGillis, who identified himself as a reporter for the Boston Globe, to ask these junior officers why it was that the military had not yet integrated homosexuals into its ranks.

As the Harvard Crimson reported, "after some in the audience gasped and murmured, panelists responded that they were uninvolved with decisions to implement such policies."

The troops handled it well, though Gergen, who was at the White House when "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was implemented, defended the policy as something that had represented real progress at the time. He also said that he thought homosexuals would likely be integrated into the military by the next administration.

It was a pleasure to see just how bright and capable these junior officers were, and one couldn't help but be impressed by their uniform desire to get back to their comrades in Iraq. Funny enough, they all seemed to consider Harvard to be a tougher duty than combat--they spoke of the intense guilt they felt at leaving their buddies behind.

But if Harvard has embraced these veterans returned from combat, it still shuns those who would follow in their footsteps. Harvard undergrads have to make the trek to MIT to serve in ROTC, their service honored only when they make a useful prop for Kennedy School forums.

From the Washington Post: No Way To End A War, by Charles Krauthammer.

From USA Today: Vietnam pilot to receive Medal of Honor, by Alan Gomez.

From the New York Times: U.S. Used Bases in Ethiopia to Hunt Al Qaeda in Africa, by Michael R. Gordon & Mark Mazzetti.

From the Washington Times: Public doubts selling out Iraq.

From the Jerusalem Post: The diplomatic fetishists, by Caroline Glick.

Igor Khrestin, a researcher in the Russian Studies program at the American Enterprise Institute, writes in with news and links from the Russian-language media (you can also click here to read his latest piece in THE DAILY STANDARD):

In the wake of Putin’s unequivocal rejection of the “one master, one sovereign” world order in Munich last week, the Kremlin is putting its money where its mouth is. Clearly displeased by Washington’s decision to build missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated in an interview today with Rossiyskaya Gazeta that “Undoubtedly, we will react. But we will do so without hysterics. We cannot allow [Russia] to be drawn into a new arms race.”

Russia’s top military commander, General Yuri Baluyevsky, doesn’t seem to share the top diplomat’s views. In an interview with the RIAN news agency, Baluevsky declared that his country is being forced into a new arms race, while noting that “being aware of the technical characteristics [of US military hardware], we can with complete certainty state that despite declarations that these systems are not aimed against Russia, they can affect our deterrence potential.”

In order to counter America’s “aggression at Russia’s borders,” the Kremlin apparently plans a tit-for-tat response. The Rossiyskie Vesti weekly reports that Russia’s Air Force chief, Vladimir Mikhailov, has made a visit to Armenia in order to lobby for joint missile defense systems to be installed on the territory of Russia-friendly post-Soviet states. The newspaper notes that a three three-tiered geographical structure is planned: European (in Belarus), Caucasus (Armenia), and Central Asian (Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan).

In the meantime, Sergei Ivanov, who was only recently promoted from minister of defense to deputy prime minister, has been lobbying hard for increased funding for the Russian military. Earlier this month, Ivanov stressed the need for wholesale modernization of Russia’s armed forces, while on February 2, an article in Moskovskiy Komsomolets noted that during Ivanov’s six-year tenure as defense minister, the defense budget increased sixfold. During this Monday’s national security briefing, Ivanov even proposed the military-industrial complex model as a means of modernizing Russia’s economy. As reported by Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Ivanov argued “with unhidden pride” that defense industry growth levels--10 percent in 2006--far exceed those in other industrial areas.

Here's the video, by way of Defense Tech. And for those who enjoy Defense Tech as much as I do, be sure to check out Noah Shachtman's new blog, The Danger Room.

From the Australian: Blair is right on troops, by Mark Steyn

From Real Clear Politics: The Thinking Behind Blair's Iraq Decision, by Gerard Baker.

From the Washington Post: A Lack of Courage In Their Convictions, by George F. Will.

From Politico: Military Tells Congress of Equipment Shortfalls, by Christian Lowe.

From the Wall Street Journal: Plus Ça (Climate) Change, by Pete du Pont.

The Humvee is an icon of the modern American military--the primary vehicle for moving American troops and materiel in both times of peace and war. But the vehicle has earned a less than stellar reputation for its service in Iraq, where its limited survivability has been only marginally improved by "up-armor" kits. Now the Pentagon is looking to the next generation of tactical wheeled vehicles, and is gearing up to begin replacing the Humvee two years ahead of schedule due to the unanticipated wear-and-tear of increased armor and the unforgiving desert environments of Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. military operates approximately 160,000 Humvees, which means that the contract to replace them will be extremely lucrative for the company with the best design. But, more important, replacing the Humvee offers the military a chance to provide troops in the field with a vastly superior vehicle.

The competition for the contract has only just begun really, and no company has yet submitted a demonstration vehicle, but some of the nation's largest defense contractors have already started testing the technologies that will ultimately be incorporated into the new Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV). Last week I spoke with Kathryn Hasse, director of Lockheed Martin's tactical wheeled vehicle program, about what that company is doing to position itself for this massive contract, and how American troops might benefit from their work.

Hasse told me that Lockheed had taken a "system of systems" approach in designing its Future Technology Truck System (FTTS)--a technology demonstrator which has been delivered to Fort Lewis for testing. The truck, which will never go into production, represents what is essentially a "massive R & D program" to refine the technologies that will be be incorporated into the JLTV. Among the features of this military concept-car is an innovative chassis, an advanced gear suspension, and system variable height. All of which ought to provide soldiers with a more comfortable ride over rough terrain--an important consideration given the long distances that soldiers must travel in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

More important, though, is the increased fuel efficiency of the FTTS. The vehicle will rely on a hybrid diesel-electric engine, with the aim of increasing the vehicle's range to 600 miles, from the 300 miles of the Humvee, and with no increase in the amount of fuel the vehicle carries. Globalsecurity.org explains the cost-savings of such an engine: "70 percent of the logistic burden on a battlefield is fuel, and that fuel delivery can cost between $30 (by Hemtt tanker) and $ 400 (by CH-47, as in Afghanistan) per gallon." Also there is the fact that supplying fuel to American forces in Iraq requires the military to put a large number of fuel tankers on the roads, leaving soldiers and contractors further exposed to attack. Any increase in fuel efficiency will likewise reduce that exposure.

And the JLTV will "absolutely have a v-shaped hull" of the kind that has made MRAP vehicles like the Cougar and Buffalo, which have been covered here before, so much more survivable than the Humvee. The v-shaped hull "appears to be the most survivable design" for deflecting the force of an IED blast, and will offer a critical improvement over the Humvee.

Hasse said that there is "a real sense of urgency" within the military to begin production of the JLTV, and that a contract for the vehicle will likely be announced by January of next year. She expects the contract to call for the production of 5,000 to 6,000 vehicles a year, and in order to meet those demands Lockheed Martin has formed a joint venture with Armor Holdings, which produces a variety of tactical wheeled vehicles.

But will the JLTV provide soldiers with enough protection against IEDs? That's the real question the program faces as the military ramps up production of the far more survivable MRAP, especially in light of the fact that the Marine Corps has recently signaled its intention to replace its entire fleet of Humvees in Iraq with MRAPs of one kind or another. The JLTV will never be able to provide the kind of protection that the MRAP does, but it simply isn't feasible to replace the military's enormous fleet of Humvees with MRAPs, which are much more expensive by comparison. And the JLTV does offer an "affordable and safe" solution to the shortcomings of the Humvee. Still, according to Hasse, the demand for MRAP vehicles "may affect JLTV quantities." Especially in Iraq, where the threat from IEDs is acute, the Army and Marine Corps may opt for a more survivable vehicle in the form of an MRAP. Outside of Iraq, however, the JLTV is likely to be as ubiquitous as its predecessor.

Lockheed Martin's FTTS technology demonstrator

Rich Lowry writing at NRO:

Murtha repeatedly says in the webcast that his proposals are meant to “protect” the troops. But he is frank about the not-so-ulterior motive of keeping more troops from heading to Iraq, explaining that “they won’t be able to do the work.” Because his provisions can be sold as guaranteeing the readiness and quality-of-life of the troops, Murtha believes that they “will be very hard to find fault with.”

Only if one ignores our constitutional scheme. The president, not Congress, is the commander in chief. Congress was never meant to, nor is it suited to, direct tactical military decisions, as Murtha seeks to do with his restrictions.

Arguably, his maneuver will be the most blatant congressional intrusion on the president’s war-making powers in the nation’s history. . . .

The subconscious logic of their position on the war has thus taken a subtle turn. It used to be that the war had to end because it was a failure; now it must fail so that it can end.

Democrats don’t see this distinction, since they simply believe the war is irretrievably lost. But they still pay laughably unserious lip service to the notion of success. Murtha says there’s no military solution in Iraq, that we can win in Iraq only through the political process — as if it has no effect on the political process whether Shia militias are murdering Sunnis unchecked or laying low to avoid the surge. In a howler, he maintains that if we leave, “al Qaeda’s going to disappear.” Maybe if we spread pixie dust and close our eyes?

The Jawa Report has the scoop:

Fahd al-Utaibi a/k/a Naif Fahd Al Aseemi Al Utaibi arrived in Saudi Arabia May 18, 2006 from Guantanamo, along with 14 others released by the US. He is currently on trial in Yemen for forging travel documents in order to join the jihad in Iraq.

And Armies of Liberation provides a link to this Human Rights Watch report warning that Fahd and the other 14 detainees had been "deprived of access to justice for years in U.S. military detention, [and] they may face continued incarceration with no legal process in Saudi Arabia." If only.

From the New York Times:

They [experts] say North Africa, with its vast, thinly governed stretches of mountain and desert, could become an Afghanistan-like terrorist hinterland within easy striking distance of Europe. That is all the more alarming because of the deep roots that North African communities have in Europe and the ease of travel between the regions. For the United States, the threat is also real because of visa-free travel to American cities for most European passport holders.

Our own expert, Olivier Guitta, reported in THE DAILY STANDARD this week on the alarming spread of terrorist groups in North Africa. His piece, Terror in the Maghreb, made much the same point as New York Times reporter Craig Smith:

GSPC, which officially merged with al Qaeda over the summer--underlined by al Qaeda's Ayman Al Zawahiri in a September 11, 2006 video--and changed its name a few weeks ago to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, is clearly the dominant terrorist group in the Maghreb and the countries of the Sahel. The organization's aim is to make the Maghreb a springboard to Europe with the help of the Algerian Islamist Khalid Abou Bassir, believed to be one of al Qaeda leaders in Europe. This was confirmed last year when Belgian police arrested a Moroccan Islamist named Mohamed Reha, who told police that "not only were we preparing jihad operations in Morocco, but we were working to expand our jihadist movement to all the countries of the Maghreb with the help of our Algerian brothers from the GSPC."

Guitta also points to "reports that this new terror group has been recruiting scores of Moroccan, Tunisian, and Algerian volunteers; to join the forces of al Qaeda in Iraq." As worrisome as that may be, it seems Europe has the most to fear from the unchecked spread of these groups. And it will be interesting to see how Europe confronts this problem. Guitta says that the French have a great deal of knowledge about the old-guard GSPC, but the groups is "recruiting every single day in the suburbs of Algiers," with the aim of enlisting young men who have no criminal background and whom the French authorities will be unable to track. The French are supporting the Algerian government, financially and otherwise, in its fight against the GSPC, but Guitta says that the French so fear their own restive Muslim population, that any direct action is out of the question.

Conservatives have rightly been grousing about the latest nuke deal with North Korea. As John Podhoretz put it in the New York Post, "the Bush administration has now gone down the same path as everybody else--paying Kim a bribe in exchange for promises of change." True enough, the North Korean nuke deal isn't all that different from the deal President Clinton worked out back in 1994. In this nifty little table put together by Eric Hundman over at FP Passport, one can see the similarities.

Equally disconcerting--and Clintonian--is that the deal seems to hinge on the "disablement" of the North Korean nuclear program. According to the blog China Matters, the Chinese word for "disablement" has a rather murky etymology:

I don’t think it’s really a Chinese word. I didn’t find it in my dictionaries. Google the phrase and you get about 600 hits, virtually all of them embedded in news stories covering the February 13 announcement.

It crops up a few times in other contexts.

One use is on an academic media site, talking in a po-mo sort of way about how trendy products are “stripped of their functional attributes” when the majority of the their value to the consumer can be ascribed to the image of with-it ness they bring.

On another site, the meaning is actually the subject of a query by a Chinese poster. 去功能化What’s that mean? the poster asks. The blog writer responds, I guess...maybe it’s like when you enter a code on a DVD player so it can’t show adult movies.

So where did the word come from? What does it mean? It appears to have been used at the request of American negotiators in lieu of a more familiar terminology. Again, from China Matters:

But it [disablement] doesn’t seem to include what Americans would normally construe "disablement" to mean, i.e. something involving dismantling or destruction.

Maybe the term was created and inserted into the negotiations so the Bush administration could assert that it had achieved more than the dreaded Clintonian “freeze”, while the North Koreans can interpret it to mean that all they need to do is to use reversible measures to put the facilities in a non-operating state without damaging or destroying them in order to receive the energy assistance promised in the declaration.

Whatever the word means, it's not a very good sign for those who would claim that this deal represents a breakthrough in resolving the standoff over North Korea's nuclear program. Jeffrey Lewis points to this transcript in which Secretary Rice uses the term "disablement" no less than 21 times in her announcement of the North Korea nuke deal. Perhaps conservatives would have a little more faith in this latest deal if it didn't appear to hinge on what the definition of the word "is" is.

Bonus: Lewis also links to this hilarious website paying homage to those who mangle of the English language.

From the Wall Street Journal: The Antiwar Surge, by Brendan Miniter.

From Politico: The Hired Gun's Hired Gun, by Christian Lowe.

From the Washington Post: Terrorist Networks Lure Young Moroccans to War in Far-Off Iraq, by Craig Whitlock.

From the Washington Times: Venezuela bolsters military against U.S., by Carmen Gentile.

From the Chicago Sun-Times: 'Success' in N. Korea will fail in long run, by John O'Sullivan.

Michael Rubin, an occasional contributor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD (most recently he authored this piece on privatizing the CIA) and the editor of Middle East Quarterly, has written an excellent essay on some of the many books that have come out of the war in Iraq. Rubin reviews a wide range of books that touch on nearly every aspect of the war, including the pre-war planning, the embed system, and the troop numbers debate.

In any case, Rubin's review is as impressive as it is comprehensive. Certainly worth checking out.

In an essay for THE WEEKLY STANDARD some years ago, John Derbyshire argued, persuasively, for the retention of Anglo-Saxon geographic nomenclature:

The question is rhetorical: Having been given the novels of George Borrow (Lavengro, Romany Rye) to read at an early age, I happen to know that rom means "man" in the Gypsy language. The Roma are the Gypsies. How many other people know this, I cannot guess, but I feel sure it is not many. So why confuse us like this? Why not say "Gypsy"?

There is a lot of this going on. A scholarly e-group I belong to recently featured some e-mail exchanges about a people called the Saami. This one I didn't know and had to ask about: "Saami" is the new, PC-certified name of the Lapps. Further east, the Samoyeds are now "Nemtsi." Meanwhile, down in Africa, Hottentots are "Khoi" while Bushmen must be called "San." What will now become of my party piece, reciting the silliest word in the German language: Hottentotenpotentatenstantenattentater--"one who assails the aunt of a Hottentot potentate"?

Ethnonymy--the naming of peoples--is apparently headed down the same slippery slope that toponymy--the naming of places--embarked on 20 years ago, when we were all supposed to start saying "Beijing" and "Mumbai" instead of Peking and Bombay, out of imagined deference to the sensibilities of the Third World. Toponymical practice has now passed far beyond the bounds of reason into a realm of utter lunacy. The other day I needed to know the name of that wee gulf up in the top right-hand corner of the Mediterranean. I pulled down my Times Atlas of the World and got the answer: Iskenderun korfezi. Now, I am sure that somewhere in there was the Turkish word for "gulf," but, alas, I had mislaid my Turkish dictionary.

It's gone beyond academic circles now. A recent episode of the excellent TV show House, M.D. featured a strange, tribal character who traveled in caravans with his extended family. He was, he informed viewers, "Romani." Derbyshire would have winced.

But not nearly so violently as he would have a few weeks ago when the State Department sent around a little message marking a name change of their own:

Effective immediately, the official designation of the U.S. Consulate General Calcutta is changed to U.S. Consulate General Kolkata. This reflects a change of standard name use adopted by the United States Board of Geographic Names.

Such cultural sensitivity--from George W. Bush's imperialist, unilateral administration, no less--is something to behold.

The Friendship Express, which links the Indian capital with the Pakistani city of Lahore, resumed service in 2004 after a two-year hiatus. Last night, terrorists targeted the train with two IEDs, killing no less than 66 people, mostly Pakistanis, in what many analysts are assuming was an attempt to derail the peace process between those two countries. The Belmont Club's Wretchard posts his thoughts on the attack:

The only -- and trite -- comment I can make is that attacks such as this will continue for the indefinite future. We are in a Long War. A War without Declarations. Perhaps one even without causes. But hopefully one which has an end.

Attacks on innocents have become part and parcel, even a "feature" of extended negotiations between terrorist entities and civil society. For example whenever some kind of peace initiative is attempted between Palestine and Israel, a suicide bombing is inevitably waiting in the wings. Every time the Iraqi government attempts to achieve some reconciliation between factions, a car bomb is readied in some garage to wreak carnage on an unsuspecting marketplace. Killings have become as much a part of the Peace Process as the green baize table. One may speak of the cost of war. But what of the costs of "engagement"? And at what point do they become indistinguishable?

I suppose I should wait for the meaningless expressions of regret from the United Nations and various and sundry humanitarian and European organizations. Followed by the inevitable dark hints that this was caused by the bad international atmospherics created by the United States.

(HT Hugh Hewitt)

Some amusing propaganda from Red China. The video was posted to YouTube more than a year ago, and it looks older than that, but very entertaining nevertheless. The last minute features some impressive kung-fu.
(HT blogenlust)

From the Telegraph:

Controversial plans to build a "supermosque" on the doorstep of the London Olympics will be blocked by the Government.

Ruth Kelly's Whitehall department is expected to refuse planning permission for the London Markaz, which would be the biggest religious building in Britain with room for 70,000 worshippers.

Backers want the £300 million mosque, in east London, to serve as a reception centre for athletes and fans from Islamic countries during the 2012 games.

The group behind the plans is Tablighi Jamaat, a Muslim missionary sect whose charitable trust, Anjuman-e-Islahul Muslimeen, has owned the 18-acre site since 1996. Tablighi Jamaat was called "an ante-chamber for fundamentalism" by French security services. Two of the July 7 London suicide bombers are believed to have attended one of its mosques.

Occasional WEEKLY STANDARD contributor Daveed Gartenstein-Ross has posted his take on today's report from the New York Times that al Qaeda has effectively regrouped in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area. Gartenstein-Ross says it should come as little surprise "that the Waziristan Accord--which was signed on September 5, and was designed as a treaty between Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf and tribal leaders--'had been a failure.'" He points to this WEEKLY STANDARD article on the Accord, which he coauthored with Bill Roggio back in October of 2006.

The agreement is, to put it mildly, a boon to the terrorists and a humiliation for the Pakistani government. . . . The accord provides that the Pakistani army will abandon outposts and border crossings throughout Waziristan. Pakistan's military agreed that it will no longer operate in North Waziristan or monitor actions in the region. Pakistan will return weapons and other equipment seized during Pakistani army operations. And the Pakistani government essentially paid a tribute to end the fighting when it agreed to pay compensation for property destroyed during combat -- an unusual move since most of the property that was destroyed belonged to factions that had consciously decided to harbor terrorists. Of particular concern is the provision allowing non-Pakistani militants to continue to reside in Waziristan as long as they promise to "keep the peace." Keeping the peace will, in practice, be defined as refraining from attacks on the Pakistani military. Meanwhile, since the military won't be monitoring the militants' activities, they can plan and train for terrorist attacks or work to bolster the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan without being seen to violate the treaty.

The bottom line: "although analysts now concede that the Waziristan Accord has failed, they aren't discussing what should be done now. Indeed, I have spoken with nobody in policymaking or intelligence circles with a good answer to that question."

Occasional WEEKLY STANDARD contributor Jennifer Chou (who is also the director of Radio Free Asia's Mandarin Service) writes in with news and links from the Chinese-language media:

On February 15th, the People’s Daily's overseas Chinese edition carried an article entitled “China’s Defense Capability And Its National Responsibilities: Without Strength China Cannot Fulfill Its Responsibilities.” Written by Chen Hu, executive editor of World Military Affairs magazine (published under the auspices of the official Xinhua News Agency), the article appeared in the “important news” section on the front page of the paper.

The piece begins with the observation that as China has acquired greater clout, more and more people are expecting it to behave as a responsible power, to join the international community in the fight against terrorism, and to provide humanitarian aid for the victims of natural and manmade disasters.

The author goes on to argue that “China must fulfill even greater internal responsibilities . . . As a developing country, China faces even more problems: energy security, information security, and trade security . . . But without strength China cannot fulfill its responsibilities; the greater the responsibilities, the more power it requires. The word ‘power’ here includes defense power. However, advances in China’s defense capability always seem to generate a noisy reaction in some quarters; accusing fingers are pointed without rhyme or reason at China for developing its own defense capability . . . Some say that China’s defense lacks transparency . . . but no nation can be expected to disclose its defense information unreservedly. Unilaterally demanding others to make completely transparent their defense data is in and of itself an act of hegemony.”

The article concludes with a thinly veiled criticism of the United States: “Whence comes the indiscreetly critical voice? It comes from those countries most vocal in their demands that China be ‘responsible.’ It comes from those countries that are the leaders in world military technology. It comes from the military superpowers. It comes from those countries that have their own militaries deployed around the globe. A country equipped with the most advanced, fourth-generation fighter planes [the F-22] is alarmed, and has gone so far as to criticize China for successfully developing a third-generation jet fighter [the J-10]. Just think about the real motive behind all the sound and fury.”

Chen Hu’s article was published on the People’s Daily website at 6:10. Less than three hours later, at 8:53, a comment by reader Xiao He (little river) was posted, expressing total agreement with the author. The title of the comment, “without military might, what you say is nothing more than passing gas,” is displayed prominently, just below the title of the original article.

In contrast to the belligerent tone of these pieces was an interview with Major General Zhang Bangdong that appeared the same day in the Southern Weekend magazine. In it, Zhang went to great lengths to emphasize the defensive nature of China’s security policy. Zhang Bangdong is the director of the Chinese Ministry of Defense’s Foreign Affairs Office, and the Southern Weekend has a larger circulation than any other Chinese weekly.

In addressing whether China has the capability to build its own aircraft carriers, Zhang declared, “First of all, it is a fact that China currently does not have any aircraft carriers. Second, with a coastline of 18,000 kilometers, China needs to be correspondingly equipped militarily to defend its maritime sovereignty and interests. Such is the sacred duty of the Chinese armed forces. Third, China insists on pursuing a policy of peaceful development. It will adhere to a foreign policy that is independent and peaceful, and a defense policy that is defensive in nature. China will not encroach upon others at any time and under any circumstances. Others need not worry about China’s military build-up.”

However, in answering a question about China’s strategic intentions in developing its J-10 fighter planes, the major general responded curtly, “I think it is inappropriate for some people to make so much fuss about it.

Here's Bill Kristol on Fox News Sunday:

I think the seven Republican senators and the 17 Republican House members who deserted the cause of victory in the war have their own political vulnerability.

There's something called primaries we have in America, and there will be primary challenges in the Republican Party against some of those congressmen and, I hope, against some of those senators, and they deserve to be primaried, because they are acting, I think, in a shameful way.

There are a handful of them in the House who have always been against the war. I guess they get to keep that up.

But those who are flipping now for expedient reasons when the president of the United States sends additional reinforcements over, when David Petraeus says we have a chance to win, and they flip to vote for non- binding resolution that is the first step to crippling the ability to win this war -- and it's Jack Murtha's cynical plan to do this through his control -- his ability to shape the appropriations process -- those Republicans, I think, have political vulnerability to Republican primary challenges.

You can see a list of the "white flag Republicans" over at the Victory Caucus.

From Vanity Fair: Washington's $8 Billion Shadow, by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele.

From First Things: The Leadership of George W. Bush: Con & Pro, Joseph Bottum and Michael Novak.

From the Baltimore Sun: Run silent, run very fast, by Allison Connolly.

From Arab News: Iran: US Has Many Options, by Amir Taheri.

From Policy Review: Missile Defense From Space, by Steven Lambakis.

Excerpt from Lieberman's speech on the floor of the Senate today:

The non-binding resolution before us is not about stopping a hypothetical plan. It is about disapproving a plan that is being carried out now by our fellow Americans in uniform, in the field. In that sense, as I have said, it is unprecedented in Congressional history, in American history. This resolution is about shouting into the wind. It is about ignoring realities of what’s happening on the ground in Baghdad.

It proposes nothing. It contains no plan for victory or retreat. It proposes nothing. It is a strategy of “no,” while our soldiers are saying, “yes, sir” to their commanding officers as they go forward into battle.

And that is why I will vote against the resolution by voting against cloture.

I understand the frustration, anger, and exhaustion that so many Americans, so many members of Congress, feel about Iraq, the desire to throw up one’s hands and simply say, “Enough.” And I am painfully aware of the enormous toll of this war in human life—and of the mistakes that have been made in the war’s conduct.

But let us now not make another mistake. In the midst of a fluid and uncertain situation in Iraq, we should not be so bound up in our own arguments and disagreements, so committed to the positions we have staked out, that the political battle over here takes precedence over the real battle over there. Whatever the passions of the moment, the point of reference for our decision-making should be military movements on the battlefields of Iraq, not political maneuverings in the halls of Congress.

Even as our troops have begun to take Baghdad back step-by-step, there are many in this Congress who have nevertheless already reached a conclusion about the futility of America’s cause there, and declared their intention to put an end to this mission not with one direct attempt to cutoff funds, but step by political step. No matter what the rhetoric of this resolution, that is the reality of the moment. This non-binding measure before us is a first step toward a constitutional crisis that we can and must avoid.

Let me explain what I mean by a constitutional crisis.

Let us be clear about the likely consequences if we go down this path beyond this non-binding resolution. Congress has been given constitutional responsibilities. But the micro-management of war is not one of them. The appropriation of funds for war is.

I appreciate that each of us here has our own ideas about the best way forward in Iraq, I respect those that take a different position than I, and I understand that many feel strongly that the President’s strategy is the wrong one. But the Constitution, which has served us now for more than two great centuries of our history, creates not 535 commanders-in-chief, but one—the President of the United States, who is authorized to lead the day to day conduct of war.

Whatever our opinion of this war or its conduct, it is in no one’s interest to stumble into a debilitating confrontation between our two great branches of government over war powers. The potential for a constitutional crisis here and now is real, with congressional interventions, presidential vetoes, and Supreme Court decisions. If there was ever a moment for nonpartisan cooperation to agree on a process that will respect both our personal opinions about this war and our nation’s interests over the long term, this is it.

There's been a lot of talk about the demise of the Royal Navy. This piece from the American Spectator gives a pretty good sense of just how bad things have become--the Royal Navy is now smaller than it's French counterpart for the first time in centuries.

Now Admiral Sir Jonathan Band, first sea lord and chief of naval staff, has taken his case to the press, making a public plea for increased funding. "Give me two carriers and just less than a billion and I will be off your back, a happy boy," said Band.

"The navy is a very special asset, and if you want to use it, it doesn't come for nothing," he told the journalists.

"We're at a scale now that requires a certain amount of investment to maintain.

"You can't do deterrence unless you are a really professional outfit."

It's unfortunate that the once-proud Royal Navy has been so diminished by budget cuts, and those cuts certainly makes the Pentagon's plans for a 1,000 ship international navy seem a more distant prospect. Perhaps some type of lend-lease arrangement could be worked out.

Matthew Continetti, writing in today's DAILY STANDARD, points to a disturbing trend in Congress, and more generally in the public debate over the war in Iraq. Continetti calls it warrior chic, "the idea that biography trumps policy, that a person's identity proves the validity of their ideas." In particular, the identity of the soldier or veteran is used to prove the validity of arguments both for and against the president's new Iraq strategy. Says Continetti, "taken to the extreme, of course, such an idea erodes the principle, embodied in the Constitution, of civilian control of the military." Should civilians defer to soldiers and veterans in any debate over the war in Iraq? Apparently General William Odom, U.S. Army (Ret.), seems to think so.

Dean Barnett has a post up about General Odom's appearance on the Hugh Hewitt show last night. Barnett hesitates to criticize a man with such a distinguished service record, but ultimately calls the general's commentary "an embarrassment." Here's the key exchange:

Odom: And following…let me ask you. Are you enthusiastic enough to put on a uniform and go?

Hewitt: No. I’m a civilian.

Odom: Okay, but we can recruit you.

Hewitt: I’m 51, General.

Odom: And I don’t see all these war hawks that want to…none of them have been in a war, and they don’t want to go.

Hewitt: Well, General, are you advocating that only uniformed military should have opinions on this?

Odom: No, you can have an opinion, but if you…you can’t start telling me that you’re going to just pay no attention to what people like myself say.

Hewitt: No, I am paying…that’s why you’re on this program.

Odom: Okay.

Odom isn't advocating that only uniformed military can have an opinion, just that the opinion of the uniformed military be given greater weight than that of civilians. It isn't a complete disregard for the principle of civilian control of the military, but it's pretty close. Barnett says that while "[he is] sure certain people loved the General’s ad hominem attack and relished the use of the chickenhawk trope by an actual man of the uniform, such an 'argument' doesn’t bear evidence to a confident or nimble intellect. Rather than defend his ideas, Odom tried to bully his way into winning an argument." I'd say Barnett is letting him off pretty easy.

Clifford May has a great piece up at National Review on last weekend's Munich Conference on Security Policy. The conference's slogan, "peace through dialogue," sounds an awful lot like appeasement to May, but this is clearly the approach favored by Democrats in Congress. Here's freshman Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak in an question and answer with readers of the Philadelphia Inquirer today:

That [Afghanistan] is the real danger to U.S. security . . . not the civil war in Iraq which can have relative peace if we lead with confidence in a diplomatic effort with Syria and Iran and other regional nations to bring stability to a country once we are out -- but remaining strong in the region on our bases in Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Oman, and Kuwait, carrier battle groups, and amphibious ready groups in the Persian Gulf. We change the incentive for Syria and Iran once we are not present in Iraq from being destructively involved in Iraq, to wanting stability in Iraq so that millions more refugees do not overflow their borders, nor do they become involved in a proxy battle by supporting the Sunnis and Sh'ia in Iraq that represent the majority of their own respective populations of these two "allied" countries.

We just retreat, redeploy, and then negotiate the details with Syria and Iran--peace through dialogue, peace in our time!

After all the Democratic pressure for a new National Intelligence Estimate of the situation in Iraq, the Democrats themselves seem to be the most shaken by the report's conclusion--that withdrawal "of coalition forces from Iraq would 'almost certainly' increase sectarian violence, intensify Sunni resistance, possibly cause the Iraqi Security Forces to dissolve and allow al-Qaeda to seek a sanctuary to plan attacks inside and outside the country."

Senator Russel Feingold, who has been at the forefront of the push to withdraw American troops, complained that the NIE was "Setting up a false choice between indefinite military involvement and a rapid, unplanned withdrawal . . ."

Feingold's alternative to rapid a rapid withdrawal of American troops: "Framing the analysis in terms of 'rapid withdrawal, presented an oversimplified assessment of one course of action without considering any elements of a redeployment strategy, including shifts in mission, stay-behind counterterrorism or training capabilities or regional diplomatic initiatives."

That sounds an awful lot like rapid withdrawal, and this despite the fact that Bush's new strategy appears to be having some effect on the violence in Iraq. From the AP:

The number of Iraqi civilians killed in Baghdad's sectarian violence fell drastically overnight, an Iraqi military official said Friday, crediting the joint U.S.-Iraqi security operation that began in force just days ago.

Iraqi army Brig. Gen. Qassim Moussawi, a spokesman for the Baghdad commander, said only 10 bodies had been reported by the morgue in the capital, compared to an average of 40 to 50 per day.

"This shows a big reduction in terror and killing operations in Baghdad," he said on Iraqi state television.

And from Reuters:

U.S. Major Steven Lamb, a spokesman for U.S. forces stationed in Baghdad, said the offensive was meeting little resistance from militias and insurgents.

"I wouldn't say there has been a high level of resistance. I mean if you take a look at the stuff that was going on yesterday, we had relatively few incidents, but that may change today," Lamb said.

"It's really too early to say if this is going to be a success or ... failure. But so far everyone is very pleased."

But the Democrats are doing everything they can to hamstring the troops. An editorial in today's Washington Times quotes Rep. John Murtha on the Democrat's plan "to effectively stop the troops in their tracks."

"They won't be able to continue. They won't be able to do the deployment. They won't have the equipment, they don't have the training and they won't be able to do the work. There's no question in my mind," Mr. Murtha said.

From Time: Give Force a Chance, by William Kristol.

From the New York Times: Dispute Over Iraqi Cleric, Said to Have Gone to Iran, by Damien Cave.

From the Washington Post: Bush Regains His Footing, by David S. Broder.

From the Times: The shaky prospects of Mitt Romney, by Gerard Baker.

From the Washington Post: The Putin Doctrine, by Charles Krauthammer.

From the AP:

The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq was wounded and an aide was killed in a clash Thursday with Iraqi forces north of Baghdad, the Interior Ministry spokesman said.

The clash occurred near Balad, a major U.S. base about 50 miles north of the capital, Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said.

Khalaf said al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri was wounded and his aide, identified as Abu Abdullah al-Majemaai, was killed.

Last week, after five helicopters went down in just 18 days, there was a great deal of speculation as to whether this was just a run of bad luck or evidence of a tactical shift by insurgents. There was one other theory, which Bill Roggio hinted at here:

In the past, al-Qaeda was largely limited to deploying anti-aircraft missiles to protect command and leadership assets. MANPADs were in view in Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's last video before his death. When U.S. forces were hunting Zarqawi in Yusifiyah, several helicopters were brought down during the battles.

Roggio also told me that the recent crashes might be related to a renewed effort to kill al Qaeda leadership figures. Sure enough, al-Masri was wounded just north of Baghdad, where most of the American helicopters had gone down. And while the report comes from Iraqi officials, I expect that it was American forces that carried out the attack. And likely from the air.

Update:
It seems al-Masri has not been wounded, but Roggio offers some hope that the noose may be tightening around the AQI leader.

FP Passport has the quote from Senator Biden's talk at the Brookings Institution today:

Biden said a lot of interesting things in his talk, but perhaps the most colorful wasn't in the prepared remarks (pdf). During the questions period, he said that U.S. combat forces must leave Iraq by 2008 in order to make it clear to the Iraqis that we won't stick around as "apartheid cops."

I'm not really sure what that means. I understand what Carter meant when he used the word in relation to Israel, not that it was an appropriate comparison, but saying it in this context would imply exactly what? That U.S. troops are protecting the privileges of an elite from an oppressed majority? That is exactly what U.S. troops put an end to when they eliminated the Baath party--the tool by which a small band of Sunnis from Tikrit were able to keep Iraq's Shiia as second-class citizens. Iraq was an apartheid state, and Saddam's Republican Guard was its "apartheid police." All U.S. troops are doing is trying to keep alive as many Iraqis as possible--Shiia and Sunni alike.

A senior "Netwarcom" official at the Naval Network Warfare Command in Norfolk, Virginia held a meeting with reporters earlier this week. Here's the scoop from FCW.com reporter Josh Rogin:

At the Naval Network Warfare Command here, U.S. cyber defenders track and investigate hundreds of suspicious events each day. But the predominant threat comes from Chinese hackers, who are constantly waging all-out warfare against Defense Department networks, Netwarcom officials said.

Attacks coming from China, probably with government support, far outstrip other attackers in terms of volume, proficiency and sophistication, said a senior Netwarcom official, who spoke to reporters on background Feb 12. The conflict has reached the level of a campaign-style, force-on-force engagement, he said.

“They will exploit anything and everything,” the senior official said, referring to the Chinese hackers’ strategy. And although it is impossible to confirm the involvement of China’s government, the attacks are so deliberate, “it’s hard to believe it’s not government-driven,” the official said. . . .

Current U.S. cyber warfare strategy is dysfunctional, said Gen. James Cartwright, commander of the Strategic Command (Stratcom), in a speech at the Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla., last week. Offensive, defensive and reconnaissance efforts among U.S. cyber forces are incompatible and don’t communicate with one another, resulting in a disjointed effort, Cartwright said.

Gen. Ronald Keys, commander of Air Combat Command, told reporters at the conference that current policies prevent the United States from pursuing cyberthreats based in foreign countries. Technology has outpaced policy in cyberspace, he said.

The United States should take more aggressive measures against foreign hackers and Web sites that help others attack government systems, Keys said. It may take a cyber version of the 2001 terrorist attacks for the country to realize it must re-examine its approach to cyber warfare, he added.

Over at the Corner, Andy McCarthy links to this story from Haaretz:

A commander in Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Wednesday that a commando unit has engraved the military organization's emblem into the side panel of an American warship stationed in the Persian Gulf.

Nur Ali Shushkari, the head of the Revolutionary Guards ground forces, told Iranian pro-government news agencies that the symbol was etched onto the ship by the crew of a submarine that had managed to reach the U.S. vessel without detection by radar.

Sometimes it seems like there is no limit to what Iranian military technology can do. Not long ago, Defense Tech ran an item on Iranian missile technology titled "Iran's Super Missile Will Defeat Great Satan, Steal Your Girlfriend." The post runs down some of the more "laughable" claims Iranian officials have made about what their missiles can do. Now they are claiming that their submarines can avoid detection by radar--what a breakthrough!

From the AP:

The United States clashed with China and Russia during a disarmament debate Tuesday over how to prevent an arms race in outer space, and Washington criticized Beijing for its recent test of an anti-satellite missile.

Russia and China, in turn, condemned the "one state" that refuses to consider a treaty banning space weapons--a reference to the U.S.

The meeting of the 65-nation Conference on Disarmament came a month after China launched a warhead from a ballistic missile to destroy one of its old weather satellites--a test that was criticized as a provocative display of the Asian country's growing military capability.

Despite the test, Beijing joined Moscow on Tuesday in renewing their five-year-old initiative to establish an international accord against weapons deployment in outer space. They maintain that Washington's developing anti-missile systems could set off a new arms race.

"The notion that introducing weapons and the threat of force into outer space could be a sustainable way of securing strategic advantage and legitimate defense objectives is fundamentally flawed," they said in a working paper distributed to delegations.

China and Russia said attempts to have global military dominance by the use of space "are counterproductive and jeopardize the security of all humanity."

One country's bid to have "impregnable defenses" is dangerous because it could "lead to new instruments of war and to an arms race," the paper said.

There are two points to be made here. First, as far as putting offensive weapons in space, no state has yet done anything of the kind, and no state is likely to do so any time soon. Only the United States has the resources and technological expertise to really work toward weaponizing space--and even then it isn't clear that, after a careful cost-benefit analysis, such systems will ever make it off the drawing board.

But land-based ASAT weapons are another story. The United States was successfully testing ASAT systems in the mid-1980s, and the Russians had started developing their own ASAT capability as early as the 1960s. The right to maintain a ground-based ASAT capability would not be hindered by a treaty banning space weapons, giving China the chance to further refine its capabilities in that area, and making America's network of satellites that much more vulnerable in the event of conflict. Even if such systems were included in the proposed treaty, there would be no conceivable way to verify compliance by China and Russia.

As James Oberg's explained in the pages of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, only the United States would be forced to comply with such an arms control regime.

The Chinese and Russians are cynically pushing this treaty because they know that it would seriously constrain the United States from building on its already formidable advantage in space. But it would do nothing to prevent China and Russia from pursuing weapons systems that would nullify that advantage. Still, the Western media will report this story as another instance of the Bush administration's unilateralism. Says Oberg, "The manipulation of Western media and political forces in that direction [of an international treaty], at the point of a space gun, is a good payoff for blowing up one surplus satellite."

Late last month I wrote about some of the problems the Air Force has been having with it's newest stealth fighter, the F-22 Raptor. Now David Axe reports that the F-22's first overseas deployment has been postponed due to a software malfunction.

So I was all set to fly out to Okinawa, Japan, to cover the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor’s first overseas deployment. But then word came that several of the birds had suffered software malfunctions en route to Okinawa from Hawaii. All 12 jets from the Virginia-based 27th Fighter Squadron turned back to the Aloha State … and my trip got bumped by two weeks.

Good news this ain’t. More than any other in-service fighter, the Raptor is software-driven. And any major glitches this late in the game are quite embarrassing and an obstacle in the event that the Raptor must go to war. Still, engineers are expecting to solve the problem this week and get the jets out to Japan this weekend, beginning three months of wargames that will pave the way for permanent basing of Raptors in Alaska and Hawaii, where they will be ideally positioned to counter North Korea and emerging Asian threats.

The Bertelsmann Foundation has released a survey "on the view of Germany held by Jews in Israel and the USA, and the view of Israel from Germany." The full survey is available here, but the most interesting results, I think, are those relating to the threat posed by a nuclear Iran.

At 62 percent, a significant majority of Germans understand the Iranian nuclear program to be an existential threat to the state of Israel. That number is slightly higher among Israelis, at 75 percent, and American Jews, at 73 percent.

The next question asks respondents if a military strike against Iran would be justified if negotiations fail. Interestingly, 80 percent of Israelis believe such action would be justified, which means that 5 percent believe an attack would be justified despite the fact that Iran doesn't pose an existential threat to the country. The same number of American Jews that believe Iran to be a threat to Israel likewise responded that an attack would be justified. But among Germans, only 32 percent believed an attack would be justified. Which is half the number that believe Iran to be a threat to the Jewish state's very existence. Can it be that one-third of Germans expect Israel to sit by idly while facing such a threat?

The third question explains the gap between the number of Germans who understand Iran to be a serious threat and the number who would consider military action justified if all other efforts at a peaceful solution fail. When asked if they believe that "there are situations that arise in the world in which military force must be used?" Only 39 percent of Germans answered yes. Not surprisingly, American and Israeli Jews answered yes by an overwhelming margin.

It seems reasonable to assume that German public is a good indicator of public opinion across Western Europe on the issue of Iran. If a vast majority of Germans can't conceive of using military force no matter what the circumstance, and wouldn't support Israeli action despite the fact that they understand a nuclear Iran to pose an existential threat to Israel, most Europeans likely agree--a sentiment reflected in the comments of French President Jacques Chirac earlier this month. If push comes to shove, Europe will oppose military action, no matter how strong the evidence against Iran, so why bother trying to make the case at all.

From the New York Times: Bush Declares Iran’s Arms Role in Iraq Is Certain, by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Marc Santora.

From Powerline: The Under Secretary Responds, by John Hinderaker.

From Newsweek: Cheney Ally Blasts Pentagon Report, by Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball.

From the Times: Bizarre Love Triangle: India, China and Russia.

From the Wall Street Journal: Awaiting the Dishonor Roll.

Thomas Joscelyn has an excellent write up of the latest video from al Qaeda number two Ayman al Zawahiri. The key points:

Zawahiri [is] seeking a solution in a profound call to all Muslims for unity, “even if be they Afghans, Persians, Turks or Kurds”, to heed Islamic doctrine and fight together to make “Allah’s word” supreme. . . .

Returning to the ideal of Muslim unity, Zawahiri affirms that he and al-Qaeda have pledged loyalty to the Emir of the Believers, Mullah Muhammad Omar, and encourages all Mujahideen to align themselves beneath one banner. He adds: “I ask my Muslim brothers in general and the callers and Mujahideen and their media organizations in particular to highlight the concept of Islamic brotherhood and disown all partisanship, loyalties and animosities based on nationalism, and I ask them not to allow the wrongdoing of a faction or entity motivate them to speak evil of that party's entire people or race.” Within this call, Zawahiri charges that the leaders of Fatah are apostates, and encourages its members to “return to Islam” and fight, but not necessarily join Hamas, Palestine Islamic Jihad, or al-Qaeda.

Concluding the speech, Zawahiri instructs Muslims to serve in jihad in Mauritania, as well as Afghanistan, Iraq, Algeria, and Somalia, either by bearing arms, monies, or words. He sends greetings to the “fledging” Islamic State of Iraq and members of its leadership, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, and the Mujahideen in both Algeria and Somalia.

Says Joscelyn, "But, I thought--according to so many 'experts'--al Qaeda could never cooperate with those who weren't members of their exclusive Sunni Wahhabist club."

We've been following for a while now the effort to deploy some 4,100 mine resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles to Iraq by the end of this year. The Army and Marines only have a couple hundred of the vehicles--which feature a v-shaped hull designed to deflect the force of an IED blast as well as substantially stronger armor than the up-armored Humvee--in Iraq at the moment, but the Navy is currently evaluating nine commercially available MRAPs for the contract.

Megan Scully, writing at National Journal, has the story on a Marine Corps request for an additional $2.7 billion in funding to purchase 2,700 more MRAPs in FY 2008. That request was not included in the Bush administration's budget proposal:

The Marine Corps already has received enough funding for this fiscal year to buy 805 vehicles, known as MRAPs. And service officials have requested enough money in the fiscal 2007 wartime supplemental to buy another 244 vehicles later this year, fulfilling the service's initial MRAP order.

But the Marine Corps requested only two MRAPs in the fiscal 2008 emergency spending request that the Bush administration sent to Congress last week along with next year's base budget proposal.

One of the companies competing for the initial contract is Force Protection, Inc., which has formed a joint ventured with General Dynamics called Force Dynamics, LLC. I spoke with the vice president of Force Protection, Mike Aldrich, not to long ago about what that company is doing to get more of their MRAP vehicles in the field. Aldrich told me that the company has had vehicles in constant delivery since July 2003 and that they "expect to win a major portion" of the new contract at least, though there is a "distinct possibility that [the Pentagon] goes with multiple suppliers." He said the firm would be producing vehicles at a rate of 200 each month by this summer and production would peak at 300 vehicles a month in early 2008.

Aldrich also said that "this is the most important program in Washington right now," because it is "the only program that is going to stop the bleeding" in Iraq. I'm inclined to agree with Aldrich. The MRAP offers the American military a real chance to neutralize the IED threat, which is by far the largest contributor to American casualties in Iraq. Aldrich also said that his company planned to build the vehicles regardless of whether or not they would be deployed to Iraq, saying "they will be used here if not over there." A bit of hyperbole, but Aldrich isn't wrong to say that this is the best chance we have for reducing American casualties in the short-term, so why would the administration, which provided the Joint IED Defeat Organization with a budget of more than $6 billion, short-change the Marine Corps' request for a mere $2 billion to deploy a proven tactical solution to the IED problem?

Here are some pics of the MRAP vehicles made by Force Protection.

Occasional WEEKLY STANDARD contributor Jennifer Chou (who is also the director of Radio Free Asia's Mandarin Service) writes in with news and links from the Chinese-language media:

On February 7th, the 2007 China Aerospace Exhibition got it's official kick-off at a much-hyped ceremony and press conference in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People. Organized by the China High-Tech Industrialization Association (with the support of the People’s Liberation Army and other branches of the government), the Exhibition itself is scheduled to begin in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone in Guangdong provinceon on May 1. Before the exhibition closes in April 2008, it will have made stops not only in Guangdong, but Guangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Jiangsu, Liaoning, Shandong, and Hong Kong as well.

The stated purpose of the Exhibition is to "fulfill the State Council’s ‘Action Plan to Promote Scientific Nurturing in all People’ by showcasing the hard-earned accomplishments and heroic feats of China’s aerospace undertaking in order to glorify the spirit of the space age, arouse patriotic fervor, and inspire national self-esteem and cohesiveness.”

The Exhibition will consist of 10 distinct components, including displays on manned space missions, voyages to the moon and mars, rockets, and satellites. Other displays will cover practical applications of aerospace technology and showcase items carried on previous Chinese space missions. Aerospace industry specialists and China's celebrity astronauts will also be present for simulated launches of the Shenzhou spacecraft.

In the meantime, a nationwide contest for an Exhibition mascot is in full swing. The official announcement states that the mascot should embody patriotism so as to “arouse patriotic fervor and inspire national self-esteem and cohesiveness.” The contest winner will receive $10,000 yuan (U.S. $1290.82) in prize money. Entries are due by April 30th, and may be submitted online to china_soars@163.com.

On the very day of the 2007 China Aerospace Exhibition kick-off ceremony, the English edition of People’s Daily Online carried two articles underscoring Beijing’s space ambitions. One asks: “Why Does China Want to Probe the Moon?” The article ends with the declaration that “sooner or later, China’s gorgeous five-star red flag will tower on the moon, and days are not distant for the dream of the Chinese people to come true.”

The second article announced that China plans to build a 4th satellite launching center, this one in Hainan; however, the Financial Times subsequently reported that an official of the Commission of Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense had indicated that final approval for the Hainan base was still undecided.

Via Michael Fumento, a video from the front lines in Iraq. Fumento explains:

Spc. Andy Johnson from A. Co., 1/506th, 101st Airborne sent me this video montage he put together from his vacation at Camp Corregidor this past year. It includes a couple of video clips of mine and some other good action shots - though I don't understand why he left out a great clip of an F-18 ground attack. (Betcha he inserts it when he reads this.) Among the most interesting is footage of a Humvee he and two others from his platoon were in when the back end was hit by an RPG-7. It knocked the whole back off and nobody inside suffered more than a bad case of nerves. Best of all, it's not set to heavy metal music - which I cannot stand - but rather a nice tune from The Man in Black.

The Houston Chronicle reports on the arrest of Daniel Joseph Maldonado, aka Daniel Aljughaifi. Maldonado is charged with "receiving training from a foreign terrorist organization and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction outside the U.S.," and was escorted back to Houston from Kenya by two FBI agents on Monday. Maldonado was arrested in Kenya after fleeing from Somalia, where he allegedly trained with al Qaeda members under the direction of the Islamic Courts Union.

Lone Star Times has the scoop on Maldonado's brief stint as a blogger:

Let me preface what follows with the BIG disclaimer that everything I’m about to write is entirely circumstantial.

That said, there only appears to be one Daniel Aljughaifi bouncing around the Internet… and he has a blog.

He also appears to be an administrator and heavily involved with an online forum called The Islamic Network, although his last activity on the site appears to have been on 9/16/06.

Maybe we’re talking about two completely separate Daniel Aljughaifis here, in which case I apologize.

But not too much, since the Daniel Aljughaifi I’ve identified in the Islamic Network forum seems content to bitch about how unfair it was to convict Holocaust denier David Irving in Austria.

Other tidbits I noticed–Aljughaifi claims to be “half Puerto Rican and half white” and is “married to a black woman.” Good for him.

Also, a different forum user in April complained that Aljughaifi had suddenly dropped out of sight, and someone else named “Talib” (i.e, “student,” the root of the word “Taliban”) says they are looking to contact “Daniel” themselves.

Lone Star also points out this ridiculous sentence in the Chronicle story:

Al-Qaida is blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people at the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington, Va.

Yes, al Qaeda is blamed for the attacks, because they did it!

Gary Schmitt and Reuel Marc Gerecht, both frequent contributors to THE WEEKLY STANDARD, have a piece in today's Financial Times on how war with Iran might be averted.

Do the Europeans really want to prevent a war between the US or Israel and Iran? If they had to choose between curtailing trade with the Islamic republic, or seeing either America or Israel preventatively strike Iran's nuclear facilities, which would London, Paris and Berlin prefer? These are not unfair questions: at no time since the European Union started the "EU3" negotiations with Iran's clerical regime in 2004 have the Europeans probably had more leverage over Tehran's actions. At no time since 2002, when it became clear that the mullahs were conducting a clandestine nuclear research programme, has there been a more critical moment for determining which path - diplomatic or military - the US and Israel will choose to try to stop Iran's pursuit of the bomb.

Washington and Jerusalem clearly have no desire to attack Iran. But if the Europeans close down the option of boosting the soft-power of sanctions, the odds on military strikes will increase significantly. Most in Europe's political elite may well agree with President Jacques Chirac of France when he recently revealed he had no problem with Iran having "one or two" nuclear weapons. Embracing the theory of deterrence, Mr Chirac apparently envisioned the Israelis or the Americans threatening annihilation of Iran as a means of escaping from the international contretemps provoked by the mullahs' nuclear aspirations. The European hope is that the Americans and the Israelis will realise that an attack on Iran's nuclear sites is unthinkable.

But what if the Americans or the Israelis do not see it that way?

You can read the rest here.

From AFP:

Eleven people have been killed when a car bomb ripped through a bus carrying members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards in a sensitive southeastern border province.

The bus was taking the Guards from their housing compound in the city of Zahedan to a military base just after daybreak when gunfire forced it to stop in front of the booby-trapped car, which then exploded.

An attack of this size and nature--a bomb strike on an elite force in broad daylight in an open street--is unprecedented in Iran.

According to unconfirmed website reports, the attack was claimed by a shadowy Sunni militant group, Jundallah, which has been blamed for a string of armed incidents in the volatile Sistan-Baluchestan province.

It's true that this is unprecedented. But broad daylight attacks on members of the regime are not without precedent, there was the assassination in 2003 of a prominent Iranian judge, Hassan Moghaddas. And the Revolutionary Guards has seen a number of their aircraft crash under rather suspicious circumstances. In January of last year, eleven commanders of the Revolutionary Guards were killed when their plane went down, and a number of analysts questioned whether the accident was actually an act of sabotage. And in 2003, the Guards saw 276 killed in another plane crash blamed on poor weather.

It's only speculation, but it seems reasonable to question whether these incidents might not be the result of some factional fighting within the regime, rather than rogue Sunni extremists--an easy scapegoat for the Iranian press.

From the Washington Post: Tough Questions We Were Right to Ask, by Douglas J. Feith.

From the Washington Times: Bolton hits agreement as 'bad signal' to Iran, by Bill Gertz.

From the New York Sun: Iran's Top Strategist, In His Own Words, by Steven Stalinsky.

From the Taipei Times: The best defense is a good offense, by John Tkacik.

From Defense Tech: Navy Phone Bill: $4 Billion.

Lee Smith, a Hudson Institute visiting fellow, contributes frequently to THE DAILY STANDARD. He writes in here with a few thoughts on Iran, oil, and the New Yorker magazine.

My old friend James Surowiecki has an interesting column in the latest issue of the New Yorker that explains how tough talk from the government sometimes aids our enemies, specifically the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose war chest gets fuller every time the risk premium on oil increases.

Surowiecki explains:

When buying and selling oil, traders don't just look at today's supply and demand. They also try to forecast the future. And if buyers think there's a chance that supply is going to be lower down the line--because, say, Iranian old fields will be shut down--they will be willing to pay a higher price today in order to guarantee that they will have the oil they need. . . . [W]henever the US says things that make a military conflict with Iran seem more likely, the price of oil rises, strengthening Iran's regime rather than weakening it.

Surowiecki has hit on one of the key dilemmas the White House faces in dealing with Tehran: How to let an ideological regime that does not recognize American red-lines know that Washington does not intend to abandon its position in the Persian Gulf or forsake its regional allies. After all, many of those regional allies, like Iran, depend almost exclusively on oil revenues, and any sign of American disengagement from the region would, just as surely as any escaltion, result in shockwaves of panic through financial markets across the globe.

And now that Surowiecki has laid out some of the geopolitical dangers of rhetorical over-reach, one wonders if that will affect the status of his New Yorker colleague, crack reporter Seymour Hersh. Intentionally or not, Hersh has contributed as much as anyone in Washington to the idea that Washington is planning a preemptive strike on Tehran. When Hersh reported that the "neocons" were mulling over plans of a nuclear first strike against Iran in the magazine's April 17, 2006 issue, newsstand sales likely soared, but what about the price of oil? In characteristic Hersh fashion, the story was based largely on anonymous quotes from unnamed officials--the claim was just a sensationalist peg for one in a series of overheated Hersh articles about Washington's Iran plans. But if Hersh's employers insist on taking seriously his feverish and un-sourced description of the White House's decision-making process, at least their financial columnist has explained some of the stakes involved in doing so--if that matters.

David Axe has an excellent post up on the Aviation Week blog about the size of the U.S. fleet. I'll quibble with a few points Axe makes, but by and large, he is correct to assert that the size of the U.S. fleet is not the sole criterion for determining U.S. Naval power.

The thurst of Axe's argument:

By at least one very important metric, our fleet is bigger than it has been in decades. That metric is the number of combat aircraft sorties that our aircraft carriers can generate in a single day. We have a 1,000-sortie fleet, according to Bob Work from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment. That’s the biggest fleet in the world, by far, and a bigger one than we’ve had since probably World War II.

Axe illustrates the point with a link to this neat, though slightly out of date graphic from globalsecurity.org (the British only have two active carriers, and the U.S. has 11 rather than 12 large carriers in service at the moment).

I spoke to Robert Work at length a few weeks ago, and he painted a similar picture of U.S. Naval dominance at the time (you can read what he had to say here). According to Axe, not only can American carriers "launch several times more sorties hitting ten times more targets per day than carriers from just a few years ago," but the U.S. Navy can also deploy carriers more quickly and in greater numbers than they once could.

All this adds up to the ability to put an overwhelming amount of firepower on target and on time. Axe says that "assuming you’ve got eight carriers on station plus half the amphibs--pretty much the maximum--that’s a thousand sorties hauling at least two precision-guided bombs apiece, for a grand total of around 2,000 aimpoints." When I spoke with Work, I came away with a significantly higher figure, though my post wasn't confined solely to the Navy's air power. If the Navy can hit 2,000 aimpoints a day from the air, it can hit more than twice as many with missiles. Work told me the Navy could probably hit something like 10,000 aimpoints in a given day if cruisers, destroyers, and subs were to employ their massive arsenal of cruise missiles.

In any case, Axe makes a legitimate point, which is that there is no nation on the planet that can challenge America's naval supremacy--not now, and not for a very long time. And though Axe minimizes the importance of overall ship numbers in comparison to the number of aimpoints those ships can hit, the fact is, by the more traditional metric of fleet size, the United States Navy has more ships than the next 17 navies combined. Work told me that during Pax Britannia, the Royal Navy understood supremacy to be a fleet larger than the next two largest navies combined.

Still, the U.S. Navy has set a target of a 313-ship fleet. That number now stands at 276. If the Navy can reign in costs on the LCS, which will comprise a substantial portion of that target number, then it makes sense to keep building. If, on the other hand, the Navy is unable to control costs on the LCS and its other major shipbuilding program, the DDG 1000, then it might make sense to reevaluate in light of the Navy's already dominant position relative to its potential competitors.

In this picture you can see four carriers, at the top is the USS John C. Stennis and at the bottom is the soon-to-be decommissioned USS John F. Kennedy. Sandwiched between the two massive carriers are the smaller French carrier Charles De Gaulle, and behind it the HMS Ocean, which is based on the British Invincible-class carrier design, but is slightly smaller and can't launch fixed-wing aircraft.

Mitt Romney made it official this morning. The former Massachusetts governor announced his candidacy for president at an automotive musuem in Dearborn, Michigan. Powerline has more on the address, but here is what Romney had to say on the war in Iraq:

Across the nation, there is debate about our future course in Iraq. Our desire to bring our troops home, safely and soon, is met with our recognition that if Iraq descends into all-out civil war, millions could die; that Iraq's Sunni region could become a base for Al Qaeda; that its Shia region could be seized by Iran; that Kurd tension could destabilize Turkey; and even that the broader Middle East could be drawn into conflict. The possible implications for America and for American interests from such developments could be devastating. It could mean a future with far more military involvement and far more loss of American life. For these reasons, I believe that so long as there is a reasonable prospect of success, our wisest course is to seek stability in Iraq, with additional troops endeavoring to secure the civilian population.

Barack Obama has already stepped back from remarks he made the other day claiming that we "have seen over three thousand lives of the bravest young Americans wasted."

Here's the video clip, which was widely circulated by conservative blogs yesterday.

The New York Times reports that Obama has "restructure[d]" his remarks--he only meant "that their service hasn’t been honored because our civilian strategy has not honored their courage and bravery, and we have put them in a situation in which it is hard for them to succeed.” Hard to take that seriously when none of the Democratic candidates has proposed any type of strategy that would give the troops a better chance at success. Allahpundit does an excellent job of explaining the conundrum facing the Democrats:

Of course he thinks their lives were wasted. Everyone on the anti-war side does; that’s one of the reasons they want to end the war. But they can’t say that because it dishonors the dead so they’re forced into rhetorical pretzels like the one Pelosi tied herself into a few weeks ago with Diane Sawyer. Army Lawyer summed up her position at the time thusly: “They didn’t die for nothing, they died for something stupid.”

With the president's launch of a new national space policy this fall, and the subsequent Chinese test of an ASAT missile, it seems the Europeans, and the French in particular, are feeling a bit left out of "the second global space race." Peter B. de Selding, writing at Space.com, reports on a series of proposals from the French Parliamentary Office for the Evaluation of Scientific and Technological Choices. According to Selding, the committee's report contains some 50 proposals " to reinvigorate Europe’s civil and military space policy." Among them:

* Sanctions should be imposed on any European government that does not give preference to European launch vehicles for its government civil and military satellites.

* France should begin preparing nuclear-powered satellites to permit deep-space exploration, using expertise at the French Atomic Energy Commission and in French industry.

* Europe’s heavy-lift Ariane 5 rocket should be made capable of launching astronauts within five years.

* Managers of Europe’s Galileo satellite-navigation project should engage in negotiations with the NATO alliance on how Galileo’s encrypted, government-only signal should be used and protected.

* France and other European governments should give assistance to companies that propose to develop suborbital flight systems designed to create a space-tourism industry.

Selding says the report was spurred by "recent acceleration of investment in China and India, and the reawakening of Russia’s space sector--the authors say Russia has multiplied space spending by 10 since 1999 . . ." Still, it's hard to imagine that the Europeans will actually come up with the funds to compete with the United States and Russia, let alone emerging space powers like China and India. And, assuming the French do redesign the Ariane 5 to carry astronauts, given the limited scientific and military value of manned space flight, one wonders what the purpose of such a mission might be.

The Sydney Morning Herald offered a pretty shocking statistic the other day on the Australian government's plans to buy 100 Joint Strike Fighters to replace an aging fleet of F-111s and F/A-18s. "At a cost of more than $1000 for every Australian man, woman and child, the program to buy the aircraft--and maintain regional air superiority--is the most expensive project ever undertaken by the Federal Government," said Tom Allard, the paper's national security editor. The next day, that paper ran this snarky opinion piece, which parodies a discussion between the Australian minister for defense, Brendan Nelson, and Angus Houston, the chief of the defense force.

Nelson: Bills, bills, bills! That's all I ever see with this project. Here's another one. (Reads) "Dear Mr Government, You appear to have overlooked last month's account. Please pay $250 million within seven days or we will pass the matter to our solicitors. Yours sincerely, illegible, Lockheed Martin."

(To Houston) What's that for?

Houston: Stationery, I think. And new merchandise - baseball caps, stubby holders. They've redesigned the logo, so all the old stuff has to go, and new stuff ordered.

Nelson: $250 million for baseball caps?

Why are the Aussies so worked up? The whole purpose of the JSF was to reduce unit costs by building the plane on a massive scale. When the program first got going in earnest, it was assumed that the Pentagon would purchase approximately 2,800 F-35s. A few months ago that number stood at 2,450, with the Air Force getting 1,763 in total. Now the Air Force has indicated that it intends to buy no more than 1,400 in total. So as numbers fall, the price per unit rises. Initial per unit costs for the Air Force variant (which is less expensive than the Marine Corps' STOVL variant) came in at less than $40 million a copy. That number has risen to approximately $55 million according to Richard Aboulafia, vice president of the Teal Group.

If some Australians thought the program was a boondoggle at $40 million per, the recent cost rise has only confirmed their suspicions. But the Australian press seems to be working off the assumption that the U.S. Air Force will ultimately cut its final order to a mere 760 planes. That according to Peter Goon, co-founder of the organisation Air Power Australia, and also identified as "a long-time critic of the program." Goon told the Sydney Morning Herald that "this reduction in numbers is so large it will affect overall program costs significantly." But Goon's assertion seems to be little more than speculation--not to say such a cut is inconceivable. According to Defense News, the JSF program "will almost certainly be 'scaled back significantly' over the next six years." And both the Navy and the Air Force prefer other aircraft. For the Air Force, the F-22, at seven-times the cost of the JSF, is a far more capable platform. While the Navy, which Aboulafia describes as "risk averse," prefers the cheap and reliable F/A-18. Still, Aboulafia says, like it or not, the Joint Strike Fighter is "the wave of the future."

To some extent, the hyperventilating in the Australian press may reflect that government's desire for a "certain level of negotiation." With domestic pressure to keep prices low, the Australians will have a stronger hand in any negotiation with the Pentagon. But the Aussies have an aging fleet of aircraft, and even if they choose to buy "very reasonably priced and available" F/A-18s in the short-term, Aboluafia says that in the long-run they will need to participate in the JSF program.

Still, it's not all bad news for the JSF. Italy and Norway have both recently signed on to the program, though neither agreement guarantees a final purchase. But when military procurement programs--which normally garner so little attention from the press--become the butt of jokes on the op-ed page, there's a problem. Like other Pentagon projects designed specifically to contain costs by building in greater quantity, the JSF isn't producing the savings that many had hoped. That said, the Royal Australian Air Force doesn't really have a lot of alternatives, unless they want to pony up for the F-22.

The JSF

From the New York Post: A Putrid Payoff, by John Podhoretz.

From the Washington Post: A Blogger for Edwards Resigns After Complaints, by Howard Kurtz.

From Bloomberg: New York Magazine's Head Doctors Analyze Bush, by Andrew Ferguson.

From the New York Times: Iran and the Nameless Briefers, by the editors.

From the Telegraph: Iraqi insurgents using Austrian rifles from Iran, by Thomas Harding.

Whatever happens in Iraq, the initial invasion of that country was an unqualified success. American armor was sweeping through Baghdad only weeks after the first bombs were dropped on the city. And while the Taliban still pose a formidable challenge to American efforts in Afghanistan, the swift response of the American military in the weeks after 9/11 was devastating to that regime. Any enemy of the United States, or any rational enemy, should by now realize that American military action is to be feared. So why then does Ahmadinejad insist that Iran has nothing to fear from an American attack.

Sawyer: Do you personally fear an attack by us? And air strikes against Iran by the U.S.?

Ahmadinejad: Fear? Why should we be afraid? First the possibility is very low, and we think that there are wise people in the U.S. that would stop such illegal actions but our position is clear. Our nation has made it clear that anyone who wants to attack our country will be severely punished.

Matthias Küntzel, writing in THE WEEKLY STANDARD this week, offers this quote from Ayatollah Khomeini to shed some light on the problems of deterring Iran's revolutionary regime:

"We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah. For patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land [Iran] burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world."

And yet some continue to persist with the notion that Iran, when push comes to shove, will behave like any other state. That Iran sued for peace in its war with Iraq in the 1980s is taken as evidence of rational behavior.

In fact, the diplomatic trajectory of the Islamic republic, under its current leadership and that of Khamenei's predecessor, Ruhollah Khomeini, is quite rational. As Israeli strategist Reuven Pedatzur has observed, "Past experience shows that the radical Iranian regime, headed by the most extreme of them all, Ayatollah Khomeini, behaved with absolute rationality at the moment of truth."

Consider the Iran-Iraq war. Smoldering with radicalism from the Islamic revolution, Iran's early rhetoric was uncompromising, and in November 1981, it issued clear proclamations that it had no intention of stopping the war as long as Saddam Hussein remained in power. As the conflict wore on, Iranian propaganda grew ever more eerie. The Islamic government built an infamous fountain of fake blood in Tehran, to indicate Iran's supposed willingness for martyrdom.

However, the Iraqis began to make clear and decisive advances in the conflict, partly due to Western governments' support for and arms sales to Saddam Hussein. By 1988, a long string of devastating tactical routs had made clear that outright strategic defeat was possible, so the Iranian leadership changed course. They sued for peace, jettisoning their original objective of deposing Saddam, and taking a deal that left Iran on the light side of the postwar balance of power.

But the Iranians only did so only after losing more than a million men. Of course, it is possible that bloodshed on such a scale would deter Iran from pursuing further confrontation with the United States. But that isn't deterrence at all.

Clint Eastwood is out promoting his twin WWII movies, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima. The subtext of these films does not exactly bolster Eastwood's reputation for intellectual seriousness. Now his campaigning has reached a new low, with these remarks:

Clint Eastwood said his acclaimed picture "Letters from Iwo Jima" aimed to show the futility of war, after its European premiere at the 57th Berlin Film Festival.

[Eastwood] said "Letters" and "Flags of our Fathers" were a response to the war movies of his youth.

"I grew up in the war pictures in the 1940s where everything was propagandized. (In) all the movies, we were the good guys and everybody else were bad guys," he said.

"I just wanted to tell two different stories where there were good guys and bad guys everywhere and just tell something about the human condition."

Of course, World War II wasn't exactly "futile"--it achieved a number of important aims. But it certainly did illuminate the "human condition" of Japanese soldiers at the time. Here's an excerpt from the diary of a Japanese officer stationed at Guadalcanal (from Dan van der Vat's The Pacific Campaign), describing the treatment of two Allied POWs:

29 September: Discovered the captain and two prisoners who escaped last night in the jungle and let the guard company guard them. To prevent them escaping a second time, pistols were fired at their feet, but it was difficult to hit them. . . .

The two prisoners were dissected while still alive by medical officer Yamaji and their livers were taken out, and for the first time I saw the internal organs of a human being. It was very informative.

This isn't a random atrocity carried out in the heat of battle by a couple of peasant grunts--this is organized vivisection performed for the intellectual edification of the officer class.

Of course, that's just one data point. When you pull back, the picture of Japanese atrocities is much worse. In the aftermath of the Doolittle raid, for instance, Japanese soldiers massacred 250,000 Chinese civilians--read that again: 250,000 men, women, and children--because they believed that the Chinese helped the American raiding party. (Not that it matters, but in reality, the Chinese aid was minimal.)

And then there's the Rape of Nanking, during the weeks between December 1937 and February 1938. The number of civilians who died there at the hands of the Japanese is somewhere between 150,000 and 300,000. But again, the details are telling. Here's an excerpt from the diary of John Rabe, a German stationed in Nanking at the time (from The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe):

I also went down to the morgue in the basement and had them uncover the bodies that were delivered last night. Among them, a civilian with his eyes burned out and his head totally burned, who had likewise had gasoline poured over him by Japanese soldiers. The body of a little boy, maybe seven years old, had four bayonet wounds in it, one in the belly about as long as your finger.

Contrary to Eastwood, there were not "bad guys" like this "everywhere."

Tim Johnson, the China correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers, had an interesting story up over the weekend on his blog, China Rises. According to Johnson, Sha Zukang, "the Chinese diplomat who suggested last August that Washington should just 'shut up and keep quiet' about China’s defense spending has just gotten a big promotion."

The “un-diplomatic” diplomat, Sha Zukang, just won a plum assignment near the top of the United Nations hierarchy. He’ll be under secretary of economic and social affairs, a post just under Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Sha is currently China’s representative in Geneva to U.N. organizations there.

Sha threw diplomatic language to the winds last August when he told the BBC that the Bush administration has no place criticizing increases in Chinese military spending. . . . His statements raised hackles in Washington, but heartened Chinese who have grown weary of U.S. criticism of the nation’s rise.

Sha has blazed a trail for all those young internationalists aspiring to a career in world government. You want to get ahead? Just tell the United States to go f%&# itself.

The Corner's Andy McCarthy links to this New York Sun report from Eli Lake on Iranian weapons in Iraq. According to Lake:

Indeed, while the specific intelligence on the explosive formed projectiles is no longer disputed in the intelligence community, the CIA is questioning whether their export from Iran represents a strategy of the regime or the rogue actions of one of its security services, known as the Quds Force. According to reports from the briefing in Baghdad yesterday, American commanders said Iran's export of the bombs to Iraqi Shiite militias was a deliberate strategy of the regime, noting that the Quds Force reports directly to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Says McCarthy:

Sure. Khamenei has reaffirmed that "Death to America" is Iran's motto, Ahmadinejad says a world without America is achievable, we have 30 years of evidence of the Iranian regime acting on those assumptions, and we know the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and its Quds (Jerusalem) Force have long been the mullahs' arms for exporting their revolution. But when we catch the Iranians red-handed killing American troops in Iraq, the CIA figures it may not really be the regime but rogue elements. One can easily see why Doug Feith is getting grief for not taking everything the CIA says to the bank.

Senator Lieberman addressed the Munich Conference on Security Policy on Sunday. The senator took a not so subtle jibe at John Kerry, saying America is "a principled nation, not a pariah nation. He also responded to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who two days ago asked the same audience, "What is a uni-polar world? No matter how we beautify this term, it means one single center of power, one single center of force and one single master."

Here is an excerpt from Lieberman's speech:

Much as the founding of NATO in 1949 put to rest doubts about America’s long-term commitment to the security of Europe, so too would a global NATO end any uncertainty that exists today about the West’s long-term commitment to democracy in nations around the world, including, particularly, in the Muslim world. It would make clear that our presence in places like Afghanistan is not just a temporary arrangement, subject to the whims of public opinion and the leaders of the moment, but part of a deeper, formal alliance bound by common principles from which we cannot and will not withdraw.

These are the same principles enshrined in the original NATO charter, which declares the alliance is founded on “democracy, individual liberty, and rule of law.”

These principles know no borders-and they are under attack today across many borders. Our enemies are clear about who they are. Radical Islamists have stated openly, in the words of one jihadist group: “We have declared a bitter war against the principle of democracy and all those who seek to enact it.”

I cannot speak about the global war of ideas without also acknowledging our struggle in Iraq.

I understand the frustration and anger that the Iraq war has created in America and toward America throughout the world, but I ask that those feelings not blind us to the larger truths about the enemy we are fighting, and about our shared interest in its defeat.

We are fighting in Iraq against the same violent ideology of radical Islam that NATO is fighting in Afghanistan and against which so many of our societies are struggling worldwide. The asymmetrical war of ideas I have discussed is irretrievably bound up in the outcome of the war in Iraq, as our common enemy keenly appreciates-at times it seems, better than we do.

As we have seen in Iraq, America is capable of mistakes large and small, but we are a principled nation, not a pariah nation.

Surely principled in the sense that America remains the indispensable nation in the fight for freedom throughout the world, precisely because we are willing to put our powers-economic, diplomatic, and, yes, military-in pursuit of our principles. But we have not and cannot act alone.

President Putin said yesterday that there is -one single center of power-in the world today. He is correct.

But that power is not the United States. It is the power of freedom.

Freedom speaks all languages and knows no borders. Walls and prisons cannot contain it, and totalitarianism cannot defeat it.

But the cause of freedom does not belong to one nation alone. On the contrary, the greatest triumphs of democracy in the twentieth century were achieved by the strength of our alliances, including particularly NATO.

Today once again our community of democratic nations faces profound challenges, and we have encountered disappointing setbacks.

But these challenges must call us now to remember who we are and what we stand for and to summon the will to defend both.

Rather than falling victim to doubt or exhaustion or division, let us sustain and strengthen our faith in all that binds and animates us-the values of freedom and tolerance and justice and democracy. Let us move forward, united and confident in our ultimate victory-the victory of freedom.

Major General Bill Caldwell presented to the Baghdad press corps this morning evidence of Iranian weapons being supplied to insurgents in Iraq. Bill Roggio has culled news accounts for the most relevant bits:

"Iran is involved in supplying explosively formed projectiles or EFPs and other material," such as "explosive charges, booby traps, mortar shells of different calibers and remote controls" to detonate IEDs to "multiple" insurgent groups." Those in attendance "were shown fragments of what the defense official said were Iranian-made weapons, including one part of an EFP and tail fins from 81-mm and 60-mm mortars." "More than 120 US and coalition troops have been killed by these things, and 620 wounded. There was a significant increase in there use over the past six months," said the defense official.

Markings on the EFPs and mortars, as well as the machining processes, identified the weapons as being Iranian made. "The weapons had characteristics unique to being manufactured in Iran ... Iran is the only country in the region that produces these weapons," according to the anonymous defense official. "The dates of manufacture on weapons found so far indicate they were made after fall of Saddam Hussein."

"We have evidence that Iran provided insurgents with explosive devices and trained them to use these weapons, produced between 2004 and 2006," Said MG Caldwell. "The Iranian suspects detained in Irbil have confirmed these reports and we have found with them maps and explosives-related material. Those Iranians were trying to get rid of these documents in the lavatories... the Iraqi government has notified us that (the Iranians detained in Irbil) were not diplomats and had no passports."

You can also see photos of the evidence over at BBC.

Courtesy of the BBC

From the Washington Times: Beijing's dark designs, by James Holmes.

From the New York Sun: Vindicating Douglas Feith, by the editors.

From the New York Times: Why Are the Pacifists So Passive? by Lynn Chu & John Yoo.

From the Christian Science Monitor: Russia intensifies efforts to rebuild its military machine, by Fred Weir.

From the Washington Post: Military Ties Iran To Arms In Iraq, by Joshua Partlow.

No, not by UNIFIL. It would be too much to expect the United Nations to take any action against Hezbollah. But the BBC reports that a truck carrying AK-47s and other small arms--including rockets--destined for Hezbollah fighters was seized by the Lebanese government in Beirut. The Lebanese government also claims that the truck did not cross the border from Syria, which would indicate that Hezbollah was trying to move weaponry from the countryside into the capital.

Why would Hezbollah do such a thing? Olivier Guitta, writing at Counterterrorism Blog, speculates that Hezbollah is gearing up for a full on civil war. And over at Captain's Quarters, Captain Ed says that the seizure can be interpreted as a response by the Siniora government to Hezbollah's demands for a new cabinet and veto power over the government:

This comes amid tumult and portents of a new civil war. Nasrallah has demanded a new Cabinet and veto powers for Hezbollah over any government action, a demand that Siniora has rejected. The impasse resulted in massive demonstrations that attempted to shut down Beirut, which started to turn into a riot. Nasrallah ended it to avoid an all-out war that he cannot win, at least not at this time.

Seizing and holding the weapons appears to be Siniora's answer to Nasrallah. He will instead redirect the arms to the Lebanese Army, underresourced in comparison to Hezbollah anyway, using the recent border skirmish with Israel as an excuse. Siniora knows that Hezbollah's arms could soon be turned against the government, and he'd be a fool to release them to Nasrallah now.

Probably not a major setback for Hezbollah, which has a substantial arsenal at its disposal, but as good an indication of the group's intentions as we are likely to get.

Fantastic and profane parody of the correspondence between John Edwards and Amanda Marcotte, editor of Pandagon and a member of the Edwards '08 campaign team.

Here's a sample:

To: Senator John Edwards
From: Amanda Marcotte
Re: Focus Group

Dear Senator Edwards:

To help you hone your campaign message for the online community, I organized an impromptu focus group of top progressive bloggers for tomorrow night at the Raleigh Airport Hilton. This group will include political analyst Jeremy Lacewell of Die Mother****ing ZioNazi NeoCon Mother****ers Die, feminist Kiersten Lomax of Hands Off My C**t, and recent immigrant blogger Mohammed al-Aziz of I Intend To Detonate a Nuclear Weapon in St. Louis.

This event will help you get acquainted with online mainstream progressives, discuss the issues important to them, and come up with a strategy for countering the insane Xtian Jesusist lynchmobs. We will be serving lacto-vegetarian snacks and Ecstasy to help facilitate a free-wheeling discussion.

Hope you can make it!!!

Amanda

HT The Corner

Senator John McCain was one of only 14 senators to vote against the confirmation of General George Casey to be the Army's next chief of staff. In his comments on the floor of the Senate, McCain explained his vote:

So, I want to tell my friends that people in the military, particularly our young officers, are watching what we do here. We teach them, we teach them in our service schools and we teach our noncommissioned officers and our junior officers, you're responsible. You're responsible for success or failure. That's why we appoint you as leaders. And in this case, this leader, despite his honorable character and his dedication to this country, has not led and his responsibility has not been carried out.

A friend of THE WEEKLY STANDARD sent along an email the other day which echoed McCain's concerns:

Apropos of Casey's hearing, I was struck by this quote from Field Marshal Slim's memoir, Defeat Into Victory: Battling Japan in Burma and India, 1942-1945. Slim wrote the following of his feelings after the Allies had been chased out of Burma in 1942, when he was a corps commander:

"For myself I had little to be proud of; I could not rate my generalship high. The only test of generalship is success, and I had succeeded in nothing I had attempted. . . . In preparation, in execution, in strategy, and in tactics we had been worsted, and we had paid the penalty--defeat. Defeat is bitter. Bitter to the common soldier, but terribly bitter to his general. The soldier may comfort himself with the thought that, whatever the result, he has done his duty faithfully and steadfastly, but the commander has failed in his duty if he has not won victory--for that is is his duty. He has no other comparable to it."

We haven't been defeated in Iraq, but by any standard Casey "has failed in his duty."

You can read McCain's remarks in their entirety here.

The AP report from the meeting of NATO defense ministers in Seville, Spain:

Serial numbers and markings on explosives used in Iraq provide "pretty good" evidence that Iran is providing either weapons or technology for militants there, Defense Secretary Robert Gates asserted Friday.

Offering some of the first public details of evidence the military has collected, Gates said, "I think there's some serial numbers, there may be some markings on some of the projectile fragments that we found," that point to Iran.

At the same time, however, he said he was somewhat surprised that recent raids by coalition and Iraqi forces in Iraq swept up some Iranians.

Just last week, Gates said that U.S. military officers in Baghdad were planning to brief reporters on what is known about Iranian involvement in Iraq but that he and other senior administration officials had intervened to delay the briefing in order to assure that the information provided was accurate.

Speaking to reporters at a defense ministers conference here, Gates said Friday, "I don't think there was surprise that the Iranians were actually involved, I think there was surprise we actually picked up some."

He and other U.S. officials have said for some time that Iranians, and possibly the government of Iran, have been providing weapons technology, and possibly some explosives to Iraqi insurgents.

On the Afghan front, a few of our European allies pledged to increase their support for the NATO-led fight against the Taliban:

Lithuania, which already has 130 troops in Afghanistan, offered to send an unspecified number of special forces, helping to fill a key shortfall.

Germany says it will provide six Tornado reconnaissance jets but not significantly augment its 3,000 troops in the north. The Italian government said it would send a much-needed transport plane and some unmanned surveillance aircraft, but it is struggling to secure parliamentary backing for the finances needed to maintain a contingent of 1,950.

Spain also said it would send four unmanned planes and more instructors to help the Afghan army.

Why such a paltry commitment? Said German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung, "When the Russians were in Afghanistan, they had 100,000 soldiers there and they did not win." The fact that the United States was arming the mujahideen may have had something to do with that. The Taliban, on the other hand, has no superpower behind it. But six Tornado aircraft to perform reconnaissance and a handful of UAVs? Pretty pathetic, and hardly surprising.

A worrisome story from Politico:

To the surprise of the Bush administration, the House Intelligence Committee voted unanimously Wednesday night to allow all 435 House members to see the classified version of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq sent to the White House last week. The report is classified in part because it contains information about sources and methods used in intelligence-gathering.

The document will provide fuel for a House debate, scheduled to begin Tuesday, on a resolution of disapproval of President Bush’s plan to boost U.S. troop strength in Iraq. Remarkably, each House member will be given five minutes to speak. The decision to provide such broad access to the microphones is based on the fact that each member got the chance to speak before the Iraq war began, according to House leadership aides.

Says Hugh Hewitt:

We can predict with great certainty that some of the 435 Members will read the report and intend to say nothing, but that they will bleat out something or other at some point.

We are also certain that some will return from the secure office with the ink still fresh on their secrecy pledge, and dial up any reporter they can find if they figure out that there's a way to damage the Adminstration in the process.

Will each member also have a chance to read the official dissent from the NIE?

From the New York Times: Edwards Learns Blogs Can Cut 2 Ways, by John M. Broder.

From the Wall Street Journal: Rudy vs. Hillary in 2008? by Peggy Noonan.

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Maintaining America's high-tech edge, by Charles J. Dunlap Jr.

From the Washington Times: War resolution seen hurting morale, by S.A. Miller.

Max Boot has an interesting post on the Commentary blog about "Iran's long war" with the United States. Boot writes that "in the view of some analysts, the fanatics are in Washington not Tehran. Some of our most eminent foreign-policy thinkers seem to think that supposedly trigger-happy hawks in America are a bigger threat to world peace than terrorism-sponsoring mullahs in Iran."

Boot then quotes eminent foreign-policy thinker Zbigniew Brzezinski:

“A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a ‘defensive’ U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.”

Boot goes on,

But I take exception to the premise of their argument and of Brzezinski’s, which is that if the U.S. were to bomb Iran, this would amount to starting a war out of the blue. In reality, Iran has been waging war on the U.S. for a quarter century, from the 1979 hostage crisis to the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut to its present policy of supplying Explosively Formed Projectiles--i.e., highly potent landmines--to Shiite and possibly even Sunni insurgents in Iraq who use them to blow up American armored vehicles, killing or injuring the occupants. A U.S. attack on Iran would not represent the beginning of a war; it would merely represent belated recognition on our part that a war is going on.

That isn’t to say that military action is the right course. For the time being, I would prefer more political, economic, and diplomatic pressure, which already seems to be taking a toll on President Ahmadinejad’s popularity with the Iranian political class. But my fear is not that we will respond too belligerently but that, as in years past (including during the first six years of the Bush administration), we will respond too supinely--that we will continue to do nothing, beyond a few tartly worded statements, about the growing Iranian threat. That really will make war more likely.

David Bosco at FP Passport offers another interesting take on the "legality of attacking Iran."

The use and abuse of the legitimate doctrine of preemptive self-defense has been well documented. In light of Iraq, the United States would have a very hard time making such a claim stick. But Israel, interestingly, has a stronger case (what with Iran's military support for Hezbollah and the threats to wipe Israel off the face of the map). Could the United States legitimately piggyback on Israel's claim to preemptive self defense--making it collective preemptive self defense?

Debra Saunders has a discouraging column about recent goings on at San Francisco State, where the student body has finally decided to take a stand against religious intolerance. You may be able to guess where this is going:

This story starts with an "anti-terrorism rally" held last October on campus by the College Republicans. To emphasize their point, students stomped on Hezbollah and Hamas flags. According to the college paper, the Golden Gate (X)Press, members of Students Against War and the International Socialist Organization showed up to call the Republicans "racists," while the president of the General Union of Palestinian Students accused the Repubs of spreading false information about Muslims.

In November, the Associated Students board passed a unanimous resolution, which the (X)Press reported, denounced the California Republicans for "hateful religious intolerance" and criticized those who "pre-meditated the stomping of the flags knowing it would offend some people and possibly incite violence." . . .

A student filed a complaint with the Office of Student Programs and Leadership Development. OSPLD Director Joey Greenwell wrote to the College Republicans informing them that his office had completed an investigation of the complaint and forwarded the report to the Student Organization Hearing Panel, which will adjudicate the charge. At issue is the charge that College Republicans had walked on "a banner with the world 'Allah' written in Arabic script"--it turns out Allah's name is incorporated into Hamas and Hezbollah flags--and "allegations of attempts to incite violence and create a hostile environment," as well as "actions of incivility."

At an unnamed date, the student panel could decide to issue a warning to, suspend or expel the GOP club from campus. . . .

The university's response? Spokesperson Ellen Griffin told me, "The university stands behind this process."

And: "I don't believe the complaint is about the desecration of the flag. I believe that the complaint is the desecration of Allah."

(H/T: LGF)

When British soldier Lance Corporal Matty Hull of the Household Cavalry Regiment was killed in Iraq in March of 2003, it was no more than a few minutes before it became clear that his death had been caused by friendly fire--a "blue on blue incident." Two A-10s from the Idaho National Guard had mistakenly strafed a convoy of British sodiers, killing Hull and wounding one of his comrades. The official investigation into Hull's death had been held up ever since by demands that a tape of the incident be made available the British coroner’s court charged with heading the inquest. Yesterday, a British tabloid made a transcript of the tape available and posted a portion of it on the web, available here.

As the New York Times reported yesterday, the pilots "fall apart in a duet of shock, panicked swearing and audible weeping, after learning the what they've done." One says he's "going to be sick," the other let's out a scream and a torrent of expletives. There's no mistaking their anguish for indifference. Yet the Sun quotes an unnamed U.S. military source as saying "The pilots need to be brought to account.” The tabloid is certainly doing its part to drum up public support for some kind of legal action against the two men.

Italy, too, is attempting to hold U.S. soldiers to account for mistakes made in Iraq. Reuters reported yesterday that an Italian judge has ordered Mario Lozano of the U.S. Army's 69th Infantry Regiment to stand trial in the death of Italian agent Nicola Calipari, whose vehicle was shot-up by U.S. soldiers while transporting an Italian journalist--held hostage by insurgents only hours earlier--to the Baghdad airport. Lorenzo will be tried in absentia for the voluntary homicide of Calipari in addition to two counts of attempted murder.

And last month, a Spanish court issued an international search and capture warrant for three U.S. servicemen whose tank fired on the Palestine Hotel in April 2003, killing Spanish TV cameraman José Couso. The three servicemen were cleared of any improper conduct by a Pentagon investigation which found their actions justified, despite the tragic consequence.

I spoke with Jeremy Rabkin, frequent WEEKLY STANDARD contributor and professor of international law at Cornell University, about these cases and what they mean for relations between the United States and our "allies."

Rabkin says that in the case of Italy, that country "has a historic claim that they will protect Italians out in the world." Because the United States takes a similar position, he says we shouldn't be "too sanctimonious." Still, he says that the Italian charges essentially amount to an accusation that the United States did not investigate in good faith. "It's shocking that they are so distrustful," and the charges basically imply that the Italians "believe we meant to kill, or that we believe you are so reckless," that the actions of this soldier can be called murder.

In the case of Spain, Rabkin says the issuing of a warrant is "a reminder that Spain is a left-wing government and not to be trusted." In contrast to Italy, which at least "maintains the pretense of being a serious country," the Spanish simply aren't an ally and aren't serious.

Finally, Rabkin says it's unlikely the British case will be pursued, but that the investigation is alarming nonetheless. In each of these incidents, the lesson, and "it is well for us to learn this," is that these countries are "putting us on notice that they are completely unreliable partners." How can we go to war with our allies if American soldiers can be held liable in a foreign courts for mistakes made in good faith?

And in the realm of pure speculation: Many presumed that the Italian government had paid a ransom to free the captive journalist that Calipari was escorting to the airport. That the car was speeding towards a check point, with no indication that the driver would stop, might be explained by the Italian government's reluctance to answer questions about who had been paid what and where. Rabkin said they "probably didn't want to explain themselves," which means that the Italians may well have "perpetrated this provocation."

The bottom line is that our supposed allies believe "there are no innocent mistakes because we are waging an illegal war." They are "playing a game to embarrass us and show people at home that they are standing up to the United States." With friends like these...

From the Financial Times:

Israeli and Lebanese soldiers exchanged fire on Wednesday after Lebanese troops shot in the air as an Israeli patrol crossed a security fence near the border to search for explosives planted by Hizbollah guerrillas. No one was hurt.

And from the Jerusalem Post:

National Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said Thursday that it was "not impossible" that summer 2007 would see another conflict in the North, one in which Syria was also involved.

According to Ben-Eliezer, the IDF was not prepared for such a war.

The International Herald Tribune has a lengthy report today on China's newest fighter jet, the J-10. The article hypes the plane, or at least the headline does--"China adds jet fighter that rivals world best." Still, comparisons with the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Dassault Rafale don't really warrant such bold claims. Those planes are not stealth, which means they simply aren't survivable on the modern battlefield--one expert said of the Eurofighter, it's "the perfect design for returning a radar signature." Still, the J-10 might match up fairly well against the F-16s of the Taiwanese air force:

Lin Chong-pin, president of a research institute based in Taipei, the Foundation on International and Cross- Strait Studies, said Taiwan's advantage "is getting narrower and narrower."

"At the moment it is just in balance," added Lin, a former deputy defense minister in the governing Democratic Progressive Party. "If Taiwan doesn't do anything, it will tip in favor of the PLA air force."

To counter the threat, Taiwan wants to buy more F-16 fighters from the United States, but most analysts believe it is unlikely that the Bush administration will agree to this request while the island's legislature continues to block funding for an earlier arms order.

The J-10, Courtesy of The Associated Press

Bill Roggio has up his own analysis of the situation:

The suspicion is the Islamic Republic of Iran is behind supplying al-Qaeda with the needed weapons, training and logistical support to supply and field a successful anti-aircraft force, much as the United States provided the mujahideen with Stingers in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The United States and Iran have escalated the war in the shadows in Iran. After the United States raided Iranian 'diplotmatic missions' in Baghdad and Irbil, Iran is strongly believed to have conducted an attack on the provincial center in Karbal, which resulted in the death and kidnapping of five U.S. soldiers. An Iranian 'diplomat' was kidnapped off the streets of Baghdad today, and Iran is blaming the U.S.

During the Baghdad and Irbil raids, the U.S. detained seven members of Iran's Qods Force (Iranian special forces) and captured documentation which proved Iran was supporting both the Sunni and Shia insurgent and death squads, as well as Al_Qaeda and Ansar al-Sunnah. Mines, which are killing U.S. troops, have been traced back directly to Iran, while weapons shipments have been interdicted while transiting the border.

You can read the rest here.

And via Powerline:

The emergence in Iraq of more effective shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and anti-aircraft gunfire in Iraq is a development discussed yesterday by Ralph Peters in his New York Post column. I understand that the surface-to-air missiles are SAM-16s. I also understand that the weapons that recently brought down the four helicopters involve some kind of clustered anti-aircraft gunfire. Consistent with Peters's reporting, I understand that the SAMs and other new anti-aircraft weapons come from Iran.

The linked CNN story on the helicopter downings quotes a statement regarding the weapons from the al Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq. In today's New York Sun, Nibras Kazimi reports on the emergence of al Qaeda's new man in Iraq, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. (The name sounds like a nom de guerre that can be translated as Daddy Baghdadi.) Al-Baghdadi leads al Qaeda in Iraq in a front group called "the Islamic State of Iraq." According to Kazimi, al Qaeda has taken over the Sunni insurgency and issued a demand for American surrender:

"We order you to withdraw your forces immediately. But the withdrawal must be via troop transport trucks and passenger planes whereby each soldier is allowed to carry his own weapon only. They may not withdraw any of the heavy military equipment and the military bases must be handed over to the mujaheddin of the Islamic State and the duration of the withdrawal may not exceed a month."

Kazimi comments: "Not very favorable terms, but I wonder whether some in the Senate would go for it anyway."

From the Wall Street Journal: Hillary on Iraq.

From the Chicago Sun-Times: Who Won in the Senate?, by Robert Novak.

From Real Clear Politics: John Edwards Gets a Makeover, by Gerard Baker.

From the Los Angeles Times: Dissent grows in Iran, by Kim Murphy.

From CNN: U.S. military: Iraqi lawmaker is U.S. Embassy bomber, by Michael Ware.

From the Washington Post:

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) said yesterday that Congress should consider a "war-on-terrorism tax," reducing the need for lawmakers to cut domestic programs to pay for security spending.

Lieberman said the proposed increase in the Pentagon's budget for next fiscal year will squeeze funding for critical domestic programs.

"When you put together the [Pentagon] budget and the Homeland Security budgets, we need to ask people to help us in a way that they know when they pay more it will go for their security," he said at a Budget Committee hearing.

In other tax news, Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), in an effort to "strengthen the link between the taxes we pay and the politicians we elect," has sponsored a bill to change the deadline for filing federal income taxes from April 15 to the first Monday in November--the day before Election Day.

I imagine most Americans would find considerable consolation in knowing their tax dollars were going directly to fund national security programs, and pushing back the filing deadline to the day before election day...well that just makes good sense.

Over the last 18 days, five American helicopters have gone down in the areas in and around Baghdad. What first appeared to be an unfortunate coincidence, has now started to fuel speculation of a new dimension to the insurgency in Iraq.

On January 30, Defense Tech asked a former Kiowa Warrior pilot who had served in Iraq, identified only as "ME", for his thoughts on the string of crashes:

I haven't heard of any reason as to why we're losing more lately, but we also haven't lost any in a long time prior to this--I think it's reflective of somewhat of the odds catching up to us and an increased combat operations tempo.

Now that two more choppers have gone down, ME is "having second thoughts." When witnesses described an Apache helicopter bursting into flames in midair last Friday, ME had the following to say:

That's unlikely to happen due to small arms fire and the odds of hitting an Apache heads on with an unguided RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] are pretty slim. The fuel cells are crashworthy, and unless they are hit by something like an API (armor piercing incendiary--like a .50 cal or higher) shell, I don't think they are going to explode. Hitting munitions onboard isn't likely to make a fireball either. But the explosion of a SAM hitting it might look like a fireball.

I just got off the phone with Bill Roggio, who was also beginning to worry about the implications of so many choppers going down in such a short time period (56 have gone down since the war began). Roggio said it "appears one or more antiaircraft cells with Strela missiles are now operating in the area just north of Baghdad." Roggio added that he was "surprised it took this long" for the insurgents to start targeting rotorcraft more aggressively. He speculated that the delay might be a result of Sunni insurgents holding such missiles in reserve "to protect leaders," like Zarqawi. The string of crashes then might be related to a new effort by American forces to target al Qaeda leaders, said Roggio.

American pilots, however, have the equipment and training to effectively reduce their vulnerability to the threat posed by surface-to-air missiles. "We do have countermeasures," Roggio says, but if more missiles are finding their way into the hands of insurgents, the number of successful attacks is bound to increase.

So where might these missiles be coming from? It's true that Iraq was awash in heavy weapons in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion, but MANPADS--man-portable air defense systems--are notoriously delicate weapons, with a relatively short shelf-life due to their reliance on military-grade batteries. Though a proficient terrorist might be able to replace those batteries by improvising an off-the-shelf solution, it is more likely that a surge in MANPAD attacks would be the result of an influx of the devices from neighboring countries. Said Roggio, "they might be getting run from Saudi Arabia, but I would think it's Iran." Iran supplying al Qaeda? Shiites working together with Sunnis to kill Americans? Anyone who still finds the idea of such cooperation far-fetched hasn't been paying close attention.

Roggio said we can expect more analysis of this development at his blog, The Fourth Rail, sometime in the next 24 hours.

When Madame Speaker Nancy Pelosi requested access to military aircraft, she had to know she was inviting trouble. And the White House is dragging out the negotiations, making sure the media has enough time to chew over the details of Pelosi's request. Here are some of the latest comments:

From CNN's Lou Dobbs:

CORRESPONDENT: "It's clear skies for Nancy Pelosi. The Pentagon is providing the House speaker with an Air Force plane large enough to accommodate her staff, family, supporters and members of the Californian delegation when she travels around the country. . . .

"Pelosi wants routine access to a larger plane. It includes 42 business class seats, a fully-enclosed state room, an entertainment center, a private bed, state-of-the-art communications system and a crew of 16. . . . It would be 42 people, and clearly she won't be the only one on this plane. She wants to have members of the congressional delegation. And her critics will say, look, this is a very nice perk that she can share with her colleagues and use as leverage, should she need to."

LOU DOBBS: "Well, it's really a fascinating thing: 42. She could take a circus with her, for crying out loud."

And from the Examiner:

Well, that didn't take long. After campaigning against the 'waste, fraud, and abuse' of the Bush administration, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi now wants to be cut in on the take.

The woman who five months ago said, "Democrats are committed to a new direction in the way our government does business so taxpayers' money is handled responsibly," is dunning the White House to put an Air Force jet at her disposal - reportedly, not only for her use, but for her family's as well. . . .

But all of this luxury doesn't come cheap. Hourly operating costs for an Air Force C-32--the planes that typically carry the vice president, the first lady, and Cabinet officials--are about $15,000 an hour.

So for one of those planes to fly the speaker home to San Francisco, drop her off, and fly back and get her, would cost taxpayers around $300,000 - while round-trip commercial fares start at $233. That doesn't qualify as "waste and abuse"?

According to FAS.org, the C-32 is "configured for 45 passengers and 16 crew, [and] is designed for a 4,150 nautical mile mission, roughly the distance from Andrews to Frankfurt, Germany." It also has an open bar.

The C-32

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee was the featured guest at a reporter's breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor this morning. USA Today's On Deadline has the scoop on the svelte governor's comments on the war in Iraq and fellow Republican John McCain.

Asked if fellow Republican McCain's embrace of the increasingly unpopular war would create problems for him as a presidential nominee, Huckabee said:

"That and a Washington address probably are not strong attributes." Would American voters elect a nominee who had supported the war so strongly? "If the wheels are coming off even more, then everything about the war is a huge problem," he responded. If things "improve or stabilize" in Iraq, that could change.

What about Bush's leadership of the war? The administration seemed ill-prepared to deal with the situation that followed after Saddam Hussein was ousted, he said. "There does seem to be an 18-minute gap ... between the toppling of Saddam Hussein and the establishment of a stable democracy" there.

Huckabee defended his own ability to handle foreign policy as president, despite his lack of Washington experience. He praised President Ronald Reagan's management of the end of the Cold War. What about Bush, another former governor? "I don't think it is necessarily helpful," he said, "but I also don't think it's overwhelmingly harmful. . . . I don't think there's an automatic transference to the next guy."

Huckabee doesn't have any foreign policy record, but he will surely have his own "huge problem" to deal with come the primary, mainly an "insistence on raising taxes at almost every turn throughout his final term.”

There are going to be a whole lot of warships in the Persian Gulf over the next few weeks. One carrier strike groups is already on the scene, and a second, led by the USS John C. Stennis, is set to arrive over the next two weeks. This will be the first time two carriers have been stationed in the Gulf since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The Bataan Expeditionary Strike Group is also on its way, with a complement of seven warships and six thousand sailors and Marines. It's official: "A U.S. naval build-up in the Persian Gulf is underway."

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said the purpose of the build-up "is simply to underscore to our friends, as well as to our potential adversaries in the region, that the United States has considered the Persian Gulf and that whole area, and stability in that area, to be a vital national interest."

But we're not the only ones making a show of force. Reuters reported yesterday that "Iran's Revolutionary Guards will hold two days of wargames in the Gulf and Sea of Oman this week, focusing on launching missiles, Iranian news agencies reported on Tuesday." And today the Iranians claimed to have successfully test-fired the Russian-made TOR-M1 air-defense system, which was only recently delivered after much protest from the Bush administration.

Robert Work, a senior analyst at CSBA with expertise in naval affairs, says "it appears as though the Bush administration has started to refocus its sites on Iran." He added that although "a lot of people think the U.S. is tied down in Iraq, that may be true of ground forces, but not naval and aerospace." The build-up, he said, makes clear this country's "intent to remain engaged in the region regardless of what happens in Iraq."

As for the Iranian navy, Work says it is largely comprised of small surface vessels, a few frigates, and a small sub fleet. And while those ships, and Iran's land-based missiles, are still capable of causing considerable trouble for commerce in the region, they aren't much of a match for "awesome combat capability" of the U.S. naval forces now present in the Gulf.

Still, the close proximity U.S. and Iranian vessels, and the hostility between the two countries, could make for a dangerous situation. "Whenever you have a lot of forces that are wary of each other, both will be very careful. . . both will be very leery of being aggressive," said Work. If the Iranians were to provoke an incident, Work is confident that the U.S. Navy would be ready. When an Iranian made C-802 anti-ship cruise missile struck the Israeli Naval Ship Hanit during last summer's war with Hezbollah, the incident was blamed on an officer switching the ship's defense systems from active to standby. Work says such a miscue is unlikely to befall U.S. ships in the region, which maintain a constant state of readiness when plying the unfriendly waters of the Gulf.

The USS Bataan

From the Los Angeles Times: Keys to a successful surge, by Max Boot.

From the Washington Times: Enemy doubles IED use in Iraq, by Rowan Scarborough.

From the New York Post: A Cowardly Congress . . .

From CNSNews.com: Who's Blocking Debate on Iraq War?, by Susan Jones.

From the Washington Times: Pelosi's push for jet remains up in air, by Rowan Scarborough and Charles Hurt.

A while back, Irwin Stelzer had an excellent joke about America's energy policy:

I was asked many years ago at a gathering of government and industry experts to lay out an energy policy for America, to cope with a supply interruption. Two words: "aircraft carriers."

Funny, that. In the intervening years, we've seen a number of theories put forward about how America could achieve energy independence. The most glittering of these was hydrogen power, which promised abundant, cheap, space-age fuel. The problem with hydrogen (or hydrogen fuel cells), is that few non-technical people knew enough chemistry or physics to determine whether or not the theory was plausible on its face.

The latest issue of the New Atlantis features an essay by aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin which seems like the final word on the practicality of hydrogen power.

The crude summation is: Packaging, distributing, and using hydrogen is too complicated, expensive, and dangerous to ever be a realistic alternative. But even that doesn't particularly matter, because in order to create the pure, non-oxidized form of hydrogen needed for fuel, you have to expend more energy than you eventually reap. The entire hydrogen dream is basically a hoax.

But don't take my word for it--Zubrin gets into the weeds with the endothermic reactions and enough math to be persuasive.

There have been a couple stories in the media lately about the possible sale of F-22s to Japan. The story goes something like this: "China has started developing more advanced fighter jets in a bid to match the state-of-the-art F-22 U.S. combat aircraft, sparking a regional arms race . . . Taiwan plans to acquire 60 F-16 C/Ds from the United States [those plans are currently "frozen"] while Japan is prepared to buy a number of F-22s . . . "

The F-22 is hands-down the most advanced fighter in the world, despite a few early problems the Air Force is still working out. But the plane is so expensive, and the technology so sensitive, that exporting it was never seriously considered. However, if they were to be sold, Japan, with its massive defense budget, its close proximity to China, Russia, and North Korea, and its cozy relationship with the United States, is, in the opinion of Loren Thompson, "the only plausible recipient."

Thompson said the sale was still "pure speculation," but with the F-22 scheduled for it's first overseas deployment to Japan's Kadena Air Base in just a few days, the Japanese will have a chance to see the plane up-close for the first time. There are a number of reasons why the Japanese would be interested in purchasing the aircraft according to Thompson. Foremost among them, according to a Pentagon study Thompson had seen, it would cost the Chinese approximately $300 billion to build an air defense network capable of thwarting the stealthy, supersonic fighter. At that price, the F-22 would serve the Japanese as a very "significant deterrent." Furthermore, Thompson said that while only Russia, and to a far lesser extent China, are capable of fielding a fighter that would be competitive with the F-22, the threat from North Korea might lead to a number of scenarios where a stealthy, supersonic aircraft would be of great value to the Japanese.

As far as the risk of such sensitive technology falling into the wrong hands or being used against us, Thompson said it would be "almost unimaginable" for Japan to pose that kind of threat, now or in the future. The rumored sale would also seem, on the surface at least, to offer the the U.S. Air Force an opportunity to defray the enormous costs of the program by increasing the number of units produced--sort of a scaled-down JSF program. Alas, Thompson says the effect on the unit cost of the F-22 would be insignificant.

Still, it would be a boon for Lockheed Martin, the lead-contractor on the project, and it would also have salutary effects on the balance of power in the Pacific--a "stabilizing influence" in the words of Thompson. There doesn't seem to be any reason to hold out on selling the F-22 then, but one wonders if the threat of selling it couldn't provide the Bush administration with an additional lever in dealings with both China and North Korea--perhaps that's the reason for all the renewed speculation.

(You can read a recent piece by Loren Thompson on the "death of U.S. air power" here.)

Tora? Tora? Tora?

Occasional WEEKLY STANDARD contributor Jennifer Chou (who is also the director of Radio Free Asia's Mandarin Service) writes in with news and links from the Chinese-language media:

* According to the February 4th edition of the Chinese-language weekly Yazhou Zhoukan (published in Hong Kong under the auspices of the Ming Pao Group), former Chinese premier and economic czar Zhu Rongji, aka China’s Gorbachev, has a new hobby: Internet surfing.

The article cites “Beijing insiders” as saying that “Zhu Rongji has recently taken up the computer and logs on frequently to surf the Internet. Zhu no longer gets together with fellow Peking opera aficionados every couple of days, as online surfing has become a newly acquired hobby of his.”

* As the Communist party gears up for the 17th Party Congress, there have been a number of major personnel changes throughout the country. Despite an earlier pledge to enjoy a leisurely retirement and avoid meddling in affairs of state, the Yazhou Zhoukan article speculates that perhaps the 79-year-old former premier, who left office in 2003, is surfing for information about those changes: “What is the former premier reading online? It is unlikely to be trivia, but rather matters of national and international concern.”

* The phrase “to usher in the 17th Party Congress” (yingjie shiqida) has appeared in Chinese media reports with increasing frequency since late last year, although not so often as the expression “harmonious society.” Scheduled to take place this fall, the Congress is to set the direction of the party for the next five years. In anticipation of the event, President Hu Jintao has stepped up his efforts to position alumni of the Communist Youth League, his institutional power base, in key posts.

* In October and November of last year, across 16 provinces, there were personnel changes involving nearly 50 provincial-level officials: “What is unprecedented is the effort to scale down the size of the bureaucracy. In many cases, the number of deputy provincial party secretaries was reduced to two from five or six.”

New personnel appointments have continued into 2007, involving top leaders in Hebei, Jilin, Sichuan, Hainan, and Guangdong provinces. The appointment of Ms. Huang Yanrong, vice chair of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, as the vice governor of volatile Sichuan province, “came as a surprise to some. . . . Formerly a member of the standing committee of the Sichuan provincial party committee, Huang Yanrong returns to Sichuan in the wake of two recent mass incidents involving thousands of protesters--one in the city of Guangan, brought on by hospital negligence that led to the death of a 4-year-old boy, the other in Dazhu county over the rape and death of a 16-year-old female hotel worker.”

Jennifer Chou will be keeping an eye on the Chinese media for the WorldWide Standard. You should keep an eye on her.

For anyone who has been following the story of Washington Post blogger William Arkin, who accused U.S. servicemen of being mercenaries and wrote that they should be grateful no one is spitting on them or calling them "baby killers," this clip from the O'Reilly Factor ought to be quite satisfying. One of O'Reilly's producers caught up with Arkin while he was off skiing.

HT LGF.

Rudy Giuliani was on Hannity & Colmes last night. He talked about Iraq, Iran, and the recommendations of the Iraq study group among other things.

But here's the reality of it: We're at war. And we're at war because they're at war with us. I mean, sometimes, when you listen to these debates in Congress, and you listen to the politicians debating, you sort of get the impression that they think we're in control of whether we're at war or not.

It doesn't matter what we think. They're at war with us. They want to come here and kill us. And they did on September 11, and they did a long time before September 11. Way back in 1993, they came to this city and killed people.

So we've got to put Iraq in the context of a much broader picture than just Iraq. And getting Iraq correctly, in other words, getting stability there is real important. And I support what the president asked for support to do and what General Petraeus has asked for support to do, not because there's any guarantee it's going to work. There's never any guarantee at war.

On the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group:

I thought one of the mistakes of that recommendation is you almost can't put it up front. The minute you put it up front, you give them all the leverage and you take all the leverage away from us. That recommendation would have been better delivered quietly, secretly.

And then you -- then, through back channels, you find out. Can I achieve something with Ahmadinejad? Can I achieve something with Syria? Right now, it doesn't look that way.

Better thing to do in Iran is to put pressure on them and to let them know that we will not accept their being a nuclear power. The nightmare of the Cold War was nuclear weapons in the hands of an irrational person. I don't want to live through that nightmare.

You can read the full transcript here.

From the New York Sun: Spitting on Veterans, by Seth Gitell.

From National Journal: Military cutting orders for costly high-tech weapons, by Art Pine.

From the Times: As Iraq suffers, all eyes are turning to Iran, by Gerard Baker.

From the Wall Street Journal: Can There Be a Liberal Iraq?, by Bret Stephens.

I just saw the text of a speech delivered today by Senator Joe Lieberman on the floor of the Senate. Lieberman states his intention to vote against cloture on the Warner-Levin resolution, and he scolds his fellow senators for supporting a resolution that would, "by codifying our disunity, by disavowing the mission our troops are about to undertake--confirm our enemies’ belief in American weakness."

Here is a choice excerpt. You can read the full text here.

Now, a new course has been chosen. A new commander is in place in Iraq, confirmed by this Senate. A new Secretary of Defense is in place at the Pentagon, confirmed by this Senate. And a new strategy has begun to be put into action on the ground in Iraq by our troops.

It is altogether proper that we debate our policy in Iraq. It should be a debate that is as serious as the situation in Iraq and that reflects the powers the Constitution gives to Congress in matters of war.

But that, sadly, is not the debate that the Warner-Levin resolution invites us to have. I am going to speak strongly against this resolution because I feel strongly about it. I do so with respect for my colleagues who have offered it, but I believe its passage would so compromise America’s security, present and future, that I will say so in the clearest terms I can.

The resolution before us, its sponsors concede, will not stop the new strategy from going forward. As we speak, thousands of troops are already in Baghdad, with thousands more moving into position to carry out their Commander’s orders. This resolution does nothing to alter these facts.

Instead, its sponsors say it will send a message of rebuke from the Senate to the president, from one end of Pennsylvania Avenue to the other. But there is a world beyond Pennsylvania Avenue that is watching and listening.

What we say here is being heard in Baghdad by Iraqi moderates, trying to decide whether the Americans will stand with them. We are being heard by our men and women in uniform, who will be interested to know whether we support the plan they have begun to carry out. We are being heard by the leaders of the thuggish regimes in Iran and Syria, and by Al Qaeda terrorists, eager for evidence that America’s will is breaking. And we are being heard across America by our constituents, who are wondering if their Congress is capable of serious action, not just hollow posturing.

This resolution is not about Congress taking responsibility. It is the opposite. It is a resolution of irresolution.

For the Senate to take up a symbolic vote of no confidence on the eve of a decisive battle is unprecedented, but it is not inconsequential. It is an act which, I fear, will discourage our troops, hearten our enemies, and showcase our disunity. And that is why I will vote against cloture.

If you believe that General Petraeus and his new strategy have a reasonable chance of success in Iraq, then you should resolve to support him and his troops through the difficult days ahead. On the other hand, if you believe that this new strategy is flawed or that our cause is hopeless in Iraq, then you should vote to stop it. Vote to cut off funds. Vote for a binding timeline for American withdrawal. If that is where your convictions lie, then have the courage of your convictions to accept the consequences of your convictions. That would be a resolution.

The non-binding measure before us, by contrast, is an accumulation of ambiguities and inconsistencies. It is at once for the war but also against the war. It pledges its support to the troops in the field but also washes its hands of what they are doing. It approves more troops for Anbar but not for Baghdad.

We cannot have it both ways. We cannot vote full confidence in General Petraeus, but no confidence in his strategy. We cannot say that the troops have our full support, but disavow their mission on the eve of battle. This is what happens when you try to wage war by committee. That is why the Constitution gave that authority to the President as Commander in Chief.

Cynics may say this kind of thing happens all of the time in Congress. In this case, however, they are wrong. If it passed, this resolution would be unique in American legislative history. I contacted the Library of Congress on this question last week and was told that, never before, when American soldiers have been in harm’s way, fighting and dying in a conflict that Congress had voted to authorize, has Congress turned around and passed a resolution like this, disapproving of a particular battlefield strategy.

Thomas Millington has a piece up today at National Interest Online about how to tame Tehran. Democrats, echoing the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, have been pushing for engagement with Tehran, with the aim of convincing that regime to use its influence in Iraq in a more constructive way. Millington's recommendations seem to go far beyond anything the Baker commission, or Congressional Democrats, have so far supported. Among them, Millington says:

With the British preparing to evacuate their troops from the four southern Iraqi provinces where they are currently stationed, the United States should open talks with Tehran about the Iranian military taking over security responsibilities in the Iraqi Shi‘a southeast, as well as the Sadr City quadrant of Baghdad.

I'm hard pressed to think of a more counterproductive approach either to quelling the violence in Iraq or "taming Tehran." Invite Iranian troops into Iraq? And when would they leave? And how long until Iranian and American soldiers end up squaring off over some minor disagreement? It seems inevitable that such an arrangement would lead to a shooting war between American and Iranian soldiers in Iraq, which would quickly spread across the border. This is a spectacularly bad idea . . . or maybe not.

A new poll release by Fox News shows very little popular support for a "non-binding resolution expressing opposition to President Bush’s new plan for Iraq." Such a resolution fails even to garner the support of a majority of respondents who self-identify as Democrats. Among Republicans, and to a lesser extent among independents, there is strong sentiment that any resolution would only "hurt troop morale" and "encourage the enemy."

Here are the results:

Late last week, Senator McCain blasted the proposed resolution as "a vote of no confidence in both the mission and the troops who are going over there.'' He also accused those who would back it of "intellectual dishonesty" for not pushing a binding resolution. In this week's issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, William Kristol speculated on the political fallout Republican senators might face as a result of backing a non-binding resolution condemning the president's Iraq policy--perhaps Democratic senators ought to fear a backlash as well.

In Afghanistan, a NATO counteroffensive to retake the town of Musa Qala from Taliban militants resulted in the death of a high-ranking Taliban commander, Mullah Ghafour. A NATO airstrike was said to be the cause of death. The Taliban had overrun the town last week, despite an agreement with local officials who pledged to keep the Taliban out in exchange for a withdrawal of NATO forces.

In Somalia, the ICU is regrouping with the aim of fighting a prolonged insurgency against the internationally recognized Interim Government. Bill Roggio reports on a wave of militant attacks against the Interim Government and its Ethiopian allies. In a bid to enlist the participation of moderate Islamists in the new government, the State Department has pushed for the release from Kenyan custody of Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, who is now heading to Yemen. Roggio notes "Sharif's deep ties to radical Islam in Somalia and al-Qaeda. The U.S. State Department advocates promoting Sharif as a moderate, despite all evidence to the contrary."

Over at Counterterrorism Blog, frequent WEEKLY STANDARD contributor Olivier Guitta reports on the latest provocation from Hezbollah. According to Guitta, the terrorist group has raised its flag along the length of Israel's northern border. Guitta speculates that the move may be intended to spark an Israeli response with the hope of reinvigorating Hezbollah's dwindling support among Lebanon's Shiite community, or to embarrass Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who recently expressed his satisfaction with the UNIFIL operation in Lebanon and Hezbollah's alleged withdrawal from the border.

As Congressional Democrats, and some Republicans, push to condemn the president's new Iraq strategy, the release last week of a new National Intelligence Estimate was said to "strengthen their hand." The reports conclusions, mainly that the violence in Iraq is "self-sustaining," and that the involvement of Iran and Syria was "not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospects for stability,” were said to buoy Democratic arguments for a diplomatic and political approach to both the insurgency and the nascent civil war.

Said Senator Rockefeller, the new chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, "The steps identified by the intelligence community as having the best chance of reversing the chaos and bloodshed in Iraq are all political developments, not military.”

Of course, a political solution would require the United States to engage Iran, Syria, and Moqtada al-Sadr in some type of dialogue, despite the fact that the report also stated that some 70 fighters were crossing into Iraq from Syria every month and that Iran was providing “lethal support” for groups such as Sadr's Mahdi army.

Would such a dialogue also extend to Al Qaeda in Iraq? It might have to. Of the 16 intelligence agencies that contribute to the National Intelligence Estimate, four dissented from the report's conclusion that the Sunni insurgency was mainly comprised of former Baathists. Eli Lake, writing in the New York Sun, reports today on the existence of an official dissent by "Treasury Department's Office of Intelligence and Analysis, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and the military intelligence bureaus of the Army and Marines."

Those agencies have concluded that "the Baathist wing of the umbrella Sunni terrorist group has ceded authority to Abu Ayoub al-Masri, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq who replaced Abu Musab al-Zarqawi." Lake says the majority view gives cover to those who would say that Iraq is not a central front in the war on terror. But what if the dissenters, including the Marines who surely have the most intimate knowledge of the situation in Anbar, are right? Then any negotiations would require engaging with al Qaeda, and any retreat would leave al Qaeda in Iraq free to its own devices in much of the country.

From the New York Post: A Ban On Victory.

From the Sunday Times: We’re far too nice to Muslim extremists, by Minette Marrin.

From Real Clear Politics: North Korean Rumors, by Richard Halloran.

From the Washington Times: U.S. threatens crushing offensive to calm Baghdad.

From National Review Online: What’s Our Iran Policy?, by Andrew C. McCarthy.

Governor Mitt Romney addressed a group of conservative House members at a Heritage Foundation retreat in Baltimore today. The presidential hopeful had some strong words for Hillary Clinton, whose position on Iran was met with groans from a pro-Israel audience last night at an AIPAC-sponsored dinner in New York .

Here are the relevant bits from Romney:

Someone else considering a run for the White House recently addressed the Iran issue, and you won't be surprised to find out that I don't agree with her approach.

In a speech last night in New York City, Senator Hillary Clinton said that she needs to quote 'understand' unquote Iran better--and to help her with her education process, that we should quote 'engage Iran' unquote.

Friends, someone who doesn't understand Iran hasn't been paying attention--at this point, we don't need a listening tour with Iran. While I support gathering intelligence about our adversaries in any way possible, engaging is not the right policy. To the contrary, economic and diplomatic isolation must be our priority.

Indeed, she argued that our strategy of engagement with the Soviet Union during the Cold War was a model for how we could deal with Iran. Now, for all the former Soviet Union's flaws, at least they maintained a commitment to national survival. They were not suicidal. The same cannot be said about the Iranian regime. And we must stop making analogies that are disconnected from the world in which we operate.

And someone who wants to engage Iran displays a troubling timidity towards a terrible threat.

You can read more about Romney's appearance over at Red State.

He's put up another apology. As John Hinderaker points out at Poweline, "this one shows unmistakable signs that the Post's editors have now caught up with Arkin." Arkin offers this in the way of an explanation:

Mercenary, of course, is an insult and pejorative, and it does not accurately describe the condition of the American soldier today. I sincerely apologize to anyone in the military who took my words literally.

Not very convincing. What other way is there to take that word? He also adds that "In our instant and globally wired world, these very men and women are additionally burdened by their access to our debates and words." I would say that we are all burdened by Arkin's words, at least the Post's editors are now shouldering some of that burden along with us.

During a Pentagon briefing today, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates assured reporters that the United States wasn't preparing for a war with Iran. Said Gates,

The president has made clear, the secretary of state has made clear, I've made clear--nobody is planning--we are not planning for a war with Iran. What we are trying to do is, in Iraq, counter what the Iranians are doing to our soldiers, their involvement in activities, particularly these explosively-formed projectiles that are killing our troops.

One hopes that isn't true. For more than $500 billion, somebody at the Pentagon ought to be preparing for war with Canada. Surely the Pentagon has multiple contingency plans for any potential conflict with Iran, but why not keep up the pressure with a more ambiguous response. How about, "as the president's made clear, all options are on the table." Leave diplomacy to the diplomats. The secretary of defense ought not worry so much about easing the fears of our enemies.

Now available at Time.com is Bill's latest. It's the story of how the Democrats went from mild to wild in just a few short months--from being "the very soul of moderation" immediately following the election, to one-upping each other in "a tide of antiwar agitation" as the presidential race heats up. Here's a sample:

But in politics, as in life, exercises in competitive indignation can get out of hand. Biden got rolling his resolution disapproving of the surge--but without thinking through the counterattack that would be opened up. Now, as the troops begin to enter the theater, Republicans can ask whether the main effect of these merely symbolic resolutions isn't to undermine the chances of Americans succeeding and to encourage our enemies.

You can read the whole thing here.

The rail gun is one of the most exciting Naval technologies to come along in years. The Navy hopes to fit the gun to the DDG 1000 destroyer sometime around 2020, and if the technology delivers as promised, it would be capable of firing a guided projectile up to 267 nautical miles, which would put all of North Korea into range from either coast of that peninsula (or, to take another theoretical example, allow the Navy to bombard Paris from the English Channel).

InsideDefense.com reports that the concept has moved on to the next phase of development with the delivery of a "lab launcher" to the Naval Surface Warfare Center’s Dahlgren Division Laboratory.

According to the project manager, Elizabeth D’Andrea, the device was "designed for us to be able to open the inside of the gun and put in new rails, put in new materials, insulators, put in testing equipment [that are] able to analyze what’s going on inside.” If work proceeds without any "show-stoppers," the Navy will take delivery of two prototypes in 2011, each "capable of 32 megajoules of muzzle energy"--just half the power that an operational gun would draw to "fire a metal projectile at high speeds, between Mach 7 and 8, before its hits a target at around Mach 5." That's a whole lot of power, so much, in fact, that the ship's propulsion system would have to be temporarily switched off in order to fire the gun, and then power would be redirected to the screws once firing had ceased.

The rail gun will be able to fire faster and farther than anything in the current arsenal. It will also deliver a lot more bang for the buck. Military.com has an excellent online guide to the technology. They explain, "for the same amount of time it takes a Tomahawk to reach a target, an EM gun can deliver twice the destructive power to the same target, while operating at about 6-12 rounds per minute. At a fraction of the cost per round, tremendous volume fires could be delivered." There are still some significant hurdles to making the rail gun work, but the technology will also mark the first time major leap forward in gun technology in nearly a millennium.

Experimental rail gun, courtesy of Sam Barros' Powerlabs.

From The American Spectator: Sinking the Royal Navy, by Hal G.P. Colebatch.

From Haaretz: Fatah: Iranian weapons experts were helping Hamas, by Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel.

From the New York Post: Israel Fans Groan Over Hill Speech, by Maggie Haberman.

From Military.com: Pentagon Asks for $470 Billion in '08, by David Axe.

From National Journal: House Republicans call for greater military effort in space, by Megan Scully.

From Reuters: U.S. troops say they kill 18 insurgents in Iraq, by Dean Yates.

He's the minister of the interior, the head of the UMP, and the odds on favorite to win the French Republic's next presidential election. Who is he? He's Nicolas Sarkozy, aka Disco Sarko. Enjoy.
(HT KMW)

Mouvement 3, Dancefloor 2

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, who frequently contributes to THE WEEKLY STANDARD, released his first book today, a memoir of his conversion to Islam and his subsequent radicalization and involvement with a group of American-based jihadists. I've not had the chance to read the book yet, though I've spoken to Daveed at length about his fascinating journey to jihad and back. He's one of the good guys now, and frequently posts news and analysis from the war on terror at the Counterterrorism Blog.

I strongly urge our readers to check out the book, My Year Inside Radical Islam. And if you'd like to hear more about it, Daveed appeared on Hannity & Colmes last night, you can watch the video here.

Defense Tech reports on new estimates by the Congressional Budget Office on the actual number of troops that will be deployed to tamp down the violence in Iraq. According to the document, the addition of 20,000 combat troops will require a corresponding influx of approximately 28,000 support troops. That number would reflect the same proportion of combat troops to support troops that currently exists in Iraq. The CBO also offers an alternate scenario in which the number of support troops might be as few as 15,000, and, in fact, states that such a number would be "both possible and desirable." The document does not give any indication of which number the president or his commanders would prefer.

The upshot: the surge will cost significantly more than the $5.6 billion the White House first estimated. CBO puts the number somewhere between $20 billion and $27 billion if the surge were to last for a full 12 moths. The debate surrounding the precise number of troops to be deployed as part of the surge has consistently referred to the president's plan as involving 20,000 "combat troops." Presumably close observers were aware that those troops would require a significant number of support personnel to affect their mission.

The editors at the New York Times say that "Mr. Bush is at it again, this time trying to bully Iran into stopping its meddling inside Iraq." They go on,

We have no doubt about Iran’s malign intent, just as we have no doubt that Mr. Bush’s serial failures in Iraq have made it far easier for Tehran to sow chaos there and spread its influence in the wider region. But more threats and posturing are unlikely to get Iran to back down.

It's not surprising that the Times would make Iran out to be the victim, but the conclusions they draw are equally misguided. Efforts by the Bush administration to ratchet up the pressure on Tehran already appear to have had a considerable effect on Ahmadinejad. Writing in the Guardian, Ali Ansari, an Iran expert, had this to say about the current situation in the Islamic Republic:

Now, over the past weeks, with biting weather, shortages of heating fuel are further raising the political temperature, while his political opponents point to the burgeoning international crisis for which the globetrotting president seems to have no constructive answer. Talk has turned to impeachment.

Ansari's conclusion is that as bad as things have become, and as problematic as the "burgeoning international crisis" has been for Ahmadinejad, more pressure is likely to save the president by spurring a rally-round-the-flag consensus in Iran. Of course, that has always been the case against military action--that it would drive a mostly sympathetic population into the arms of the extremists. But all evidence points in the opposite direction. The Bush administration's push to isolate and destabilize the regime seems to be working.

And speaking of the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region, Rear Adm. Kevin Quinn said, "We are ready, we are sustainable, we are flexible and we provide awesome combat capability . . . Just the fact there are going to be two carrier strike groups operating in that region could deter any state or non-state sponsored organizations from doing something we wouldn't want them to do." That's not bullying, that's just old fashioned deterrence.

The Senate Armed Services Committee held hearing today on Gen. George Casey's nomination to be Army chief of staff. The former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq told the committee that he had asked the president to send two additional brigades--less than half the number the president is sending--to Iraq to improve the security situation. Asked by Senator John Warner why he hadn't requested additional forces, Casey said "I did not want to bring one more American soldier into Iraq than was necessary to accomplish the mission."

This kind of logic has handicapped the American effort in Iraq for years, and was summed up by William J. Stuntz in the pages of THE WEEKLY STANDARD in November of last year. Said Stuntz,

There is another reason economic logic does not readily apply to the fighting of wars. When running a business, one aims to invest just as much as is necessary to make the sale or manufacture the product--no less, and no more. Profit equals revenue minus cost, so minimizing cost lies at the core of wise business management.

Warfare could not be more different. Send just enough soldiers and guns and tanks to do the job, and you may soon find you have sent too few. The enemy concludes that if it can raise the marginal cost of the conflict just a bit, if casualties are a little higher or the expense a tad greater than you imagined, you'll quit the field. On the other hand, send vastly more soldiers and materiel than required to the battlefield, and the enemy soon decides that the fight is hopeless--that, as Lincoln so elegantly put it, our resources are unexhausted and, as we believe, inexhaustible.

Two days ago, William M. Arkin, the Washington Post's national and homeland security blogger, wrote a column that accused American troops of being ingrates, mercenaries, rapists, murders, and just about every other nasty thing he could think of, all because a few soldiers told NBC News that the American people weren't supporting them if they weren't supporting their mission. The original post set off an absolute firestorm in the blogosphere, which was surely the intent of the author--he couldn't have written a more provocative column.

Now Arkin has dug his heels in with a follow-on post. You really have to read Arkin's stuff to believe it. Pathetically, he plays the victim card.

Well, one thing's abundantly clear about who will actually defend our rights to say what we believe: It isn't the hundreds who have written me saying they are soldiers or veterans or war supporters or real Americans--who also advise me to move to another country, to get f@##d, or to die a painful, violent death.

Contrary to the typically inaccurate and overstated assertion in dozens of blogs, hundreds of comments, and thousands of e-mails I've received, I've never written that soldiers should "shut up," quit whining, be spit upon, or that they have no right to an opinion.

No he's never written that. He's written something far more insulting: that the troops should be grateful they're not being called baby killers. So add Arkin to the list of thin-skinned provocateurs who think that the "right to say what we believe" means that the targets in your rhetorical gunsights don't have an equal right to fire back. Here is what stirred Arkin's ill-tempered critics:

Through every Abu Ghraib and Haditha, through every rape and murder, the American public has indulged those in uniform, accepting that the incidents were the product of bad apples or even of some administration or command order.

Sure, it is the junior enlisted men who go to jail. But even at anti-war protests, the focus is firmly on the White House and the policy. We don't see very many "baby killer" epithets being thrown around these days, no one in uniform is being spit upon.

The left has tried desperately to portray itself as pro-military. It was a heroic effort, but it was finally too much for William Arkin, who has let us know how at least some on the anti-war left really feel, and it's not a pretty sight.

Democrats often point to Afghanistan as "the real war on terror". They say that Iraq is a mere distraction, and that the strain of that conflict on the American military has led to a situation where, in the words of Howard Dean, "We don't have enough troops in Afghanistan."

Only it seems that the situation in Afghanistan isn't as dire as the Democrats would have us believe. From the AP:

NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Richard Nugee said Wednesday, however, that it will be NATO troops who will be launching the real offensive, referring to upcoming military operations but giving no details.

"We do not believe that there will be a spring offensive by the Taliban," Nugee said. "There will be an upward surge in violence as the weather gets better ... I don't think it will amount to an offensive. An offensive is a very symbolic phrase, it means a huge upsurge in a very short amount of time. We just don't think that will happen."

Last year, the Taliban launched a record number of attacks, and some 4,000 people, most of them militants, died in insurgency-related violence, according to a tally by The Associated Press based on reports from Afghan, NATO and U.S.-led coalition officials. Militants also launched a record 139 suicide attacks in 2006, according to the U.S. military.

That isn't to say that the situation in Afghanistan, just like that in Iraq, wouldn't be much improved by the addition of several thousand American troops. But it sounds like NATO may be doing an adequate job of things.

A series of photographs showing Russian President Vladimir Putin's pimped out plane recently appeared on a Russian blog operated by a man identified only as "hectop." I first saw the story over on FP Passport, where Blake Hounshell speculated that the opulent interior might spark a backlash against the president. "It'll be interesting to see if the Russian public reacts to the photos like some Venezuelans did back in 2002, when they discovered the luxuriousness of Hugo Chávez's own private IL-96-300," said Hounshell.

It's easy to understand why Venezuelans would be bothered by Chávez's lavish transportation, though from the BBC story Hounshell links to, it seems the hypocrisy may have been lost on most of his supporters. Far more bizarre is the resistance of the British to the purchase of a new aircraft for their own prime minister. That stinginess has forced Blair to fly commercial for any trip that isn't related to affairs of state and led to an incident last Christmas that saw Blair's British Airways flight skid off a runway at Miami International Airport. It's as though the British public is determined to cast off any remaining vestiges of great-power status. After all, the Royal Yacht was decommissioned nearly ten years by Blair's own party. No surprise then that the opposition fought tooth and nail to stymie Blair's plan for a new jet. (Blair did get his way, but he'll have to share the refurbished 737 with the Queen. In the event of a scheduling conflict, the prime minister will have to find other arrangements.)

My guess is the Russian people will expect their president to travel in luxury befitting a czar--unlike the British, the Russian people still believe their country is a great power, despite the crumbling of the Soviet empire. Hounshell also writes that "what started out as poking fun at Putin's grotesque taste could well end up getting someone in deep trouble." That point is well taken, hectop would be wise to purchase a dosimeter.

You should see the dojo.

From the Washington Times: No third way in Iraq, by Tony Blankley.

From the Wall Street Journal: If the Shoe Fits, by Mark Laswell.

From the New York Times: Chirac Unfazed by Nuclear Iran, Then Backtracks, by Elaine Sciolino and Katrin Bennhold.

From the Washington Times: Chavez to usher in 'maximum revolution'.

From BBC: US warns Iran on Iraq insurgents.

From AFP: China Looks to New Fighters, Sparking Regional Arms Race: Report.