POLITICS & ECONOMICS: "China-Iran Trade Surge Vexes U.S.: Technology Shipments Frustrate Bid to Curb Tehran's Nuclear Program," by Neil King Jr., Wall Street Journal, 27 July 2007, p. A4.

OP-ED: "'It Didn't Happen: Democrats go soft on crimes against humanity,'" by James Taranto, Wall Street Journal 26 July 2007, p. A12.

First one I've been arguing for a while: China's rough doubling of energy requirements means it has to buddy up to anyone it can, and Iran is definitely there for the taking. So here's the losing equation on trying to isolate anyone with energy right now: global markets are simply too tight and China has no choice but to "hit 'em where the U.S. ain't," as I wrote in BFA.

Yes, China has the rules on the books, but it's in no great hurry to enforce them. And even if it were, it does not have the capacity we might assume it does. One thing to grab the right official and execute him, but quite another to control all those capitalists in Deadwood writ very very very large.

Second piece, an op-ed, was just so predictable:

Mr. Obama is engaging in sophistry. By his logic, if America lacks the capacity to intervene everywhere there is ethnic killing, it has no obligation to intervene anywhere--and perhaps an obligation to intervene nowhere. His reasoning elevates consistency into the cardinal virtue, making perfect the enemy of the good.

But isn't that where the heart and soul of the Dem party is heading?

Check out our Mr. Yglesias (whom, quite frankly, I had never heard of prior to Sean's post, but then again, I don't brag about being "desperately out of touch with the American mainstream" in my bio, despite my six years at Harvard) and his future book, "Heads in the Sand: Iraq and the Strange Death of Liberal Internationalism" (described on his site bio as "deal[ing] with the Democratic Party's struggle to find a post-9/11 foreign policy, focusing primarily on the rise and (hopefully) fall of the liberal hawk movement." [I will confess, I stopped reading "The Atlantic" about five years ago, which means I've missed Mr. Yglesias's entire career--ah, to be desperately in touch with the mainstream.]

Tell me if this crowd gets back in that they won't feel compelled to turn many blind eyes across eight long years. And, if so, are we not headed to the same ex post f--ktos as watching ex-prez Bill Clinton whine his way through Rwanda, telling everyone in sight he should have done something--anything?

Do you want to explain to your grandkids why your nation did nothing to counter the Holocaust-size totals in the Gap in the 1990s? Care to go through that again?

Why does Obama play to that base instinct? With Samantha Powers as one of his top advisers?

I sit back at times like this and realize there is no room for me and mine in either party: I don't demonize the military or interventions so I can't be a Dem, and I don't demonize China or want to invade Iran so I can't be a Republican.

And, frankly, I think that's good. I don't see how you can really be a grand strategist in this day and age and belong to either party. I think I'm going to formally make myself an independent and stop rationalizing the attraction either way.

[few minutes pass]

Ah, it turns out that when you register in Indiana you do not declare party affiliation, so you can vote however, which is cool by me.

Gotta love this country!

So I guess I gotta stop saying I'm a registered Democrat, because I'm not registered as anything.