Prager--sweet and short

Basically two 15-min segments. Both were dominated by talk of Iran.

Forewarned that he does not read books and likes to go off current events and that he's a strong hawk on Iran, I was prepared to pretty much talk Iran the entire time.

His questions indicated a certain desire to poke and see how dovish I could be construed to be re: Iran, but you handle that approach simply by playing the cynical realist, committing yourself to stating reality as clearly as you can and emphasizing that, just like there's no silver bullet on the military side (the fabulous strike that makes all our cares go away!), there is no corresponding version in terms of the political side.

All there really is, at the end of the day, is an unhappy population inside Iran to be co-opted (we did not reach this point in the discussion). You can try to scare them into some sort of action/further submission by making the nuke issue the be-all and end-all of your relationship, inviting Iran's obstructionism in both Iraq and AFPAK, and my sense is that you'll be fabulously frustrated by this pathway.

Or, you can start a detente-like dialogue process where you build confidence in small ways here and there, just like we did with the Sovs, another badly-aging revolutionary movement that mostly craved regime security and "recognition" of their "grand achievements." Meanwhile, you tap into that overwhelmingly young population and "infect" them with desires for a better life (consumerism, for lack of a better term), and then let generational change from within (already greatly advanced in our favor) plus your consistent containment strategy (to include a nuclear umbrella for Israel and strong efforts to buy-off Syria) work its prosaic magic over time. All along, you make temporary deals and understandings and alliances on issues of common concern, while playing down the rhetoric. Done well, there's no question you get your way in the end and there's no question that the mullahs are screwed.

Why? People prefer our way of life and its freedoms and connectivity to that of authoritarianism, no matter how it's cloaked. Nationalism will often mask this desire, so you choose your points of contest carefully, but in the end, you know you'll win.

I had expected two segs and then Q&A. Without telling me beforehand, Prager simply switched to a third segment on Obama's press conference.

I liked the discussion with Prager, but--as a rule--don't particularly care if the Q&A is skipped, so no skin off my nose--as it were.

So two of three radio shows done for week. Taping Hewitt (network chapter) Thursday night at 2100 EST. Expect it will air on Friday.

Got my 2100-word prepared statement into the House Armed Services Committee's Subcommittee on Seapower and Expeditionary Forces. Spent a lot of time on that.

Then I broke that down into a 635-word column--natch.

Then I enlarged the font to where I had a page-a-minute reading length for my opening statement (limited to five minutes) and added back to the column enough words to fill that space.

Tonight is reception with big defense contractor. Tomorrow I speak at their conference, opening it. Then cab to Rayburn for hearing.

Allergies doing great. I am being very good about using my nasal antihistamine at full strength (it helps a ton) and taking my Zyrtec, so I'm cruising right now.

Back almost to the point where I can start exercising again.

Took a look today at Indy airport at Rosetta Stone for Russian. Vonne and I are looking at July-Aug timeframe for month or so in Kazakhstan on adoption trip (no guarantees) and I need to buff up the Russian.

On that score, we're looking into cheap PC laptops for the trip. Macs have bad rep on connectivity in the more distant regions of Kazakhstan (we are talking Siberia). Lead contenders are smallish Dell or Acer. Any thoughts?

Comments

[JimStout]

ASUS Eee PC 1000HA 10.2" 160G Microsoft-XP, Intel ATOM, 1GB RAM 160GB HDD -- lots of USBs and ports, camera, speakers, wireless.

Neg: no CD-ROM, shows fingerprints. It is a spinning drive, not solid state, but so much more hard-drive than Dell.

I bought last year's version of this and love it. Happy to show you when you are downtown sometime. mobileadvance.com has it for $349+$10s&h.

[chug]

Second the netbook recommendation. You can buy an external CD/DVD drive.

[jason]

video of the Congressional statement?

[Vadim]

Tom, speaking about beefing up the Russian. Interesting comparison of China and Russia (in Russian, of cause):

http://ej.ru/?a=note&id=8915

"In China state supports business. In Russia business hides from state to survive."