Philippines to U.S.: "We only do windows!"

"Hostage Is Freed After Philippine Troops Are Withdrawn From Iraq," by James Glanz, New York Times, 21 July, p. A12.

Old line that a colleague of mine at college, Bradd Hayes, loved to use whenever he talked about the military's reticence to do post-conflict nation-building: the U.S. military doesn't like to "do windows," meaning all the piddling little stuff involved in post-conflict security generation. The Pentagon's line was (and for many, still is): We do smoking holes and nothing else!

Well, the Philippines is saying to the U.S. and the rest of the Core that while they're willing to do windows as a commuting labor force that can rapidly come into bad situations and provide lotsa "shoes on the ground," they aren't willing to do much of anything beyond those "windows." If you want to drive the Filipinos out, all you need do is take one of their people hostage and the entire country will back down immediatelyópulling out all of their (admittedly puny) security contingent. And they will do this proudly, as the president rejoices in her one freed Filipino worker even as American troops die by the day keeping the rest of her workers safe there.

But, frankly, that is the realistic limit for the Philippines: while their global commuting workforce can be counted upon to provide labor at a moment's notice anywhere inside the Gap, the U.S. can't expect them to play any serious security role there. Filipinos are therefore logically considered the foot workers, but not the foot soldiers, in any Core-wide strategy to shrink the Gap.

UN not ready to shut up or put up regarding Israel's wall

"Remove Wall, Israel Is Told By the U.N.," by Warren Hoge, New York Times, 21 July, p. A10.

UN is ready and willing to condemn the wall, but isn't willing to do much of anything to secure Israel. The UN is more than happy to internationalize the situation politically, but not security-wise.

Thus left to its own defense, Israel logically puts up the wall and saysóin effectóto the world: "If you're so hot to do something about Palestine, then be our guests!"

The UN will never provide security to Israel, and so Israel must forcibly internationalize the security situation by building the wall and letting the UN deal with the consequences.

After the lopsided vote condemning the wall, Israel's UN ambassador said, "Thank God that the fate of Israel and of the Jewish people is not decided in this hall."

Absolutely.

China backs off on SARS whistle-blower

"China Releases the SARS Whistle-Blower," by Joseph Kahn, New York Times, 21 July, p. A6.

Good move by the Party elite: cracking down on this guy for his comments about the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 got them nowhere in the eyes of the world.

Here's the key analysis:

While there is no evidence that senior officials are reconsidering their stance that the crackdown was justified, the decision to detain and then release Dr. Jiang suggests that leaders are conflicted when handling high-level dissent on the issue. That may stimulate hopes that the party will sooner or later apologize for the violent suppression of the Tiananmen protesters.

To me, this apology won't happen until the third-generation leadership, exemplified by Jiang Jemin, remaining head of the military, is finally escorted off the historical stage by the just-put-in-place fourth-generation of leaders, exemplified by Hu Jintao. The 3rd-gen leaders will never admit they were wrong about 1989, because it calls into question their historical legacy as rulers, something Jiang is very keen to protect (the man has a huge ego).

But when that apology does finally come, a real tipping point will have been reached, not just for the 4th-gen leadership group, but for the declining power of the PLA, which inevitably be tainted by this apology.

Iraq: the healing process ain't even begun on Saddam

"Iraqis Begin Confronting The Burdens of the Past: Millions Persecuted by Hussein May Seek Redress," by Doug Struck, Washington Post, 13 July, p. A11.

Saddam Hussein's trial will be a doozy, but only a small part of the national healing involving all his regime's many victims. In the past 14 months, Iraqi officials have generated files of state crimes from families of 200,000 people killed and 40,000 political prisoners. They estimate that these numbers represent just the tip of the icebergómaybe one-twentieth of the actual numbers that will be inevitably uncovered.

Jesse Helms' used to publicize a list of 131 foreign companies that did business with Saddam's regime, or what he called "Iraq's Foreign Legion." T.M. Lutas' point about "collaborators" in the Core will be amply made when the full story finally emerges.

Africa: the inevitable final frontier in the GWOT

"Al Qaeda's Growing Sanctuary," by Douglas Farah and Richard Shultz, Washington Post, 14 July, p. A19.

Opening para says it all:

With the end of the brutal conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone, West Africa is seldom in the news or on the policy agenda these days. Yet the region is quietly gaining recognition as what it has long been: a haven for al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Weak and corrupt governments, vast, virtually stateless stretches awash in weapons, and impoverished, largely Muslim populations make the region as ideal sanctuary.

This is what I said in Rolling Stone last month:

Weíre going to end up replicating the struggle again and again. Like spraying the cockroaches in one apartment and scattering them to the nextóweíre driving terrorists to the next country over. Sort of like rooting out old Japanese warriors on some isolated Pacific island twenty years after World War II, weíre going to be killing off the last of these guys years from now in deepest, darkest Africa.

I say this every chance I get with military leaders: our success in the Middle East only sets the table for the next stage in Africaóget used to the idea now.

More evidence of advanced Brezhnevism in Iran

"Iranians Get the Last Laugh After Clerics Ban a Comedy," by Karl Vick, Washington Post, 14 July, p. A12.

Funny movie packs 'em in, Tehran: criminal escapes jail by dressing as cleric and then is forced into hilarious fish-outta-water situations out in the real world. "The Lizard" became a cultural phenomenon in Iran, so naturally the mullahs had to shut it down. But here's the info age problem: too many boot-leg videos are already out and about.

Here's the great analysis of the piece:

In 1979, while imposing a severe interpretation of the Koran, the mullahs shuttered every one of Tehran's 74 movie theaters. Today, visitors are directed to black-and-white snapshots of each of them in the Film Museum of Iran, a converted palace that honors the country's widely acclaimed directors, including those whose most famous works are banned here.

The contradictions reflect a shifting reality. After a seven-year effort at reform failed to wrest decisive power from unelected clerics, the population of 70 million has largely retreated, leaving politics to hard-liners yet withholding the legitimacy the conservatives crave.

That is a perfect description of the late Brezhnev period in the now-defunct Soviet Union. Waiting for Gorbachev is the name of the game now, and Khatami does not seem to be the man.

Another feather in the cap of Colin Powell's amazing career

"Powell Flies In the Face Of Tradition: Secretary Is Least Traveled In Years of State Records," by Glenn Kessler, Washington Post 14 July, p. A1.

Powell travels less than any secretary of state of the last three decades. Needs to stay in Washington so he can influence policy debates more, apparently.

And that only makes his complete failure in the interagency process all the more glaring. No successes to show internationally and none to show interagency.

This guy will go down as one of the most missing-in-action secretaries of state we ever had. He'll be the Bill Cohen of SECSTATE's.

Don't know who Bill Cohen was? That's the point.

The personal China connection growsóas does the bias?

Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 20 July 2004

Yesterday was a strange sort of immersion in things Chinese. First there was my first direct encounter with the Government of China, in the form of its consulate in New York, where I obtained tourist visas for myself and my wife for our upcoming adoption trip. Second was my brother Jerome's impromptu lecture on the character-driven language of Japanese (he's writing a learner's dictionary), which he described as a "jazzed up version of Chinese" (like Romanian is a jazzed-up version of Italian, and Portuguese a jazzed-up version of Spanish). Third, there was the word from my agent that Beijing University Press has agreed to our advance number, so we've selected them as the publishing house in China for the Pentagon's New Map.

My old Russian teacher at the University of Wisconsin always said good news comes in threes, as does bad news. My good news trio from China would therefore seem to be: 1) we got the visas without a hitch; 2) PNM's to be published there; and 3) we're expecting our travel advisory later today from China regarding the exact date of our adoption appointment at the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou in late August.

Just like that I am suddenly all connected to the Middle Kingdom, and so I find myself feeling strangely protective of it. Will such feelings ruin my ability to think about China objectively? Don't think so, otherwise I'd be irrational about Northern Ireland, which I'm not.

No, I think my new personal connections to China will just make my appreciation of what it is and what it is becoming all the more nuanced. Do I trust China per se? My answer is that I trust China to be China, in all its complexity and self-interest, just like I trust America to be America in all its complexity and self-interest.

So when I hear John Kerry bashing China on trade because it's good election-year politics ("China Is Talk of Campaigns: Kerry Seems Tougher Than Bush on Standard Election Topic," by Neil King, Jr. and Michael Schroeder, Wall Street Journal, 20 July, p. A4.), I know it's simply preaching to certain segments of the choir, and doesn't reflect any objective view of what China now represents in terms of America's strategic interests in expanding the Core and shrinking the Gap. Kerry can blow smoke now, just like Clinton did in 1992, but the reality would set in immediately once he entered office. China is simply too big and too important for that sort of partisan nonsense.

That my family has chosen to make China a big part of our lives means only that we're a microcosm of the integrating effort that the world is going through on all things Chinese. Rather than generating a bias, this process simply eliminates an absence that never made any sense anywayóexcept in the autarkic nonsense that was Maoism.

With the agreement pending on PNM's publication in China, I now have three of the four map categories accounted for (outside of North America, of course): publication in Japan gives me an Old Core state, China now gives me a New Core state, and Turkey gives me a Seam State. What I need next is a true Gap state, and from what I'm hearing from my agency, that may well be Lebanonóof all places. I look forward to the day when I have copies of all these PNMs on my shelf in my office.

Til then, here's today's catch:

New Core power Russia to help U.S. in Iraq?

"Russia: Putin Considers Sending Troops to Iraq," www.stratfor.com, 16 July.

States cursed by oil? Almost all are found inside the Gapónaturally

"Saving Iraq From Its Oil," by Nancy Birdsall and Arvind Subramanian, Foreign Affairs, July-Aug 2004, p. 77.

"From Pariah to Belle of the Oil Ball: For Energy Companies, Libya Is Suddenly the Hottest Date Around," by Simon Romero, New York Times, 20 July, p. C1.

What goes around, comes around on terror

"Saudis Facingb Return of Radicals: Young Iraq Veterans Join Underground," by Craig Whitlock, Washington Post, 11 July, p. A1.

"President Says U.S. to Examine Iran-Qaeda Tie: Sept. 11 Terrorists May Have Been Given Aid," by Philip Shenon, NYT, 20 July, p. A1.

No surprise: Sys Admin force is drawn from sys admin jobs back in U.S.

"Governors Tell Of War's Impact on Local Needs: Staff Shortages At Home; Citizen Soldiers Abroad Aren't Available to Aid States in Crisis," by Sarah Kershaw, NYT, 20 July, p. A1.

"Rebuilding Iraq, A Well At A Time: Tiny Projects Succeed and Win Thanks for U.S.," by James Glanz, NYT, 20 July, p. A1.

"Don't Dumb Down the Military," by Nathaniel Fick, NYT, 20 July, p. A23.

Armenia: a classic Gap state that is failing on all fronts

"Armenian Protests Falter Under Authoritarian Rule: President' Hold on Power Contrasts Sharply With 'Rose Revolution' in Neighboring Georgia," by Susan B. Glasser, WP, 11 July, p. A16.

"Exodus Is New Chapter of Loss in Armenia's Sad Story," by Susan B. Glasser, WP, 12 July, p. A1.

The focus on rural poor is an Asia-wide development

"Asia Shifts Focus to Rural Development," by Andrew Browne, WSJ, 20 July, p. A9.

New Core power Russia to help U.S. in Iraq?

"Russia: Putin Considers Sending Troops to Iraq," www.stratfor.com, 16 July.

Many said I was nuts when I proposed in the Washington Post Outlook section in April that the U.S. should seek peacekeeping troops from Russia, India (whom they asked previously) and China. When I was on NPR last month, the Atlantic Monthly's Jack Beatty described that notion as "politically impossible."

I got this reference from Capt. Ryan Boyle (a regular weblog reader) at USMC headquarters in Washington, so my thanks to him.

The gist of the article is that Moscow is seriously considering a request by the Bush Administration to send Russian troops to Iraq or Afghanistan (can you believe it?) this fall, just before the election.

Yes, much will depend on Putin's calculations of Bush's likelihood of victory, but the real point here is that it is: 1) not inconceivable that Russia would say yes and 2) the Bush Administration buys into the logic that New Core powers need to be represented in this Global War on Terrorism.

How many are we talking about? Maybe 40,000. What would that do to the Islamic notion of a "clash of civilizations" with the West? It would blow that myth out of the water. Risky for Putin? You bet, but so is sitting on the sidelines.

For me personally? This article is yet another example of why I have a very thick skin about people telling meóthroughout my careeróthat my strategic forecasting was pie-in-the-sky nonsense. The reason why so many experts and journalists see PNM as a guide book to this administration is not because I have inside dope, it's because I've simply cracked the strategic code under which this administrationóand all that follow for decadesówill invariably find themselves dealing with, day-in and day-out.

Here's hoping this thing actually pans out, but either way, the logic of cooperation now seems a whole lot more plausible, despite the constant whining of nay-sayers like Beatty.

States cursed by oil? Almost all are found inside the Gapónaturally

"Saving Iraq From Its Oil," by Nancy Birdsall and Arvind Subramanian, Foreign Affairs, July-Aug 2004, p. 77.

"From Pariah to Belle of the Oil Ball: For Energy Companies, Libya Is Suddenly the Hottest Date Around," by Simon Romero, New York Times, 20 July, p. C1.

Libya's the new target of oil companies after it came out of the diplomatic cold and rejoined the land of the rule-abiding (if there was ever a case of verify first, trust later, it's Qaddafi). Good thing for the regime, which should bank a lot of money, and generally good for the population, for it should increase levels of connectivity with the outside world. But this development does not bode particularly well for the economy or society as a whole in terms of long-term development. As I've said before, relying on raw materials as the primary export to the global economy is just about the slowest way to grow an economy.

Which brings me to a great article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, which was brought to my attention by Ethan Sprang, another regular weblog reader. Read the article for all the analysis. Here's the main point that hit Ethan: 32 of the 34 countries studied by the two authors as suffering the "resource curse" are found within the Gap: Algeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Cameroon, Chad, Colombia, DR Congo, Ecuador, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyz Rep, Libya, Mexico [Core], Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, Russia [Core], Sao Tome and Principe, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, UAE, Venezuela and Yemen. Like with U.S. military crisis responses since the end of the Cold War, the Gap concept captures roughly 95% of the "resource curse." How did the authors generate this list? We're talking about the 34 countries for whom oil and gas represent more than 30% of their total export revenue.

What goes around, comes around on terror

"Saudis Facing Return of Radicals: Young Iraq Veterans Join Underground," by Craig Whitlock, Washington Post, 11 July, p. A1.

"President Says U.S. to Examine Iran-Qaeda Tie: Sept. 11 Terrorists May Have Been Given Aid," by Philip Shenon, New York Times, 20 July, p. A1.

More and more evidence that the young men prone to terrorism that Saudi Arabia has been exporting all these years are increasingly returning to the kingdom with violent designs on the House of Saud.

Saudi Arabia is in a tough spot, which is exactly where they should be in a long-term strategy to transform the Middle East political scene. If Iraq continues to boil, all it does is generate more opportunities for Saudis to go there and cut their teeth as terrorists. And when it settles, guess who's coming for dinner?

Like their compatriots in Iraq, cells operating in Saudi Arabia have repeatedly stated that their primary aim is to drive out all "infidels," including more than 100,000 Western expatriates who help run the country's oil industry and whose military and technical support is crucial to the Saudi government.

If the House of Saud is set to get its just desserts, then Iran is also likely to come under increasing fireófrom the U.S. With Iraq out of the way, the biggest security issues in the Gulf are: 1) Iran's rather open support for terrorist networks in the region; and 2) their push for nukes. Expect to see the Bush Administration begin seeding the long-term narrative on that confrontation. If Iran pushes hard enough on the WMD and doesn't come clean enough on its long-term support for terrorists, it could easily rise to the top of the heap of either a re-elected Bush Administration or a new Kerry one, giving Kim Jong Il just that much more time for mischief as he awaits his inevitable turn.

No surprise: Sys Admin force is drawn from sys admin jobs back in U.S.

"Governors Tell Of War's Impact on Local Needs: Staff Shortages At Home; Citizen Soldiers Abroad Aren't Available to Aid States in Crisis," by Sarah Kershaw, New York Times, 20 July, p. A1.

"Rebuilding Iraq, A Well At A Time: Tiny Projects Succeed and Win Thanks for U.S.," by James Glanz, NYT, 20 July, p. A1.

"Don't Dumb Down the Military," by Nathaniel Fick, NYT, 20 July, p. A23.

Here's the first few paras of the top story:

With tens of thousands of their citizen soldiers now deployed in Iraq, many of the nation's governors complained on Sunday to senior Pentagon officials that they were facing severe manpower shortages in guarding prisoners, fighting wildfires, preparing for hurricanes and floods and policing the streets.

Concern among the governors about the war's impact at home has been rising for months, but it came into sharp focus this weekend as they gathered for their four-day annual conference here and began comparing the problems they faced from the National Guard's largest callup since World War II. On Sunday, the governors held a closed-door meeting with two top Pentagon officials and voiced their concerns about the impact both on the troops' families and on the states' ability to deal with disasters and crime.

So while the Sys Admin force digs wells throughout Iraq, winning hearts and minds as they improve the infrastructure, they are sorely missed by their erstwhile employers back home who need them to protect our far more complex infrastructure from the daily vagaries of nature.

Some "experts" and more than a few congressmen are calling for the resumption of the draft, but nobody who knows the military wants the return of that force, because both combat and nation-building have simply gotten so complex that we can't field anything less than a well-educated force.

So we're not getting out of restructuring this force into what I call the bifurcated Leviathan/Sys Admin force. We cannot draft our way out of this situation, nor can we continue to rob Peter (the reserve component) to pay Paul (the active duty force). Nothing less is needed than a rebalancing of the entire force and a re-rationalizing of it to account for the obvious bifurcation of roles and missions that this security environment demands out of the Pentagon.

Armenia: a classic Gap state that is failing on all fronts

"Armenian Protests Falter Under Authoritarian Rule: President' Hold on Power Contrasts Sharply With 'Rose Revolution' in Neighboring Georgia," by Susan B. Glasser, Washington Post 11 July, p. A16.

"Exodus Is New Chapter of Loss in Armenia's Sad Story," by Susan B. Glasser, WP, 12 July, p. A1.

Armenia is a sad story. Unlike its neighbor Georgia, where the "rose revolution" swept reformers into power peacefully, there seems no way the masses can drive their dictatorial president Robert Kocharian out of power, even after his highly disputed election last year.

So while Kocharian moves Armenia ever closer to a police state, people are simply voting with their feetóand leaving the country for good. It is estimated that as many as one million have left since Armenia became independent from Soviet rule in the early 1990s, leaving as few as 2-3 million still inside the country. That means maybe as many as one-out-of-every-three people have left in the last decade or so. Imagine if 100 million people left the U.S. over the course of a decadeóthat's how bad it has become for this classic Gap state.

Armenians are so desperate to connect to a better life that they are leaving their homeland in droves, many to Russia proper. It is estimated by the Russians that Armenians working inside Russia send back to Armenia in remittances a sum more than double the government's entire budget for the nation, proving yet again what a huge pressure valve release is the ability of economic refugees to flow from the Gap to the Core.

The focus on rural poor is an Asia-wide development

"Asia Shifts Focus to Rural Development," by Andrew Browne, Wall Street Journal, 20 July, p. A9.

I've blogged plenty recently about how the return of the Congress Party in India and the rise of the fourth-generation of leadership in China reflect a growing sense in both countries' elite political circles that, even as the cities boom as the countries open themselves up to the global economy, the rural poor are largely being left behind and their needs must be far more addressed in coming years if political stability is to be maintained.

What this article does is simply expand that observation to developing Asia as a whole, citing developments in Thailand, Malaysia and elsewhere, describing rural development as a "pan-Asian development and investment theme."

If you don't want a resurgence of Maoismóor worse, Pol Pot's scary stuffóthen you have to bring the rural poor along for the globalization ride. As I've said before, the train can't go any faster than the caboose, no matter how hard the engine is pulling things along.

What if Bush is right? asks Tom Junod of Esquire

Dateline: CafÔøΩ on East 45th between 5th and Lexington, Manhattan, 19 July 2004

Got up this a.m. and caught the subway cross-town to Times Square and then walked about a mile to 12th Avenue to the Chinese Consulate, which sits right across from the Intrepid carrier museum and the Circle Line boat rides dock. The security guy at the front door at first rejected my Rhode Island driverÔøΩs license, saying heÔøΩd never seen anything like that and that it didnÔøΩt look real. I just glared at him and declared that Rhode Island was indeed the smallest state in the union but a state nonetheless and that I didnÔøΩt care if he had never seen one of its driverÔøΩs licenses before, and that IÔøΩd need a better reason than that for his trying to deny me entry.

Then another guard came up and said, ÔøΩOh yeah, Rhode Island, thatÔøΩs legitimate. He can come in.ÔøΩ

Whew! Tough sidewalk.

Got inside and got my queue number. But there was no real waiting. Dropped off the forms and the passports and got a receipt for pick-up after 2pm.

I have to admit, I spent some time last weekend listening to a Chinese phrase tape in my car, and Chinese is pretty intimidating compared to my past efforts in French, Romanian, German, and Russian. And yet, I think IÔøΩll give it a go with Vonne Mei. Hell, if I canÔøΩt outperform my then 4-year-old daughter (meaning 3 or so years from now), then I might as well give up.

TodayÔøΩs main blog is almost an ode to the great Esquire writer Tom Junod. I met Tom over breakfast with Mark Warren back in November 2002. Mark took me out to chat me up before I briefed the Esquire staff (this was right after the Best and Brightest December issue hit the stands) and wanted me to meet Junod, a prize-winning writer in his stable (or maybe he wanted Junod to check me out before he suggested I write for Esquire!).

Tom ended up asking me the best question IÔøΩve ever received from an audience: ÔøΩIf your vision of the future pans out, what changes most?ÔøΩ That became my concluding slide in the brief, which I still use, and I recounted the exchange in PNM the book.

Well, Tom and his wife just adopted a baby girl from China, and so heÔøΩs been mentoring me via email on what to expect. So it seems fitting that while IÔøΩm in town getting our visas, I should blog his most excellent piece in this monthÔøΩs Esquire, the same one with the letters to the editor about my June article that I blogged recently.

[break in the action: after the lunchtime tutorial on Japanese characters and dictionaries from my brother Jerome (quite fascinating), I walk back across the width of Manhattan to 12th Ave and pick up our visas; I write the rest of this mega-blog on the Amtrak train home. No time on the Nordic track tonight, cause I feel like I power walked about 4 miles today, but it was great, as navigating around Manhattan is always fascinating.]

Tom JunodÔøΩs article is entitled, ÔøΩThe Case For George W. Bush,ÔøΩ and itÔøΩs his usual scary smart. What I like about Junod so much is that heÔøΩs always willing to question himself. Some find that weak; I find it incredibly strong.

JunodÔøΩs piece starts out with a little Bush bashing, which is easy, since W. often comes off like such a lightweight frat boy in his public appearances. Comparing that man to Reagan is simply beyond me for that reason alone.

Then Junod starts burrowing in on your conscience by asking ÔøΩWhat if heÔøΩs right?ÔøΩ:

As easy as it is to say that we canÔøΩt abide the president because of the gulf between what he espouses and what he actually does, what haunts me is the possibility that we canÔøΩt abide him because of usÔøΩbecause of the gulf between his will and our willingness. What haunts me is the possibility that we have become so accustomed to ambiguity and inaction in the face of evil that we find his call for decisive action an insult to our sense of nuance and proportion.

The people who dislike George W. Bush have convinced themselves that opposition to his presidency is the most compelling moral issue of the day. [Barnett: God! Is that man dead-on or what?] Well, itÔøΩs not. The most compelling moral issue of the day is exactly what he says it is, when heÔøΩs not saying itÔøΩs gay marriage. [Barnett: so sadly true.] The reason he will be difficult to unseat in NovemberÔøΩno matter what his approval ratings are in the summerÔøΩis that his opponents operate out of the moral certainty that he is the bad guy and needs to be replaced, while he operates out of the moral certainty that terrorists are the bad guys and need to be defeated. The first will always sound merely convenient when compared with the second. Worse, the gulf between the two kinds of certainty lends credence to the conservative notion that liberals have settled for the conviction that Bush is distasteful as a substitute for convictionÔøΩbecause itÔøΩs easier than conviction.

Those are two of the most powerfully argued paragraphs IÔøΩve read in years, because they get right to the heart of the matter, which is who are we and what do we believe in? Art Cebrowski, my old boss in the Office of the Secretary of Defense likes to say of transformation, that if a new technology makes sense for 20 years from now, then why not seek it today? I feel the same way about terrorism and the Bush AdministrationÔøΩs bold approach to the Middle East: if the only way terrorism is ever going to go away is for the Middle East to end its disconnectedness and join the world, then why wait through decades of terrorism? Why not pursue it now if it will eventually make sense anyway?

In the second section, Junod compares Bush to LincolnÔøΩnot in terms of intellect but actually in terms of their seemingly fruitless early years as leaders of nations at war and their relative low popular standing (Lincoln being about the most unpopular president in history until he was assassinated). Point being: Lincoln spoke eloquently about shedding lots of blood for a moral cause blessed by the Almighty, and today heÔøΩs considered our greatest president. But, as Junod points out . . .

Today, of course, those words, along with LincolnÔøΩs appeal to the better angels of our nature, are chiseled into the wall of his memorial, on the Mall in Washington. And yet if George Bush were to speak anything like them today, we would accuse him of pandering to his evangelical base. We would accuse him of invoking divine authority for a war of his choosing . . ..

Another great riff soon follows:

We were attacked three years ago, without warning or predicate event. The attack was not a gesture of heroic resistance nor the offshoot of some bright utopian resolve, but the very flower of a movement that delights in the potential for martyrdom expressed in the squalls of the newly born. It is a movement that is about deathÔøΩthat honors death, that loves death, that fetishizes death, that worships death, that seeks to accomplish death wherever it can, on a scale both intimate and globalÔøΩand if it does not warrant the expenditure of what the self-important have taken to calling ÔøΩblood and treasure,ÔøΩ then what does? Slavery? Fascism? Genocide? LetÔøΩs not flatter ourselves. If we do not find it within ourselves to identify the terrorism inspired by radical Islam as an unequivocal evilÔøΩand to pronounce ourselves morally superior to itÔøΩthen we have lost the ability to identify any evil at all, and our democracy is not only diminished, it dissolves into the meaninglessness of privilege.

Yeah, yeah, I know: Nobody who opposes Bush thinks that terrorism is a good thing. The issue is not whether the United States should be involved in a war on terrorism, but rather whether the war on terrorism is best served by war in Iraq. And now that the war has defied the optimism of its advocates, the issue is no longer BushÔøΩs moral intention but rather his simple competence. He got us in when he had no idea how to get us out. He allowed himself to be blinded by ideology and blindsided by ideologues. His arrogance led him to offend the very allies whose participation would have enabled us to win not just the war but the peace. His obsession with Saddam Hussein led him to rush into a way that was unnecessary. Sure, Saddam was a bad guy. Sure, the world is a better place without him. But ÔøΩ

And there it is: the inevitable but. Trailed by its uncomfortable ellipsis, it sits squirming at the end of the argument against George Bush for very good reason: It canÔøΩt possibly sit at the beginning. Bush haters have to back into it because thereÔøΩs nothing beyond it. The world is a better place without Saddam Hussein, but . . . but what? But he wasnÔøΩt so bad that we had to do anything about him? But he wasnÔøΩt so bad that he was worth the shedding of American blood? But there are other dictators just as bad whom we leave in place? But he provided Bush the opportunity to establish the doctrine of preemptive war, in which case the cure is worse than the disease? But we should have secured Afghanistan before invading Iraq? But we should have secured the cooperation of allies who were no more inclined to depose Saddam that theyÔøΩor we, as head of an international coalition of the unwillingÔøΩwere to stop the genocide in Rwanda ten years before? Sure, genocide is bad, but . . .

We might as well credit the president for his one great accomplishment: replacing but with and as a basis for foreign policy. The world is a better place without Saddam Huessin, and we got rid of him.

What Junod says here is exactly the same thing thatÔøΩs always haunted me about Reagan: he was right about the Soviet Union. No, I donÔøΩt believe he killed the evil empire. Nor do I believe Star Wars or the defense build-up did that. Frankly, I think Deng Xiaoping did more to kill socialism than Reagan ever could pretend to have doneÔøΩin either his movies or his real-life presidency. But the man was right. And I was wrong to base my opposition to him in my youth solely out of my personal antipathy for who he was as an individual (basically, I found the man to be a huge hypocrite on many levelsÔøΩhis ditching his first wife being a key one in my mind). But the man was right.

The same understanding that I now have for Reagan and for Bush is something the Far Right has never learned with Clinton. Yes, he sucked big time as an individual (pun intended), but damn it! He was right about the most important issues of his dayÔøΩespecially his headlong support for the spread of the global economy, which really secured the victory afforded by the end of the Cold War: the absorption of the ÔøΩsecond worldÔøΩ into an expanded Functioning Core of globalization.

Bush is right on the big issue of this day: bin Laden and his types are just the latest resistance to the spread of the global economy and all it entailsÔøΩboth good and bad but overwhelmingly positive in the long run. To fight the bin Ladens of today is like fighting the Soviets of the Cold War: those who would keep entire societies deprived, isolated, and imprisoned with hate-filled ideologies. The Soviets were evil, and radical Islamic terrorists are evil.

Bush sees and understands this, but Kerry is too often given to parsing things out to absurd levels of ambiguity. Frankly, IÔøΩd rather be blunt and right than nuanced and wrong, and Kerry wonÔøΩt win this election by being nuanced. HeÔøΩll win by painting a better happy ending and positing a quicker path to achieving it. The same bad guys will be standing in the way, and their names wonÔøΩt end in Bush and Cheney.

Junod gets this, and so do I. My hats off to Tom for writing an amazing pieceÔøΩone that really reminds me of who I am and what I believe in like few articles do today.

HereÔøΩs todayÔøΩs catch:

Transforming Iraq and Afghanistan: all in good time

ÔøΩIraq Gives Order To Reopen Paper G.I.ÔøΩs Had Closed: Gesture to Shiite Cleric: In Sign of New Tactics on Militants, Premier Lets U.S. Strike Falluja,ÔøΩ by Ian Fisher, New York Times, 19 July, p. A1.

ÔøΩWhen Elections Threaten Democracy: Afghans simply wonÔøΩt be ready to vote any time soon,ÔøΩ by Ansar Rahel, NYT, 19 July, p. A17.

ÔøΩTiny AgencyÔøΩs Iraq Analysis Is Better Than Big RivalsÔøΩ: Giving ÔøΩthe accepted analysisÔøΩ a ÔøΩsecond, harder look,ÔøΩÔøΩ by Douglas Jehl, NYT, 19 July, p. A10.

Good rules in India, bad ones in the Philippines

ÔøΩIn Wake of Fire, Indian State Bans Thatched Roofs on Schools,ÔøΩ by David Rohde, NYT, 19 July, p. A7.

ÔøΩCurbing Foreign Investment: Philippine Constitution Derails Development of Certain Sectors,ÔøΩ by James Hookway, Wall Street Journal, 19 July, p. A9.

Buy you Chinese! Buy! As if our economic lives depended on it!

ÔøΩBeijing Is Able to Slow Economic Growth: Next Test for China Will Be How Easily It Can Absorb Possible Oversupply of Goods,ÔøΩ by Matt Pottinger, WSJ, 19 July, p. A9.

In the Gap there are two types of leaders: too weak and too strong

ÔøΩBolivians Support Gas Plan And Give President a Lift: Referendum Maintains Company Control,ÔøΩ by Juan Forero, NYT, 19 July, p. A6.

ÔøΩAre Sanctions Evil? by Michael Judge, WSJ, 19 July, p. A11.

OEMs, meet the ODMs; the new boss isnÔøΩt the same as the old boss

ÔøΩPCs ArenÔøΩt Just Made In Asia Now: Many Are Designed There,ÔøΩ by Lee Gomes, WSJ, 19 July, p. B1.

AnonymousÔøΩ brilliantly myopic plan to win the GWOT, or why intell weanies should never be in charge of anything important

ÔøΩQ&A with ÔøΩAnonymous,ÔøΩÔøΩ USA Today, 19 July, p. 13A.

More evidence that Iran is in its late Brezhnev period

ÔøΩSorry, Wrong Chador: In Tehran, ÔøΩReading LolitaÔøΩ Translates as Ancient History,ÔøΩ by Karl Vick, Washington Post, 19 July, p. C1

Transforming Iraq and Afghanistan: all in good time

ìIraq Gives Order To Reopen Paper G.I.ís Had Closed: Gesture to Shiite Cleric: In Sign of New Tactics on Militants, Premier Lets U.S. Strike Falluja,î by Ian Fisher, New York Times, 19 July, p. A1.

ìWhen Elections Threaten Democracy: Afghans simply wonít be ready to vote any time soon,î by Ansar Rahel, NYT, 19 July, p. A17.

ìTiny Agencyís Iraq Analysis Is Better Than Big Rivalsí: Giving ëthe accepted analysisí a ësecond, harder look,íî by Douglas Jehl, NYT, 19 July, p. A10.

Iraqís tough new PM corrects a big Bremer mistake: shutting down a newspaper that had been sympathetic to Moqtada al-Sadrís movement. Bremer thought he was buying the CPA some peace and quiet, but all he did was drive up local anger and resistance that ended up costing a number of U.S. lives. But he also okays a U.S. strike into a Falluja stronghold believed to contain Zarqawiís personnel.

Together, Dr. Allawiís two actions seemed early evidence of his stated strategy for taming the deadly insurgency by making concessions to fighters who cooperate and cracking down on those who do not.

How long will it take Allawiís good cop/bad cop routine to bring real stability to Iraq? Probably quite some time. And yes, the first election probably will be a bit of a sham in both Iraq and Afghanistan, an outcome that happens to even the most mature democracies now and then (Florida recount anyone?). But admitting that weíre in both nations for the long haul does not reduce the utility of trying our best to bring democracy to either.

Yes, we will constantly be told by the experts and academics that what weíve gotten ourselves into is so much harder than some decision makers in the Bush Administration thought, which is why the State Departmentís bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) is always ìrightî whenever the desired results donít meet our natural tendency toward strategic ADD. But the I-told-you-so crowd has no answers other than leave-it-alone! and for-God-sakes-donít-do-anything-to-piss-off-the-terrorists!

Oh, wait a minute, I forgot about abstinence as a strategyóor getting off oil. Right, then we could turn the Middle East into Indiaís and Chinaís strategic security issue and that would make for a safer global security environment.

But thatís forgetting Israel and the House of Saud and . . . but letís leave that laundry list to Anonymousóa seriously myopic visionary.

Good rules in India, bad ones in the Philippines

ìIn Wake of Fire, Indian State Bans Thatched Roofs on Schools,î by David Rohde, New York Times, 19 July, p. A7.

ìCurbing Foreign Investment: Philippine Constitution Derails Development of Certain Sectors,î by James Hookway, Wall Street Journal, 19 July, p. A9.

India suffers a Station Nightclub-like fire in a private school and the country is aghast. With the countryís booming economy, more and more families are dishing out the rupees to put their kids in expensive private schools, which, even though they are often overcrowded, ìoffer a prized English education that parents believe can give their children an advantage.î Right on, say I, as ESL (English as a Second Language) is one of globalizationís great connecting tissues.

So the fire happens and the affected Indian state does exactly what little Rhode Island did after the Station Nightclub fire, it starts pushing all sorts of new fire code regulations and immediately closes all schools that have the offending thatched roofs until theyíre replaced by something safer.

That is a rule-set reset of the good sort.

Hereís the bad one: after dictator Ferdinand Marcos was ousted in 1987, his opponents wrote a badly nationalistic constitution that forbade foreign direct investment in certain sectors. The result is not surprising: a serious lack of development in those sectors because foreign money cannot be tapped and the Philippines economy itself can only self-finance so much. Guess some would rather be a proud-but-poor Filipino.

So there has been no foreign-funded mining operations in the Philippines since 1968. That is why the Philippines are in the Gap, while ESL-crazed India moves into the Core: the former wants connectivity, but still too much on its own terms, while the latter accepts the notion that connectivity requires the synchronization of internal code with that of the outside world.

Buy you Chinese! Buy! As if our economic lives depended on it!

ìBeijing Is Able to Slow Economic Growth: Next Test for China Will Be How Easily It Can Absorb Possible Oversupply of Goods,î by Matt Pottinger, Wall Street Journal, 19 July, p. A9.

More and more indications that China has generated the much-desired ìsoft landingî for its economy if . . . and hereís the kicker for the formerly centrally-planned economy . . . if the Chinese consumer base can absorb all the goods that will be generated by the investment boom of the past few years.

Already, China is moving into the rarefied territory that defines the United Statesí real economic power: the power of its consumption as much or more than its production. More and more weíll see the global economic health defined not just in terms of what America is willing to buy, but what China is willing to buy.

China will be a near-peer in diplomacy faster than we think, and a near-peer in economic faster than we think. The one thing it wonít be any time soon is our military near-peer. Thinking of Chinaís ìthreatî solely within the context of war is a mistake, because its real source of competition with the United States will come in the everything else.

In the Gap there are two types of leaders: too weak and too strong

ìBolivians Support Gas Plan And Give President a Lift: Referendum Maintains Company Control,î by Juan Forero, New York Times, 19 July, p. A6.

ìAre Sanctions Evil?" by Michael Judge, Wall Street Journal, 19 July, p. A11.

Let me skip over the details of the referendum on the gas project. Bolivia is a poor country, and God knows it wonít be developed simply because itís got some gas. Trying to grow an economy on the exportation of raw materials is just about the slowest way to go, as weíve seen time and time again over the 20th century.

The real problem with Bolivia is the weakness of its political institutions. Hereís a pretty good guy operating as president, but hereís how a knowledgeable observer describes his ruling situation:

ìHere you have a guy who has no control over the armed forces, no control over the police,î said Eduardo Gamarra, a Bolivian-born expert who oversees Latin America studies at Florida International University. ìHe basically controls the palace, and he has the daunting mission of trying to re-found the country.î

What define the Core are stable-enough political systems that, on average, rotate their leaders every 4-to-6 years. Thatís true for 90% of the Core countries, according to my research as reported in PNM.

Inside the Gap, the situation is the opposite: 90% of the governments canít meet that Goldilocksí happy medium. Just under one-third of Gap states canít keep a leader for four years, on average. And just under two-thirds canít get rid of a leader in less than six years. Only one-in-ten Gap states rotate their leadership regularly. That yields a bad mix of too-weak and too-strong leaders. Boliviaís got a weak one right now, whereas Burma has far too strong of one in its military junta.

The cure for both is connectivity in general, although our tendency with the latter is to throw sanctions at the problem, which basically never results in the authoritarian leadership being thrown aside but instead tends to enrich them while making the plight of the masses even worse.

Our approach is completely backasswards: we should be throwing aid at the weaker states and pursuing regime change with the harsher ones. Does that mean invading every authoritarian regime? Hardly. But it sure as hell doesnít mean trying to wait out the Big Man through sanctions, which surely hasnít toppled any Castros or Qaddafis around the world.

Again, if the Core were serious about shrinking the Gap, weíd develop an A-to-Z rule set on how to process politically-bankrupt states and once we successfully employed it a few times, youíd see dictators grabbing their loot and heading for the border in plenty of states further down ìthe list.î But until that resolve is bolstered by rule sets, this clean-up effort will remain a largely American affair, meaning something weíll whip ourselves into doing now and then, always to recoil almost immediately from the subsequent realization that finishing the job will take timeólike in Afghanistan and Iraq today.

OEMs, meet the ODMs; the new boss isnít the same as the old boss

ìPCs Arenít Just Made In Asia Now: Many Are Designed There,î by Lee Gomes, Wall Street Journal, 19 July, p. B1.

Yet another story about rising Asia in general and the notion that todayís ìdumbî manufacturers of our brilliant goods will soon be tomorrowís ìsmart but cheaperî design engineers.

I cite it only for the new acronym, which I love to collect. OEM means original equipment manufacturer. You can be an OEM and not be the true brains behind the product.

ODM means original design manufacturer, meaning you both design and build the product, even if it gets sold elsewhere under someone elseís nameólike Dell or Gateway or Apple or . . ..

Every once in a while an ODM steps out in the spotlight and demands the world recognize it as a brand name. Samsung was an ODM for many years, this article points out, but ìnow it rivals Sony as a global brand.î

Samsung may be one of the first to make this migration, but it wonít be the last.