The Hard Questions

I've been accused of not dealing with big issues on my blog - of spending all my time fretting about scale modeling or tractors. Well, okay, I haven't actually been accused of that. But it can't be long before it happens.

Iraq

I can't see any good way out of this mess, frankly. To reduce chaos and violence to a low background level, we would need to radically increase the size of our garrison, doubling it at least and preferably multiplying it by ten. Of course, this isn't going to happen, and even if it did happen, we'd have to stay there forever, keeping the lid on ethnic and religious conflicts with a vast icecap of military force. And that's not a particularly appealing road to the future - and we saw how well that worked for the Soviets.

Honestly, I can't see any way Iraq can avoid breaking up into three separate countries, perhaps linked in a confederation and perhaps not. The Kurdish region is practically autonomous already, and I don't see much hope for a Sunni minority electing to live under the rule of a Shiite majority.

So - what? Maintain force levels for a while to give the central Iraqi government at least some chance of success, a phased pullout throughout 2008 with no Americans left on the ground by the end of 2008, and begin a foreign policy now that acknowledges the likelihood of a partition. In the end I suspect Iran would become the natural sponsor of the Shiite state; Syria, Jordan and the other Arab countries the natural sponsor of the Sunni state; and NATO the sponsor of the Kurdish state because nobody else will do it. Certainly not Turkey or Iran.

I don't see a partition of Iraq as a defeat, any more than the partition of India was necessarily a defeat for anyone. One would prefer that it didn't happen, but for now it may be the least violent of all the options. It seems preferable to turning Iraq into a failed state in the fashion of Somalia, and who knows, in the end US troops might be called upon to disentangle the contestants when Iraq does partition.

Iran

I don't necessarily believe Iranian claims that their nuclear program is strictly peaceful - but I don't live in shuddering fear of a nuclear-capable Iran either, any more than a nuclear Israel makes me shudder. To me, the Iranians closely resemble the Soviets in terms of statecraft - they occasionally trot out politicians who spout wide-eyed lunacy, but the people who really make the decisions are not fools and are in no hurry to get into a showdown with the West. I am more worried about Pakistan, mainly because Pakistan already has nukes and is one successful assassination attempt away from turning into a hard-line Wahhabist state, something that Iran will never do.

I would open relations with Iran. The easiest and cheapest way to undermine the authority of the ayatollahs would be to foster open trade with Iran. Eventually its middle class population would come to see the ayatollahs as a retrograde element and the problem would resolve itself. (But this is my answer to most of our problems with other countries, or at least those with reasonably organized economies - it worked like a charm with the Soviets, and though it did take fifty years for the system to collapse from its own internal contradictions, it was a good deal better than resolving the matter by an exchange of strategic nuclear weapons.)

Israel

Well, this one is a toughie, because I happen to believe that the Holocaust entitles the Israelis to a certain amount of special consideration. But on the other hand, I happen to believe that there will never be anything remotely resembling long-term peace in the Middle East until there is a long-term, viable, two-state agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians. As long as the Palestinians continue to elect Hamas officials, and as long as the Israelis treat the Palestinians as a conquered people in all but name, nothing good will happen.

Global Warming

I think it's happening, and I think it is being accelerated by human activity. It doesn't look like junk science to me, no matter how many times Rush Limbaugh says it. (In fact, the phrase "junk science" is turning into the mating call of the far right.)

Swimsuits

I'm in favor of them.

Potatoes

I prefer mine baked, with sour cream and chives.