posted March 06, 2006 12:05 AM              

Arnaud de Borchgrave
Friday, March 3, 2006

When Bill Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act into law Oct. 31, 1998, it paved the way for the March 2003 shock-and-awe invasion of Iraq. Some $300 billion later, including $10 billion in military hardware chewed up, the meter is still running.

The law of unintended consequences has sprung yet another unpleasant surprise. The kingmaker of Baghdad is now a sworn enemy of the United States who has pledged his support to Iran if the U.S. attempts regime change there, too.

Radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who led his Mehdi army militia not once but twice against U.S. forces in 2004, has emerged from the last round of elections with a crucial swing vote of 32 seats. His latest gambit was to threaten civil war unless his choice for prime minister was accepted. It was, by one vote.

That was how Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the interim prime minister, became Iraq's next leader. The principal architect of the Iraq Liberation Act, Ahmad Chalabi, didn't win a single seat in parliament; he got less than half of 1 percent of the vote. But the "gray eminence" of what went wrong may yet get a Cabinet job. A mathematics Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, his specialty is finance.

This was the same Mr. Jaafari, then interim prime minister, who last spring took 10 of his Cabinet ministers to Tehran (where he lived in exile during the Saddam Hussein regime) to apologize for the eight-year Iran-Iraq war under Saddam. He returned to Baghdad with a $1 billion gift from the Iranian ayatollahs for new schools and hospitals.

The bombing of the Askariya Shi'ite shrine in Samarra, and the destruction of its golden dome, took Iraq to the brink of civil war. Shi'ites retaliated by attacking scores of Sunni mosques and more than 1,300 were killed in three days of sectarian bloodshed before the government decreed a curfew. Political and religious leaders on both sides quickly blamed the U.S. – and Iran, yet again, emerged the victor.

When President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the last thing he anticipated was an Islamist radical calling the shots in a democratic Iraq. A glutton for geopolitical punishment – which our enemies must see as congenital masochism – the administration and Congress are crab-walking into an "Iran Liberation Act." The first tranche requested by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is for $75 million "to weaken Iran from within."

This time it wasn't an Iranian Chalabi type with dubious credentials, but several little Chalabis in the form of influential Christian lobby groups – and some of our born-again neocons determined to recover their Iraqi losses. Mercifully, Congress is looking askance at the project. And after testy exchanges with Miss Rice, the administration got what it wanted – plus $10 million already budgeted.

So far the administration's magic potion for democracy in the Middle East has produced a majority for Hamas and its Islamist leadership, a sworn enemy of Israel and ally of Iran, in the Palestinian territories, and an alarming election sally by Egypt's long-banned Muslim Brotherhood, another sworn enemy of Israel and friend of Iran. Hezbollah, an adjunct of Iran in Lebanon, is also comfortably installed in the Beirut parliament.

Iran today has a dangerous, West-hating religious fanatic as president. But two recent unofficial Iranian emissaries were in Washington recently to advise Republicans and Democrats to be patient and to stay in lockstep with the European Union, Russia and China. If the U.S. breaks from a united international front and goes the "Iraq Liberation Act" route in Iran, this will only assist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad widen a fairly narrow base of popular support. He can pose as Saladin against the heathen Americans and Zionist Jews, but he cannot take on the whole world – without antagonizing his clerical superiors. At least, that was the argument of the two low-key emissaries.

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United international pressure against Iran's nuclear program – and full support for the Russian compromise proposal whereby Moscow will enrich Iran's nuclear fuel and return it short of weapons-grade uranium – will lead the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to unload the president. So argued the two Iranians, who said: "If we weaponize nukes, others in the region will follow suit. So the non-weaponizers are now dominant but they also say they should have the capability of a full fuel enrichment cycle, just in case."

Ayatollah Khamenei, known as rahbar, or leader, is elected for life by the 86-member "Assembly of Experts" who in turn are elected by the provinces and have a guardian, oversight role.

More important, the president has sharply limited executive powers. He doesn't control the High Council of the Nation's Security, the armed forces, the revolutionary guards, the intelligence services, the judiciary and broadcasting. All the important levers of power belong to rahbar.

Nor can the president dismiss parliament and call new elections. He is making "all sorts of wild promises," the two Iranians told their American interlocutors, "and parliament is already asking him 'who's going to pay?'"

The Iranian president, who wants to wipe Israel off the map and scoffs at the Holocaust as fiction invented by the Jews, draws his principal support from the very poor – 5 million votes – and Iran-Iraq war (1980-88) veterans (about 1 million) who feel the supreme leader has deviated from the path set by his predecessor, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1979-89).

The veterans, say the emissaries, share a deep distrust of any cooperation with the West because of the assistance given Saddam during his war with Iran. The U.S. supplied satellite intelligence of Iranian troop locations and the French sold military equipment, including 10,000 battlefield flares daily.

Mr. Ahmadinejad, the verbal bomb thrower, has already incurred the wrath of some senior ayatollahs by denouncing corruption. Everybody knows the former president, Ayatollah Rafsanjani, became one of Iran's wealthiest men while in office.

Mr. Ahmadinejad defeated Ayatollah Rafsanjani last year. But what he lacks in clerical credentials, he makes up for in religious fanaticism.

While in Washington, the two Iranian emissaries also made clear that U.S. and/or Israeli attacks against Iran's nuclear facilities would set the whole region ablaze against the United States. "They have clandestine assets throughout the oil-producing countries of the Gulf," one said, barely audibly. "And they also remember how you were forced to leave Vietnam in 1975."

Iran's Shi'ite friends in Iraq, led by fee-faw-fum scarecrow Mr. al-Sadr, will be asked to harass U.S. troops "as you prepare to end the occupation with honor."

Yuval Diskin, head of Israel's Shin Bet internal security agency, said recently his country might come to regret its decision to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq. "I'm not sure we won't come to miss Saddam," he told a group of students in a meeting broadcast on Israeli TV.

Sixty-three former heads of government, national security advisers and intelligence directors met for an off-the-record powwow in Monaco last weekend. There were disagreements, but the consensus was unequivocal: "Iraq is the biggest strategic blunder in 229 years of American history." Last throes anyone?

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/3/2/194716.shtml?s=lh

posted March 06, 2006 03:47 PM            

Bartlett: Bush Is Another Nixon

President Bush is not only dealing with angry liberals who blame him for everything, including natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina.

But even some conservatives are breaking ranks against the president.

No matter that Bush revived an economy that was set to tailspin into recession or worse after the dot-com bubble. Nor is there much praise for Bush for keeping the country safe. Since Sept. 11, America has suffered no major terror attacks on U.S. soil.

"If Bush wins, there will be a civil war in the Republican Party starting on Nov. 3.”

Bruce Bartlett, a Reaganite economist, wrote that in 2004, long before the Dubai ports deal exploded into the headlines and drove a wedge between the President, his Republican troops and millions of pro-Bush supporters across the country.
Now he’s making more grim predictions for the president, for the future of the GOP and the United States.

The title of the first chapter of Bartlett’s new book, "The Imposter – How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy,” says it all: "I know Conservatives and George Bush is no Conservative.”

Bartlett’s beef about the president is not about where the beef is, but that there’s too much pork, and it’s wrecking the country.

He lays it out starkly: "I believe there are gathering cloud of risk in the economy – the housing bubble, international imbalances, and such – that could bring a flood of trouble at a moment’s notice. When one of these problems reaches storm strength and brings on a market crash, such as those in 1987 and 1989, I believe the political climate will change overnight. All of a sudden there will be no more talk of tax cuts, but of budget deals and tax increases.”

He lays this gloomy prospect at the feet of Bush, who he says has failed to properly utilize the traditional path of policy development, ignoring the advice of experts on the economy and "has driven away and even humiliated the few intellectuals in his midst, preferring instead the company of overrated political hacks whose main skills seem to be an ability to say ‘yes’ to whatever he says and to ignore the obvious.”
Bartlett, a highly regarded expert on the economy and author of the runaway bestseller, "Reaganomics,” worked in the Reagan White House and in the Treasury Department under Bush's father. The current president, he says, is less like Ronald Reagan and more like Richard Nixon.

In an exclusive interview with NewsMax, Bartlett revealed that in the week since the book has been out, he has gotten good reactions from such well-known conservatives as columnist George Will. Others, such as conservative radio hostess Laura Ingraham however, have taken him to task, many for the very title of the book.

Writing in the Washington Times, he revealed that many of his friends "are unhappy with me for writing it, and I have been embraced by a number of people on the left whom I would ordinarily consider my political enemies.”

In the Times he spelled out his argument against the president’s economic policies, noting that his basic disagreement with the president is that he has enacted policies "contrary to conservative principles on too many occasions. Some of those that disturb me the most are these:

* "No Child Left Behind Act. Republicans used to campaign on the idea of abolishing the Education Department. Mr. Bush greatly increased its budget, despite a paucity of evidence that educational outcomes are correlated with educational spending. No wonder Sen. Ted Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat and Congress' leading liberal, loved it.
"The 'reforms' Bush got in return were far too modest to justify his support for this legislation and it hasn't even helped him politically. All we ever hear from the education lobby are demands for even more spending.

* "Campaign finance reform. I don't know a single conservative who doesn't think this legislation is a fundamental violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution, the Supreme Court's ruling to the contrary notwithstanding. Personally, I consider Mr. Bush violated his oath to defend the Constitution by signing this monstrosity, especially since he said he would veto such a bill during the 2000 campaign.

* "Medicare drug benefit. This was really the final straw for me. The Medicare system was already $50 trillion in debt in 2003. We should have been looking for ways to cut its spending, not increase it. The unfunded liability of just the drug benefit added another $18 trillion to that debt, an increase of 40 percent. Sooner or later, this legislation will cause a massive tax increase, in my opinion and that of many budget experts."

NewsMax asked Bartlett about what kind of reaction he has gotten from his fellow conservatives:

Q: Some of your friends have attacked you for writing the book – have you lost any friends as a result of the book?

A: No one I would really consider a friend. But some former allies and I are no longer on speaking terms.

During an interview with Paul Gigot on "The Journal Editorial Report," Wall Street Journal editorial board member and economic guru Steve Moore said that he agreed with Bartlett on the big spending problems that Bush has had and that he thought that "one poisonous element of this administration is it has turned the Republican Party into a big spending party. I think Bruce is very wrong on the tax cuts, especially when you look at the direct and immediate impact of the capital gains and dividends tax cuts. We saw a huge surge in employment. We saw a huge surge in investment, a turn around in the stock market right when we needed it. So I think that was exactly the right prescription at the right time.”

Q: Would it be fair to say that most conservatives who have spoken out against the book agree with your main premise that Bush’s spending policies have been a disaster? But like Steve Moore, sharply disagree with you about the effect of the Bush tax cuts?

A: I know of no conservative who will defend Bush’s budgetary policies. Some, like Steve, do think that the tax cuts are enough to compensate. I don’t. Others think his federal court appointments are sufficient. I will reserve judgment on that.

Q: Do you think the book will hurt GOP chances in this year’s congressional elections?

A:I don’t think my book will hurt anyone. I think Bush’s policies may hurt many Republicans, both this year and in 2008.

Ingraham mentioned that Bartlett was a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis and was fired from the post.

Q: Friday morning Ingraham jumped on you for the title and suggested that you wrote it in anger over the treatment you got when you were fired. Was she right? Do you regret the title?

A: The problem with her line of argument is that I was fired after I wrote the book, not before.

Q: What is your description of a real conservative? What would Bush have to do to get back in the fold?

I think it’s too late for that. The best Bush can hope for is that the Iraq operation will work out.

Q: Noting that in his new book, "Rebel-in-Chief: How George W. Bush Is Redefining the Conservative Movement and Transforming America,” Fred Barnes called Bush a "big-government conservative.” Is the term "big-government conservative” an oxymoron?

A: Yes

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posted March 06, 2006 06:34 PM            

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posted March 06, 2006 08:56 PM              

He actually said that??? They're feeling brave and secure enough to actually admit to it? This is what it's come to? The worst of all possible worlds??

posted March 11, 2006 12:19 PM              

Former White House Adviser Arrested

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - A former domestic policy adviser to President Bush has been charged with theft for allegedly receiving phony refunds at department stores.

Claude Alexander Allen, 45, was arrested Thursday by Montgomery County police for allegedly claiming refunds for more than $5,000 worth of merchandise he did not buy, according to county and federal authorities.

Allen was the No. 2 official in the Health and Human Services Department when Bush nominated him in April 2003 to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va. Bush nominated to the court again a year later, but Allen never received a Senate vote.

During his confirmation hearing, Allen was questioned about his use of the word "queer" when he was a press aide to Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., in 1984. Allen said he didn't intend it as a slur against gay people.

In early 2005, Bush hired Allen as a domestic policy adviser. He resigned abruptly on Feb. 9, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family.

Calls to Allen's home in Gaithersburg, a Washington suburb, were not returned. The White House also did not return calls seeking comment.

Allen has been under investigation since at least January for the alleged thefts on 25 different occasions at Target and Hecht's stores, a police spokesman, Lt. Eric Burnett, said. Police reviewed his credit card records to track his purchase.

Police believe Allen would buy items, take them to his car, then return to the store with his receipt. He would select the same items, then take them to the store return desk and show the receipt from the first purchase. Using that method, he would receive credit for the second items on his credit cards, Burnett said.

Allen was allegedly seen Jan. 2 at a Target in Gaithersburg taking items off the shelf that he then took the return desk. He had a receipt for the merchandise, was given a refund and left.

The items he allegedly received fraudulent refunds for include clothing, a Bose theater system and stereo equipment. Some purchases were as little as $2.50.

Allen was released on his own recognizance by a Montgomery District Court judge.

Before joining the Bush administration, Allen was Virginia Health and Human Resources secretary.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/3/11/100109.shtml?s=ic

posted March 12, 2006 12:27 PM              

AP Poll: Bush Approval Rating Drops

More and more people, particularly Republicans, disapprove of President Bush's performance, question his character and no longer consider him a strong leader against terrorism, according to an AP-Ipsos poll documenting one of the bleakest points of his presidency.

Nearly four out of five Americans, including 70 percent of Republicans, believe civil war will break out in Iraq - the bloody hot spot upon which Bush has staked his presidency. Nearly 70 percent of people say the U.S. is on the wrong track, a 6-point jump since February.

Republican Party leaders said the survey explains why GOP lawmakers are rushing to distance themselves from Bush on a range of issues - port security, immigration, spending, warrantless eavesdropping and trade, for example.

The positioning is most intense among Republicans facing election in November and those considering 2008 presidential campaigns.

The poll suggests that most Americans wonder whether Bush is up to the job. The survey, conducted Monday through Wednesday of 1,000 people, found that just 37 percent approve of his overall performance. That is the lowest of his presidency.

Bush's job approval among Republicans plummeted from 82 percent in February to 74 percent, a dangerous sign in a midterm election year when parties rely on enthusiasm from their most loyal voters. The biggest losses were among white males.

Personally, far fewer Americans consider Bush likable, honest, strong and dependable than they did just after his re-election campaign.

By comparison, Presidents Clinton and Reagan had public approval in the mid 60s at this stage of their second terms in office, while Eisenhower was close to 60 percent, according to Gallup polls. Nixon, who was increasingly tangled up in the Watergate scandal, was in the high 20s in early 1974.

"We've gotten so carried away I wouldn't be surprised to see the Democrats take it because of discontent," he said. "People vote for change and hope for the best."

© 2006 Associated Press.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/3/10/91936.shtml?s=lh

posted March 12, 2006 01:09 PM            

I would think once would be enough to discredit the AP/Ipsos poll results.

A previous poll was examined and found about 40% more democrats were polled than republicans.

In this poll, 20% more democrats were polled than republicans.

What does it take to get through to you that polling information is only valid if...those polled are a representive sampling of the rest of the country?

posted March 12, 2006 09:15 PM              

http://www.pollkatz.homestead.com/

posted March 12, 2006 10:53 PM              

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posted March 13, 2006 02:01 PM            

quote:

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The Republican Party's current advantage with the center makes up for the fact that the GOP-oriented groups, when taken together, account for only 29% of the public. By contrast, the three Democratic groups constitute 41% of the public. But the imbalance shifts to the GOP's favor when the inclinations of the two major groups in the center are taken into account ­ many of whom lean Republican and most of whom voted for George W. Bush.

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quote:

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At the other end of the political spectrum, Liberals have swelled to become the largest voting bloc in the typology.

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posted March 13, 2006 05:50 PM            

I wonder what possesses people to speculate on the makeup of the electorate when solid, provable figures are available? Care to speculate on that acoustic?

From the same poll, we find this chart which shows that with the best construction that can be put on the information, it's still...after the election 31% republican, 34% democrat and no where near the numbers you came up with. Based on that acoustic, there is not a justification in hell for overweighing democrats in polls by 40%. Well, there is the justification of wanting to skew the results for political purposes.

The report goes on to say it's the republicans which have the broad center of the electorate acoustic and that the democrats are seriously fractured.

posted March 13, 2006 07:20 PM            

I can hardly believe you'd even get in a huff about it. This is last years typology poll incidentally. Not the election year poll. Not that it matters.

When did I ever dipute that the Center decides elections?
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This is the kind of stuff that proves a clear, logical Virgo Mercury doesn't mean a thing. I presented you with something from a source you trust, I commented that the Right wins with help from the Center, and you try to make it into something it isn't? I didn't claim it was an election year poll. I didn't "speculate on the makeup of the electorate," but rather pointed to where you could find the make up of the electorate.

As far as justifying overweighing democrats in polls, I'm merely providing you with one reason that might happen. Another could be that Democrats may, for whatever reason, be more open to sharing their opinions in phone polls. Maybe the AP doesn't want to spend its resources hunting down the elusive Republican phone opinion.

posted March 13, 2006 08:59 PM            

quote:

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The Republican Party's current advantage with the center makes up for the fact that the GOP-oriented groups, when taken together, account for only 29% of the public. By contrast, the three Democratic groups constitute 41% of the public. But the imbalance shifts to the GOP's favor when the inclinations of the two major groups in the center are taken into account ­ many of whom lean Republican and most of whom voted for George W. Bush.

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This is not borne out by the charts and in no way can these numbers be shown to have come from the charts. The numbers from the charts tell a different story....as I demonstrated.

Elections tell the tale acoustic. If you are right, both houses of Congress should be controlled by democrats after the November elections. Don't hold your breath.

posted March 13, 2006 09:49 PM              

quote:

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Exit polls at the last election showed 33% democrat and 33% republican..an even split.-jwhop

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quote:

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Actually.....this is the demographic breakdown of the last election..by party affiliation. You will note it was 30% republican to 34% democrats

I wonder what possesses people to speculate on the makeup of the electorate when solid, provable figures are available?-jwhop

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posted March 13, 2006 10:19 PM            

The 33%, 33% numbers came from a different poll...however note the even numbers, nevertheless.

posted March 13, 2006 11:42 PM            

This isn't rocket science. Are you now discreditting Pew as you also use them?

quote:

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This is not borne out by the charts and in no way can these numbers be shown to have come from the charts. The numbers from the charts tell a different story....as I demonstrated.

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In this case, I wasn't citing a chart I was citing the actual commentary from Pew. Are you suggesting that Pew can't interpret its own findings?

quote:

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Elections tell the tale acoustic. If you are right, both houses of Congress should be controlled by democrats after the November elections. Don't hold your breath.

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Whatever happens happens, but what I quoted you stated that the Right is helped by the middle. The Right combined with the Center wins even against a group of Liberals who make up the largest group of the three. I'd give you a mathematical example except you seem to take my mathematical examples as if I'm speaking in literal terms.

quote:

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BTW, the logical place to start when structuring the demographics of a political poll is the numbers of people who voted in the last election....for democrats, republicans and independents. Anything else is speculation, is done to achieve a political end...which is exactly what has been done...it's dishonest and shows a total disregard for the truth. These characterists perfectly describe the lying leftist press.

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posted March 13, 2006 11:51 PM            

You're going to get a chance to see just how closely polls track American political thought or don't...in a few months.

That's right acoustic, it's not rocket science so why can't you understand simple, written in English, charts?

posted March 14, 2006 12:17 AM            

The charts and the commentary are the same. How is that difficult to understand?

quote:

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These are among the conclusions of Pew's political typology study, which sorts voters into homogeneous groups based on values, political beliefs, and party affiliation. The current study is based on two public opinion surveys ­ a nationwide poll of 2,000 interviews conducted Dec. 1-16, 2004, and a subsequent re-interview of 1,090 respondents conducted March 17-27 of this year.

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