A couple nights ago on the News Hour there was suppose to be some sort of debate on whether we can call what's happening in Iraq a Civil War but having watched the segment I was left dumbfounded at to what lengths the distinguished scholars refused to address the question.  On the one hand Donald Kagan, Yale Historian and Classicist whose contribution to the discussion was best summed up with his open volley:

 DONALD KAGAN, Professor of History, Yale University: Frankly, I regard this as a frivolous discussion on the one hand, and on the other hand it is a calculated effort on the part of those people who would like to see the United States flee from its responsibilities in Iraq, to use a term that is more frightening, more dangerous-sounding than simply the kind of uprising that they've been dealing with, and decide that it's a civil war, in order to make it a more frightening prospect to try to win this thing and to persuade Americans that it's hopeless and that they should go away.

The News Hour neglected to inform us that Prof. Kagan was hardly a disinterested party in the discussion having been a long-time Iraq War booster as a fellow at the Hudson Institute and a signatory to Project for a New American Century , an organization which help lay the ground work for our current mess.  You see Prof. Kagan views this discussion purely as a political matter that, given his loyalties, really can't be debated based upon the facts on the ground only in terms of our overall resolve.  Prof. Betts was a little more forthcoming but at pains not to overreach:

RICHARD BETTS, Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University: Well, there's no definition of civil war that's chiseled in stone. I'd call it an emerging civil war. It's more complicated than the image most people have of civil wars as a two-way conflict between, say, one group of rebels and a government.

I don't think we should get hung up on the label, as long as we focus on the extent to which the shape of the war has been changing and the main lines of division in the conflict have been changing. And at least the term "civil war" does focus attention on that.

For the first few years after the invasion, the conflict was mainly between a group of insurgents on one hand and the Americans on the other. It's been changing in recent months more clearly into a conflict between two main groups of Iraqis, with the Americans and the Iraqi government more or less caught in the middle trying to put the lid on both of them.

That's right, its all too complicated and we really can't find a solid definition of "civil war" throughout history which suggest either the term needs to be retired or we've been using it indiscriminately for centuries.  Instead of bringing on an expert who can explain a general criteria for what constitutes a civil war and why, we're provided with a neo-con Classicist with an agenda whose counterpoint seems to be afraid the newspapers might quote him on the topic?  Does it need to be so complicated?

Sport's Illustrated gives us their picks for sports teams with the best uniforms and it appears the one common "shred" shared by all these uniforms is how, with few exceptions, they're the same damn uniforms and team logos these chosen few have been wearing, virtually without change, for decades.  They probably should have called it "Change is Bad: Why we like Classic Uniforms and the Teams that wear them".  Hey, where are the Bears?

There have been reports that both the White House and the Pentagon are considering taking sides in Iraq's (non) Civil War and backing the Shiites and Kurds in hopes that giving up on policies aimed at "national reconciliation" will help us both destroy the Sunni-led insurgency and possibly pull us ahead of the Iranians in the competition for influence in Iraq. 

Yep, nothing like the proverbial "white terror" or pogrom to make up for all the fuck-ups we've inflicted upon Iraq; a "simple" solution with some very bloody historical antecedents.  What?  You mean most of the Sunni Arab regimes surrounding Iraq probably wouldn't let that happen, and they've even pledged to intervene to protect Sunnis if we were ever to pack up and finally leave?  Turkey worries about an independent Kurdistan?  But it sounded so good??  Who are these people?

No, not time for the worst Senate majority leader ever to give up his future political ambitions but instead I recommend its time to retire the phrase "grown-ups" when it comes to our discourse on how to govern the country.  From what I've been told the so-called "grown-ups" came to power after that dark, dishonorable period known as the Clinton Presidency and have been running the country almost exclusively for the last six years.  Oddly enough these "grown-ups" have done so much damage to a phrase meant to denote maturity, experience, steadfastness and able leadership that its bewildering to find pundits like Chris Matthews still even using it as a put down for the new Democratic Congress.  Last I looked, these much heralded "grown-ups" are leaving town without passing a budget, got us stuck in a conflict the may cause the disintegration of a sovereign nation and the destabilization of much of the Middle East and the head "grown-up" not only isn't too swift, but also has the social graces of a two-year old?

I'm really not sure what made Bill Frist an attractive Presidential candidate to begin with, but let's be thankful that we won't have to hear the words "Frist" and "presidential aspirations" in the same sentence ever again.

I recommend Pat Lang's take on the difficulties of enacting what passes for a "serious" solution for our misadventure in Iraq.  I think he makes it clear that when we debate large one time increases of troops to shore up our near term position in Iraq that such proposals are frankly not "serious" solutions but political posturing devoid of any consideration of a suitable timeframes, force structure pressures, logistical concerns or any real sense that a sudden influx of U.S. troops would accomplish anything.

You may occasionally see Pat Lang being interviewed on various news channels, but Pat's blog Sic Semper Tyrannis is also highly recommended; Pat brings a welcome and authoritative voice on not only the Middle East but also the U.S. military and intelligence community.

Happy Thanksgiving from everybody at the Ironmouth! 

In honor of "Turkey Day", here is a clip from one of the funniest moments in TV history:  WKRP's "Turkeys Away!"

....not only do we not have any respect for the institutions of government, we don't take this governing thing seriously either.

Something I did not read in any of the obituaries for Milton Friedman which I meant to write the other day and never got around to: 

1. Monetarism, ie. targeted money supply expansion as monetary policy, as Dr. Friedman prescribed, never, and I mean NEVER WORKED... in fact, it produced pretty disasterous results everywhere (US, Britain, Chile, etc.) it was tried and was often quickly abandoned.  
2. While Friedman's legacy might be reminding us of the importance of keeping inflation in check and advocating price stability (both pretty basic to the discipline of Economics in general) his assertion that "inflation is always a monetary phenomenon" is widely disputed and you won't find anyone, especially a reputable economist, who calls him or herself a "Monetarist" nowadays. 

Okay, that felt good to get off my chest.

Wow.  The cost of five years of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan (adjusted for inflation) is on the verge of surpassing the total amount spent on the Vietnam War?  That's amazing especially when you consider the Vietnam War not only lasted longer, but also had a much larger commitment of troops and military resources than either Iraq or Afghanistan.  I know the Pentagon is historically notorious for not being able to balance its books or account for all its stuff, but come on!  Is an "all volunteer" force really all that much more expensive than the mix of draftees and volunteers sent to Vietnam?  New technology?  Anyone remember the "McNamara Line" or where expensive laser-guided munitions got their first use; Vietnam was a treasure trove of new weapons and technology.  

My hope for the coming year is that the new Democratic Congress will not only restore proper budgetary processes and do away with "war by supplemental funding", but also take a hard look at where all the money's going; don't be surprised if this is just one more area in which the Bush administration has both let down the troops in field and the American taxpayer at large.

Evidently the only thing more senseless than getting stuck in a land war in Asia is asking the President to provide a real world historical analogy.

Grim assesment on Iraq in today's Post:

While American commanders have suggested that civil war is possible in Iraq, many leaders, experts and ordinary people in Baghdad and around the Middle East say it is already underway, and that the real worry ahead is that the conflict will destroy the flimsy Iraqi state and draw in surrounding countries.

Whether the U.S. military departs Iraq sooner or later, the United States will be hard-pressed to leave behind a country that does not threaten U.S. interests and regional peace, according to U.S. and Arab analysts and political observers.

"We're not talking about just a full-scale civil war. This would be a failed-state situation with fighting among various groups," growing into regional conflict, Joost Hiltermann, Middle East project director for the International Crisis Group, said by telephone from Amman, Jordan.

"All indications point to a current state of civil war and the disintegration of the Iraqi state," Nawaf Obaid, an adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and an adviser to the Saudi government, said last week at a conference in Washington on U.S.-Arab relations.

"To envision that you can divide Iraq into three parts is to envision ethnic cleansing on a massive scale, sectarian killing on a massive scale," Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, said Oct. 30 at a conference in Washington. "Since America came into Iraq uninvited, it should not leave Iraq uninvited."

"When the ethnic-religious break occurs in one country, it will not fail to occur elsewhere, too," Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told Germany's Der Spiegel newsweekly recently. "It would be as it was at the end of the Soviet Union, only much worse. Large wars, small wars -- no one will be able to get a grip on the consequences."

Apparently we could do some things to help.  The price?  So steep that Bush could never swallow:

"The thing is, because Iran and Syria both have spoiling power in Iraq, if you could neutralize them," it would ease some of the many pressures within Iraq, Hiltermann said. But he said the two countries may demand a mighty trade-off: for Syria, U.S. help with its biggest stated aim, winning back the Golan Heights from Israel; for Iran, U.S. compromise over its nuclear program.

Hiltermann acknowledged the difficulty. "I'm saying it's required," he said. "I'm not saying it's possible."

Fox News internal memo, last week:

"And let's be on the lookout for any statements from the iraqi insurgents, who must be thrilled at the prospect of a Dem-controlled congress."

We report, you decide.