I'm In Ur Think Tank Supporting Ur Opponents' Policeez

Brookings Institution scholar Michael O'Hanlon, who I'm given to understand would have received a high-level appointment in a Kerry administration, and co-author of a recent book on "what the Democrats need to do" about national security policy, feels the urge to surge. As we've seen previously, O'Hanlon's Brookings colleague Ken Pollack feels much the same way.

My advice to Democrats in congress and hoping to run for president would be to stop listening to these guys.

UPDATE: Elsewhere in the liberal hawk multiverse, Jeffrey Herf explains that the Bush administration's long record of incompetence is a good reason to support the surge.

Comments

Also of note, the one guy in Brookings who was actually right about the whole mess, that is, Ivo Daalder, isn't working there anymore.

As for the Hanlon's major contribution to the war of ideas, the Iraq index, the best I can say is that this is a very American idea: the idea that problems can be analyzed and solved if we only quantify them and measure them.

Posted by Nick Kaufman | January 14, 2007 12:22 AM

Best Pollack line:

Saddam's own determination to interpret geopolitical calculations to suit what he wants to believe anyway lead him to construct bizarre scenarios that he convinces himself are highly likely.

Posted by Ed Marshall | January 14, 2007 12:46 AM

If the Democratic party's national leadership continues in its opposition to the strategy Bush has just announced, and if, against expectations, that strategy is successful, Democrats may look forward to another decade or more of losing Presidential elections.

This is from the Herf pice that Matt derides so we don't have to. Notice that this argument was used throughout 2005-2006 to explain why opposing the war might be political suicide for the Democrat's congressional candidates. Remember how Murtha cost us the elections?

Now that Bush wants to send more troops to fight with a different strategy, this chorus of critics rejects the policy. It is irritating and depressing to see the uniformity with which Democrats reject or even fail to recognize the new thinking in the military and the new thinking that is reflected in Bush's proposals even when at last the President agrees with the criticisms of some of his critics.

We'll ignore the fact that he's sending significantly fewer than Petraeus himself calls for in the Army field manual (Fred Kaplan writes for Slate covered that one) The "more troops" we are sending will bring our commitment up to about 150,000 or thereabouts. According to globalsecurity.org: "There were about 152,000 US troops in Iraq as of early October 2005. As of mid-November 2006, there were approximately 152,000 US troops deployed to Iraq." Nice increase, sparky.

As for the new focus on securing Baghdad, here's what the Google News archive says:

The Hindu, 2003: The Pentagon is making it known in quite clear terms that one of the main priorities in Iraq right now is firmly securing Baghdad and in finding weapons of mass destruction.

U.S. News and World Report. 2004: If the election succeeds, the Bush administration will still have to speed up the training of Iraqi security forces and the pace of rebuilding. "Iraqi confidence in reconstruction is eroding steadily over time," says Kenneth Pollack, an Iraq expert at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. "If they conclude the U.S. government won't be able to restore basic services and create a stable political environment, they are going to look for someone who can."

San Francisco Gate, 2005: U.S. and Iraqi forces have "mostly eliminated" the ability of insurgents to conduct sustained, high-intensity attacks in Baghdad, the top U.S. commander in the Iraqi capital said Friday.

I'm just so overjoyed to know that we've finally figured out that this is a counterinsurgency. This "new thinking" might really make the difference...

Posted by jfaberuiuc | January 14, 2007 12:55 AM

Why *does* Pollack still have a spot at Brookings? Is it just to keep pop-in-law Ted Koppel happy?
Excellent post title by the way, tho' spelling it "policeez" might make it more perfect.

Posted by max | January 14, 2007 2:04 AM

it's valid, of course, for think tankers to say what they actually support, but O'Hanlon went off the deep end many years ago. he's consistently been pro-anything-related-to-mass-violence-and-war for at least five years now - all while still living under the Brookings banner. he's easily find a home at AEI or any other wingnut institution.

Posted by Peter | January 14, 2007 2:10 AM

Is a job requirement to work at TNR is the ability to babble on for pages in a condescending manner while revealing how naive you are about the world? TNR, neocons and todays conservatives are simply the next step in evolution of old-style radical Marxists whose answer to anything was righteous anger without any actual idea how to fix things ("Who cares if communism makes people starve? Capitalism exploits people and is imperialist! If you are against communism, you must be for exploitation and imperialism and love Hitler!"). There is a complete disconnect between the rhetoric, naivite, and ideology on one hand and means, scarcity of resources, agency and logistics toward accomplishing goals on the other. TNR and the Republican Party are practically straight out of some annoying ivory tower seminar at Harvard in the 1950's that talked about how great Columbus was because he spread liberalism or something despite the genocide and the virtues of modernization theory.

Posted by Reality Man | January 14, 2007 2:12 AM

If the second coming occurs this year, as a large part of the Republican base seems to expect, boy are the Democrats going to look foolish.

I guess we'd better prepare for that eventuality too, as it is about as likely as Bush coming up with a successful strategy in Iraq.

Posted by Carl from L.A. | January 14, 2007 2:29 AM

This isn't even political anymore. Who thinks that the fact that the President is always wrong only proves that his new ideas will be correct? (I mean, "agrees with the criticisms of some of his critics," that's the weakest shit ever.) Whoever thinks that is dumb like rocks and should be pushed off a cliff into the sea so as not to pollute future generations. We're trying to have a civilization here. Honestly. Fuck. I'm so frustrated.

Posted by justin | January 14, 2007 3:04 AM

Help get this right-wing fool thrown off the air!!!

Didn't CNN get the message from the last election....that the American public has rejected the right-wing extremist agenda?
Why is CNN giving prime-time every night to the ultra-right-wing extremist, Glenn Beck?

Please take just 10 seconds to click on this link and send a message to CNN telling them we don't want the airwaves innundated by this idiotic
low-grade right-wing propaganda!

http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?69

Posted by Markm8128 | January 14, 2007 3:24 AM

Nick Kaufman wrote, Also of note, the one guy in Brookings who was actually right about the whole mess, that is, Ivo Daalder, isn't working there anymore.

But didn't Daalder actually support the actual invasion itself?

Posted by liberal | January 14, 2007 4:17 AM

max wrote, Why *does* Pollack still have a spot at Brookings?

Brookings hasn't been liberal for quite some time; it's best described as "centrist."

Posted by liberal | January 14, 2007 4:22 AM

Nick Kaufman wrote, Also of note, the one guy in Brookings who was actually right about the whole mess, that is, Ivo Daalder, isn't working there anymore.

I should add that Daalder supports ballistic missile defense. One can argue that his support is qualified, but given the political realities behind BMD, even highly qualified support is wrong.

Posted by liberal | January 14, 2007 4:27 AM

Ivo Daadler? He was a one of Fukuyama's boys! He, was a signatory of the PNAC... give me a break. you guys are going to have to work harder to resurrect Evil Daadler... He is one of those 'Liberal Hawks' who is trying desparately to rub the blood off his hands.

Posted by Hubris Sonic | January 14, 2007 4:32 AM

Elsewhere in the liberal hawk multiverse, Jeffrey Herf explains that the Bush administration's long record of incompetence is a good reason to support the surge.

hey, they're bound to get it right sooner or later. Nobody can screw up that badly indefinitely.

...right?

Posted by r€nato | January 14, 2007 6:25 AM

As I read various articles about al_malikii's latest appointments, Kurdish brigades moving to Baghdad, Mahdi Army members setting aside their arms (but not turning them in), and Sunnis declaring they will target Shias, not Americans (all within the last 48 hours), I get a very eerie feeling.

I suspect the word from the White House, transmitted through al-Maliki to al-Sadr, is that the US has chosen sides. If I'm correct, Sunnis and the rare Al Qaida member will be in the crosshairs. This is designed to intimidate them into accepting a less than savory compromise on oil revenues and government power sharing arrangements.

The ultimate result? The surge might have some initial success, till it becomes evident that a new form of ethnic cleansing is underway. Desperate Sunni militia leaders will then seek ways to provoke Shia militias to promote fresh chaos, like they achieved with last February's mosque bombing.

Any temporary reduction in violence will soon be forgotten in the resulting mess.

Is this the new Bush policy? Quiet complicity in ethnic cleansing? If not, what other explanation ids there for the Mahdi Army to stand aside but not stand down? It suggests they feel this is their safest course, which means they don't feel threatened by additional US troops, but are keeping their weapons nearby, as they don't place 100% trust in the pending actions.

Posted by Kevin Hayden | January 14, 2007 6:42 AM

Best quote from Jeffrey Herf:

"If the Democratic party's national leadership continues in its opposition to the strategy Bush has just announced, and if, against expectations, that strategy is successful, Democrats may look forward to another decade or more of losing Presidential elections."

Now, THERE's a terrifying prospect with the power to concentrate minds. Other tactical blunders for the Dems to avoid: Criticizing Bush's personal crusade against cancer, which will blow up in their faces IF Bush develops a cure; resisting the Bush administration's switch-grass fuel initiative, which - IF it pans out - will cost the Democrats another 10 years of election losses; and dismissing out of hand the Republican plan to convert the corporate tax code into a system of voluntary contributions, which will leave the Dems looking like fools IF it produces a revenue gusher that pushes the budget back into surplus.

Posted by Dave L | January 14, 2007 7:58 AM

If the Democratic party's national leadership continues in its opposition to the strategy Bush has just announced, and if, against expectations, that strategy is successful, Democrats may look forward to another decade or more of losing Presidential elections.

First of all, it is wrong to decide the major policy issue of the time on the basis of voter polls (and even more so on the basis of imaginary future polls).

But second, and less idealistically, whenever the Democrats oretend to be tough out of fear of the voters, they look weak and hypocritical. Republicans have effective ways of pointing out that their candidates are the only ones who are really bloodyminded, so the Democrats can never outhawk them or even match them.

"Look at that little Democwat over there pwetending to be tough. Awwwww. Isn't he cute!"

Posted by John Emerson | January 14, 2007 8:35 AM

"wittle Democwat"

Posted by John Emerson | January 14, 2007 8:39 AM

VIDEO: Republican Senator WARNS our Government has LIED about WAR! Senator Hagel warns us with a lesson from the Vietnam War: our government lied to us then and could lie us into a war with Iran and Syria now.

Posted by Tom Murphy | January 14, 2007 8:40 AM

If I may run a correction, from what I see on the Brookings website, Daalder is still there, so I was wrong on that count.

I didn't get that impression out of thin air however. A couple of years ago, Daalder signed up with Dean's campaign and at the time I remember reading stories which featured Daalder and O'Hanlon having fights in the halls of Brookings.

I don't know Daalder's work intimately, but I ve read my fair share in the past couple of years and he definitely strikes me as someone who's reasonable and has a better grasp of situation than Hanlon.

To the posters who noted other Daalder's positions to disqualify him, I don't know, so I can't comment. But I do know that life and the policy universes are very complex and dynamic. Don't reject someone off hand just by what his position on one topic at one time or another.

Posted by Nick Kaufman | January 14, 2007 8:54 AM

It is truly sad that there is any need to "out bloodlust" the opposition. I agree with Justin
We're trying to have a civilization here. Honestly. Fuck. I'm so frustrated.

It is obvious why most news outlets are not trumpeting the end of elitist imperialism. Enjoy the bread and circus...

Posted by mikeypirate | January 14, 2007 9:25 AM

The problems are:

1. Think tank positions are supported, pretty directly, by contributions from organised groups in US civil society. Those contributions in the areas of foreign policy and security are mostly individuals and groups associated with 1. pentagon contractors and 2. right-wing Israeli lobby groups. So it's not surprising to find Democrat-affiliated think-tankers supporting PNAC proposals like the invasion of Iraq and military industrial complex issues like missile defence. It's by supporting these proposals that you can have a job in a think-tank. Universities provide much more independence for scholars, which is why university IR types tended (I would say) to support e.g. the invasion of Iraq rather less than the Washington foreign policy commentariat, and equally why those organisations which push right-wing Israeli policies like TNR lambast 'liberal' academia (the arms contractors feel the same way). They aren't Democrat think thanks - they're Boeing-and-AIPAC think-tanks first and foremost, and that limits the advice they can provide for the Democrats.

2. Even leaving aside the individual incentives facing various think-tankers, it has to be faced that getting out of Iraq could certainly be a complete fucking disaster. War between Turkey, the Kurds, the Iraqi army, the various militias, the Iranians and the Saudis. All the Gulf governments could collapse. Millions might die or be displaced. So everyone keeps hoping for a pony.

Posted by otto | January 14, 2007 9:36 AM

From where does Brookings funding come? How can it be cut off?

Posted by Kenneth Fair | January 14, 2007 10:24 AM

Wasn't Daalder a signatory of the PNAC? I don't consider any of these organisations to be scholarly, they are 'Rationalization Tanks". Instead of collecting data and forming conclusions, which is scientific, they are solely devoted to rationalizing a particular point of view, usually some shade of the status quo. They are rocks under which out of power politicos can crawl, to reemerge when the climate is right. And frankly, I blame the major universities for doing the same thing. Why is John Yoo a professor at U.C. Berkeley? Why is David Gergen a professor at Harvard? He let it slip on the night of 'shock and awe' that the war had been planned for more than a year. Well, many of us knew that, but the press had never mentioned this. The point being that Gergen is Gergen because of what he knows but DOESN'T tell. Some scholar, indeed!

Posted by larry, dfh | January 14, 2007 10:29 AM

Why *does* Pollack still have a spot at Brookings? Is it just to keep pop-in-law Ted Koppel happy?

Oh, family ties. I remember when Ted was on the Shituation Room, and mentioned that Andrea (CNN) was a childhood friend of Dana Bash (CNN, who is herself the daughter of a news producer. And you wonder why no-one in that cute little circle is ever declared persona non gratapersona non grata

It's time to kick Brookings on the list of stink-tanks most deserving of a midnight demolition crew.

Here's a deal: I will give $50 to the first person who asks Pollack, on live television or some other unedited audio or video environment, 'Why do you still have a job? Everything you predicted was wrong. If you were working at a grocery store, you'd have been fired by now.'

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | January 14, 2007 10:36 AM

Well, Gergen is at the Kennedy School, which is a little like Business Schools in terms of academic rigour. Interesting place, though. And Yoo would be a wild outsider in legal academia for his views on executive power and torture, whereas Pollack and Daalder are, ah, wild insiders when it came to enabling the invasion of Iraq.

But you're right that the academic with careerist ambitions outside academic faces the same incentives as as the careerist think-tanker. If they want appointments in the foreign affairs area, they must accomodate the Boeing-and-AIPAC crowd.

Posted by otto | January 14, 2007 10:41 AM

This is the best post subject of all time. I still love the nancy pelosi "I'm in ur house impeachin ur doodz" one. =D

Posted by Drew Miller | January 14, 2007 10:56 AM

O'Hanlon's initial remarks betray a fundamental failure to grasp the basic principles of rational discourse. How does it follow from the fact that some advocated for more troops at a prior time that they must now advocate for more troops at the present time?

Posted by jcasey | January 14, 2007 11:19 AM

Who the fuck are these people (other than paid off hacks and propagandists) that anyone should listen to them?

Posted by Sperm Donor | January 14, 2007 11:23 AM

What's the problem? If I fail to purchase a lottery ticket today, and if, against expectations, the lottery ticket that I would have bought turns out to be a winning one, then I may look forward to another decade of financial struggles (like the one that has resulted since I started taking out loans in order to buy lottery tickets).

Herf and O'Hanlon are merely pointing out that what you expect doesn't always happen. Perhaps I would be better off taking out some more loans in order to buy some more lottery tickets, because -- against expectations -- today's lottery ticket may actually win. As it is with money, so it is with the lives of teenagers.

What to do, what to do...

Posted by radish | January 14, 2007 11:24 AM

Herf: If the Democratic party's national leadership continues in its opposition to the strategy Bush has just announced, and if, against expectations, that strategy is successful, Democrats may look forward to another decade or more of losing Presidential elections.

So if the President calls for 20,000 and one year, Dems should make sure we call for 20,001 and 53 weeks.

Very seriously, what Herf calls for is a good strategy for playing "The Price Is Right."

Posted by jerry | January 14, 2007 11:27 AM

Sperm donor... "Who the fuck are these people (other than paid off hacks and propagandists) that anyone should listen to them?"

These people are paid hacks! The Right's political success over the past twenty-seven years has been due, in large part, to their use of think tanks... well-funded and media savvy. In public discourse, Brookings is presented as a 'liberal' think tank. However, if 'liberal' means left of center, then that is incorrect. Brookings presents itself as 'centrists' but in reality they are right of center... just not as far to the right as 'conservatives'.

Posted by Stick | January 14, 2007 11:39 AM

the comments on the Herf piece are great. The media's relentless reporting of reality is why we're losing, etc, etc. its nice to see what crowd actually reads TNR.

Posted by Mr. Todd | January 14, 2007 11:45 AM

To avoid the Price is Right Strategy that Herf gives us, David Kurtz at TPM suggests: For Democrats opposed to the Iraq war who still fear a backlash for not being tough enough, advocating for more resources for the wars in Afghanistan and against global terrorism has the dual benefit of showing a stiff spine and pursuing the right policy.

Posted by jerry | January 14, 2007 11:59 AM

This is the best post subject of all time. I still love the nancy pelosi "I'm in ur house impeachin ur doodz" one. =D

My wife's opinion was that this post title officially signifies the death of the joke. But as long as there's someone out there enjoying it...

Posted by Steve | January 14, 2007 12:11 PM

Jerry, I would suggest that Afghanistan may also be done. Putting new troops there now that we have lost any support will indeed give us another front; but in terms ofdoing anything useful it may be too late; a massive infusion of resourcesto build the nation might be useful but there are not those sort of resources or the will to use them this way. At this point I think beefing up our forces in Afghanistan might be a serious error.

Posted by della Rovere | January 14, 2007 12:43 PM

I still enoy all your base jokes so maybe I a couple standard deviations out on the internet. Also ultimate battle of ultimate destiny, and the george washington rap, and other things. I love America, pretty much.

Posted by Drew Miller | January 14, 2007 1:31 PM

O'Hanlon calling himself a skeptic, much less a liberal, is truly a crime against skepticism. The funniest thing about his piece, however, is his consideration of the fact that the Surge might fail. Being all skeptical and shit. So we'd just have to come up with plan b, of which he writes:

"Iraq would retain a loose confederal structure, a small national government and a mechanism for sharing oil revenue equally. But governance and security would be provided primarily by three autonomous regional governments.

Citizens would be given the chance to relocate to places where they felt safe, with the government and the coalition providing protection in the process as well as assistance with new housing and jobs."

I love it - Plan b is better than the surge! Apparently, after failing to modify the violence in Baghdad, we'd all just have to sigh, protect everybody, find everybody good jobs and houses, and - as an afterthought - call up the Iraqi government and say, okay, I guess you will just have to distribute those oil revenues equally.

The amazing thing is that a man who apparently understands zip about prospect theory, or scenario building, or even the definition of the word "skeptical" is considered a major thinker in D.C. Compared to O'Hanlon, Anna Nicole Smith is a genius. Why don't they have her write op eds about Iraq?

Posted by roger | January 14, 2007 3:13 PM

This is designed to intimidate [the Sunnis] into accepting a less than savory compromise on oil revenues and government power sharing arrangements.

Actually, FWIW, if I were a neo-con interested in nation-building in Iraq, I'd say the worst damned-fool mistake of the Bush I admin was not failing to pursue the Iraqis all the way to Baghdad, but of not just letting the Iraqis take Kuwait in the first place. If Iraq/Kuwait (which is mainly Sunni, isn't it?) were a single country, then the "Sunni region" (state, separate nation after a partition or whatever), which gerrymander would extend from Baghdad west and then loop around along the Saudi border to what's now Kuwait, would have an outlet to the Persian Gulf and plenty of oil for itself. The Sunnis are screwed by any majority rule (which gives a strong incentive to oppose democracy and/or power sharing and hence to oppose the ostensible neo-con plan for Iraq) because Saddam Hussein was not successful in taking Kuwait: if Saddam Hussein took Kuwait, things would be different, perhaps.

So, do we know what the neo-cons were saying before the Gulf war? We do know that the first Bush admin all but gave Saddam Hussein the green light to invade Iraq. The more conspiratorial folk have wondered whether GHW Bush was just scheming to have a nice, little war. But maybe, as conspiratorial folk often do, they are missing the trees for the forest. What if individual neo-cons (e.g. people with known ties to Iran via Iran/Contra) had already had an idea to destroy, as a favor to Iran or something, Saddam Hussein and wanted to encourage Hussein to take Kuwait to make sure the Sunnis would be happy in a post-Saddam Hussein, potentially Iranian friendly Iran.

Posted by DAS | January 14, 2007 4:13 PM

Matthew Y:

This is sort of naive. Democrats don't listen to these people. They listen to the same people who pay O'Hanlon's and Pollack's salaries. You continually repeat the mistake of arguing as if these things were hashed out in the empyrean realm of ideas.

And can we stop referring to it as The Brookings Institution and just call it the Saban Institute already?

As for David Kurtz at TPM: given what he knows about the state of our military and the prospects for withdrawal from Iraq, and that he's advocating more troops for Afghanistan, doesn't that make him a chickenhawk? The question is rhetorical. He is.

Posted by brendan | January 14, 2007 4:26 PM

Just like the NYT "laundered" fake intelligence, "think tanks" launder foreign policy aims by getting them treated as sober, dispassionate ideas. Unfortunately, all our foreign policy aims are Israeli ones, so even more laundering than usual is required.

One set of consumers of this stuff is politicians and all their satellites, for whom think-tank effluvia serve as instructions, signals and talking points for decisions that have already been made. Politicians, who implement policies, are not "convinced" by this garbage. Just look at Fred Kagan. Do you think the merit of his prescriptions has swayed any one, least of all in the military?

Meanwhile, overeducated dopes like me and you are the other audience for think tank detritus. We're just like the party members in 1984; the proles didn't have to suffer this propagandizing.

Posted by brendan | January 14, 2007 4:44 PM

Here's a deal: I will give $50 to the first person who asks Pollack, on live television or some other unedited audio or video environment, 'Why do you still have a job? Everything you predicted was wrong. If you were working at a grocery store, you'd have been fired by now.'

Posted by: pseudonymous in nc

Hell, I'd chip in. Someone more high-profile and motivated than you or me (hint hint nudge nudge, Matt) should take up a collection, PayPal accepted and all that. We could easily get a few thousand dollars together here.

It probably shouldn't be exclusive to Pollack though: it's too likely to go unclaimed, and he might not be high-profile enough. But there should be a predetermined list of targets, about a dozen or so. If a thousand people contribute $50 each — $50 each might be too much to expect, but then again, a well-organized effort could pull in a lot more than a thousand contributors — that would go a long way to make up for the feared loss of money from doing something so gauche, and a canny critic could probably parlay it into a lot more. If the prize goes unclaimed within a certain time period, it would be contributed to Veterans for Peace or some other widely acceptable anti-war group.

Maybe this should even be set up so that some of the funds gathered would be left for the second person to ask the question. There's no reason to mock just one prognosticator, and we'd have to have a backup plan in case he actually comes up with a half-decent answer.

Posted by Cyrus | January 15, 2007 10:35 AM