{"id":206,"date":"2006-12-11T07:11:27","date_gmt":"2006-12-11T12:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=206"},"modified":"2007-02-27T22:04:42","modified_gmt":"2007-02-28T03:04:42","slug":"the-fog-of-factional-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=206","title":{"rendered":"The Fog of Factional War"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><meta http-equiv=\"Content-Language\" content=\"en-us\" \/> <meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=windows-1252\" \/><title>The New York Times is scrambling<\/title>The <em>New York Times<\/em> is scrambling to make sense of the failed Realist  coup that was supposed to accompany the publication of James Baker&#8217;s Iraq Study  Group report.<\/p>\n<p>One early <em>Times<\/em> effort<em> <\/em>pitted <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=204\">Condoleezza Rice as the  leader of the anti-Baker faction<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>More recently, the <em>Times<\/em> tries out a few other approaches in an  article entitled, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2006\/12\/10\/us\/politics\/10elect.html?pagewanted=all\">Report  on Iraq Exposes a Divide within the G.O.P.<\/a>&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>One approach emphasizes the role of domestic Republican politics and cites a  Wesleyan colleague, Douglas Foyle:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>No matter what positions they take today, all Republicans would prefer  \tthat the 2008 elections not be fought on the battleground of Iraq, said  \tDouglas Foyle, professor of government at Wesleyan University.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want the 2008 presidential and Congressional campaign to be  \tabout staying the course,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Professor Foyle said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153<strong>That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where the  \tcalculus of Bush and the Republicans diverge very quickly. Everyone is  \tthinking about the next election, and Bush doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have one<\/strong>.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Other voices in the article also alleged that the Baker Report is supposed to  function as cover for &#8220;cut and run&#8221; Republicans:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Bill Kristol, the neoconservative editor of The Weekly Standard and a  \tleading advocate of the decision to invade Iraq, said: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In the real world,  \tthe Baker report is now the vehicle for those Republicans who want to  \textricate themselves from Iraq&#8230;&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But Kristol knows that the conflict is not simply about the audacity of a  lame duck and the cautiousness of those &#8220;thinking about the next election.&#8221;\u00c2\u00a0  As Kristol suggests, the emphasis on domestic politics only goes so far in  explaining the split within the Republican party.\u00c2\u00a0 After all, says Kristol,  one of the most prominent &#8220;rejectionists&#8221; is also the leading Republican  presidential candidate for 2008, John McCain:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;McCain is articulating the strategy for victory in Iraq. Bush will have  \tto choose, and the Republican Party will have to choose, in the very near  \tfuture between Baker and McCain.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The <em>Times<\/em> authors also seem to discard the electoral politics  explanation that pits lame duck hawks against pandering doves:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Senator John McCain of Arizona, a leading candidate for the Republican  \tpresidential nomination, rejected the major recommendations of the group  \tbecause they did not present a formula for victory. <strong>Mr. McCain, hoping to  \tclaim the Republican mantle on national security issues, has staked out a  \tmuscular position on Iraq<\/strong>, calling for an immediate increase in American  \tforces to try to bring order to Baghdad and crush the insurgency.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This leads to the second approach adopted by the <em>New York Times<\/em>  article, one that emphasizes the role of ideological factionalism:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>A document that many in Washington had hoped would pave the way for a  \tbipartisan compromise on Iraq instead drew sharp condemnation from the  \tright, with hawks saying it was a wasted effort that advocated a shameful  \tAmerican retreat.<\/p>\n<p>The Wall Street Journal\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s editorial page described the report as a  \t\u00e2\u20ac\u0153strategic muddle,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Richard Perle called it \u00e2\u20ac\u0153absurd,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Rush Limbaugh labeled  \tit \u00e2\u20ac\u0153stupid,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and The New York Post portrayed the leaders of the group,  \tformer Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, a former  \tDemocratic member of Congress, as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153surrender monkeys\u00e2\u20ac\u009d&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The choice Mr. Kristol is describing reflects a longstanding Republican  \tschism over policy and culture between ideological neoconservatives and  \tso-called realists. Through most of the Bush administration, the  \tneoconservatives\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 idea of using American military power to advance democracy  \taround the world prevailed, pushed along by Vice President Dick Cheney and  \tMr. Rumsfeld.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Of course, it is true that the so-called Neoconservatives&#8211;aka Right  Zionists&#8211;have been howling about the Baker Report.<\/p>\n<p>The problem with this explanation of the new factionalism, however, is that  most of the actual so-called &#8220;ideological neoconservatives&#8221;&#8211;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.baltimoresun.com\/news\/nationworld\/iraq\/bal-te.perle28mar28,0,5194935.story?coll=bal-iraq-headlines\">including  Richard Perle<\/a>&#8211;were long ago purged from the administration (if <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=172\">not Congress<\/a>) and <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=140\">Right Arabists occupy key  posts<\/a> in the White House, the State Department, the CIA, and the military  brass.<\/p>\n<p>So, if the Right Zionists are pleased to observe some White House &#8220;push back&#8221;  against Baker, they are cheering from the side-lines, largely <em> <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=183\">in absentia<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the only meaningful exceptions&#8211;now that Bolton is gone&#8211;are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/15896208\/\">Elliottt Abrams<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.zmag.org\/content\/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10185\">a Right  Zionist named David Wurmser<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 The key to Wurmser&#8217;s protected status, if  there is any, is that he works in the <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=141\">Office of the Vice  President<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But Cheney himself doesn&#8217;t exactly fit the profile of an &#8220;ideological  neoconservative&#8221;&#8211;least of all on the basis of the skewed definition offered up  by the<em> Times<\/em> (&#8220;using military power to advance democracy around the  world&#8221;).\u00c2\u00a0 Just check out <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2006\/05\/06\/world\/europe\/06cheney.html?ex=1304568000&#038;en=cac41c94b5ce915b&#038;ei=5088&#038;partner=rssnyt&#038;emc=rss\"> Cheney in Kazakhstan<\/a> to appreciate the gap.\u00c2\u00a0 Cheney is hardly a  promoter of democracy for its own sake; not quite a &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=144\">true  believer<\/a>.&#8221;\u00c2\u00a0 And, historically at least, <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=56\">not a particularly reliable  Right Zionist<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=205\">Cheney is the leader of  the rejectionist faction<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 But to what end?<\/p>\n<p>The new factionalism is only indirectly about the Gulf, although it is about  energy politics.\u00c2\u00a0 The key split increasingly looks like a battle between <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=197\">competing approaches to  Russia<\/a>, with <a href=\"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=198\">Iran,  Iraq, and Israel<\/a> hanging in the balance.<\/p>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New York Times is scramblingThe New York Times is scrambling to make sense of the failed Realist coup that was supposed to accompany the publication of James Baker&#8217;s Iraq Study Group report. One early Times effort pitted Condoleezza Rice as the leader of the anti-Baker faction. More recently, the Times tries out a few [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,3,9,10,11,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}