Between Two Worlds

Military historian Victor Davis Hanson summed it up in an article with this subtitle: "Our bad and worse choices about Iran." Here is an excerpt, with the four options Hanson sees, marked by me in bold:

When a supposedly unhinged Mr. Ahmadinejad threatens the destruction of Israel and then summarily proceeds to violate international protocols aimed at monitoring Iran’s nuclear industry, we all take note. Any country that burns off some of its natural gas at the wellhead while claiming that it needs nuclear power for domestic energy is simply lying. Terrorism, vast petroleum reserves, nuclear weapons, and boasts of wiping neighboring nations off the map are a bad combination.

So we all agree on the extent of the crisis, but not on the solutions, which can be summarized by four general options.

First is the ostrich strategy — see and hear no evil, if extending occasional peace feelers out to more reasonable mullahs. Hope that “moderates” in the Iranian government exercise a restraining influence on Mr. Ahmadinejad. Sigh that nuclear Iran may well become like Pakistan — dangerous and unpredictable, but still perhaps “manageable.” Talk as if George Bush and the Iranians both need to take a time out.

I doubt that many serious planners any longer entertain this passive fantasy, especially after the latest rantings of Ahmadinejad. Pakistan, after all, has some secular leaders, is checked by nuclear India, and has a recent past of cooperation with the United States. Most importantly, it is more than ever a lesson in past laxity, as the United States and Europe were proven criminally derelict in giving Dr. Khan and his nuclear-mart a pass — which may well come back to haunt us all yet.

Alternatively, we could step up further global condemnation. The West could press the U.N. more aggressively — repeatedly calling for more resolutions, and, ultimately, for sanctions, boycotts, and embargos, energizes our allies to cut all ties to Iran, and provides far more money to dissident groups inside Iran to rid the country of the Khomeinists. Ensuring that democracy works in Iraq would be subversive to the mullahs across the border. Some sort of peaceful regime change is the solution preferred by most — and, of course, can be pursued in a manner contemporaneous with, not exclusionary to, other strategies.

It is a long-term therapy and therefore suffers the obvious defect that Iran might become nuclear in the meantime. Then the regime’s resulting braggadocio might well deflate the dissident opposition, as the mullahs boast that they alone have restored Iranian national prestige with an Achaemenid bomb.

A third, and often unmentionable, course is to allow the most likely intended target of nuclear Iran, Israel, to take matters into its own hands. We know this scenario from the 1981 destruction of Saddam’s French-built Osirak nuclear reactor: the world immediately deplores such “unilateral” and “preemptory” recklessness, and then sighs relief that Israel, not it, put the bell on the fanged cat.

But 2006 is not 1981. We are in war with Islamic radicalism, at the moment largely near the Iranian border in Iraq and Afghanistan. The resulting furor over a “Zionist” strike on Shia Iran might galvanize Iraqi Shiites to break with us, rather than bring them relief that the Jewish state had eliminated a nearby nuclear threat and had humiliated an age-old rival nation and bitter former enemy. Thousands of Americans are in range of Iranian artillery and short-term missile salvoes, and, in theory, we could face in Iraq a conventional enemy at the front and a fifth column at the rear.

And Iran poses far greater risks than in the past for Israeli pilots flying in over the heart of the Muslim world, with 200-300 possible nuclear sites that are burrowed into mountains, bunkers and suburbs. Such a mission would require greater flight distances, messy refueling, careful intelligence, and the need to put Israeli forces on alert for an Iranian counterstrike or a terrorist move from Lebanon. Former Israeli friends like Turkey are now not so cordial, and the violation of Islamic airspace might in the short-term draw an ugly response, despite the eventual relief in Arab capitals at the elimination of the Iranian nuclear arsenal.

If the Israeli raids did not take out the entire structure, or if there were already plutonium present in undisclosed bunkers, then the Iranians might shift from their sickening rhetoric and provide terrorists in Syria and Lebanon with dirty bombs or nuclear devices to “avenge” the attack as part of a “defensive” war of “striking back” at “Israeli aggression”. Europeans might even shrug at any such hit, concluding that Israel had it coming by attacking first.

The fourth scenario is as increasingly dreaded as it is apparently inevitable — a U.S. air strike. Most hope that it can be delayed, since its one virtue — the elimination of the Iranian nuclear threat — must ipso facto outweigh the multifaceted disadvantages.

The Shiite allies in Iraq might go ballistic and start up a second front as in 2004. Muslim countries, the primary beneficiaries of a disarmed Iran, would still protest loudly that some of their territories, if only for purposes of intelligence and post-operative surveillance, were used in the strike. After Iraq, a hit on Iran would confirm to the Middle East Street a disturbing picture of American preemptory wars against Islamic nations.

Experts warn that we are not talking about a Clintonian one-day cruise-missile hit, or even something akin to General Zinni’s 1998 extended Operation Desert Fox campaign. Rather, the challenges call for something far more sustained and comprehensive — perhaps a week or two of bombing at every imaginable facility, many of them hidden in suburbs or populated areas. Commando raids might need to augment air sorties, especially for mountain redoubts deep in solid rock.

The political heat would mount hourly, as Russia, China, and Europe all would express shock and condemnation, and whine that their careful diplomatic dialogue had once again been ruined by the American outlaws. Soon the focus of the U.N. would not be on Iranian nuclear proliferation, or the role of Europe, Pakistan, China, and Russia in lending nuclear expertise to the theocracy, but instead on the mad bomber-cowboy George Bush. We remember that in 1981 the world did not blame the reckless and greedy French for their construction of a nuclear reactor for Saddam Hussein, but the sober Israelis for taking it out...

Supreme Court nominees are so mum about the major legal issues at their Senate confirmation hearings that the hearings serve little purpose and should probably be abandoned, Democratic Sen. Joe Biden said Thursday.

"The system's kind of broken," said Biden, a member of the Judiciary Committee considering the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito.

"Nominees now, Democrat and Republican nominees, come before the United States Congress and resolve not to let the people know what they think about the important issues," such as a president's authority to go to war, said Biden.

I agree with Senator Biden that the hearings should be abolished--but there may be another reason why we didn't get to hear more of Judge Alito's views. The answer is given by Richard Cohen--a supporter of Biden's politics and policies--who writes today in the Washington Post:

The only thing standing between Joe Biden and the presidency is his mouth. That, though, is no small matter. It is a Himalayan barrier, a Sahara of a handicap, a summer's day in Death Valley, a winter's night at the pole (either one) -- an endless list of metaphors intended to show you both the immensity of the problem and to illustrate it with the op-ed version of excess. This, alas, is Joe Biden.

The reviews for Biden's first crack at Samuel Alito, the humorless Supreme Court nominee, were murderous. The New York Times had Biden out on Page One -- normally a position to kill for -- only this time it was not a paean to his considerable merits, but an account of how it took him nearly three minutes of throat-clearing to ask his first question and then took the rest of his allocated 30 minutes just to get in four more. He concluded with about half a minute still left to him -- something of a personal best that even he had to acknowledge.

...his tendency, his compulsion, his manic-obsessive running of the mouth has become the functional equivalent of womanizing or some other character weakness that disqualifies a man for the presidency. It is his version of corruption, of alcoholism, of a fierce temper or vile views -- all the sorts of things that have crippled candidates in the past. It is, though, an innocent thing, as good-humored as the man and of no real policy consequence. It will merely stunt him politically.

...He has much to say -- and then too much to add. He is an anatomical disaster. His Achilles' heel is his mouth.

Someone actually did a breakdown for the Senators' questions and Alito's answers. In the alloted time, Biden spent 78% of the time asking questions and ruminating, and Alito took 22% of the time to answer. Biden's first "question" took 13 minutes.

Here's an example, courtesy of Peggy Noonan, of Biden's free-flowing talking:

What if a fella--I'm just hypothesizing here, Judge Alito--what if a fella said, "Well I don't want to hire you because I don't like the kind of eyeglasses you wear," or something like that. Follow my thinking here. Or what if he says "I won't hire you because I don't like it that you wear black silk stockings and a garter belt. And your name is Fred." Strike that--just joking, trying to lighten this thing up, we can all be too serious. Every 10 years when you see me at one of these hearings I am different from every other member of Judiciary in that I have more hair than the last time. You know why? It's all the activity in my brain! It breaks through my skull and nourishes my follicles with exciting nutrients! Try to follow me.

Noonan--who, unlike Cohen, does not agree with Biden's policies--actually finds Biden's logorrhea somewhat endearing:

The great thing about Joe Biden during the Alito hearings, the reason he is, to me, actually endearing, is that as he speaks, as he goes on and on and spins his long statements, hypotheticals, and free associations--as he demonstrates yet again, as he did in the Roberts hearings and even the Thomas hearings, that he is incapable of staying on the river of a thought, and is constantly lured down tributaries from which he can never quite work his way back--you can see him batting the little paddles of his mind against the weeds, trying desperately to return to the river but not remembering where it is, or where it was going. I love him. He's human, like a garrulous uncle after a drink.

One of the great mysteries of these hearings--as Hugh Hewitt, among others has pointed out--is why the Democrats continually kick themselves in the foot. If you want a nominee to stumble, to be caught in an inconsistency, to say something careless, what should you do? You should let him talk as much as possible! The more he talks, the more trouble he could be in. But the Democrat Senators consistently choose another strategy: talk so much that the nominee can hardly say a thing! It really is a mystery. But Cohen offers the most plausible explanation:

[Biden] has been in the Senate since 1973 and suffers, as nearly all senators do sooner or later, from the conviction that he and his colleagues are the center of the world. After all, no one -- with the possible exception of family members -- ever tells a senator to shut up. They are surrounded by fawning staff and generally treated as minor deities. They lose perspective, which is why, now that you've asked, they talk and talk at these hearings. They are convinced the world is watching. Actually, it's only a half a dozen shut-ins on C-SPAN -- and, of course, the nearly catatonic press corps. Everyone else is playing computer solitaire.

Wilkinson has a history of dramatic twists and turns. As his books became bestsellers, he stepped down from Walk Thru The Bible, which he founded. He decided to move to Hollywood to make movies, but then backed out. He moved to Johannesburg, but stayed less than two years. He relocated to Swaziland. He remained there about 18 months before returning to Georgia. Wilkinson has also delayed completion of his next book for Multnomah Press. And in late September 2005, he was to launch the Dream Giver Coach Network to be merged with the American Association of Christian Counselors. But he "pulled the plug on the entire venture," a source closely associated with Wilkinson told CT. "Bruce was quite broken at this time. [Dream for Africa] had physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially taken a serious toll on Bruce."

Speaking of Frame, if you don't want to wait for the third volume of his Theology of Lordship series to be published, you can read the entire ethics textbook online for free.

• Opening Pages Word
• Table of Contents Word
• Preface Word
• chapter 1: Introduction Word
• chapter 2: Ethical Glossary Word
• chapter 3: Divine Lordship Word
• chapter 4: Christian and Non-Christian Ethics Word
• chapter 5: Ethics and the Religions Word
• chapter 6: The Existential Tradition Word
• chapter 7: The Teleological Tradition Word
• chapter 8: The Deontological Tradition Word
• chapter 9: The Organism of Revelation Word
• chapter 10: Attributes of Scripture Word
• chapter 11: Sufficiency of Scripture Word
• chapter 12: Law in Biblical Ethics Word
• chapter 13: Applying the Law Word
• chapter 14: Situation and Norm Word
• chapter 15: Our Ethical Situation Word
• chapter 16: Redemptive History Word
• chapter 17: Our Chief End Word
• chapter 18: Goodness and Being Word
• chapter 19: Motives and Virtues Word
• chapter 20: The New Life as a Source of Ethical Knowledge Word
• chapter 21: Organs of Ethical Knowledge Word
• chapter 22: Introduction to the Decalogue Word
• chapter 23: The First Commandment Word
• chapter 24: The First Commandment Contemporary Issues Word
• chapter 25: The Second Commandment Word
• chapter 26: The Second Commandment Regulating Worship Word
• chapter 27: The Third Commandment Word
• chapter 28: The Fourth Commandment Word
• chapter 29: The Fourth Commandment Theology of the Sabbath Word
• chapter 30: The Fourth Commandment Sabbath in the New Covenant Word
• chapter 31: The Fifth Commandment Word
• chapter 32: The Fifth Commandment Family Church and State Word
• chapter 33: The Fifth Commandment Man and Woman Word
• chapter 34: The Fifth Commandment Equalities Word
• chapter 35: The Sixth Commandment Word
• chapter 36: The Sixth Commandment War and Punishment Word
• chapter 37: The Sixth Commandment Protecting Life Word
• chapter 38: The Seventh Commandment Word
• chapter 39: The Seventh Commandment Divorce Word
• chapter 40: The Seventh Commandment Reproduction Word
• chapter 41: The Eighth Commandment Word
• chapter 42: The Eighth Commandment Wealth and Poverty Word
• chapter 43: The Ninth Commandment Word
• chapter 44: The Tenth Commandment Word

The problem with government is that it is run by people, and people are flawed. They are not virtue machines. We are all of us, even the best of us, vulnerable to the call of the low: to greed, conceit, insensitivity, ruthlessness, the desire to show you're in control, in charge, in command.

If the problem with government is that it is run by people and not, as James Madison put it, angels, the problem with big government is that it is run by a lot of people who are not angels.

...the anti-big-government party isn't supposed to be so good at it, so enmeshed in it. The antigovernment party isn't supposed to be so good at oiling the steamroller's parts and pushing its levers. And so happy doing the oiling and pushing.

It isn't good to love the steamroller. In the end it can roll right over you, and all you stand for, or stood for.

Is there a way for Republicans to go? Stop trying to fit in. Stop being another atom in the steel. It does no good trying to run a better steamroller. It won't work. Steamrollers are not your friend.

• Blogging to Worship God
• Blogging to Worship God, Pt. 2
• Blogging to Worship God - Motives

alienation unconnected to, or vastly disproportionate to, real-life stimulus, but maintained because it reinforces one's sense of psychological legitimacy, via defining onself against an oppressor characterized as eternally depraved. (p. 6)

"My purpose will be to show that it must stop being considered "controversial" to acknowledge that cultural change played a central role here. Specifically, I believe that we cannot understand our past without fully facing that alienation and disidentification can thrive independently of modern causes because they can serve other psychological purposes. There can be no useful perspective on black America's trajectory that neglects the impact of therapeutic alientation. To move forward, we must trace it, face it, and erase it. This book, section by seciton, is about how we can do all three." (p. 12)

My impression is that many readers came away from my Losing the Race wondering why black America took the turn it did in the sixties. People often took the message of that book as being "Black people need to look inward and help themselves." I have no major problems with that proposition, but my aim was to show why we had gotten to the point that this that this would be considered news at all. As far as I am concerned, we can leave it to the eight-hundred-word newspaper editorialists to just proclaim that something is wrong and leave us with a final sentence along the lines of "Maybe it's time for black America to wake up."

In this book I have tried to make clearer ust what made the difference between black America in 1960 and black America today, and what this means in terms of where we go from here and why. Specifically, I hope to have shown that the nut of this issue is that black America turned upside down in a particular ten-year period, from 1960 to 1970, and that this era has left us a legacy much more damaging today than anything racism has left us.

My argument has been that it is not true that the reason for modern black America's ills is racism. The reason is a cultural shift now forty years old, that manifests itslef in the form of a meme. This meme took hold of blacks and whites in the wake of the antiauthoritarian atmosphere of the countercultural revolution. After that revolution and the specific things that sparked it were over, the meme piggybacked on human psychology and stuck around. Namely, opposition as an identity gives a sense of purpose to people deprived of one for any number of reasons and is a handy way of refreshing even an identity less damaged. The result has been especially tragic in black America: a way of responding to the world and forming judgments that correspond fitfully to reality, if at all. To not understand this is to not understand black America's past, present, or future.

Friends and relatives erupted in cheers and the town's church bells began ringing as word of the 12 miners' rescue became known.

"Believe in miracles," said West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin, who had expressed optimism throughout the ordeal.

"Twelve miners alive," said Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-West Virginia. She said she did not know where the 12 were found or their condition.

The mood, she said, was of "jubilation, incredible happiness, unspeakable joy."

These conservatives are attacked not because of the validity or judicious consideration of their views but because those views are supposedly heterodox for American blacks. Yet it is my opinion that many black people in the U.S. are politically and philosophically conservative--and many are in fact actually closeted Republicans, fearful of persecution by friends, business associates, society clubs, schoolmates and even churches.

It is time for American blacks to have a conversation about the phenomenon of Democrats persecuting black Republicans. Why is this happening? What is it that the Democrats don't want black folks to understand about Republicans? What is it that the Democrats don't want black folks to know about Democrats? And how is it that we have come to this point--after having endured so much--where we have ourselves curtailed the freedom of political expression through the threat of retaliatory consequences?