Kevin Sullivan

I’m Very Sirius

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I’ll be a guest this evening on Sirius Radio’s Indie Talk channel 110 at 5 pm EST.  The program is called “The Blog Bunker,” and we’ll be talking about Iran, Iraq, the UN and the 2008 election. 

 Good times!  Check it out.   

We’re Running Out of Firewalls

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Jay Cost plays devil’s advocate for Hillary:

What happens to “It’s Over” if Clinton pulls a 40-point victory in West Virginia on Tuesday, then follows it up a week later with a 30-point victory in Kentucky? If these states turn out in the same margins that states since March 4th have averaged, that would imply a net of about 290,000 votes for Clinton. That puts her within striking distance of a reasonable popular vote victory. “Over” will be over as we turn our attention to Puerto Rico.

There are good reasons not to take Puerto Rico lightly, even though the press has continued to do exactly that. I would note: (a) Puerto Ricans vote in large numbers (2 million in the last gubernatorial election); (b) Puerto Ricans have never had this important a role in United States presidential politics; (c) Puerto Rico’s politics is focused at least partially on how (if at all) to adjust its relationship with the United States; (d) Puerto Rico’s is an open primary, and the residents of the Commonwealth, who are United States citizens, do not see themselves as Republicans or Democrats.

The inference I draw is that Puerto Ricans could turn out in huge numbers. If they do, and they swing for Clinton in a sizeable way, the popular vote lead could swing, too. Add 290,000 votes from West Virginia and Kentucky to 250,000 votes from Puerto Rico, account for expected losses in Oregon, Montana, and South Dakota, and you get Clinton leading in many popular vote counts, some of which are really quite valid. If she has one of those leads when the final votes are counted on June 3rd, the race will go on to the convention.

Where is Your UN Now!!?

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Sorry, couldn’t resist.  But hey, remember UNSC 1701?  You know, the one calling for only one armed military in Lebanon?  The one that said all weapons sales should be approved by the Lebanese government?  Those were the days. 

But don’t worry, this definitely isn’t a coup.  Nasrallah said so: “If we wanted to stage a coup, you would have woken up this morning in prison, or in the middle of the sea.”

Fair enough.  Gateway has videos, and photos and such.     

UPDATE:

Meet the new boss…same as the old boss. 

UPDATE II:

Can someone please explain to me how the guy with the UN man-crush seems to believe it was up to the Israelis, or somewhat haughty of the Israelis, to assume the Hezbollah “crushing” responsibilities? 

Obama Made the Pie Higher

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I’m not certain, were I Hillary Clinton, what I would do at this point.  I’m not hung up on the personal loan to her campaign, because she still has debts that will need to be paid regardless.  It’s difficult to figure out the rationale for her campaign from this point forward.  Todd Beeton sees the opportunity for some kind of “unity tour,” but that strikes me as a concessionary plan.  More like a farewell tour than a unity bid.

This race has been spliced a million times over by now, so I won’t add too much to the pile.  I think the big winner here is the emerging Democratic coalition.  The media harped on all of the identity politics surrounding Barack Obama’s candidacy, paying less attention to the shifting party coalitions that were in conflict during these primary contests.  Clinton’s post-Super Tuesday rationale became a retro act of sorts.  Her bid represented the last gasp of the “New Deal Coalition,” which had become synonymous with the Democratic Party itself (causing much consternation for my friend Dheeraj).  Obama has ostensibly reorganized the coalition, uniting black voters, young voters and college-educated whites behind his message.  It’s not clear yet if Clinton’s support base will return home to the party, but I think it’s safe to say that the Democrats need these new voters pulled in by Obama’s candidacy.   

In short, Barack Obama has made the pie higher. 

UPDATE: Just in case there’s any confusion, the title is a Bush joke. 

More at memeorandum      

Knock on Wood

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Is it over?

Panic

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Your Hypotheticals Need Work

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Spencer Ackerman does a poor Persian:

Let’s say you’re Iran.

You look to your east and there are a bunch of U.S. troops. You look to your west and there are a bunch of U.S. troops. You send out peace feelers, but they’re rejected. Then you get pissed off and elect a Holocaust-denying asshole as your president. You get it through your head that the people who have encircled you and who for nearly 30 years have talked incessantly about overthrowing you (again) might have inadvertently given you a gift. What gift? The gift of thinking your best friends are actually their allies? Well, there’s that. But the real gift is tens of thousands of their troops that you can pay someone to attack. You might even try to kill U.S. troops at several steps removed — like the U.S. did the Soviets in Afghanistan not too long ago.

Facts are important things. It’s not yet proven that the Iranians truly are doing this. But it makes perfect sense to me that they would. Not only have we invaded and occupied two of their neighbors, we’re involved in a worldwide effort to stop them from achieving any form of nuclear technology, we step up patrols in the Persian Gulf and we even build military bases a stone’s throw from their border. In the hands of the dolts and warmongers who both staff this administration and have their designs on the next one, the U.S.-Iran War is a Gulf Of Tonkin incident just waiting to happen. A patriotic Iranian — certainly one who works for a bellicose Iranian president — would, most likely, try to kill U.S. troops while leaving no fingerprints.

First, let’s address the “backs against the wall” theory.  The Iranian government supported anti-Taliban factions–such as Ishmael Khan and various Shi’a Hazaras–in Afghanistan, and their basic interests in the region were essentially parallel to our own in 2002 (despite the Supreme Leader’s rhetoric).  They supported the invasion of Afghanistan, and in fact believed the Taliban to be an American/Sunni plot against them!  Surely, it must trouble the Iranians to know that a hostile occupying force stands to their immediate east, but it hasn’t been any worse than dealing with the anti-Shiite factions that dominated Afghanistan prior to the invasion.  Our “occupation” of Afghanistan has been half-assed at best, and if anything, has likely made some of the Sunni factions there rethink their rivalry with Iran.  Iran applied a layered foreign policy in Afghanistan, wherein they supported dissidents, nationalists and even logical opponents (something we should keep in mind while addressing Iranian involvement in Iraq).  In short, the United States handled some Iranian housekeeping in Afghanistan, and probably forced some of their Afghan enemies to come calling with hats in hand.  Much like in Iraq, we’ve given the Iranians some regional leverage in Afghanistan.

On Jindal

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What Ross Douthat said.  I know there’s a good debate to be had over the veep selection, whether it generally helps or hinders the ticket, etc., but I think a Jindal selection would ultimately hurt all parties involved.  I know the GOP is eager to balance out a ticket laden with age and Bush baggage, but the impulse to adopt a “rising star” running mate could not only harm McCain, it could also hurt the future of the party.

First of all, Jindal’s successes to this point are still mostly a game of expectations.  Beyond signing some important reform legislation in Louisiana, Jindal hasn’t really done much yet.  As Douthat points out, the Obama rationale doesn’t really apply to him.  He’s shoring up a ticket rather than defining it, which means he’ll need to fit McCain’s message and strategy.  Perhaps one could make the case that Jindal’s domestic health care resume compliments a foreign policy-oriented nominee, but not much else. 

And for Jindal, it could only hurt him to leave Lousiana now and become a marginal “national” figure.  Jindal is establishing a political base and a record of reform which could make him top ticket material one day.  Timing plays an important role in electoral politics, and we tend to publicly punish “rising stars” who overreach too early (see Dan Quayle). 

More at memeorandum   

Lee Greenwood is Awesome

Posted by Kevin Sullivan under Blog posts

That is all. 

Intentions over Outcomes

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Have UN peacekeepers been complicit in African elephant poaching?  Dan Hannan isn’t surprised:

I’ve argued before that, for many Lefties, intentions seem to matter more than outcomes. But how bad do the outcomes have to be before intentions are no longer an excuse? What has to happen before people face up to the real UN (or EU or IOC or whatever) instead of fantasising about some abstract one?

Appropriately enough, the kind of people who are most unthinkingly pro-UN tend also to be the ones most opposed to the ivory trade. Intentions over outcomes, you see. In truth, the ban on ivory sales has been calamitous, both for Africans and elephants. Experience shows that it is far more effective to declare elephants the property of the people who own the land they roam, thus giving locals an incentive to treat them as a renewable resource.

I have little interest in Hannan’s ode to private property, but his greater point is well taken.  There are, ahem, some pundits and bloggers who believe that the UN–while not a perfect institution by any stretch–still stands as the best alternative to the anarchic, Hobbesian world that would presumably fill the void. 

There are several problems with this false dichotomy, and Hannan hits upon one of them here.  The primary issue with the “UN as ideal” argument is that it depends on this crazy idea that the world would immediately revert to a late-19th Century, multi-polar nightmare.  But this time, there are nukes, powerful missiles and other WMD’s.

I think Richard Haass has done a pretty good job of dispelling this myth; describing a “non-polar” world where the UN is simply an actor among several, rather than a confederate umbrella monitoring the whole system.  Banning the killing of elephants is not the issue; the question is whether or not disinterested or overly interested external actors should be voting and intervening on what are essentially regional problems.  The CITES ban–while certainly good intentioned and feel good–hasn’t helped Kenyan elephants, nor has it balanced out the ivory trade.  However, when local actors moved to do something about the problem, the adjustments were far more beneficial.  Zimbabwe and South Africa, for example, now have more elephants than they can handle.

More at memeorandum