Why on earth are Congressional Democrats backing down? The word today is that the House and Senate Democratic caucuses are finalizing a new war spending bill that would eliminate any kind of timeline for ending the war. In its place are "benchmarks" that could cause the Iraqi government to lose some foreign aid -- unless President Bush suspends the penalties.

What are they getting in return? Some $20 billion in domestic spending and a long sought raise in the minimum age.

Pretty damn paltry.

It's beyond me why the Democrats are acting like they're swimming against the tide of popular opinion. The reality is just the opposite. Poll after poll in recent weeks has shown strong support for the Democratic position, such as a mid-May CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll showing that 54% of the public opposed Bush's early May veto of the Democratic-passed bill imposing a specific deadline for the withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq. By contrast, only 44% supported the veto.

Asked another way, 57% supported a deadline for beginning the withdrawal, while 41% opposed it. Other polls have shown similar results.

It appears that the Democratic leadership is so accustomed to its defensive crouch against Republican charges of being "weak on national security" -- the same reflex that led many Democratic officeholders to back the War Powers Resolutionin 2002 and so enable George W. Bush to lead us into this disastrous war -- that they just can't break the habit.

Why not just keep sending it back to Bush with timelines intact? Let him veto it. His claim that the Democrats are refusing to provide the money the troops need is pure baloney, and the public knows it. He is the one who is blocking the funds, and every time he mounts the White House rostrum to denounce the Democrats it becomes even more clear that the issue is his bloody-minded refusal to recognize reality and admit that his war (and his entire tenure in office) is a failure.

In fact, far from recognizing failure and adjusting policy, Bush has doubled down. Not simply with the "surge" we all know about, but with a quieter, mostly unacknowledged second surge that has led to a near-doubling of the number of combat troops in Iraq.

This despite the fact that the war has failed on every level. Recent reports from within the Bush administration reveal top security officials' admission that both Al Qaeda and the Taliban have grown stronger in the last year. Al Qaeda is now actually using its operations in Iraq (kidnapping for ransom, smuggling of oil and other commodities, bank robberies, etc) to fund expanded activities elsewhere in the Middle East and Europe. The organization has also rebuilt its command-and-control functions and is using the war -- and Iraqi revulsion against the US occupation -- as a prime recruiting and training tool.

A hundred or so US soldiers are dying nearly every month. Ron Paul, the Republican libertarian presidential condidate, said in the May 15 candidate debate that "the only thing worse than soldiers dying in vain is sending more men and women to die in vain." Odd to hear the echo of John Kerry's Vietnam era question -- "how do you ask a man to be the last to die for a mistake?" -- coming from a Republican. Unfortunately, all too many in that party have stuck with Bush on the war. That may well change in the next several months, but it is their misplaced loyalty which has stymied the Democrats maneuvering against Bush and the war in recent weeks -- together with just enough defections by conservative Democrats to give Republicans some leverage.

Meanwhile dozens of Iraqis are dying every day in sectarian killings, insurgent attacks, as collateral damage in US military operations, or in some other type of mayhem. More than two million Iraqis have fled the country, with most huddled in miserable conditions in Syria and Jordan. Another 1.9 million have been displaced internally, according to the UN; most of these have been driven from their homes by sectarian strife.

The biggest winner from the war in Iraq has been Iran, which has seen its bitterest enemies Saddam Hussein and the Taliban eliminated courtesy of the US military. Iran undoubtedly takes some comfort from the knowledge that the vaunted US military -- far from imposing our will across the Middle East -- is strained to the breaking point just maintaining force levels in the Iraq theater, never mind attempting a major attack against another, stronger nation.

Internally, the winners are fundamentalist Shiite forces who see in the current situation an opportunity for payback against decades of repression at the hands of Sunni leaders (of whom Saddam Hussein was only the latest).

And it makes sense in a way that we're hearing questions not asked since the Vietnam days. That was the last time US influence and standing in the world was so degraded.

We can't allow the fourth anniversary of Bush's Top Gun moment to pass unmentioned. Wasn't it a fine moment in our history when our flyboy president rode onto the carrier Abraham Lincoln and proclaimed the end of main combat?

Perfectly appropriate of the Democrats to drape the newly-passed Iraq War spending supplemental around his shoulders, deadline and all. Bush vetoed it, as promised, but it's beyond me why they should be signalling a willingness to remove timelines in favor some fairly ill-defined benchmarks.

Bush meanwhile draped himself in generals as he denounced the Democrats. He said the measure would “impose impossible conditions on our commanders in combat” by forcing them to “take fighting directions from politicians 6,000 miles away in Washington, D.C.”

This from the man who fired Army Chief of Staff Gen. Shinseki before the war when he had the temerity to tell Congress it would take "several hundred thousand" troops to secure Iraq. 'Nonsense,' quoth all the sage men. Not to mention the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors who predicted the war would cost $50-100 billion. (The most recent war spending bill pushes the total well past $500 billion.)

And the man who fired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers last summer because he refused to endorse the "surge." Myers and his top general on the ground in Iraq both got retired before their time, replaced by the more pliant David Petraeus. Bush then imposed the so-called new approach -- more accurate to call it a desperate punt.

The Karl Rove strategy is obviousy to harp on the F-word, as in Failure: “Setting a deadline for withdrawal is setting a date for failure, and that would be irresponsible,” Mr. Bush said. “Failure in Iraq should be unacceptable to the civilized world.”

Harry Reid was only stating the obvious last week when he called the war "lost." Meaning it's long past the time that the US is capable of influencing the situation in Iraq in a positive direction, much less control or direct it.

Bush knows his war is lost. His whole strategy now is to kick the can down the line until he leaves office, whence he can proclaim for the rest of his life that all would have been well if Congress had only listened to him.

What are we to make of the Barack Obama phenomenon? From political unknown to US Senator to '04 Democratic convention sensation to leading candidate for the '08 presidential nomination, he has emerged to shock many with the depth and breadth of both his fund-raising prowess and political appeal.

Offspring of a man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas, raised in a series of internationalist, multicultural milieus -- grade school at an Islamic school in Jakarta, pre-teen and teenage years in multiracial Hawaii, high academic achievement and honor at Harvard Law School, where he became editor of the Law Review -- Obama is unique.

For one who cherishes a healthy skepticism toward the possibilities inherent in America's two-party system, it's hard not to consider Obama's emergence on the political scene as one of the most hopeful developments to come down the pike since....well, for a long time. Will he be the first black president? And what does that possibility say about our country?

Let's start with the qualities that make him an attractive candidate. He's young and handsome. He's a "fresh" presence on the political scene who makes a point of speaking in a unifying and positive manner. He's capable of an eloquence born of the black church, which undoubtedly helps him to rise above the ghost-written, focus group-tested rhetoric on which all too many politicians rely.

It helps that Obama is able to present the case for the progressive agenda -- universal health care, tax equity, taking action against global warming, opposition to the war --in the same affirmative language. These are positions that in substantive terms show widespread support among voters yet have been successfully tarred and feathered by Republican strategists from Lee Atwater to Karl Rove, who have been able to make the L word into an epithet.

In contrast to the race-infused politics of previous election cycles, however, Obama's multiracial background makes him all the more appealing to a broad spectrum of the American public, including many whites.

Does it mean we are finally moving beyond race? Not necessarily. Many whites believe that active discrimination against blacks is a thing of the past and that, therefore, the poverty and other ills afflicting many blacks and other people of color stem mainly from a lack of motivation, bad personal choices, or other such causes.

Obama's emergence may owe something to whites who believe they see in him an affirmation that America is truly the land of opportunity. That we live in a country which truly does reward hard work, intelligence, and a willingness to "play by the rules." And I believe there is a sense on the part of many white Obama supporters that by embracing a black candidate they are actually helping the nation overcome its legacy of racism and discrimination.

Many blacks, for their part, like him -- not because he's black, but because he's proven his commitment to working on behalf of the black community. He took time between college and law school to work as a community organizer in Chicago's impoverished South Side. And after law school he turned down job offers from prestigious corporate law firms in favor of practicing civil rights law.

And they like him because he married a highly accomplished black woman and attends a mostly black church. For all his comfort and accomplishment in a white-dominated world and his background in a multicultural world, he's embraced his black roots as well.

For Obama, securing the nomination, let alone being elected, is obviously far from assured. But as the process unfolds, Obama's trump card may prove to be the war: he is the one major candidate with a clear record of having opposed the war from the beginning. The concerns he raised before the war -- on the floor of the Illinois State Senate or, as here, at an antiwar rally in Chicago on Oct. 26, 2002, still resonate:

"I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda."

For Obama, being proved right on the central issue of our time is surely no comfort, given the dire consequences Bush's war has imposed upon the US, Iraq, and beyond. But it certainly puts the lie to the most frequently heard criticism regarding Obama -- namely, his lack of experience.

The formidable money machine of Hillary and Bill Clinton, together with Hillary's undeniable political appeal, will undoubtedly make this a close battle. And in truth, the nation would probably be well-served by a President (Hillary) Clinton or Edwards or -- for that matter -- Gore. But I believe it is Obama who possesses the qualities capable of truly setting us on a more progressive, more inclusive path.

To hear the talking heads tell it, the Democrats ought to be really worried. Why? Because both the Senate and the House of Representatives -- both controlled by the Democrats of course -- have passed emergency military spending bills that impose a deadline for withdrawal from Iraq.

By March of 08 in the case of the (nonbinding) version passed by the Senate, September of the same year in the House. Bush, meanwhile, is vowing to veto the $122 billion bill unless Democrats remove the deadlines.

I actually heard Ken Ruden, political editor for the famously leftwing media outlet NPR, speaking on the Talk of the Nation segment "Political Junkie," warn the Democrats that appearing too hardline would hurt them politically with the voters. What's really appalling is that there's a whole sub-industry of such experts, always ready to spout a story line that allows them to hover "above the fray," telling one party or another when it's gone too far. (Correction -- I mean, telling the Democrats when they've gone too far.)

Some Democratic pundits were getting in on the act as well. As an NYT piece describes, “If getting out of Iraq defines entirely who the Democrats are on national security, then over the long run, it will be a disaster,” said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a moderate Democratic group. Rather, Iraq needs to be part “of a larger strategy aimed at showing how to protect America’s national security interests,” he said.

Do say. Well I say, let the president veto away. All that will accomplish is to let the American people know that it is the Democratic Party that wants to end the war, while the Republicans want to continue it indefinitely.

Despite Bush's empty bombast. Speaking today, he said, in part: "If Congress fails to pass a bill to fund our troops on the front lines, the American people will know who to hold responsible." Indeed they will.

I don't know why we're even still talking about this. The 2006 midterm elections decisively repudiated Bush's war. While some Republicans have broken from the party line (2008 vulnerables like Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon or GOP presidential candidate, Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel) most continue to line up and salute the Commander-in-Chief when asked.

It's a tragedy for Iraq and for our nation, and will only lead to more lives being squandered for the dying embers of the neocon dream about remaking the Middle East in our image. The war will also drag down every Republican office-holder or candidate in the '08 elections. So for that we can be happy. But it comes at a high price.

Meanwhile polls continue to show strong opposition to the war and Bush's handling of it. A USA Today/Gallup poll out yesterday shows 60% favoring a deadline for withdrawal no later than September 2008, with only 38% opposing.

Democrats should also be delighted about the answers to other questions in the poll. Fully 70% answered the question -- Do you think Congress is going too far-just right-not far enough in challenging President Bush's Iraq policies -- by saying either "not far enough" or "just right."

So who's getting hurt politically here? If anything the Democrats are being too timid. But for now, Pelosi and Co. are handling it quite intelligently and are quietly ratcheting up the pressure.

(Following previous post). And how odd. Thinking back to China's first halting steps in the modern international community. Back in the seventies and even into the eighties, when the Canton Trade Fair was the country's primary external trade venue.

Back when the crossover into China meant walking across the wooden bridge at Shenzhen, stiff sentries of the People's Liberation Army staring impassively, overhanging razor wire on the border fence. Pausing for noodles and overly sweet-sour pork while awaiting the on-going Shenzhen to Canton (Guangzhou) express, those white-seat covers and soft-class seats.

I always stared intently at the villages and river scenes passing before my eyes on the 2-hr run up to Guangzhou. Wondering about how China's class wars played out even in the villages near Hongkong.

The Friendship Store was a major part of most foreign residents' live, like it or not, and an attractant to materially-starved Chinese. Often they were people who had relatives abroad, who were better educated and had aspirations of getting themselves or their cildren out of China.

Getting too close to Chinese friends or co-workers -- more than one visit to the other's home -- gave rise to warnings from unit Party secretaries. Thus friendships or other relationships were sometimes fraught with uncertain motives on one or the other. When someone asked me to buy a washing machine on their behalf, was it purely mercenary on their part -- or is that what friends do for each other in China? (The answer is yes to both.)

Another world from today's China, dominated by sophisticated go-getters (in both Party and corporate circles) comfortable at home or in the world's capitals. The confident and connected people in China stay home, where the opportunity is, rather than seek to emigrate.

Back when even getting to Beijing or Shanghai was an impossible dream to most Chinese. You could pick out the rubes in town from the deep countryside. Chinese needed internal passports (hukou) to travel. Major cities were surrounded by lines on the map beyond which foreigners could not tread -- amplified by warning signs in Russian and English. Other cities were simply off-limits.

The old cliche was "when America sneezes, the rest of the world comes down with the flu." It appears the hospital slippers may now be on the other foot.

China's (perenially volatile) stockmarkets tumbled some 9% today, leading to a nearly 3.5% drop in the S & P 500, the broadest stock index on the New York exchange. European markets fell apace.

On one level, it was a kneejerk reaction to a sell-off in China after shares had risen 130% over the last year, driven by fears that the Chinese government would impose a capital gains tax or take other measures to rein in financial markets. While US or other international mutual funds have invested in the Chinese market, it remains a highly speculative, high-risk venue. And a highly corrupt marketplace: illegal trading, rampant bribery of government officials to gain key licenses and other operating permits, and myriad other types of skulduggery make stock markets in China anything but fair. So no one should have been overly surprised.

But international markets have become so interconnected and liquid, it's inevitable that an upset in one leads to headaches in the other. What's more, the fall-off in Shanghai and Shenzhen share markets reinforced pre-existing fears that the US economy may not be as strong as market conventional wisdom would have it. Thus the sharp drop in durable goods orders reported by the Commerce Department today spooked investors.

More directly, markets feared that international companies with heavy exposure in China -- especially mining and construction materials-related concerns -- would be hardhit if the Chinese government succeeds in its aim of cooling its redhot economy.

So hold onto your hats -- it's going to be a wild ride.

One thing puzzles me about vociferous attempts from mostly rightwing commentators to debunk the international scientific consensus on humankind's role in global warming.

Why exactly should that be a Right-Left issue?

I got to reflecting on this topic while reading conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg in the Minneapolis Star Tribune this morning. He's basically saying that, even if man is responsible for the "little bit" of warming the globe has experienced during the last century, the cost of doing something about it is just too high to even envision.

In recent weeks I've read a host of articles along these lines. Just the other day, someone at the American Enterprise Institute, which has been leading the charge against the scientific consensus, called people warning of the dangers of climate change "the new inquisition." Presumably that means Michael Crichton is being fitted for thumbscrews as we speak.

The best answer I can come up with to my own question is that these thinkers -- to use the term loosely -- are intent on sparing their corporate allies and funders from having to bear the cost of improved environmental controls and carbon emission-reducing practices. We've seen people for years calling for hard-headed calculation of costs and benefits when it comes to environmental protection. Anyone criticizing this line of argument is likely to stand accused of advocating "junk science."

What's odd, however, is that the corporate world is truly starting to "get it." Just last week, the chairman of Duke Energy, one of the country's biggest electric-power companies, launched a new coalition -- the US Climate Action Partnership -- with a speech at the National Press Club.

The group includes firms like Alcoa, DuPoint, and G.E., as well as NGO's like the Natural Resources Defense Council and the World Resource Institute. It is supporting Congressional proposals for a mandatory "cap and trade" system to stablize and then reduce carbon emissions. "We know enough to act now," Rogers is quoted as saying in the current New Yorker.

So why is the Right being left behind by its erstwhile corporate allies? The corporate sector increasingly realizes the wisdom of acting sooner rather than later. Some are undoubtedly motivated by the belief that participating in the building debate, rather than simply digging in their heels, will give them a greater influence over the outcome.

But the Rightwing Commentariat seems wedded to their position. Perhaps it has to do with the distrust -- or outright disbelief -- in science. Maybe it's knee-jerk opposition to anything Al Gore says. Maybe they're just out of their minds.

Here's how much trouble the White House is having in selling its new campaign to stampede the nation into war with Iran. (The latest gambit, in case you haven't been paying attention: a dog-and-pony show in Baghdad's Green Zone showing off allegedly Iranian-made explosive devices. Supposedly it all proves that the Iranian government is to blame for the death of "at least 170 Americans" in Iraq -- and by implication that Iran is primarily responsible for US troubles in Iraq.)

Skeptics have been out in force since their little show. Even Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pretty much flat out said he doesn't believe it. His actual words were only slightly more judicious: "I don't know that the Iranian government per se, for sure, is directly involved in doing this." Maybe the US military leadership isn't keen for another disastrous war.

It's worth pointing out that the first piece to appear on the new "evidence," was by the NYT's Michael Gordon. Remember him? He co-wrote with Judith Miller a number of the most influential stories on Saddam Hussein's WMDs during the run-up to the Iraq war. Miller was thoroughly discredited, but Gordon somehow escaped signifant criticism.

No one would deny the possibility, even likelihood, that some Iranian-made weaponry or explosives make their way into Iraq. There's a huge black market for munitions of all kinds, from Saddam-era stockpiles to US-made products stolen or bought from our Iraqi "allies." But there's zero evidence that such shipments are being ordered or directed by senior levels of the Iranian government, despite US claims.

And the fact is, most US soldiers are being killed by roadside IED's laid by Sunni insurgents. While Shiite militias (which are supported from Iran) have sometimes attacked US forces, they are very much a secondary factor. Most of their firepower is aimed at slaughtering Sunnis.

So what we're left with is the certainty that the Bush administration, reeling from its colossal failure in Iraq, is trying to gin up support for yet another war -- this one against Iran.

We must stop them.

So Bush will reveal his new Iraq "surge" strategy on Wednesday. Never mind that by all accounts even many senior officials within the administration don't believe it will accomplish anything. Never mind that it took sacking John Abizaid and George Casey, the Centcom commander and the the top general in Iraq respectively, because of their less than enthusiastic embrace of escalation.

With 140,000 troops plus or minus in Iraq over the last three-four years having proven unable to control the violence, plus the expenditure of $18 billion on reconstruction programs, we're now supposed to believe that adding something like 9-15,000 new troops and another billion or so dollars for a jobs program is going to turn things around.

How stupid do they think we are? What's really going on is that Bush is congenitally incapable of admitting failure. So despite the decisive rejection of the war at the polls in November, the Iraq Study Group's forthright recognition of the war's "grave and deteriorating" condition, the escalating carnage in Baghdad, he's spent the last few weeks deciding to make a decision.

With "defeatist" thinking banished from White House counsels, they have apparently cobbled together a plan that passes for "new" only in the marketing sense. But such thinking is par for the course in an administration that waited till September (in 2002) to "rollout" the case for the upcoming war because -- in then-chief of staff Andy Card's immortal words -- "you don't launch a new product in August."

Meanwhile, Iraq has descended into a sort of Darwinian hell in which only the vicious thrive. The government proved itself to be no more than an instrument of Shiite death squads when Saddam Hussein's hanging turned -- with American complicity -- into a macabre and brutal pagent aimed at celebrating Iraqi Shiites' ascendancy.

In reality, the hanging became a huge propaganda coup for Sunni insurgents. The hangman were literally members of Moktada Al-Sadr's Mahdi army, and based on the snuff film-style video taped by an Iraqi official witness's cell phone, only Hussein comported himself with a modicum of dignity. Sunni's throughout the Middle East are now remembering Saddam Hussein as a martyr, rather than the murderous tyrant he was.

Heckuva job, W.

But the hoo-rah about the report and its potential impact is totally an American -- really a Washington -- show. It has very little to do with Iraqis or that actual situation on the ground we hear so much about.

Baker & Co. call for an intensive effort to train Iraqi forces to permit the withdrawal of most US combat troops by early 2008. This completely ignores the woeful progress to date. We don't have anywhere near the number of translators who would be needed. Just as important, the US military is set up to be a kick-ass, fighting force. Training has always been regarded institutionally as a secondary mission that attracts second-rate, non-fast-track types. Remember Bush's repeated invocation of the line "We'll stand down as the Iraqi forces stand up"? At this point, really, no one is standing, and as a result the violence keeps getting worse.

The talk in some circles of more troops is nonsense, whether the 20,000 McCain claims to want or Bill Kristol's 50,000. We don't have the troops, and they wouldn't make a significant difference in terms of reducing the bloodletting. (Note how the 20,000 troops rushed into Baghdad in September in what was intended as a major show of force not only failed to control the Shia-Sunni bloodletting, but allowed it to increase day-by-day.

The conventional wisdom thankfully has finally come to embrace the notion that we have to get out of Iraq. But otherwise intelligent and well-informed folks still have this idea that we (the US government, our troops, etc) have the ability to determine -- or even influence --events in Iraq.

We don't. The situation is getting worse and will most likely continue to deteriorate because of powerful forces that have been unleashed by our bungling and overweening hubris. By all indications, the politicians who control the various factions within the Shiite majority continue to find it in their interest to stoke the violence committed by their inhouse militias and death squads. The militias are increasingly seen as their people's only protectors, even as they wreak harsh retribution on Sunnis.

And the Sunnis appear unwilling to accept their minority status, and insurgents/fighters/terrorists of various stripes seem committed to continuing their already successful campaign to incite ever more serious sectarian violence.

We need to draw down most US forces over the next 6-12 months. Perhaps, as George Packer has suggested, we should grant asylum to those Iraqis most closely identified with the failed effort. What about the vast majority of the Iraqi people? It's harsh to say it out loud, but we're going to have to leave them to pick up the shattered pieces of their country the best they can.

The real danger is not necessarily the fact that North Korea and its unpredictable leader Kim Jong Il has a nuclear weapons capability -- although that's scary enough. Rather, it is that other countries in the neighborhood -- Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan -- might feel the need to do the same. Once a nuclear arms race is launched, decision-making amidst the inevitable tensions inherent in day-to-day, month-to-month diplomatic relations can spin out of control.

Tokyo's reaction to North Korean sabre-rattling is especially problematic (albeit understandable, given the fact that Japan is well within range of Pynongyang's missiles). Japan has spent the decades since the end of Word War II sheltered uneasily beneath the US nuclear umbrella. But Japanese nationalists, who are very much in the ascendancy, are increasingly asking why they too shouldn't have an independent nuclear force, especially given the looming threat from a nuclear-armed and hostile North Korea. But the impulse is also part of a broader trend toward a more assertive role in international relations commensurate with Japan's economic heft.

Complicating the mix is the increasingly troubled state of China-Japan relations. Bound together by massive levels of trade and investment, the two countries are divided by history -- Japan's bloody invasion and occupation of China -- and a modern-day rivalry for pre-eminence in Asia.

Tokyo spent much of the time between China's post-Mao opening to the outside world (circa 1978 onward) and the recent past half-heartedly apologizing for wartime atrocities and attempting to buy China's goodwill via foreign aid and friendly foreign investment. The gains to be realized from this set of policies have often been limited by Beijing's tendency to whip up anti-Japanese nationalist fervor as a replacement for the now withered Maoist/Socialist sentiment.

At any rate, Japanese elites nowadays hear all the talk of Rising China and predictions that we've entered the Chinese Century and say -- whoa there! As a result, Japanese survey vessels are aggressively plumbing watery depths in the Yellow Sea with potentially rich oil or other mineral deposits that are also claimed by China. Beijing, for its part, adopts its own forward policy with regard to maritime claims -- not only in the waters between Japan and China but also extending right up to the territorial shelves of the Philippines, Indonesia and other southeast Asian nations.

At the same time, Japanese companies have lost favor in China by refraining from the kind of sweetheart deals that gave them early entry into China but have over time proved unprofitable. And -- this is a huge piece of it -- Tokyo has grown less solicitous of Beijing's sensitivies about Taiwan, to them a renegade, runaway province that must be returned to the Motherland sooner rather than later. Instead, Tokyo is more inclined to think of its own longtime economic and cultural ties with Taiwan, which it ruled as a colony from 1895-1945,
and fear the possible shock to the international system if China moves forcibly to assert its claim over Taiwan.

And what happens if Taiwan -- itself fully capable of developing a nuclear capability -- decides to go down that road? Then the S- could truly hit the fan.

Link here.

It's beyond me why people are even debating Iraq any more. The US has completely lost its ability to influence -- much less order -- events. Staying will not forestall the continuing descent into full-fledged civil war; neither, unfortunately, will leaving.

But leave we must, and sooner rather than later. Sacrificing the lives of more American servicepeople in service to a lost cause just can't be justified. As for Iraqi lives, some significant level of bloodletting appears unavoidable. US meddling has opened a veritable Pandora's Box of pentup rage that will not be put back until the leading parties choose for their own reasons to end it.

We could hope that the US would engage in serious conversation with Iran, Syria and maybe Turkey (remember diplomacy?) But don't bet on it.

And don't be fooled by the short-lived, post-thumping talk of "bipartisanship." This band of ideological incompetents is still clinging to denial and their own little bubble -- and have no intention of giving it up. "Victory" is all, and since even Henry Kissinger admits that's impossible, they will in practice be satisfied to hand this problem off to the next administration.

But how many more will die in the meantime?

Trent Lott is back. The senator from Mississippi's triumphal return to Senate Republican leadership ranks today -- he was elected Minority Whip, the No. 2 position -- marks his rehabilitation from the semi-disgrace that followed the public release of his remarks at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party praising the former arch-segregationist for his past stands.

“I want to say this about my state,” Mr. Lott began in tribute. “When Strom Thurmond ran for president [in 1948], we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over the years, either.”

Lott never specified precisely which problems he had in mind, but it seems obvious from the context that he meant integration and related changes in our society flowing from the civil rights movement.

But what interests me at the moment are the delicate euphemisms being employed in the press to describe his past transgressions. As in the NYT (reg req'd):

Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, who was driven from the Republican leadership four years ago after he made a racially insensitive comment at a birthday party for Senator Strom Thurmond, returned to the Senate’s top ranks today, winning election as minority whip in the next session by a single vote.

Or in the WaPo, which used an even more distancing locution:

....who was ousted as Senate majority leader four years ago because of what some interpreted as racially insensitive remarks about America's segregationist past.....

Why can't we ever call a bigot a bigot? Or a racist remark a racist remark?

So Sen. George Allen points out the young man of Indian descent and says "let's give a welcome to macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia." Allen's candidacy is destroyed over his "racially insensitve remarks." Despite his well-documented history of using the word "nigger," of hanging a noose in his law office, of his fondness for the Confederate flag. Despite all that, the most an "objective" journalist can call his language is "insensitive."

Why on earth can't we call a spade a spade? Of course it's not only with regard to racial matters that we speak in euphemism. Think of the "debate," if you will, over torture. Press stories on the subject -- the bill that legalized certain still unspecified forms of torture is called the Detention Act -- talk about aggressive or alternative interrogation techniques.

Polite journalism shrinks from calling things by their right name, lest objectivity be breached.

One more piece of stunning news, capping a day already full to bursting with mostly hopeful political upheaval: Webb has won Virginia, according to the AP, giving the Democrats control of both the Senate and the House.

The debacle in Iraq had already mostly brought an end to the Cowboy Era -- not with a bang, but a whimper. Now we're experiencing the final reverberations of Bush and the neoconservatives' imploding dream of a new imperial era. Formerly credulous voters set down their cups of koolaid, to Karl Rove's shock, no doubt, and placed their X's instead in the box belonging to the Democratic candidate.

The neocon's idea was that the United States would through force of will and raw power impose a Pax Americana of pro-Western, obediently democratic satrapies, first in the Middle East, then in wider dominions. Too bad Iraq didn't work out.

What's more, the administration's approach to Iran and North Korea -- rhetorical bellicosity aimed at disguising its actual passivity -- had already made it clear that the era of untrammelled unilateralism was dead and gone.

So that muscle-bound schtick has been replaced by -- what? What will the last two years of Bush bring us in the sphere of international relations?

I'll mostly leave aside the question of Iraq, except to observe that a fairly rapid drawndown of US forces will undoubtedly occur over the next 6-12 months. Despite continuing reluctance from Bush et al to grasp reality.

Fortunately or unfortunately, in the end they'll accomplish little, either good or ill. Democrats will have the ability to block those initiatives that require Congressional assent, like the India nuclear cooperation deal. But with those things that require active diplomacy and horse-trading, I think rearguard resistance from neocons in the foreign policy establishment will prevent real progress: on Iran, they'll block any deal containing security guarantees. On North Korea, same thing, basically. Both regimes will need guarantees that Washington has given up on externally-generated regime change.

No matter who is in charge in Washington, relations with China will grow more difficult. Exchange rates, the trade deficit, Beijing's more explicit assertion of a great power's perogatives, China-Japan-Korea tensions, rising opposition in China to neoliberal policies.... all will cause difficulties.

So we're probably lucky Bush is emasculated.