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GOOD PIECE, THIS Peter Beinart's

GOOD PIECE, THIS

Peter Beinart's take on Iraqi reconstruction, and the likely destruction of the Wilsonian ideal that will result from failing to do it right. The Kausian nut quote:

Indeed, the best-case scenario is that the Bush team is misleading the American people about the intensive political effort they have in mind once Saddam is gone. The worst-case scenario is that no such effort is even planned and that, in the name of stability, Riyadh and Foggy Bottom will settle on an Iraqi Pervez Musharaf. It is not a good sign, as Janine Zacharia recently reported in these pages that the closer we get to war, the more despondent the genuine Iraqi democrats sound.

The unhappy truth is that, if the Bush administration wins the war but betrays the peace, the political consequences for the president will be small. Once the fighting is over, the American press will turn its attention elsewhere, just as it has in post-Taliban Afghanistan... Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney won't lose sleep if Chevron and Crown Prince Abdullah run things in post-Saddam Baghdad rather than Kanan Makiya. Paul Wolfowitz will either shut up or resign.

OTHER THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

OTHER THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Okay,

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Okay, here's another way of looking at the conflicting news from Turkey. The U.S. is still steadfastly pursuing a "second northern front" option... far beyond what its actual strategic utility would seem to require. Is that because they fear that if American ground forces aren't there with the Turks, then the Turks will just move in on their own? (Making the Newsweek piece today basically a trial balloon to see how the idea of doing a Molotov-Ribbentrop with Ankara and abandoning the Kurds floats with the commentariat?)

Turkey's game then may well be... "give us all that money we demanded, and we'll consent to a joint invasion of the no-fly zone from Turkish soil, and once the war is over we'll get out of your hair. Or, plan B, you don't give us the new bribe, send all your troops to Kuwait instead, and while you're busy down in the south we may just take the northern no-fly ourselves as insurance, to be redeemed later at a price we determine." Either way, they a big winna.