Amygdala links to this fascinating New York Times Magazine piece on al-Jazeera journalist Yosri Fouda, written by Peter Maas.

Matthew Yglesias, back from blogging haitus, briefly looks at Shinui's possible role in an Israeli coalition government. The case of Israel's 120-member unicameral parliament, the Knesset, is particularly interesting because of its abnormally high number of political parties — 13 parties received Knesset seats in the January 2003 election because they received over 1.5% of the popular vote. (The Knesset uses pure proportional representation within one, nationwide district.) Leaving aside the question of why such a low threshold was chosen — Israel's is the lowest in the world — the large degree of fragmentation leads to serious barriers to coalition formation.

Michael Laver and Norman Schofield's Multiparty Government discusses this problem, although it mainly concentrates on European countries where the major parties are larger. In the most recent Israeli election, by contrast, no party received more than 30% of the total vote, and the Likud only received 38 seats — 23 seats short of a Knesset majority. This makes coalition formation particularly problematic because no single party can provide an overall majority — even a coalition with second-place Labor, with 19 seats, is too small to win an investiture vote (Israel's laws require a Knesset majority to vote in favor of forming a coalition, which makes a minority government exceedingly unlikely). So, what sorts of coalitions are possible?

Some theories suggest that the most likely coalitions to form are “minimal winning” coalitions — coalitions that involve the least number of parties while still gaining a majority of seats; i.e., where the loss of one party would make the coalition a minority. William Riker goes further to predict that the most likely coalitions to form are “minimum winning” (or bare majority) coalitions: ones that produce the smallest possible majority. Looking at the incoming Knesset, the following 3-member minimal winning coalitions are possible:

• Likud + Labor + Torah Judaism (62)

• Likud + Labor + NRP (63)

• Likud + Labor + Meretz (63)

• Likud + Labor + National Unity (64)

• Likud + Shinui + Shas (64)

• Likud + Shas + Labor (68)

• Likud + Labor + Shinui (72)

There are actually 3,615 possible minimal winning coalitions (out of 4,044 possible majority coalitions, most of which, unsurprisingly, involve the Likud). Furthermore, there are 92 minimum winning coalitions, with the coalition holding 61 seats; most of them involve large numbers of parties. The smallest minimum winning coalitions involve 4 parties:

• Likud + Labor + Yisrael Ba'aliya + United Arab List

• Likud + Shas + Meretz + NRP

• Likud + Shas + National Unity + Torah Judaism

• Likud + Shinui + Meretz + United Arab List

• Likud + Shinui + Meretz + Yisrael Ba'aliya

• Likud + Shinui + NRP + United Arab List

• Likud + Shinui + NRP + Yisrael Ba'aliya

• Likud + Shinui + Torah Judaism + Am Ehad

• Likud + Shinui + Torah Judaism + Balad

• Likud + Shinui + Torah Judaism + Hadash

However, from a policy standpoint, few of these coalitions make much sense; Arab parties (Balad and UAL) aren't going to be part of a Likud coalition, and neither is the communist Hadash. Meretz is unlikely to join with Shas and the NRP. The only coalition here that seems remotely plausible from a policy standpoint is Likud + Shas + National Unity + Torah Judaism.

A 61-seat coalition is unlikely simply because of the instability of the parties in general; Sharon probably wants a strong coalition that can withstand a few dissident members (despite the plethora of Israeli parties, party discipline is relatively low). This suggests a policy-based coalition involving the larger parties, to reduce the number of parties involved and the risk.

The “ideal” coalition for this task would be the widely-mooted Likud + Labor + Shinui coalition, which with 72 seats is the largest possible three-party coalition (and which might accrete some additional members from the smaller parties). However, widespread reports that Labor is not willing to join a Likud coalition leave only a Likud + Shinui + Shas three-party coalition, with a more tenuous 64 seats and serious policy differences (Shinui's support is attributed to opposition to excessive patronage to the ultra-Orthodox; Shas is the largest ultra-Orthodox party). Therefore, other possibilities may be considered:

• One option would be a minority coalition, with Likud + Shinui in the government but with investiture support from Labor. This could allow Labor to keep its promise to stay out of a coalition without necessitating a new election (or a more right-wing coalition).

• Likud + Shinui + Yisrael Ba'aliya, with support from some defectors from Labor.

• Likud and Shinui could cobble together a coalition with some of the religious parties (with or without Meretz). Alisa suggests that Shinui is fairly open to working with most of the religious parties, barring Shas.

• Finally, Likud could fail to form a government, presumably leaving Labor, Shinui, and Meretz to try to cobble together a coalition involving the Arab parties and the Am Ehad (One Nation).

The bottom line: throw the coalition theories out the window when it comes to Israel — at least until they get a sensible threshold on the books.

Ha'aretz has a page with some charts showing some possible alternatives (thanks to The Talking Dog for the link).

Noah Millman, Michael Pine, JB Armstrong, and SharkBlog have some interesting coverage as well.

My theory: Likud + Shinui + Yisrael Ba'aliya + NRP, with either a lot of Labor defectors (probably to Shinui or a new group) or a new Labor leadership.

Kevin Drum (CalPundit) thinks Erin O'Connor stretches to consider the case of Jendra Loeffelman, an elementary school teacher fired for expressing what O'Connor charitably describes as “controversial views,” to be another in a long line of P.C. outrages. Those controversial views were in expressed when she told her class “that she disapproved of interracial marriage,” according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, because she believed that the children of such marriages are subject to persecution.

Leaving aside whether or not one can oppose interracial marriage without being a racist (Kevin certainly considers it a racist belief, and it's hard to argue that point), the larger point that I think O'Connor misses is that Loeffelman's audience was eighth graders. While kids of that age certainly are capable of some independent thought, it's one thing to bring up one's personal beliefs when teaching a college seminar, and quite another to do it in an elementary school or junior high classroom. From the published accounts it appears Loeffelman was asked a direct question, but she still could have deflected it or avoided the question entirely.

O'Connor believes avoiding the question would send the wrong message, but the implicit message to the mixed-race children in the room — in essence, “I don't think your parents should have married each other” — is hardly the right message either, and one that most parents would rightly be appalled by. It's the equivalent situation to asking your teacher what he's doing this weekend, and him announcing he's planning on marching at a Klan rally or going to smash the windows of a few SUVs to protest the administration's failure to support Kyoto. Loeffelman wasn't fired for “refusing to pander” to anyone's sensibilities — she was fired for making a virtual endorsement of returning to Jim Crow, and for contributing to the air of persecution that she used to justify her beliefs in the first place.

Erin O'Connor has a followup, in which she summarizes my viewpoint as believing “[Loeffelman's] students are only in eighth-grade, and are therefore too young to cope with her opinions.” (I'd characterize my viewpoint not so much as one of whether or not they can cope, but whether or not they are capable of critically thinking about what a teacher presents in class. The critical thinking skills of many college undergraduates are woefully poor; I'd imagine that 99% of eighth graders take whatever a teacher says as gospel truth.)

While I agree that Loeffelman has some rights under the First Amendment in this case — which wouldn't apply if she was a private school teacher — the question obviously becomes: to what extent can she exercise those rights in her position teaching a class? Does she have the right to teach whatever she wants? More to the point, where's the line between teaching and just expressing one's opinion? If I'm standing in front of my class lecturing, I'm teaching; if two students come by my office and ask me about my personal beliefs, I'm probably not; if I talk to one at the drive-thru at Burger King, I'm definitely not.

The case of the homosexual volleyball coach that O'Connor cites appears different, in that the coach was subject to a broad injunction beforehand of dubious constitutional standing and did not discuss her sexual orientation with an entire class, but rather with an individual student, apparently outside a classroom situation. Fundamentally, there's a “reasonable time, place, and manner” argument to be made in Loeffelman's case, and that's where this case is going to be decided.

Jane Galt has a post on this as well, asking “if the teacher was black, would she be disciplined or fired?” Kevin Drum has a followup comment at Jane's site:

For what it's worth, I think disapproval of interracial marriage is disgusting no matter who it comes from. I know that many blacks disapprove of it too, and I don't like it. I don't like state policies against interracial adoptions, either.

However, there's also a considerable difference between saying something as a private citizen and saying something as a government employee. High school teachers, as agents of the state, simply don't have the right to say things in a classroom that would be protected if they were saying them as private citizens. Loeffelman had been a teacher for a long time and surely knew this.

Having said all I've said, I'm surprised that the school district actually fired her — most would have probably moved her to some job in administration or shipped her off to another school, rather than court controversy.

Colby Cosh has some worthwhile thoughts on LeBron James and amateurism; I'm not sold on whether the NCAA should give up on amateurism completely. Perhaps the real issue is the lack of a real minor league system in basketball and football; at least baseball and hockey players don't have to go to college to have a shot in the pros (the occasional LeBron James or Kevin Garnett aside). On the other hand, men's college basketball and football (in Division I-A) are by far the most popular college sports, precisely because they're the venue where the future pros can make a mark, and preserving this system is what keeps Division I athletic departments in the black.

Of course, once you start paying the players in the “money sports,” that opens a whole other can of worms, particularly in the lawsuit-happy realm of Title IX. So I can certainly see why the NCAA doesn't want to go there.

Previous snarky comment on LeBron James here.

The New Albany Gazette has a lengthy article on plans by a group called MEGAPOP to have a high-speed fiber optic link in northern Mississippi, which would have points of presence in Oxford, Tupelo, Columbus, Starkville and Meridian, mostly using an existing unused (or “dark”) link for much of the backbone; most existing commercial links in this part of state go through Jackson (there are some non-commercial Internet2 connections from the University of Mississippi and Mississippi State University, however). The backbone would connect to existing fiber links in Memphis and Meridian to provide high-speed Internet access to the rest of the world.

For your edification: MEGAPOP's website.

I don't have anything to add to the general discussion; go forth and read InstaPundit for the factual roundup and Rand Simberg's site for what this means for America's future exploring space. For a wider roundup, use Janes' Blogosphere's search feature.

I heartily recommend reading Oliver Willis's latest on the coming conflict with Iraq; while I disagree about the motivations behind our Iraq policy (it would certainly be easier for us to co-opt Hussein than topple him, if expansionism was our goal), and perhaps even on the degree of politicization of 9-11 (though admittedly a game both major parties have engaged in; such is life in the current era), his conclusion is right on the money:

In the 21st century, we must end the cycle of supporting the lesser of two evils because it is expedient. Our culture grows in depth and understanding every nanosecond, yet our handling of the world and our place in it seems more regressive each passing day. America leads in ideas, and the willingness to implement them. We must not allow simple answers and blind aggression to retard the moral and spiritual growth of a nation. If our leaders always took the easy way out, the brute and the oaf’s path, we would not be the America we are today or the one we can look forward to tomorrow. To demand better of the world, the United States must take its role as leader and create an order that doesn’t oppress and subjugate (either directly or by proxy), but uplifts and educates from the poorest of the poor all the way up to the gilded gates of the elite.

These ideals, these concepts, these beliefs – are what this country stands for. Terror and fear will win when we allow the foundations of freedom to crumble.

To borrow the argument of OxBlog's David Adesnik, the business of American foreign policy should be to promote our core values of liberal democracy and the rule of law in the world; not so much to remake the world in our image as it is to ensure that free people everywhere can remake their societies in theirs. In other words, continuing the foreign policy that created modern Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan — while simultaneously rejecting the expediency of propping up the Mubaraks, Mussharafs, and Sauds of the world.

The more I think about Oliver's piece, though, the more I wonder about his “expansionism” theory for the conflict. Unlike in Afghanistan, there's no existing, credible government or military force (other than the Ba'ath Party itself, which has largely become Saddam's personality cult) that can enforce a post-Saddam order, so there has to be some “occupation force,” for a lack of a better term, to disarm the Ba'athist regime, train a new civilian police force and restructure the armed forces, and there has to be a management structure over the country's oil industry (presumably leading to eventual privatization). Obviously at some point both tasks can be handed off to the U.N. and other military forces, but for a year or so it's hard to imagine a stable Iraq without an occupation of some form.

Jacob T. Levy (who incidentally just started a “guest blogging” gig at the Volokh Conspiracy) writes in his inaugrual New Republic online column about major problems in the Bureau of Indian Affairs' treatment of trust funds owed to reservation landowners that have spanned the Clinton and Bush administrations; estimates suggest native American landowners are owed between $10 billion and $100 billion in back-payments for oil and mineral rights. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit have a website at IndianTrust.com.

Jason Anderson at the Political State Report passes on word that new Alabama Gov. Bob Riley is proposing a partnership with Mississippi to alleviate poverty in his state's “black belt” (and presumably nearby counties in Mississippi).

While the political logic is sensible — as the Birmingham News points out, getting four U.S. senators on board is better than two — the geographic logic makes less sense, as the nearby parts of Mississippi aren't known for their poverty. The alliance may instead have more to do with Alabama's desire to build a westward extension of Interstate 85 from its current Montgomery terminus to the Alabama/Mississippi line east of Meridian, which would pass through a number of “black belt” counties. Perhaps things will be clearer when Gov. Riley provides more details.

This is simply appalling (seen at InstaPundit). I'm not a conservative, but I'll call it what it is: pathetic religious bigotry of the same order as linking the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the Holocaust. CPAC should have run this vendor out of the building; feel free to voice your displeasure using their contact information.

Bill Quick comments, and asks:

Can somebody tell me why a swastika/Islam bumper sticker is more "pure poison" with the Muslim world than the term "Islamofascist?"

Well, for one, replacing the “s” in “Islam” with a swastika is a smear on the whole religion of Islam, and equates Islam with the beliefs of the National Socialist party, while you could conceivably refer to someone as an “Islamofascist” without necessarily implying all Muslims are fascists (just like the term “ultraconservative” doesn't imply all conservatives are extremists). That being said, I don't think using the term “Islamofascist” is appropriate in responsible discourse, and you won't see it used to refer to individuals or groups here (except when quoting someone else's comments).

Oliver Willis (briefly) comments.

You know, until today a regionless player wasn't a big priority for me. Then I discovered Inspector Morse - The Complete Series (33 Disc Box Set). Ah well, maybe a Region One set will come out eventually; a crapload of the individual episodes are listed at the U.S. Amazon site, and I'm not going to order them all individually.

The annoying thing about seeing Morse in the U.S. is that it seems like A&E and BBC America have the rights to one season each, and they just rerun the same ten over and over again... (a few episodes — again, always the same ones — also show up on PBS during pledge drives). It'd be like only seeing the NYPD Blue episodes with John Kelly and Danny Sorensen in reruns.

Seen at Ben Hammersley's blog.

Timothy Appnel discusses some ideas for extending the TrackBack specification. There's good stuff there, but backwards-compatibility is a concern; for example, in my trackback implementation for LSblog, the “do I send a trackback ping as a GET or POST” question is basically handled through a hack (does the ping URL use a query string or not). Adding more incompatible changes will increase the complexity of implementations, even if well-intentioned — in particular, moving from RDF to RSS. On the other hand, using the HTTP error handing mechanisms is greatly preferable to the XML-based system that is used now (and which I haven't bothered to implement a SAX parser for yet, because I'm fundamentally lazy).

I also second EngageBrain: if TrackBack is going to be widely adopted, it ought to be written up as an RFC.

Sean-Paul Kelley likes being called a flaming jackass (even in the transitive sense); I suppose that's his right. I don't know where he's seeing this “celebration among many bloggers about war” that he claims to observe in the comments on Pdawwg. My guess: he expects people who support war to be “bloodthirsty chicken hawks,” so in his mind he projects this onto others. Again, as I said before, it's a mark of unjustified smug moral superiority, or more succinctly the attitude that “I'm better than you.”

On the other hand, Alex Knapp has his head on straight, with the takedown I'd have posted yesterday if I had been (a) entirely conscious and (b) a better writer.

Steven Den Beste has some comments as well, as do Eric E. Coe and Robin Goodfellow.

Also see this post.

Glenn Reynolds links to Rand Simberg's inspired glossary for decoding various languages, including the variant of English used on the New York Times op-ed page and in translations of speeches by Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schröder. For example:

"let the inspections continue":

Allow more time for a few dozen people to literally cluelessly wander around a country hundreds of thousands of square miles in area, searching for things that the Iraqi government has no intention of letting them find, and are hidden in private homes, or mosques, or presidential "palaces" (some of which are themselves the size of typical western cities), or in caves that we don't even know exist, or that are moved just prior to the threat of an actual search in any of these areas, in order to continue to delay military action, in the slim hope that some other means of delay can be found while this one continues or that the weather will get too hot, or that W will forget why he's doing this, in order to put off forever the day that we actually remove Saddam Hussein from power.

As a dry run, you can try it out with this article; it'll make it much more coherent.

Sean-Paul Kelley is being a flaming jackass:

What I do want to say is that all of you warbloggers out there are [expletive] pathetic. Young American men and women are going to die very soon. And like the poem I quoted in the previous post you are all "smug-faced crowds with kindling eye/Who cheer when soldier lads march by" and you [expletive] better "sneak home and pray you'll never know/The hell where youth and laughter go."

Frankly, I'm not even sure why I'm linking to his offensive rhetoric; it certainly doesn't deserve any publicity. But here's my response.

The use of military force to achieve political goals is rarely justifiable. This, however, is one of those circumstances: it is abundantly clear that the government of Iraq, and in particular its leader Saddam Hussein, have no intention of complying with the express will of the international community, as articulated unanimously in UNSC Resolution 1441. Hussein has for twelve years defied numerous binding UNSC resolutions, violated the cease-fire agreement that concluded the first Gulf War, and engaged in mass murder of his own people. There is considerable evidence that his regime has harbored terrorists in its territory and aided and abetted terrorists in other states. These incontrovertible facts justify the intervention of the United States and other countries, as specifically authorized by UNSC Resolution 1441, to enforce the will of the Security Council and international community through military action.

It is likely that many Americans, Australians, Britons and others will die as a result of this action. Depending on how loyal Iraq's military is to Saddam Hussein, it is possible that many Iraqi civilians and soldiers will die as well. It is entirely possible that Iraq will also attack uninvolved parties, leading to the deaths of Israelis (Arabs and Jews). People die in wars; the best we can hope for is that our leaders will minimize the number of casualties on all sides by neutralizing Iraq's ability to kill our forces, its own people, and those of its neighbors.

I do not relish war. Twelve years ago I watched Americans go to war with Iraq from the military base in Britain where my father was stationed. Before I was born my father helped fight in Southeast Asia as a navigator on AC-130 gunships. Many of my parents' friends similarly served to defend our country, and some of those friends have made the ultimate sacrifice, whether in training or in battle; some of those friends' names appear on the Vietnam Memorial. My grandfather's brother was imprisoned as a POW for several years by the Chinese during the Korean War; he simply disappeared soon after his return after Korea, and we never heard from him again. People I know and respect are almost certainly on the front lines of this war.

Make no mistake. War is no videogame; on this we agree. But it is a slander of the worst order to assume that Andrew Sullivan and other so-called “chicken hawks” do not appreciate the sacrifices of our troops, or the reality of war. There is a right way to support our armed forces — the words of Jay Reding, who Sean-Paul links to, spring to mind — but to insult those who don't make a public display of soul-searching on the war is offensive and reeks of unjustified smug moral superiority.

As you've probably read by now, ex-political prisoner and former South African president Nelson Mandela has started sounding a bit more like current South African president Thabo Mbeki (and former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney):

Former South African President Nelson Mandela, who Bush has praised as a hero of human rights, joined the chorus of critics by calling Bush arrogant and implying the president was racist for threatening to bypass the United Nations and attack Iraq.

"Is it because the secretary-general of the United Nations is now a black man? They never did that when secretary-generals were white," Mandela said.

He also repeats the Chomsky-ite critique of U.S. actions in Iraq:

A Nobel Peace Prize winner, Mandela has repeatedly condemned U.S. behavior toward Iraq in recent months and demanded Bush respect the authority of the United Nations. His comments Thursday, though, were far more critical and his attack on Bush far more personal than in the past.

"Why is the United States behaving so arrogantly?" he asked. "All that (Bush) wants is Iraqi oil," he said.

The blogospheric reaction hasn't been all that positive. Jessie Rosenberg came out of reclusion to state:

Most pronouncements of racism I can at least understand, though usually not accept. This, though, makes very little sense to me. Why did Mandela choose to call Bush racist, instead of one of the many other possible pejoratives which would be at least a bit more relevant to the topic of discussion? I don't agree with most of the criticisms of Bush concerning Iraq, but if people are going to criticize him, I'd think they'd at least choose a criticism about Iraq.

Of course, as the saying goes, if you only have a hammer everything looks like a nail. Meanwhile, OxBlog's David Adesnik suggests that “the real reason is that the US no longer trusts any nation or organization headed by a Nobel Peace Prize winner.” Heck, we don't even trust our own ex-presidents who are Nobel Peace Prize winners, or even past secretaries of state, so it's hardly surprising we wouldn't trust anybody else who received that honor.

Emily Jones, on the other hand, is more concerned with taking down Mandela's reputation as a pacifist:

And speaking of the unspeakable, I wonder if Mr. Mandela cares to share his thoughts with us on "necklacing"? Or maybe explain what "One Settler, One Bullet" is supposed to mean? I guess the whole "Kill a Boer, kill a Farmer" was just one huge, misunderstood joke?

I'm not sure how much of the terroristic activity Mandela was really involved with — he was in prison, after all, for most of it — but it doesn't seem particularly germane to his point, which basically seems to be “unilateralism bad, multilateralism good” coupled with the bizarre viewpoint that the endorsement of the U.N. Security Council is securable through anything other than good old-fashioned realpolitik, coming from the same addled parts of the international community that think the International Court of Justice will be an impartial body and who put a great deal of stock in U.N. General Assembly resolutions. The fundamental bottom line is that the UNSC can lead (unlikely, given French and German rhetoric), follow (relatively likely), or get steamrolled (and join the Kellogg-Briand Pact and League of Nations in the dustbin of history), and the sooner Mandela, Chirac, and Schröder realize that the better off everyone will be.

As a service to the Blogosphere, I will keep a tally of declared Weasels and Non-Weasels. Glenn Reynolds adds Albania and Slovakia, two current non-members of the EU, to the list of declared Non-Weasels, and this Radio Free Europe story adds 3 more, which makes the current list as follows:

Weasels

• Belgium (vassal Weasel #1)

• France (or, West Weaseldom)

• Germany (or, East Weaseldom)

• Luxembourg (vassal Weasel #2)

Non-Weasels

• Albania

• The Czech Republic

• Denmark

• Hungary

• Italy

• Latvia

• Poland

• Portugal

• Romania

• Slovenia

• Slovakia

• Spain

• United Kingdom

For those keeping score at home, that's Weasels 4, Non-Weasels 13. Here's the tale of the tape for the Weasels and Non-Weasels (from the 2002 CIA World Factbook):

• Population — Weasels: 154 million, Non-Weasels: 268 million.

• Gross Domestic Product — Weasels: $3.97 trillion, Non-Weasels: $4.84 trillion.

• Land Area — Weasels: 937,147 sq km, Non-Weasels: 2,070,853 sq km.

• Military Expenditures — Weasels: $88.5 billion, Non-Weasels: $71.9 billion.

• EU Council of Ministers Votes — Weasels: 74, Non-Weasels: 104

Now, exactly which countries speak for Europe again? The Non-Weasels out-muscle the Weasels in every major category except miltary spending. (Of course, this begs the question: why are the Weasels so unwilling to use their military power to support their fellow Europeans?)

The bottom line here isn't really about Europe versus America. Rather, as Steven Den Beste points out, the primary difference between “old” Europe and “new” Europe is that the latter has moved beyond the use of knee-jerk anti-Americanism as a substitute for establishing a thoughtful and responsible foreign policy.

Sean-Paul Kelley has a map which distinguishes the “real Weasels” from the temporary ones; if accurate, Jacques “the human weather vane” Chirac and Gerhard Schröder aren't going to be sharing tea and crumpets anytime soon.

I've updated the post to include three additional allies reported by Radio Free Europe.

Glenn Reynolds links to this TechCentralStation piece making a similar argument.

For the poor souls who got this site while searching for “Jennifer Garner lingerie,” presumably due to my Super Bowl commentary, I feel obligated to provide the following links, courtesy of Moxie and Ryan McGee: “Lifestyles of the Rich and Bloggerly” and “Jennifer Garner is not a drag queen.”

I'm providing these links solely as a public service and without further comment.

From this week's Economist (subscription required):

Going to war this way is far from ideal. If war is necessary, it would be better under explicit UN authority, commanding the sort of legitimacy that only the Security Council can confer. That is why so many voices, not least American ones, are urging Mr Bush to try harder to talk his allies round, give the inspectors more time, or offer Iraq a “final, final” opportunity to disarm. And if it were indeed the case that extra time and effort, or offering Iraq yet another last chance, could produce consensus, Mr Bush would be wise to heed these voices. But it is probably not the case. For, at bottom, if the Security Council splits it will not be because of a lack of time or a failure of diplomacy. It will be because of a difference of opinion. America and Britain say that if Iraq under its present management got hold of a nuclear or biological bomb, this would be so dangerous that it would be worth going to war to prevent it. Many other governments demur. And it is hard to see how extra time will convert them.

... which dovetails nicely with The New Republic's, assailing the New York Times editorial page for “moving the goalposts” over the past four months:

[T]he supposition that any level of Iraqi defiance would spur the Security Council to authorize war is ahistorical. During the 1990s, our non-British allies compiled a record of consistent appeasement. After Iraq whittled away at the prerogatives of weapons inspectors, going so far as to deem areas as large as Washington "presidential palaces" and thus off-limits, China, France, and Russia refused to back even a toothless resolution admonishing Iraq for its lack of cooperation. After Iraq expelled the inspectors, France and Russia opposed pinprick bombing. If they considered bombing too strong a response to massive violations then, why would they support the vastly stronger alternative of full invasion in response to weaker violations now? It may be that our allies' reluctance to enforce Iraqi disarmament stems in part from their distaste for Bush and his cowboy style, disregard for environmental accords, and fondness for protectionism. But the lack of commitment to Iraqi disarmament on the part of France, Germany, and Russia long predates the Bush administration. And yet many American liberals prefer to reside in an alternate universe where the United Nations stands poised to defang Saddam if only the United States would be just a bit more reasonable.

There is one sentence in Tuesday's Times editorial that comes closest to expressing the true sentiments of antiwar liberals: "The world must be reassured that every possibility of a peaceful solution has been fully explored." Consider the implications: The character of the Iraqi crisis is such that there is always the possibility of a peaceful solution. At every point in time, Saddam permits the minimal level of inspections cooperation he can get away with. Whenever he is threatened, he backs down until the crisis subsides, only to ratchet up his defiance later. The only logical end to this cycle is Saddam's successful acquisition of a nuclear weapon, at which point disarmament, forcible or otherwise, will no longer be an option. Indeed, this would be the actual result of the policy favored by antiwar liberals--whether they consciously desire it or not.

Andrew Sullivan also takes down the Times editorial in question.

Charles Johnson (lgf) passes on word that West Weaseldom is coordinating its position at the U.N. with Syria. From there, it's a hop, skip, and jump from weaseldom to evildom; they don't call Syria a “state sponsor of terrorism” for nothing, you know.

If eight European leaders issue a joint statement in support of the Iraqi war, would that constitute “news” in the New York Times? Apparently not.

So much for the Times being the “newspaper of record.”

Apparently Howell Raines finally figured out how to spin the news:

Assuming a somewhat frayed mantle as global diplomat, Prime Minister Tony Blair set off for the United States tonight to meet with President Bush, bearing an unusual pledge of support on Iraq from eight European leaders but leaving behind a continent ever more divided over the need for war.

Since the LeBron James/SUV story broke, am I the only one who has experienced several double-takes in response to the oft-repeated phrase "LeBron James received a Hummer from his mom"?

(Via Glenn Reynolds and MoronWatch:) The Axis of Non-Weasels has spoken, which the Times of London characterizes as an important show of support for British PM Tony Blair and the United States. Meanwhile, Côte d'Ivoire (the country formerly known as Ivory Coast, one of France's fiefdoms in west Africa) is proving to be a bit too hard for West Weaseldom to handle alone; perhaps the French oppose unilateralism because they know from first-hand experience that it never works. (Unfortunately, they seem to forget the other part of the equation: maybe it never works because it's French unilateralism...)

Steven Den Beste thinks sending Colin Powell to the U.N. on February 5 is a climb-down, while VodkaPundit argues that this is more an ultimatum than a call for a second resolution.

My thought: we're going to the Security Council because UNSC Resolution 1441 calls for “consultation” (but not a second resolution) before Iraq gets its “serious consequences” (i.e. an invasion). Just as 1441 was Iraq's final chance to declare its weapons of mass destruction and delivery mechanisms (which it has clearly failed), February 5th is the Security Council's final chance to declare whether it is relevant to the international order — the General Assembly long ago abdicated any relevance on that point, so the UNSC is basically the only credible U.N. organ left. The Security Council has three basic options:

1. Rubber stamp the US/UK/Australian/Spanish/Italian/Turkish/Kuwaiti/Qatarian coalition in a second resolution. (Apologies if I left someone important out.)

2. Not pass a second resolution but concede the US position that one isn't necessary (through a procedural motion not subject to veto, or without a formal vote).

3. Actively oppose coalition action (i.e. via a French explicit, unilateral veto or through a threat to veto any second resolution — the UNSC equivalent to a Senate “hold”) and be ignored by the multilateral US-led coalition.

As an institutional decision (to reinforce the illusion of the UNSC as arbiter of all international disputes), option one makes the most sense, while as a political decision (to not undercut the UNSC while at the same time leaving France free to rhetorically oppose coalition action in Iraq), option two makes the most sense.

Option three is only a viable option if the French (not the British or the US) have decided that the UNSC, and by extension the UN system as a whole, is no longer an important venue for French political influence over international events. However, such a decision would severely undercut France's efforts to “punch above its weight class” in international affairs, would probably lead to the collapse of NATO and the fragmentation of the European Union, and might lead to active US and British efforts to curtail France's neo-imperialist foreign policy and military intervention in Africa, none of which (obviously) are in France's best interest.

So, the reason Colin Powell will be at the Security Council on the 5th is to pursue option two — Security Council acquiesence. If he gets a second resolution, he'll be happy. If he gets French stonewalling, it won't matter. It moves the timetable back to around February 8 (slightly more than a week from Den Beste's original prediction) for a start of hostilities.

The bigger question is why is President George W. Bush paying any attention to the Security Council? Obviously, the polls have something to do with it (although I'm not convinced that they have much meaning on this issue — when war comes, Bush will get overwhelming support even if every single ally isn't involved). I also think that Bush isn't a unilateralist. This may be surprising to the Europeans in the audience, and the anti-war left, but Bush isn't Pat Buchanan or Jesse Helms. Bush repudiated Kyoto because the U.S. Senate indicated in July 1997 95–0 with five abstensions that it wouldn't ratify the treaty; even if all 5 Senators who abstained were closet Kyoto supporters, another 61 Senators would have to be found to ratify it. The Senate has indicated that it would not ratify the International Court of Justice under any forseeable circumstances, despite the previous administration's signature on the treaty.

On the other hand, Bush has promoted increased international cooperation where he has found Senate support, particularly in the area of trade; for example, in his efforts to expand the North American Free Trade Agreement to cover the entire western hemisphere (excluding Cuba), and his promotion of eliminating all tariffs on manufactured goods and sharply curtailing agricultural subsidies in the Doha round at the World Trade Organization. Even in the preparations for war with Iraq, Bush has sought the cooperation from friendly states, and has received it from a majority of the members of NATO and from a number of states in around the Gulf concerned about Iraq's potential threat to their region. None of these are the actions of a unilateralist president. And since Bush isn't a unilateralist, it's hard to believe he'd deliberately seek to undermine the authority of the United Nations — even though other member states, notably our nominal allies France and Germany, seem to be pursuing that end, by undermining the credibility of UNSC resolutions and the weapons inspections process rather than supporting the need for Iraqi compliance.

Steven Den Beste has had a good night's sleep and some e-mails and is significantly less pessimistic today, while Robert Jones is expecting some sort of procedural resolution from the U.N. that can be spun as a “second resolution” by fence-sitters along the lines of “option two” above.

First-time visitors: feel free to look around and see if there's other stuff you like.

Robert Jones says I misinterpreted what he meant about a second resolution; he says:

I was noodling more along a line of thought in which we present a second resolution which says, in diplomatic terms, "We've had enough. The war begins... now". The French and Germans would likely want to waffle and delay as long as possible, hoping to extend the issue out until the point is moot. However, as there can be no vetoing of procedural votes in the UNSC, we can move to terminate debate (which would be a procedural vote) and call for an immediate vote (of the substantive sort) on our resolution.

I'm not sure such a cloture vote is strictly necessary, although it would be politically unpalatable to start the bombing before the UNSC debate was concluded. That's still somewhere in the realm of “option two,” which is more a bunch of related options that all conclude in no substantive additional UNSC action and are more politically expedient than reinforcing of the UNSC's authority over international conflict under the U.N. Charter (“option one”) or further undermining the authority of the Security Council (”option three”).

After thinking some more, what Robert says is clearer to me: rather than as an end in and of itself, he views a procedural “cloture” vote as a step toward a conclusive vote on the substantive issue of whether or not to attack Iraq (the “second vote” the waverers want). “Option two” doesn't countenance a second vote, however, and I don't think the Bush administration really wants one — indeed, pursuing one would concede the Axis of Weasels position that one is needed. If there's a second resolution, it will be proposed by an Axis of Weasels power (probably Germany) in order to stop the U.S. from appearing to act without their blessing, not because the “coalition of the willing” genuinely cares about getting one.

Want to establish a better partisanship score for Congress? Here's my methodology: get footage from a wide-angle camera mounted on the ceiling of the House Chamber. At every applause line in the State of the Union, compute an "agreement with the President" score based on: Does X clap? Does X stand? Sum the scores for each Senator and Representative.

$20 says it correlates at .95 or better with DW-NOMINATE Dimension One. And you don't even have to do any icky scaling; just enslave a few grad students to do the math... :-)