“It’s a tragedy that U.S. soldiers have killed so many civilians in Baghdad… But it’s really incredible that the U.S. military does not even count these deaths. Any time U.S. forces kill an Iraqi civilian in questionable circumstances, they should investigate the incident.”

The US military says it has concluded only five investigations above the division level, ordered by the deputy commanding general, into alleged unlawful deaths. Of these, soldiers were found to have operated “within the rules of engagement” in four cases. In the fifth case, a helicopter pilot and his commander face disciplinary action for trying to tear down a Shi`a banner in Sadr City in Baghdad, an incident that provoked a violent clash with demonstrators on August 13.

…At his hurriedly-called press conference, Wednesday, October 29, Bush claimed that the U.S. military was "striking the enemy with force and precision" -- an ironic claim, since on Monday U.S. soldiers killed six Iraqi civilians in a reckless response to a roadside bomb. And Human Rights Watch reports that U.S. soldiers have killed at least 94 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad alone. …

… Ordinary Iraqis - many of them long-term enemies of Saddam Hussein - are attacking the American occupation army 35 times a day in the Baghdad area alone…

... Dean picked up an endorsement Tuesday from the California Teacher's Association, an unusual move so early in the campaign season. The CTA represents 335,000 teachers statewide.

"Wherever you go, far from Washington, Democrats share one thing in common: We've got to get George Bush out of the White House," said Eli Segal, Clark's campaign chairman. "I've never seen this kind of passion before."... Polling in early-contest states suggests that there is currency for the view that Democrats are aching for a winner. For instance, a survey taken earlier this month by Stanley Greenberg, a Democrat not aligned with any candidate, found that when asked what they preferred in their nominee, Democratic voters in New Hampshire chose electability over ideology by 53 percent to 40 percent...

...rarely has a candidate for president so banked on electability as Clark has. And rarely has a candidate who has proved so popular in states with early contests grappled with the doubts that have surrounded Dean.

The retired general's claim of electability is not without doubters of its own. Many of his supporters were surprised to learn that he had spoken warmly of Bush, had voted for Nixon and Reagan, and had said he probably would have voted for the Congressional resolution authorizing the war in Iraq, a stance he later recanted.

Advisers to some rival campaigns argue that positions like those would present an inviting target to the White House and that they fundamentally undermine Clark's case for electability...

... his aides say, the strongest argument for his candidacy is that he has the best chance of beating Bush. "Electability has emerged as a top issue in this race," said Chris Lehane, a senior Clark adviser. "And that is primarily a function of the fact that Democrats are so angry with the direction under Bush that above all else, they want to find a candidate who can beat Bush."...

... shrugging off the electability argument, Dean's campaign manager, Joe Trippi, said that Democrats underestimated his candidate's appeal in the early days of the primary race and that any assessment that he would be a weak general-election candidate would also be proved wrong. Voters, he said, respond to appeals that are based on issues and values. "Bill Clinton didn't say, `Vote for me because I'm going to win,' " Mr. Trippi said. "I don't think people vote that way."

Nonetheless, questions about Dean's electability have shadowed him even as he rocketed to the top of many polls in Iowa and New Hampshire. In an appearance on "Iowa Press," an interview program on public television, he was challenged as to whether he was capable of winning the general election. He responded intensely, if wearily.

"It's possible that I am the only Democrat who can get elected... And let me tell you why: Every other Democrat in this race believes that the way to beat Bush is to be like Bush. I believe the way to beat Bush is to bring a lot of new people into this process."

... Campaigning this week in Wisconsin and New Hampshire, Clark pulled no punches in his indictment of the war and the president who launched it.

Attacking Iraq, he argued, was not just a mistake but a "national tragedy" that will "be looked at as a disastrous turn of events in U.S. history."

President Bush not only exaggerated the Iraq threat, Clark said, but also deceived people about it, pulling a "bait and switch" by using Sept. 11 as a "pretext" for going after Saddam Hussein.

"If someone wrote it in a novel and said, 'Can you imagine this would happen to the United States, our country would be struck and we'd strike back at a different country that didn't have anything to do with it?', you'd say, 'Can't be!' " Clark told listeners in Milwaukee. "But it is."

In a speech Tuesday, Clark said Bush's description of Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the "axis of evil" was "probably the single worst formulation in the last half-century in American foreign policy."

And he assailed Bush not only over Iraq, but also over Sept. 11 - accusing him of trying to duck responsibility for the attacks - and Afghanistan, saying the United States should have gone through the United Nations and NATO as it struck back at Osama bin Laden.

The Bush record? "An almost unbroken string of foreign policy failures," the former NATO commander said.

"America needs a leader the world can trust," said Clark, "and we don't have one now."
An about-face

The scope and ferocity of Clark's foreign policy broadsides have been noted by his Democratic rivals and Republicans. Both have taken him to task. They say he's trying to score points with anti-Bush Democratic primary voters after praising Bush's leadership before he became a candidate - and after seeing the momentum of his much-publicized entry in the race fade....

If United States President George W Bush was surprised on his recent trip to Indonesia by the negative image the country's Muslim leaders had of his administration, he is unlikely to be reassured by two new surveys from Latin America and Europe. The details are laid out by David Sanger in the nyt

Bush's highest negatives were found in the region's traditional powerhouses: Brazil (98 percent), Argentina (93 percent) and Mexico (92 percent), according to the survey. (incidentally, Brazil’s President, Luis 'Lula' da Silva is most Popular, according to that poll, because he is seen through his activities of in the G20 as one person standing up to US trade barriers, especially when the US is crowing about the virtues of “free trade” to the rest of the world. Check out this account of the results of the collapse of the recent WTO conference in Cancun. )

The notion that a free-trade accord would favor Washington over Latin America was particularly strong in the region's two biggest economies, Brazil and Mexico, where three of four respondents said the US would benefit most.

Only 6 percent of the 7,515 people polled said that they believe Washington should be in charge of security in Iraq, while 43 percent agreed the job should be given to the United Nations.

Only 4 percent of respondents there said they accepted Washington's main stated reason for going to war - to eliminate weapons of mass destruction. More than four in 10 said that they believed the principal objective was to secure Iraq's oil reserves.

Gallup Poll of Baghdad: Gauging U.S. Intent

Although 62% of Baghdad residents who participated in Gallup's landmark poll of that city said ousting Saddam Hussein was worth any personal hardships they have endured since the invasion, most [Baghdad residents] are deeply skeptical of the initial rationale the coalition has given for its action.

They are glad to see Saddam Hussein gone — as shown by their desire to punish members of the old regime — but they don't really trust the Americans who drove him out.

Representative Jesse L. Jackson Jr. said Monday that he would soon endorse Howard Dean for the Democratic presidential nomination… Dean has "the best chance to be the next president of the United States."

Introducing Dean to a Chicago university audience, Jackson observed that I’ve seen him stand up for

• health care

• students

• ordinary Americans

“Now, I'm asking you to stand up for Howard Dean."

The support of Congressman Jackson, the son of Jesse Jackson, has been coveted by several presidential contenders in part because he carries some of the imprimatur of his father.

Other African-Americans indicating, and/or edging toward, endorsement of Dean’s candicacy for president include are

Jonathan Jackson, brother to Congressman Jackson, Congressman Major R. Owens of Brooklyn as better-known black leaders backing Dr. Dean.

Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, Representative Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick of Detroit and Representative Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston.

Dean: "Congressman Jackson has been one of the major new up-and-coming African-American leaders in this country, and he has been enormously helpful already."

As for Mr. Jesse Jackson Sr., Dean said, "We've spent a lot of time on the phone with him," adding, "He is probably the pre-eminent spokesman for civil rights and economic justice, so he's enormously important to a candidate like me."

Representatives of a new coalition of prominent foreign-policy scholars and analysts whose political views range from right to centre-left announced Thursday October 17, 2003 they hope to spearhead opposition to the imperial policies pursued by the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush.

Leaders of the 'Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy' charged that the administration is moving "in a dangerous direction toward empire," an idea that they said has never been embraced by the U.S. public.

The spokespersons said they will hold a series of policy forums and conferences around the country, publish papers and articles, and represent an anti-imperial viewpoint on television and radio, media that, since the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, have been largely dominated by pro-imperial or pro-war voices.

"We are a diverse group of scholars and analysts from across the political spectrum who believe that the move toward empire must be halted immediately," says the coalition's charter statement, signed by 44 foreign-policy specialists.

"We are united by our desire to turn American national security policy toward realistic and sustainable measures for protecting U.S. vital interests in a manner that is consistent with American values," it added.

"The time for debate is now," the charter states, noting that imperial policies "can quickly gain momentum, with new interventions begetting new dangers."

Among the more prominent right-wing signers are Doug Bandow, a special assistant to former president Ronald Reagan and now a senior officer at the libertarian Cato Institute, Scott McConnell, chief editor of The American Conservative magazine and Alan Tonelson of the U.S. Business & Industrial Council Educational Foundation.

Representing more centrist positions are Steven Clemons of the New America Foundation, former senator Gary Hart and Harvard international relations professor Stephen Walt.

More left-wing figures in the group include Charles Kupchan, an aide to former president Bill Clinton now with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and Kenneth Sharpe, a prominent foreign-policy analyst from Swarthmore College in Philadelphia.

The launch of the coalition, which intends to recruit other members, comes amid growing concern in both the U.S. Congress and the public about the aftermath of Washington's invasion of Iraq last March. …

Kupchan noted that the public dialogue on Washington's global role had been far too muted, if one-sided, since the 9/11 attacks. "Now there's been a shift in the country that has taken place," he said. "The fact that we're all together here speaks volumes about the degree to which our foreign policy is off course."

The coalition … will … focus on the recruitment of foreign-policy specialists and analysts who can help frame the context for public and media debate. A major target of the group will be the "neo-conservative" strategists in and around the administration, especially those close to Vice President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who led the charge into Iraq, continue to argue for military and other actions against Syria, Iran, and North Korea, and promoted the larger strategic vision of global U.S. military dominance.

The coalition's purpose: … to publicly take on liberals and conservatives who support the administration's imperial policies, beginning with its 'National Security Strategy.'

… Democrats Fear Dean
Posted by NYC Republican PoliPundit.com |

Congressional Democrats are afraid of what a Howard Dean nomination would do to them: Vulnerable House Democrats are worried that Howard Dean’s negative coattails will whisk them out of office in 2004. The incumbent lawmakers — especially those from culturally conservative Southern states — are concerned that if he is nominated, the former Vermont governor’s antiwar, pro-gay positions will create a national mood that will make it more difficult for Democratic incumbents to keep their seats, let alone win back the House. If it's bad for House members, it's worse for senators. As I put it in June, when I...

Focus on the Family [leader, James Dobson,] Decries Media Lambasting of Lt. General Boykin; Worldwide Ministry Alarmed at Anti-Christian Attacks
…
Focus on the Family Chairman Dr. James Dobson expressed outrage over the vicious media treatment Lt. Gen. William Boykin has received for making Christian statements in reference to the war on terrorism.

"We are extremely distressed by the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and others' treatment of Gen. Boykin. Since when does a man not have the right to express his private religious views in the company of fellow believers?" asked Dobson. "Does a man forfeit his freedom of speech when he becomes a military leader?"

Dobson also explained that Gen. Boykin's comments were directed to a Christian audience who clearly understood the meaning of his message.

"Every conservative Christian would understand the language that Gen. Boykin used to describe what is known as spiritual warfare. His words were consistent with mainstream evangelical beliefs and he had a right to express them."

Dobson further lashed out at Boykin's vocal media critics, describing a record of antagonism toward Christians in the public square.

"General Boykin was speaking about terrorists with no regard for human life, not peaceful Muslims. Nothing in the excerpts of his speeches can even remotely be construed as an attack on Islam. Yet, his critics are all too eager to draw inferences that don't exist. These diatribes against Gen. Boykin are consistent with the denigration of anyone in public life who has the temerity to speak openly about his faith. This is nothing more than an assault on the Christian faith, which is becoming a very common occurrence in the mainstream media."

Dr. James Dobson also addresses the issues raised by Lt. General Boykin's comments during the first part of today's Focus on the Family radio broadcast.

The entire broadcast can be heard by visiting http://www.family.org

Phone Campaign Organized in Support of US General Who Made Controversial Remarks on Islam

A conservative Christian activist has organized a phone campaign in support of a U.S. army general who has sparked controversy over his remarks casting the war on terrorism in religious terms.

Pentagon officials confirm that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's office has been flooded with phone calls in support of Lieutenant General William Boykin.

James C. Dobson, founder of the non-profit organization Focus on the Family, which produces his internationally syndicated radio programs, organized the campaign and publicized the secretary's phone number. …

After Bush took office, a coalition arranged to ask Karl Rove to lobby Bush that the United States intercede in the civil war in Sudan. The group included Charles W. Colson, the born-again Christian who spent seven months in jail for his role in Watergate. … Although twenty-year war in Sudan was not that important in the Bush admin,… the religious strife between Christians and Muslims in a conflict that had killed two million people was of enormous concern to American religious groups, particularly the evangelicals who make up a major portion of President Bush's electoral base.

Rove, the participants in the meeting recalled, was unusually receptive during a nearly hourlong conversation. "He made it clear how seriously the administration was going to engage on this," said Rabbi Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.

Close to three years later, the White House has lived up to Rove's promise to engage not only in peace talks in Sudan, but on other human rights issues of critical importance to American religious groups, most notably sex trafficking and AIDS.

Administration officials and members of Congress say the religious coalition has had an unusual influence on one of the most religious White Houses in American history. The groups have driven aspects of foreign policy and won major appointments, and they were instrumental in making sure that the president included extensive remarks on sex trafficking in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in September.

No one disputes that Bush already cares deeply about those issues and has a personal faith that his advisers say brings a moral dimension to a foreign policy better known for war. "To put it simply, it's a fairly radical belief that a child in an African village whose parents are dying of AIDS has the same importance before God as the president of the United States," said Michael Gerson, Bush's chief speechwriter and an important White House policy adviser who is a born-again Christian.

But it is also true, religious leaders and administration officials note, that white evangelicals accounted for about 40 percent of the votes that Bush received in the 2000 presidential election. In 2004 , political analysts say, he is unlikely to be re-elected without the strong support of this constituency, which is predominately but not wholly Republican, and which in other years has thrown significant support to southern Democrats like Bill Clinton. Rove is now tending to the constituency with great care.

"You're not going to run into too many people who are smarter than Karl," said Dr. Richard D. Land, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, who is in regular contact with Rove. "Karl understands the importance of this segment of his coalition, and I think the president understands it. The president feels that one of the contributory factors to his father's loss is that he didn't get as many evangelical votes as Reagan did."

The human rights issues offer a politically safe way for the president to appeal to his base of white evangelicals, who leading scholars and pollsters define by their membership in historically white evangelical denominations, like the Southern Baptists and the Assemblies of God. Evangelical churches believe that the Bible is truth, that members have an imperative to proselytize and convert and that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation.
…
The religious dynamic at the White House reflects a larger change within American evangelicals themselves, and their interest over the last decade in moving beyond the divisive domestic issues that consumed them a generation ago — abortion, school prayer, homosexuality, pornography — into an international arena.
…
"Evangelicals today are more interested in making a difference than in making a statement," said the Rev. Richard Cizik, the vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents 43,000 congregations. "We made a lot of statements in the 1980's and got zip."

“… evangelicals were now more willing to work with Jewish and feminist groups on certain foreign policy issues and that the failure of evangelicals in the 1980's to meet their goals was in part a failure to collaborate. "Evangelicals have thought historically, `Well, we'll do politics the way we do faith — we'll just convert the opposition,' " he said. "But you can't do politics the same way you do religion."

The groups now find the Bush White House is an open door , particularly with a president who uses evangelical language in his speeches and credits his faith with helping him to give up drinking.
…
After the meeting, Colson said he went up to Bush and said emphatically that faith-based policy worked. "He said, `You don't have to tell me,' " Colson said the president replied. "He said, `I'd still be drinking if it weren't for what Christ did in my life. I know faith-based works.' "

A Majority (58%) of Americans Say the U.S. is Spending Too Much Money on Iraq; Voters Close to Evenly Split on Whether They'd Like to See Bush Re-Elected (46% Say Yes, 47% Say No); 40 % Say His Iraq Policy Will Make Them More Likely To Vote for Him, 38 % Say Less Dean Overtakes Clark As Favorite For Democratic Presidential Nomination for the First Time ...

Wesley Clark joined John Edwards and Joe Lieberman last week in gambling that the front-loaded calendar of primaries and caucuses in 2004 will allow them to overcome early setbacks.

Larry Sabato, head of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia argues that “At a certain point, the activists and the press stop accepting the excuses… The strategy may make sense, but the offense is still there when you bypass a state or you downplay the need to win it… It is offensive to Iowa. It is an admission of failure. It’s not just a strategy.’’

Since the modern New Hampshire primary began in 1952, no one has finished third and gone on to win the party’s nomination, much less the general election.

Since Iowa began its early caucus in 1972, no candidate has skipped the process and won the party’s nomination.

So consider this:

- Clark and Lieberman have decided to skip Iowa.

- Aides to Edwards and Lieberman have conceded for months that they are running for a bronze medal in New Hampshire.

- Clark’s advisers have gone one step further, saying they would be happy with a fourth-place finish here.

All three are now pinning their hopes on a breakthrough Feb. 3 when these states hold their contests: Arizona, Delaware, Missouri, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Carolina.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe acknowledged this election season is like no other. As a result, he said, candidates can survive if they get a victory a week after New Hampshire when those seven other states hold their contests.

“My best guesstimate is that the field will begin to winnow out after February 3,” McAuliffe said last week. “You’ve got two contests in January and the seven others on February 3.

“If you have not won any of those contests, which has represented the whole country and all elements of our party, then I think it’s time to assess your candidacy.’’

Evidently there is a strong chance that if the race is determined by Feb 3, it will be by March 10th

Terry McAuliffe: “We’ll have a nominee, I believe, by mid-March – March 10th, probably – and then we’ll have eight months to go one-on-one with President George Bush.” California, Georgia and New York have primaries on March 2, followed a week later by Super Tuesday, when a bloc of Southern states will be up for grabs. …

But support for the industry has eroded as the gap between drug prices in the United States and the rest of the industrialized world has grown. Surveys by a Canadian health agency have found that American prices are, on average, about twice those in Canada and nearly three times those in Italy. With price controls in most other countries, the industry last year made half its sales — $200 billion worth — in the United States for the first time.

Should a bill legalizing drug imports pass Congress and be signed by President Bush, the drug industry still could defend its profits. Already, some drug makers are limiting sales to Canadian pharmacies so they can only get enough drugs to fill prescriptions written in Canada.

Once in office, the Bush administration delivered on this criticism by shifting power from the White House to the executive branch "power" agencies and to the vice president.

contemporary business approach to management, one that involves flattening the power structure by placing a great deal of authority in the hands of those responsible for running major units.

The problem with this model is that the government of the United States is not a corporation. Its product is not military power in one package, diplomacy in another and economic power in yet another, but rather a single, integrated "system of systems" that collectively represent national security. To create this product requires vision, purpose and direction from the core. Such things cannot be delegated, and unfortunately neither can they be easily acquired if they are not part of a president's basic orientation to the job.

Since September 11, 2001, however, the inherent shortcomings of this approach have become much more evident. Middle East policy is in deep trouble. Policy toward North Korea is improvisational and contradictory. Policy toward our allies and vital international organizations is erratic. Policy toward the Russian Federation and China has become personalized and idealized.

Retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) and Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) have staked their presidential candidacies on an unusual second-chance strategy, betting their futures against the record of history and the dynamics that have governed nomination contests for more than two decades.


The decision by the three Democrats to say they will look for their first victories on Feb. 3 -- two weeks after the Iowa caucuses and a week after the New Hampshire primary -- tests whether anyone can win the nomination without competing to win in Iowa and New Hampshire and also highlights the parallel battles underway in the Democratic race.

The first is among former Vermont governor Howard Dean, Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) and Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) for supremacy coming out of Iowa and New Hampshire. Currently, Iowa is a battle between Gephardt and Dean, while New Hampshire is a battle between Dean and Kerry.

The second pits Clark, Edwards and Lieberman against one another, with each hoping to survive the first two contests with potentially lackluster finishes and then to win enough victories on Feb. 3 to emerge as the most viable challenger to the survivor of the Dean-Kerry-Gephardt battles in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Seven states will hold contests Feb. 3: Arizona, Delaware, Missouri, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Carolina. Never before have so many states scheduled primaries or caucuses so soon after New Hampshire, and Edwards, Clark and Lieberman see that date as an opportunity to jump into the thick of the battle....

Howard Dean leads his Democratic rivals in New Hampshire by 12 percentage points, and President Bush's support among likely voters of all parties appears to be shrinking in the state, …. poll published Wednesday, done for the Concord Monitor by Research 2000, a Rockville, Md., company.

It found that if the primary were held today, 31 percent of likely Democrat voters would vote for Dean, with a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, with 19 percent support, was slightly ahead of retired Gen. Wesley Clark, at 12 percent.
Trailing with single-digit support were Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich. Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley Braun had less than 1 percent support.
Twenty-three percent of respondents were undecided about the Democratic primary.

In head-to-head matchups Bush garnered support of 48 percent to 53 percent against either Dean, Clark, Kerry, Lieberman or Gephardt. The five Democrats each had between 37 percent and 41 percent support, but the margin of error of 4 percentage points means they were all about even against Bush.

In the same matchups in June, Bush had the support of 57 percent to 59 percent of all voters. The Democrats had the support of between 28 percent and 32 percent.

The poll was conducted Oct. 16-Oct. 20 among residents who voted in the 2002 presidential election and who are likely to vote in the upcoming election.

Politicians do not dare admit to helplessness. In their line of work, they have to offer a solution to every problem, even if the proposed cure is little more than snake oil.

Some problems, though, are too powerful to be reversed by mere government. The global economic transformation now under way fits that description all too well.

Bluster as he might, President Bush cannot stop what's happening. Nor can his Democratic opponents. No government policy, no change in law or regulation, is capable of altering the changes under way. At best, all we can do is adjust as quickly and wisely as possible. ...

Shirin Ebadi’s 2003 Nobel Peace Prize is a wonderful event for reformists and human rights activists both in Iran and other parts of the world. This is a positive signal to Iranians at a time when most of them are despairing of the political process and pessimistic about the future of the reform movement, conveying a message from Europe that the importance of the fight for rights is recognized abroad.

European leaders appeared jubilant over the selection of an Iranian woman who works as an advocate for human rights. President Jacques Chirac of France called her an "exceptional choice," and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany celebrated her dedication to "tolerant coexistence and an understanding between cultures."

At the same time, neoconservatives in the US and their friends in Israel are beating the war drums, talking of smashing Iran’s nuclear power plant at Bushehr or taking the case to the UN Security Council, and hinting at further attacks on Iran in Bush’s second term.

The prize therefore highlights the significant differences between the US and European policies toward Iran and the Middle East in general. The signals that are usually sent by US administrations to both the Iranian people and government are threatening; there is nothing about hope. The fight for human rights has unfortunately been used to justify war by US administrations.

Many Iranian reformist voices from Iranian artists and intellectuals can be heard in the European media; in the American mainstream media, one hears about the regime’s hard-line conservatives. Top American journalists usually interview political nobodies as the new voices of Iranians, ignoring Iranian intellectuals and political activists who may have a critical take on US foreign policy.

Washington prefers building political alternatives to “rogue” regimes among forces located outside Muslim societies (Chalabi for Iraq, Karzai for Afghanistan, and Reza Pahlavi for Iran), while Europeans have more interaction with forces inside these societies. The main European states consider internal forces more effective than immigrants in transitional periods between regimes.

US administrations and media do not usually bother criticizing Iranian policy within the context of an open dialogue, preferring instead to send arrogant dictates; Europeans do at least discuss and listen to outside opinion before making declarations.

The US usually negotiates unilaterally with representatives of appointed political bodies when pursuing its interests in the region, while Europeans negotiate with representatives of both appointed and elected bodies. The Iran-US negotiations are usually held behind closed doors, while Europeans negotiate in a more open and accessible way.

Today’s Europe is more open to others and more secure, while the US continues to be insecure and narrow-minded. The American foreign policy discourse is centered on fear. The furor over weapons of mass destruction, for instance, is a monster to scare citizens of the West and threaten others who “aren’t with us.”

European discourse on foreign policy is more focused on human rights and democracy, leading to dialogue and peaceful solutions, while the US policy engine is directed toward containment, intervention and military attack, leading to demonization and occupation.

Europeans make efforts to try and push the Muslim world into recognizing that Islam and modern ideas like human rights and democracy could go hand in hand. The Europeans and Iranian public spheres both have similar ideas about the forces and methods of change: the fight for human rights and democracy should be conducted in Iran by the Iranian people; both sides are also against any foreign intervention; they both emphasize the adoption of lawful and peaceful means for radical change. American administrations generally show scant regard for international law.

Europeans have always watched closely the course of social and cultural events in Iran, while Americans are mostly interested in political events. The difference between society-oriented and power-oriented approaches can be seen in their respective media. Europeans have a cultural and civilizational approach to the Middle East beside the political and economic approaches.

The region is viewed from a much narrower perspective in the United States. American citizens rarely hear about different interpretations of Islam or Muslims’ cultural heritage in mainstream media rather, it comes across as a monolithic, bombastic religion.

The great divisions among the most powerful actors in world affairs, the United States and Europe, have their roots in interactive policies of mutual grievances between the US and its so-called “enemies,” which increasingly crowd out any policies based on mutual understanding and dialogue.

The 200-page Arab Human Development Report, the second of a planned series of four written by a group of Arab intellectuals and academics, is intended to generate debate among the 22 Arab states.

In 2003, Iraq fell under an occupation that most Arabs saw as embodying plans to reshape the region from the outside to suit the interest of foreign powers. Source: U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Rima Khalaf Hunaidi.

"These are problems we in the Arab world have been talking about for decades. We need a plan of political action to address the problem and make it better," says Khouri, executive editor of Lebanon's English-language Daily Star newspaper....

At his most polite, Krugman was irreverent, but much of the time he seemed to think irreverence was much too good for the President, the people around him, and almost everything he stood for. In The Great Unraveling he commits the ultimate rudeness: Bush, he says, is surreptitiously leading a radical right-wing political movement against American government as it has developed in the past century. The words "radical" and "right-wing" are bad words in the political lexicon of mainstream American journalism. Normally they are simply not used to describe presidents, except by the kind of people who write for funky little out-of-the-mainstream journals...

As for the tax-cut plan which Bush the campaigner presented as a boon to the middle class and one which would easily fit into a sound budget, "It took only a bit of homework to show that both claims were just plain untrue— but for some reason almost nobody in the media was willing to do that homework."

...September 11, Krugman writes, actually helped the President execute "the largest bait-and-switch operation in history":

First he described a budget-busting tax cut, which delivered the bulk of its benefits to the very affluent, as a modest plan to return unneeded revenue to ordinary families. Then, when the red ink began flowing in torrents, he wrapped himself and his policies in the flag, blaming deficits on evil terrorists and forces beyond his control.

Krugman's analysis of journalism's limp coverage during Bush's first three years overlooks some potentially interesting explanations. One has to do with political journalism's heavy dependence on polling. Incessant polls make it tempting to do easy horse-race journalism and ignore what candidates stand for. Since polling doesn't require going far from the office and social centers where professionals chat about polls, it has tended to make political journalism a stultifying kind of work. There is no longer much fresh air blowing through the political columns, but a great deal of deadly dull inside-baseball stuff that sounds like Washington insiders talking among themselves.

The healthy income of top Washington-based political writers may also have an effect. For those with a foot or two in television, the income is very healthy indeed. Six-figure incomes are the rule, and those seen frequently as TV performers may be millionaires. We are talking of people who may well be in that top bracket so generously favored by the Bush tax cuts. Self-interest almost always begets a little prudence...

It seems slightly scandalous that Krugman has persisted in noting that the present administration has been moving the lion's share of the money to an array of corporate interests distinguished by the greed of their CEOs, an indifference toward their workers, and boardroom conviction that it is the welfare state that is ruining the country. Krugman has been strident. He has been shrill. He has lowered the dignity of the commentariat. How refreshing.

The incumbent lawmakers - especially those from culturally conservative southern states - are concerned that if he is nominated, the former Vermont governor's antiwar, pro-gay positions will create a national mood that will make it more difficult for Democratic incumbents to keep their seats, let alone win back the House.

While many of these Democrats have proven their ability to win in seats that Republican presidential nominees typically carry by 10 or more percentage points, they are beginning to wonder how much of a point spread they'll need to cover to retain their seats should Dean's campaign for the presidential nomination succeed. ... many of the vulnerable Democrats are getting nervous about how Dean will influence tight congressional races.
...
But other Frontline Democrats claimed that their reelection had little to do with who was atop the national ticket and was entirely contingent upon their relationship with their constituents. ...

.... Under pressure from potential donors, the Bush administration will allow a new agency to determine how to spend billions of dollars in reconstruction assistance for Iraq, administration and international aid officials say.

The new agency, to be independent of the American occupation, will be run by the World Bank and the United Nations. They are to announce the change at a donor conference in Madrid later this week. ...

... While the administration made clear that the resolution would not necessarily provide troops to take the place of the 130,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq, Pakistan's announcement that it would not do so came as a particular blow.

On the other hand, that Washington is still negotiating with its handpicked Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) over the deployment of up to 10,000 troops promised by Turkey suggests that Pentagon planners still are not very clear on what use foreign troops could serve in Iraq anyway.

The IGC has made it increasingly clear since the Turkish parliament approved the deployment – after Washington signed off on an eight-billion-dollar loan and promised to disarm Turkish rebels based in Kurdistan – almost two weeks ago that Turkish troops are simply not welcome, not in Kurdistan, nor in the rest of the country.

The IGC, from which the ardently pro-U.S. Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani threatened to resign if the Turkish deployment proceeds, has by all accounts become increasingly restive and resentful, particularly of the often high-handed behaviour of Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) chief Jerry Bremer, who has demanded that the IGC formally invite the Turks in.

The growing friction between Bremer and the IGC has become a source of embarrassment.

So have the ongoing frictions here between the Pentagon on the one side and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and the State Department on the other....

... Good things are happening; bad things are happening. And the most important developments -- the things that will determine our ultimate success or failure -- are happening deep inside the minds and hearts of the Iraqi people.

... We will not, of course, be leaving voluntarily. One of the prime if unacknowledged goals of this invasion was to give the United States a permanent foothold in Iraq, from which we can project power throughout that region. That goal is a natural application of the new National Security Strategy of permanent global dominance announced by President Bush last year.

We also have humanitarian reasons for staying. If we are indeed run out of Iraq in the next five years, the consequences would be truly ugly. It would set off a bloody internal power struggle that would make Somalia seem like a picnic, with various factions fighting bitterly for control of the world's second-largest reserves of oil. Surrounding nations would inevitably be drawn into the power vacuum as well ....

Dean and his manager, Joe Trippi claim that the technique signals no less than a sea change in traditional Democratic campaigning.

"Nearly half a million Americans have joined our campaign to take our country back from a politics of cynicism and an economy that works for too few, and nearly a quarter million have contributed what they can to help us build the greatest grass-roots campaign presidential politics has ever seen,"

Dean declared last week as he filed a report showing that he raised $14.8 million in the third quarter of this year, more than any other Democrat, including past incumbent presidents. ... In response, one critic declares: "Dean raising close to $15 million is like a baseball player hitting 75 home runs,"

Not the captive of special interest groups, like in the past, Dean is showing how the Democratic Party can become "a party that can transcend our interest groups, and that a candidate can get elected without owing anyone anything,"

The nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute last week provided some evidence supporting this view. "What is also different about 2003 is the emergence of a well-financed candidate -- Howard Dean -- who depends on large donors ($1,000 or more) for only 22 percent of individual contributions and gets 54 percent from small donors (less than $200)," the institute found.

In contrast, President Bush, who has raised $83.9 million, collected 85 percent of it in contributions of $1,000 or more and 10 percent in gifts of less than $200. For other major Democratic candidates, the percentages of large and small contributions were: retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark, 45 percent to 35 percent; Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), 88 to 1; Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.), 78 to 8; Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), 77 to 11; and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), 78 to 6.

Charlie Baker, claims that Dean has succeeded in finding a way for the Democratic Party to address the "huge alienation that is out there, more on our [Democratic] side than their side."

"Dean has figured out how to get people who feel intensely to give him money. The issue is: How expandable is that? That's what we are going to find out over the next several months."

THE death of Dr David Kelly could have been avoided if Tony Blair had heeded calls for a judicial inquiry into the Iraq war, Robin Cook alleged yesterday.

In a marked escalation of his rhetoric against the government, Mr Cook said if such an inquiry had been held Dr Kelly might never have found himself caught up in the bitter row over the existence of Iraqi WMD and the use of intelligence reports to justify the conflict.

Cook, who resigned from the Cabinet in protest at the military action, said he had called for a judicial inquiry in May.

"I think it would have been very useful if we had it then because then we could possibly have spared the tragedy of David Kelly’s suicide and we wouldn’t have needed the Hutton Inquiry" ... "We [now] know Saddam was not a threat, we know there were no weapons of mass destruction. We also know tragically we were not prepared to know what to do next when we went in. ... [Cook also claimed] the Hutton Inquiry had shown the government did not believe Iraq had WMD.... The whole of Britain understands now that Saddam was not a threat. ... We did not attack Iraq because there was any imminent or serious or immediate threat. We attacked Iraq because it was weak and we knew he could not resist."

Another critic of the war, the Labour MP Glenda Jackson, also stepped up her criticism of Mr Blair by repeating her demands for his resignation.
"I think the government would be in an infinitely stronger position if he did actually bite the bullet, resign and the party could engage in the process of selecting and electing a new leader," she said...

... Clark and Lieberman have decided to bypass Iowa's presidential caucuses, angering some party leaders there and signaling what could be a very different nomination battle next year. Lieberman's advisers said on Sunday that they would pull out all but one of his 17 staff members in Iowa and send them to states considered more receptive to his appeal, like Arizona. Clark's aides said he would maintain a minimal presence in the state, which has the nation's earliest presidential selection contest...

Dean, one of seven Democratic presidential candidates to address the Arab American Institute's national leadership conference in Dearborn, pointed to an American flag and named some of the people he said it did not belong to.

[The American flag] does not belong to General Boykin, or John Ashcroft, or Rush Limbaugh or Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson," the former Vermont governor said to cheers in the packed hotel conference room in the Detroit suburb which is home to one of the highest concentrations of Muslims and Arabs outside the Middle East.

"This flag belongs to every single American, including every single American in this room, and is the hope and aspiration for many other folks who are not yet citizens," he said.

The message was warmly received by the crowd of about 300 as Dean named Ashcroft, the U.S. Attorney General and a prominent spokesmen for America's conservative or religious right, along with Army Lt. Gen. William Boykin, the senior Pentagon intelligence official who has told Christian gatherings that Muslims worship an "idol."

His speech was repeatedly interrupted by applause as he condemned violations of civil liberties, racial profiling and abuse of authority under the USA Patriot Act, the anti-terror legislation championed by Ashcroft that passed after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Hundreds of Muslims and Arabs were detained in roundups after the attacks and Dean said the detentions and deportations of an untold number of immigrants based on secret evidence were unlawful and should be repealed.

"Today we see another shameful chapter in American history. Because John Ashcroft touts the Patriot Act around this country does not make John Ashcroft a patriot," he said.

"The war on terror cannot become a war on civil rights and freedoms. We should not have to chose between securing our homeland and securing the blessings of liberty. We can have both, otherwise the terrorists have won and we will not permit that."

Dean also won applause by reiterating his recent promises to send former President Bill Clinton to the Middle East as his peace broker if he is elected next year.

A number of Democratic presidential candidates have started monthly contribution plans as part of their Internet fund-raising strategies, attracting donations that while modest — $10 or $50 — are given repeatedly.

This strategy of campaign financing reflects a response to the new campaign finance regulations, that put the emphasis on "hard money," or individual contributions, that are capped at $2,000. The first $250 of an individual donation is matched by federal funds.

Essentially each candidate is doubling every one of these contributions with matching funds. "It's very significant." … people can have donations automatically charged to their credit cards each month. Evidently, as the article states, the Repubs started using this method even earlier.

Two-thirds of the money from small donations — defined as contributions of less than $200 — went to Republicans during the last election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. By contrast, the Democrats received 92 percent of unregulated contributions over $1 million.

Now the Democrats are now having to play catch-up, because the new campaign finance laws prevent them from being funded by a small universe of very wealthy people. They are forced to find new contributors." Where? The Internet.

The Internet subscription method appeasl to constituents on more modest incomes who have to work within monthly budgets.

... I [i.e., Molly Ivins] remind the lock-step conservatives that there is a difference between hatred and anger. What you are looking at in this country is not hatred of Bush -- a perfectly affable guy -- but a growing anger
• of the legions left too long in Iraq without enough help;
• of the unemployed;
• of the uninsured;
• of those who were left without workers' comp;
• of those who have lost health insurance, overtime, the right to organize.
• of those whose pensions and savings are gone because of Bush pals like "Kenny Boy" Lay.
• of middle-class investors in mutual funds;
• of those who see the big rich take their money offshore so they won't have to pay taxes, those who watch the corporations get special tax breaks for exporting jobs abroad;
• of those who are shunted aside while the CEOs of their companies make more than a hundred million....

... Mistrusted arms dealer's tangled tale of smugglers and a hidden Baghdad laboratory sparks bitter spat. ...
between the CIA and Pentagon over reports that Iraqi uranium was smuggled to Iran, demonstrating that the rifts between the US agencies are as deep as ever....

… Dean could become the first Democrat to opt out of the public funding system for the primaries. That will enable him to spend competitively with Bush, who has already indicated he will opt out of public funding.

It's the law of unintended consequences at work: The Internet kills off public funding.

...Yesterday, Lieberman ran afoul of this last topic [blind support by US os Israel] after proclaiming that "America does have a special relationship with Israel." Before he could finish, a woman in the audience screamed "the wall!" in reference to the security barrier under construction by Israel that cuts into the West Bank. For the rest of his speech, convention delegates hooted and hissed at Lieberman over his positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. ...

Saudi Arabia’s [current] reform movement presented its latest petition to King Fahd bin Abdel-Aziz, Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdel-Aziz, and Minister of Defense Prince Sultan bin Abdel-Aziz on Sept. 24. Titled In Defense of the Nation,[ http://www.iht.com/pdfs/dstar/DS07-04_10.pdf] the document was signed by 306 Saudi men and women. The signatories are from different regions of the country and from both Shiite and Sunni backgrounds…

Though little known outside the Arab world, the Saudi reform movement has existed for more than 10 years and is an important development in Saudi politics. The movement started in 1990-91, following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the launching of “Operation Desert Storm” to liberate that country….

… the movement was born within the context of a crisis of the greatest magnitude. The fate of the Saudi nation was on the line, and the fact that foreign, rather than national, forces were protecting the kingdom created a sense of vulnerability and political failure that still lingers today. By exposing the Saudi government’s inability to safeguard national security, the Gulf crisis made pressures for political reform unavoidable. …

‘Denying the natural rights of … society has … helped create the terrorist mind’

In the two years since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, pundits and policymakers in the United States have poured out millions of barrels of ink in recommendations for how to reform Saudi Arabia. Almost all these suggestions make two fundamental errors about the kingdom.

• First, they assume that the path to salvation is through a Western-style liberal democracy. Unfortunately, Saudi Arabia’s history and culture do not support this approach, and liberals within the kingdom have almost no popular appeal.

• Second, they conflate Al-Qaeda-style terrorists with Saudi Arabia’s religious establishment, or ulama.

In fact, the senior ulama have the most legitimacy necessary to effect positive change in the kingdom. So rather than demonize them, the West, especially the US, should seek to better understand them. …

Combine… the unwavering support of the Christian right for Israeli policy, the strength of pro-Israel Washington pressure groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the rise of Bush's neoconservative power brokers, and the perceived merging of US and Israeli interests in the "battle against terrorism," [gives] a dangerous mix of power issues, racist mythology, and Jewish fear.

• [D]oes principled criticism of the Israeli occupation, settlement policies, and home demolitions encourage anti-Semites?
• Does Zionism in all of its complexity innately require the subjugation and possible expulsion of Palestinians?
• Can we condemn the suicide bombers and their supporters while keeping a clear eye on the causes of violence and on human rights abuses?
• [C]an these loaded conflicts be explored without promoting hate speech or evoking classic and dangerous stereotypes?

Jewish hypersensitivity to anti-Semitism is … too often it is being used to obstruct free and open dialogue. [While] conventional anti-Semitism … must be confronted, …in the United States, … [where] this alarm has been raised…in response to a sharp increase in criticism of the Israeli occupation, ... the organized Jewish community has used the fear of promoting anti-Semitism to silence and marginalize divergent opinions.

Perhaps Jews need to use their historical experience of oppression and victimization to understand and challenge their own inability, either actively or through silent complicity, to see Palestinians as truly human and entitled to life's gifts and aspirations.

We need as a community to challenge the demonizing of Arabs and Muslims in the United States as this is not only morally wrong but stifles public discourse on difficult issues and provides political cover for threats to all of our civil liberties. One can argue that now is the time to build a multi-ethnic movement to end the Israeli occupation, to protest the demonizing of Jews and Arabs, to work for a democratized, demilitarized Middle East where Israel is economically and politically integrated, rather than isolated in a sea of hostile Arab regimes. This may be the last opportunity for Jews to speak out in support of a negotiated two-state solution, for Israel to be accepted as a non-pariah state, and for Sharon to be stopped in his expropriation of a Palestinian future.

This may ultimately be the most resilient way to challenge the new anti-Semitism, not only because it is in keeping with enlightened, progressive Jewish thought and tradition, but also because as more countries resent US domination, they will turn to old prejudices and blame the Jews.

Perhaps to fight anti-Semitism, Jews must dissociate themselves from uncritical support of US foreign policy and a belief in military solutions to complex problems. There are serious risks for Israel and for American Jews aligning themselves with the right wing in the United States and its bully approach to world politics and domination. There are also serious risks when the cry of anti-Semitism is used as a form of censorship, rather than as a marker for serious examination and education.

… Novak may have acted unpatriotically but not inconsistently.. He has never made any bones about the fact that he is an ideological warrior first and a journalist second, if at all… Finally, regarding the identity of the leakers--well, yes, Karl Rove is obviously a top suspect, given both his power and modus operandi. Ditto Dick Cheney's Rasputin, I. Lewis Libby. But what about Elliott Abrams? A convicted liar and longtime ally of Novak whiling away his time inside the National Security Council, he has played a much larger role in these war plans--and the battles that have accompanied them--than so far has been recognized by the media. Abrams has quite legalistically denied any role in "leaking classified information," according to White House press secretary Scott McClellan. But the last time Abrams pretended ignorance, he was lying. When caught, he found himself celebrated by Novak, pardoned by Bush's daddy and given a spanking new career by Bush himself. I think he knows the drill by now.

MARGARET WARNER:One quick question for both of you as journalists, then I want to get back to Bush. Should Bob Novak and the other journalists who were called, if this really was a crime, should they say or tell investigators who called them or who they talked to?

WILLIAM SAFIRE: First of all that's a big if. Second, no you don't reveal your source. The freedom of the press is undergirded by there semi-privilege that we have.

MARK SHIELDS: I disagree with Bob Novak. He is a very good friend. I know [Novak] to be an absolute patriot. I don't think any circumstances he would divulge the name of somebody he thought was an agent and put at risk that individual or that individual's contacts. So no, I don't think he should. The statutes specifically exempted journalists. The law itself was written in 1982.

Exiled from power, the stalwarts of the Democratic Party's Washington establishment plot their return at dinner parties in the capital's tonier neighborhoods. On a recent evening, I attended one of these meetings in a spacious living room in suburban Maryland, where about 50 former ambassadors and administration officials, mostly from the Clinton era, have been gathering regularly to grill the party's presidential candidates. I was invited to attend on the condition that I not identify the host, the guests or the precise location. … of a new liberal think tank in Washington known as the Center for American Progress ….''The rise of the machinery of ideas on the right has been impressive,'' Podesta told the gathering, to nods of assent. ''People have noticed it, and we have talked about it. But we haven't really found the vehicles to compete with what's coming at us.''

“Going back to Barry Goldwater … conservatives '’built up institutions with a lot of influence, a lot of ideas. And they generated a lot of money to get out those ideas. It didn't happen by accident. And I think it's had a substantial effect on why we have a conservative party that controls the White House and the Congress and is making substantial efforts to control the judiciary’.''

“a message-oriented war room will send out a daily briefing to refute the positions and arguments of the right.” Liberal thinkers will be placed on cable TV. An ''edgy Web site and a policy shop” will “formulate strong positions on foreign and domestic issues.” “[H]undreds of fellows and scholars -- some in residence and others spread around the country – [will] research and promote new progressive policy ideas.” Budget-wise, “American Progress will operate with a $10 million budget next year, raised from big donors like the financier George Soros.” …

Heritage and other conservative think tanks – such as the libertarian Cato Institute and the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute -- spent an estimated $1 billion promoting conservative ideas in the 1990's.

From their ranks sprang some credible academics whose think-tank writings spawned powerful careers, including Jeane Kirkpatrick, the former U.N. ambassador, and Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court associate justice.

Not only have Democrats lost their hold on Congress, but they also seem to have lost their hold on a larger vision for the country.

At least in these early stages, the 2004 presidential campaign highlights the stagnation of the Democratic idea pool. The leading candidates spend their time debating questions that were put on the agenda by Republican think tanks, like tax cuts and pre-emptive first strikes, while proposing programmatic variations on old ideas, like universal health coverage and national service -- worthy notions, certainly, but no worthier than they were when Clinton put them forward 12 years ago.

Transformative agendas spring from the emotion of a national moment. The New Deal seized on the anxiety of the Depression; the so-called Reagan and Gingrich revolutions played off a growing distrust of government among a newly prosperous middle class. Given the extraordinary current moment in world affairs, the conversation among Democratic candidates thus far is as notable for what has not been offered as it is for what has: no new framework for the Middle East, no clear doctrine on when and where to undertake military or humanitarian missions. While the Democratic candidates uniformly attack Bush's plan for ''personal savings accounts'' (which is another way of saying the privatization of Social Security), no one seems to have an alternative, 21st-century retirement plan that would save the nation from what looks like an inevitable fiscal crisis.
''We get so caught up as a campaign in trying to find the right position on Israel or the right position on health care that we don't really have time to think through bigger ideas,'' a senior policy adviser to one campaign told me. ''We're just not generating any exciting new vision.

Gary Hart argues that “…during the 35 years of dominance from F.D.R.'s New Deal through L.B.J.'s Great Society, Democrats constructed what Gary Hart, the former senator and presidential candidate, calls ''an ideological cathedral'': the G.I. Bill, welfare, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, voting rights. But apart from critics like Hart and Bill Clinton, whose centrist leanings succeeded in getting the party to rethink issues like welfare reform, leading Democrats have fallen into the role of protecting their fathers' agenda from attack rather than inventing a vision of their own. Even the Democratic Leadership Council, which served as the ideological springboard for Clinton's agenda, has gravitated toward electoral politics and away from policy innovations.

On the one hand, there is the party's struggle between elements of the left and center -- the battle personified by Howard Dean and Moveon.org on one side and Joe Lieberman and the D.L.C. on the other -- from which Podesta has vowed to remain aloof. ''I'm trying to be ecumenical on the center-left thing,'' Podesta said. ''When you've got such a radical direction of the country on the right, that's where our fight should be, and not with each other.''

is between those who believe the party can ''message'' its way out of exile and those who believe it will have to innovate its way out. … If left unresolved, claims Bai, this will leave American Progress as confused about its own mission as Democrats seem to be about theirs. … Democratic insiders … insist that the party's main problem has been its inability to be heard. And this, they say, points to a lack of institutional voices. The Brookings Institution, a moderate think tank that is every bit as sprawling as Heritage and is supposed to be its counterbalance, is neither ideological nor self-promotional enough to push back against the right…

''They [the Repubs] have a dozen think tanks, and we have none,'' … ''We don't come close to matching their firepower in the media.'' [Bai asked Daschle whether] … the Democrats might be struggling for lack of compelling new ideas… [For Daschle,] ''I don't worry… recent polling data suggests that with all of this imbalance and all of this reach and all of this power that the right has today -- in media, in think tanks and on the radio and with the White House -- with all of that, on many of the issues the American people care the most about, Democrats are now leading. It's very encouraging to us.''

… want Podesta's group to function not simply as a TV booking agency but also as the kind of idea factory that Heritage, Cato and A.E.I. were in the 1970's, pumping out provocative new proposals that could eventually define in the public mind what it means to be progressive.
…
It is worth remembering, too, that activists like Weyrich and Feulner didn't start with either the message or the specific policies. They started, instead, with a core philosophy that deftly articulated the way a lot of frustrated Americans felt. … what is dismissed as “bumper sticker rhetoric,” is in Bai’s view, “the starting point from which a generation of powerful ideas took flight. “

Podesta has undertaken this process in reverse; he is building up a machine for finding new ideas and marketing them in hopes that all this effort will somehow coalesce into a new and compelling governing philosophy for Democrats. Even before its official debut this month, American Progress began assembling focus groups in nine cities and among a number of ''elite'' Democrats to get a sense of what the progressive vision ought to be.

… "These guys [Germany, France, Russia] all think it's going to fail, but they don't want to be blamed," he said, referring to nations like France and Germany, which bitterly opposed the war. "It's not that they're on board in any sense. It's just that this way, they can't become the whipping boys for U.S. failure. Congress is more complicated. The reason some [congressmen] will vote for the $87 billion is because they don't want to be blamed, others because they think it's the right thing to do."

Case in point: The campaign by leading members of the Bush administration to rebuild faltering support for their invasion of Iraq. To hear them tell it, everything that has happened since last March has just proved how right they've been all along.

To cite just one example, consider a recent speech by Vice President Dick Cheney to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington. Cheney is credited by many for having led President Bush, and by extension this country, into invading Iraq. So it's no surprise that he has been unflinching in defending that policy.

As he explained the rationale:

"We could not accept the grave danger of Saddam Hussein and his terrorist allies turning weapons of mass destruction against us or our friends and allies."

Of course, no such grave danger existed. Having failed to find any WMD, we know that now. More importantly, we knew it in the fall of 2002, when this push for war began. Even back then, the CIA was using terms such as "unlikely" and "low probability" to describe the odds of Saddam handing WMD to terrorists...

here was a headline that grabbed me in The Times on Saturday. It said, "Cheney Lashes Out at Critics of Policy on Iraq."

"Wow," I thought, "that must have been an interesting encounter." Then I read the fine print. Mr. Cheney was speaking to 200 invited guests at the conservative Heritage Foundation; and even they were not allowed to ask any questions. Great. Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein issue messages from their caves through Al Jazeera, and Mr. Cheney issues messages from his bunker through Fox. America is pushing democracy in Iraq, but our own leaders won't hold a real town hall meeting or a regular press conference...

...Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said he expects Republican campaign strategists to use gay marriage as a wedge issue in the presidential race...

... The issue's profile has also been raised by the presence of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean in the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination. In 2000, Dean signed a law protecting civil unions, making Vermont the first state to assure gay couples of essentially the same rights as married ones.

The Vermont law grants to same-sex couples some 300 state benefits of marriage, including medical decision-making, tax breaks and inheritance rights.

Foreman said Dean's role has made him a favorite in the gay community, an important Democratic constituency. "He wasn't a great champion of that bill when he was governor, but he did sign it. And he does have the courage to talk about gay and lesbian families in his stump speeches."
Candidates' family experiences also have helped frame the debate over gay rights.

...Most Iowans don't want to legalize gay marriage, a looming issue in the presidential race, but they are more supportive of equal rights for gay couples.

Iowa is one of 37 states with laws banning same-sex marriages. The latest Iowa Poll, sponsored by The Des Moines Register, shows 65 percent of the state's adults want to keep the Iowa ban in effect.

Just 23 percent favor having the state legalize marriage for gay and lesbian couples.

On the other hand, 49 percent of Iowans believe gay and lesbian couples should have the same legal rights as heterosexual couples. They outnumber the 38 percent who are opposed.

The poll, taken Sept. 12-16, has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points...

President Bush opposes gay marriage. He reaffirmed his view that "marriage is a union between a man and a woman" in declaring this week to be "Marriage Protection Week." But the Republican incumbent has yet to endorse a proposed constitutional amendment that would permanently ban gay marriage throughout the nation.

...On the Republican side, Vice President Dick Cheney, whose daughter, Mary, is a lesbian, has expressed support for people in same-sex relationships...

..."They are going to use gay people and our relationships as the Willie Hortons of the election cycle," Foreman said. He was referring to the controversial anti-crime ad of Bush's father's successful presidential campaign in 1988, featuring black inmate Willie Horton.

... Despite the U.S. government's continued crackdown on imported prescription drugs, support for the cross-border trade is rapidly gaining momentum -- much of it from elected officials.

Governors, members of Congress and millions of senior citizens and their powerhouse lobby -- AARP -- want to open the border to let Americans legally buy prescription drugs from Canada.

The reason: Drugs from Canada, even those manufactured by U.S. companies and re-imported, cost considerably less than what American pharmacies charge because of Canadian price controls and a favorable exchange rate.

Summing up the sentiments of many, AARP spokesman Steve Hahn said, "It's a national disgrace that people have to cross borders to find affordable drugs."

On Tuesday, Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich stepped up his call for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) (FDA) to reverse its policy prohibiting state and local governments from importing drugs from Canada. Blagojevich launched an on-line petition drive for citizens to pressure the FDA to allow Canadian drug imports, which can cost half the price charged by American pharmacies.

"The FDA can ignore our letters, they can ignore our calls," Blagojevich, a Democrat, told a Chicago news conference. "But they can't ignore the people forever."

Fuller is concerned Turkish troops would be targeted by radical Sunni Arab and Kurdish groups, and even might intimidate Iran and Iraqi Shiite.

Mr. Fuller criticizes Bush administration for thinking in very ‘short-term’ and ‘tactical’ terms by requesting Turkish troops ‘to replace the American troops who are being killed’, and warns of ‘great conflicts and disagreements between Turkey and Washington in the future over the Turkish role in Iraq’ because the two countries interests do not exactly converge.

Fuller also claims neo-cons in Washington push Turkish troops towards Iraq so that Turkey stays solely on the U.S. orbit rather than European Union (EU). According to Mr. Fuller, Israel as well as neo-cons do not want to see Turkey oriented towards the E.U.

Here’s the full transcript of Fuller interview by Ali H. Aslan, a summary of which appeared on Turkish version of Zaman. ...

"I've been struck by the way in which religion now serves to underpin the divergence between Europe and the United States, and where I particularly saw that over the last year or two was in attitudes about the Middle East," said Philip Jenkins. Dr. Jenkins is a British scholar who teaches history and religious studies in the United States and wrote "The Next Christendom" (2002), about changing patterns of Christian worship around the world.

"Americans still take biblical and religious arguments very seriously, and therefore give a credence to the Zionist project that Europeans don't," [and ] ... for many Americans, the frequency with which President Bush invoked morality and religion in talking about the fight against terrorism was neither striking nor discomfiting. "But in Europe," he added, "they think he must be a religious nut."

Oct. 13 — The letters appeared in roughly 12 newspapers across the country. From Massachusetts to California, and many places in between, family members and local newspapers received letters from soldiers of the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Infantry Regiment detailing their successes in northern Iraq.

Boston Globe editors were disappointed to learn that a letter to the editor from a GI in Iraq had actually been drafted by his commander.

... The letters appeared in roughly 12 newspapers across the country. From Massachusetts to California, and many places in between, family members and local newspapers received letters from soldiers of the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Infantry Regiment detailing their successes in northern Iraq...Each letter was signed by a different soldier, but the words were identical:

"Kirkuk is a hot and dusty city of just over a million people. The majority of the city has welcomed our presence with open arms. After nearly five months here, the people still come running from their homes, into the 110-degree heat, waving to us as our troops drive by on daily patrols of the city. Children smile and run up to shake hands and in their broken English shouting, "Thank you, Mister."

Amy Connell, of Sharon, Mass., knew as soon as she received the letter from her son Adam that he did not write it. "He's 20 years old and I don't think his language or his writing ability would have entailed that kind of description," she said....

Just as former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's story that Bushies blew his CIA wife's cover to get back at his criticism of the war in Iraq was getting old, he has stumbled on new ammo to hit the administration's credibility. Wilson tells us he plans to circulate the text of a briefing by analyst Sam Gardiner that suggests the White House and Pentagon made up or distorted over 50 war stories.

You know some tall tales, like the Pvt. Jessica Lynch story. But there's more, says Gardiner, a war gamer who has taught at the National War College. Like how defense officials said the first Iraqi unit marines encountered, the 51st Mechanized Infantry Division, had surrendered four days before it actually did. And he says Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers gave bad or deliberately incomplete info on several topics. Sure, propaganda has always been used in war to deceive and demoralize the enemy. But these guys went way overboard, Gardiner says. "Never before have so many stories been created to sell a war," he insists. "And they probably didn't need it."

The Bush administration is virtually assured of gaining Security Council approval of a revised United Nations resolution on Iraq's future, diplomats here said Tuesday, but it remains unclear whether the measure will be adopted overwhelmingly or in a less convincing, abstention-riddled vote.
The resolution, however it passes, will mark an important step in the administration's attempt to gain broader international backing both for the occupation forces in Iraq and the reconstruction of the country.
A week after it had flirted with abandoning the resolution in the face of objections from Secretary General Kofi Annan and countries like France, the administration produced a new version that made symbolic concessions to some of those concerns. The ambassador to the United Nations, John D. Negroponte, said there would be a vote on Wednesday. …

... The United States has hit yet another diplomatic roadblock as it tries to manoeuvre a new U.N. resolution aimed at marshalling foreign troops for a multinational military force for Iraq and donor funds to rebuild that war-devastated country.

''The current resolution does not represent a major shift in the thinking of the (U.S.-UK) coalition,'' U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told reporters Tuesday.

Annan, who rejected a previous U.S. resolution on Oct. 2, less than 24 hours after the United States began circulating it among members of the Security Council, has strong backing from three key members of the Council -- France, Germany and Russia, who have also distanced themselves from the United States.

Annan annoyed Washington by rejecting the first resolution, which, he said, was ''not going in the direction I had recommended''. The 'New York Times' quoted unnamed U.S. officials calling the secretary-general's comments ''unusual'', ''unhelpful'' and ''surprising''.

... Seven of the nine candidates cleared schedules to attend a forum over the weekend sponsored by the South Carolina NAACP. (Dean said he could not be present because of parents' weekend at Yale University, where his daughter is a student.)

[Dean?’s] Northern roots date to the1600ss, [evidently being the "Yankee" is still a point of suspicion]. Others point to Dean's status as a liberal -- one who supported civil unions for gays and lesbians [As a Dean supporter, I believe that this was definitely a tactical error ?– he could have just kept quiet about it] and opposed the war in Iraq -- as a potential drawback in the minds of conservative white voters. Those conservatives' numbers could be larger than usual in the Feb. 3 South Carolina primary because there is no Republican presidential primary, and independents and Republicans are permitted to vote in the Democratic contest. [Interesting ?– will the Repubs become spoilers? To spoil things ?– though ?– who would they vote for? ]

Among African-Americans, Dean faces unique hurdles as well, having stewarded a nearly all-white state, where minorities make up less than 3 percent of the population [i.e, Vermont]. His campaign acknowledges that Dean is only now concentrating on the South, but campaign manager Joe Trippi said he expects to build a base of loyalists in minority communities. [As a Dean supporter, let’s hope that such plans materialize – for me, it seems a bit late, but then I don’t run presidential campaigns.]

To be sure, Dean has been one of the more outspoken candidates in discussing race. He has made his support for affirmative action a fixture in his stump speech and has contended -- with opponents taking him to task on the matter -- that he is the only candidate talking about race before white audiences. At the Morris Brown church, Dean's references to race were passing ones, invoking the name of Martin Luther King Jr. and heralding the civil rights movement1960she 1960s.

Dean also has made known his friendship with two African-Americans who were his roommates during his freshman year at Yale. One of those men, Ralph Dawson, a Manhattan lawyer and South Carolina native, is proving a powerful boost for Dean in the state, having put Dean in touch with David Mack, the chairman-elect of the Legislative Black Caucus and a health care consultant who is chairing Dean's South Carolina campaign. [Now this sounds pretty positive ?– how will it payoff, though?]

Dean has little of the down-home charm of Clinton, a near political deity to many African-American voters. His staunch refusal to discuss his personal life on the trail and his avowed adherence to policy talk -- with an aversion to chatty asides -- could not be more unlike the folksy Clinton or the chatty Edwards.

But some African-American voters say he brings other qualities to the table: Coming from a white state, Dean has a history of few entanglements over difficult racial issues. Others say Dean strikes them as a man whose message stays constant, no matter the constituency, an important factor for some blacks who say some Democrats have lapsed in promises to their community.

The Rev. Joseph Darby from the Morris Brown church put it this way: "Governor Dean shows remarkable empathy for African-American voters with hardly any African-Americans in his own state. Having grown up down here, [Edwards] is more familiar with the political landscape and with the political catchwords that resound with voters. But Governor Dean is learning the catchwords very quickly."

One catchword, Darby said, is jobs, particularly in a state where African-Americans are twice as likely to be out of work as whites. Dean -- as other candidates have been sure to do -- threaded talk of textile-mill jobs gone overseas through his speeches here, at Darby's church and an earlier rally at the College of Charleston, where Dean drew both white and black students.

But it was his antiwar stance that grabbed many at the college. Sharea Weldon, 19, knew little about Dean before the rally but came away committed.

"It was very convincing," said the African-American biology major from Ridgeville, S.C. "He's so antiwar, and that's a good thing. When President Clinton was in office, there was none of that drama. As soon as Bush came into office, it's been war and terrorist attacks. So I think we need a president who is antiwar."

But Kwadjo Campbell, an African-American city councilor in Charleston, said that while he is intrigued by Dean, he remains committed to Sharpton.

"Sharpton has the best chance to electrify the African-American vote across the country," he said.

Despite some progress, Iraqis losing faith; a suicide blast in Baghdad on Sunday adds to a general sense of unease.... Hussein al-Jubari should be the perfect illustration of President Bush's recent insistence that "Iraq is making progress." Mr. Jubari sits wedged between stacks of stereos from Japan, hair dryers from China, and satellite receivers from South Korea in his tiny shop across from Iraq's central bank. Business is picking up, he says. Sales of satellite receivers, illegal under Saddam Hussein, are particularly brisk.

But he takes a dim view of Iraq under US administration. "Sure, it's safer than it was immediately after the invasion, when looters were everywhere,'' he says. "But it's much worse than it was immediately before the invasion. Unless they can give us security immediately, America should get out."...The US coalition is now fighting a two-front public relations war, against critics at home who argue the bombing campaign is evidence that more authority should be shifted to the UN, and here in Iraq, where the view from the streets is that Iraqis are losing faith.

Whether you ask a member of Baghdad's largely Sunni commercial class or one of the generally poorer Shiite community, who were oppressed under Hussein and have the most to gain from regime change, gratitude for any improvements is usually drowned out by frustration that more hasn't been done.

Democratic presidential hopefuls are vying with one another to come up with the most artful ways to roll back President Bush’s tax cuts without casting any vote that their rivals, or Bush, can portray as favoring a tax increase.

... Safire gamely backs John McCain's suggestion that Howard Dean is "way out of the mainstream" because he defended Saddam's two slain sons, Uday (or Odai) and Qusay Hussein, and Safire blasts Dean for denying he did so.

Is Dean dishonest or is Safire spinning? What did Dr. Dean say, according to this "evidence" of support for Saddam's sons? "'It's a victory for the Iraqi people," apparently as opposed to a victory for the Bush administrations in its efforts to justify their war against Iraq. Nothing "way out of the mainstream" there, and no support for "two murdering rapist thugs."

We don't know what Dean said next, what he meant when he said "but it doesn't have any effect on whether we should or shouldn't have had a war." What did Dean mean? Who knows? We don't. William Safire sure doesn't. That's the trouble with ellipses.

If Dean meant the deaths of Saddam's sons "doesn't have any effect on whether we should or shouldn't have had a war," he has a point. Would most Americans support going to war just to kill two loathsome people, no matter how loathsome they might be? Do the deaths of two despicable men justify going to war? According to Safire and McCain, Dr. Dean is "way out of the mainstream" because he says no.

Increasingly, Americans agree that the ends of this elective war do not justify the means. The means include 100s of American deaths, 1000s of American casualties, the deaths of 10,000s of innocent Iraqis, spending 100s of $billions along with loss of US respect world-wide.

Although at one point Governor Dean was far ahead of - and therefore leading - public opinion, clearly he is in the mainstream now. Dean's steadfast truth-telling about the Iraq war helped reshape the debate on Iraq. That's what leaders do. ...

… Amount spent on lobbying by pharmaceutical firms, 1996-2002: $500 million.

Number of lobbyists for pharmaceutical industry: 600.

Number of former members of Congress now serving as lobbyists for pharmaceutical industry: 24.

Amount of direct contributions from the pharmaceutical industry, 2002 campaigns: $20 million.

Percentage of that given to Republicans: 75.

Amount given to chair, House Ways and Means Subcommittee: $200,000.

To chair, Senate Finance Committee: $114,100….

The pharmaceutical industry's trade group spent $8.5 million in lobbying this year as it worked against a bill to allow importation of government-approved drugs.

Bush hoped to enhance his image as a compassionate conservative by making this education program one of the first and highest priorities of his administration. But he could find the law complicating his reelection effort, political … as some states report that as many as half or more of schools are failing to make the new grade and lack the money to turn things around promptly.
[Here’s a Republican Party’s estimate] "It's way too soon to judge, but unfortunately in politics, people do judge, and that's why we have to keep pushing the message that we think" the law will greatly improve education, "but not overnight," ..;
… Bush and the GOP trail Democrats 50 percent to 36 percent on the education issue, a 14-point drop since the measure was signed in January 2002. The Democratic presidential candidates are criticizing the law on the campaign trail and are getting supportive responses.
On Capitol Hill, the fight over funding for No Child Left Behind is becoming a significant issue of the upcoming congressional elections, as Democrats blame Bush and congressional Republicans for shortchanging the law by billions of dollars.
The issue has particular resonance in such key states in the presidential election as Florida, Tennessee, Missouri and West Virginia, where nearly half or more of schools are not meeting the new benchmarks and where a few thousand votes could decide which presidential candidate wins each state in 2004. Swing voters, particularly married mothers, frequently cite education as among their chief concerns when deciding whom to support in presidential elections.
Since Democrats have championed Head Start and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in the 1960s, voters have trusted them to do a better job of promoting education, mostly by pushing for a bigger federal role in education and greater funding for it. Democratic dominance on the issue came in the mid-1990s when Republicans, who considered education best handled at the local level, tried to abolish the Education Department, a huge political loser for the party.

PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia, Oct 11 (AFP) - Israel plans to invade Syria and drag the United States into the war, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said Saturday.

"Israel has been urging America to invade Syria, but America seems to be reluctant. So, in order to force the hands of America, Israel is going to invade Syria," Mahathir was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency.

"When that happens, the Americans will have to support Israel due to domestic political reasons that make Jewish votes a major factor in its presidential election," he said.

Mahathir had been asked to comment on Israel's strike a week ago on what the Jewish state described as a Palestinian training camp near Damascus, a claim denied by Syria.

The veteran Malaysian leader, who will take over the chairmanship of the 57-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference at a summit here this week, was also asked what could be done apart from condemning the attack.

"We can go to war but we have no capacity to go to war. That's the problem, because we allow ourselves to become weak, people bully us."

Mahathir, who has led this moderate Islamic country for the past 22 years, is renowned for his controversial off-the-cuff comments on global affairs.

... But while Hutton [official inquiry into suicide of David Kelly] -- precipitated and egged on by a news media aggressive as a pit bull -- has torn away emperor Tony [Blair]'s new clothes, revealing his government's behind-the-scenes cynicism in all its weasely nakedness, it's been a very different story so far over here.

[Meanwhile, in the US], at least six congressional committees could claim that their jurisdiction covers the criminal investigation into the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame, allegedly in revenge for husband Joe Wilson's public criticism of the administration's case for war against Iraq.

But the Republican chairmen of those committees -- who, like their Democratic counterparts, usually take every opportunity to assert and expand their turf -- have either maintained a deafening silence on the issue, or -- remarkably -- denied that the issue fell within their ambit.

"I don't think that runs (under) our committee's jurisdiction," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, recently.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who chairs the Governmental Affairs Committee, which has oversight over the whole executive branch, called it "a law enforcement issue."

"It's appropriately handed by the Department of Justice," she said. "They've got an investigation underway."

And the career prosecutors there who are overseeing that investigation will doubtless do a diligent job. But it seems Congress is much less likely to fulfill its obligations. Oversight doesn't mean very much if it doesn't include probing the machinations of government when they may have involved lawbreaking and the deliberate release of classified information.

But it seems that Plame-gate, as it is inevitably being dubbed, is a political hot potato that no Republican to want to touch.

More significantly, the same appears to be true of the broader questions about the evidence on which the U.S. government based its case for war.

The simple truth is, the facts on the ground have not borne out the assessment of the most extensive -- and most expensive -- information gathering and processing machinery in human history: the U.S. intelligence community.

At best, U.S. intelligence got it wrong -- and it's no defense to say, as some have, that everyone else got it wrong, too. At worst, it might have got it wrong because of pressure from Cabinet-levels officials to come up with politically expedient answers.

Although some of these same issues ended up under the Hutton inquiry's harsh light, the real arc lamp of its investigation was shone elsewhere -- at Kelly's shameful outing and subsequent suicide. There are already calls in Britain for another inquiry, this time aimed directly at how the government made its case for war.

Britain -- having investigated its own "outing" scandal so rigorously -- is already one step ahead of my adopted home in the transparency stakes. I hope, for my sake and the sake of everyone else here, that the United States doesn't fall any further behind.

Israeli plans for Iran attack. ... [Israeli] Spy agency Mossad’s plans for a surprise attack on six sites in Iran have gripped the Islamic republic’s media, as have details of Israel’s nuclear capabilities. Newspapers in Tehran jumped at revelations reported by both the German and American press on Sunday. The Yediot Aharonot, Maariv and Haaretz dailies all splashed on a Los Angeles Times report that modified US-made cruise missiles are capable of carrying nuclear warheads on submarines.

This would allow Israel to launch atomic weapons from land, air or sea.

The 3 newspapers also carried reports in Monday's edition of the Germany Der Spiegel magazine that a special Mossad unit received orders 2 months ago to prepare plans for strikes.

Around half a dozen targets in Iran are suspected of being used to prepare nuclear weapons by Tel Aviv. US-built F-16 fighter bombers could completely destroy the sites, according to Israeli security officials quoted in the German magazine.

Maariv published a map of Iran complete with aerial shots of the suspected nuclear sites. Yediot even ran a photograph of an Israeli Dauphin submarine, using a graphic to explain how it could sneak up on the enemy and fire its nuclear warheads. ...

The White House [read Condi Rice through her oversight of the National Security Council] went on the offensive this week in its Iraq and Afghanistan policies, this time domestically. On Monday, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice announced, on the front page of the New York Times no less, the establishment of an Iraq Stabilization Group. You can stop guessing which ideological camp ­ Secretary of State Colin Powell’s or Vice-President Dick Cheney’s ­ Rice is in: she’s just assembled her own.

In a bold, calculated move, Rice gave up playing honest broker in increasingly fractious interagency struggles in the Bush administration and took charge, wrestling control of Iraq and Afghanistan’s reconstruction from the Defense Department. The Pentagon suffered a very public loss of face. Widely overlooked in the fallout from the move was that this represented another blow to career Arabists and Middle East experts. Yet another senior official with no experience in Middle Eastern or South Asian affairs took charge of America’s most demanding foreign policy portfolios. ...

Rice also plans to install a deputy to the US civilian representative in Iraq, Paul Bremer, who will report directly to her. This is the most obvious blow to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. His problem is Bush’s reported frustration over the slow pace of providing security and guaranteeing reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush is a results-oriented president, and he’s not seeing results in both countries....

Amid the talk of reorganizing policy in Iraq and Afghanistan, what has become of the Palestinian-Israeli “road map?” Arguably, this is the single most important policy initiative in the Middle East, yet it is paid little more than lip service. That’s partly because it requires that Bush step in and incur the wrath of pro-Israel Jewish and Christian fundamentalist organizations. As a senior Arab official put it, there is no need to worry: The administration will just blame Arafat for the stalemate.

The road map Bush is carrying arrives in Baghdad before it does Jerusalem. The administration is now frantically trying to pedal the hope that Iraq’s democratic model and cultural enlightenment might transform other countries in the region. It’s going to take time, at least until after the November 2004 election. Do Arab leaders and Israeli realists believe the Middle East can wait that long?

... It's even possible that the controversial Turkish decision to send troops to Iraq - as the Americans badly wanted - might be the opening Muqtada and his backers in Iran were waiting for. Sunni Sheikh Abdel Sattar Jabar, a member of the Governing Council, went straight to the point: "Turkey, a Sunni country, is called for a military intervention in a Sunni area. So the Shi'ites also may have the right to demand Shi'ite troops deployed in their area." Which means troops from Shi'ite Iran.

All Iraqis know that if Turkey sends troops to Iraq, this will mean the dreaded opening of a Pandora's box. Shi'ites may have been very patient so far, but not a single one of them has forgotten that the Turks are descendants of the hated Ottoman colonial power.

IRAQ'S interim leaders today told the United States they did not want peacekeepers from Turkey or other neighbouring countries…
The Turkish parliament's decision yesterday to authorise the deployment of peacekeepers to join the coalition was welcomed by Washington.. however, the decision upset many Iraqis because of the country's legacy of 400 years of Turkish colonial domination.
Opposition to the Turks runs deepest in the north, where Iraq's minority Kurds have watched ethnic cousins across the border in south-eastern Turkey wage a sporadic separatist guerrilla war in recent decades… .

• The Justice Department began the investigation Sept. 26 but did not ask the White House to order employees to preserve relevant evidence until Sept. 29.

• Gonzales did not order employees to preserve their records until the next day, when the investigation was announced.

• The Justice Department did not ask the Pentagon and State Department to preserve possible evidence until late on Oct. 1, after news reports that such a request was coming.

• White House press secretary Scott McClellan has said he determined that three senior officials who were the subject of speculation in news accounts were not involved in leaking classified information. The senators wrote: "Clearly, a media spokesperson does not have the legal expertise to be questioning possible suspects or evaluating or reaching conclusions about the legality of their conduct."

• Ashcroft remains responsible for the probe despite his close political and personal relationships with Bush and his top aides.

BAGHDAD - US Secretary of State Colin Powell says Iraq's new constitution could be written in six months. The US sees that as the first step in a transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis within a year. The 24-person Iraqi Governing Council opened formal talks Wednesday in Baghdad on how to select a new constitution for Iraq.

But interviews with council members and aides this week reveal a sharp divide within the council - between Shiite Islamists who want a national vote for a constitutional convention and the Kurds and Sunni Arabs, who worry their interests would be drowned out by a sea of Shiite voices.

For the US, this points to a much longer constitutional drafting process than six months, and probably a longer stay in Iraq. "Colin Powell's timetable is completely unrealistic,'' says Mowaffak al-Rubaie, an independent Shiite member of the council.

Iraqis say the struggle has high stakes. "The battle over the constitution is going to be the most important battle of my life,'' ....Iraq's diversity and the traditional dominance of government by a Sunni Arab elite - from the Ottoman Empire to British rule to Hussein's Baathist regime - explains why the process is so delicate, and why the council will find it hard to make a decision.

Though an accurate census isn't available, the Shiites are concentrated in the south and estimated to be 60 percent of the population, Arab Sunnis are mostly in the center of the country and are about 20 percent, while Kurds, most of whom are Sunni but see themselves as Kurds first, number about 15 percent and are dominant in the far north.

The groups are split on the question of how quickly to draft a constitution. ... Key Shiite religious leaders, including council member Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) are insisting that nothing short of a vote will do... Even more important was a religious ruling, or fatwa, handed down by the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in June, which called for an election before the writing of a constitution. Mr. Sistani, usually reluctant to dabble in politics, is Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric. His influence, experts say, is hard to overestimate.