HOW TO WITHDRAW....Zbigniew Brzezinski writes in the Washington Post that we need to withdraw from Iraq responsibly — a position that pretty much every withdrawal advocate will agree with — and then makes a sensible case about what withdrawal will likely mean:

The contrast between the Democratic argument for ending the war and the Republican argument for continuing is sharp and dramatic. The case for terminating the war is based on its prohibitive and tangible costs, while the case for "staying the course" draws heavily on shadowy fears of the unknown and relies on worst-case scenarios. President Bush's and Sen. John McCain's forecasts of regional catastrophe are quite reminiscent of the predictions of "falling dominoes" that were used to justify continued U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Neither has provided any real evidence that ending the war would mean disaster, but their fear-mongering makes prolonging it easier.

....Contrary to Republican claims that our departure will mean calamity, a sensibly conducted disengagement will actually make Iraq more stable over the long term. The impasse in Shiite-Sunni relations is in large part the sour byproduct of the destructive U.S. occupation, which breeds Iraqi dependency even as it shatters Iraqi society. In this context, so highly reminiscent of the British colonial era, the longer we stay in Iraq, the less incentive various contending groups will have to compromise and the more reason simply to sit back. A serious dialogue with the Iraqi leaders about the forthcoming U.S. disengagement would shake them out of their stupor.

Ending the U.S. war effort entails some risks, of course, but they are inescapable at this late date. Parts of Iraq are already self-governing, including Kurdistan, part of the Shiite south and some tribal areas in the Sunni center. U.S. military disengagement will accelerate Iraqi competition to more effectively control their territory, which may produce a phase of intensified inter-Iraqi conflicts. But that hazard is the unavoidable consequence of the prolonged U.S. occupation. The longer it lasts, the more difficult it will be for a viable Iraqi state ever to reemerge.

Brzezinski is right: there's no point in denying that U.S. withdrawal might lead to increased bloodshed in the short term. It most likely will. But it's highly unlikely to lead to a catastrophic regional meltdown of the kind that the chaos hawks peddle on cable TV. What's more, Brzezinski is also right that the risk of increased violence is inescapable at this point and, in fact, probably grows the longer we stay in Iraq. The events in Basra over the past week ought to make that clear.

Brzezinski wants us to shake Iraqi leaders "out of their stupor," and the only way to do that is to make it clear that we really are leaving. Leaving responsibly, but leaving nonetheless. And the only way to make our withdrawal credible is to create a timetable and then stick with it. No benchmarks that hold out hope of us staying, no blue ribbon commissions with split-the-middle plans, and no long-term superbases that inevitably draw us back in to every local firefight — just withdrawal. January 20, 2009, seems like a good start date.

MORE BASRA....I don't think James Joyner is right when he suggests that Muqtada al-Sadr "sued for peace" in Basra on Sunday, since, after all, it was Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's side that made overtures to Sadr, not the other way around. But his analogy with Israel's offensive against Lebanon two years ago has occurred to me as well:

The parallels between this action and the Israelis' 2006 invasion of Lebanon to take on Hezbollah are striking. In both cases, the party that initiated the escalation into high level conflict inflicted substantial damage on their adversary and were able to claim military victory. At the same time, neither came anywhere close to achieving their political objectives. In assessing the 2006 action, I concluded that Israel therefore lost. Absent substantial new information, I'd have to conclude that Maliki was the loser here for the same reason.

This seems right to me — though I'm not sure Maliki even achieved much of a tactical victory in this case — and the rest of his conclusions seem pretty close to the mark as well. One thing that's still not clear, though, is exactly what role Maliki played in the negotiations with Sadr. Leila Fadel of McClatchy quotes a Dawa legislator saying that "the Prime Minister was only informed. It was a political maneuver by us," but that can be interpreted several ways. Possibilities: (a) It's the truth. A faction of Maliki's party got fed up with him and headed off to Qom on their own, stopping just long enough to let him know they were going. (b) The Dawa legislator is just puffing himself up. Maliki was actually part of the plan all along. (c) It's deliberate misinformation, an attempt to make it seem as though Maliki was willing to keep up the fight and only succumbed to pressure from his own party. (d) Something else. Stay tuned.

MURAT KURNAZ....So did everyone see the 60 Minutes segment last night about Murat Kurnaz, the German national who was picked up in Pakistan shortly after 9/11, turned over to the U.S., and then tortured and held for five years even though, apparently, there was never any serious evidence against him? The transcript is here if you missed it.

One would, of course, prefer not to believe Kurnaz's allegations, but they seem sadly credible. What makes it even worse is this:

Six months after Kurnaz reached Guantanamo, U.S. military intelligence had written, "criminal investigation task force has no definite link [or] evidence of detainee having an association with al Qaeda or making any specific threat toward the U.S."

At the same time, German intelligence agents wrote their government, saying, "USA considers Murat Kurnaz's innocence to be proven. He is to be released in approximately six to eight weeks."

In the event, he wasn't released for several more years, and then only after the newly elected German chancellor made a personal appeal to George Bush. But why? Why didn't they release him earlier?

One can never rule out bureaucratic ineptitude, but the more likely explanation is that they were afraid he'd tell the world about his treatment. So they just kept him locked up instead. Lovely.

MALIKI AND THE IRANIANS....So what's the story behind the "elaborate negotiations" that led to Muqtada al-Sadr issuing a statement in Najaf and asking his partisans to stand down in Baghdad and Basra? Leila Fadel of McClatchy has the details:

Iraqi lawmakers traveled to the Iranian holy city of Qom over the weekend to win the support of the commander of Iran's Qods brigades in persuading Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr to order his followers to stop military operations, members of the Iraqi parliament said.

....The Iraqi lawmakers held talks with Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Qods (Jerusalem) brigades of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and signed an agreement with Sadr, which formed the basis of his statement Sunday, members of parliament said.

Ali al Adeeb, a member of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's Dawa party, and Hadi al Ameri, the head of the Badr Organization, the military wing of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, had two aims, lawmakers said: to ask Sadr to stand down his militia and to ask Iranian officials to stop supplying weapons to Shiite militants in Iraq.

....The Qom discussions may or may not bring an end to the fighting but they almost certainly have undermined Maliki — who made repeated declarations that there would be no negotiations and that he would treat as outlaws those who did not turn in their weapons for cash. The blow to his own credibility was worsened by the fact that members of his own party had helped organize the Iran initiative.

"The delegation was from the United Iraqi Alliance (dominated by the Dawa party and the Supreme Council of Iraq), and the Prime Minister was only informed. It was a political maneuver by us," said Haider al Abadi, a legislator from Maliki's Dawa party.

Two comments. First: what a humiliation for Maliki. Not only did he blink first, but afterward his own people publicly undermined what little authority he had left. Yeesh.

Second: the head of the Badr Organization sure does seem to have, um, remarkably speedy access to the head of Iran's Qods force, doesn't he? It's something to ponder the next time some Bush administration or U.S. Army spokesperson casually maligns Sadr as "Iranian backed" but maintains a discreet silence when it comes to the far deeper and longer-lived Iranian ties of Maliki's own Dawa/Badr alliance. Just sayin'.

WHAT'S GOING ON IN BASRA?....CHAPTER XLII....Here's the latest entry in the "What's going on in Basra?" sweepstakes. Earlier today Muqtada al-Sadr's headquarters in Najaf released a statement, and Erica Goode of the New York Times provides the backstory:

The substance of the nine-point statement, released by Mr. Sadr on Sunday afternoon, was hammered out in elaborate negotiations over the past few days with senior Iraqi officials, some of whom traveled to Iran to meet with Mr. Sadr, according to several officials involved in the negotiations.

....Iraqi forces, backed up by American war planes and ground troops, have been in a stalemate with Shiite militias affiliated with Mr. Sadr in Basra for the past six days, in a military operation that has stirred harsh criticism of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

....Many Iraqi politicians say that Mr. Maliki's political capital has been severely depleted by the campaign and that he is now in the curious position of having to turn to Mr. Sadr, a longtime rival and now his opponent in battle, for a solution to the crisis.

In the statement, Mr. Sadr told militia members "to end all military actions in Basra and in all the provinces" and "to cooperate with the government to achieve security."

But he also made demands, including an amnesty for fighters in the Mahdi Army militia and the release of all imprisoned members of the Sadrist movement who have not been convicted of crimes. While the government has occasionally made small-scale releases of Sadrists, it has resisted earlier demands for more sweeping action.

Italics mine. If this is accurate, it suggests that it was Maliki who went to Sadr, not the other way around, and that he did it several days ago. What's more, it was Sadr who laid down the conditions for an end to the violence, not Maliki. This is pretty plainly at odds with the theory that Sadr's statement was a show of weakness, a sign that he was taking more damage than he could stand and was desperate for a truce.

In urban warfare like this it's frequently hard to figure out who's "won" and who's "lost." Often both sides lose. In this case, though, it certainly looks as if Maliki has lost more than Sadr. Both sides have taken casualties, but Sadr doesn't appear to have lost any ground; he's forced Maliki to come to him to ask for terms; he's successfully projected a statesmanlike image throughout; and politically he seems to be in stronger shape than before. Maliki, conversely, appears by all accounts to have launched an ill-timed mission with inadequate troops and then been unable to close the deal. The Iraqi army and the redoubtable Gen. Mohan al-Furayji, the much lauded leader of the regular forces in Basra, are both looking pretty banged up in the bargain too.

This could all change tomorrow, but right now that's about where we stand. It's increasingly hard to see how the Basra offensive ends up being a plus for Maliki and his allies. Including us, unfortunately.

UPDATE: Reed Hundt points out that there's a Tet Offensive quality to the operation in Basra: "Even if the American-backed Maliki-led government establishes some sort of order in Basra, Baghdad and other cities, the battles of the last week must have shaken the American media into a recognition that there's no peace at hand in Iraq, and certainly no widespread support for the Maliki government."

Maybe so. On the other hand, perhaps there's a bright side to this? The failure of a major offensive might finally convince Maliki and his allies that Sadr isn't going away and can't be defeated militarily. That might, in turn, convince them that they need to negotiate seriously with Sadr — and perhaps with the Sunni coalition as well — if they want to maintain any authority at all going forward. I don't have high hopes that this is the lesson Maliki will take away from the Battle of Basra, but you never know.

THE STATURE GAP....It's not true that taller candidates always beat shorter candidates in presidential races. However, it is true that short men almost never win presidential elections. It's been nearly two centuries since anyone more than an inch shorter than the national male average won the presidency.

So how tall is John McCain, anyway? Really?

MILESTONES....John Cole starts a new blogosphere tradition: your 10,000th blog post should be about your cat. Commenter Jake goes one better: "Every blogging milestone should be honored with a picture of a cat doing wtfiw and looking pretty damn smug while he does so." Quite so.

CONDITION BRANDING....Shannon Brownlee writes in the Washington Post about "condition branding" in the pharmaceutical industry:

Condition branders use "information" about medical conditions to forge links between disease and treatment in the minds of both patients and doctors. If they have a drug but no condition, they will simply invent a disease.

....One of the best examples is "osteopenia," a diagnosis that millions of women my age are given every year.....Before the 1990s, doctors decided that you had osteoporosis if you were elderly and you broke a bone. When the pharmaceutical company Merck came up with its anti-bone-loss durg Fosamax, it wanted a broader market than just elderly fracture patients. The solution? The company helped fund a panel of medical experts to create diagnostic criteria for osteoporosis so that a diagnosis could be made before the patient actually broke a bone.

The panel's first step was to define "normal" bone density as that of the average 30-year-old woman. Next, the experts chose as their cutoff for osteoporosis a statistical point that was slightly below the bone density of their normal 30-year-old — a definition they admitted was "somewhat arbitrary." Finally, they came up with a completely new disease — osteopenia — for bone density that fell somewhere between that normal 30-year-old and their arbitrary definition of osteoporosis.

Voila — 30 percent of post-menopausal women suddenly had a disease that needed to be treated early in order to prevent a problem — hip fracture — that wouldn't occur for many years, if ever. According to the new guidelines, millions more women now had osteopenia, which their doctors needed to watch like hawks so that their patients could be treated once they progressed to osteoporosis. Merck then took the added step of helping doctors buy DEXA scanners, X-ray machines needed to scan your bones to get that all-important diagnosis.

Read the whole thing. And while you're at it, you might want to buy her book, Overtreated, and read that too. It's very, very good.

WHY HILLARY FIGHTS....John Heilemann's piece in New York magazine about how Barack Obama blew his chances of getting an endorsement from John Edwards is fascinating reading. So go read it. But I was also intrigued by this:

Democrats are right to fear that [Hillary] Clinton may find it irresistible to turn her campaign into an exercise in nothing less (and little more) than political manslaughter against Obama. They're especially right to be worried that she may want to fight on all summer, all the way to the Denver convention — especially with Clinton now talking openly about a floor fight over seating the disputed Florida and Michigan delegations.

Some senior members of Clinton's campaign have no intention of sticking around if Obama is substantially ahead come June; as much as they're devoted to their boss, they want nothing to do with a black-bag operation designed to destroy her rival, no matter what the cost. But these same people are also deeply convinced — beyond spin, beyond talking points, to their core — that Obama would be doomed against McCain. And Clinton believes this, too, which is one important reason why she persists despite odds that grow longer each passing day.

A couple of weeks ago I would have written this off as delusional. Of course Barack Obama can win against John McCain. And I still believe that.

But I'd be lying if I didn't admit that the Jeremiah Wright controversy has shaken my confidence a bit. This has nothing to do with the substance of the thing, which I think has been wildly overblown, but by the conservative reaction to it. Go scan The Corner and you'll find Mark Steyn and Victor Davis Hanson and the rest of the gang still in an absolute lather over Wright. Ditto for other conservative sites. They have no intention of allowing this to die, and I have no doubt that it will resurface with a vengeance in every last swing state this fall. When Obama continues to fail to denounce Wright thoroughly enough — and believe me, no denunciation will ever be enough with this crowd — then eventually the crossover Republicans who were singing Obama's praises after Super Tuesday will, sadly but inevitably, use this as an excuse to switch their support to McCain. Can't vote for a guy who doesn't have the balls to disown an outraged black guy in a dashiki, after all. Ditto for a lot of political moderates who have fallen under the Obama spell but are really more anti-Hillary than they ever were pro-Obama.

Now, my guess is that, in the end, this won't work. The polls taken after Obama's race speech showed, gratifyingly, no reduction in his support, suggesting that a sleaze campaign will have a harder time working against Obama than it did against John Kerry. Still, it's out there, and it's pretty clearly part of the game plan for the fall campaign. I think Hillary's folks are wrong to believe that Obama is doomed, but I'm not sure I think they're delusional any more. There's every sign that we have an ugly campaign ahead of us.

BASRA UPDATE....What's really going on in Basra? First, reporting on the latest in the fight between the government forces of Prime Minister Nouri al-Malikia and the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr, there's this from Ned Parker of the LA Times:

The Iraqi government's offensive in Basra has spelled the end to a seven-month cease-fire by Sadr's militia in all but name. In an ominous sign Saturday, Sadr in a rare TV interview praised armed resistance. Separately, he urged his followers to defy Maliki's ultimatum to surrender their weapons.

Sounds bad. But a few hours later (though the timing is unclear) Sadr issued a conciliatory nine-point plan that al-Jazeera says was "agreed with the Iraqi government." An Associated Press dispatch provides the following description of the announcement:

Al-Sadr's nine-point statement was issued by his headquarters in the holy city of Najaf and broadcast through loudspeakers on Shiite mosques. It said the first point was: "taking gunmen off the streets in Basra and elsewhere."

He also demanded that the Iraqi government stop "haphazard raids" and release security detainees who haven't been charged, two issues cited by his movement as reasons for fighting the government.

Followers handed out sweets in Baghdad's main Mahdi Army militia stronghold of Sadr City.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh called the statement "positive and responsible." But he also warned in a telephone interview broadcast on Iraqi state TV. that security forces would continue to target those who don't follow the order.

"We expect a wide response to this call," he said. "After this announcement, anybody who targets the government and its institutions will be regarded ... as outlaws."

So apparently Sadr remains willing to continue his cease-fire, but only if Maliki stands down. In the meantime, he has no intention of giving up his weapons and has demanded the return of captured Mahdi Army fighters. Overall, this sounds like it's an offer to Maliki to declare victory and then leave town. Or else.

Just a guess, though. Sadr's intentions have been unusually opaque throughout this entire operation, and it's hard to say exactly what he's been up to in Basra. Taking an opportunity to allow someone else to purge rogue elements in his movement? Consolidating control over Basra? Burnishing his credentials as a responsible statesman? Just reacting to events? All of the above? Your guess is as good as mine — and as good as anyone else's as well, I think.

"The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage."
–Emperor Hirohito, August 15, 1945

"We were surprised by a very strong resistance that made us change our plans."
–Iraqi defense minister Abdul-Kader Jassem al-Obeidi, March 29, 2008

But all snark aside, what happens if the Mahdi Army beats the government forces and wins the Battle of Basra? The Brits are hunkered down at the airport and have no intention of helping out. American forces are busy in Baghdad and can't afford to come south. And the Iraqi 14th Division is the best one Maliki has at his disposal. He either wins with what he's got, or he doesn't.

And if he doesn't? What then? Does Sistani intervene? Does Maliki's government collapse? Does the American military take over in Basra by scavenging up troops from northern Iraq? Does Muqtada al-Sadr abandon his cease-fire and start up a real civil war? Or does everything go back to the status quo ante, but with the Sadrists in an even better position to win the October elections and take formal control over most of the south?

Beats me. But things are not going well for Maliki at the moment, and a loss in Basra would make it crystal clear just how shaky his position is, how weak and factional the Iraqi security forces are, and how little commitment there is on any side to genuine political reconciliation. More from the New York Times here, Juan Cole here, and Cernig here.

UPDATE: On the other hand, what if Maliki wins? That's no great shakes either.

THE TIMING OF BASRA....Did Nouri al-Maliki really launch the Basra offensive without telling us beforehand? Several observers doubt this, suggesting that, in fact, there was a direct quid pro quo: in return for Maliki allowing the Iraqi election law to pass (a sop to the Sunni Awakening councils we've been working with), Bush and Cheney agreed to green-light the Basra project (designed to solidify Maliki's control of the Shiite south). Ilan Goldenberg isn't convinced:

The reason I don't buy this theory is that the timing makes no sense whatsoever from a domestic political perspective. If there was a quid pro quo, the Bush Administration would have asked for a waiting period until after the Petraeus Crocker testimony. Why go with such a high risk operation a week before the progress report to Congress? Makes no sense. This Administration is pretty incompetent about a lot of things, but for the most part they seem to understand political timing.

I don't really have a dog in this fight, but I can think of several reasons why the White House and the military might have believed the timing of the Basra operation was just fine:

• Maybe Maliki and his generals convinced everyone that this would be a quick mopping-up operation lasting only a few days. Bush, in particular, adores bold action and seems eager to believe in every light at the end of every tunnel, so he might well have bought into this. Far from the timing being a problem, then, it held out the hope of providing Petraeus with a huge success story leading up to his congressional testimony.

• Violence and fatalities have been up this month in Iraq, so Petraeus was going to have trouble selling his usual rosy surge scenario anyway. Given that, why not get all the bad news out of the way at once? In fact, in a way the Basra offensive actually helps Petraeus out by providing him with a ready-made excuse for why the fatality numbers are on the upswing.

• Bush and Petraeus are both eager to pause the drawdown of surge troops, and Basra provides them with a perfect pretext. After all, you can't very well withdraw troops at the very moment when our brave allies are finally making a stand to restore law and order in preparation for upcoming elections, can you?
  

I have no idea if any of these speculations are true. Probably not. As with most things in Iraq, the Basra offensive is probably a fairly straightforward clusterfuck with no particular rhyme or reason in its timing. Still, there are plausible explanations for why we might have been OK with it despite Petraeus's upcoming testimony. Maybe you can come up with others.

OUR IDIOT IN CHIEF....Here is George Bush yesterday, explaining what's happening in Basra:

President Bush said Friday that the offensive answered critics who have accused Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's Shiite Muslim-dominated government of inaction and of favoritism toward Shiites.

"I would say this is a defining moment in the history of a free Iraq," Bush said at the White House...."And it is an interesting moment for the people of Iraq because . . . they must have confidence in their government's ability to protect them and to be evenhanded."

The usual question presents itself here: Which is worse, (a) that Bush actually believes this or (b) that he knows better but thinks the rest of us will buy this nonsense? Is there another person on the planet who would be either delusional enough or ballsy enough to describe Maliki's actions in Basra as "evenhanded"?

Anyway, I'm going with (a). Your mileage may vary.

FRIDAY CATBLOGGING....So how's the weather in the rest of the country? A little chilly, huh? Well, Domino and Inkblot invite you to fly out to sunny Southern California for a frolic in the garden and a bit of rolling around in the dirt. Or anywhere else, for that matter. These pictures were taken yesterday, but it's a balmy 75 degrees again today, so I'm sure they'll be back outside soaking up some sunshine soon. ("Soon" = "when they've finished their midmorning nap.")

Need even more cat goodness today? Here's "Cat Man Do" on YouTube. Cat lovers will all relate. For that matter, so will cat haters.

LIKE THE ENERGIZER BUNNY....You'd think that one silver lining of the great Jeremiah Wright controversy is that it would at least put to rest all those rumors that Barack Obama is actually Muslim. But no such luck. Ed Kilgore has the details.

BASRA UPDATE....Juan Cole on Basra:

People are asking me the significance of the fighting going on in Basra and elsewhere. My reading is that the US faced a dilemma in Iraq. It needed to have new provincial elections in an attempt to mollify the Sunni Arabs, especially in Sunni-majority provinces like Diyala, which has nevertheless been ruled by the Shiite Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq [ISCI]. But if they have provincial elections, their chief ally, the Islamic Supreme Council, might well lose southern provinces to the Sadr Movement. In turn, the Sadrists are demanding a timetable for US withdrawal, whereas ISCI wants US troops to remain. So the setting of October, 2008, as the date for provincial elections provoked this crisis.

I think Cheney probably told ISCI and Prime Minister al-Maliki that the way to fix this problem and forestall the Sadrists coming to power in Iraq, was to destroy the Mahdi Army, the Sadrists' paramilitary. Without that coercive power, the Sadrists might not remain so important, is probably their thinking. I believe them to be wrong, and suspect that if the elections are fair, the Sadrists will sweep to power and may even get a sympathy vote. It is admittedly a big 'if.'

This, I think, is the most widely held theory about what's going on right now: namely that it's an attempt by Maliki to weaken the Sadrists in the runup to elections in the south. Two comments, though.

First, Cheney's visit came ten days ago and this operation seems to have been in the planning stages for several weeks. My guess is that the offensive in Basra is Maliki's idea, not ours, and Cheney merely offered his blessing and a promise of U.S. air/ground support.

Second, I remain slightly mystified that Muqtada al-Sadr continues to make such soothing noises. It seems increasingly unlikely that Maliki is targeting only rogue Sadrist groups, but despite this, "A statement released late Thursday by Sadr's political office said the cleric remained committed to the cease-fire he imposed on his militia in August." Does this mean that Sadr does believe Maliki's claims that he isn't targeting the Mahdi Army as a whole? Or is there some other calculation going on?

Beats me, but anyone trying to establish some serious Iraq cred should take a crack at (a) explaining what's really going on here and (b) predicting how it's all going to turn out. Be sure to show your work. More speculation from Eric Martin here, Fester here, James Joyner here, and Fred Kaplan here.

EPA FOLLIES....Last year the Supreme Court ruled, contrary to the Bush administration's wishes, that greenhouse gases were a pollutant that came under the jurisdiction of the EPA. So the EPA's scientists took a look, and they concluded that, yes, greenhouse gases contributed to global warming and ought to be regulated under the Clean Air Act. The White House, of course, was not happy about this, so on Thursday EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson deep-sixed the scientific findings and opened up a "lengthy public comment period" to give corporate contributors the public a chance to weigh in on this. Reaction was swift:

"This is a transparent delaying tactic and a major reversal of EPA's position," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills). "The Bush administration is recklessly abandoning its responsibility to address the global warming crisis."

"It's outrageous," said Sierra Club attorney David Bookbinder, one of the lead attorneys on the case, who said he would ask the Supreme Court next week to order the EPA to act within 60 days.

I say: chill. And don't ask the Supreme Court to do anything. Not only will they refuse, but it would be a blunder anyway. After all, do we really want the Bush/Cheney administration crafting greenhouse gas regulations?

I didn't think so. Better to let 'em stall, and then next year let a Democratic president, Democratic Congress, and Democratic EPA administrator create regulations that are actually useful and properly targeted. Even on the off chance that John McCain suckers the press into installing him as president, he's better on this issue than Bush and his Stepford aides.

So let's go ahead and use the next 300 days to get our ducks in a row. We can do a lot more next January than we can by fighting rear-guard battles now.

ZIPPY....JPMorgan Chase has an automated system called "Zippy" for approving mortgage loans. But if it's automated, how did it manage to approve so many crappy loans? An editorial in The Oregonian provides a nickel summary:

As reporter Jeff Manning described Thursday, a JPMorgan Chase employee distributed a memo called "Zippy Cheats & Tricks," which reads like a tipsheet for beating a video game. It advises employees at the banking company how they can help mortgage brokers jigger the in-house system, called "Zippy," that evaluates loan applications. Overstate the borrower's income, it suggests. Don't mention that some borrowers are relying on gifts to repay their loans. Inflate assets. "Never fear," the memo reads. "Zippy can be adjusted . . ."

Charming. Chase, of course, is investigating, because "This is not how we do things." Indeed.

Via Calculated Risk. More here from Barry Ritholtz.

IRAQ UPDATE....So how's the training of the Iraqi army coming along? Apparently, not so well:

U.S. forces in armored vehicles battled Mahdi Army fighters Thursday in Sadr City, the vast Shiite stronghold in eastern Baghdad, as an offensive to quell party-backed militias entered its third day. Iraqi army and police units appeared to be largely holding to the outskirts of the area as American troops took the lead in the fighting.

Four U.S. Stryker armored vehicles were seen in Sadr City by a Washington Post correspondent, one of them engaging Mahdi Army militiamen with heavy fire....Several Mahdi Army commanders said they had been fighting U.S. forces for the past three days in Sadr City, engaging Humvees as well as the Strykers. By their account, an Iraqi special forces unit had entered Sadr City from another direction, backed by Americans, but otherwise the fighting had not been with Iraqis.

Also worth noting: "Maliki decided to launch the offensive without consulting his U.S. allies, according to administration officials." Maybe. But consulted or not, it looks like we've been drawn into this gang war. It's not just air cover any more.

ALL THE PRESIDENT'S LIES....Eric Lichtblau, in an excerpt from his upcoming book, Bush's Law: The Remaking of American Justice, tells the story of how the White House tried to kill his reporting of the NSA eavesdropping story in late 2004:

For more than an hour, we told Bush's aides what we knew about the wiretapping program, and they in turn told us why it would do grave harm to national security to let anyone else in on the secret. Consider the financial damage to the phone carriers that took part in the program, one official implored. If the terrorists knew about the wiretapping program, it would be rendered useless and would have to be shut down immediately, another official urged: "It's all the marbles."....There was never any serious legal debate within the administration about the legality of the program, Bush's advisers insisted. The Justice Department had always signed off on its legality, as required by the president. The few lawmakers who were briefed on the program never voiced any concerns. From the beginning, there were tight controls in place to guard against abuse. The program would be rendered so ineffective if disclosed that it would have to be shut down immediately.

[The story was killed, but a year later they brought it up again with their editors.]

We went back to old sources and tried new ones. Our reporting brought into sharper focus what had already started to become clear a year earlier: The concerns about the program — in both its legal underpinnings and its operations — reached the highest levels of the Bush administration. There were deep concerns within the administration that the president had authorized what amounted to an illegal usurpation of power. The image of a united front we'd been presented a year earlier in meetings with the administration — with unflinching support for the program and its legality — was largely a facade. The administration, it seemed clear to me, had lied to us.

Read the whole thing.

THINK TANK LEAGUE TABLE....Apparently 2007 was a bad year for think tanks: FAIR reports that overall media citations were down 17%. I blame blogs. Brookings is still the undisputed heavyweight champ, followed by CFR and a trio of conservo-tanks. Cato comes in at #9, not bad for a scrappy libertarian outfit. The New America Foundation bucks the overall trend and gets top honors in the year-over-year rankings, with a 44% increase in citations. EPI does worst, clocking in at -52%. A complete list of the top 25 think tanks is below.

WHO'S WHO....Can't tell the players without a program in the 2-way (or is it 3-way or 4-way?) intra-Shiite gang war currently underway in Basra and southern Iraq? Here's a quick cheat sheet:

• ISCI = SIIC = new name for SCIRI = Badr Corps = "aristocratic" Hakim family = exiles during Saddam Hussein's reign = pro-Iran = generally in control of army and security forces = pro-U.S. = ally of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his Dawa Party.

• Mahdi Army = JAM = "firebrand cleric" Muqtada al-Sadr = Iraqi nationalists = originally part of Maliki's governing coalition but no longer = anti-U.S. = populist/working class orientation = controls much of the oil sector in Basra.

• "Special groups" = rogue elements of the Mahdi Army = maybe Sadr is just as happy to have Maliki take these guys out for him, but who knows for sure?

• Fadhila = ex-allies of Sadr = won some elections in Basra in 2005 = smallest of the three Shiite factions in the south.
  

Corrections/amplifications welcome. You may now go about your reading.

A MILLION TRAGEDIES....Ah, just what we need: a John McCain plagiarism scandal. And the material he plagiarized came from a fellow naval officer, no less. Excellent. Details here.

UPDATE: It turns out the plagiarist is actually the plagiaree! ThinkProgress regrets the error.

But jeez, McCain has been using these lines since 1995? For a guy who thinks war is such a tragedy, he sure does support a lot of them.

THEORIES....More from Marc Lynch. After quoting a Saudi Arabian editorial suggesting that Iran has abandoned Muqtada al-Sadr because it now has more useful allies in Baghdad, he summarizes the various guesses floating around about what's really going on in Iraq right now:

So you can add the [1] "Iran is liquidating its no longer useful proxies" theory (which would fit this general line of speculation about Iran's doubts about Sadr and preference for the simultaneously-US backed ISCI) to the generally most prevalent (in the Iraqi and Arab, not just Western, media) [2] "Maliki and ISCI are liquidating their more popular rivals ahead of the provincial elections" theory; the optimistic [3] "Sadr has lost power and now's the time to take him out" theory (thus far not borne out by the course of the fighting, but who knows — it's early); Maliki's own [4] "it's time to establish state sovereignty over a 'lost' province" theory (which Bush, of course, has embraced, and is supported by the reporting that the Iraqi Army began its preparations for the attack months ago; but then why isn't he taking on the other militias and warlords? and why would he start now, and in Basra?); and Reidar Visser's [5] "Maliki is trying to build a power base in the Iraqi Army" theory.

All numbering added by me for handy future reference.

UPDATE: More here on the general situation in Basra and what it means.

CONDITIONAL ENGAGEMENT....Via Marc Lynch, Colin Kahl and Shawn Brimley of CNAS offer their view of the way forward in Iraq:

President Bush and his successor have only three basic choices on strategy for Iraq: unconditional engagement, conditional engagement, or unconditional disengagement.

....The Bush administration and its supporters continue to call for a strategy of unconditional engagement in Iraq....This strategy will continue to be ineffective because it does not pressure Iraqi leaders to take the political risks needed for real reconciliation. A policy of unconditional engagement in Iraq is all carrots, and no sticks.

Too many critics of the war favor a policy of unconditional disengagement from Iraq....This strategy ignores the very real contribution American forces are making to preventing a resurgence of civil war in Iraq. It also shares the flaw of the administration's approach in offering few incentives for Iraq's leaders to accommodate.

....A policy of conditional engagement — a nuanced middle position between "all in" or "all out" — offers a better chance of producing lasting progress in Iraq. Under this strategy, U.S. negotiators would make clear that Iraq and America share a common interest in achieving sustainable stability in Iraq, and that the United States is willing to help support the Iraqi government over the long-term, but only so long as Iraqis move toward political accommodation....Implementing this approach requires a credible threat to abandon allies if they don't move toward accommodation, while providing a credible promise to continue supporting them if they do move in this direction.

First: I really, really wish they'd skipped the "nuanced middle position" language, which just sets my teeth on edge. Maybe Kahl and Brimley feel the need to reassure everyone that they're neither warmongers nor hippy pacifists, but in the end this is just preening. It has precisely nothing to do with whether their position actually makes sense.

But that little micro-rant aside, does their position make sense? It's hard to say, since this is only a short memo and provides no details about just what "credible" threats they have in mind. And the devil is surely in the details here. Kahl and Brimley's position — essentially timelines and benchmarks — used to be my own, but I've become convinced over the past couple of years that it's politically infeasible.

The problem is that this approach sets you up for an endless string of bloody political battles. As things stand now, if Barack Obama takes office in January and wants to begin withdrawing troops unconditionally, that might provoke a political fight, but only one political fight. And it's one he can probably win since he'd have public opinion on his side and plenty of allies in Congress. And once the withdrawal is in motion, it's almost impossible to stop.

But what if, instead, he scratches his chin, assembles a group of foreign policy worthies, and negotiates a nuanced set of benchmarks and timelines for the Iraqi government? First, he will have wasted six months, since foreign policy worthies don't work on a faster timetable than that. Second, he's "negotiating with himself," essentially admitting up front that he's willing to stay in Iraq if someone brings enough pressure to bear on him. That's a poor start to a presidency.

And then what? The benchmarks will, of necessity, be fuzzy and malleable. In the real world, firm benchmarks just aren't in the cards for a chaotic warzone like Iraq. So the first deadline arrives and — what? It's a battle royal. Republicans will fight like crazed weasels, claiming that enough progress has been made that we should "keep our word" and stay in Iraq. Democrats will fight on the opposite side. Obama will try to find some kind of compromise and will fail. Either he keeps troops in Iraq, essentially admitting that he's never going to withdraw, or he pulls them out amidst cries that he's abandoning a solemn pledge from the U.S. government to the people of Iraq just when they need us the most.

And the next deadline? Rinse and repeat.

And again, world without end.

A couple of years ago it looked as though congressional Republicans might be softening on their support for the war. In the event, though, that turned out to be a mirage. Their support today is as strong as ever, and at this point it doesn't look like anything will change that. President Obama can afford one clean fight over Iraq at the beginning of his term, when he has the tailwind of an election at his back and the firm support of the Democratic caucus. He can't afford — or hope to win — fight after fight after fight with a Republican Party determined to paint him as a weakling and an appeaser.

And that fundamental reboot of American foreign policy we're all hoping for from an Obama administration? You can forget about it as long as we're still stuck in Iraq and still stuck fighting relentlessly over whether, and how fast, we should leave.

So color me skeptical. I'm willing to read Kahl and Brimley's longer report when it comes out, but I suspect they won't address the domestic political prospects of their proposal, and that's the key to whether it has any hope of working or not. Caveat lector.

JOHN McCAIN, CHILD OF THE UNIVERSE....I just got around to reading John McCain's big foreign policy address from yesterday, and all I can say is: Wow. Aside from wanting to stay in Iraq essentially forever, he's basically trying to pass himself off as a guy who'd just as soon disband the military as ever launch another cruise missile:

I detest war.... Only a fool or a fraud sentimentalizes the merciless reality of war....the United States cannot lead by virtue of its power alone....mutual respect and trust....America must be a model citizen....good stewards of our planet.... Americans should welcome the rise of a strong, confident European Union....We must strongly engage on a political, economic, and security level with friendly governments across Africa....I will establish the goal of eradicating malaria on the continent....We do not need all the weapons currently in our arsenal. The United States should lead a global effort at nuclear disarmament....Our goal must be to win the "hearts and minds" of the vast majority of moderate Muslims....scholarships will be far more important than smart bombs....For decades in the greater Middle East, we had a strategy of relying on autocrats to provide order and stability.... It was a toxic and explosive mixture.... We must help expand the power and reach of freedom, using all our many strengths as a free people....I run because I believe, as strongly as I ever have, that it is within our power to make in our time another, better world than we inherited.

Except for the whole Iraq thing, this version of John McCain almost sounds like he could join Code Pink. Apparently the pandering for the independent vote has now started in earnest.

PAKISTAN UPDATE....The Guardian reports that U.S. diplomat John Negroponte got a chilly reception in Pakistan earlier this week:

On Tuesday, senior coalition partner Nawaz Sharif gave the visiting Americans a public scolding for using Pakistan as a "killing field" and relying too much on [President Pervez] Musharraf.

....The body language between Negroponte and Sharif during their meeting on Tuesday spoke volumes: the Pakistani greeted the American with a starched handshake, and sat at a distance .

In blunt remarks afterwards, Sharif said he told Negroponte that Pakistan was no longer a one-man show. "Since 9/11, all decisions were taken by one man," he said. "Now we have a sovereign parliament and everything will be debated in the parliament."

The Washington Post reports on our response:

The United States has escalated its unilateral strikes against al-Qaeda members and fighters operating in Pakistan's tribal areas, partly because of anxieties that Pakistan's new leaders will insist on scaling back military operations in that country, according to U.S. officials.

....Thomas H. Johnson, a research professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., said: "People inside the Beltway are aware that Musharraf's days are numbered, and so they recognize they may only have a few months to do this. Musharraf has . . . very few friends in the world — he probably has more inside the Beltway than in his own country."

That's a great way of improving our relationship with the new leadership in Pakistan, isn't it? We know they want us to cut back on bombing their territory, so we go ahead and increase our bombing of their territory instead in order to get in a few last licks. What a terrific way to demonstrate exactly what we think of those pesky elections they just held, eh?

YOU AND YOUR GUT....From the "Now they tell me" file:

People who have big bellies in their 40s are much more likely to get Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia in their 70s, according to new research that links the middle-aged spread to a fading mind for the first time.

The study of more than 6,000 people found that the more fat they had in their guts in their early to mid-40s, the greater their chances of becoming forgetful and confused and showing other signs of senility as they aged.

Actually, though, maybe this isn't such bad news for me. I may not look so great today, but in my early 40s I was in pretty decent shape. Or was it my early 30s? I forget. Hmmm.

In any case, I've now passed the danger zone so I guess it doesn't matter how many chocolate Easter eggs I eat anymore. All of you bloggy whippersnappers out there, though, better watch yourselves.

THE LONG PRIMARY....Dan Balz says there's an upside to the long Democratic primary campaign:

Figures released by Pennsylvania's Department of State on Monday night showed that Democrats have topped 4 million registered voters, the first time either party in the state has crossed that threshold. Democrats have added 161,000 to their rolls, a gain of about 4 percent; Republican registration has dipped about 1 percent, to 3.2 million.

That is consistent with the pattern since the beginning of the year: Democratic turnout in primaries and caucuses has topped Republican turnout, often by huge differences.

If the long primary campaign is motivating more people to register as Democrats, that's a huge advantage for November. The act of registering causes you to identify with the party you registered with, and once that's happened you're almost certain to vote for that party in the general election too. If Democrats have boosted their rolls by 2-4% nationwide, that's a massive headstart for the presidential election.