2. You and What Army?

The ignominious Democratic strategy to de-fund the war is not to directly and honestly cut off money for the war in Iraq, but rather to place conditions on the deployment of troops—conditions designed to sound reasonable, but which, for technical reasons, will be nearly impossible to fulfill. (Mario Loyola explains why units that are perfectly well equipped for combat are sometimes described as "unready.")

Having applied this strategy to Iraq, where will Democrats apply it next? Will they apply the same criteria to prevent the buildup of coalition troops in Afghanistan, blocking a planned NATO "spring offensive" aimed at pre-empting a Taliban spring offensive?

The Democratic political strategy has been dubbed the "slow bleed" strategy—and it is aptly named, because it is a plan to lose the War on Terrrorism slowly and thus with maximum loss of American lives and maximum damage to America's military credibility.

"Pelosi Back War Funding Only with Conditions," Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray, Washington Post, February 16

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) yesterday linked her support for President Bush's war-funding request to strict standards of resting, training, and equipping combat forces, a move that could curtail troop deployments and alter the course of US involvement in Iraq.

The pledge came as Congress appears ready to assert its authority in matters of war and diplomacy, down to decisions that the White House believes to be the domain solely of the president as commander in chief: the deployment and training of military forces….

Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), a Pelosi ally, is rewriting the president's spending request to limit Bush's options in prosecuting the war, and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said he will seek to repeal the 2002 congressional authorization for Bush to wage war in Iraq and substitute legislation that would narrow the mission of troops there and begin to bring some home….

Pelosi was careful to say no final decisions have been made on binding legislation. But she backed key provisions already floated by Murtha, including requirements that troops be given at least a year's rest between combat deployments, special training in urban warfare and counterinsurgency, and safety equipment that the military has struggled to provide….

She also strongly endorsed binding legislation requiring Bush to seek congressional authorization before any military strike on Iran. "Congress should assert itself...and make it very clear that there is no previous authority for the president, any president, any president to go into Iran," she said….

House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) labeled the emerging Democratic proposal "a plan to cut off funding for troops in harm's way by making sure the reinforcements they need to complete their mission in Iraq never arrive."

3. Did Hitler Control the SS?

Just as new evidence emerges that Iraqi insurgents are using Austrian sniper rifles purchased by Iran, the left is digging itself deeper into a hole of evasion and denial about Iran's war on the United States. The most absurd example is a Los Angeles Times report pondering the "mystery" of whether the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—the theocratic regime's equivalent of the Nazi SS—actually acts on behalf of Iran's government and leaders.

Note, however, that all of the facts cited in this report confirm that the Quds force acts on behalf of Iran's president and Supreme Leader Khamenei—and all of the alleged "uncertainty" about this fact is based on circumstantial speculation and pure political "spin" conjured up by the reporters.

This is another example of the double standard of the defeatists. If an American SEAL team were captured in Iran tomorrow, do you think anyone would be debating whether or not President Bush is responsible? Yet the left-leaning press is eager to gin up excuses for our enemies.

"Iran's Elite and Mysterious Fighters," Borzou Daragahi and Peter Spiegel, Los Angeles Times, February 15

Among the myriad military and intelligence agencies that make up Iran's security forces, none has the skill and reach of the Quds Force, an elite unit nominally within the command structure of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Like the Revolutionary Guard, the Quds Force and its predecessors were among the semiofficial militias, charities, and centers of clerical power born of the paranoia and zeal of the tumultuous years after Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, which brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power….

The Quds Force and its predecessors consisted of the Guard's most skilled warriors. Experts said they were highly secretive commando units sent abroad to help Shiites usurp monarchies in the Persian Gulf, gun down enemies, and battle Israeli forces in southern Lebanon. They also reportedly have run operations in Sudan, South Asia, and Western Europe….

The extent to which the Quds Force is controlled by the government has been hotly debated in US foreign policy circles….

There are signs that Quds Force-linked operatives have taken orders from Tehran for overseas missions.

Most notable, Pollack said, were the 1992 killings of an Iranian Kurdish separatist leader and three associates in Berlin by four gunmen led by an Iranian agent. In 1997, a German court found that the slayings had been ordered by a government committee in Tehran that included Khamenei and then-President Hashemi Rafsanjani….

"We do have evidence here and there, circumstantial in many ways, that the Quds Force guys and other people in the Revolutionary Guard like to push the edge of the envelope," Pollack said, speculating that the Quds Force could be freelancing in Iraq.

"Tehran almost certainly told the Quds Force to go into Iraq," he said. "What we don't know is: Did they say something as vague as, 'Protect our interests in Iraq without actually going to war with the Americans'? Or did they say something very specific: 'Do this, do that, don't do this.'

"We don't know."

4. He Who Hesitates Is Lost

The left is able to promote defeat because of the actual failures of those who want to win the war, but who haven't implemented the measures necessary to do so—which is to say that the defeatists thrive by exploiting the failures of the Bush administration.

Some of those failures are sketched out in this column from the Jerusalem Post's Caroline Glick. I haven't linked to Glick's columns recently because I have found them to be a bit overly pessimistic—though I cut her some slack because she is an Israeli: her country is much closer to the front lines of this war, and its political culture is much worse than that of the United States.

But I had to link to this column because it clearly names an important fact: the battle with Iran is not a matter of "if" but of "when"—and the only question is how great a price we will pay for years of avoiding and delaying the conflict. I agree with Glick that "the great failure" is that we are postponing the showdown in a way that gains nothing for us and simply cedes the initiative to the enemy.

"Bush's Inevitable Showdown," Caroline Glick, Jerusalem Post, February 15

It is possible…that the US is willing to take a few hits in order to clear its deck of nuisances so that it can concentrate on the greatest danger to global security. Perhaps the Bush administration is appeasing North Korea by buying it off and appeasing the Arabs and Europeans by being nice to the Palestinians in order to buy time to deal with Iran….

But assuming that the US is in fact playing for time, and assuming that it gets the time it seeks, it is far from clear that it will use that time wisely….

For both Bush and Rice made it clear this week that they do still cling to the fantasy that diplomacy can carry the day with Iran. While touting her deal with North Korea on Tuesday, Rice said it should be viewed "as a message to Iran that the international community is able to bring together its resources, and that strong diplomacy has achieved results."…

Whether the US arrives at its showdown with Iran from a position of weakness or strength, willingly or unwillingly, there is no doubt that the confrontation is approaching. And the difference between initiating the confrontation and allowing Iran to initiate it with a nuclear first strike is not a trivial question. It will make a difference of millions of lives. The question of the hour is therefore whether the little time left before the war is being used wisely.

And here is the great failure. By sending a message of weakness now, in order to purchase maneuvering time that may not be obtained, the US this week has accelerated rather than distanced the moment of truth while doing nothing to build support or increase its chances of triumph when the inevitable occurs.

5. What Part of "No" Don't They Understand?

The power of the FCC to crack down on "indecency" is not the most egregious government assault on free speech (that dishonor goes to campaign finance controls), nor has it been significantly expanded by this administration, despite all of the "wardrobe malfunction" hysteria. But the report linked to below is worrying, because it describes an attempt by the FCC to lay the legal foundation for extending its power over old-fashioned broadcasters to cover cable television channels.

The controls on the old TV broadcasters were based narrowly on the idea of "public ownership" of the airwaves—an egregious idea, but one that limited government controls to a specific technology. This, by contrast, is an attempt to create a constitutional rationalization for regulating all forms of television in any media. Will YouTube be next? And what, under this reasoning, will differentiate television from the print media?

The First Amendment says that "Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech." So what part of a "no" don't they understand?

"FCC Targets Violence on TV," John Dunbar, AP via Washington Times, February 16

A new draft report from the Federal Communications Commission says the government may be able to limit violence on TV in a way that does not violate the US Constitution….

Citing studies, the draft report says there is evidence that violent programming can lead to "short-term aggressive behavior in children," according to an agency source, who asked not to be identified because the commission has not approved the report….

The FCC's authority is limited to licensed broadcast stations. Content on cable networks that is not available over the airwaves is beyond the agency's reach.

To address cable, the report suggests that Congress could draft legislation that would mandate a "family tier" of programming or a form of channel choice known as a la carte.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has long supported such a proposal, as has Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, but the cable industry has beaten back a la carte legislation in the past.

Creating a regulatory regime to deal with television violence would present a host of challenges for the agency, critics say. First, the FCC or Congress would have to define "excessive violence."

The agency is considering several possibilities, including one devised by Morality in Media Inc., a group whose motto is "promoting decent society through law."

6. Revival Meetings for the First Church of the Warming Globe

I hate to tell you, but get ready: the global warming hysteria is only in its early stages. Even as more holes appear in the bogus global warming "consensus"—most recently, a scientific report showing that temperatures in the Antarctic don't match the predictions of the climate models—the global warming fanatics are pulling out all of the stops to drum their dogma into the heads of the general public.

Here's the latest. Al Gore, who has become (in Wesley Pruden's memorable phrase) a televangelist for the First Church of the Warming Globe, is now planning a global marathon of 21st-century tent revivals, in the form of celebrity-packed rock concerts. The concerts will no doubt use megawatts of electrical power and the whole panoply of modern technology to convince man to renounce the use of fire.

"'Live Earth' Concerts To Tackle Hot Topic," William Booth, Washington Post, February 16

At the news conference Thursday announcing this summer's ambitious "Live Earth" concerts—designed as an exercise in "mass persuasion" about threats of global warming—Al Gore described his vision: a 24-hour musical extravaganza across seven continents, featuring as many as 150 of the world's top recording artists, introduced by an army of "celebrities and thought leaders" (think: Cameron Diaz and Richard Branson), playing before a total live audience of a million people, and reaching 2 billion more via television, radio, and the Internet on July 7.

The foreign cities hosting the stadium-size concerts will be Shanghai, Sydney, Johannesburg, London, Rio and Kyoto, Japan. In the United States, two cities—New York and Washington—are vying to be the chosen venue….

The former vice president confirmed that while he was schmoozing at Sunday's Grammy Awards, where he was a presenter, the Black Eyed Peas agreed to record a new song to promote the cause and perform at one of the concerts. Also off camera at the Grammys, members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers whispered to Gore: "We're in." The approximately two dozen artists confirmed today include Snow Patrol, Kelly Clarkson, Bon Jovi, Foo Fighters, Duran Duran, Enrique Iglesias, Kravitz, Sheryl Crow and Snoop Dogg [for a full list, see box]….

And at the center of it all? "Two billion sets of eyeballs," Wall said, "and we'll hand the mike to Al Gore."

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