Punish the Swiss

So, as I understand it, Iran is moving its resources out of the rest of Europe, and sending it to Switzerland. It is a smart move for the Iranians, who presumably are still pissed off we froze their assets in 1979.

But how smart is it for Switzerland? For decades, centuries even, they have been neutral, and this has served them well. As a banking capital, they have lived large off their holding of vast amounts of illegal and immoral money. It is easy to see why they would see this issue as no different.

But it is different. This is not drug money, or even stolem money. This money represents a primary tool of leverage that the west holds over a regime it considers dangerous and with nuclear ambitions. We are considering going to war over the issue.

Before we go to war in Iran, however, I would suggest using the same leverage we use against Iran against the Swiss. If the Swiss don't wish to cooperate, sanction them. If they retaliate, bomb them. If they are not with us, they are against us, and they are certainly preventing the West from using non-lethal leverage to enforce its will.

To hell with Swiss neutrality. Iranian nuclear armament and another mideast war are too big an issue to play nice with a useless landlocked country enriching itself over the misery of others.

Iraq War Provides Military Options in Iran

Despite Iraq and the risk to oil markets, the US has options in dealing with Iran. First, though oil and the risk to markets is always the lynchpin for all of our dealings in the Middle East and the risk of oil reduction is real and must be considered, would the price of oil be more or less secure with a nuclear Iran? Is the risk of short term prices skyrocketing worth allowing Iranian nuclear arms controlling the sea lanes?

The US deployment in Iraq is not detrimental to American military response to the Iranian Nuclear crisis. The US has military options in Iran, and they are stronger because of our presence in Iraq. While the US is currently decisively engaged with ground troops in Iraq, our strategic and tactical ability to strike through the air is not hampered at all. We would not have to occupy Iran in order to destroy their nuclear developments.

Current analysis of the Iranian program indicates that there are 350 hardened sites that would need to be attacked to have a real impact on the nuclear program. Air power alone probably cannot do it. If it requires a ground invasion to secure and destroy the sites, we can do that from Iraq and leave: we are not required to occupy Iran anymore than we had to occupy Iraq in 1990. It is premature to use force now, but the current war does not leave us without military options, and ground forces should be available from allies if that is necessary, since Europe is at greater immediate risk. Additionally, having troops on two borders and a huge fleet in Iran's sea certainly provides the ability to strike them reasonably easily.

Ground War

While the war in Iraq currently reduces the number of potential American ground forces in a war with Iran, it also opens up the ability to get ground troops into Iran if we chose to do so, and that route would be available to allies as well as the US. Without the ability to get the troops in, all the troops in the world are an empty threat.And unless the European NATO members are completely useless, they ought to be able to kick in some of their troops if some ground force is necessary. It seems to me that if our allies collectively are not able or willing to step up and prevent Iranian nuclear armament when it is their countries that will be within range long before the US is, then what is the point of having them as allies? But even if they won't or can't, we are better off having Iraq as a launching pad.

Iran Impact on Iraq Insurgents

While the occupation in Iraq has not been stellar, it cannot be lost on the Iranian leadership that the Iraqi military that kept Iran at bay for 10 years was swatted away like a fly, Saddam and his top leadership are in prison, and that the muslim world did not rise up and defend Iraq (or Afghanistan). And since the Shiite/Sunni split is a very significant issue for muslims, I don't think there is much support for shiite control of nuclear bombs. I don't think Iran is counting on a lot of support from outside.

We would not have have real options to get troops into Iran but for Iraq. The Afghan border is very mountainous, similar to the Pakistan border, which is why it is hard for us to patrol there now, and very difficult for armored vehicles, and the Afghan infrastructure would not support a large invasion force. Turkey did not even allow us to go through them to Iraq, and would be less likely to support an attack on Iran. Putting troops into the Kurdish area before we had toppled Saddam would have put us at war with Iran and Iraq at the same time: Iraq gives us a ground war option, it does not take it away.

Iran through its proxies such as Sadr and other Shiite leaders can and has made the occupation of Iraq more dificult that it would have been without their meddling. And it is possible that a US strike on Iran would turn a larger portion of the Iraqi Shiites against the new government (and it may even be that the Shiite Iraqi government will not cooperate with the US once it has gained more control). This potential is real and dangerous, but it is not enough of a danger to simply allow the Iranians to have nuclear weapons. It would delay the outcome in Iraq, but it would not require more troops to protect American troops currently in Iraq: it would only require more troops if we decided to fight Sadr et al in the cities while we were dealing with Iran, rather than dealing with the nukes, pulling out, and then dealing with the shiite uprising. And the ten year war with Iran must have left enough bitterness among the majority of Iraqis that they are not all that enthused about having their neighbor to the East have nuclear weapons.

Iran could definitely make things harder in Iraq, but war is hard. Preventing a nuclear Iran is a necessary goal, and fear of additional meddling in Iraq is not enough of a reason to prevent military intervention if diplomacy fails. The US military is not going to defeat an insurgency, and never will. They can merely provide circumstances for the political solution. It would be harder, but not change the essential reality that the Iraqis have to deal with the insurgents and not rely on Americans killing them all.

And though the James Fallows article (recently published in the Atlantic) assumes there is no European military support to prevent Iranian nuclear weapons and therefore no good military solution, that is not my assumption. But it certainly appears from his conclusions that the route to Iran is through Iraq, which would equally mean that without being in Iraq, that route would not be there. And even assuming that there is no European support (which would be by no means a guarantee even if we were not in Iraq), we are still in a stronger position by being in Iraq then we would be if we were not and would have to fight for a foothold to get the troops in.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that it would be a difficult project, but I do not see how being in Iraq makes it harder than it would be if we were not already there in force. Using military force in Iran would likely make the Iraqi occupation even more difficult, but not impossible. I think it simply comes down to how many American lives we will risk to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons. I think that number is a lot. My recollection of Army body count expectations from the first Gulf war was that we would lose 30,000 troops...but we went anyway. I suspect that preventing a nuclear Iran is worth more lives than restoring a monarchy. But it seems clear that if we are not willing to risk those lives, then Iran will have nuclear weapons before this decade is out.

The Conservative Dred Scott Decision

I just reread the Dred Scott Decision, and I was struck with how the conservative values of today were embodied in the decision. Dred Scott (along with Plessy) is often used by Conservatives as a tool to attack Roe v. Wade, in essence saying that the Supreme Court has been wrong before, just as they are wrong in Roe, and therefore stare decisis is not a bar to reconsideration.

But I don't think that the Dred Scott decision violates the conservative interpretation of the Constitution. From its take and reliance on the "Founders" opinion on whether free blacks could be citizens (which according to Chief Justice Taney was "no") to restraint on the federal government to its enumerated rights and an originalist reading of the Constitution, Dred Scott could be written today (but for the 13th and 14th amendments). In dicta he even was pretty strong on the second amendment as being a right of the people to bear arms that the feds cannot regulate, with no mention of the militia.

I wonder if there is a Conservative who could show how Taney was wrong in the Dred Scott decision using an originalist reading of the Constitution.

Abortion Analysis

Current Conventional Wisdom holds that legalized abortion is a significant reason that Social conservatives unite across the economic spectrum behind the Republicans, against some of their own economic interests (for less wealthy conservatives), and providing the Republicans the power to wage the current war.

Additionally, as pointed out by the Opinion Journal, (http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110005277) abortion has caused a much larger reduction in voting age democrats than Republicans, by a large enough margin to account for the current Republican majority.

This isn't particularly surprising given the core constituencies of both political parties. But translating percentages into numbers for the purpose of evaluating their impact on politics makes the importance of these numbers real. It's one thing to quote percentages and statistics, it's quite another to look at actual human beings.

For example:• There are 19,748,000 Democrats who are not with us today. (49.37 percent of 40 million).• There are 13,900,000 Republican who are not with us today. (34.75 percent of 40 million).• By comparison, then, the Democrats have lost 5,848,000 more voters than the Republicans have.

And as Slate reported, abortion also is responsible for the reduction in crime that we have seen since the Roe v. Wade generation came of age. (http://www.slate.com/id/33569/entry/33571).

The theoretical justification for our argument rests on two simple assumptions: 1) Legalized abortion leads to fewer "unwanted" babies being born, and 2) unwanted babies are more likely to suffer abuse and neglect and are therefore at an increased risk for criminal involvement later in life. The first assumption, that abortion reduces the number of unwanted children, is true virtually by definition. The second assumption, that unwanted children are at increased risk for criminal involvement, is supported by three decades of academic research. If one accepts these two assumptions, then a direct mechanism by which the legalization of abortion can reduce crime has been established.

It seems to me then, that Roe v. Wade has proved several things that most of us have probably always thought:

Democrats are more likely to be criminals.
Democrats are less wanted, and as kids are more likely to be neglected and abused.
And abortion proponents are to blame for the war in Iraq.

GOP delighted at Abramoff Plea

AP: Washington
January 4, 2006.

The recent plea agreement made by fund raiser and lobbyist Jack Abramoff has been seen as a debacle for the heavily Republican Congress, and some authorities cite a likely influence in upcoming Congressional campaigns.

However, the conventional wisdom may be a little premature. According to Jeff Seward, a GOP staffer for Dennis Hastert, most Republicans are not concerned about the potential scandal. According to Seward, campaign contribution scandals tend to be pretty dull affairs, and "he was sure that most American's eyes glaze over...just look at how little damage the Gore campaign received after shaking down a bunch of nuns."

Additionally, other staffers have noted delight and relief. While not willing to go on the record, they pointed out that as long as the case was going on, the scandal would be in the press. Further, they indicated that honor would require that they continue with bargained-for-policies so long as Abramoff was free. Now that Abramoff has pled guilty, the Congressmen were free to keep his donations and sell their influence again.

White House Spokesman Scott McClellan was not available for comment.

Lincoln and Bush: Presidential War Power vs. Other Constitutional Terms

President Bush claims that his Constitutional Power to wage war provides him the power to curtail or ignore other substantive rights that the Constitution provides for individuals. Is there any basis or precedent for this claim?

Bush has made several claims of War Power, most notably that he can arrest citizens and hold them indefinitely based on his view that they are "enemy combatants," and more recently that he has the power to wire tap phone calls and electronic transmissions and surveil mosques with geiger counters without a warrant.

The Presidential claim for a "War Power" is not explicit in the Constitution, though it has been understood and affirmed by all three branches since the beginning of the Country. It is read into this phrase "The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States..."

The first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, made a similar claim when he violated at least two explicit Constitutional requirements. First, he suspended habeas corpus without the consent of Congress, and second he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, despite requirements in the Constitution such as returning fugitive slaves. (No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due. )

Lincoln had long been against slavery, but he believed that the Federal Government had no power to ban slavery in the slave holding states. As a constitutionalist, he had not advocated any federal action regarding emancipation because he did not believe that an amendment would ever be realistic, and no other manner of ban would hold any constitutional power. Yet, in 1863 he issued the Emancipation Proclamation based on his power to wage war, and his belief that the Confederacy was being aided in the course of the war by the efforts of slaves both in the service of the military as well as in keeping the homes and farms of soldiers working. In doing so, he established the "War Power" as a powerful doctrine with a clearly important and nearly impossible to attack precedent.

Bush's holding of citizen's without charge is substantially similar to Lincoln's suspension of Habeas Corpus and therefore has at least some basis as a power of the President in wartime (though Congress never ratified Lincoln's suspension of Habeas Corpus), but is his violation of the fourth amendment similar to the use of the War Power that allowed Lincoln to free slaves?

Assuming that there is a "war power" (which seems about as elusive in the text as the right to abortion) for the president that can trump the legislation created by Congress to explicitly limit spying on American citizens, does it trump the fourth amendment too?

I think that one can argue that Lincoln is on firmer ground, primarily due to the difference between the original text of the Constitution and subsequent amendments.

Lincoln could argue that the Presidential power to wage war is co-equal with the right of Slave states to have slaves since they were written together, but the effect of Amendments is to change the preceding Constitution to the new terms. Therefore, when the fourth amendment was ratified, it changed whatever "war power" the president might have to conform with the new amendment." Had the framers intended otherwise, they would have explicitly stated that "except in time of war," or some similar language. Since the framers did not see fit to even make the war power itself explicit, it is unlikely that they intended to give the President the power to ignore amendments. So assuming that there is a "war power" that the President has, it can not trump the bill of rights.

Therefore, it seems likely to me that Bush is not on firm ground regarding his "War Power" to violate the Bill of Rights, despite the precedent of the Emancipation Proclamation.