Pete Domenici comes out in favor of his own re-election campaign:

I have carefully studied the Iraq situation, and believe we cannot continue asking our troops to sacrifice indefinitely while the Iraqi government is not making measurable progress to move its country forward. I do not support an immediate withdrawal from Iraq or a reduction in funding for our troops. But I do support a new strategy that will move our troops out of combat operations and on the path to coming home.

When Domenici starts voting with Democrats to override presidential vetos, then we can start discussing whether or not he deserves any kind of credit for a deathbed conversion.

A couple of days ago Brian Ulrich linked to this Christian Science Monitor account of tensions between jihadis in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province. The piece “focuses on a difference in tactics between Beitullah Mehsud, one of the most influential Taliban leaders in Pakistan, and a commander named Qari Hussain Ahmad, who has been waging an aggressive campaign against traditional tribal leaders in the hopes of eventually replacing the Pashtunwali tribal code with shari’a.”

Part of what I think people need to take away from this is that the “Taliban” concept underdescribes what’s going on. The United States has a clear interest in getting Pashto-inhabited territories to submit to central rule from Kabul and Islamabad if the only alternative is for that territory to be administered by people interested in playing host to anti-American terrorists. Insofar as there may be Pashto leaders who aren’t interested in using autonomy in that manner, however, then we needn’t necessarily be troubled by them.

… that Michael Rubin would be bolstering his foreign policy fantasies with made up facts. I’m shocked. Just shocked.

I thought I’d elevate this comment that Steve left a couple of days ago because it lays things out clearly:

The answer is that the reason why Armitage, Libby, and the other leakers weren’t prosecuted under the IIPA is that the IIPA requires proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the leaker had actual knowledge that the CIA agent’s employment was classified at the time of the leak.

To prove that, you need to be able to prove how the person found out about the fact of CIA employment. In the case of Armitage, it was clear that he didn’t know; he found out from a document that said nothing about Plame’s covert status. In the case of Libby, it was less clear what he knew, but Fitzgerald nonetheless concluded that he couldn’t prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt.

The real issue is what Cheney knew and when he knew it. Libby’s lies were intentionally designed to keep Fitzgerald from getting a closer look at Cheney and determining what role Cheney had in the leak campaign and whether he knew Plame was covert. That’s why the obstruction was a big deal. That’s why no one was charged; the IIPA requires that you prove knowledge and Fitzgerald couldn’t.

An additional point that’s relevant. Most of Libby’s defenders — George W. Bush, David Brooks, etc. — don’t seem to be denying that Libby committed a crime by lying under oath to investigators. They want us to say that, rather, he deserves to be treated very leniently because there was no big deal here. The alleged absence of an underlying crime is key to that theory. The converse theory is that there was an underlying crime and the crime can’t be proven because Libby lied to investigators.

If that theory is wrong — if there really was no crime — then it seems we ought to get some kind of explanation from Libby as to why he lied. People sometimes do have reasons to lie to investigators other than a desire to cover up criminal activity (hiding non-criminal activity that’s embarrassing is the obvious one) but if Libby wants mercy he should offer up a plausible score on this account. But Libby hasn’t offered any such story. Instead, he’s offered a wildly implausible story — that he’s innocent. Under those circumstances, it’s very odd to offer clemency. He’s shown no remorse and appears to be continually engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct justice. Maybe there was no crime here; but if there wasn’t, then what was Libby doing? He’s not even trying to convince us that he had some other reason to lie.

James Fallows, reports that according to Gary Hart and Lee Hamilton, Lynn Cheney wanted to start a war with China back in the pre-9/11 era. According to Francis Fukuyama among Bill Kristol and his circle in the 90s “There was actually a deliberate search for an enemy because they felt that the Republican Party didn’t do as well” in the absence of a pressing foreign threat, and the consensus was that the enemy should be China.

These are crazy people.

Brian Beutler quotes Roger Cohen and finds some problems with this snip:

The United States should propose broad, high-level talks with Iran across the range of issues confronting the two countries — Iraq, Afghanistan, nuclear weapons, Lebanon, Israel-Palestine — while dropping its meaningless insistence that Iran suspend nuclear enrichment activities before talks begin….

If the answer to the invitation is no, and Iranian-orchestrated attacks in Iraq continue, America should play hardball.

For my part, not as an objection to Cohen but merely as an observation, the issue here is that it’s all a question of priorities. As Cohen notes, there are a lot of issues in US-Iranian relations. There’s also the question of escalating the level of US-Iranian conflict. From where I sit, the most important issues on the DC-Teheran docket are verifiably committing Iran to remaining a non-nuclear weapons state and preventing the emergence of al-Qaeda safe havens in Iraq and Afghanistan. These two goals can only be genuinely accomplished through peaceful agreement between the United States and Iran. Under the circumstances, I would regard the outbreak of open hostilities between the US and Iran as a disaster due to its deleterious effects on both the fight against al-Qaeda and our hopes for stopping nuclear proliferation.

Others, though, take a different view of the situation. Some place much higher weight on securing an Iraqi government that’s likely to be willing to play host to a large US military contingent for an indefinite period of time. Some place more weight on making Afghanistan a place where poppy for opium export isn’t grown. Some place more weight on trying to get Iran to stop its financial support of Hezbollah. What’s more, some think unilateral military action isn’t the method of stopping Iran’s nuclear weapons program that’s least likely to succeed — they think it’s the way that’s likeliest to work. My guess is that Cohen and I disagree about some of these things, though I’m not quite sure. My view is that it should be quite possible to secure my priorities through diplomatic means, and essentially impossible to secure them through military means. At the same time, my interest in preventing Iran from building a nuclear bomb and in preventing al-Qaeda from obtaining safe havens in Iraq or Afghanistan is sufficiently strong that I would agree to some deals with Iran that others would reject.

Photo by Flickr user Koldo used under a Creative Commons license

Michael Scheur profiles Mustafa Ahmed Muhammad Uthman Abu al-Yazid, the new officially designated al-Qaeda pointman in Iraq.