William Lind has an article in The American Conservative with a provocative proposal about Iraq that, I think, manages to highlight the extent to which a lot of the Iraq discussion has become misguided. Lind’s basic idea is that we should make some kind of accommodation with Iran, get our troops out of Iraq, and hope that Muqtada al-Sadr (or perhaps and equivalent populist, anti-American Shiite) takes the country over.

As it happens, I agree with Lind that this would be an okay outcome given the realistically possible options. One must see, though, that to many American observers “limiting Iranian influence in Iraq” is a top-tier priority. The way Lind sees it, our top priority is just that someone or other effectively control Iraq territory so that non-state actors (i.e., al-Qaeda) don’t run free. The point, though, is that you can’t talk about which plans will “work” for Iraq unless you talk about what it is we’re trying to accomplish in broader regional terms. The “check Iranian influence” theory is very, very popular in Washington and, I think, is most of what’s actually motivating the “residual forces” crowd. But the disagreement there is about broader strategic priorities and not about Iraq as such.

Defense Department photo by Master Sargent Jonathan Doti, U.S. Air Force

Yesterday, with reference to the bizarre nuclear deal the Bush administration reached with India, Robert Farley made reference to our shift toward an attempt to impose an “arbitrary and self-interested” non-proliferation regime on the world, an attempt that’s doomed to failure. And quite so. It’s worth saying, though, that in the particular case of the India deal and self-interested is doing the bargain a kindness. What’s happening in this deal is that we’re granting India concessions related to its nuclear program and India is giving us . . . essentially nothing in exchange.

This passed congress thanks to a lot of effective lobbying by Indian American business associations, complete with a revolving door lobbying job for former US assistant secretary of state for arms control Stephen Rademaker once the deal was sealed. The negotiations themselves, meanwhile, were all messed up. Bush headed off to India in March 2006 hoping to conclude a deal but without one actually in place. The administration then appeared to be so determined to accomplish something on the trip and stage a big photo op that it was willing to agree to a deal that didn’t achieve anything in particular for the US other than to allow the photo op.

Meanwhile, from a neoconnish perspective the fact that this undermines the nonproliferation regime is probably a good thing. They hate the idea that diplomatic agreements might actually work and undermine their efforts to start an endless series of wars.

Back in March, I wondered why AIPAC was so eager to join forces with a man whose support for Israel is grounded in the belief that his favored foreign policy will spark a giant war that ends in the destruction of Israel at the hands of a Russo-Arab alliance. The man in question was John Haggee and his group is Christians United for Israel. Max Blumenthal went to the CUFI conference and made a video:

Rapture Ready: The Unauthorized Christians United for Israel Tour from huffpost and Vimeo.

And their motives are, in fact, mixed. Some say they support Israel because Islam is a satanic faith. Others say it’s part of their plan to bring about the apocalypse. All seem united in their hopes that someday there will be no Jews. They want a preventive attack on Iran. And Joe Lieberman thinks they’re great. The link is via Rick Perlstein who has more on apocalyptics’ influence on the White House.

There’s a striking paragraph near the top of Fred Kaplan’s latest column that I’ve seen quoted on a bunch of progressive blogs, but his more important point comes deeper into the piece explaining the problem with the idea that success in working with locals in Anbar Province against al-Qaeda is a promising stepping-stone to nationwide stability:

But in these alliances, we’re dealing with tribesmen who are cooperating with us for a common goal. It is not at all clear on what basis these various local Sunni factions can be stitched together into some seamless security quilt—or why, because they’ve agreed to help us kill jihadists, they might suddenly agree to stop killing Shiites, compromise their larger ambitions, redirect their passions into peaceful politics, and settle into a minority party’s status within a unified government.

Alliances of convenience rarely outlive their immediate aims. Josef Stalin formed an alliance with the United States and Britain for the purpose of defeating Nazi Germany. But once the war was over, he had no interest in integrating the Soviet Union into the Western economic system.

Kaplan notes that this idea appears to have come to the administration via Steven Biddle, a very sharp analyst, who thinks his own plan has “maybe one in 10″ chance of generating “something like stability and security in Iraq.” You’d have to be out of your mind, really, to adopt a military strategy whose author thinks the odds of failure are overwhelming unless the alternative was something like national extinction. In many ways, I feel like the requirement of “serious prospects of success” is the most unfortunately overlooked aspect of just war doctrine. Unfortunately for us, the country has George W. Bush on hand so a strategy that you’d have to be out of your mind to adopt is precisely what we’re going to get

Andrew linked yesterday to Zeyad Kasim’s map of ethnic cleansing in Baghdad — the city has become substantially segregated by now, as every occasional massacre prompts a larger number of people to move before they become the next victims.

That’s the state of play right now with 160,000 American troops in the country and with a policy decision made to station a larger proportion of US forces specifically in Baghdad than had been the case earlier. So, yes, it’s true that terrible things will happen if we have the military leave Iraq, but terrible things are happening right now and our military can’t stop them.

As you’ve probably heard, Israel has for some time now been constructing a “security fence” — i.e., giant wall — to keep Palestinians in the Palestinian territories and Israelis safe on the other side of the wall. Reasonable enough, in my view. The only problem is that they’ve also peppered the Palestinian territories with Jewish settlers and the government isn’t about to abandon them to danger. The result is the situation described in this fantastic Washington Post article on Hebron, a place where “the separation is enforced not only by Israeli barriers but also by military checkpoints and curfews intended to protect the roughly 700 Jewish settlers living within the city’s most historic and religiously important areas.”

These 700 Jews, voting, passport holding citizens of Israel, live in the same city as 150,000 Arabs, citizens of noplace, but subjected to the political authority of an Israeli government which makes every decision about how to administer Hebron with the interests of the 700 in mind, irrespective of the ways in which “securing the small Jewish minority has a potent impact on the lives of the city’s 150,000 Arabs.” I take the view that, taken as a whole, the “apartheid” rap on Israel is seriously unfair. But take a closer look at the specific situation in Hebron and I don’t see what else you could call that particular state of affairs. And there’s just no legitimate anti-terrorism reason for any of this. Far and away the easiest way to provide security for Hebron’s 700 Jews would be for them to leave and go live in Israel.