The Iranian women's soccer team.

The question of whether banning headscarves in public schools and other public fora will force European Muslims into closer alliance with their neighbors of other faiths has been so thoroughly and exhaustively debated that it doesn’t really make sense to rehash it. But it’s worth revisiting this Foreign Policy piece from March on the strawman that’s haunting Europe as leaders across the continent blame multiculturalism for their national woes even as they fail to alter compelling visions for a society that’s worth buying into no matter your denomination.

FIFA rules declare that players “must not use equipment or wear anything that is dangerous to himself or another player (including any kind of jewellery).” That rule has applied to headscarves since 2007, and apparently applies to neckwarmers, too. When FIFA debated banning the latter, an official said “There may be a safety issue—if for example a player was running through on goal and an opponent grabbed his snood, that could pose a potential danger to his neck.” But a ban closer-fitting headscarves on safety grounds seems like fairly dramatic overstretch. This ain’t Quidditch; people aren’t going to be mysteriously attacked by their own well-designed equipment. It’s not as easy to get a handful of headscarf as it is of a chunky neckwarmer, and if another player uses a headscarf or a neckwarmer as a weapon of strangulation, the rules on fouls seem to cover that possibility rather handily and provide quite adequate protection for women players who choose to keep their hair and necks covered.

And if we’re really concerned with how women are perceived and treated in Muslim communities, it seems hugely counterproductive to adopt policies that force women to choose between abiding by the tenets of their faith and participating in activities that let them demonstrate their physical prowess and strategic intelligence. Sport is an imperfect and uneven engine of equality, but it’s a chance to embody regional or national pride, to force fans to weigh their love of winning against prejudices they may hold about race, gender, or sexual orientation. Iran hasn’t exactly dominated the Summer Games, and it would be interesting to see how the country reacted if women brought the country some glory on that stage. To be fair, the women’s soccer team is a work in progress, but it’s too bad they won’t get the chance to test themselves further against international competition, to get that chance to be a very 21st century Cinderella story.

This article about Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Olympics seems like as good a time as any to reiterate the idea that the International Olympic Committee should fix a permanent location for the Games. Presumably in Greece, but really just about anywhere would do.

Even though competition is always fierce for the hosting honors, the reality is that cities only very rarely manage to reap the financial windfall that Olympics-boosters advertise. But if you actually got to reuse a given facility across three or four or five Games before it needed serious repair/replacement then mounting the event would be much more economical. Besides which, a fixed location would be more in the spirit of the original Olympics which were non-rotating.

Having the Olympics in Beijing and watching the Chinese dominate the gold medal category naturally leads to an uptick in the “China anxiety” you expect from citizens of the existing hegemonic power watching the rising number two. Some figures, like Robert Kagan, have already taken the arguing that China is inevitably bent on an aggressive foreign policy that will lead to clashes with the United States — and thus we must prepare for clashes with China and not at all worry that such preparations will look threatening to China since, allegedly, we’re already destined for conflict.

It’s interesting to observe, though, that when you look at concrete cases, far from seeming hell-bent on world domination, China is actually oddly passive on the world stage. When the PRC clashes with Western positions on the UN Security Council — over Iran, for example — it almost invariably hides behind Russia even though in the real world, as in the Olympics, China surpassed Russia some time ago as an important country. And when something happens that China can avoid taking a position on because it’s neither geographically in China’s backyard nor formally up for discussion at the UN, China usually says and does nothing at all.

This should be somewhat reassuring to Americans, but it can also actually be a problem. The Georgia situation, for example, has gotten to the point where some third-party mediation would probably be quite useful. A downward spiral in US-Russian relations across the board would be bad for both sides and the issues in play in Georgia just aren’t that important in the scheme of things, but nobody’s going to want to back down. It’d be a big opportunity for a China that was interested in becoming a traditional global power to kind of butt-in, do some mediating, and grab a bit of glory and it’d probably be a good thing for the world if it were to happen. But the Chinese leadership has seemed disinclined for years to try to play a global role in that sense and they give no indication of a desire to change that.

Anyways, consider that a bit of a not-quite-on-point introduction to CAP’s report on outlining a progressive approach to China policy.

It might seem politically incorrect to say this, but the Berlin Olympics were the best ever staged, the last time white American and European men and women competed on an equal level with blacks, despite the great feat of Jesse Owens in winning four gold medals.

This is, incidentally, a great example of the rhetorical ploys existing around the term “politically incorrect.” By conceding in advance that what you’re about to say is wrong, but then relabeling wrongness as “political incorrectness,” you’re somehow supposed to be exculpated.

You wouldn’t expect Charles Krauthammer to turn in a sensible column ever. In particular, you really wouldn’t expect him to turn in a sensible column about the Russia-Georgia war. But I feel like today’s effort is an uncommonly silly one. Through his powers of clairvoyance, Krauthammer discerns that Russia’s “real objective is the Finlandization of Georgia through the removal of President Mikheil Saakashvili and his replacement by a Russian puppet” which reveals, among other things, a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of Cold War Finland. But Krauthammer darkly warns that the Finlandization of Georgia will let “Russia become master of the Caspian basin” (oh noes! the Caspian basin!) and then this, through magic, would lead to “re-establishing Russian hegemony” throughout its “former Baltic and East European satellites.”

I don’t know how many different ways there are to say this, but to think that Russia’s ability to detach two miniature provinces that don’t want to be ruled from Tblisi from a tiny country with a GDP of $20 billion will suddenly lead to Russian hegemony over, say, Poland with its GDP of $620 billion is daft.

But beyond all that, considering the high stakes Krauthammer thinks we’re playing for, his proposed remedies are pathetic. One, he wants to “suspend the NATO-Russia Council” that nobody’s heard of but that apparently was founded in 2002. Second, he wants to block Russian entry into the WTO which is already being blocked. Third, he wants to kick Russia out of the G-8. And then we get this:

4. Announce a U.S.-European boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics at Sochi. To do otherwise would be obscene. Sochi is 15 miles from Abkhazia, the other Georgian province just invaded by Russia. The Games will become a riveting contest between the Russian, Belarusian and Jamaican bobsled teams.

All of these steps (except dissolution of the G-8, which should be irreversible) would be subject to reconsideration depending upon Russian action — most importantly and minimally, its withdrawal of troops from Georgia proper to South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Basically, Krauthammer thinks that it’s extremely important to American security for Russia to withdraw forces from Georgia proper and his idea of a good way to make them do that is to . . . threaten to boycott an Olympics (note that this didn’t work in 1980) . . . that’s happening six years from now. That would seem to me to give Russia plenty of time to muck around in Georgia. Indeed, I see no indication whatsoever that Russia so much as aspires to have its forces in Georgia proper by 2014; certainly it won’t take them anywhere near that long to finish wrecking Georgia’s military. This seems to me to be an excellent example of what (via Dan Nexon) Jack Snyder calls “The Myth of the Paper Tiger” whose adherents hold that:

[Enemies are] capable of becoming fiercely threatening if appeased, but easily crumpled by a resolute attack. These images are often not only wrong, but self-contradictory. For example, Japanese militarists saw the United States as so strong and insatiably aggressive that Japan would have to conquer a huge, self-sufficient empire to get the resources to defend itself; yet at the same time, the Japanese regime saw the United States as so vulnerable and irresolute that a sharp rap against Pearl Harbor would discourage it from fighting back.

That sums up Krauthammer’s view perfectly. If we don’t stop Russia from having its way with Georgia, next thing you know the entire Soviet sphere of influence will be reconstituted, but Russia might be coerced into backing down by mild gestures.

Last month I acted and I lifted an executive branch restriction on offshore oil exploration. And then I called on Congress to join me and…end the legislative ban. Unfortunately, the Democratic leadership in Congress decided to go on a five-week vacation, a recess, rather than act on behalf of the American consumer.

Bush’s dig at Congress for being on vacation is ironic, as he rivals Ronald Reagan for the title of “presidential vacation-time record holder.” Some highlights of Bush’s time away from the office:

– Attended 95 sports-related events.

– Made 74 trips to his Crawford ranch, for a total of 466 days.

– Made 142 trips to Camp David, for a total of 450 days.

– Attended 327 fundraising events for Republican candidates and causes.

Over the course of his presidency, national catastrophes have taken shape while Bush has been on vacation. When he was in Crawford before 9/11, Bush ignored an infamous memo about an impending bin Laden attack. Similarly, Bush brushed off warnings of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 while at the ranch.

While congressional conservatives held political stunts on the House floor, Bush was kicking back at the Olympics. And as Russia invaded Georgia, Bush attended baseball, basketball, swimming, and softball games in Beijing, where he also made time for an hour of mountain-biking and playing beach volleyball with the U.S. team.

“I think the highlight was getting my picture taken with the teams,” he reflected. The AP observed: “Bush was in the mood to talk sports, not policy”:

Digg It!

Most recently, human rights activists in the U.S. and Europe have protested the traditional Olympic torch relay which has led the International Olympic Committee to consider “abandoning the international legs” of the relay.