8 East Galloway Dr, Rm 103

The True Nature of History

2008-10-25T18:54:00.002-05:00

Why do historians study what they do? To answer burning intellectual questions? To find the most applicable lessons for contemporary crises? To tell the stories of those marginalized in earlier accounts? Maybe, but I think more mundane considerations play a major role. For example: I switched from Syria to the Ottomans a couple years ago, and I'm glad I'll get to spend my research year in Istanbul instead of Damascus. On the other hand, I regret giving up a language its grammar is reasonably similar to English (Arabic), for a every-sentence-it-in-reversed-being's-because-of-word-by-word-reading-impossible is language (Turkish).

My advisor used to say, "Why didn't I study Mexico instead of Iraq and Syria?"

Islam, States, and the Crimea

2008-10-24T20:30:00.004-05:00

In 1774, Russia effectively took over the Crimea from the Ottomans. This was the first thoroughly Muslim land the Ottomans had let slip out of the dar al-Islam (Hungary, conquered by the Habsburgs 75 years earlier, had only been Muslim for 173 years; the Crimea had been for 400 or so).

This challenged both empires: for the Ottomans, the sultan's domain was no longer (theoretically) coterminous with the (non-heretical parts of the) Muslim world. The answer was to assert the sultan's role as caliph, leader of all believers--including those outside his political boundaries. This allowed him to meddle in the Crimea (as European powers, acting as protectors of Catholic and Orthodox Christians interfered in the Ottoman Empire), but didnt' it also represent the implicit acceptance of a divide between political and spiritual authority? If the sultan had to wear two different hats, then maybe two different people could wear the hats?

On the Russian side, Catherine the Great drew upon Enlightenment deism and syncretism (as well as Peter the Great's legacy of state control over the Church--the only Orthodox church not under Ottoman rule) to argue that she was a pro-Islamic ruler, and that the Crimean Tatars, if they were good Muslims, would obey her. (I don't know how the Russians had behaved toward their earlier Muslim conquests like Astrakhan, but I really don't think Ivan the Terrible was much of a fan of Voltaire.) This type of policy persisted, and expanded, as the Russians conquered more and more Muslim lands in the 18th and 19th centuries--even as the official state line under Nicholas I became "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality," his government still told Tatars, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Chechens, and so on, that all good Muslims obeyed the Tsar. So from 1774 on, the Tsar also wore two hats--one as ruler of an Orthodox Russia, and one as the ruler of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious empire whose subjects were religiously obligated to obey him.

I'm intrigued by the parallels here. What does it mean that the 1768-1774 War saw both Russia and the Ottomans turning religion into an explicitly political tool of state, separating boundaries of religious authorities from state frontiers (the importance of which was being emphasized as international law evolved)--even as in Western Europe, nation-states began to emphasize the congruity of political authority and cultural/religious boundaries?

(I am well aware no one reads these posts about my research...but I'm posting just to help me think things through. :-)

Stamps in the UL

2008-10-17T07:04:00.004-05:00

On my first real visit to the Cambridge University Library today, I was shocked to find that they still use rubber stamps to record due dates! But I can see this must have been a difficult choice for the bureaucrats in charge, pitting their two most cherished values against each other: obsessive safety regulations, and micro-measures to help the environment. The desk clerks might get carpal tunnel syndome from rubber-stamping all day long, but surely not everyone would recycle their paper receipts...what's an EU bureaucrat to do? So I suppose inertia won.

Rowing and the British Empire

2008-10-16T17:25:00.003-05:00

I signed up to row, just because it's something you can't go to Cambridge and not do. I realized that it's a perfect analogy for the British Empire, and European success in general. The Duke of Wellington (apocryphally) commented that Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton, and later they said Bismarck beat Napoleon III because of Prussian schoolmasters. But couldn't you also say the British Empire was won on the Cam and whatever river it is they row on in The Other Place?

The point of University rowing is that they take eight people who have no experience, and build them into a team, directed by a coxwain. Because the rowers face backward, only the cox knows where you're going--but in order to get anywhere, all eight rowers have to do exactly what the cox says.

This is how European armies beat their rivals--disciplined lines of musketeers, keeping order in the face of enemy fire until ordered to shoot by their commander. Total obedience, total trust in the commander's judgment. Often they faced armies (like the, Janissaries, the Zulu, or the Sioux) who were stronger and more skillful individually--and sometimes even better armed--but who didn't have the same coordination and obedience--and that made all the difference. So Europeans conquered the world, often despite tremendous numerical inferiority (eg Zenta, Plassey; Rorke's Drift).

Of course, this obedience was based on brutal discipline, but by World War I the British were able to switch from external punishment to internal motivation--patriotism--as a way to keep their armies in line. Other armies did the same, to varying extents--probably least for the Russians and Austro-Hungarians, who couldn't play on nationalism. I think this internalization--however much Foucault might not like it--made possible by the greater social capital present in a more democratic system with greater economic opportunities--has something to do with the fact that the British--unlike the other Powers (examples in France, Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary--didn't suffer a political-military collapse in World War I, when disciplined European warfare was taken to its logical exsanguinary extreme. And of the other countries, which one managed to contain the collapse and survive? France, second only to Britain in democratization, capitalism, and internalized discipline. It's also interesting to note that every country in the world, save England and some of its colonial offspring, suffered a violent change of government in the 20th century.

So it's all about social capital and internalized discipline. And that's the point of rowing: you don't know what you're doing, but you trust the cox does. The boat moves, and maybe you win.

I'm in Cambridge

2008-10-14T15:19:00.002-05:00

For the first time since I was 4 years old, not counting brief (or not so brief!) school breaks, I have no daily schedule imposed on me by anyone else. It's pretty awesome. But unlike when I was 4, I have to write a book chapter in 9 months, and a whole book in 35 months. How I get there and what I write is largely up to me--but how it's received will determine the course my academic career.

One result of this freedom (and my flexible funding) is that I can probably take off to Turkey and maybe Russia for research for most of next academic year. Another result is that after I present at a conference in DC at the end of November, I can stay in the US for Thanksgiving and Christmas...as long as I work. Same goes for next summer, I can be anywhere. But that 35-month clock doesn't stop counting down just because it's between terms!

Queens' College is pretty cool, it's a very social and international place. The Gates Scholars group is also terrific, full of people far better-qualified than I am. And, I might get to meet Bill Gates himself next year.

Cunda'dayım

2008-07-10T15:33:00.004-05:00

Currently Cunda on am I. Ever-by-me-seen the craziest language studying am I and its grammar with write I. Yoda like sounding my, suppose I.

I feel a bit out of my depth, since almost everyone else here is already fluent in either Arabic, Persian, or Turkish. Ottoman is such a polyglot language that it's really useful to have such a linguistic mix; in my study group two of us know Turkish very well but not Arabic or Persian, two others know Arabic quite well (and one of them, Persian) but not much Turkish, and I'm somewhere in between. This is also a very international program; we have four Turks (unsurprisingly), two Israelis, two Canadians, one Austrian, and one Romanian, in addition to 9 Americans.

I had been worried that I wouldn't be able to handle Ottoman, but I'm slowly getting the hang of it--though it's still slow and difficult. Every night, it takes about five hours for my five-person study group to go through a page and a half of the novel we're reading. The dictionary for Ottoman is 2,222 pages long, written by an expatriate Englishman in 1890. I'm sure James Redhouse never expected that in 120 years, the language would be dead but his dictionary would still be in use.

Leaving Utah

2008-05-05T16:25:00.003-05:00

A while ago I made a list of things to do before leaving Utah, and I'm getting through it...which is good, since I leave on the 8th. Most of these are things that I figure people will ask if I've done, or that I'll never get a chance to do again.

-Visit BYU--done 5/5
-Climb the mountain behind my apartment building--done 5/17
-Go to an LDS church service--done 4/27
-Go skiing--done 3/8
-Visit the Grand Canyon--not going to happen
-Visit Los Angleles--done 5/15
-Go to Montana (one of four continental states I've never visited)--done 5/18-5/19
-Try all of Utah's microbrews--I think I've done it. At least the major ones.
-Visit a Mormon temple (while under construction, while they're still open to Gentiles)--probably won't happen
-Visit Park City--done 5/3

Civic Religion in Austria

2008-05-05T00:04:00.002-05:00

In the 1788-1791 Austro-Ottoman War,

Vienna was an enlightened city...in [irreligious] circles there could be no infidels. [E]xhortations to defend the faith [against the Ottomans] were out of place. What then could replace religion as the motivation for the people to support war?...cooly explaining reasons of state...was obviously insufficient. Religious toleration robbed the Habsburgs of their primary war cry...In the nineteenth century, two rallying cries emerged to challenge one another among the people: loyalty to the emperor and loyalty to the nation. Unfortunately for the monarchy, loyalty to the nation would be the victor.

--Karl Roider

Modernity and Progress...

2008-05-01T16:17:00.004-05:00

...means learning from your and other people's mistakes, right? Totally.

"When they stop this abominable fire, when they come forward like brave men fighting with cold steel, then we will see how these infidels stand up to the slashing sabres of the true believers." --an Ottoman Janissary in the 1735-1739 war against Russia.

"Let me bring my lads face to face with the Turks in the open field, we must beat them every time because British volunteer soldiers are superior individuals to Anatolians, Syrians, or Arabs...Wire and machine guns prevent this hand to hand, or rifle to rifle, style of contest."--a British General in World War I, fighting the Ottomans.

Ottoman Collaboration

2008-04-30T20:48:00.003-05:00

In the last two centuries, probably the forces which have been most vocal in professing their victimization at Ottoman hands have been Serbian and other Balkan nationalisms, which usually see Orthodoxy as a vital marker of national identity. From their protestations, one would assume that Balkan Orthodox Christians, especially Serbs, were always inveterate foes of the Ottoman Empire. In that light, these two passages that I've come across in the last few days are interesting:

From Georgios Sphrantzes' firsthand account of the fall of Constantinople:

Although it was possible for the despot of Serbia to send money secretly from many places and, similarly, men, did anyone see a single penny? On the contrary, they provided huge financial aid and many men to the sultan who was besieging the City. Thus the Turks were able to boast in triumph that even Serbia was against us.

Historian Paul Wittek, on the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans:

The tide turned with the progress of the Ottoman arms...in the place of the Slavonic Churches the Greek Church was restored. The Turks were, indeed, its natural allies, their relations with the Greek Patriarch being well established since Seljuq times...The restoration of the Greek Church in Rumeli [Bulgaria and Thrace]...must have depended constantly on the intervention of the Turkish authorities.

Being a Historian

2008-04-27T03:03:00.003-05:00

For the last few days I've been in the process of writing three papers, all due (in theory, but definitely not in reality) on May 2nd. When I'm finished they'll total about 40 pages. They account for most of the 86 books I currently have out of the library, and all of the 12 I'm still waiting for from interlibrary loan.

This is the last time I'll ever be in this situation, since I won't have short-term course papers at Cambridge. On the one hand, that makes the stress easier to bear. On the other hand, writing papers under this much stress often makes me wonder whether I really want to be a historian for the rest of my life.

But the time pressure brings out precisely why history is fun: when I woke up this morning, I knew virtually nothing about this topic. When I wake up tomorrow morning, I'll be ready to write seven pages on it. Looking back I'm amazed how much I learned in one day, and the same thing is true, on a larger scale, of every week, month, semester, and year I've been in grad school. It's a microcosm of what being a historian is: this morning, I had no idea how little I knew, by tonight's standards. And right now, I have no idea how little I know, by the standards of June 2011. Even then, I will have no idea how little I know, by the standards I'll have when I retire. That's why this could be such an awesome career.

Plans

2008-04-20T21:13:00.001-05:00

Next year, I'll be starting a PhD at Cambridge, deferring Yale Law until after I finish. This summer, I'm going to Turkey for 5 weeks to study Ottoman. Still not sure what I'll do in the in-between times.

Symbolism

2008-04-01T12:23:00.003-05:00

This morning in the middle of my Russian class, I got a call from the University of Pennsylvania Law School offering me a scholarship through the Toll Public Interest Center. When I got back into class, I had a vocab quiz on verbs. The words were "to manage to get in," "to hear," and "to decide." I hadn't studied, so I didn't know any of the words. There seems to be some symbolism there.

"Ottoman Turkish is the Craziest Language I've Ever Seen."

2008-02-21T01:38:00.004-06:00

Or so I told the Gates interviewers, making them laugh and perhaps helping my application. More proof of how messed up Ottoman is:

Originally, Ottoman Turkish was an old form of Turkish, written with the Arabic alphabet. But this presents minor problems, like: Turkish has eight vowel sounds. The Arabic alphabet has only three vowel markers.
In Ottoman, the "k" makes four different sounds..."k," "n," hard "g," and silent "g." But remember, there are three other letters that also represent hard "g"s, one of which can also be a silent "g." Plus another letter for the "n," just for fun. And the soft "g" is something else entirely, with its own letter.
Ottoman has lots and lots of Arabic words in it. Some of these were assimilated directly from Arabic; others were first taken into Persian and then transfered from there to Ottoman. Arabic words, which otherwise are spelled in completely regular ways that reflect their grammatical function, follow DIFFERENT spelling rules depending on whether they came from Persian or from Arabic directly. As if that weren't bad enough, there are different grammatical rules for words of Arabic origin than for those from Persian--let alone for plain-old Turkish words.

This is what happens when a few bureaucrats monopolize a language: the more obscure they could make it, the fewer outsiders could compete for their jobs. Clearly another black mark against State Monopolies.

Applications Finished...for now

2007-12-20T21:41:00.000-06:00

I decided to apply to some law schools too, in case I don't get into any history programs I want to go to. So in total, since October 15th, I've applied to:

9 History PhD Programs
3 Oriental/Near Eastern Studies PhD Programs
4 Law Schools (5 if you count reactivating my deferral at UW)
1 separate Fellowship
8 FLAS Fellowsihps through PhD schools

I still have 7 more FLAS Fellowships and at least 3 summer programs to apply to when I get back to school. But now I'm just going to sleep through Christmas Break.

Shortlisted!

2007-12-15T16:26:00.000-06:00

I got an email yesterday saying that I've been shortlisted by the Gates Cambridge Trusts, and selected for an in-person interview. I'd pretty much written off any chance of getting funding at Cambridge, but this could put it back on the table.

So I'm going to Annapolis in February. And since they're paying for the trip, it should be better than my last visit to Annapolis.

Going for Broke

2007-11-04T14:29:00.000-06:00

I just finalized the list of schools to which I'm applying for PhD work. I'm aiming higher than I did two years ago, since I now have much better qualifications...of course, I wasn't too successful two years ago. We'll see.

UChicago
Harvard
Columbia
Princeton
Wisconsin (Madison...where else?)
Ohio State
Michigan (Ann Arbor)
New York University
Illinois (Urbana-Champaign)
Washington (not Wash U St. Louis, but the U of Washington)

I've also already applied to Cambridge (UK), mostly just for the fun of it because it's almost impossible to get funding from them. It's not deliberate, but I'm glad that all but one of these schools is east of the Mississippi and half are Midwestern. Utah is cool but I'm ready to come back to civilization.

I don't really have a safety school. If I don't get into one of these programs, I'll stay here or, more likely, give up and go to law school.

More Whining

2007-09-20T22:16:00.000-05:00

...or more charitably, thinking out loud.

Reasons to go on for a PhD:

I have a really cool idea for a dissertation.
I have approximately 4.23 gazillion other ideas that I'd love to research some day.
Learning languages is fun, and odds are I'd be (minimally) paid to do it.
Traveling to foreign countries is fun, and I could get grants to do it.
As far as I can tell the only way to do anything involving foreign policy while not living in or around DC--and perhaps even while living in the Midwest--is to be a professor.
I like historical theory.
I think I would enjoy teaching at a small liberal arts school.
I MIGHT enjoy doing lots and lots of research in the future.
I have been completely brainwashed into thinking like a historian about everything, making it rather difficult to function as an actual human being who must occasionally make decisions based on incomplete data and unprovable generalizations...like, say, this decision.
I've become fairly proficient at living on very little money.
I like being with academics.
I like the idea of having a change of pace every summer--writing, a research trip, a language course, a different course load...
I've been organizing my life by semesters for six years now, and it might be traumatic to stop.
There's no field other than history in which I have even the vaguest notion of what I might do.

Reasons not to go on for a PhD:

I'm always excited about my research topics before I actually start them. Then I get less enthusiastic when I have to do the actual work. (But that's been changing since getting to grad school.)
Writing is a chore. (But this is also changing since getting to grad school.)
I would never make half the money I could as a lawyer.
I like being with non-academics.
If I don't get into a good school, I'll end up teaching at a community college. (My standard "lousy school" example is "Southeast Georgia Tech," which I thought I made up. Apparently I didn't, and since I have no evidence, I'll refrain from implying they suck.)
I think I would not enjoy teaching community college.
I might get completely sick and tired of doing research, stranding me somewhere in a worthless position without tenure.
If the past is any indication (and if it's not, why am I even studying history?), I can get into far better law schools than history grad schools. With a master's and somewhat relevant language skills, this may still be the case.
Spending 6 years in solitary research and writing sounds like a textbook example of avoiding life, something I need no help in doing.
Nothing that history professors write has any impact on the real world.
I'm not sure I'm a good enough teacher for my teaching to have any impact on anyone.
The most tempting reason right now, when I have a mountain of work to do at 930 PM and no sign of a let-up for the weekend: It would really be nice some day to have spare time again. I have felt, since I decided to go to grad school three years ago, and I think I will continue to feel for the rest of my life in academia, that there is no spare time that I deserve. There's ALWAYS something more I should be reading. It would be nice someday to be able to come home from work and spend an entire evening relaxing without feeling guilty.

Indecision

2007-08-30T20:30:00.001-05:00

It's time to start applying for PhD programs for next year. I know I don't want to stay at Utah. But do I want to keep going for the PhD at all? The standard line is "if you don't absolutely love doing history, you shouldn't be in grad school." So by that reasoning, maybe I should finish my master's and then go to law school. I know I'm sick and tired of writing papers that only my professor will ever read, but that'll be over after this semester. After all, my thesis committee has three members who are obligated to read my work, before it gets exiled to mildew on a hidden shelf in the most obscure building on campus. Will I really enjoy doing research for the next five years? Especially on a subject like the Russo-Ottoman Wars? Maybe 13 other people even know about them, and obviously none of them care or else they'd be researching the subject. Learning Arabic and Turkish and now Russian has been fun--in fact, I'm enjoying my language classes far more than my research right now, probably because I'm making measurable progress and I feel like I'm doing something useful. But I can do languages whether I'm in grad school or not. I still think I enjoy history more than I'd enjoy law, but is the margin big enough to weigh out the huge financial difference and the five+ more years I'll have to sacrifice to a "permanent state of infantilization," as one wise person has termed grad school?

Perhaps this was just a way to put off leaving college, in which case now it's time to grow up. But then, maybe growing up means giving up my dreams of ill-gotten litigation riches and accepting that the Law of Comparative Advantage dictates I do history.

CDs

2007-08-08T19:25:00.000-05:00

I strongly dislike CDs and DVDs. They're large, clumsy, brittle, and far too easily scratched, and most of them aren't rewritable. On top of this, they require a drive that is easily the most fragile part of my computer, and which I'm always afraid I'll break if I press too hard while a disc is playing.

Why has the Market not solved for this problem and completely replaced optical discs with flash drives by now? I would much rather have a bay for a big flash drive rather than my optical drive.

(Yes, I understand there are probably good reasons this hasn't happened. I'm just ranting.)

It's All About Logistics

2007-08-08T01:29:00.000-05:00

I love this placard (click to enlarge) from the Oriental Institute Museum at UChicagofor several reasons. First, it's always seemed a bit odd to me that just having slightly harder-bladed weapons could enable one empire to supplant another, and now I'm vindicated! Second, if it wasn't simple weapons technology, then maybe we're back to the importance of ideas and institutions in explaining Assyrian dominance? Third, it's always nice to see something that breaks the purely-material interpretations that dominate ancient history. (And it seems to me they only dominate because material culture is the vast bulk of the evidence we have on many ancient empires--if we had detailed political histories like Herodotus's, wouldn't we come up with more nuanced explanations just like we do for more recent empires?)

But I've also been noticing a trend about the adoption of new technology, especially among weapons: it never happens for the reasons we assume. We always associate some trait with the new technology which wasn't the reason people adopted it. Three examples I've heard recently:

The Assyrians and iron. We assume it was harder, because in our experience iron is harder than bronze. But as this plaque indicates, it wasn't originally. The real reason they adopted it: logistics! It was easier to supply to their large, dispersed armies (thus once again putting institutions in the driver's seat.)
American Indians and steel. I would naturally assume that steel makes sharper knives than the Indians had before, but apparently not. Steel wasn't originally sharper than the obsidian they used, it was just less brittle. So again, logistics.
Europeans and guns. Traditionally we assume that guns were more accurate than bows and better able to pierce armor. But crossbows were certainly able to punch through most armor Studies done in the 18th century (I can't find an online citation) showed that trained men equipped with longbows could shoot far more quickly and accurately than men with muskets. But the key word is trained. Shooting a longbow properly takes years of practice, usually from childhood. Since nobody ever thought of actually aiming a musket until the early 1800s, it took very little time to train someone to use a musket. Thus, all you needed was money and you could quickly raise large armies of musket-toting peasants who would blow away better-trained but less-numerous knights and longbowmen. (I'm still not entirely clear on why early guns were preferable to crossbows, but I think it also had to do with cost and training.)

It seems to me the overall lesson is that people adopt new technologies for logistical reasons first and foremost...and what works best logistically is a function of what institutions, ideas, and goals you have, right? So it's not a simple material march of History...

This Summer

2007-04-18T15:38:00.000-05:00

I've finally figured out what I'll be doing this summer. So if anyone still reads this, I will be doing the following over the summer:

May 18-June 26: Arabic program in Alexandria, Egypt (with side trips to Giza, Luxor, Aswan, Cairo, and El Alamein, I hope)

July 9-August 17: Turkish program at the University of Chicago

The gap in between: researching for my thesis in the UW library (I hope)

This will set me up to take second-year Turkish and fourth-year Arabic in the fall, and with any luck I can persuade our new Turkish professor to teach me Ottoman in an independent study...

Iraq really IS the Spanish Civil War

2007-01-28T21:55:00.000-06:00

Speak Arabic and have a crazy idea about Islam? Go to Iraq, and you're guaranteed to find supporters...of course, you'll also find other crazy people, and the Americans or the government just might come and kill you all.

Post-Colonialism in Europe

2007-01-27T20:31:00.000-06:00

We often hear about how messed up the Third World is because of European imperialism, and this is undoubtedly true. However, we rarely talk about the region of Europe which was itself the victim, not the perpetrator, of imperialism--by non-Europeans--during exactly the same period that Europe colonized the rest of the world: the Balkans. Is it any coincidence that they are by far the most messed up part of Europe, with atrocities and chaos in the '90s that matched anything in Africa or the Middle East? The Balkans' problems are often blamed on post World War I settlements, but this seems to ignore the centuries of Ottoman domination that came before. In other words, it's certainly true as we always hear that Serbs are Orthodox and use the Cyrillic alphabet while Croats are Catholic and use the Roman alphabet...but there were similar differences between the Hungarians and the Romanians, but they were under the Austrian Empire which worked better because the rulers and ruled shared at least basic religous and cultural commonalities. Is it any coincidence that the Bosnian Muslims, the descendants of Turkish settlers and collaborators, were the most victimized in the 1990s? Just as minority Jewish and Assyrian, Maronite, Coptic, etc Christian populations have been brutalized in decolonized Muslim countries for the very same reason?

I don't know if post-colonial historians have looked at this, but it seems like it'd offer some insights into the nature of "imperialism" as a concept, since here you have different people doing the dominating. It also presents an interesting perspective on the "Ottoman Yoke" theory: since the 1970s, historians have destroyed the popular Arab Nationalist line that "the Turks" were foreign oppressors who kept "the Arabs" under an oppressive "Ottoman Yoke." In reality, it's been shown, there was until the very late 19th century a shared sense of community based on Islam, and really it was only some Arab elites who turned to nationalism before the empire was dismembered. But in the Balkans, discoutning the Albanians and Bosnians, there could be no religious commonality because the people were Christian. In the Balkans, there really was an Ottoman Yoke.

I also like this theory becuase it breaks the paradigm of big bad uniquely brutal and aggressive European colonizers in favor of people just being people and abusing power when they have it.

The Two Sides of (weak) Postmodernism?

2006-12-09T04:20:00.000-06:00

For the last 30 years or so, conservative Christians (and arguably other conservatives of various stripes) have argued that one's preconceptions have a massive or even determinative influence on how one interprets the world, and therefore on how one acts. This implies a certain attitude toward the relationship between Islamic law and the actions of Muslims.

For the last 30 years or so (since at least Orientalism if not before) , scholars of the Middle East have argued against "essentialism," contending that one has to look past people's professed beliefs to their actual behavior. This implies a certain attitude toward the relationship between Islamic law and the actions of Muslims.

Thoughts?

Battle of the Wal-Marts

2006-10-21T00:44:00.000-05:00

Self-evidently Wal-Mart (May The Market Be Praised!) is awesome. But there are different levels of awesomeness, and the Salt Lake City Wal-Mart (the one on 300 West Hope) cleary surpasses the Jonesville Wal-Mart in several ways.

1) It has its own two-level parking garage. Indeed The Market solves most abundantly.

2) Until recently, it sold fresh peaches for 98 cents a pound.

3) I don't have to borrow Breandan's car to get there.

4) While 99.7% of the store is bland undifferentiated Wal-Mart, it does reflect local culture. A lot more signs are in Spanish than I remember seeing in Hillsdale, and more interestingly, the electronics section has a kiosk of LDS music. The best CD cover is definitely "NOT Your Mother's LDS Music 2".

5) You can't stand on the roof of the Jonesville Wal-Mart and see mountains in all directions.

6) Wal-Mart is the great mixing place of Salt Lake City. Mormon missionaries are instantly identifiable by their long skirts and button-down shirts (practically all the missionaries on Temple Square are women) even before you see their nametags and the miniature flags they wear from around the world. At least 15% of Wal-Mart's clientele at any given moment is wearing University of Utah memorabilia, and I've been averaging one chance encounter per week with people I know from the U.

7) Most importantly, I have never seen anyone at the Salt Lake City Wal-Mart with a mullet.

Converses

2006-10-02T18:50:00.000-05:00

This is getting frustrating. When Converses first became fashionable among hipsters a few years ago, I figured it would fade fast and they'd return to the uncool position they'd held when I first started wearing them 15 years ago. But NO, they had to branch out to an even wider audience. Now Old Navy models, frat guys with popped collars, and seemingly half of Utah's student body wears Converses or some knockoff thereof. So it looks like I'm trying to be cool, when in reality I've just been trying to be uncool for so long that, like Charlie Rangel on the African Growth and Opportunity Act, I eventually got it "right." Maybe this winter people will finally realize that thin canvas shoes with ventholes that let snow in are an invitation to frostbite? THEN, my long years of wearing Converses through Wisconsin winters will allow me to endure, and to be unique once again.

Also, on a totally different note, isn't there something wrong with saying, as someone did in class today, "they Otherize people"?

Ouch, but probably accurate

2006-09-11T21:47:00.000-05:00

"[Americans] come...in two kinds: the misinformed, who think of Iran as a backward nation of Arabs, veiled and turbaned, living on the periphery of oases and fairly represented by a government of mullahs; and the misguided, who believed the shah's regime was a puppet government run by the CIA, and who think that Ayatollah Khomeini and his clerical cabal are an authentic, homegrown answer to unwarranted U.S. meddling...The first group always amused me...But that second group---those misguided Americans---exasperated me."

--Roya Hakakian, Journey From The Land of No

SLC

2006-08-22T00:48:00.000-05:00

Salt Lake City is awesome. Pictures to follow on Facebook, when I can find my camera---which seems to have accidentally taken a trip back to Wisconsin.

The Last Five Minutes Have Rocked

2006-08-08T22:13:00.000-05:00

Because,

1) I found a place to live in SLC;
2) Cynthia McKinney seems to have lost her primary;
3) even though Joe Lieberman also lost, he's going to run on his own.

Howard Dean makes me embarassed to be an American

2006-07-27T18:17:00.000-05:00

"The Iraqi prime minister is an anti-Semite. We don't need to spend $200, $300, $500 billion bringing democracy to Iraq to turn it over to people who believe Israel doesn't have a right to defend itself."

So, to Howard Dean, if Iraq doesn't march in lockstep with Israeli policy, the war isn't worth it? I guess Al-Qaeda is right, it is all a Zionist conspiracy! The interests of Israel to be safe from criticism should trump those of the Iraqi people not to live under a sadistic tyrant!

And does Dean remember that Saddam Hussein was paying $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers?

I suppose Dean thinks that if the Bush Administration hadn't made Multiple, Repeated, Massive Mistakes in their Greed-Driven Quest For Oil, they could've easily created an Iraqi government which would be a vocal cheerleader for Israel. But...wouldn't that be contrary to Iraqi public opinion? So now who's the imperialist who wants a puppet government?

Of course Howard Dean doesn't actually believe any of this, he just wants to score political points. This is the kind of utterly ignorant, vastly over-simplified, short-sighted, and viciously personal attack that characterizes domestic campaigns. It's a shame that we're now dumping such filth on an ally who risks his life every day to fight for the future of his country, and ours.

I think he means it

2006-07-20T18:19:00.000-05:00

The more I see about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, I think he really, seriously believes most of what he says about Zionism. His letters to Bush and Merkel sound like he's sincerely trying to convince Merkel, and maybe push Bush to see things his way. He strikes me much more as a sincere believer, eager to engage and convince people of the obvious rightness of his position--but at the same time, he believes such inflammatory things, and so seriously, that he really is scary.

Censorship

2006-07-19T19:32:00.000-05:00

I don't recall any articles like this one about Saddam's censorship of reporters in Iraq.

What Does Palestine Produce?

2006-07-14T12:56:00.001-05:00

Well, the vast majority of their foreign investment comes in the form of aid from the US and EU. And we only give them aid in hopes Hamas, Jihad, and the rest won't kill Jews. So their main export is not killing Jews. It's kind of like farm subsidies: Palestinian militants produce dead Jews, and they charge the Iranians a market-clearing price for it, paid in cash, weapons, and political support. But the US government, assuming a typically anti-Market stance, has decided to pay the PA not to produce dead Jews. Just as the CRP pays American farmers to let farmland lie fallow, we try to pay off the PA to let all that Semtex go unused. And as with farm subsidies, who benefits? The Sam Donaldsons and Ted Turners, rather than poor family farmers, and the Mahmoud Zahars, Yasir Arafats, and Mahmoud Abbases, rather than individual Palestinian Arabs.

Iraq The Model

2006-07-13T00:02:00.000-05:00

This Iraqi blog is fascinating and well worth reading on a daily basis.

Was the Ayatollah Khomeini a Star Wars fan?

2006-06-14T20:02:00.000-05:00

Compare the symbol of the Rebel Alliance to the flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Star Wars came out two years before the Iranian Revolution. The current flag was adopted in 1980, the same year The Empire Strikes Back came out.

I report, you decide...

I Hate Old People

2006-05-10T10:42:00.000-05:00

What is wrong with old people? Why is it that (as I see every day in constituent letters), whenever they have a problem with the government (like, say, not being able to make it under the May 15 Medicare Part D deadline), they go running to the government whining about how they deserve a break? If I couldn't choose a plan in time, I'd assume it's my problem, rather than trying to saddle taxpayers with millions of dollars in expenses to accommodate me.

(Also, the terms "senior citizen" and "senior" are stupid.)

2006-04-26T13:01:00.000-05:00

I think I'm convinced.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

2006-04-23T00:26:00.000-05:00

Or at least, the latter two. Today I rode 8 different types of transportation on 10 different routes. First the DC Metro, then Amtrak, a Baltimore cab, MTA city bus, MTA Baltimore light rail, MTA commuter bus, private car service, and finally two Greyhound routes and another DC Metro ride. As for why I did all this, all I can say is, I evidently can't plan and execute a trip properly. Especially if it involves getting up early in the morning. But I did finally (somewhere between legs 6 and 7) meet up with my grandparents.

Decisions

2006-04-17T23:23:00.000-05:00

This fall, I'll be going to the University of Utah for a Master's program in History, concentrating on the Middle East. And I'm taking an immersion course in Arabic this summer at Beloit College in WI. I'm deferring my Columbia Law acceptance, and the UW's if I can, so I can keep my options open for the future if I decide in favor of law school later. Being beyond driving range of everyone I know is going to be...new.

I'm officially a loser...

2006-03-26T01:31:00.000-06:00

...I just bought my tickets, so I'll be back in Hillsdale April 27th-30th. If by any chance any current students read this blog, email me if you're interested in being on my frisbee team---even though we have no chance of beating Victor's. :-) At the moment, it's just me and Marty, so we need 5 more...

Liberalism in the Arab World

2006-03-14T23:31:00.000-06:00

My thanks to Kyle for pointing this out. If this kind of thing (along with Juan Cole's program) succeeds in opening intellectual discourse in the Arab world, I think the argument may be, in 50 years or so, between those who say these developments made the Iraq War irrelevant---and those who will say the war facilitated liberalization. By shattering the old order---in which the choice was between secularist tyrants and radical Islamic extremists---the war may have shown there is a third way, and thus encouraged people to think about it and put pressure on old regimes to loosen up. At the same time, one could argue, the Iraq War has bought time for liberalism to develop, by drawing the attention, resources, and lives of the most radical extremists. This combination may have contributed to the current Saudi, Egyptian, Kuwaiti, and maybe even Palestinian reforms, even if they don't go far enough. (As an aside: in the short run, elections put Islamists into power...but that just proves the importance of getting the right ideas out there, so that elections aren't just a way for people to choose between Islamists and discredited secular socialists. The few Arab liberals aren't going to get any more popular, no matter how much money the CIA gives them or how many times Condi Rice praises them, unless the ideas they espouse are popularly embraced.)

And that could all be true even if Iraq doesn't become a functioning democracy. If it does...that would really open up dialogue in the Arab world.

This argument parallels the one we're still having over Vietnam: did that war buy time for the "Asian Tigers" to get so rich that Communism didn't have much appeal, or would that economic progress have happened anyway, without US intervention in VN? I'm inclined to the former view, but the argument is still going on. I would guess the argument over Iraq will also be going on for quite some time. We probably aren't going to get a smoothly-running, totally friendly democracy, but (I hope) we won't get another Somalia either. So if in 10 or 20 years Iraq is still somewhere between those two poles, it won't be entirely clear to Americans whether we won, or whether the war was worth it. So like Vietnam, we'll end up without a public consensus. (Conservatives see Iraq as an allegory for Vietnam and want to prove we CAN win, while liberals also see an allegory, but want instead to repeat their success in stopping the war.) I can imagine a future talk show exchange:

Democratic Talking Head: "Attitudes like yours are what led us into Iraq! History has proven you wrong!"

Republican Talking Head: "And because of Iraq, millions of people are free and the Middle East is moving toward democracy! It's liberals who are always on the wrong side of History!"

DTH: "Liberalization would've happened anyway and you know it! Besides, what about the car bombing last week and yesterday's allegations of torture by the Iraqi Special Police?"

...and so it will go, with each side drawing their own lessons from the same events, because we can't reach a national consensus.

(As a final aside: of course, national consensuses about the past are often proven wrong by revisionist history. But at least they provide a unified way of looking at things, a common point of agreement from which to start. Sort of like Birzer's view of myth.)

End of pretentious rant.

Polygamy?

2006-03-13T22:23:00.000-06:00

It seems to me that the movement in favo(u)r of it is really the last gasp, logical conclusion of '60s radicalism, even as most of the country moves away from those principles. Maybe sort of like the formation of the Russian Duma as the last gasp of constitutional Classical Liberalism, even as intellectuals in general had already moved on, toward socialism? But it seems like we might be headed for a train wreck, as people like those who produce Big Love face off against a country growing more conservative and taking religion (in some ways) more seriously. Might it get even worse than our current polarization over "the culture war" and President Bush?

I don't get the sense that Europe is swinging in much of a more culturally conservative direction, though. Which leaves us still in a situation where, effectively, half the world---including the people we're fighting right now---think we'd be immoral and sinful to legalize gay marriage, while the other half---our traditional allies---think we'd bigoted and irrational not to. And we have the same divide within the US.

I got this today...

2006-03-07T22:20:00.000-06:00

...regarding a housing ad:

"Thanks for your email but I think we're sticking with Democrats since we've had really bad luck with GOP housemates."

Glad I didn't go any further with that room.

The coolest statue in the Capitol...

2006-03-01T19:06:00.000-06:00

...is definitely the one of Kossuth. I should start pointing it out on every tour, even though no one will care.

Random Thoughts on Stem Cell Research

2006-02-26T20:18:00.000-06:00

If embryonic stem cell research doesn't happen in the US, people often claim, it'll just happen elsewhere---thus, we should allow it so we don't fall behind in the race. At the same time, the same people argue, if the US doesn't allow such research, we won't have cures for debilitating diseases. But aren't these two arguments incompatible? No matter where stem cell research is done, Americans will get the benefits---there's no way the FDA could refuse to approve a cure for, say, diabetes, just because it was discovered by using stem cells in some other country. I think even most stem cell research opponents would support approval in this case.

So why shouldn't the US just stay back, refuse to engage in research that might be morally questionable, and still reap the benefits if the research bears fruit? The only thing we would lose is money: which is why the biotech companies are so desperate to get stem cell research approved.

Which is why I think liberals should be more circumspect in their views about stem cells. Might supporters of embryonic research be helping the interests of big biotech companies, as much or more than those of sick people?

(I'm assuming for the sake of argument that most treatments wouldn't require the use of new embryonic stem cells for every patient treated. I don't know the science well enough to know if this is a reasonable assumption, but if it isn't, I admit my argument largely falls apart.)

I'm Employed!

2006-02-13T16:48:00.000-06:00

I'm starting on Tuesday at Congressman Green's office in DC!

You're hired---we just forgot to tell you.

2006-02-06T16:10:00.000-06:00

Me: "Hi, my name is WS; I interviewed at your restaurant last week and the manager told me he'd get back to me either way, but I haven't heard yet, so I was wondering about my status?"

Assistant Manager: "I'll call him and get back to you."

Them [later]: "I just talked to the manager, and you're hired, we just have to get the paperwork together and have you sign it."

But I also might have a job offer in DC...they'll both get back to me in a couple of days.

Bob Woodruff

2006-02-01T02:15:00.001-06:00

An article that had to be written, and I'm glad someone did.

Oh Please

2005-12-16T12:53:00.000-06:00

OpinionJournal's Best of the Web Today links to this post. I'm surprised someone as delightfully cynical as Mark Twain would buy the sentimental claptrap fed to him by nationalist intellectuals. The "great world" came 85 years ago to set the Arabs free from the Ottomans, and what have we learned since then? That the nationalism embraced by (then) small minorities of Arabs can do a lot more damage than the "inhuman tyranny" of a bumbling, polyglot empire. The Ottomans, just like the Hapsburgs, Romanovs, and Hohenzollerns, weren't that bad compared to most of the regimes that took their place.

*EDIT* Unless you're Bulgarian or Armenian. Then, hate the Ottomans all you want...but I don't know if the Armenians should really blame the Sultan or the Young Turks.

Random Notes from Today

2005-12-15T20:25:00.000-06:00

Tom Coburn is awesome.

I'm going to miss Heritage, and DC in general.

Everyone in the universe knows Chris Walker.

Congratulations to Breandan, Charles, and Joe for finishing up at Hillsdale, and to Dan for...moving closer to graduation?

Derek Muller is a foul pervert, but he can be useful if you're applying to law school.

Anyone who's under 21 should definitely come to DC and intern...as much free alcohol as you want, without being carded.

After Heritage, I'm not going to eat Subway for months.

Two Predictions

2005-12-13T01:10:00.000-06:00

My prediction for Thursday's elections in Iraq: The United Iraq Alliance (a religious Shi'ite coalition dominated by Abdulaziz al-Hakim's Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and Moqtada al-Sadr's thugs, both tied to, though not dominated by, Iran) will win the most seats. Who will come in second is more of a toss-up, between the Kurdish alliance, Iyad Allawi's list, and the National Accord, a Sunni alliance. I think it will probably be Kurds second, Allawi third, and Accord fourth. The Kurds currently hold the second-most seats, and I don't see any reason they wouldn't stay unified. Allawi only got 14% of the vote in January, but he's rearranged his list a bit, and I think he could do better. He's a secular Shi'ite, and it's been suggested that he may appeal to those who are fed up with the religious state developing in southern Iraq. Finally, I don't think enough Sunnis will turn out and vote coherently to give the National Accord better than fourth. I think they'll get majorities in Anbar and Salahuddin, and perhaps Diyala as well, though, and if they can negotiate with the insurgents at all they'll definitely be a force.

My second prediction is that we won't know the full results until after Christmas. I'm not going out on a limb here at all. The referendum on October 15th took long enough, and that was a simple yes/no, without lists and candidates. It took about two weeks for final results to come out after the January elections.

This is all speculation based on few hard facts, and really just my sense of the matter from what I've read and seen. I hope I'm wrong, and Allawi wins. But I doubt it.

No Green Love

2005-12-11T11:27:00.001-06:00

So Heritage intern housing had a fire drill at 3 AM, and while standing outside in my pajamas, whom should I encounter but...CP, who also applied for the job, and who lives down the hall from me but whom I've been unable to find for two days. And he has heard through His Sources that neither of us got the job. So assuming his information is correct, I'm headed back to Wisconsin on Saturday, where I will officially be Unemployed And Living With My Parents, at least until Christmas.

The British Rock

2005-12-11T01:20:00.000-06:00

Why doesn't this happen in the US? (Not the bill. The quality and mere existence of the editorial.)

Job?

2005-12-08T21:13:00.000-06:00

I had an interview today with Congressman Mark Green's office (R, WI 8th), about a job as a Staff Assistant. They'd want me to start in just a few days, if I got it. I'll find out soon. It seems odd that, if I do get the job, so much could change so quickly.

Derb...

2005-11-23T20:40:00.000-06:00

...is simultaneously depressing and humo(u)rous, as always.

Also in NR, James Robbins says,

One important difference between the Right and the Left is the view of the future. Conservatives tend to approach things with a sense of optimism and faith in human potential. The Left is all about pessimism — they continually forecast downfall, catastrophe of some kind — environmental havoc, pandemic, technology run amuck, or some other imminent meltdown.

It's ironic that Derb's column proves this isn't always true. Maybe neoconservatives are optimistic, but I think conservatism has traditionally been more pessimistic or at least cautious about the future, and especially about human potential. Robbins also says of liberals that, "[t]heir solutions to these imagined problems always seem to involve collecting power over the many into the hands of the few, assuming they populate the latter category." Are they really so pessimistic if they think we can solve our problems that easily? In fact, that whole paragraph is confused...Robbins talks about how the biggest danger in the 20th century has been "extremists who were willing to use violence to realize their utopian visions"...such people sound pretty optimistic to me, but I'd never describe Stalin, Pol Pot, Khomeini, Zawahiri, and Mao as traditionalist conservatives.

Zarqy Dead?

2005-11-20T23:12:00.000-06:00

I shouldn't get my hopes up. But now seems like a fortuitous time to kill him, since he's lost political capital in the Muslim world after the Jordan bombings (even being disowned by his family)...this may be the perfect moment, because he might not be lionized as a martyr?

(A response is forthcoming, D...I'm reworking my Statement of Purpose yet again, but will try to argue/agree with you, on alternating points, tomorrow.)

Islamists

2005-11-17T22:52:00.000-06:00

This post will probably get me in trouble. So let me start by saying that terrorists of whatever stripe are evil, despicable people, and of course I wholeheartedly support our efforts to kill as many of them as possible, not only for our own sake but also for that of the Muslim world. I certainly hope everyone reading this knows me, or else I'm afraid I appear ridiculously pretentious lecturing at strangers, so I don't think I need to say I'm not defending terrorists or al Qaeda in any way, shape, or form.

However, just as not all Muslims are terrorists, not all IslamISTS are terrorists, either. I think it may ill-behoove Americans, especially Christian Americans, simply to write off Islamists as kooky "Islamofascists," or to try to discredit and ignore all Islamists on the grounds that some of them have turned to terror. (Perhaps terror and violence are the logical outcome of Islamism. I hope this is not true, because if it is, we've got a LOT more coming: probably majorities of the public support Islamism in some form in at LEAST Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Palestine, maybe Turkey or Lebanon, and, yes, Iraq.)

In many ways, Islamists are reacting against modernity, secularism, nationalism, civic religion, relativism, and other things that conservatives, and Christians in particluar, decry here in the US. They come from a different background, obviously, but still a monotheistic one, and I think it's worth taking many of Islamists' critiques seriously. This doesn't mean I want to sit down with every crazy refugee in Jenin who thinks Islam is the solution because only a unified Muslim state can exterminate the Jews. )I'm also not very familiar with Salafi Islam, but it seems a fairly rule-bound, anti-intellectual tradition that it woudl be hard to engage with.) But from an intellectual standpoint, the Islamist argument seems to be, basically, that the modern world has too much freedom and too little virtue. Wouldn't most conservatives agree with that? And wouldn't most Christians agree that religious virtues are insufficiently respected in the modern world? Many Islamists propose a theocracy, which presumably most Christians and conservatives wouldn't agree with, but that I think relates more tho theological and historical differences (obviously, Islam differs MASSIVELY from Christianity theologically, so the similarities have to break down at some point), than to Islamists simply being crazy fascists.

Thus, I think we should take intelligent Islamists more seriously, in two ways. First, while of course we should continue to expose violent Islamists (which is many of them) as the murderous frauds they are, it is also well worth refuting Islamist arguments rationally, rather than simply maintaining that we're right and they're insane. That's hardly the way to win over the Muslim world. A good example of this kind of engagement was a speech Kyle and I saw by Dinesh D'Souza in February, in which he confronted the Islamists' arguments about virtue head-on, and he argued that it is only through freedom that man can become truly virtuous, by choosingthe right. (It's interesting, and I think it highlights that there is somethingto some Islamist arguments, that the same internal debates American conservatives have had for 5o years, also arise here.) Translating the Founders into Arabic would help with intellectual engagement, in the long run.

Secondly, might taking Islamists' arguments head on help open up world-wide awareness of concerns conservatives in the US have had for a long time, but which don't seem to be shared around the world?

(I'm warming up to write my grad school Statement of Purpose, and this is tangentially related.)

Grad School

2005-11-16T22:42:00.000-06:00

It just hit me how cool it is that I might actually get paid to learn cool stuff for a few years. And then maybe paid the rest of my life to learn more. Of course, there is a price for this...I have to teach. :-)

George Galloway

2005-11-16T20:40:00.000-06:00

This is...unbelievable. It sounds like something Bashar Assad would say. "Syria is a free people." WTF? That's not even grammatically correct. And Galloway must be the last person in the universe, aside from Egyptian taxi drivers and American college professors, who still believes in pan-Arabism. He's like an adopted Assad sibling...Hafez would be so proud.

Olivier Roy!

2005-11-09T10:20:00.000-06:00

Morrisey had my Political Islam Hono(u)rs Seminar read a book by Roy freshman year, and he was awesome. Here, he supports Kyle's view that the French riots are really about economics, not discrimination, religion, or Islamic culture.

Ancient Historians Make Stuff Up

2005-11-09T10:07:00.001-06:00

Or so Matt and I have joked. Now, I see this:

The inscription was found in the context of a substantial network of buildings at the site, which led Dr. Tappy to propose that Tel Zayit was probably an important border town established by an expanding Israelite kingdom based in
Jerusalem.
A border town of such size and culture, Dr. Tappy said, suggested a centralized bureaucracy, political leadership and literacy levels that seemed to support the biblical image of the unified kingdom of David and Solomon in the 10th century B.C.

So: a bunch of ruined buildings+a few letters scratched into something="a border town of such size and culture." Like Moreno says, in ancient history "you find a few pottery shards and you have an empire."

Marriage in Iran

2005-11-08T12:06:00.000-06:00

Wow, Iran has a better welfare state than we do! They'll even help pay for you to find a spouse!

Pat Buchanan...

2005-11-07T21:48:00.000-06:00

...can be thought-provoking.

???

2005-11-06T23:24:00.000-06:00

I just wrote a long post on Iran, but as I read more articles to fact-check what I was saying, I realized I have no clue what's going on. Their government is so confusing...its actions are more transparent than, say, Saddam's, in that we hear about stuff like ambassadors being recalled and oil ministers being nominated and rejected, but the actual workings of their internal politics are totally baffling.

So I decided to forget my intended post and just say: I am baffled. But Iran's nuclear program is scary.

Wow.

2005-11-06T00:09:00.000-06:00

So apparently, you can get internet service through your cell phone (for a price) anywhere in four of Iraq's 18 provinces. As Michael Rubin has noted, there are now 3.5 million Iraqi cell phone subscribers where there were none three years ago.

On the other hand, it is a bit worrisome to note that of the four provinces where this is available--Baghdad, Mosul, Kirkuk, and Suleymanieh--three are up north, and two are heavily Kurdish. It could well be that Kurdistan--relatively peaceful, democratic, and well-governed after its experiences with autonomy under the No-Fly Zones in the 1990s--will get much ahead of the Arab areas economically. But the Kurds could easily be isolated if Arab Iraq collapses. Kurdistan is landlocked, and its neighbors don't offer very good prospects: Iran and Syria aren't the greatest portals through which to access the outside world, and the part of Turkey that borders Kurdistan is pretty rural and backward.

Calling Happy Dan...

2005-11-04T10:24:00.000-06:00

...sometimes, I like Jimmy Carter.

The Founders in Arabic

2005-10-31T11:07:00.000-06:00

This is an excellent idea. Probably much more useful in the long run than Karen Hughes' public diplomacy.

Liberal Fight!

2005-10-28T00:55:00.000-05:00

At the point when The Nation starts viciously misrepresenting the words of other liberals...

Alexander Cockburn says in his piece in The Nation: 'Cole says to The Nation Institute's Tom Engelhardt that for the United States to "up and leave" Iraq would be to become an accomplice to genocide. He counsels the heightened use in Iraq of "special forces and air power." In other words, assassinations and saturation bombing.'

....

I don't expect to hear any practical suggestions from Cockburn, since his major recent accomplishment in the real world appears to have been to drive Christopher Hitchens into the arms of the Bush administration.

I'm made of sterner stuff than Hitchens. Cockburn can go screw himself.

I think it shows the sad state of the American Left when Juan Cole, who has been a staunch opponent of the war, is viciously attacked because he cares about the people of Iraq and dares to suggest a way we can still avert disaster. Apparently the only acceptable attitude, from The Nation's point of view, is to whine about how Bush Lied and demand an immediate pullout of all our troops, consequences (and the Iraqi people) be damned.

*EDIT* Juan Cole seems to have changed his post, so it is no longer as harsh as it was last night when I wrote this.

Reconsidering once again...

2005-10-23T23:28:00.000-05:00

...a Lebanese blogger refutes Landis, accusing him of just helping out Syrian propaganda. Of course, I'd rather believe I was right all along than believe the Syrian ambassador. (Especially since the darn Syrian Embassy never answered my letter when I wrote to them in 2nd grade!)

The Rest of the Story

2005-10-21T23:26:00.000-05:00

I happened to be at the New America Foundation when Lawrence Wilkerson spoke (the WP's Dana Milbank commented here) about his time as chief-of-staff for Colin Powell. The articles are pretty good at summing up his criticisms of Bush, and Wilkerson was plenty scathing, but one or both of them left out a few other things he said that were interesting, and some even positive toward Bush:

1) He praised the French as stalwart allies against terrorism.
2) French intelligence, he reported, was certain that those infamous aluminum tubes were for nuclear weapons, though of course they turned out not to be. (I lied about this in Finals at the Highland debate tournament in Feb 03, for which I remain guilty, and apologetic to Chris Walker for drawing him into my Web of Lies.)
3) Wilkerson said that if the US pulls out of Iraq soon, "I guarantee you we'll have to go back within 10 years, put 5 million men and women under arms, and take the Middle East."
4) He said US policy toward Iraq has improved since the election, and is finally getting on the right track. I think I even remember him saying he was "cautiously optimistic."

Milbank says his critique was "for the most part, not ideological," citing as evidence that Wilkerson regards Bush 41 as "one of the finest presidents we've ever had." I don't think this rules out ideology, though, since it just proves Wilkerson is an old-line, Establishment Republican--definitely ideologically different than the neoconservatives and religous conservatives who have more influence now, and to whom Bush 43 is closer than was his father (we'll see what Miers does to that...).

Ironically, Wilkerson looks JUST like Dick Cheney.

Two more things...

2005-10-21T18:40:00.000-05:00

1) Juan Cole reports that even if there was no fraud, the chances are Nineveh still actually voted for the Iraqi constitution. I don't know about Diyala, but at least this may mean that it was "legitimately" approved. Not that it matters, since it's going through anyway.

2) This is funny: Google "Arabian Gulf" and open the first result. I don't know if this is sponsored by the Iranian government, but this other site shows something about Iranian nationalist feeling on the subject.

People at Heritage

2005-10-18T16:31:00.000-05:00

I think I just walked by Lee Teng-Hui, former president of Taiwan--I know he was at Heritage today. And earlier, I saw Abdullah Abdullah, Foreign Minister of Afghanistan, speak...like Cher, he's cool enough to have just one name, but he uses it twice for emphasis.

Also, I've concluded the key to Heritage's power is that every senior staffer resembles some prominent conservative (not to imply that President Feulner isn't prominent himself):
Dr. Feulner=Donald Rumsfeld
John Hilboldt=Charles Krauthammer
David John=John Bolton (this is the only picture in the first five pages of Google results in which he's smiling)

I see Scott Ritter has returned, and is still smoking CRACK. (In the 10th paragraph.) Does anyone even rememberJimmy Carter anymore?

Finally, more experts are weighing in (also here) on the Zawahiri/Zarqawi letter. I still don't find the arguments against it too convincing, and I think the "too chummy and too deferential" tone just shows how desperate Zawahiri is to avoid losing control of the jihad to someone like Zarqy, who may be an unsophisticated thug but, in the eyes of the rank-and-file, is in the middle of the fight and not hiding in Deepest Waziristan.

Back to posting articles...

2005-10-18T12:15:00.000-05:00

Yeah, he's from AEI so he's a neocon, but this sounds mighty encouraging.

If this weren't so serious, it'd be...no, it's funny anyway. You'd think Syria's killed enough people by now that they'd be used to lying about it.

Seeing what you want to

2005-10-18T09:07:00.000-05:00

I think Michael Ledeen may offer a more conservative example of James' point that those who don't like the letter's content will consider it a forgery. Well, Ledeen doesn't say it's a forgery, just written with Iranian collusion. I think Cole's reasons for rejecting it are better, since he argues from elements of the letter's form and usage, while Ledeen just asserts that since the letter doesn't match what he thinks is going on, there must be something wrong with it. As with Cole, this might be true...but it might also be that the letter is genuinely from Zawahiri (writing in his own voice, from Pakistan, not Iran), and that it therefore forces people to reconsider what they thought. In Ledeen's case, maybe it should make him reconsider the belief (not shared by any of the Iran experts I've seen speak since arriving in DC) that Iran is actively supporting al Qaeda and the Iraqi insurgency.

In fact, I think the consensus opinion among experts is that Iran is building up extensive political and terrorist networks throughout Iraq, but hasn't yet activated them--and that if they did, southern Iraq would become a nightmare for us. But at the moment, Iran seems happy to have a Shi'ite majority government next door, and they hope to influence it. (It's notable that Juan Cole fears massive fraud by SCIRI, the Shi'ite party closest to Iran, in the December elections. He also notes rather snidely that Iran is cheering for Iraqi democracy.)

The Referendum

2005-10-17T23:16:00.000-05:00

Iraq is investigating reports of fraud in the constitutional referendum. What strikes me as more worrying, though, is that the government apparently doesn't suspect fraud in Nineveh and Diyala, where, Juan Cole says, the results seem very suspicious. I don't think anyone sees a likelihood of the constitution being rejected in any of the Shi'ite and Kurdish provinces they are investigating; all it would do is lower the majority. Nineveh and Diyala, though, could make a difference, and according to Cole, an investigation just might reveal that those provinces actually did vote No. Since both Anbar and Salahuddin have already voted No by huge margins, a 2/3rds No vote in either Nineveh or Diyala would make three, and thus defeat the constitution.

(If anyone cares, an incomplete province-by-province breakdown of the results is here.)

It would be nice if Iyad Allawi's new centrist coalition could get some traction before the December elections, but it seems unlikely. I think most experts are expecting the Shi'ite Islamists to take control of the central government.

After the Summer of Breakups...

2005-10-17T21:54:00.000-05:00

...comes the Autumn of Love. Why is it that with my class gone, Galloway guys have suddenly started not only talking to girls, but actually pairing off with them? (Well, except for those on the 3rd floor.) :-)

Mutual Promotion

2005-10-17T15:23:00.000-05:00

My thanks to Kyle for the plug on his Xanga. If you want insightful commentary on economics or any other subject that may cross his mind, check him out here. For insights on theology and occasional randomness, check out Marty's blog, as well.

Millions More March

2005-10-15T23:23:00.000-05:00

I went down to the Mall today with Gordy for the Millions More March. I wish I'd had a camera--there would've been so many good pictures. (With a better zoom than I have) Russell Simmons speaking at the Capitol...the Nation of Islam volunteers in their Salvation Army-style uniforms patrolling the grounds and directing traffic...the half-dozen white college students who walked through quickly conducting an anti-war protest...the Black Panthers in berets and Angela Davis t-shirts...the t-shirts reading "After all they've done...now they want to get along?" with pictures of black suffering over the centuries...the one white guy selling books about Malcolm X...the little kids playing games off to the side while Farrakhan spoke...the "Million Man March 10th Anniversary Commemorative" watches, posters, and shirts being sold...the solar-powered-house prototype display at the other end of the mall, where the crowd's racial composition abruptly changed.

It was nice feeling like a native when some of the marchers asked me for directions to Union Station, and I was able to tell them the way.

More on the Letter

2005-10-15T19:13:00.000-05:00

(I'm not entirely certain why I'm writing another long post on this...I hope James at least enjoys it, since if I'm lucky there might be two other people reading this who care...)

I think you're right on target, James, in saying that people who don't like what the letter seems to say are probably going to believe it's a forgery. Ultimately, I don't think the US government or Bush Administration would do such a thing. Some people think they would. I'm afraid each side is just going to read things their own way, and we've each pretty much decided already how much we trust this administration, based on many outside factors (Florida 2000, stem cells, spending, the lead-up to war in Iraq, Katrina, Miers, etc.) beyond just the letter. The fact that the letter seems to indicate al Qaeda's strategy generally corresponds with what the administration has been saying could mean that of course it's a US forgery...or that Bush is right about the nature of the jihadist threat.

That said, since only like five people will probably read this anyway, I still want to consider the various arguments for why it might be a forgery, just for fun. There seem to be three possibilities about who wrote it, if it is a fake: the USFG, an Iraqi Shi'ite (or Kurd?), or the Iranians.

1) The USFG: As I said, I don't think so. I do have actual reasons here, aside from simply trusting the goverment. Or I should say, I have reasons for my trust. I don't recall the Bush Administration ever being accused of simply making stuff up. Most of the allegations against the case for war have focused on officials "massaging" or "sexing up" (who makes up these metaphors?) the data, rather than just manufacturing it out of whole cloth. If the administration was willing and able to forge documents, wouldn't there've been some pretty damning, smoking gun al Qaeda memos produced in 2002 showing Saddam's direct sponsorship of 9/11? That would've served administration policy a lot more than this letter does, but it didn't happen. The closest thing to "Bush forgeries" I can think of are the infamous yellowcake docments from Niger, but those were forged by a Nigerian (is that the right adjective? He's not from Nigeria...) official in search of money, and the worst accusation I've heard here is that Bush lied about their authenticity. So I don't see any possible precedent for a Bush forgery, even if you buy some of the worst "Bush lied" arguments, which I don't. Even if the letter fits the model of the documents from Niger, that would mean that someone else forged it, then sold it to the administration. In which case, either the US government was fooled, or they colluded. I don't buy outright collusion because it would involve a similar level of deception by the administration as them forging the letter themselves. If the US was taken in by someone else's forgery, that just pushes back the question of who forged it in the first place, and why.

2) An Iraqi Shi'ite: I already said why I'm not sure the "Shi'ite" reference to Husayn indicates this was written by a Shi'ite. But Shi'ites would definitely have a motive, since they want to strengthen the US government's resolve to stay the course and support the Shi'ite-majority government.

3) The Iranians (choose-your-favorite-faction: reformers, Ahmadinejad, hard-line clerics, the army, the Revolutionary Guard?): This possiblity intrigues me the most, maybe just because I like byzantine international political gambits. But it seems to me that an Iranian might be less familiar with Sunni inflections than an Iraqi Shi'ite, since Iran has so few Sunnis. An Iranian might be academically familiar with the different Shi'ite schools (Hanafi, Ashari, Matridi, etc.), but not have been in contact with enough Sunnis to remember that they refer to Husayn differently. I obviously don't know for sure, though.

Even if it is possible Iran forged the letter, though, why? Would they want to encourage the US that its course in Iraq is correct? Maybe, if the Iranian government fears that a US pullout is imminent. They certainly don't like US troops next door, but they also really don't want a civil war that could spillover, and would disrupt a neighboring Shi'ite government to which Iran is developing close ties.

Alternatively, might it be that Iran forged this letter for the benefit of al Qaeda in Iraq? What if they wanted Zarqy or his subordinates to think the letter was from Zawahiri, but it was captured by the Americans and we fell for it? Page 9 pretty directly warns against the indiscriminate killing of Shi'ites, which Iran doesn't like because (1) they're Shi'ites, and (2) it could set off a civil war. The letter even contains an implicit threat against al Qaeda leaders if they offend Iran: "do the brothers forget that we have more than one hundred prisoners - many of whom are from the leadership who are wanted in their countries - in the custody of the Iranians?" So maybe Iran was trying to influence the insurgents, not US? This is admittedly somewhat far-fetched.

And "reading it the way you want to" also applies here: Zawahiri probably doesn't want a civil war in Iraq any more than Iran does, because (1) it would draw off jihadists from other fronts, (2) it'd widen the Shi'ite/Sunni divide throughout the Islamic world, weakening support for al Qaeda, and (3) he would probably prefer (and the letter indicates this, too--page 4) a sudden replacement of the Iraqi government with a Salafist regime, rather than a lengthy civil war, even if his side would win. So maybe the letter is real, and Zawahiri really is trying to moderate Zarqy's tactics to avoid a civil war.

On Juan Cole's latest comment: I don't think the letter is actually saying Zarqy shouldn't lead the insurgency because he's not an Iraqi. Instead, the author just questions whether Iraqis are reacting unfavorably to a foreign-led insurgency. Zawahiri may think in terms of the umma, not of nations (and the letter as a whole is written in this tone), but he also has to be aware of Iraqi nationalist sentiment, and it seems to me a completely legitimate question. And other parts of the letter are even more directly challenging to Zarqawi. (Like on beheadings: "[W]e can kill the captives by bullet. That would achieve that which is sought after without exposing ourselves to the questions and answering to doubts. We don't need this.")

Finally, I've heard some people ask, why would al Qaeda lie and deny the letter if it's real? Well, why wouldn't they? They have to be at least somewhat aware of the US political situation, and they certainly want to do whatever they can to undermine US solidarity. So why would they admit that the Bush administration is pretty much right about the nature of the fight in Iraq, if they can change the subject by getting people arguing about the letter itself, and not what it says?

A WP columnist's comments on the letter.

The Infamous Letter

2005-10-15T00:35:00.000-05:00

I've changed my opinion of Juan Cole, after seeing him speak today at a conference on the Middle East at the Capitol. He's incredibly knowledgeable and well-informed, and he has a deeper perspective---more from the inside of the region out, rather than from US policy looking in---than other policy commentators I've seen before. Not that anyone necessarily cares about my opinion of Dr. Cole.

One thing he said today is that the letter from Zawahiri to Zarqawi which emerged last week is, in his opinion, a forgery. He suggested (and posted on his blog) that the letter was really written by the US government, or by a Shi'ite trying to sound like a Sunni extremist. Since I heard him speak this morning, Dr. Cole has retracted one of his arguments, questioning the letter's greeting.

I do have a few thoughts on his other two points, though. I don't know how much importance you can really attach to Zawahiri's friendly reference to Zarqy. Cole says that, "[i]f Zawahiri was going to bring up old times, he would have had to find a way to get past this troubled history, not just pretend that the two used to pal around." But how do we know there haven't been other letters between them, in which they hashed this out? Presumably they've been in contact to some extent, if Zarqy is at all affiliated with what's left of al Qaeda Central.

More importantly, I think Cole may be reading this too seriously. This is a senior revolutionary leader, trying desperately to maintain control over his organization as groups nominally loyal to him go off in their own directions. In writing to Zarqy, he's addressing a subordinate who leads the fight in the most important theater, but has never been too easily controlled, has feuded with leadership in the past, and isn't really among the social or intellectual elite of al Qaeda. And Zawahiri's trying to rein him in, to redirect his campaign in Iraq, to insert some strategic calculations in place of brute violence based on hatred--but he recognizes he doesn't have too much political capital, not having much in the way of resources, money, men, or even popularity with which to influence Zarqy. In these circumstances, aren't throwaway pleasantries to be expected? He has to adopt the tone of "hey, Abu Musab, my old buddy! How's it going? You know, I've always loved you, love what you've got going on over in Iraq...can I offer you some friendly advice?"---because cozying up to Zarqawi is the only way of influencing his behavior, and maybe the only way of maintaining Zawahiri's relevance to the global jihad movement.

And to illustrate the meaningless-pleasantries tone of that paragraph: "I think that if I could find a way to you, I would not delay a day, God willing." Yeah, RIGHT. I'm sure Zawahiri would just love to leave his nice safe mountain village in Waziristan and go visit 150,000 US troops in Iraq. As far as I know, Zawahiri's never been much for personal martyrdom. My point is, when Zawahiri says he misses meeting with Zarqy, it has to be read with the rest of the paragraph, which is just a pleasant greeting, and doesn't seem too sincerely felt.

On Cole's other argument, about the reference to Husayn as an imam: I wonder how that should really be read after looking at pages 6-7. Clearly the forger is pretty familiar with internal divisions within radical Sunni Islam, referring to the Ashari, Hanafi, and Matridi and noting that Mullah Omar is not of quite the same doctrine as Salafists like UBL or Zawahiri. I know very little about these divisions, but I would think any forger who understands them would also understand the sectarian nuances involved with references to Husayn.

I don't think the US government is clever enough, as Cole suggests, to pull off a deception this complicated. An Iraqi Shi'ite, I'd think, would be too familiar with Sunnis to make the mistakes Cole points to, though he'd know better than I do. Iran, though...

I'm Here...

2005-10-13T19:13:00.000-05:00

I decided to start this because I'm probably going to start posting here instead of on Xanga.