Armed Liberal has some thoughts on the administration’s mishandling of the war with which I agree. Read the comments as well. Also, Chester writes about the end of nation states and America as a superpower.

What were they up to? Richard Miniter seems to have the most comprehensive story so far. It looks to me like they were either attempting a hijack, testing security, or attempting to weaken it by intimidating the airline. I can’t imagine an innocent explanation for their behavior.

And not that they should have any credibility at this point, but if CAIR wants to be taken seriously, they need to renounce all their previous denunciations of US Air. But I’m sure they’ll continue to whine about discrimination. And of course, the media will continue to treat them as though they’re worthy of respect, and not on the other side.

Krauthammer, on the “Iraq Study Group”:

Everyone now says that the key to stopping the fighting in Iraq is political — again, as if this were another great discovery. It’s been clear for at least a year that a military solution to the insurgency was out of our reach. The military price would have been prohibitive and the victory ephemeral without a political compromise. And that kind of compromise — vesting the Sunnis with proportionate political and financial (i.e. oil) power — is something the Shiites, at least those now comprising the Maliki government, seem incapable of doing.

The U.S. should be giving Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki a clear ultimatum: if he does not come up with a political solution in two months or cede power to a new coalition that will, the U.S. will abandon the Green Zone, retire to its bases, move much of its personnel to Kurdistan where we are welcome and safe, and let the civil war take its course. Let the current Green Zone-protected Iraqi politicians who take their cue from Moqtada al-Sadr face the insurgency alone. That might concentrate their minds on either making a generous offer to the Sunnis or stepping aside for a new coalition that would.

The key to progress is political change within Iraq. The newest fashion, however, is to go “regional,” engaging Iran and Syria in order to have them pull our chestnuts out of the fire. This idea rests on the notion that both Iran and Syria have an interest in stability in Iraq.

Very hardheaded realist terms: interest, stability, regional powers. But stringing them together to suggest that Iran and Syria share our interests in stability is the height of fantasy. In fact, Iran and Syria have an overriding interest in chaos in Iraq — which is precisely why they each have been abetting the insurgency and fanning civil war.

A true “realist” would recognize that we are in fact at war with Syria and Iran. Stories like this certainly make it hard to avoid that conclusion:

According to a senior defense official, coalition forces have recently seized Iranian-made weapons and munitions that bear manufacturing dates in 2006.

This suggests, say the sources, that the material is going directly from Iranian factories to Shia militias, rather than taking a roundabout path through the black market. “There is no way this could be done without (Iranian) government approval,” says a senior official.

Iranian-made munitions found in Iraq include advanced IEDs designed to pierce armor and anti-tank weapons. U.S. intelligence believes the weapons have been supplied to Iraq’s growing Shia militias from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is also believed to be training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran.

Krauthammer, on the “Iraq Study Group”:

Everyone now says that the key to stopping the fighting in Iraq is political — again, as if this were another great discovery. It’s been clear for at least a year that a military solution to the insurgency was out of our reach. The military price would have been prohibitive and the victory ephemeral without a political compromise. And that kind of compromise — vesting the Sunnis with proportionate political and financial (i.e. oil) power — is something the Shiites, at least those now comprising the Maliki government, seem incapable of doing.

The U.S. should be giving Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki a clear ultimatum: if he does not come up with a political solution in two months or cede power to a new coalition that will, the U.S. will abandon the Green Zone, retire to its bases, move much of its personnel to Kurdistan where we are welcome and safe, and let the civil war take its course. Let the current Green Zone-protected Iraqi politicians who take their cue from Moqtada al-Sadr face the insurgency alone. That might concentrate their minds on either making a generous offer to the Sunnis or stepping aside for a new coalition that would.

The key to progress is political change within Iraq. The newest fashion, however, is to go “regional,” engaging Iran and Syria in order to have them pull our chestnuts out of the fire. This idea rests on the notion that both Iran and Syria have an interest in stability in Iraq.

Very hardheaded realist terms: interest, stability, regional powers. But stringing them together to suggest that Iran and Syria share our interests in stability is the height of fantasy. In fact, Iran and Syria have an overriding interest in chaos in Iraq — which is precisely why they each have been abetting the insurgency and fanning civil war.

A true “realist” would recognize that we are in fact at war with Syria and Iran. Stories like this certainly make it hard to avoid that conclusion:

According to a senior defense official, coalition forces have recently seized Iranian-made weapons and munitions that bear manufacturing dates in 2006.

This suggests, say the sources, that the material is going directly from Iranian factories to Shia militias, rather than taking a roundabout path through the black market. “There is no way this could be done without (Iranian) government approval,” says a senior official.

Iranian-made munitions found in Iraq include advanced IEDs designed to pierce armor and anti-tank weapons. U.S. intelligence believes the weapons have been supplied to Iraq’s growing Shia militias from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is also believed to be training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran.

Krauthammer, on the “Iraq Study Group”:

Everyone now says that the key to stopping the fighting in Iraq is political — again, as if this were another great discovery. It’s been clear for at least a year that a military solution to the insurgency was out of our reach. The military price would have been prohibitive and the victory ephemeral without a political compromise. And that kind of compromise — vesting the Sunnis with proportionate political and financial (i.e. oil) power — is something the Shiites, at least those now comprising the Maliki government, seem incapable of doing.

The U.S. should be giving Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki a clear ultimatum: if he does not come up with a political solution in two months or cede power to a new coalition that will, the U.S. will abandon the Green Zone, retire to its bases, move much of its personnel to Kurdistan where we are welcome and safe, and let the civil war take its course. Let the current Green Zone-protected Iraqi politicians who take their cue from Moqtada al-Sadr face the insurgency alone. That might concentrate their minds on either making a generous offer to the Sunnis or stepping aside for a new coalition that would.

The key to progress is political change within Iraq. The newest fashion, however, is to go “regional,” engaging Iran and Syria in order to have them pull our chestnuts out of the fire. This idea rests on the notion that both Iran and Syria have an interest in stability in Iraq.

Very hardheaded realist terms: interest, stability, regional powers. But stringing them together to suggest that Iran and Syria share our interests in stability is the height of fantasy. In fact, Iran and Syria have an overriding interest in chaos in Iraq — which is precisely why they each have been abetting the insurgency and fanning civil war.

A true “realist” would recognize that we are in fact at war with Syria and Iran. Stories like this certainly make it hard to avoid that conclusion:

According to a senior defense official, coalition forces have recently seized Iranian-made weapons and munitions that bear manufacturing dates in 2006.

This suggests, say the sources, that the material is going directly from Iranian factories to Shia militias, rather than taking a roundabout path through the black market. “There is no way this could be done without (Iranian) government approval,” says a senior official.

Iranian-made munitions found in Iraq include advanced IEDs designed to pierce armor and anti-tank weapons. U.S. intelligence believes the weapons have been supplied to Iraq’s growing Shia militias from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is also believed to be training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran.

A coalition to save civilization. Count me in.

Speaking of not being impressed, Dean Barnett isn’t with James Baker and what is rumored to be his upcoming surrender plan. Me, neither.

There’s so much that James Baker doesn

Speaking of not being impressed, Dean Barnett isn’t with James Baker and what is rumored to be his upcoming surrender plan. Me, neither.

There’s so much that James Baker doesn

Speaking of not being impressed, Dean Barnett isn’t with James Baker and what is rumored to be his upcoming surrender plan. Me, neither.

There’s so much that James Baker doesn

Victor Davis Hanson writes that the West faces a crisis of confidence:

Just imagine in our present year, 2006: plan an opera in today’s Germany, and then shut it down. Again, this surrender was not done last month by the Nazis, the Communists, or kings, but by the producers themselves in simple fear of Islamic fanatics who objected to purported bad taste. Or write a novel deemed unflattering to the Prophet Mohammed. That is what did Salman Rushdie did, and for his daring, he faced years of solitude, ostracism, and death threats–and in the heart of Europe no less. Or compose a documentary film, as did the often obnoxious Theo Van Gogh, and you may well have your throat cut in “liberal” Holland. Or better yet, sketch a simple cartoon in postmodern Denmark of legendary easy tolerance, and then go into hiding to save yourself from the gruesome fate of a Van Gogh. Or quote an ancient treatise, as did Pope Benedict, and then learn that all of Christendom may come under assault, and even the magnificent stones of the Vatican may offer no refuge–although their costumed Swiss Guard would prove a better bulwark than the European police. Or write a book critical of Islam, and then go into hiding in fear of your life, as did French philosophy teacher Robert Redeker.

…Note also the constant subtext in this new self-censorship of our supposedly liberal age: the fear of radical Islam and its gruesome methods of beheadings, suicide bombings, improvised explosive de-vices, barbaric fatwas, riotous youth, petrodollar-acquired nuclear weapons, oil boycotts and price hikes, and fist-shaking mobs, as the seventh century is compressed into the twenty-first.

In contrast, almost daily in Europe, “brave” artists caricature Christians and Americans with impunity. And we know what explains the radical difference in attitudes to such freewheeling and “candid” expression–indeed, that hypocrisy of false bravado, of silence before fascists and slander before liberals is both the truth we are silent about, and the lie we promulgate.

There is, in fact, a long list of reasons, among them most surely the assurance that cruel critics of things Western rant without being killed. Such cowards puff out their chests when trashing an ill Oriana Fallaci or a comatose Ariel Sharon or beleaguered George W. Bush in the most demonic of tones, but they prove sunken and sullen when threatened by a thuggish Dr. Zawahiri or a grand mufti of some obscure mosque.

[Evening update]

Eric Raymond had a post last February that’s quite relevant.