The Bush team tried to make history on the cheap in Iraq. But you can't will the ends without willing the means.

Condi and Rummy, by Tom Friedman

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Stratfor Podcasts - Strategic Forecasting

If Baghdad remains a killing zone, where Iraq's leaders can safely gather only under U.S. protection, then the prognosis for the Iraqi national identity, which has always had Baghdad at its center, is poor. Lasting political compromises will probably be impossible if the increasingly vicious sectarian strife in Baghdad and its environs intensifies. Within a year, at most two, Iraq could become Algeria.

The unanticipated consequences of 'Iraqification'

Some analysts now see a new "axis of Islam" arising in the Middle East, uniting Hizballah, Hamas, Iran, Syria, the Muslim Brotherhood, elements of Iraq's Shiites, and others in an anti-American, anti-Israel alliance backed by Russia.

Whether or not any such structure exists or can be forged, the fact is that the fuel of Islamic imperialism remains as volatile as ever, and is very far from having burned itself out. To deny its force is the height of folly, and to imagine that it can be appeased or deflected is to play into its hands. Only when it is defeated, and when the faith of Islam is no longer a tool of Islamic political ambition, will the inhabitants of Muslim lands, and the rest of the world, be able to look forward to a future less burdened by Saladins and their gory dreams.

Islam's Imperial Dreams

A small group of current and former conservatives -- including George Will, William F. Buckley Jr. and Francis Fukuyama -- have become harsh critics of the Iraq war. They have declared, or clearly implied, that it is a failure and the president's effort to promote liberty in the Middle East is dead -- and dead for a perfectly predictable reason: Iraq, like the Arab Middle East more broadly, lacks the democratic culture that is necessary for freedom to take root. And so for cultural reasons, this effort was flawed from the outset.

Or so the argument goes.

Let me address each of these charges in turn.

...

Mr. Wehner is deputy assistant to the president and director of the White House's Office of Strategic Initiatives.

Standard (and lame, and transparent) attack strategy ... Opponent makes claim X, which is valid. To refute opponent's claim, restate it after amplifying it by a factor of 10. Then show how claim 10X has weaknesses. Finally, declare victory.

Bush Explains Why Fukuyama Is Wrong

Rumsfeld did a bunch of softball interviews with red radio today. It's like a Hollywood star doing press for a summer movie. I found this particular exchange amusing.

GILL: One of the things that we're hearing so much these days is a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking.

You've used the term fog of war in describing ... that the best laid plans sometimes have to be changed based upon the circumstances in combat. Why don't these people get that?

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: I suppose a couple of reasons, maybe. Maybe they don't read history.

I suppose the other reason; a lot of those folks are trying to peddle books they've written.

Why don't you people get that? It's so simple. If even the best laid plans have to be changed on the fly, why waste time making plans? Just get in there, already!

And speaking of books, why can't I pick up Zarqawi's latest book at Borders? Or that novel Saddam was writing? Why is that? At least put them up on Lulu or something.

... it's much more difficult to go after networks and a network of networks ...

I think maybe he's getting his GIG mixed up with his GWOT.

DoD News: Radio Interview with Secretary Rumsfeld on WTN 99.7, Nashville, TN

Only 24 of France's 84 universities were functioning normally, with others either partly blocked by demonstrators or closed.

But, in a sure sign that this was not a country paralyzed, the Paris Metro and bus system ran on a normal schedule. Mail and many newspapers were delivered.

"Mr. Prime Minister, who is governing France today?" asked the leader of the Socialist party bloc in the Assembly. At another point he said: "You govern no more. You hold the appearance of power, but you no longer exercise it."

French Premier Refuses to Bow to Protests by Angry Youths

This season, the protests aren't in far-off housing projects, but right under our eyes.

The Sorbonne, symbolic center of the intelligentsia, has been sealed off by the police.

French Twist

"Going to the march?" he asked me. "What march?" I asked.

He looked at me as if I'd just returned from Paris and mentioned that I didn't notice the Eiffel Tower.

The reason some of us miss major news is because there's just too much news out there. The more information that becomes available, the less informed we are.

I never thought I'd say this, but maybe it's time we all got in touch with our inner fox — at least a little.

Hedgehog nation

Salim Ahmed Hamdan must have thought he'd hit the jackpot when he landed a job as a driver for Osama bin Laden on a farm in Afghanistan, making an extravagant $200 a month. Things presumably look different from the vantage point of Hamdan's cell in Guantanamo Bay.

Driving Miss Jihadi: Osama bin Laden's chauffeur vs. military tribunals