JAMES DUNNIGAN WRITES:

Iraq, unlike Germany, is sitting on several trillion dollars worth of oil and will be largely intact after a war. But like post-World War II Germany, Iraq has been governed for a long time (over 30 years) by the Baath party. Moreover, the nazi and Baath parties have a lot in common. Nazi is short for “National Socialist” and that certainly describes the Baath party. But, unlike Germany, the Baath party largely serves one group, the Sunni Arabs (about 20 percent of the population.) The Nazi party only excluded Jews (as does Baath.) Because most Baath party members are Sunni Arabs, it will be easier to expel them from the government bureaucracy.

Read the whole thing.

RACINE RAVE UPDATE: Lawsuits are being filed, and rightly so.

THE FBI “RECKLESSLY MISLED” JUDGES to get search warrants in a kiddie-porn investigation. (“[T]here was more than a mere failure to investigate or an innocent or negligent mistake.” )

Will anyone be sacked, or charged? Don’t hold your breath.

This is why the FBI is not up to its homeland security duties. It’s not even up to its regular job.

EVAN COYNE MALONEY, who made the compelling interview video at the antiwar protests a couple of weeks ago, has answered some questions about it, and about what he plans to work on next. Drop by, and hit his new PayPal button if you think that’s worth supporting.

ANDREW SULLIVAN:

Alas, it’s pretty clear by now that the French, Germans and Russians simply don’t care if Saddam is flouting the U.N. They just don’t want American military power exercized in the region – ever again. I doubt if they had videotape of Saddam making anthrax in his bathrobe that they’d agree to enforce their own resolution. I still think forcing a vote is the right thing to do, even if we lose badly. After these past few weeks, watching the extraordinary duplicity and blindness of several Security Council members, I’ve reluctantly come to the verge of hoping that this crisis helps destroy the United Nations as a credible international body. And I don’t think it would harm Bush badly on the home front.

I agree, except that I think France, et al., have already destroyed the U.N. as a credible international body, to the limited extent that it ever was one.

Read this post by Steven Den Beste, too.

FORGET RUGBY: I don’t think I’m tough enough for modern dance. Sheesh.

TRAFFIC: Just broke 135,000 pageviews. I’m not sure what the previous record was, but this beats it.

Does this make me a “war profiteer?” Only if pageviews count as “profits.” I think they did for a while, back in the nineties. . . .

JIM HENLEY OFFERS THE BEST ARGUMENT against torturing Khalid Shaikh Mohammed: “Because we’re the fucking United States of America!”

He also has some interesting observations about Saudi/Al Qaeda relations.

NOW I’M WATCHING GARY HART: He’s not doing any better than Bush. He seems tired, and confused, and sounds like he has a cold.

Biggest weak point: saying that Korea is a bigger threat than Iraq, but not saying what we should be doing about it, when it seems that his objections to moving against Iraq (retaliation, etc.) would apply there, too. (The “retaliation” point sounded distressingly like this antiwar graffiti — “Leave Terrorists Alone — They Might Strike Back!”).

I’ve seen Hart absolutely tear up hostile interviewers — his on-air Fisking of Ted Koppel on Nightline was a thing to behold. This was nothing like that.

UPDATE: Hart should read this post on Korea by Eugene Volokh. So should everyone else.

“WHEN IT COMES TO OUR SECURITY, we really don’t need anybody’s permission.” The most significant statement so far in Bush’s news conference.

UPDATE: Not much of a performance, razzle-dazzle-wise, even for Bush.

Downside: He looked tired, distracted, and not especially interested in being there, even for Bush.

Upside: He looked very sincere, deeply concerned (showing a very real desire to avoid war and a real sensitivity to civilian casualties), while the questioners, as always, looked smug and irritating and superficial, making Bush look better by contrast.

He made some very simple points: Saddam was supposed to disarm, and hasn’t. He’s a threat to the United States, and the risk of doing nothing is greater than the risk of doing something. And the United States will play out the UN game, and won’t let France, Russia, et al., off the hook, but will ultimately act in its own self-defense regardless.

I don’t think he changed any minds. People who saw him, though, will find it hard to see him as a thoughtless warmonger.

UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg thinks this was for foreign consumption.

ANOTHER UPDATE: David Hogberg comments. And Nelson Ascher emails from Zurich:

I’ve just seen Bush’s performance on TV. Whoever expected something in the Churchillian vein must have been disappointed. And I’d say that was quite intelligent. Why? Because the Churchillian style works well once you’re already in the midst of total war. Otherwise it may sound demagogic and, for those who disagree, as pure warmongering. What seemed to be Bush’s goal was not only to disarm his national and foreign critics but to show the non-bellicist face of a country that only goes into war reluctantly

The point is: day by day the so called pacifists look more agressive, more filled with hate. Indeed, it is as if they were those who were at war: against America. Bush has chosen exactly not to answer them in kind, stressing the protesters’ right to protest, the allies’ right to disagree and, of course, his own right to think differently. He didn’t threaten France, Germany, Russia and so on: and that is very good. Many questions were about those countries’ attitudes and he managed not to answer them without ever giving the impression he was running away from an argument: on the contrary, he spoke as a grown-up underlining that we shouldn’t be too tough on the kids because, well, they’re nothing but kids.

I don’t know if this will work in Europe, although it won’t be easy to use his performance to portray the president as a bloodthirsty imperialistic murderer. But I think that it reassures the domestic audience that the decision to go to war is being taken in a serious, sober, dispassionate way.

Well, that supports the “it’s aimed abroad” theory. Meanwhile Stephen Pollard writes in The Telegraph that the U.S. (and Britain?) may stage a U.N. walkout if the obstructionists carry the day at the Security Council:

Well-connected advisers tell me that if, as now seems likely, the UN refuses to back action against terror, Mr Bush will announce a “temporary” suspension of America’s membership, to be accompanied by an offer: if the UN gets its act together and carries out long-overdue reforms, America (and its money) will return. But if there is no reform, the temporary withdrawal will, de facto, become permanent.

Interesting. Here’s a transcript of the speech. And here’s a Chirac response. Heh.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Nathan Traxler emails:

You obviously watched it on TV, and drew much of President Bush’s comments based upon his appearance. I was running at 5pm today, and listened to it during Hugh Hewitt’s daily broadcast on the radio. Therefore, I couldn’t see him, only hear him. I had no clue where the following statement came from:

“He looked tired, distracted, and not especially interested in being there, even for Bush.” -instapundit.com

He did not come off tired or distracted on the radio. In fact, he came off pensive and genuine, in the face of some really tough questions. I feel that the real George Bush came through quite well through the radio, and felt that the contrast from his normal speeches was actually refreshing. He responded to every reporter consistantly, and stuck to his guns no matter how offensive the premise of the question. He sounded different than he usually does in the media, and to my ears, much better.

Interesting.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Zach Barbera wasn’t impressed. On the other hand, I got this email:

I am an American who has lived in Japan since 1984. I’ve been watching presidential speeches for a while (I saw JFK’s inaugural speech live as a 6th grader; we were off from school because it was a snow day).

I know that I do not see many speeches by American politicians lately. Perhaps your opinion is due to the frequency with which you see speeches from Bush and others. But–

I do not think I have seen a more direct, plain-spoken, and eloquent speech by a US president in my life. Richard Nixon used to say, “let me be perfectly clear…”. Well, George W. Bush actually _was_ perfectly clear, and seemed perfectly sincere. I was very impressed, and also very moved.

Bill Sakovich

Saga, Japan

And he wasn’t listening on the radio.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Porphyrogenitus explains Bush’s manner.

SGT. STRYKER:

Now I don’t know what the hell is up with the Europeans, but I can’t help but compare them to International Ice Skating Judges. They try to give the appearance of straight-laced professionals interested in fair play and sportsmanship, but you know they’re just a bunch of hucksters on the take. And why are European bureaucrats the worst liars? I don’t know if any Europeans read this thing, but do they sound as fake to you as they do to me? It’s like they’re not even trying and that’s the most insulting part of it.

Indeed.

UPDATE: Well, this sounds pretty honest:

“This is not about Saddam Hussein, and this is not even about regime change in Iraq or even the million people killed by Saddam Hussein or missiles or chemical weapons,” Pierre Lellouche, a legislator who is close to Chirac, said in an interview. . . .

“It’s about whether the United States is allowed to run world affairs and battle terrorism and weapons proliferation essentially with a small group of trusted allies,” or whether many nations should have a say, he said.

France is also described as “a middle-size power whose military has been allowed to atrophy for lack of funding in the past decade.” That’s true, too — but it’s not the French talking.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I wonder if Sgt. Stryker is really Pascal Bruckner:

I see today in France a kind of destructive other-worldliness. Certain Europeans imagine they can escape History’s difficulties by making a show of their finer feelings, as if they can create a progressive ideology out of demonizing the United States. They compare Bush with Hitler while accommodating the Islamists. There hasn’t been much [European] intellectual progress since the fall of communism. Rather, things have gotten worse.

You never see them photographed together. . . .

THE COMMENTS accompanying this now-famous Asparagirl post are quite amusing.

UPDATE: Simone Koo agrees.

ARTHUR SILBER is fact-checking Jim Henley — or, more accurately, an article about our allies that Henley relies on.

EVIDENCE THAT STANFORD CAN’T BE THAT HIGHLY SELECTIVE: Pictures from the Stanford “walkout,” including pro-Saddam graffiti. “At least Saddam was elected!” and so on.

UPDATE: Here’s a report of anti-war violence from U.C.L.A.

It’s “crushing of dissent,” if you ask me.

GERMAN WEAPONS INSPECTOR SAYS IRAQ NOT COOPERATING: Here’s a report from Tagesschau.de (Google translation here) saying that Iraq isn’t cooperating. He compares the inspection process to politely asking a criminal to turn himself in. (Tagesschau is a nightly news program in Germany; this is its website. It’s rather well-respected.)

THE VOLOKH EMPIRE has a report from a pro-war protester at Wisconsin-Madison. Excerpt:

The anti-anti-war protest wasn’t necessary, though, as the anti-war organizers whom we had here yesterday alienated a good portion of their listenership straightaway. Instead of focusing on what I believe are legitimate arguments against the war (I recognize that the proper arguments against the war can’t be made into good soundbites, but longer speeches, as we had here, can focus on legitimate foreign policy and morality concerns), speakers yesterday intimated firstly that the war against Iraq was a ploy by our president to rid the world of Arabs, as he cares only for Caucasians, and, further, that the war was an additional ploy by which to rid the nation of African-Americans, who presumably would be more likely per capita to die in a war (which the statistics no longer bear out), or at the very least to keep them out of higher education, inasmuch as, being statistically poorer than Caucasians, they must enlist in the army after high school.

The predominant chant was, “Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho! This racist war has got to go!”, after which probably one-third to one-half of the crowd was lost. Groups such as “Veterans against the War”, whom I’m sure proffer up legitimate arguments, were ostensibly turned off as well and left forthwith.

Indeed.

TRAFFIC: over 100,000 pageviews by 5:30? Jeez.

AMITAI ETZIONI, who has just started blogging, has a firsthand report on anti-Americanism at Davos.

UPDATE: E. Nough has an amusing post on anti-Americanism, too.

HERE’S A LIST OF PEACE RALLIES scheduled for next week.

RICHARD BUTLER SAYS the Security Council is irrelevant now.

HERE’S A REPORT that Iraq is already destroying its oil wells. I don’t know how reliable it is. But it fits with this report from Salam Pax.

HERE’S ANOTHER REPORT saying that Iraq is blowing up oil wells. For what it’s worth.

THUGS FOR PEACE: Pretty lame:

An anti-war march against the U.S. policy on Iraq by about 500 Canoga Park High School students turned ugly Wednesday when some in the crowd started looting a gas station convenience store and disrupting traffic. . . .

Store owner Masood Behroozi said his clerk saw several students knocking over racks, breaking glasses and swiping snack foods. The whole incident was recorded on a surveillance tape that was turned over to police, he said. “They were just joking and laughing and doing this for fun.”

Protesting for imaginary Arabs, while robbing real ones. Yep. (Later: Or maybe not — Behroozi appears to be an Iranian name.)

UPDATE: Arabs, Jews — these “peace” demonstrators will rough up anyone who gets in their way:

A protest at York University over a possible war in Iraq ended in violence yesterday when opposing groups crossed paths.

Miriam Levin, a Jewish student, said she was intimidated and roughed up by the protesters. And a group that had a U.S. flag at its booth said members were attacked by demonstrators who marched through the university. . . .

She said she could not understand why the man was shouting anti-Semitic remarks at her until her friend, Hannah Wortsman, observed she was wearing earrings with a Star of David design. . . .

Levin pulled out her camera to take photographs of the scene and the group tried to take it away from her, she said, adding a security guard did nothing when she and Wortsman called for help. “I asked why he didn’t do anything and he said, ‘Well you shouldn’t have been there,’ ” Levin said.

Antisemitic violence. Authorities who refuse to intervene. And in Canada! Sadly, this almost isn’t news anymore.

A MORAL DILEMMA FOR PRESIDENT BUSH: Jay Zilber wants your input.

THE FRENCH EMBASSY PROTEST, and Asparagirl’s views on the Lysistrata project, made Best of the Web today.

POLLS ARE ALWAYS SUSPECT, but this one reports a “huge shift” in British sentiment in favor of war.

If it’s true, then it’s terrible news for Saddam. And, I suspect, just as bad for Chirac.

UPDATE: Well, here’s the meat of it from the pollsters’ site:

Three quarters (75%) of people in Britain would now be prepared to support British troops joining any American-led military action against Iraq. However, this support is conditional both on UN inspectors finding proof that Iraq is trying to hide weapons of mass destruction, and on the UN Security Council voting in favour of military action.

In the absence of these two conditions, only a quarter (24%) would support British involvement, and opposition rises from 18% to 67%. But opposition falls to two in five (41%) if the inspectors do find evidence that Iraq is hiding weapons of mass destruction – even if the UN still does not vote in favour of action.

Not as dramatic as The Sun makes it sound (no!), but “there has been almost a 10% swing in his favour since mid-January.” So if delays in the war were designed to let Blair shore up his position, well, I guess they’ve worked.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I guess they have — Blair now says the UK will go ahead even in the face of a Security Council veto.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: I don’t know how I missed it, but here’s a piece by Iain Murray from NRO on the topic.