Jay Reding.com

One of the rationales for the war in Iraq was that Saddam Hussein was someone with a history of major strategic miscalculation. He failed to assess what Iran would do after his attacks on Iran, sparking the Iran/Iraq War. He miscalculated the international response to his invasion of Kuwait. Now the world is learning of Saddam’s final miscalculation. After the capture of Saddam Hussein, FBI Agent George Piro was assigned to the interrogation of the former dictator. What he learned is now being shared with the public, and it demonstrates exactly where the deception was on the presence of WMDs in Iraq:

“And what did he tell you about how his weapons of mass destruction had been destroyed?” Pelley asks.

“He told me that most of the WMD had been destroyed by the U.N. inspectors in the ’90s. And those that hadn’t been destroyed by the inspectors were unilaterally destroyed by Iraq,” Piro says.

“So why keep the secret? Why put your nation at risk, why put your own life at risk to maintain this charade?” Pelley asks.

“It was very important for him to project that because that was what kept him, in his mind, in power. That capability kept the Iranians away. It kept them from reinvading Iraq,” Piro says.

Before his wars with America, Saddam had fought a ruinous eight year war with Iran and it was Iran he still feared the most.

“He believed that he couldn’t survive without the perception that he had weapons of mass destruction?” Pelley asks.

“Absolutely,” Piro says.

This has always been the most consistent and logical explanation—far more so than the conspiracy stories about the White House inventing the existence of Iraqi WMDs. Saddam Hussein lied to the world, his own people were probably lying to him and the West had no way of piercing Saddam’s inner circle in order to learn the truth. Saddam, despite having had the ability to prevent the war, chose to retain his strategic position with Iran. This miscalculation of American intent was fatal. The CIA, having plenty of evidence (however tenuous) that Iraq had WMDs believed that they had, in the words of Director George Tenet, a “slam dunk” case for the presence of Iraqi arms.

Saddam Hussein wanted the world to believe that he had weapons of mass destruction and was just crazy enough to potentially use them. He deliberately flooded intelligence channels with misinformation to keep up that ruse. It’s also quite likely that Saddam’s regime was lying to its own commanders, several of whom believed that WMDs were to be used in the fight against the US and the other coalition members. Iraqi troops were even given antidotes to chemical weapons agents which may never have existed. The web of deception was all designed to intimidate foreign powers from attacking Iraq. However, Saddam believed that the US would launch token air strikes, not take down his regime.

The real story of the war in Iraq isn’t one in which the US fabricated a causus belli but one in which Saddam Hussein was called on his own bluff. He managed to fool the Americans, the Germans, the British, the Egyptians, the French, the Iranians, the Russians and the United Nations into believing that he had an arsenal of deadly chemical and biological agents.

We may never know the full story of what really went on in the minds of Saddam Hussein and his inner circle, but these new revelations suggest that the common narrative of this war is wrong. There was a leader who lied himself into war—but that leader was Saddam Hussein.

Barack Obama trounced Hillary Clinton last night by a massive margin. However, Dick Morris, a man who worked with the Clintons for years, has an interesting contrarian view of the Clinton’s strategy:

Ultimately, the Clintons are playing a game of jujitsu with Obama, using his own strength against him.

By challenging Obama for the black vote - by promising to go door to door in South Carolina in minority neighborhoods, for example - Bill is highlighting the question: Will Obama carry the black vote? Of course, he will. He leads, 4 to 1, among African-Americans now.

But by making that the central question, Obama’s South Carolina victory will be hailed as proof that he won the African-American vote. Such block voting will trigger the white backlash Sen. Clinton needs to win.

Once whites see blacks voting en masse for a black man, they will figure that it is a racial game and line up for Hillary. Already, she carries white voters by 2 to 1.

The Clintons can well afford to lose South Carolina as long as the election is not seen as a bellwether of how the South will vote but as an indication of how African-Americans will go. It’s a small price to pay for the racial polarization they need to win.

Sure enough, the story is how Obama carried the black vote.

As often as Dick Morris gets it wrong, he seems to be on to the Clinton strategy. Right now Barack Obama has two constituencies: well-off whites and blacks. Hillary Clinton is peeling away women, low-income voters, union members and other traditional Democratic groups. It’s a simple matter of numbers: Clinton can win with the groups on her side, and Obama can’t.

This loss certainly doesn’t look good for Hillary Clinton—she got creamed by Obama—but ultimately time (and the byzantine Democratic primary process) is on her side. The Clintons are masters of political hardball, as well as divide-and-conquer politics. They know full well that all they need to do is split the vote along racial lines and they can win—and it’s not like black voters will cross over and vote Republican in the general election.

Obama won a major victory tonight—but it could end up being a Pyrrhic one. Obama must broaden his appeal beyond racial and class lines, and so far he’s been unable to do it. The demographic tide going into Super Tuesday doesn’t favor him, and while he’s dinged Clinton’s armor twice now, he’s yet to slay the beast.

Dave Kopel blasts into the Bush-Pelosi “stimulus package” at The Volokh Conspiracy:

Here’s how to deal with a recession: A federal government which is already spending more than its income should borrow even more money, so as to give lots of people a tax rebate. This is the bipartisan plan of President Bush and Congress. They are taking a leaf from the presidency of Jimmy Carter.

Even accounting for inflation, the Bush-Reid-Pelosi rebate is far more profligate than the proposed Carter rebate of 1977. But the two rebates appear to be based on the same demand-side principles.

He’s right on that. The “stimulus package” is great politics, but absolutely horrendous policy. When we’re already running the budget into the ground, the last thing this country should be doing is trying to jump-start the economy by giving everyone a check. It’s a bit of “bread and circuses” politics that demonstrates just how economically illiterate the government is.

Middle class voters are feeling a squeeze, but that’s a symptom of a larger problem. The reason why the dollar is falling and the markets are volitile is because the US is on an economically unsustainable course: we’re spending too much, regulating too much and we have a massive entitlement crisis looming and no one has the political will to touch it. When even the French are being more fiscally responsible than we are there is a serious problem.

A realistic stimulus plan would involve significant cuts in spending, making the current tax rates permanent, and structural economic reforms like ensuring that depreciation tables don’t artificially increase the taxable assets of a business. However, none of those things are particularly “sexy” and don’t have much impact to the average voter. So instead, President Bush and Congress are planning to bribe the American people.

In the end, this plan is ultimately self-defeating. We can’t get out a problem created by fiscal profligacy by being even more profligate—and while a tax rebate check is a nice thing to have, it’s not going to have the long-term effect necessary to lift the economy. Even if we do get some economic stability in the next few months, that’s more likely due to the sub-prime crisis easing rather than some government check.

This isn’t a stimulus package, it’s a bribe, and while it may be politically popular, it’s not going to fix our underlying economic problems.

Stephen Green suffered through tonight’s GOP debate, drinks in hand. I caught the first half hour of it, but decided that was enough. This part made my evening:

7:14pm To Romney: “Are these other jokers really tax cutters?” Again, Paul got stiffed. Again, Romney appears stiff. You know what bugs me about Romney? If his hair were even only slightly curly, you’d swear he was a Viagra-laced penis. The man is erect.

7:14.5pm Mormon Erectus. . . .

7:27pm Once you start to think of Romney as a six-foot-tall erect penis, you just can’t see him any other way. I mean, watch the guy with that in mind and tell me I’m wrong. “We’re the party of fiscal responsibility. Bulging, thrusting fiscal responsibility.”

Nobody else can turn such a deadly boring event into the perfect forum for some inspired dick jokes…

I did catch the first part of the debate, and as much as it sometimes pains me to say it, I’m starting to warm to McCain. I’m a currently uncommitted voter—I want some reason why I can support one of the candidates. John McCain, for all his faults (and they are legion!), gets it on the war. He gets it on spending. He’s reliably pro-life. I’m not convinced yet, but he’s the only candidate that gave me a reason to support him.

Romney (AKA Mormon Erectus) is more strongly conservative. What I like about Romney so far is that he’s a competent technocrat. He probably could do much to turn the government around. What I dislike him is that he’s a competent technocrat—and technocrats don’t tend to get elected in this country. He’s got some good ideas, but I honestly have trouble seeing him compete against Hillary and a lot of trouble seeing him against Obama. At the end of the day, do I want someone who’s closer to my beliefs but is less likely to win or someone with whom I have major disagreements but is right on some big issues?

What keeps me out of the McCain camp is that I don’t trust him on judges yet. And as a larval lawyer, judges are a top issue for me. McCain-Feingold was an unconstitutional piece of legislation that directly conflict with the most important form of speech in this country: political speech. A judge likely to see McCain-Feingold as constitutional is not a judge I want to see on the Supreme Court.

As for Rudy, I’d like to support him, but he’s toast. I’ve seen Rudy Giuliani speak more than once, and he’s damned good when he’s on. The problem is that he’s just not on right now. He’s dry and even when he’s got solid positions on the issues he just doesn’t inspire.

When Rudy tells the story about the burly construction worker giving President Bush a bear hug at Ground Zero, he brings the house down. Rudy Giuliani can communicate. What’s frustrating is that we’re not seeing it in these debates. Florida is Rudy’s firewall state, and I just don’t see him winning it. It’s too bad in way—I supported Rudy early on, and I still think he’s a smart and effective leader. He just hasn’t performed in this campaign. In some ways, he’s a lot like Fred. By ceding the early states he ceded the momentum needed to stay viable later on. His strategy had some potential, but now it appears to have not panned out for him.

Mike Huckabee: what more can I say? The guy is not prepared and not conservative. Did he really say that we need to add more lanes to I-95 to stimulate the economy? That fixing Florida gridlock is a key federal problem? That Saddam shipped his WMDs to Jordan?! What were they smoking in Iowa?

I will say this: Huckabee is on to something. There’s a lot of middle-class angst out there, some of it justified, some of it not. Whether or not it’s rational, the Republicans have to address it. Huckabee is doing that in a way that the other candidates are not. The other candidates needn’t follow his brand of silly populism, but it would behoove them to follow his lead in at least showing some simpatico with the middle class.

As much as I criticize Huckabee, I’d take him as the spokesperson for evangelicals above a Jerry Fallwell or a Pat Robertson. Even though he isn’t cut out for the Oval Office doesn’t mean that he’s politically irrelevant. The rest of the field shouldn’t be following his lead on policy, but they’d do well to pay attention to his rhetoric.

And then there’s Ron Paul. 80% right, 20% completely flippin’ bugnuts. What we need to do is scientifically figure out how we can remove the crazy anti-war conspiratorial Ron Paul from the libertarian Ron Paul and then you’d have something. Sadly, that isn’t possible. Instead we get a screeching paranoid who probably does more harm to the libertarian cause than good—and a cult-like peanut gallery that follows him around. I’m not sure who’s cynically using who, whether Paul is cynically exploiting the radical anti-war left or they’re using him to give themselves a forum. Either way, he’s ended up as a political bedfellow with 9/11 “Truthers”, John Birchers and isolationist paleocons. I’ll be greatly relieved when his irritating nasal whine and paranoid rhetoric goes away.

NBC had to try to make every question some silly “gotcha.” Moderate the debate, don’t try to push it. Charlie Gibson so far has done the best job, and no one else has come close. This wasn’t quite as bad as the Iowa debate, but it was close.

This uncommitted voter remains uncommitted, although McCain did move me a bit in the part that I saw. I doubt anything changed as a result of this debate, and the race seems to be a match between Romney and McCain with Rudy hoping to keep up.

The winner? Stephen Green for comparing Mitt Romney to a six-foot phallus. The loser? Anyone else who suffered through the whole insufferable debate.

Dennis Kucinich (D-Alpha Centauri) is leaving the Presidential race. Not only did he offer some much-needed humor to the race, but he proved no matter how dopey-looking and crazy you are, there’s always a chance that some drop-dead gorgeous redhead will marry you.*

* Provided you make a fool of yourself running for President first.

The Washington Times has a blistering piece about Mike Huckabee’s record in Arkansas and the way in which he left the Arkansas GOP divided and bruised:

Jake Files was a newly elected representative when all two dozen Arkansas House Republicans met for their first caucus in 1999. They had doubled their numbers in elections two months earlier, and were ready to join Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee in pushing for conservative government.

That was when Brenda Turner, the governor’s chief of staff, entered.

“Just walked in, shut the door and said, ‘There’s two kinds of people in the world: those who are for Mike Huckabee and those who are against Mike Huckabee. I’ll do everything I can to help the first group. I’ll do everything I can to hurt the second,’ ” said Mr. Files, who left the legislature after two terms.

And that’s the way it was.

There have been plenty of rumors along the campaign trial from former Arkansas figures about a Mike Huckabee that was very different from his public persona. In public, Mike Huckabee is laid-back, affable and solidly conservative. In private, there have been tales of a Huckabee’s who is petty, vindictive and anything but conservative. While these are merely rumors, their sheer number is hard to ignore.

Thankfully, Huckabee’s campaign is sagging after its win Iowa. If Huckabee’s running well behind the other candidates in Florida, and hasn’t gotten much traction in other states. His appeal is in his particular brand of evangelical identity politics—but that’s only working with a plurality of evangelicals. It isn’t enough to merely play identity politics and use the right language: many evangelical voters are looking at Huckabee’s substance and finding it lacking. It seems highly unlikely that Huckabee would be able to defeat Romney then surge ahead to take down McCain. His appeal is skin deep, and that isn’t enough.

Huckabee’s legacy in Arkansas is one of a party that had been left divided and weakened—which should give Republicans good reason to avoid his candidacy as the leader of the national party.

From this FARK thread comes the ultimate idea for what to do with that upcoming “economic stimulus” check:

I’m going to go stimulate the economy. For $300, I’m going to give the economy such a stimulating that I leave it quivering and panting for breath, drops of sweat running down its spine, flush with endorphins and ready for a nice long cuddle. But because it’s only $300, the economy isn’t going to get its cuddle. Instead, I’m going to check my watch, touch the economy gently on the cheek and say that I had a wonderful time, but that it’s time for me to go. I will walk out, leaving the economy lying there feeling ultimately unfulfilled and a little bit ashamed of itself.