There’s a report that Iranian-made missiles are being found in Basra:

The Iraqi minister of defense pushed the debate with the Iranians over their provision of weapons to Shia militias one more step on Monday. Minister Abdul Qadir Obeidi indirectly confronted the Iranians, without naming them, with new findings that prove their involvement in the arming of Shia militias.

On Monday, state-owned al-Sabah published a statement by the minister in which he spoke of the capture of a certain type of rocket that was never found in militia-held caches until now:

Defense minister Abdul Qadir Mohammed Obeidi revealed that army troops found a 200-mm ground-to-ground rocket manufactured in 2007 during a search operation by the troops north of Basra. Obeidi told al-Sabah in an exclusive interview that, under international laws and norms, this kind of rocket can be traded only with the approval of parliaments and is used only at times of extreme necessity during wars … and wondered how this rocket entered the country. Obeidi added that this rocket can be launched only from a special platform and by specialized crews.

From what I read in Iraq’s two biggest newspapers, it seems that the government is trying to step up the rhetoric against Iranian interference in Iraq and to induce uproar among the Iraqi public. Azzaman had the following information about the found rocket, provided by “intelligence officials“:

The rocket was manufactured in 2007 in Iran and is called Falaq-1. Falaq-1 is a strategic missile of immense destruction power and was used by Hezbollah against Israel in the July 2006 war. … The sources mentioned that launching this type of rocket requires a crew of several people with advanced technological expertise. … The sources, who preferred to remain unnamed, said that if this rocket was launched at a target, it could obliterate an entire city and kill all of its inhabitants even if those numbered by the tens of thousands. … The same sources added that increasing the range of the rocket is not a complex process and can be done inside Iraq and clarified that the discovery of this strategic rocket in Basra poses a threat to security in Iraq and the Middle East. The sources expressed fear that large numbers of this rocket might have entered Iraq with crews to launch them. If that happens then we’d be on the brink of a domestic and regional security crisis.

If I’m not mistaken the missile being referred to is something very similar to the old Russian BM-24 “Katyusha” rockets, a tactical weapon rather than a strategic one, and both the sophistication of the weapon and its destructive capability are somewhat exaggerated in the translated quotes from al-Sabah, above. Still, these weapons are not the sort of thing that Iraqi militias are cooking up in their basements or making out of old cellphones, nails, and a little explosive. They’re good-sized manufactured weapons.

Here’s my question. Let’s assume that the reports are true. What’s the proper course of action? I’m sure that the usual suspects will immediately want to attack Iran and others of the usual suspects will think that the entire thing is being trumped up by the Bush Administration.

I’m on record as opposing the use of military force by the U. S. against Iran on the grounds that it would be both ineffective and counterproductive. Consistent with that I think the right course of action is for Iraq to take its evidence to the United Nations Security Council and ask for sanctions against Iran.

What do you think?

what do

That’s how former New York Mayor Ed Koch is being quoted as describing the Illinois senator in an interview at The Huffington Post. Frankly, I think that’s a bit strong. Nothing’s sure in politics other than, as the late Mayor Daley once put it, that however it looks somebody will be elected. But the description at THP fits my judgment pretty closely:

As Democrats coalesce around Sen. Barack Obama, one of Hillary Clinton’s must outspoken supporters is not mincing words: the party is walking needlessly and unaware into a general election buzzsaw.

I think that events are coming together that make a Democratic victory pretty likely: an unpopular Republican president at the end of his second term, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wearing on, gasoline prices rising, the economy in the doldrums (or, at least, sellable as in the doldrums), the Republican Party apparently in disarray. The Democrats are making the electoral hill much harder to climb than they might, displaying their penchant for seizing defeat from the jaws of victory.

As you may know the members of the Watcher’s Council each nominate one of his or her own posts and one non-Council post for consideration by the whole Council. The complete list of this week’s Council nominations is here.

Done With Mirrors, “Death and the Madam”

Callimachus reflects on the death of Deborah Palfrey, the “D. C. Madam”.

Wolf Howling, “Obama As Marley”

GW reviews how Barack Obama’s associations over the years will return to haunt his campaign for the presidency.

Soccer Dad, “I Have a Nightmare”

Soccer Dad comments on remarks of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s and, yes, it’s remarkable the lack of intellectual coherence in the African American civil rights movement over the years.

The Glittering Eye, “Whither?”

I think that anybody who thinks that Americans long for some glorious commander to take charge and lead them out of the wilderness is talking about some other America. Or maybe Singapore.

The Colossus of Rhodey, “Al Gore Won Florida in 2000”

Hube complains that the mythology of the 2000 election has overwhelmed the facts of the election.

Rhymes With Right, “It’s Too Late To Turn Back Now”

Greg notes that Sen. Obama would never turn his back on Rev. Wright until it was politically expedient to do so.

Bookworm Room, “Are You Ready To Be a Democrat?”

A few of the quips that Bookworm passes on about Democrats are funny, some are completely off the mark, I found most simply tedious.

Cheat Seeking Missiles, “Fatal Energy Policies”

I’d like to add one point to Laer’s commentary on a column of Thomas Friedman’s about the alternative energy industry. That you’ll need to accept a domestic partner in doing business overseas is merely a fact of life; it’s part of the cost of doing business. Remember that when you hear about American technology companies putting new plants in Germany, for example.

The Education Wonks, “Merit Pay Chronicles: A Teacher Speaks!”

EdWonk takes note of a teacher’s remarks on merit pay. The simple fact of life is that teachers are going to have to accept some kind of performance measurement. It would be nice if we could rely on the good will and conscientiousness of managers all the way up the line but the truth is that we haven’t been able to. I agree that merit pay is a flawed idea. What’s the alternative?

Hillbilly White Trash, “Random Thoughts”

Lemuel Calhoun’s submission this week is a collection of mini-posts. I think his observation about seating the Michigan and Florida delegates is a good one (although I’d've phrased it a little differently), I think he makes some very important points about the Tuskegee Experiment, I’ve said everything about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright that I care to, he questions the motives of the global warming cranks, I pretty much agree with his point about ethanol (although, again, I’d've phrased it differently), I think that John McCain will receive whatever support he receives from conservatives that he receives but that he’ll need moderates and independents to win the election, and I think we’ve reached the point in the development of our legal system at which judges and lawyers need different training and being required to pass through a metal detector before going into a courthouse is sad but it doesn’t particularly bother me.

Joshuapundit, “Who Cares About Israel, Anyway?”

Freedom Fighter takes Israel’s 60th anniversary as an opportunity to comment on Israel’s value to us as an ally. I agree with that as far as it goes. However, I think that we need to recognize that U. S. interests and Israeli interests are not synonymous and that Arabs are not necessarily our enemies.

Right Wing Nut House, “Party Like It’s 1980 All Over Again”

Well, I agree with my blog-friend Rick Moran that Democrats need to convince Americans that a major change in order to sell their way into the White House. I think it’s really remarkable how much mileage they’re getting out of running against George Bush and his policies without promising to do much different (except possibly by moving in the wrong direction).

Well, I’ve decided which posts I’ll vote for this week. Which posts would get your votes?

Here’s an interesting bit of information. Toyota’s profits have dropped sharply:

HONG KONG -

Toyota Motor stunned markets on Thursday by posting an unexpected 28% drop in fourth-quarter profit and forecasting a decline of similar magnitude in annual net profit in the current fiscal year.

Toyota, the world’s second-largest automaker by production volume after General Motors (nyse: GM - news - people ), reported Thursday that its net profit fell 28%, to 316.8 billion yen ($3.0 billion), for the three months ended in March, down from 440.1 billion yen ($4.2 billion) in the comparable period the previous year. The January-March quarterly net profit figure fell below an average estimate of 342.3 billion yen ($3.3 billion) from 20 brokerages surveyed by Reuters Estimates, thanks to a stronger yen and weaker sales in the key North American market.

The carmaker’s operating profit, excluding the results of its Chinese joint ventures, slid 30.5%, to 396.7 billion yen ($3.8 billion), while revenues rose 3.8%, to 6.6 trillion yen ($63.2 billion)

Note that Toyota is the world’s leading manufacturer of hybrids, more of its Priuses having been sold than all other hybrids combined. Despite sharp increases in hybrid sales of the last several years they still consitute a miniscule portion of total vehicle sales. When the price of oil increases its easier and more economical to drive less than to go out and buy a hybrid, I guess.

Toyota attributes much of the drop to the slowing U. S. economy but rising commodity prices have increased their costs, too. If Toyota’’s profits are falling, I can only guess at what’s happening at the embattled GM and Ford. IIRC GM has been posting losses and Ford a very small profit. Expect conditions to look even worse in the auto industry, especially as Chinese and Indian-made vehicles start coming into developing markets.

There seems to be a new conventional wisdom about the state of the Democratic Party emerging, expressed here by Marc Ambinder:

Forget the horse race numbers for a moment: if the surveys are accurate, the polarization within the Democratic Party has reached critical levels. Nearly six in ten Obama supporters in Indiana say they would be dissatisfied if Clinton were the nominee — that’s (I believe) the high percentage of Obama supporters who have ever said that.

In both IN and NC, two thirds of Clinton supporters say they’d be dissatisfied if Obama were the nominee — I believe that’s the highest number recorded for that question, too.

The percentage of Clinton voters who say they’d choose McCain over Obama in a general election is approaching 40% in Indiana. Put it another way: in North Carolina, less than HALF of folks who voted today for Hillary Clinton are ready to say today that they’d definitely vote for Obama in a general election.

James Carville, writing in the Financial Times, sees the fault lines a little differently, distinguishing between what he calls “Party A”

There are two main parts of the Democratic party. The first and fastest growing is what I refer to (somewhat uncreatively) as “Party A” Democrats. Party A Democrats tend to be urban or suburban. They are traditionally better educated, white, more affluent, heavily female, socially liberal and reform-oriented. Examples are candidates such as Adlai Stevenson, Eugene McCarthy, Gary Hart, Mike Dukakis, Paul Tsongas, Bill Bradley and Howard Dean.

and I’d call “technocrats” and “Party B”

The other side of the party is a more broad coalition of working class people who are generally less affluent, less educated and look to the federal government to soften the harsher edges of capitalism. They tend to be either urban or rural. I refer to them as “Party B” Democrats. They favour increased funding for federal programmes from Medicare to unemployment compensation to subsidised student loans. This wing of the party has included labour unions, older voters, African-Americans and non-college- educated young voters. Party B Democrats have been much more responsive to classic “I’m on your side” Democratic rhetoric. Candidates from this faction include Harry Truman, Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, Bill Clinton and (uncomfortable as he seemed in this ideological space) Al Gore.

or populists. The Louisianan, Carville, is an interesting standard-bearer for that particular set of distinctions. Huey Long, the Kingfish, was a populist technocrat.

I’d also point out that Carville’s two sub-parties are different groups of rent-seekers, the former group seeking consultancies, the second hand-outs.

Although Mr. Carville notes the implications of our winner-take-all system, namely, that our two main political parties include elements whose goals are actually in conflict each other, he doesn’t seem to appreciate the corollary, that somehow the Democrats and Republicans each manage to come together and elect candidates and I have no doubt that will be the case in this election. In my view the lengthy primary season hasn’t fomented new faultlines, it’s only exposed the ones that have been there all along.

One of the hottest topics in the news these days is the price of oil, whether the story is in the form of the new high futures contract reached today:

NEW YORK (AFP) — Oil prices spiked to new highs Tuesday in the latest frenzied trade driven by concerns over violence in key producer Nigeria and the weak US currency.

New York’s main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for June delivery, leapt as high as 122.73 dollars per barrel, an all-time intraday high, before settling to a closing record high of 121.84 dollars, up 1.87 dollars.

London’s Brent North Sea crude for June also reached an all-time high at 120.99 dollars a barrel, before slipping back to settle at a new high of 120.31 dollars for a gain of 2.32 dollars.

Runaway oil prices have almost doubled in the past year and have surged by more than 20 dollars since the start of 2008.

“Market headlines are dominated by the impact of currency fluctuations, geopolitics in the form of actual and potential threats to supply in Nigeria, Iraq and Iran, plus better-than-expected recent US economic data,” said Barclays Capital analyst Kevin Norrish.

“Of these three drivers, we think it is supply losses that are the key driver at present.”

or diseconomic campaign promises being made and fought over:

Hillary Clinton’s proposed gas tax holiday is not, in my view, a good idea. But the furor over what is, when all is said and done, a small and temporary policy proposal is entirely disproportionate. What’s going on?

Part of it, clearly, is the fact that many people in the media really, really want Obama to win and Clinton to lose — read Kurt Andersen — and have seized on the gas tax as their latest proof that she is ee-ee-vil.

But there’s also something going on with economists, a phenomenon I recognize wearing my other hat: the tendency to place excessive weight on issues where professional judgment differs from lay opinion.

There are other people who are much better qualified and more knowledgeable than I to comment on this and I’ll see if I can’t rattle some of their cages but my understanding is that the world oil market is quite responsive to changes in supply and demand. It responds very quickly to changes both up and down.

There seems to be a theory about the market for oil around that I’d characterize as the “Big Pool of Oil Theory” i.e. somewhere there’s a big pool of oil sitting around and all that’s necessary to lower oil prices is to pry it loose from the fingers of those who are keeping it from coming to market. Here’s an example of that theory from the comments section of a prominent blog this morning:

We have more crude stockpiled now than at any time in the last 15 years, even absent the national reserve. We also ahve more distilates… such as gasoline and Diesel/Jet fuel on hand than we have had at any point in the last 15 years. The fundimentals are not there for $70/bbl, much less $120/bbl. When this thing breaks, it’s going to break bigtime.

in response to this question:

What are the odds that crude prices are a bubble? You know, that traders keep increasing prices because prices keep increasing instead of for any logical reason. I’ve seen thinking get out of phase with reality in the past, and I’m beginning to suspect that might be the case now.

In answer I’d like to direct your attention to a lengthy, highly technical article at The Oil Drum. The gist of the post, as you might expect from TOD, is that Saudi oil has probably peaked. Here’s a graph from the post of annual Saudi oil production that illustrates the point pretty well:

Click on the image for a larger version.

Does that look like prices have spiked over the last year or so because supply is being held back? Me neither.

I’ve already given my opinion about the gas tax holiday that’s supported by both Hillary Clinton and John McCain—I think it’s perverse. Posting at length on the subject would be a bit redundant but this:

STEPHANOPOULOS: But can you name an economist who thinks this makes sense?

CLINTON: Well, I’ll tell you what, I’m not going to put my lot in with economists, because I know if we get it right, if we actually did it right, if we had a president who used all the tools of the presidency, we would design it in such a way that it would be implemented effectively.

caught my eye because it illustrates the problem that I have with technocrats so perfectly.

Both Hillary Clinton (see here, here, and here) and Barack Obama (see here, here, and here) are frequently referred to as “technocrats”. Technocracy is government by experts and it’s not a new idea.

The clearest example of technocracy I can think of was in traditional Hawaii. The craft kahuna did not only have monopolies on their individual crafts, they were thought to have divine patents on them. In Medieval Europe the guilds controlled not only how things were done in their area of expertise but who could do it, limiting their own membership. We have our own craft guilds, the most notable being the practice of medicine whose members have substantial control over what practices are allowed and who’s allowed to do it.

It’s a superficially appealing notion but there are several problems with it. First, there’s an intrinsic conflict of interest with members of the guild controlling their membership and having a monopoly on the field. The natural inclination is to limit membership to keep wages high and all guilds succumb to the temptation. The second problem is that it’s inherently conservative, clinging to established practices even when newer methods are demonstrably better. Look at the problems that the chemist Louis Pasteur had with the physicians of his time.

And finally, at least our modern crop of technocrats aren’t really technocrats had all. They’re leveraging their expertise in a particular field into control of everything. Technocracy is merely another name for oligarchy. IMO Hillary Clinton isn’t a technocrat. If she were, she’d bow to the opinions of the experts. What she is is an autocrat.

Here’s another of my dad’s editorials.

John Whitaker reported in The Daily News the other day that Nazi newspapermen in Geneva were busy urging upon neutrals that the war in the west be called off, so that Germany, Britain and France could turn upon Russia. Such talk is highly significant. Nazi newspapermen are government agents. They speak and write as they are told. They would not dare do otherwise. And it is safe to assume that what they want is what Hitler wants.

We have never doubted that Hitler’s main ambition is now what it has always been-expansion to the east, at Russia’s expense. The fact that he has a pact with Russia proves nothing. Before he reoccupied the Rhineland, he made deals with Italy and Austria. Before he took Austria, he made deals with Italy and Czechoslovakia. Before he took Czechoslovakia, he reaffirmed his deal with Poland. And it was before he took Poland that he made his deal with Russia. By this logic, it seems clear that he had intended Russia to be his next victim.

Hitler never wanted to fight France and Britain. He was advised that they would not really declare war for Poland, or that, if they did, they would quickly call off the war. That they have twice refused his peace offers must anger him mightily. Can they not see that his real object, in destroying Poland and making a deal with Stalin, was to open the way for an attack on Russia?

Hitler was never really afraid of Russia. His anti-Communist outcries were mere propaganda to cloak his aims of conquest. German officers for years trained the Red Army, or tried to, in the days of the RussoGerman alliance. These same officers must have known well, what Finland has now revealed to all the world, that this famous Red Army could not compare for a moment with any well-trained, well-disciplined and well-equipped European troops. Hitler, informed of this, felt sure, no doubt, that he could do about as he liked, when he liked, with the Russians. Indeed, it seems entirely possible that his main purpose, in giving Stalin a free hand, and allowing the Russians’ to advance on the Baltic and in the Balkans, was to frighten the timid capitalists of Paris and London, so that they would make peace with him from fear of Russia. He could then keep all his present conquests, and add to them, eventually; part of what is now Russia.

But the French and British are not much afraid of Russia, either-not since Finland has so courageously pricked the Russian bubble. They, too, are quite satisfied to see Russia expand a little westward, confident that this expansion, sooner or later, will bring Hitler and Stalin into direct conflict. What the French and British fear is note Russia, but Germany. And unless there, is some major change in the general military situation, they will continue to insist, we assume, on the restoration of Austria, Bohemia and Poland as a necessary prerequisite to peace negotiations.

Meanwhile, the broad hints from the Nazis in Geneva that what his friend Hitler desires is peace in the west, in order to attack in the east, must make interesting reading for the tyrant in the Kremlin.

What kind of country will we become? Richer? Poorer? Happier? Sadder? More spiritual? More materialistic? More aggressive? Reclusive? Opened? Closed? More stratified? More egalitarian? More pious? More profane?

I honestly have no idea. I have a pretty good idea of the sort of country I’d like us to become. I’d like us to be even more open-hearted than we already are. I’d like us to be more empathetic and discerning. I’d like us to be freer in body, mind, and spirit. More honest. More self-reliant. Less martial. Less interventionist. More frugal. I honestly don’t care if we’re richer or poorer. That doesn’t mean much to me.

But I’m pretty certain that the decision won’t be up to me and it won’t be up to any one person or even some influential group of people. We won’t be lead there. There won’t be any glorious vision pulling us along in the van of some heroic leader.

I believe our future will be an emergent phenomenon, made up of the millions of little decisions made by normal everyday ordinary people, each striving for his or her own view of the future, rarely choosing the best, always choosing the better as clearly as it can be seen through the fog of uncertainty. Magnificent or banal? I can only hope it will be the former but I wouldn’t be surprised if those who’ve always thought it was the latter continue to think so however magnificent it might be.

I think that’s why I disagree with Tom Friedman’s rather lugubrious
column, something between a lament for vanished greatness and a plaintive longing for a glorious leader:

We need a president who is tough enough to tell the truth to the American people. Any one of the candidates can answer the Red Phone at 3 a.m. in the White House bedroom. I’m voting for the one who can talk straight to the American people on national TV — at 8 p.m. — from the White House East Room.

Who will tell the people? We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes. We still have all the potential for greatness, but only if we get back to work on our country.

I don’t know if Barack Obama can lead that, but the notion that the idealism he has inspired in so many young people doesn’t matter is dead wrong. “Of course, hope alone is not enough,” says Tim Shriver, chairman of Special Olympics, “but it’s not trivial. It’s not trivial to inspire people to want to get up and do something with someone else.”

It is especially not trivial now, because millions of Americans are dying to be enlisted — enlisted to fix education, enlisted to research renewable energy, enlisted to repair our infrastructure, enlisted to help others. Look at the kids lining up to join Teach for America. They want our country to matter again. They want it to be about building wealth and dignity — big profits and big purposes. When we just do one, we are less than the sum of our parts. When we do both, said Shriver, “no one can touch us.”

That’s an America I don’t think I recognize in my friends and neighbors. Not that they won’t participate eagerly in giving others a helping hand. More that I don’t see any great national longing for some single person whose vision will guide us into the future, be he or she newspaper columnist or president.

I won’t bother going into detail critiquing Mr. Friedman’s column, in which he compares Kennedy Airport unfavorably with Singapore’s and, implicitly, the entire country. There are a host of reasons that Kennedy is more run-down than Singapore’s airport. It’s older; it’s used a heckuva lot more; it’s used by a broader swathe of the American people than Singapore’s is of the Singaporan; and, importantly, Singapore is significantly less egalitarian (U. S. Gini index—45; Singapore Gini index—52) and much more authoritarian than we are. Children are beaten there for defacing the pristine beauty of their buildings.

So, come what may, here’s to the hope that we’ll continue to be guided by the errant preferences of the American people, muddling through into a future that none of us can imagine. I don’t need the sort of national greatness Mr. Friedman finds so appealing.

The Watcher’s Council has announced its picks for the most outstanding posts of the preceding week. The winner in the Council post category was Right Wing Nut House’s post, “The Total Witlessness of Obama Apologists”. In this post Rick Moran examines the zeal with which Obama supporters have been defending their candidate, in all likelihood doing neither him nor themselves any good in the process. Second place honors went to Wolf Howling for “Outfoxed By Obama & The Twelve Unasked Questions”. In this post GW takes a look at Sen. Obama’s Fox interview and is disappointed with the quality of the questions that were asked of him. He then proceeds to ask twelve excellent questions of his own. I’d like answers to those myself.

The winning non-Council post was City Journal’s “An Anatomy of Surrender”, an article about the battle between what we consider fundamental rights and the preferences of newcomers to our shores, abetted by political correctness. Second place honors went to Small Wars Journal Blog’s “Political Maneuver in Counterinsurgency”. This is a sharp piece of analysis by David Kilcullen on how roads may be a good weapon in the war against Islamist radicals. I nominated it.

The complete results are here.