This is one of the simplest dishes I know. It’s absolutely delicious and incredibly easy: twenty minutes or less from stem to stern. This recipe is derived from Deborah Madison’s book The Savory Way. If you’re not familiar with Deborah Madison’s work, you’ve got a treat in store for you.

Pasta with Gorgonzola

Serves 2-4

½ lb. dried pasta
1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
6 oz. Gorgonzola cheese, broken into pieces
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
salt
freshly ground pepper

1. Bring a large pot of water to the boil.
2. Set a bowl large enough to hold the pasta over the pot and add the sliced garlic, the cheese, and the butter.
3. When the water comes to a boil, remove the bowl and add salt to taste.
4. Add the pasta to the boiling water. Cook as per the directions 10-12 minutes.
5. Scoop the pasta out of the water and add it directly to the bowl with the melted cheese.
6. Toss everything together, season with pepper to taste, and serve.

James Joyner of Outside the Beltway has a post this morning on Thomas Friedman’s column today that I wanted to make a longer comment on than I typically do in my Catching my eye morning run-down. Dr. Joyner writes:

Having read The Lexus and The Olive Tree and dozens of his columns over the years, I have one small suggestion for Thomas L. Friedman. I suggest that he come up with some new material every once in a while. Instead of constantly complaining that President Bush isn’t working hard enough to win European support, he might ask why it is that the Europeans have done to shoulder their fair share of the burden for defending themselves during the past six decades, first against Communism and now against Jihadist terrorists.

Let me put this is bluntly as I can: George W. Bush was just re-elected by a majority of the American electorate, which is a much more important referendum on U.S. foreign policy than a handful of people a columnist meets on a ten day tour in Europe. Sure, some people may think Mr. Friedman more qualified to advise the president than Condoleeza Rice, but I haven’t met them yet.

Since its beginnings as a country the United States’s foreign policy has been Eurocentric. While the U. S. military presence in Iraq may be getting the most press right now, probably the most significant change in American foreign policy during the Bush Administration is that it’s not Eurocentric anymore. We’re actually paying some attention to other parts of the world and I suspect that as our policy evolves we’ll be devoting more time and attention to the various regions of the world in proportion to their actual significance in world affairs and that means that Europe will receive less attention as their relatively dwindling role and significance warrants.

Said another way, the good old days aren’t coming back anymore.

And, as I wrote in my recent post, Plan B, if Bush’s grand Wilsonian plan to democratize the Middle East fails, the foreign policy that emerges from the wreckage won’t be a return to the Hamiltonian Realpolitik that Henry Kissinger and George Shultz recently urged on us nor will we cleave unto our old buddies in the EU again. No, we’ll either return to another grand old American tradition—Jeffersonian isolationism—or a full Jacksonian response. And the EU won’t have much role in either one of them.

UPDATE: Porphyrogenitus has posted something that’s quite relevant to my central point: the coalition that the U. S. assembled for tsunami relief consisted of Australia, India, and Japan, the other big Pacific democracies. Will this be the direction of future U. S. policy? Stay tuned.

Here’s what’s caught my eye so far this morning:

• When the Geneva Food Crimes Tribunal meets, Beautiful Atrocities’s
  No-Bake Meatloaf is certain to be indicted.
• A dialogue with Socrates (although not precisely a Socratic dialogue) about Bush’s inauguration
  speech with guest appearances by William F. Buckley and John F. Kennedy from Glen Wishard of
  Canis Iratus.
• Crooked Timbers comments on self-esteem.
• The unpronounceable xrlq of Damnum Absque Injuria
  has a fine rant on male privilege.
• Patterico has uncovered another example of bias from the LA Times. One wonders how often these examples of grooming the results occur.
• South Knox Bubba has an excellent post on Phil Bredesen.

That’s the lot.

Here’s what’s caught my eye this morning:

• Ann Althouse simulblogged American Idol last night. Well, I’d rather read
  her simulblog than actually watch it.
• The Commons points to a Spectator article (registration required) on the ecological dangers of goats. Really.
• Davids Medienkritik
  catches the German media perpetuating an urban myth. Again.
• Dean has another installment in his controversial HIV/AIDS series.
• Arnold Kling of EconoLog wonders
  if you think you are rich.
• Gene Expression discusses a recent paper
  that questions the likelihood of a flood of Turkish immigrants into the EU.
• A sneak peek at California Senator Barbara Boxer’s upcoming romance novel from the mind of Bill
  at INDC Journal.
• Mover Mike has an interesting
  post on the Law of the Sea Treaty (which apparently has had some new life breathed into it). He focuses
  on the con side of the argument. Pros anyone?
• Michael J. Totten is editing the
  Iraqi election news blog, Friends of Democracy through the elections.

That’s the lot.

The ubiquitous praktike has alerted me to this fascinating group of articles on al Qaeda, its evolution, and the new challenges it presents here, in Europe, and in the Middle East all derived from a PBS Frontline program. The entire program will be viewable online beginning January 28. Strongly recommended. I’m still digesting it but once I’ve assimilated the goat I’ll be posting on it.

Since Wretchard and Marc Schulman of American Future have already noted Henry Kissinger and George Shultz’s column on Iraq in the Washington Post, I’d like to repeat some of the observations I made in comments on Marc’s blog here. I’ve been arguing for a definition of victory that was based on results rather than on calendar dates for more than a year now. I think that one of the Bush Administration’s great shortcomings has been its failure to articulate the objectives of the invasion of Iraq clearly.

One of the weaknesses of of such a failure is that it leaves an opening for others to articulate them for you and Kissinger and Shultz have done that:

(1) to prevent any group from using the political process to establish the kind of dominance previously enjoyed by the Sunnis;
(2) to prevent any areas from slipping into Taliban conditions as havens and recruitment centers for terrorists;
(3) to keep Shiite government from turning into a theocracy, Iranian or indigenous;
(4) to leave scope for regional autonomy within the Iraqi democratic process.

Will these objectives on their own achieve the conditions necessary for the paradigm shift in the region that the Bush Administration has been calling for? I can see how these objectives might achieve a favorable outcome for the Iraqis. Do they achieve a favorable outcome for Americans?

I’ve been skeptical about the prospects for establishing liberal democracy in the region since before our invasion of Iraq. But, as I pointed out in my post Plan B, Realpolitik of the sort that both Kissinger and Shultz epitomize is one of the things that brought us 9/11 and put us in bad odor in the region to begin with. One of the great difficulties with idealism is that you actually have to be idealistic. Is this the right time for realism? Or is that defining victory down too far?

While I was preparing this week’s Carnival of the Liberated, I re-read Abu Khaleel of Iraqi Letter to America’s post, Iraq: Seeking Solutions – Plan B. I think it’s well worth reading and I wanted to comment on it at greater length than I felt was appropriate for the Carnival. Here’s what he’s about:

We have a problem. We need solutions. Only people living in a fantasy world do not realize that. The coming elections in Iraq will not solve this problem, whatever the outcome. The reason is simple: Elections have to be believed by the majority of people to have any legitimacy. The coming elections are not. As simple as that!

The present situation is likely to deteriorate. The present course will only lead to more Iraqi and American blood being needlessly shed. In this post I hope that we can examine an alternative course of action.

Here’s his Plan B:

1. US maintains present course and status for a month but will only act in self defense and to preserve the peace and will not go after “insurgents” or carry out random searches and arrests, etc. during that month.
2. US announces and implements an immediate freeze on the building of permanent military bases in Iraq. If there is no such intention (!) they can publicly and categorically state their policy in this regard.
3. The US goes to the UN to help establish, within 2-4 weeks, a “International Council for Iraq” (ICI). Two alternatives are possible:
   • A council of 15 members each nominated by a UN Security Council member state and approved by a majority of the other members.
   • A council of 5 members of internationally respected figures nominated by the UN General Assembly and approved by the UN Security Council.
   • This council is to act as the supreme authority for running the country in the interim period of 6 months.
4. The US reiterates its intention to withdraw completely from Iraq at the request of the ICI or a democratically elected government.
5. Work out a UN Security Council resolution to “guarantee” the continuity of democracy in Iraq, under chapter 7 of the UN Charter (which authorizes the use of force). This is to guarantee that no military coup or other means of force are used to overthrow the newly born democracy of Iraq for a number of years. Iraq is already an international problem in many respects.
6. Place the Multi-national forces now in Iraq as well as the Iraqi army, police, etc. under the political authority of the ICI.
7. The ICI is given an international mandate for six months to establish a democratic government in Iraq, without any conditions on its conduct apart from the objectives mentioned above and normal financial auditing.
8. Let this “council of the wise” find its own solution without interference or pressure. I would only like to add that all its deliberations and activities should be made public.

I think Abu Khaleel is a very sharp guy and I typically like a lot of what he has to say. So I don’t intend to fisk his plan. As they say in the math textbooks, I’ll leave that for the interested student. But I do have some observations.

The invasion of Iraq, the removal of Saddam Hussein, and the attempt to establish democracy in Iraq is our Plan B. We abandoned our long-standing Hamiltonian Plan A on dealing with the Middle East before noon on September 11, 2001. This was the realist plan that Brent Scowcroft among others continues to foster. Been there. Done that. Ain’t goin’ back there anymore.

Plan B is GWB’s Wilsonian plan for remaking the Middle East and, as we learned in his second inaugural address, the world. The success of Plan B is not assured. It will receive its next great test at the end of this week. If in the succeeding weeks and months it proves to be a failure, I don’t anticipate our re-trying it under UN auspices (as Abu Khaleel suggests) or returning to Plan A. I think I know my countrymen well enough to believe that our distrust of the UN is sufficient that Abu Khaleel’s Plan B is a non-starter. And I believe that 9/11 taught us that economic realism is too slender a twig for a re-trial of that.

No, if the grand plan for democratization is seen to be a failure, I think it’s far more likely that we’ll go to Plan C which will be founded on one of the other historic strains of American foreign policy: the Jeffersonian or the Jacksonian. The Jeffersonian (isolationist) response will leave the rest of the world to stew in its own juices. And I won’t outline what a full Jacksonian response would be. All I’ll say is, Abu Khaleel my friend, you wouldn’t like us when we’re angry.

UPDATE: Submitted to the Beltway Traffic Jam.

Real life has intervened again and my morning run-down has become an afternoon run-down. Here’s what’s caught my eye today:

• Alice Bachini of Alice in Texas is blogging about something on which she
  clearly has significant hands-on experience: chocolate.
• Beautiful Atrocities
  has a handy guide to the most popular entertainment on the planet: Latin soaps.
• Bioethics discussion blog is reporting something I’m surprise isn’t getting
  more attention:

  The stem cell lines which are now available for federally supported research are contaminated with a protein from animals whose serum is used in the culture medium. This fact is confirmed in a study by researchers at the University of Califonia, San Diego and published yesterday in the online “Nature Medicine”.

  Does anyone else know anything about this?

• Blackfive reports what
  some very-well-informed soldiers think about what should have happened and what should happen.
• The terrorists’ plan to disrupt the Iraqi elections via Captain’s Quarters.
• CodeBlueBlogs
  continues his story on the mysterious death of the marathon runner.
• Wizbang wonders if the NY Post knows which end is up.

That’s the lot.

The Carnival of the Liberated, a sampler of some of the best posts of the week by Iraqi bloggers, is available on Dean’s World. This week the focus is on the run-up to the Iraq elections.