The Pachyderm Post

The Pachyderm Problem has two broad phases: Growing Up and Grown.

When the Pachyderm is young and non-threatening – even cute – it is also still small enough to be led out of the bedroom and out of the house before any damage needs to be done.

But, after it is mature, it is larger than the windows and larger than the doors, and it can only be dealt with by destructive means… destructive to the house, to the Pachyderm, or both.

Belgium’s Pachyderm Problem is – this year – fully mature.

That Pachyderm – Flemish popular demands (and perhaps now, expectations) for both greater powers and fewer responsibilities in the malformed mutuality called Belgium – has now reached the point that great damage will result whether a new Belgian governmental coalition is formed or not.

The damage that results from Yves Leterme’s – and the King’s – failure to establish a government will vary, depending on the nature and outcome of that failure. It can include everything from the establishment of Brussels as a European district, to the expulsion of Flanders from the European Union and many other equally or more disastrous results (see Le Soir’s famous “Five Options” edition).

The deeper tragedy, however, may be the damage that results from a “successful” coalition.

This damage will range from the sense of betrayal – and resentment – on the part of almost half the Flanders electorate because of the abandonment of the effectively separatist objectives of the Flemish parties, to the deepened conviction on the parts of many – if not most – Walloons and French-speakers that their citizenship in the experiment called Belgium is at best a perpetual irritation and at worst an affront to a plurality of Belgium’s Flemish-speakers.

But this sad combination will not be the worst damage.

The worst effect of a deeply unsatisfying coalition will be a massive deepening of cynicism, lethargy and political withdrawal on the parts of the majority of people on all sides of the controversies.

This sapping of political energy is the bleeding of political and civic will from whatever national heart may yet beat in the majority of Belgians not yet consumed by the political, economic and cultural conflicts that have defined modern Belgium.

This situation is like a perpetual boxing match whose outcome hinges more on the mood of the spectators that it does on the blows exchanged by the combatants in the ring.

If the audience leaves the arena – whether the fight is won or lost – the match, made in 1831, will be over and done.

vb

In what may be the most significant and substantial endorsement of the U.S. Presidential election season, former Carter administration National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski endorsed Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) on Bloomberg TV this past week.This endorsement is significant because it credibly addresses the only serious concern that the Democratic, Independent and moderate republican electorate has about Obama’s candidacy, which is that he may not be sufficiently experienced, particularly in foreign policy.

His major rival for the nomination, Senator Hilary Clinton (R-NY), has been endorsed by former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and former U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, both of whom were appointed to their positions by Clinton’s husband, President Bill Clinton.

Brzezinski has no similar political relationship or obligation to Senator Obama, which makes his endorsement more credible than those of Senator Clinton, and he has a reputation for the kind of crusty independence that makes his support of Obama particularly impressive.

Brzezinski’s endorsement also directly addressed the question of the former First Lady’s White House experience as a qualification for the Presidency, saying “Being a former first lady doesn’t prepare you to be president.”

He said of the Illinois Senator, “Obama is clearly more effective and has the upper hand. He has a sense of what is historically relevant and what is needed from the United States in relationship to the world.”

Of course, the question of Obama’s experience is his Pachyderm Problem, which he must confront and overcome this fall, before the early Democratic Party nominating events. He can only do this by reference and endorsement. The Brzezinski commentary, therefore, is highly significant.

Listen, as Brzezinski is interviewed on Bloomberg TV:

Has no one in the main stream media noticed the breathtaking irony of U.S. “President” George W. Bush’s recent criticisms of Iraq “Prime Minister” Nouri al Maliki’s failure to resolve the sectarian conflicts now roiling the “Plain Old Disaster” known as Iraq?

One of the most – if not the most – partisan U.S. Presidential Administrations in the modern era has the unmitigated gall to directly and indirectly criticize the hobbled Maliki government for its inability to resolve the millennial differences between the deadly adversaries in the wasp’s nest that is Iraq.

The very existence of the Bush Administration depended on the ruthless partisanship masterminded by the recently departed Bush advisor Karl Rove, who viciously attacked Democrats in his efforts to invigorate and mobilize the Republican “base.”

The U.S. President has not found the decency to even refer to his opposition by its proper name: “The Democratic Party.” He consistently – and contemptuously – calls them the “Democrat” Party.

Recently, a spokesman for former Iraqi Prime Minister – and Maliki rival – Iyad Allawi criticised the Maliki government by saying “The problem is in having a political agenda that is founded on a sectarian basis.”

Really.

Listen to Bush decry The Democratic Party for its criticism of Iraq War supporter Senator Joe Lieberman (who, by the way, is still very much a member of The Democratic Party).

Over ten years ago, before I re-entered corporate management for awhile, I spent years developing and delivering management and executive development programs for IBM in La Hulpe, Belgium.

At the time, I was also working with the company at their management development facilities in Armonk, New York and The Palisades , in New Jersey. I even hosted the entire Palisades management team for three days of strategy development and team-building in Nantucket, Mass.

But I have the fondest memories of La Hulpe, which was the headquarters for management and executive development for IBM in Europe, the Middle East and Africa at that time.

I’d actually attended executive development programs myself at this location, when I was an IBM Director of Marketing and Services and Director of Consulting Services.

The times that I spent developing and delivering personal and professional development programs in that environment were among the most rewarding of my professional life.

This was certainly so because those were times of great turmoil and ferment at IBM.

But it was more so because of the incredible opportunity to work with people of such different cultures and backgounds.

Developing and delivering programs for such an international audience tapped my knowledge of international relations, politics and cultures in ways that simply weren’t required in the U.S. alone.

Since so much of what I did was grounded in the professional and social realities of the participants, it was incredibly exciting to connect with Germans or French or Saudis on terms with which they were already familiar, and with references which already meant something to them.

So, it was sad for me to learn, in 1993, that IBM was dissolving their training and development operation in La Hulpe.

But I was thrilled to discover, over a year ago, that an American company – Dolce International – had acquired La Hulpe (as well as the other properties that I have mentioned) and planned to reopen it as a hotel, resort and conference center.

They are in fact reopening just this month.

It is an incredibly beautiful place now, particularly in comparison to the austere IBM esthetic of yore.

Apparently, they will offer first class hotel and resort services as well as conference and executive development programs, for which there is a keen need these days…more than ever.

I can’t wait to see how they do.

I wish them luck.

For the sake of the future of personal and professional development in Europe.

And for the sake of my memories…

VMB

I hardly remember my first day as a new manager at IBM in the fall of 1981.

In fact, the only event that I do clearly remember about that day started with being told by my secretary (remember secretaries?) that there was “a crazy man” on the phone who absolutely needed to talk to me “right now!”

I was in the middle of a tornado of new people, new responsibilities, a completely new environment, and a flurry of requests for my time…all of which needed to be attended to “right now!”

But something told me to take that crazy man’s call.

It was Sam Albert, IBM’s Director of Consulting Relations (if I remember the title correctly).

He might better have been titled “Tornado in Chief.”

In a torrent of words, made bearable only because I only picked up only half of them, he blasted me with the absolute urgent, “right now” need to invite a key customer of mine to a meeting that Sam was hosting that very week in White Plains, NY.

The fact that I had not yet even called to introduce myself to the new customer was only an incidental impediment for Sam, who had known the man for years.

Sam thoughtfully suggested introducing me to the new customer himself.

I demurred, thinking that this was a privilege best reserved for my new boss, the Branch Manager of Boston Public Sector and Commercial, Gale Fitzgerald. She and I were arranging schedules just that day.

She was new too, having just replaced John Thompson (now of Symantec fame…see earlier post), who had actually hired me into the branch.

In the midst of Sam’s word-torrent, it oddly occurred to me that, despite his actually incredible demands and expectations of me, I wasn’t irritated or upset in any way.

The man’s sincerity and passion for his objective was in no way disrespectful or anything but…sincere and passionate.

And I was deeply impressed that he – who’d known my customer for years, and could have called him directly – respected my role in building the customer relationship.

Before I knew it, I was juking and jabbing, trying to get a word in edgewise.

Not to put him off…his mission had now become mine, though I was only then beginning to understand its importance.

No, I was trying my rookie best to impress this “crazy guy” with my appreciation of the urgency of “our” effort to get this customer to Sam’s meeting.

All of this taking place in the span of about 60 seconds.

As Bogart said to Claude Rains in Casablanca: “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

It was…and still is…

Sam was a friend, a mentor, and an all-round bon vivant, in the best possible sense of that over-used and so often wrongly used French phrase.

Sam truly did love life and living, and I do more because of knowing him.

Years later, when we’d both left IBM, and were independent consultants, Sam gave me a Yo-Yo (he was Yo-Yo champion at American University).

That Yo-Yo has always reminded me that life is up and down, but it can always be fun…always.

Sam died four years ago today.

Thanks, Sam, for showing us how to live.

vb

Could we all just slow down a minute in our rabid tooth-gnashings about the Iraq War?

And – as we decelerate – could we just briefly answer one question:

How will we know when the Iraq War is won – or lost?

Put another way:

What would constitute victory, exactly?

I say “exactly” because a very great deal rides on this determination.

Obviously the deployment of U.S. and “Coalition” troops depends on whether and when the war is won or lost, and by whom.

So too does the apportionment of credit for victory or blame for defeat.

If the U.S. “wins” for instance, clearly George Bush’s “dogged, Truman-esque determination” in the face of popular and Congressional opposition will be front and center when the medals are distributed.

If the U.S. “loses”, Iraqi President al-Maliki will share center stage blame with Gold Star Anti-War Mother Cindy Sheehan and just plain old Anti-War Mother Jane Fonda (“There [she] goes again!”).

To my fairly attentive knowledge, no one – NO ONE – has clearly articulated the fairly important definition of victory in this, the central and largest theater in the “Global War on Terror.”

To paraphrase President Bush, this victory will not be marked by a ceremony on a battleship. Or an aircraft carrier…

For some time now, violent fatalities in Iraq have averaged about one hundred a day. Would victory be none? Or ten? Or twenty?

For how long? A day? A week? A month? Three months?

And for how long after U.S. and Coalition forces departed would this reduction in death and destruction need to hold for victory to be confirmed?

A year? Six months? Six weeks?

There must be a task force working on this thorny problem, somewhere deep in the bowels of the Pentagon or of Karl Rove’s bunker.

But it is clearly a top secret mission, something even Valerie Plame would not have been allowed to know.

Nor Tim Russert, nor Bob Woodward, nor even Katie Couric.

So, what indications should we seek…that victory has been won?

For many, the famous kiss, captured by Alfred Eisenstadt, marked the true end to World War II.

First there was the ceremony on the U.S.S Missouri…

Then, that visual evocation of love, not war, sealed the conclusion: the war was over.

What will do it this time?

What will be the marker for the cessation of hostilities; for ticker tape and bunting on mid-western tree trunks; for post-war public displays of affection?

The answer is that there will be no marker.

There is no fleet to destroy…no Emperor to surrender…no territory to claim.

We now find ourselves in mankind’s first truly Perpetual War, with a clearly defined beginning – the invasion of Afghanistan – and no end at all.

Which is both a dilemma and a benediction for the Bush Administration.

It is a dilemma since even the most positive – and necessarily temporary – outcome of the Iraq War is purest ambivalence, which only the most cynical observer could call “victory.”

And therein lies the benediction.

Because the most cynical observer will do just that.

George Bush will never admit defeat, and he will declare victory with the same conviction with which he declared democracy in Iraq, and he will do it with less evidence.

Declaring “democracy” required only the purple fingers of Iraqi voters.

Declaring “victory” will require only the upraised thumb of “The Decider” himself, raised in welcome to our returning, crippled military at some future land-bound ceremony.

This ceremony will not record or reference the saddest and most tragic truth of this war: that we lost it the minute we invaded Iraq without a plan for making and keeping peace.

Not “democracy”…just peace.

In doing so, we broke an elemental – perhaps the elemental – tenet of counter-insurgent warfare: do not kill or injure, or cause to be killed or injured, more “good people” than “bad people.”

If you make this one, huge mistake, you will drive “good people” away (physically, spiritually and emotionally) and you will make more – a lot more – “bad people.”

The former consequence is why the middle class of Iraq has left or is leaving the country and why a majority of Iraqis apparently feel it is justified to kill American troops.

The latter consequence is why the name “civil war” only partly describes the incredible chaos and violence that has paralyzed the country.

The final finger, the one that the Bush Administration is trying to jam into the violent breach in the Iraqi dam, has a name: General David Petraeus.

Is he not wise enough to realize that this war was lost by the U.S. long ago, regardless of any success that he may have in temporarily suppressing the present violence?

Sadly, the only “victory” he can enable is the ceremonial, digital one.

vmb

I listened to a caller on CSPAN this evening, who has been in general supportive of Barack Obama and his possible Presidential candidacy. He’s had doubts, however, about Obama’s realistic chances to be elected.

The caller’s doubts were dissolved today as he saw the sea of people of all sorts who filled a gigantic space in Springfield, Illinois to hear Obama enter the race.

The 17,000 or so faces and voices were stunning to see and hear. The scene was more like a party nominee’s late October election year rally than an announcement almost two years before. And the wind chill factor was five degrees fahrenheit.

In the midst of this massiveness, it was details that told the tale:

The bodyguards, who seemed particularly vigilant, perhaps sensitive to the grim reality that there has not been a presidential campaign with such potential for political violence since that of Bobby Kennedy.

The family…impossibly right for the White House…all waving like practiced professionals, including the little girls…as if they know.

Goodness, they’ll give John Edwards a run for the money in the photogenic family race.

And, speaking of family, think about Mrs. Obama. Michelle’s poise and beauty (and the hairstyle on their website) remind me of Jackie. Her intelligence and professional accomplishment remind me of Hillary.

Those who hesitate to deny the country its first woman President by voting for Obama may come to believe that Michelle could do what Jackie and Hillary might have done, if they could have been genetically fused: captivate the country and then lead it too.

There were many more such details, but the one that transfixed me (and perhaps the CSPAN caller as well) were the Two Women.

Two apparently completely average, “Middle American” white women stood with each other and proudly held portraits of Obama.

I have not seen a display of affection and pride for a politician since I last saw pictures of John Kennedy and Martin Luther King on the mantels of similar women of a generation before.

When have you last seen such a display?

And they were far from the only ones. Others included men and families with images of the candidate held aloft.

I do not believe that these were political functionaries, and though the campaign may have provided the pictures (I simply don’t know), nothing could make attendees at such a political rally hold such images aloft other than unabashed affection for and belief in the candidate.

These women aren’t Emma Goldman and Rosa Luxemburg, revolutionaries of another era.

They are Laverne and Shirley.

They are factory workers in one context; soccer moms in another; revolutionaries of today, empowered as such by the mere ability to support and vote for Barack Obama.

Or at least they seem to be, which is most of what matters to observers of this incredible scene.

Look at that picture again.

Look at their faces.

Obama can win.

vmb

It is a testament to our post-modern, unreal world that one of the heroes of the era that gave birth to the very idea of Iraq was himself an agglomeration of truth and lies, masquerading as what he was not, behaving – in ways heroic and not – bizarrely far outside the boundaries of normal and healthy behavior.

Even his name contributes to the tapestry of mis-representation that was and is today the fibrillating heart of his story of uncommon valor and degraded dissipation.

“Thomas Edward Lawrence” did not not actually ever legally exist. His name would have been “T. E. Shaw”, if his father had properly divorced the wife whom he left, and if he had properly married the governess with whom he escaped, and who bore his five children, of whom T. E. was the second.

T.E., known to moviegoers as “Lawrence of Arabia”, was a brilliant, exceedingly odd, troubled man, who just happened to be the right man for the right times in the right place.

And of this conjunction was born the legend of the western military man who was able to immerse himself – often in Arab dress – in the Middle Eastern cultures that were the source of the Arab uprising and the roots of the modern Middle East.

Much of Lawrence’s “immersion” was fantasy, spun from his and others’ fertile imaginations.

But a great deal of it was apparently true, and much was recorded in his quite amazing book, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

It is important to remember that Lawrence was a participant in an insurgency – of Arabs against the Ottoman Empire – rather than a player in the suppression of one.

But the lessons of his experiences powerfully apply – if inversely – to the situation that the Bush Administration faces in Iraq.

Which is precisely why we have become aware of a kind of latter-day Lawrence, this time of Iraq.

His real name name is David Petraeus, and he was recently promoted to Army four-star general and installed as Commander of U.S. forces in Iraq.

He is the modern epitome of the scholar-warrior, with a Princeton PhD. (in International Relations), a former post as Commander of the 101st Airborne, and two combat tours in Iraq, as well as one in Bosnia.

And he is expected to perform the kind of miracle that made Lawrence legendary.

Or, more accurately, he is expected to perform the scope of Lawrence’s miracle. The kind of miracle Petraeus has been asked to perform is incredibly – almost comically – more complex and difficult.

Just trying to describe it requires a dose of extra strength Exedrine:

He has been asked to lead an insurgency of the incompetent and sectarian militia-infiltrated Iraqi Army against – effectively – their own people, who are engaged in a vicious and intensifying civil war (1000 killed last month). He must simultaneously suppress a motley but deadly collection of foreign fighters and Jihadists, as he works to protect the mostly garrisoned U.S. force, not to mentioned those who will be living in police stations and other locations in various kill zones in Baghdad and Anbar Province.

Oh, and did I mention that he’s got about a year to do all this?

And do we need reminding that the U.S. is not a colonial power, as Britain was, and that the American population is generally sick of the war?

Every Iraqi knows these things, and therefore knows that U.S. forces will leave, and as soon as they possibly can.

Every Iraqi also therefore wonders what their world will be like when Petraeus and the rest of the Americans motor down to Kuwait, on their way back home.

And every Iraqi particularly wonders this as he or she talks amiably with an American soldier who is helmeted, flak-jacketed and armed, as well they should be.

“Winning hearts and minds” under these circumstances is as cruel an ironic joke as it became in another failed conflict: Vietnam.

The Pachyderm Problem here?

That we have already mostly lost, and that – having done so – we nevertheless “own” the present and looming disaster that the Bush Administration has created.

Which is why no Hollywood films will be made of David Patraeus’ glorious exploits in Iraq.

Which is a shame for him, for the Bush Administration, for the U.S., and for Iraq.

vb

Poor George Will.

He has been for decades one of the most thoughtful and articulate social and political commentators on the media scene.

I have for a long time tempered my own generally liberal views with considerations of his opinions.

Space prevents my chronicling the many times his views made me think again about my opinions on everything from affirmative action to the war in Iraq.

He has never changed my mind on any issue of significance, but he has often stimulated me to think deeper.

I always felt that I should be prepared to effectively respond to him if I were sitting across the table from him on Sunday morning television.

The highest praise that I can give George Will is that he inherited the mantle of conservative thoughtfulness and reason that William F. Buckley had once occupied for me.

Listening to Bill Buckley and his guests every week on Firing Line was a necessary part of my political and intellectual education. Buckley often infuriated me, but I could never dismiss him.

As I have, with regret, begun to do with George Will.

Said another way, Will has lost my respect.

Will’s views – like Buckley’s – were often outrageously wrong to me, but he usually seemed to at least acknowledge the facts of an issue.

His conclusions may have often seemed wacky, and sometimes dangerous, but I at least believed that, more often than not, he had at least absorbed the facts.

I no longer believe this.

I don’t believe it primarily (but not only) because of his – pun intended – Will-ful refusal to acknowledge global warming and the role that humans almost certainly play.

What – years ago – seemed to be a conclusion on his part based on the facts has transformed into what now seems to be an arbitrary, almost truculent attitude.

This attitude that was on display again today, in the face of this month’s report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s premier scientific authority on global warming.

The report warns about the possibility of more than 1 million dead and hundreds of billions of dollars in costs by 2100, in a world adapting to more extreme weather such as droughts, hurricanes, and wildfires.

And if nothing is done soon to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the experts said, by 2100 the melting of Greenland’s ice sheet would become inevitable. Over the following centuries, the world’s seas would rise by more than 20 feet.

All of which only seemed to irritate George, who repeated the same doubts, with the same apparent conviction.

When he behaves this way, he seems to be broadcasting from an asteroid in the same vicinity of the one from which George W. Bush receives and sends his strategies for democracy in Iraq.

The name of that asteroid, and George Will’s Pachyderm Problem: Irrelevance.

vb

Not long ago, I suggested that Iraqi insurgents might well weather the “surge” of additional American troops in the same way that Muhammad Ali weathered the “surge” of George Foreman in the “Rumble in the Jungle.”

How?

By laying back against the ropes, allowing the larger adversary to pound away at non-vital targets, until that adversary tires and leaves the stage.

In this week’s Time, Charles Crain describes recent events in Baghdad in terms that do not invoke the memory of The Greatest, but nevertheless confirm the beginnings of insurgent “Ropin’ and Doping.”

This was presaged, of course, by Prime Minister’s Maliki’s recent, too enthusiastic, concessions to Bush Administration strategy.

The only remaining questions are:

1. How will the U.S. forces respond to such a strategy on the parts of the major combatant players, including particularly Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army?

2. How will combatant players seek to take advantage of this environment, to consolidate their positions in advance of the inevitable American withdrawal?

Crain addresses the latter question, and leaves the former to later discussion.

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Time Magazine

How Sadr Plans to Ride Out the Surge

By Charles Crain/Baghdad February 2, 2007

Moqtada Sadr and his Mehdi Army seem to have decided that, for now, the best defense against the American troop surge is no defense. Rather than risk another major confrontation like the battles of 2004 in which they lost thousands of men, the military and political leadership of Sadr’s movement is going out of its way to be conciliatory.

Following an American raid last month that netted one of Sadr’s lieutenants, some Sadrists threatened to hold up the movement’s reconciliation with the national government. Instead, Sadrist ministers who had been boycotting parliament to protest against Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki meeting with President Bush rejoined the government. And this week, the Sadrists even endorsed the deployment of additional U.S. troops to Baghdad and the new security plan. A local official in the Mehdi Army’s Sadr City stronghold said that under the terms of a deal with U.S. forces, the Americans would be welcome in Sadr City.

But allowing the Americans to pass unchallenged through Sadr City is not the same thing as embracing the U.S. agenda for Iraq. It may simply make tactical sense to stand down the Mehdi Army temporarily, denying the U.S. military a target. Meanwhile the Shi’ite-dominated Iraqi security forces, which include many Sadr sympathizers and actual members of his militia, continue their fight against Sunni insurgents.

U.S. officials have painted the surge as a temporary step, some hinting that it may last only a matter of months. That’s not a long time in the outlook of an organization that must consider its position in Iraq in terms of decades. If political support for the U.S. presence in Iraq collapses, or if the military simply cannot sustain a meaningful increase in troop strength, the Mehdi Army will have won a victory without ever joining the battle.

Ironically, the Americans’ greatest hope for success in defeating the Shi’ite militia may be the Sunni insurgency. Despite token attempts at national reconciliation, they are not part of the political process, do not negotiate meaningfully with the government, and are under no illusions about what a “troop surge” means for them. In recent weeks they’ve faced U.S. air strikes and Iraqi Army raids in downtown Baghdad. And the insurgents have continued to rain terror down on mostly Shi’ite civilian concentrations, in market places, universities and religious gatherings.

So, while Sadr may be able to cut deals with the Americans, Shi’ites in Baghdad and elsewhere face escalating terror attacks from the insurgency. If violence directed against Shi’ites demands a more public show of force by the Mehdi Army, it may be forced to break cover and risk becoming targets of U.S. firepower.

The more immediate concern for the surge strategy is not the maneuvers of militias commanders, but the fact that the loyalty of government security forces is dubious, at best. The Mehdi Army’s most important stronghold may not, in fact, be Sadr City as such, but rather its legion of supporters inside government ministries, army units and police stations.

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Now…let’s watch this all unfold.

vb