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The conservative approach to US foreign policy, especially in the Mid-East, has been a sort of ‘Malign Stability’.  Until George W Bush, that is.  Paul Berman writes about this on a Lebanese news site, the Daily Star, among other places.

Berman’s central points are that the Bush administrations policies in Iraq have been a sort of bungled Liberalism;  Not conservatism.  And that the so-called Left has bungled the analysis, the criticism, and the history.  I think Berman is correct.  Bush won the war against Saddam but bungled the occupation.  Bush was also very unlucky and far too slow to adjust to changes.  Terribly stubborn.

It was the Left that said “Let the inspections work”, which we now know was folly.  And large parts of the Left were taken in by the canard that half a million Iraqi children had died of the sanctions.  This we can see is impossible, as the signs of starvation would have been all over the country if that were true.

Saddam Hussein, the Ba’ath Party, and al-Queda can all be fairly called fascist.  And the ‘Code Pink’ sort of anti-Bush movement objectively functions, in the international realm, as fascist helpers.  Domestically, the anti-war movement functions as the attack dog of the Democratic Party, performing the role that Bob Barr, among others, did against the Bill Clinton administration.  Most of the Left would reverse the roles and impeach GW Bush if they could.  It’s an extension of the politics of personal destruction, where the success of the party (either party, really) is more important than the success of the nation.

This has created a desire for unity and a post-divisive public.  Obama wants to step into this opportunity, but his past has caught up with him, and he is as divisive as any of them.  He needs a new tack, and he has the time to find one.

The worse things go in Iraq the better it is for the Democratic Party.  If the Iraq expedition ends in total chaos, an al-Queda victory, a Balkanization, the Democrats sweep to victory.  If there ever was a time that politics ended at the waters edge, that time ended with the scurrilous impeachment of Bill Clinton.  So the Republicans really have no grounds to complain.  But the problems in Iraq did not originate in the anti-Bush movement, they originated in Bush and in Iraq.

The habit of domestic warfare is very damaging and will come back at you.  And it will come back to the next President as well.  You watch.  If Bill Clinton and George Bush were both unable to withstand the opposition attack machine, what chance has the next President?

McCain can honestly claim to have been smart on Iraq, pushing for the change in tactics and strategy known as ‘The Surge’, a return to counter-insurgency, earlier than GW Bush.  Much earlier.  But this is one item in a large field.  But the economy is likely to be larger than the Iraq war in the upcoming election, and McCain’s support of voodoo economics is dumb; it hurts his chances and could damage the economy.  McCain also lacks the style and panache that appeals to a people who want a post-conflict domestic scene.

Counter-insurgency is a double-edged sword.  The Israeli Army specialized in counter-insurgency, but found that they were unprepared for “old-fashioned” land war against Hezbollah.  The same could befall the US Army, if it were to shift from Iraq into a land war against Iran.

Neither the Left nor the Right has fully come to terms with the fact that the current enemies of the West are right-wing, rather than left-wing;  Or that there are 8 or 9 times as many Muslims as there are Russians (not that they are really the same thing).

The population of Russia is about half that of the US.  And the population of Iran is about half that of Russia.  But if Iran can expand it’s sphere of influence to include more people and more oil, they can make a great deal of trouble.  And it’s clear they want to.  The malign stability of Iran is spreading it’s malignancy beyond it’s borders.

The world keeps on changing.

The news and the blogosphere has been bubbling with reports of the contest between Iraq Prime Minister al-Maliki (the government) and al-Sadr. The anti-Bush types pump up the accomplishments of al-Sadr and the Bush supporters go the other way around.

Today’s headlines show that al-Sadr is in a strategic retreat, refusing to fight the government out of either principle or fear. He’s saving his forces and hoping to win another day. Some are saying the Fat Lady has sung, others that she’s just warming up. The British are taking some heat for the results of their permissive strategy in Basra blowing up in their faces.

As if confusing the names Iraq and Iran weren’t bad enough. One of al-Sadr’s opponents is the Badr Brigade, an alternate Shiite group. The government of al-Maliki is also mostly Shiite. So it’s mostly intra-Shiite warfare these days in Iraq.

The Sunnis are split, with al-Queda becoming more desperate as they sink slowly into the sand, and the Anbar Awakening moving ever closer to the government. The Kurds, who are also Sunni, have been pro-government for quite a while, and have been living very peacefully.

The overall Iraq situation is that of a coalition of feisty clans, not a unified culture. It could end up like Yugoslavia, with Kosovo and all those other states, or like Ireland, partly divided and partly united. Or like the US after that nasty disagreement about slavery, that is, united enough, but with simmering differences.

Meta: Most analysis of Iraq isn’t really about Iraq. It’s about the upcoming US elections. The Republicans and conservatives beat a pretty consistent line about how good things are, and the anti-Bush forces (from Code Pink to Hillary, and everybody in between) tend to paint Iraq as a mess made by an idiot. Anybody who has loyalty to a political party has at least the motive to lie.

I think it is fair and honest, though, to recognize that the various parties in Iraq (including al-Sadr) are behaving more like parties jockeying for position in the final configuration of the central government, and less like a determined band of revolutionaries. With, of course, the exception of al-Queda, who becomes more violent as they become less relevant. Overall, this is reasonably good news for Iraqis. But is of no comfort if the last car bomb, so to speak, happens to get you.

On the other hand, of course, it is still possible for the nucleus of the new government-by-coalition to undergo violent fission, to the detriment of everybody. The current job is to prevent that.