Arms and influence

Change horses? Not a problem!

IN THE NEWS
The canard, You don't change horses mid-stream, deserves to die swiftly and finally. Towards that end, I'm asking for your help, Dear Reader, in compiling the definitive list of elections or other constitutionally mandated leadership changes that occurred during wartime.

The point, of course, is to show how history does not support the idea that changing leaders (or horses) presents any special risk during wartime. In fact, as discussed in an earlier post about the Peloponnesian Wars, democracy and constitutionalism are important sources of strength for a nation facing the strains and frights of war.

So, without further ado, let's get this list started. Please post any proposed additions or clarifications in the Comments section.

Peloponnesian War (431 to 404 BC). Athens continued to elect new generals throughout this on-again, off-again conflict. Sparta, too, selected new kings, navarchs, and other leaders during the war.

Punic Wars (264 to 146 BC). Rome regularly elected new consuls to command the fight against Carthage. The Roman Republic continued this practice through even the worst moments, when Hannibal's army was rampaging through the Italian peninsula.

American Civil War (1861 to 1865). The Union held a presidential election in 1864, in which Lincoln won re-election against McClellan, his Democratic opponent.

World War II (1939 to 1945). President Franklin Roosevelt won re-election in 1944. In 1940, Winston Churchill replaced Nevill Chamberlain as the prime minister of Great Britain.

Cold War (1945 to 1991). The United States, Great Britain, France, and other Western countries continued to hold elections, in spite of the threat of nuclear war.

Koren War (1950 to 1953). In 1952, as US, South Korean, and allied forces fight North Korean and Chinese troops in a brutal war of attrition, American voters select Dwight Eisenhower as the new president.

Vietnam War (1961 to 1973). From the advisory period in the early 1960s to the eventual withdrawal of combat troops, the United States continued to hold presidential elections. Additionally, the Watergate scandal ended with the re-affirmation of free and fair elections, as well as constitutional checks and balances.

What we leave behind, part II

IN THE NEWS
A major reason why I wrote the previous post is the United States' obvious mental disengagement from Iraq. Everyone is sick of Iraq, including (if you believe this account) the private interests that have most profited from it. Even if the United States ultimately admits that it failed in Iraq, it matters enormously how it disengages from that country.

KBR may not have to worry about its long-term relationship with the US government being jeopardized; the US government does have to worry about its relationship with other allies that it is supporting through the sort of "reconstruction" (civil affairs, call it what you will) projects that KBR implemented. KBR is not as concerned about future contracts for big oil infrastructure projects as the US government should be concerned about how a dismal outcome in Iraq might affect world oil prices.

Iraq has already had an indirect effect on the cost of oil: since the United States clearly cannot do much about Iran's nuclear program, the uncertainty about the future of the Middle East this creates has helped push oil prices back to record highs. Iran's daily announcements of new reasons to be worried about the future of the Middle East deepens the perception that the United States is mired in Iraq to the point of helplessness.

To deal with Iran, the United States must pull free of Iraq. Abandoning Iraq in a hurry risks a worse outcome for Iraq specifically and the region generally. It's time to choose--and this time, the discussion with American voters and allies needs to be more open and constructive than it was going into Iraq.

What we leave behind

IN THE NEWS
Roadside bombs, suicide attacks, urban firefights—these are the alarums and excursions of the war in Iraq, the regular events that, for the time being, can make daily life nasty, brutish, and short for far too many Iraqis. They are not the measure of what daily life will be like after the war is done.

Insurgent groups like Al Qaeda in Iraq or The Army of the Mahdi eventually will make peace with the government, overthrow it, or focus on other targets elsewhere. Violence is the hammer, and political action the chisel, with which they hope to shape the future Iraq. However, any Iraqi state must exercise monopoly control of violence within its own territory, or (as Max Weber would tell us) it's not a state. No matter who governs the future Iraq, they won't be using roadside bombs, suicide attacks, or urban firefights to exercise this monopoly control over violence.

Instead, violence will take its normal, acceptable form, the legitimate power of the army to protect Iraq's borders, for the police to forcibly detain criminals, for the courts and prisons to detain them and, in extreme cases, execute them. The state's monopoly over violence may take less acceptable forms that shatter lives, offend the morals of anyone watching, and ultimately undermine the legitimacy of that regime.

That's why it's vital to keep a sharply critical eye on the newly-formed, newly-trained Iraqi police, military, and paramilitary units. Not only do they determine the chances that the current Iraqi government will win the current war, the security forces of today will be the instruments of state-sanctioned violence after the war.

I almost wrote "state-controlled" violence, but that would be a highly misleading term. The security forces may ultimately turn out to be uncontrollable, in the way that their counterparts in El Salvador's vicious civil war escaped the control of many civilian leaders for years. "State-sanctioned" is only slightly less misleading: while the leaders of the future Iraq may not approve of what many I n the security forces do, they may be giving de facto sanction by failing to control them.

I'm sure that many American and British observers read about the formation of new Iraqi security forces, breathe a sigh of relief, and begin musing about less vexing matters than the jagged-edged political dilemmas that Iraq has posed to its occupiers. However, while there may be more pleasant distractions, such as the question of when occupying troops will be withdrawn, this is the most important time to sustain careful attention to events in Iraq. Whether you believe that the 2003 invasion was a brilliant stroke or a lamentable mistake, you are now seeing the likely shape of the future Iraq. If the Iraqis are following the wrong blueprint, we need to recognize those defects and use our leverage to convince them to make changes. To use the cartoonish language of American political culture, the bad guys might lose, but the good guys might not win.

The end of battle?

IN THE NEWS
An article in last month's Armed Forces Journal made an argument that I haven't heard for a while: the irrelevance of battle in modern strategy. While that sounds like the sort of musty subject that only military academics at the Army War College or Sandhurst might care about, it's actually a thesis that, if correct, should change everyone's expectations and measures of the utility of war.

The early forms of this thesis have been around for quite a while. Clausewitz, for example, made it clear that the standard concept of battle—two armies locked in a death struggle, waiting for the moment to deliver the decisive blow that would subdue the enemy militarily—could easily be irrelevant. Having lived through the Napoleonic Wars, he had plenty of examples where the victors of battles still lost the war. In 1812, the Grande Armée smashed the Russian Army in a series of dramatic battles (including Borodino, a major part of Tolstoy's War and Peace), occupied Moscow, and later evacuated Russia with a fraction of its original strength. In Spain, French generals came to grief chasing mobile British columns and elusive guerrillas. Napoleon, for all his self-publicity about being the master of the battlefield (a claim certainly supported by victories like Austerlitz), could not transform tactical and operational success into theater and grand strategic victories. Years later, Clausewitz would be writing On War with Napoleon clearly in mind. Battlefield victory, Clausewitz pointed out, doesn't necessarily translate into the political outcome you desire.

However, Clausewitz still believed that battles could manufacture political results, even though he was careful to warn his audience that one does not always flow from the other. John Keegan, a modern military historian and theorist, argued in The Face of Battle that battle itself might have become obsolete. After surveying famous battles like Agincourt and the Somme, Keegan concludes that various technological, strategic, and historical changes have made the notion of a decisive battle an illusion. Writing in the later years of the Cold War, Keegan pointed out that traditional "battle" depends on avoiding military scenarios that risk nuclear escalation. Assuming you overcome that hurdle, the enemy has to agree to meet you on the field of battle, an increasingly rare situation in an age when people have mastered "the war of the flea." The increased cost of war, and its disruptive effects on an increasingly interdependent international system, makes a sustained military effort that much harder.

Keegan was not arguing that war was futile. Instead, what the Armed Forces Journal article described as "the Austerlitz moment"—the dramatic battle that decides a conflict—is increasingly rare. Although Keegan didn't phrase it in quite this way, he in effect argued that the operational level of strategy, the critical middle layer between the tactical and theater levels, has fundamentally changed, changing its focus from battle to smaller, steadier clashes.

Saddam Hussein learned this lesson in the hardest possible fashion. The 1990 invasion of Kuwait was supposed to be the decisive stroke that, by putting Iraqi teeth on the Persian Gulf oil artery, elevated Iraq's position in the Middle East and the world. Instead, his invasion locked Iraqi forces into static defenses, waiting for the US-led coalition to evict him from Kuwait, cripple his army, and force Iraq into a humiliating regimen of international inspections, economic sanctions, and effective loss of control over major portions of its territory (particularly in the north).

Before you conclude that Operation DESERT STORM, a successful battle, disproves Keegan's point, think again. DESERT STORM occurred in a golden moment between the end of the Cold War and the emergence of whatever new international order there was to come. The USSR had collapsed, and its Russian core was economically and politically crippled. No nuclear-armed rival was in a position to oppose a Western military build-up in Saudi Arabia. In fact, most countries had good reason to side with the United States: by threatening the Persian Gulf oil supply, Hussein antagonized the world, not just Iraq's immediate neighbors.

Hussein learned the value of avoiding a direct confrontation. When the invasion of Kuwait inspired anger, not acquiescence, in the United States, Hussein began planning for future conflicts. The inspections, no-fly zones, sanctions, and intelligence operations against the Ba'athist regime gave Hussein a better picture of how the US government operates than he had before DESERT STORM. These experiences gave Hussein an appreciation of the value of bluff, delay, and obfuscation, the cornerstones of his new strategy. If the Americans attacked again, some Iraqi forces would put up a fight, but the rest—particularly the fedayeen units—would go into hiding. Thus was one major part of the current Iraqi insurgency born. While Hussein may be in prison, his fate is by no means decided. Who knows what might happen to him, were the new Iraqi regime to collapse?

Meanwhile, the Iranian theocracy has continued its decades-long campaign of indirect conflict with the United States. The latest crisis, in which Iran is testing its ability to play nuclear brinksmanship, is merely the latest in a series of attacks on the American political, economic, and military flanks. While the seizure of American hostages shortly after the Iranian Revolution might have been as much improvisation as deliberate strategy, other stratagems—Iranian support for the Hezbollah, the Iranian attacks on Persian Gulf shipping in the 1980s, and Iran's nuclear program—have been far more deliberate. Iran is not looking for an "Austerlitz moment," even in a confrontation over its nuclear ambitions. Instead, it continues to antagonize the United States, waiting for American leaders to make a crucial mistake, or simply give up some of its position in the Middle East out of sheer exhaustion. Nuclear weapons don't change the game Iran has been playing for nearly thirty years; they simply increase the odds of success.

For American military planners looking for an "Austerlitz moment," the People's Republic of China may be the last opponent that might reasonably grant that opportunity. However, China is just as experienced with this kind of indirect strategy, and far more skilled at it than the Iranians. Even the recent Chinese naval build-up, a development not widely reported in the Western press beyond a few military journals, is not aiming towards a decisive battle with American forces. To use classic Mahanesque naval terminology, China is more likely to seek "sea denial" than "sea control." If the United States and the PRC got into a shooting war over Taiwan or some other objective, the Chinese navy is practically doomed to lose any naval battle. The important question, however, is how many losses Chinese ships, submarines, and aircraft can inflict on the US Navy before they are defeated—particularly if Chinese forces avoid any major engagements. The Chinese naval expansion raises the possibility of unacceptable American losses in any such war: how many aircraft carriers would have to be sunk before US officials felt the political costs of rescuing Taiwan were too high? How many ships and aircraft could the United States lose in the western Pacific before it felt its overall ability to project naval and air power worldwide strained to unacceptable levels?

In short, wherever Americans look, they see a military landscape that is poor ground for future D-Days, Yorktowns, or Gettysburgs. While military power is hardly obsolete, it is now used to engineer different results than decisive battles. When intimidation fails to produce results, armed conflict is the next logical step in dealing with problems like Al Qaeda's safe haven in Afghanistan, or Iran's threat to build and use nuclear weapons. However, contemporary military action at the crucial operational level of strategy is not about the preparation, conduct, and aftermath of a decisive battle. Operational strategy is, instead, the plane of sustained, smaller-scale actions that cascade towards a political outcome.

Perhaps, then, we should do away altogether with the phrase, "the Battle of," when describing recent history. For example, there was no "Battle of Baghdad" in 2003, or "Battle of Fallujah" in 2004. Major mobilizations of US military power do not necessarily lead to decisive results. In fact, the Iraqi invasion led to the exact opposite of what the Bush Administration intended: rather than resolving the problems of the Middle East in a daring masterstroke, the modern equivalent of Napoleon's march on Austria in 1805, the invasion made the Middle East even more problematic. Worse, the United States is now more deeply entangled in the barbed wire of Middle Eastern politics than it was before. In the 1990s, the important American foreign policy question was how best to use the United States' newfound position as the world's remaining superpower. A decade later, the important question is how a local election in Najaf or Karballah might determine the future exercise of US military power. There may be no better illustration of how the traditional concept of "battle" has become a mirage, luring the likes of Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush into dangerous military expeditions.

Resumption of service

IN THE NEWS
I'm back to posting after a bit of a hiatus. The last few weeks have been a challenging combination of work, tax time, work, business travel, work, our daughter picking a university, and...Oh, yeah. Work. I should be back to a normal posting schedule this week.

Resign already

IN THE NEWS
The weight of mistakes in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the general struggle against Al Qaeda and its allies is a better reason for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to resign than a rumored Cabinet shake-up. The rumors themselves are more of a trial balloon than real news. Bush and his new chief of staff are gauging the likely response to a minor purge; however, if past experience is any indication, the replacements for any senior Cabinet officials or their deputies will be even more lackluster than before. Don't wait up for a sudden influx of independent voices or experienced hands—if there is a significant shake-up at all.

Rumsfeld is likely to resist to the bitter end any push, from above or below, for his resignation. The grievous national security errors of the Bush Administration are the direct result of Rumsfeld, his policies, or his anointed subordinates. Osama bin Laden and a major fraction of Al Qaeda escaped the dragnet in Afghanistan because Rumsfeld's experiment in "military transformation" committed too few American troops to that theater in general, and the battle of Tora Bora in particular. Much of the flawed intelligence about the purported Ba'athist nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs came through the "Team B" within the Pentagon. Rumsfeld and his advisors—in particular, Feith and Combone—dismissed expert projections from the State Department, the CIA, and the US military about the difficulty of the Iraqi occupation. Rumsfeld was an enthusiastic supporter of threadbare legal theories that granted the Defense Department and other agencies the power to indefinitely imprison terrorist suspects, use interrogation measures that few governments (other than the American one, and perhaps a sprinkling of tyrannies around the world) would hesitate to call torture; and, ultimately, produce very little in the way of "actionable intelligence" against Al Qaeda.

In fact, the last several years of US foreign policy might be called the Age of Rumsfeld. For all his public complaining, Rumsfeld appears to have gotten his way more often than not—and far more frequently than any of Bush's other national security advisors. For example, Rumsfeld had liberty to test his theories of "military transformation"—smaller, more agile US military deployments, heavily reliant on "local forces" and "contractors," wielded as instruments of a more unilateral US foreign policy—not once, but twice. In hindsight, that's an extraordinary achievement for Rumsfeld. While remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda still prowled southeastern Afghanistan, the new Afghan regime barely surviving political challenges from within and without, opium production starting to rise to alarming levels, and US forces tied down in an indefinitely long counterinsurgency war with its NATO and Afghan allies, Rumsfeld got to repeat the experiment all over again on a far larger scale in Iraq. Even though the warning signs about Rumsfeld's "transformation" were clear, the United States executed the same strategy for Iraq—enough troops for invasion, but not occupation, and an obliviousness to the problems of counterinsurgency—with far higher costs if the strategy failed.

There's more to the Age of Rumsfeld than doctrine, however. Just as Napoleon and his marshals gave that phase of French history a particular personality—bravado that could quickly devolve into recklessness—Bush and Rumsfeld have given the last few years of American history a particular character: stubbornness that can be easily mistaken for determination. Rumsfeld is the old bull elephant of Bush's Cabinet, someone who cannot be moved unless he wants to be. He has enough vitality to keep challengers quiet, but not enough to move energetically. He has to focus his remaining strength on maintaining his current position, since he knows that he has no future once he surrenders it. His angry trumpeting sounds fierce, but it will not be missed.

He's not serious, is he?

IN THE NEWS
Richard Nixon once took the theories of nuclear brinskmanship to their logical extreme, the "madman theory." During the Cold War, only a lunatic would threaten to use nuclear weapons; therefore, Nixon concluded, if you did a convincing impression of a lunatic, you could rattle the nuclear saber whenever you needed. At the time, Nixon was thinking of applying the "madman theory" to North Vietnam, whose representatives in Paris had effectively stalled negotiations over the future of the two Vietnams. Nixon put US forces on a secret nuclear alert that he hoped would frighten the Soviets, North Vietnam's superpower patron, into pressuring Ho Chi Minh to make a deal before the crazy American president did something everyone would regret.

Nixon's madman theory is back--maybe. Is George Bush crazy enough to bomb Iran? Or is he a sane man trying to pull off a tremendous bluff?

With the US military dangerously overstretched, the Iraq War threatening to escalate into open conflict among sectarian groups, and Bush's domestic support at record lows, you might conclude that he'd have to be crazy to threaten Iran. More significantly, his Pentagon briefers, if they're doing their jobs at all, have told him how improbable complete victory from the air would be. The Iranian nuclear program is broken into many pieces, scattered across the country, and hidden in many difficult-to-reach, well-defended locations. The probability of completely eliminating every blueprint, every bomb component, every piece of fissionable material, and every nuclear scientist is practically nil. Leaving aside the practical and political barriers, the only military options with any chance of success are (1) invasion, and (2) nuclear attack. Both are highly unlikely...Aren't they?

Bush is performing the usual rhetorical dance that all Presidents make in confrontations like these. Say that all options are on the table, and step closer towards conflict. Wave your hands in the air and claim anyone who thinks you're planning for a war is being hysterical. Turn around and begin quiet preparations for air strikes. Face your enemy, smile, and say, "Of course, the onus is on you to stop me from attacking you."

Had Bush not announced a policy of preemptive warfare, and then executed it against Iraq, the world might not be as nervous as it is now. If Bush had demonstrated any willingness to admit the strains that the Iraq War has placed on the US military, more people might conclude that he understands the practical barriers to invasion that exist. Had Bush made steps towards reviving traditional American multilateralism in crisis management, we might feel that the odds of him saying, "Screw it, we'll use tactical nuclear weapons if we have to," would be a lot lower.

If Bush is serious, the US military and Congress face a defining moment. If tactical nuclear weapons are being prepared, quite a few generals and admirals are now deciding whether to resign, rather than carry out orders that are clearly not in the US national interest. If not-so-subtle nuclear elements of the Bush Administration's threats turn out to be a bluff, but more conventional attacks are not, the same military chiefs still face a situation that they cannot support. Meanwhile, the Republicans in Congress have to decide when they'll stop rubber-stamping every foreign policy decision the Administration makes. The Democrats in the House and Senate have to stop waiting for the Republicans in the legislative and executive branches to suffer a collective meltdown. (The Democrats' strategy resembles the Bush Administration's own misguided faith in mass uprisings that will save the day, without anyone having to do strenuous political work.)

Much of this discussion may be distorted by the word "crazy," which people often use to describe others with whom they don't agree. Nixon may have overstated things a bit when he concluded that only a madman would ever threaten to use nuclear weapons. If that had been the case, a generation of madmen worked in the Defense Department, crafting the doctrine of nuclear brinksmanship that more Presidents than just Nixon applied. You just have to follow a cold logic to its conclusion, without regard to many of the risks. Of course, this Administration has trivialized dangers before, and just proved to be wrong.

From Thug #4 to chief villain

IN THE NEWS
US government officials continue their efforts to either eliminate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, or limit his influence. Although the last three years since the invasion of Iraq have been tumultuous, that's not an excuse for forgetting who Zarqawi was before the US invasion. His organization, Ansar al-Islam, was a minor terrorist organization, using the safe haven established for the Kurds in northern Iraq as a stage for occasional attacks on Kurdish leaders and other targets. Ansar al-Islam and the Ba'ath Party were enemies, but Zarqawi's tiny organization was no real threat to anyone. Nominally affiliated with Al Qaeda, Ansar al-Islam worked independently from bin Laden's organization, depending more on cooperation with the Iranians than anyone else.

The invasion of Iraq gave Zarqawi a larger stage, more recruits, and convenient American and British targets. While the United States cannot ignore Zarqawi, even though it is responsible for unintentionally helping him realize his ambitions far beyond what was possible before the invasion, US officials have to be careful not to exaggerate his importance. Videos of beheadings give Zarqawi Public Enemy #1 status, but his new organization, Al Qaeda in Iraq (again, officially allied with Al Qaeda, but actually working independently of that group), is not necessarily the greatest problem for the new Iraqi government. None of this recent history, as The Washington Post states, helps "the Bush administration tie the war to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks."

Ranters, Diggers, and Levellers

IN THE NEWS
I'm in the middle of reading The World Turned Upside Down, historian Christopher Hill's classic study of the radical religious movements in 17th century Britain. I'm always interested in the religious dimension of revolutionary warfare, and it has been a long time since I last read Hill's book.

Often, when you read a good book again, you walk away with a different set of impressions and conclusions. This time around, I'm struck by Hill's description of how confident these groups were in their beliefs. Although they disagreed on many points, from theology (how individuals achieve salvation) to demonology (who the enemies of salvation are), they shared a common impatience with authority. At the same time that England was founding the colonies that would become the United States, the self-described beacon of liberty in the 21st century, these religious movements--the Diggers, Ranters, Levellers, Fifth Monarchists, Quakers, Seekers, and Grindletonians--were challening the entire religious, political, social, and economic order. Since many of these dissidents became American colonists, you'd be justified to say that the United States was conceived in the womb of English religious radicalism.

Even before the English Civil War, these groups were making themselves felt within British society. Quakers challenged the standard format of religious services, insisting that, after the sermon, members of the congregation should have the right to respond. Levellers believed that every Christian had the right to "prophecy" (in the original Biblical sense of calling the community to task for not ending injustices), but the congregation to which they belonged needed to act as a check against individual error. Diggers, who called themselves "the True Levellers," rejected churches altogether: Gerrard Winstanley, an influential Digger, thought that popular opinion was no less a spiritual prison than the official dictates of a hierarchical, state-controlled church. Grindletonians doubted the historical accuracy of the Bible, and even questioned whether an historical Jesus existed at all. Some Ranters had doubts about the idea of an immortal soul, and their pantheistic leanings led to a Dionysian view of the spiritual life. (If God pervades his creation, why not enjoy life to its fullest?) Some of these groups believed there should be no king, but were comfortable with Parliament; others argued that the Army (particularly Cromwell's New Model Army) was the only part of the state that could wield legitimate power. Many were indifferent to any form of government, as long as it did not try to interfere in an individual's spiritual life. Some sought to lessen or eliminate class differences, restricting the wealth and privileges of the nobility. Others believed that all property should be held in common.

These religious dissidents were fractious, noisy, and riotous. Some, like the Diggers, occupied the estates of nobles when they felt they needed to use the land for themselves. When the nobles complained, the Diggers lectured them on their religious duties to the needy. Quakers argued in public with Episcopalean authorities over basic Christian principles. Pamphleteers accused various leaders--the King, Cromwell, the Duke of Buckingham--of being the Anti-Christ, or his agents. The widespread belief that history may come to an apocalyptic close at any moment rubbed tempers raw. While you might admire the religious dissidents for their open-mindedness and confidence, 17th-century England was a trying place to live.

However, none of the apocalyptic warnings turned out to be true, including the claims of royal, noble, and episcopal claims that the dissidents were going to wreck England. The country survived, and in the long term, the English prospered from the skeptical, anti-authoritarian traditions that the Diggers, Levellers, Quakers, and others expanded beyond anything seen before. Hill repeatedly mentions how the dissidents opened the door to free scientific inquiry, challenging new forms of literature, and more inclusive politics. The dissidents also (perhaps unintentionally) re-invigorated the official Church of England. Bishops and priests had to meet the challenge of the energetic religious radicals with more than claims of authority, back with the armed might of the British monarchy.

Today, Christian orthodoxies are faced with similar challenges. Centuries ago, Baptists argued that no Christian should be baptized until it was possible to make reasoned, voluntary consent. Today, mainstream Baptists reject the idea of applying reason to matters of faith, preferring to believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. Centuries ago, the Catholic Church punished Galileo, not because the inquisitors believed his science was wrong, but because his scientific publications threatened the Church's claim to absolute truth. Now, the papacy has officially forgiven Galileo--though the discomfort with many scientific conclusions remains.

The challenge to these orthodoxies doesn't come merely from paleontology or evolutionary biology. Biblical archaeology is adding details to our understanding of the world in which Jesus reportedly lived that, in many cases, challenge some basic assumptions about New Testament personalities and stories. For example, recent works like Rabbi Jesus cast early Christianity in a very new and very Jewish light. Careful Biblical scholarship has revealed the ways in which the supposedly inerrant Word of God changed over the centuries, particularly when translators and scribes accidentally or deliberately altered the text.

None of the Christians I know who are interested in contemporary Biblical archaeology or scholarship have lost their faith because of these discoveries. Quite the opposite: Jesus, who had been rendered as almost an alien, unknowable being by early Greek theologians, becomes a far more comprehensible figure. Obvious problems with the Bible (see Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason for a sample list of contradictions and impossibilities) become less of a spiritual and intellectual headache to resolve when the evolution of the Bible becomes clear.

Outrage often drives revolution, but there is no outrage in the calm, deliberate work of evolutionary biologists and Biblical archaeologists. Fear often drives counterrevolution, which is perhaps why many American Christians seem to be fighting against invisible enemies to their faith. Any challenge to a brittle, ossified version of Christianity is as likely today to generate a counterrevolutionary backlash as it did in 17th century England. However, just as the threat to turn the world upside down was vastly overstated then, so too is it overstated now. We already live in an age of considerable religious conflict; we don't need to invent new religious struggles against "enemies" that don't exist, over matters as ridiculous as whether dinosaurs lived in the Garden of Eden. Christianity, the state, and the social order survived the Diggers, Levellers, Quakers, and Ranters; so, too, will they survive the questioning spirit of the 21st century.

Kaboom!

IN THE NEWS
That's the sound of the Internet exploding with discussion about today's big story: in court documents filed today, Scooter Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, testified that the order to leak classified documents about Iraq's alleged nuclear weapons program ultimately came not from Cheney, but from President George W. Bush.

Of course, this is one man's testimony, and there's a whole lot more investigating that needs to be done before special prosecutor Kevin Fitzgerald is done. Leaking flawed intelligence about alleged Iraqi WMD programs is not as unambiguously wrong or criminal as "outing" a CIA operative. However, if Libby's story, withstands scrutiny, this is News with a capital "N," and not, as some people have speculated today, a story that doesn't have "legs." For every effort to brush aside Libby's testimony as unimportant, there's an obvious rebuttal:

• The President granted himself the power to de-classify documents in 2003. Yes, but the information in question wasn't exactly released as part of a Freedom of Information Act request. The Administration continued to insist that all its intelligence about Iraqi WMD efforts was under tight seal. The de-classification, if indeed it was approved in writing, was itself kept secret among Bush, Cheney, and Libby. And remember how Bush spoke as though these leaks were coming from some unnamed official, who would experience the full presidential wrath once discovered?
• The President authorized the release of the information to help convince Americans of what people thought was a serious threat. This "release" was handled in the most underhanded way possible, through a leak. Leaks, of course, don't get the scrutiny that, say, Bush's assertion in the State of the Union address that Iraq was trying to buy yellowcake from African countries. Leaks are also an easier path to fight political battles that have nothing to do with the merits of the cassus belli against Saddam Hussein.
• This discussion has nothing to do with the Valerie Plame case. Except, of course, that the White House did have a coordinated strategy against of the war--again, a political battle, not a high-minded debate over national security concerns.

The Bush Administration fought hard for the war it wanted to fight against Iraq. President Bush is now facing the consequences, both of the war itself and how he made it happen.