Bloggers as diverse as Ken Parish and Steven den Beste have argued that the real case for an invasion of Iraq is ‘about oil’ in the sense that it will provide a way of breaking the OPEC stranglehold on oil, and therefore allowing the US to deal with the real source of Islamist terrorism: Saudi Arabia. For those who support such a rationale, and regard the threat posed by Islamists as calling for American sacrifices comparable to those made in World War II (not to mention the thousands of Iraqi civilians and unwilling conscripts whose lives will be sacrificed as ‘collateral damage’) I have a proposal that is simple, cost-effective,unilateral, foolproof and unthinkable.

The proposal is petrol (gasoline) rationing. If the US reduced its consumption of oil (used primarily for gasoline) by half, it would reduce its import dependency to zero and Americans would still be able consume more, per person, than the rest of the OECD. OPEC would be out of business. The proposal is:

Simple:

Nothing could be simpler than this

Cost-effective:

In financial terms, the US would reduce its trade deficit. In economic terms, there would be a loss of consumer welfare, but it would be well under the 3 per cent of GDP that has been estimated as the cost of a serious war effort

Unilateral:

An invasion of Iraq requires the co-operation of at least some middle Eastern oil states and preferably Saudi Arabia itself. In addition, it requires at least passive consent from the Russians, who have apparently already secured guarantees that their oil interests won’t be affected. Rationing can be implemented without going near the UN or any foreign government.

Foolproof:

Unlike war, which is always chancy, rationing is something at which governments have always excelled. And if black marketeers managed to slip around the edges of the policy, even a 25 per cent reduction in US demand would push the Saudis into bankruptcy

Unthinkable:

Just think about it

Paul Krugman documents and analyzes the growth in inequality in the US, attributing it, rightly in my view, to changes in social attitudes and the distribution of political power rather than to underlying forces. In passing, he notes that median incomes in the US have risen by only 10 per cent in the past 20 years, and demolishes the Instapundit factoid claim that people are better off in Mississippi than in Sweden.
For those who prefer striking examples to statistics, check out the latest from Arianna Huffington

No more posting from me until Monday. I’ll be observing our national day of mourning of which the wattle above is the symbol.

In commenting on the Bali bombings, I’ve avoided linking to the writings of others, either bloggers or other commentators (with the exception of a brief response to one US-based critic of my comments). I didn’t want to have the difficult task of clarifying my own thoughts and emotions made more difficult by arguments with others.
But now that the immediate aftermath is behind us, I thought I’d record my views on the way in which bloggers and other dealt with these awful events. On the whole, I thought Australians responded pretty well – showing sympathy those injured and bereaved, grief for those lost, and anger at those who would do such a thing, but not giving way either to panic or to calls for indiscriminate revenge on Muslims or Indonesians in general.
Thus far, at least, our political leaders have responded both decently and sensibly. I was disappointed by reports that Bob Brown had said that the bombing was a result of our possible involvement in an attack on Iraq (and I said so in a comments thread somewhere) but as Don Arthur notes, these reports turned out to be false. And while I don’t suppose they are blind to the possibilities, neither Howard nor Crean has gone after political advantage as yet.
Nevertheless, some people, including deplorably, Archbishop Carnley, have tried to use the bombing to make a political point about Iraq. It will be a long time, if ever, before we know if the Australian position on Iraq played a role in the decisions of the terrorists about who should be targeted (I doubt it, but I have no more evidence than anyone else). But regardless of what we might or might not find out some time in the future, the important fact was that many Australians and others were murdered by evil criminals. Any attempt to exploit that for political purposes, especially in a way that might be seen to mitigate the guilt of the killers, is wrong and offensive.
Coming to the blogosphere, I’ll begin by agreeing with just about everybody else that Gareth Parker‘s contribution has been superb. Gareth’s conveyed all the emotions Australians have felt about this atrocity, while remaining reasonable and balanced in his determination that we should bring those responsible to justice.
The negatives are much harder to find. Fortunately, as far as I know, no Australian blogger has taken the line that ‘we are to blame for all this’. The main blogging fault has been on the other side, with people so eager to sniff out heresy that they were happy to make it up if they couldn’t find it. An example was James Morrow’s beat-up about the way the SMH rewrote the Reuters feed they got.
Tim Blair gave us a mixed bag – some great, impassioned and obviously sincere writing on the victims of the bombing mixed with a lot of petty point-scoring and heresy-hunting. His American audience loved it, but most of the Australian commentary I saw was more ambivalent and rightly so.
Between the extremes, the majority of bloggers struggled to come to terms with the bombing but managed to make valuable contributions in the end. I’d particularly mention Don Arthur, Bargarz, Tim Dunlop, Ken Parish and Scott Wickstein. I won’t say anything about my own contributions, but the comments thread on this blog has plenty of interesting ideas from among others, Jason Soon and Jack Strocchi. And there are lots of others I haven’t listed – readres could start by checking the links on the left .

From the NYT, the best comment I’ve yet seen on the Iraqi election. It’s Saddam Hussein, by a Whisker
Teaser: “Mr. Hussein won 100 percent of the vote, but Mr. Hussein’s aides claim that the real number was probably closer to 110 percent.”

As a result of the Washington shootings, there are increasing calls in the US for gun ‘fingerprinting’. The idea is guns would be test-fired and records of the bullets kept for matching with those retrieved from crime scenes. As both opponents and critics have acknowledged, this would, in effect be a registration system, something that is anathema to the National Rifle Association and other supporters of an unrestricted right to bear arms.

However, I didn’t want to comment on this debate but on an article in which it is argued that such fingerprinting won’t and can’t work. This piece, linked by Instapundit.com:, was published at a site called Junkscience.com which purports to refute “”Junk science” defined as” faulty scientific data and analysis used to used to further a special agenda. ”

The publisher of Junk Science is Steve Milloy, who is an adjunct fellow at the Cato Institute. So, one might ask whether Milloy’s definition of junk science applies to his own site. Since scientific truth is always provisional it’s hard to prove that any particular piece of scientific work is ‘faulty’ (alternatively, if you apply a sufficiently high standard of rigour, all work is faulty). So the obvious question is whether the work is being used to ‘further a special agenda’. After all, scientific facts being as awkward as they are, anyone who pursues objective research is sooner or later going to come up with results that have political implications they don’t like.

This has, however, not happened to Milloy, as far as I can see. I went through his site, and failed to find a single instance where the results he reported weren’t in line with the poltical agenda of the Cato Institute. On some issues, such as global warming, his claims are clearly inconsistent with the views of even the most sceptical scientific commentators. Milloy says
“Global warming is a silly controversy that should have faded long ago. But gullible youth, a corrupt bureaucracy and biased media may keep it alive for years to come.”
Among serious scientists, even strong Kyoto opponents like Richard Lindzen agree that the balance of evidence favors the existence of some human-induced global warming, and argue only that the uncertainty surrounding the issue is too great to justify immediate action. Milloy would be hard-pressed to find any credible scientist who would endorse his claim.

But more to the point, even when Milloy’s facts are right, what he’s doing is advocacy disguised as science. He selects the facts that support his political case, and ignores those that don’t. Does anyone seriously suppose, for example, that if a new and improved method of gun fingerprinting were developed, Milloy would publicise it? What he does is rightly described as “junk science”.

This kind of thing is done on all sides of politics, particularly in relation to environmental issues. What makes Milloy particularly dangerous, however, is that he engages in advocacy while purporting to defend scientific objectivity. Quite a few others, often claiming to be ‘sceptics’, do the same thing. The right word for someone who believes scientific evidence will always confirm their preconceived views is ‘credulous’ not sceptical’.

A good test on this relates to environmental and food safety ‘scares’. There have been a great many of these over the past thirty or forty years, relating to such diverse risks as acid rain, aluminium saucepans, Alar (a pesticide used on apples) and asbestos, to name only the first few on my list. Anyone who investigates them honestly will find some where the scientific evidence of danger is overwhelming, some where it is non-existent and some that are in-between. It follows that someone who always finds that scares are justified, or always finds that they are not justified, is not a scientist but a lobbyist.

The revelation that the North Korean government, the second member of the Axis of Evil (and it seems pretty clear that Iran was only thrown in to make up the numbers) has been trying to build nuclear weapons has forced rethinking of lots of positions. At this stage, it appears probable though not certain that no bomb has actually been built and also probable but not certain that the Pakistani government gave assistance in return for missiles. What is clear is that the North Korean government has violated a range of agreeements it made with the US under the Clinton Administration.

The big rethinking is going on as various people try to adjust their positions on Iraq or use this news to justify their earlier positions. I’m in the latter category myself, and I suppose most others will be also, human nature being what it is.

The North Korean news indicates a need for a much sharper focus on weapons of mass destruction and the abandonment of the idea of regime change for its own sake. It’s clear, despite the Axis of Evil rhetoric, that the US Administration has no real desire to launch an invasion of North Korea, even though its (the Koreans, I mean) rulers are every bit as evil as Saddam. And despite the rhetoric of hyperpower, the idea that even the US can run wars on four fronts (Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, Al Qaeda) stretches credulity.

What is needed now is a really serious focus on weapons of mass destruction everywhere, not just in Iraq. This means
(i) continuing the push for unfettered inspections and destruction of all weapons facilities in Iraq
(ii) demanding the same in N. Korea. Clearly agreements without verification are worthless. This should be pushed through the UN with whatever bribes are needed to prevent a Chinese veto
(iii) a really serious effort to denuclearise the fragment states of the former Soviet Union
(iv) pressure on France and the UK governments to abandon their nuclear weapons. These are pure status symbols with no remaining strategic role, and set an immensely bad example to prestige-seeking governments in the Third World
(v) more cuts in Russian and US arsenals
(vi) the US government recanting its opposition to germ warfare and other treaties (as I pointed out earlier the US objections are the same as those of Saddam
(vii) Pushing hard for a settlement of the Israel/Palestine dispute, then offering the Israelis incentives for nuclear disarmament

This is a long and dishearteningly difficult agenda. But step (i) is looking good and several of the others seem a lot more possible than they did when Reagan and Brezhnev were in office.

The biggest and most difficult issues relate to India and Pakistan. Someone in the comment thread referred to the idea that since S11, Americans focused on the ‘worst case scenario’, and that this justified an invasion of Iraq. But the most plausible worst case scenarios I can think of involve Pakistan – beginning either with a nuclear war between India and Pakistan or with Pakistan’s bombs getting into the ‘wrong’ hands (worse than those they’re already in, that is). If someone could persuade India and Pakistan to take $100 billion apiece in return for agreeing to a settlement in Kashmir and giving up their nuclear weapons (or even scaling back to half a dozen apiece), it would be money well spent.

As an aside, I try when blogging to distinguish governments from the people they rule and, in some cases, represent. For example, I talk about whether Saddam* will comply with UN resolutions and how the Bush Administration will respond. On the other hand, an invasion of Iraq, since it is the country that will be invaded and occupied. This isn’t always a simple distinction to draw, and I haven’t been entirely consistent, but it’s worth remembering, particularly when we think about countries like Indonesia.

* I have formed the impression that ‘Saddam’ is the least respectful form of his name, and therefore use it at all times.

Jack Kapica has a nice take on the music biz.

In one of the first warblogger responses to the proposed compromise resolution on Iraq, Stephen den Beste at USS Clueless confesses himself confused, reaches the obvious conclusion that crucial allies (he names Kuwait and, interestingly enough, Qatar) wouldn’t go along with a unilateral war without UN approval, then contradicts himself by saying:

Given that the Bush administration now has the ability at any time to kiss off the UN entirely and move if it becomes necessary, then as long as we’re marking time anyway, there’s little danger in this.

One possibility is that the US “agrees” to the two-stage approach, and when the time comes it will go back to the UNSC and say, “It’s time for that second resolution. Oh, by the way, the bombing began fifteen minutes ago.”

Are these strikes supposed to be launched from Kuwait and Qatar? And while den Beste is confident that the US can do without the ‘Europeans’, he doesn’t clarify whether this includes the British, who would certainly be unable to countenance this kind of thing, and whose forces are operationally integrated with those of the US.

But the best clue to how den Beste really sees things is in the filename link to his post, which is “Knuckling under.shtml”.

The fact is that, if the proposed resolution is passed, and the inspectors are admitted and do not report Iraqi obstruction, the US government will find it virtually impossible to launch an invasion unless it is willing to violate the sovereignty of numerous allies in both Europe and the Middle East. den Beste and others should admit this and start thinking about the consequences, rather than grasping at straws.

Stephen den Beste replies “I guess I wasn’t as clear as I thought I was. Publicly, Kuwait and Qatar are saying they need UN approval. Privately, I suspect they don’t, but they want to be seen saying “No” right up until five minutes before the bombing begins, launched from their territory. (Launched from Qatar. Kuwait will be holding some of our troops preparing for ground assault.)”

I still don’t think this analysis stands up. The presence of UN inspectors, operating under a resolution agreed by the US, is going to impose incredible costs on any country that participates in an invasion, unless of course, Saddam obliges by obstructing the inspectors to the point where they report noncompliance back to the UNSC. Why put Qatar and Britain in this position just to please the French?

If the US were really committed to an invasion, surely it would be far more sensible to have proposed a resolution that was vetoed by the French or Russians. Then Bush could denounce the UN and present the US as the only real opponent of terrorism. Of course, the “veto” part of the story assumes that the US resolution would have obtained a majority, which doesn’t seem likely, but that isn’t crucial.

I conclude that the Powell faction in the administration has won, even if the hawks haven’t yet realised it. And of course, there’s still the possibility that Saddam will give Bush the war he wants.

Further update Powell is now engaged in desperate spin to conceal the fact that the compromise he’s agreed to will make a unilateral US decision to go to war with Iraq almost impossible. But they can’t go without Britain, so it’s useful to read what the Brits have been saying:
“Britain, the United States’ only ally so far in its campaign for military action against Baghdad, stepped in to try to bridge the persisting gap between Washington and Paris, assuring France and other wary Council members that London would insist on another round of “detailed discussions” before any military assault.”
and
“Even Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain’s ambassador, felt forced to insist that “our first preference is a peaceful solution.

He said that whenever Mr. Blix or weapons inspectors reported that Iraq was not cooperating, Britain would insist on a new Council meeting to “hear the view” of other members.”

In other words, once the compromise resolution is passed, the issue is in the hands of Saddam and Mr. Blix. No negative report, no grounds for war.
Update Powell’s spin has kept some warbloggers happy. But remember that only a couple of months ago, the US position was an unconditional demand for regime change. All that’s left in the reported draft resolution, and in the statements of the UK and US governments, is that, if inspectors report obstruction to the UNSC, the US and UK will not necessarily accept a veto on military action cast by, say, France. This keeps the pressure on Saddam to comply, which is good, but concedes defeat on the original US position, which is also good.

At least for those of us who favor unfettered weapons inspections rather than war with Iraq, the news that the US is to offer a deal for a U.N. Resolution on Iraq is very encouraging. If Saddam rejects this, there will be no alternative but to send in troops. But the global consequences of an attack on Saddam backed by the entire world would be totally different from, and far more favorable than, those of a US invasion with no clear casus belli or war aims.

Facing strong opposition from dozens of nations, the United States has backed down from its demand that a new U.N. resolution must explictly authorize military force if Iraq fails to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors, diplomats said Thursday.
Instead, the United States is floating a compromise that would give inspectors a chance to test Baghdad’s will to cooperate on the ground. If the inspectors report that Iraq is obstructing their work, the United States would agree to return to the Security Council for further debate and possibly another resolution authorizing action, the diplomats said

(As an aside for any remaining Mark Steyn fans reading this blog, it appears that none of the countries he claimed were “on board” for an invasion stepped up to support it, and several explicitly opposed it.)

This outcome is going to be very helpful to us in getting full co-operation from Indonesia in the hunt for the Bali bombers and their backers. The last thing we need in this context is a reminder of the ‘deputy sheriff’ and similar episodes. So far the Indonesian response has been much better than I expected, but a lot of goodwill is going to be needed over coming months and years.
No amount of good news for the world as a whole can offset the continuing sadness and anger of Australians seeing bereaved survivors returning from Bali, and families here being forced to give up hope. But the prospects of a united world fighting against this evil are better than they have been at any time since the immediate aftermath of September 11.