Fred Barnes writes that it would be “crass” to “assess the politics of the capture of Saddam Hussein.” (He proceeds to do so anyway.) Meanwhile, The New York Times webpage ran a story yesterday that began: “How big a political lift will President Bush derive from the capture of Saddam Hussein? Very big indeed, said several political scientists, who used words like ‘huge, ‘enormous’ and ‘profound.’ …. ‘My first reaction was, you might as well call off the election,’ said Prof. Allan J. Lichtman, a historian at American University.” By this morning, this story had disappeared from the Times, although it’s still available via the International Herald Tribune. (The story that actually appeared in today’s Times is more nuanced, less prominent, and focuses mainly on the dangers for Howard Dean.)

I admit that one of my first thoughts upon hearing about Saddam’s capture was: How does this affect the election? But I felt guilty about having that thought. On reflection, a number of (not entirely consistent) ideas came to mind:

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Al Qaeda hasn’t attacked any US domestic targets since 2001. Maybe this is because Osama bin Laden is only interested in worse crimes than the ones he ordered on 9/11, and he’s now planning something truly devastating. Or perhaps Al Qaeda has been temporarily battered and foiled, but will soon strike again.

On the other hand, could it be that that the invasion of Iraq has made the US a less desirable target? A “Tom-Friedmanesque” argument would go like this: Osama bin Laden is only interested in overthrowing secular or corrupt governments in Moslem countries. He doesn’t care about an infidel nation like the US. He does, however, regard America as a source of support for the regimes in Egypt and the Gulf. Furthermore, he used to think that we would be easy to scare. Thus he believed that he could move toward his goal by striking a blow against the United States, thereby causing us to disengage from the Middle East. This was supposed to be an easy step in his overall plan. Instead, 9/11 led to the occupation of two historically Moslem states: Iraq and Afghanistan. To be sure, these US adventures have created targets and opportunities for Al Qaeda. But they also pose serious risks for Islamic extremism. Thus it’s no longer clear that attacking the US is a logical step on the way to bin Laden’s goals. Instead, he is now ordering attacks aimed at destablizing the regimes that he actually wants to overthrow, in Indonesia, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.

By itself, this argument (even if true) would not justify a war against Iraq, but it would weigh on the scales of judgment.

Reading about anti-Bush protests in London reminds me that the Republican National Convention will be held next summer in New York City, where a lot of people are Democrats, against the war, and angry about federal economic policies, from the big tax cuts to the scanty post-9/11 aid for New York. I hope there will be massive protests, but I hope that the organizers will heed the following message, which Harry Boyte saved from the March on Washington in 1963. In the program guide, Dr. Martin Luther King and the other organizers wrote: “In a neighborhood dispute there may be stunts, rough words, and even hot insults; but when a whole people speaks to its government the dialogue and the action must be on a level reflecting the worth of that people and the responsibility of that government.”

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Today is the beginning of CIRCLE‘s

annual Advisory Board meeting, when we present our year’s work for review.

Meanwhile, I recommend this long but excellent radio

program about neighborhood councils in Baghdad.

(Thanks to Archon Fung for spreading

the word about it.) At least once a week, I read an article about Americans

and/or Iraqis who are improvising public services or creating democratic

forums in Iraq. Even though the Army is a hierarchical and bureaucratic

organization with a partly violent purpose, many of our soldiers seem

to have a great capacity for improvisation and diplomacy and a deep

understanding of liberal democratic ideals. There are plenty of stories

about poor planning at the highest levels of our government (and in

the Iraqi Governing Council), and about the inadequate training of the

occupation forces; but these stories don’t detract from the work that’s

being done by at least some of our rank-and-file servicemen and women.

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