This week's Watcher's Council submissions are UP! The Irony of Me, Barack Obama,Regulations, and Loan Modifications - The Provocateur examines how allowing loan modifications will likely cause even more havoc in the mortgage market and how the regula...

I think you have to go back to the Roosevelt order in the Middle East in which the U.S. presence is based upon oil and the desire to influence the international order. Take away those two elements and U.S. involvement is unnecessary.

VIA Indexed: Time to look busy. The O-Kennedy Plot: Caroline gave Obama her endorsement for a quid pro quo, that payoff being the Senate seat. To clear that particular deck Obama had to proffer Hillary the SecState role, which, given the stage she lov...

If we allow al Qaeda to pick the time and place of our confrontations, we cede to them the initiative and choice of terrain.

AQ will always pick the time and place of our confrontations. It is in their nature (they are in fact very weak) to attack us only at our weakest points and our most vulnerable times. They cannot win a direct confrontation, so they hit us when and where we are at our most vulnerable, and then fade back into the shadows. I do not see an easy way around this dynamic, other than a massive investment in human intelligence.... but that has repercussions too.

Just because AQ might consider Iraq or Afghanistan a central front does not mean we have to.

While I agree with your broader sentiment here Bernard, I have to point out that AQ certainly didn't make Iraq a central front in the "war on terror", the Bush Admin (w/ congressional lap dog-ism) did. They just decided that if that was where we wanted to fight, they would accomodate us.

Yes, they may indeed claim victory if we do retrench. But we cannot make American policy in response to AQ press releases.

Indeed, we have to understand that their declarations of "Victory" are as hollow as Bush's declaration of "Mission Accomplished".

Of course, you could argue that you shouldn't do that when a terrorist attacks; instead, you ought to focus on getting your local Islamic contingent on-board (the US has done this pretty well, Europe not so much), and killing off jihadist groups when they pop up. Doing the other way is kind of like what we've done with the Drug War - you end up escalating things.

I see you are a fellow Pigovian, Steve. This pleases me. You're right about the pricing issue, although I wonder if you might need another element - something that would weaken the US's reliance on Middle Eastern suppliers to the point where doing the type of geopolitical gaming we've been doing in the Middle East (much less making it the center of our international strategy, as has been the case for a decade at least)just isn't cost-effective for the oil purchased.

In the long-run, the calculus is easy. Energy independence is a strategic imperative.

I think this is the weakest part of your argument Bernard. Simply put there is no magic energy pony for us to turn too, at least right now and politicians are too cowardly to pursue the policy that would accomplish this goal--i.e. drive up prices to make alternatives and research for alternatives viable. A pigouvian tax on oil and gasoline would accomplish this, but it will never be implemented...even by making such a tax revenue neutral (i.e. reducing either payroll or income taxes to offset the increased tax on oil).

Sure I suppose you could argue the government can fund the research, but the government is usually pretty bad at being innovative, efficient, and responding quickly to changes in the market. You'd likely get entrenched interests for various types of "alternative energy sources" based on political nonsense vs. actual market and technical viability.

I did like this part alot, though,

As a matter of strategy, it is tremendously dangerous to allow your enemies to define your interests for you. If we allow al Qaeda to pick the time and place of our confrontations, we cede to them the initiative and choice of terrain.

I'd like to see Dave's response to this in particular. I think it will be the hardest part for him to overcome. Surrendering the initiative is not an ideal strategy.