Eegahblogging: Nearing the Finish Line

Tom Servo: "He's like a Cabbage Patch Elvis"

The moniker Cabbage Patch Elvis, used to describe the horrifyingly goofy protagonist of Eegah, Arch Hall Jr, is a classic line. It combines the unexplainable popularity of Cabbage Patch dolls in the 80s with the now-quaint rebelliousness of Elvis in the 50s. Yet it also reminds me of a certain gentleman in today's political climate, who combines lame-rebelliousness with an ability to convince Americans to waste their money on shit they didn't need ($200 billion dollars, 1500 dead soldiers, and counting...).

As I pointed out in a previous post, the amazing thing about the recent spat between Juan Cole and Jonah Goldberg is that while Goldberg continues to rant about how liberal academia is anti-American and hurting the cause in Iraq, Juan Cole was consistently providing some of the soundest advice for how we can succeed in Iraq (and elsewhere in the Middle East) the entire time. I felt like I only scratched the surface on Goldberg's hypocrisy in that last post, so here are some more comparisons of what Cabbage Patch Elvis and The Professor have been saying over the past few years.

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Cabbage Patch Elvis (July 31, 2002):

Obviously, Saddam's overthrow could destabilize the region, but since when is stability the highest standard for American foreign policy? Destabilizing a stable system of cruelty and oppression sounds pretty good to me. We're all for destabilizing the mob, right?

The Professor (September 6, 2002):

The U.S. would have to avoid attempting to micro-manage the new government, and would have to acquiesce if a party and prime minister came to power it did not like. A post-Saddam Iraq would have a Shi`ite majority that might favor Iran or Hizbullah. A populist Arab nationalist able to put together a coalition of Sunnis and Shi`ites might be an outspoken critic of U.S. policy on the Palestine issue. Such a voice would have to be allowed, and heard. Covert U.S. manipulation of elections or undue pressure on Iraqi politicians would backfire badly.

The Outcome (February 23, 2005):

The selection of Jafari opens the way for the first Shiite-led government in Iraq's modern existence, and it signals a dramatic change for the Arab world, where Sunni Muslims are dominant. It also puts the United States in the position of providing its armed forces to protect a government led by an Islamist with ties to Iran.

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Cabbage Patch Elvis (October 4, 2002):

As Congress and the president move us closer to war, opponents of military action become more desperate in their insistence that toppling Saddam is not only dumb, criminal and immoral, but pretty much everything else bad you can imagine.

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- War with Iraq will distract from the war on al-Qaida: Right now this is the Democratic Party's favorite argument. It was best articulated in al-Gore's San Francisco speech. It's so popular because it allows Dems to sound hawkish even while they vote dovish.

Unfortunately, there are any number of problems with this argument, but let's cover three quickly. First, there's no evidence it's true. On the international stage the war against al-Qaida and the pending war against Iraq seem to be on completely different tracks. For example, even as Germany announced it wanted nothing to do with our campaign against Iraq, it redoubled its efforts against al-Qaida. The same holds true for many Arab states, including Syria, that are against war with Iraq but continue to help us with al-Qaida.

Second, the U.S. military was designed to fight to full-blown wars at once, i.e. defend Taiwan and fight Iran simultaneously. The suggestion that it can't handle one war with a relatively weak Iraq and a second conflict with al-Qaida, when that conflict requires very few troops, tanks, planes, etc., strikes most experts as a non-issue.

The Professor (January 28, 2003):

As a result of resentment against this neocolonialism, the likelihood is that al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations will find it easier to recruit angry young men in the region and in Europe for terrorist operations against the US and its interests. The final defeat of the Baath Party will be seen as a defeat of its ideals, which include secularism, improved rights for women and high modernism. Arabs in despair of these projects are likely to turn to radical Islam as an alternative outlet for their frustrations. The Sunnis of Iraq could well turn to groups like al-Qaida, having lost the ideals of the Baath. Iraqi Shi'ites might become easier to recruit into Khomeinism of the Iranian sort, and become a bulwark for the shaky regime in Shi'ite Iran.

The Outcome (January 14, 2005):

Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists, according to a report released yesterday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank.

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Cabbage Patch Elvis (May 3, 2003):

Right now Shiite militants -many backed by Iran -are clamoring for immediate elections because they think democracy is simply a means of grabbing power by lever-pulling or ballot-casting.

The Shiite clerics have figured out that since they comprise 60 percent of the population, they should win an election and then have the right to impose a theocratic regime on 100 percent of the country. This would be an Arab version of "one man, one vote, one time" -the saying that describes how so many African "democrats" become lifetime dictators the moment they're elected.

Cabbage Patch Elvis (February 4, 2005):

All of the sophisticates and cynics insisted that having elections would be a bloody fool's errand. Bush was being too rigid by holding firm on the January elections. Surely a more reasonable man would postpone them since everyone knows they'll be a bloodbath. And then, once they took place, the goalposts were moved again.

Consider Juan Cole. You probably haven't heard of him, but he's the dashboard saint of lefty Middle East experts. President-elect of the Middle East Studies Association, Cole has made a new career for himself in finding the dark lining of every silver cloud. After the Iraqi elections he harrumphed on his Web site that he was "appalled" by the media's cheerleading of the election. He absurdly declared that the 1997 Iranian elections were much more democratic (Iranian candidates had to be approved by the mullahs). He whined that Bush did not originally intend to have elections of this sort and only agreed when Ayatollah Sistani insisted. Suddenly, Bush the rigid ideologue is too flexible.

Emphasis mine, hypocrisy in the original