Watching Washington

Sarajevo 1914 Echoes in Pakistan

In the summer of 1914, a Serbian nationalist named Gavrilo Prinzep went to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo to view the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and his bride, the Duchess of Hohenberg. Prinzep, a 20-year-old student, brought along a homemade bomb and a magazine pistol.

The first time he saw the royal entourage approaching, Prinzep readied his bomb but lost his nerve. Later in the day, after another would-be assassin had disrupted the Archduke's planned route, Prinzep got another chance. This time he stepped from the crowd with his gun and shot the Archduke and Duchess dead.

That assassination more than 90 years ago dominated the news worldwide, much as the murder of Benazir Bhutto has done. In both cases, many Americans wondered why an event so far away should be such a big deal.

Both slayings were dramatic and brazen, carried out in broad daylight against public figures of international renown and consequence. But the victims were not their respective countries' actual leaders, only prospective ones. And the meaning of their deaths for the United States seemed obscure. If most Americans had not even heard of them, what difference could their demise really make to us?

Of course we know now what followed Prinzep's political act. An international crisis escalated into the multi-front conflagration known as the Great War (and later as the First World War). It cost the lives of millions and profoundly altered history -- not only in Europe but around the globe. It also set the stage for the even greater catastrophe that was the Second World War, the effects of which are still reverberating in our time.

For the moment, the consequences of Bhutto's death are on an entirely different scale. Her party and supporters are devastated, the national elections may be postponed and the chances for a healthy Pakistani democracy have been set back. But so far the damage done is primarily to one country and its hopes.

The greater danger arises if, as the current unrest continues, repression follows and exacerbates the crisis. Many fear the country could descend into chaos, empowering elements of violent jihadism present in the current political mix. That would have profound implications for the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, and that's just for starters.

Pakistan is the only country with both a nuclear arsenal and an immediate prospect of takeover by Islamic militants. And that implies a worst case scenario in our century quite worthy of comparison to those of the last.

A Pakistani government or military beholden to such radical forces might use these weapons of mass destruction against longtime rival India -- or against others farther away in Israel, Europe and the United States. Missiles are not the only means of delivering smaller nukes, especially if a rogue state were in league with terrorists willing and able to provide alternative means.

It is also possible that such a government might merely threaten to use its nuclear warheads, provoking a pre-emptive strike. Several countries that might consider themselves potential targets already have nukes of their own.

So the next weeks and months in Pakistan and its region may well pose diplomatic challenges of exactly the kind the world's leaders failed to meet in 1914.

Prinzep's act set off an explosion that had been in the making for generations. The Balkans of 1914 bred tension and hostility and the rest of Europe seemed eager to catch the fever. The volatile ingredients included ethnic and religious conflict, the competing ambitions of great powers and the deadly momentum of a long-running arms race. All these deadly elements are present today in the region on the rim of the Arabian Sea; and they are just as present among the more distant powers that choose to play here.

The tragedy of 1914 was not just that the worst happened but that it might have been prevented. Diplomats who could have sought accommodation delivered ultimatums instead. Governments and peoples that might have seen a larger picture were driven to presume the worst of each other. So every nation mobilizing and rushing its forces to the front believed it did so in its own defense; and each such action was interpreted by the other side as a provocation (and as proof their suspicions were correct).

Today the rivalries of old, dead empires seem antique to us, and much in the world has changed. Today's conflict is not so much about territory as about resources, less about politics than culture. But we still suffer from smallness of vision in trying to resolve these conflicts, and we are captives of our outdated concept of victory -- just as Europe was in 1914.

8:33 AM ET | 12-31-2007 | permalink

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Survivor: The Case For John McCain

So now we all know why John McCain didn't get discouraged when his presidential campaign came crashing down around him last summer.

It turns out the fourth-term senator and former POW had a prescient notion about the future direction of the 2008 contest. Looking around him on the national stage, McCain could not discern a face with a future on Mount Rushmore. So he decided to stick around and give people a chance to come around.

And come around some have. As the holidays approach, McCain has found gift after gift at his doorstep. First it was the endorsement of the Manchester Union-Leader, the torchbearer for "Live Free or Die" politics in New Hampshire for generations. Never known for favoring anti-establishment types, the Union Leader still endorsed the Arizonan in a salute to his character and perseverance.

Then came The Boston Globe, widely read throughout Red Sox nation, and the Portsmouth Herald, another audible voice in the state that matters most to McCain.

The Arizonan also won the backing of the Des Moines Register, the largest paper in Iowa, home of the first caucuses on January 3. This may be the least of his converts, as he has far less invested in Iowa than he has in New Hampshire, and the Register probably will not move many Republicans his way.

Back in New Hampshire, however, McCain completed his sudden surge of support by rolling out his Senate colleague Joe Lieberman, the former Democrat who ran as an independent last year after his party denied him renomination. McCain came to Connecticut to stump for Lieberman in 2006, helping him corral the majority of Republican votes that sent him back to Washington.

Taken together, all these salutes should help McCain challenge Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, for first place in New Hampshire, which holds the nation's first primary on January 8. Each of the endorsements speaks to a different slice of the primary electorate, from conservative Republicans to moderate independents, an especially crucial slice for McCain.

The timing of all this good news is extra helpful to McCain, who has been battling former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for second behind Romney. Giuliani has shown signs of easing up in New Hampshire (as he long ago did in Iowa) so as to concentrate on his firewall state of Florida, which votes three weeks later. That means McCain, if he wins New Hampshire, could be in position to contest later states despite his near-total dependence on free media.

There was always a case to be made that McCain would return to the front ranks before the nominee was finally chosen. His performances in the debates have featured a quiet dignity and self-respect all too rare in recent presidential politics. The other candidates often defer to him or even praise him, seeking to attach themselves to his reputation for decency, his war hero status and aura of independence.

A late arriving viewer might well wonder why McCain has been so out of it through the past six months. Indeed, he began 2007 as a top tier contender. As the runner-up in 2000 he put aside his disappointment and campaigned hard for Bush. He did it again in 2004. So by the usual Republican protocol, he had a right to say 2008 was his turn.

He remained a favorite of the news media, as he had been since his days on the stump for other GOP presidential candidates in the mid-1990s. He seemed the one true conservative who might best draw Democratic and independent votes away from Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

It was a strong case, but it quickly fell apart. McCain turned 70 and looked less than robust. He was on the wrong side of the polls on the two most salient issues of the year -- Iraq and immigration. His steadfast support of President Bush on both put him at odds with most voters regardless of party. Moreover, his new willingness to make nice with religious conservatives and others he had fought with in 2000 was widely viewed as pandering -- even as his old adversaries refused to be won over.

By late spring, severe problems emerged within his operation: too much squabbling and spending and far too little fundraising. When it became known that McCain could barely meet his campaign payroll in the summer months, his candidacy appeared all but moribund.

As a consequence, a chastened McCain returned to the role of insurgent that had suited him best. And gradually, the climate has become more clement. The improved security picture in Iraq reduced the salience of that issue, and the death of the president's immigration bill reduced some of the tension on that front.

But most important to McCain's comeback has been the failure of his rivals to fill the void. Giuliani, Romney, former Senator Fred Thompson and now Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, have all auditioned for frontrunner without nailing the role.

And that's why close observers of the race have turned their eyes once again on the man who began the year with such high hopes. He may not be the one at the 2008 convention, but he will be a force to reckon with before the process is over. We should never have counted him out.

9:19 PM ET | 12-17-2007 | permalink

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Big Happenings on the Presidential Hustings

The latest set of polls from Iowa and the other states that kick off the presidential nominating process next month have scrambled the candidate standings and brought turmoil to the campaigns of the frontrunners.

The most jarring numbers came in Newsweek's new sounding of Republican sentiment in Iowa. It had upstart Mike Huckabee racing out to a 39 percent showing and longtime Iowa leader Mitt Romney dropping to just 17 percent. That 22-point lead left many in the Hawkeye state pop-eyed and staring.

Newsweek also estimated that Huckabee had spent just $400,000 in the state so far, while Romney spent something like $7 million. That is a ratio of 17 to 1, yet it has not been enough to enable Romney to close the sale in the state that sets the table on January 3.

Other new polls bore out the general direction of things among Iowans, but did not match the pace of change in the Newsweek numbers. One was the new Mason-Dixon poll, which had Huckabee up by 12 percentage points, a more mortal margin but still a striking contrast to his single-digit status in October.

Beyond the Iowa breakthrough, new national polls showed the Huckabee phenomenon was not confined to the cornfields. A new national poll by CBS News and The New York Times found the former Arkansas governor and Baptist preacher in a statistical dead heat with Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor.

This new state of affairs was created mainly by Huckabee's rapid elevation from 4 percent two months ago (in a poll of Republicans done by the same organizations) to 21 percent in the latest test.

But the new poll also represents two other trends that are almost as dramatic: the continuing descent of Giuliani and the precipitous decline of Fred Thompson.

Two months ago, the CBS-Times poll had Giuliani with 29 percent of the GOP vote. Two months before that, the same pollsters had the New Yorker at 38 percent.

These numbers caused many of us to marvel at how Giuliani seemed to be defying everything we had once assumed about the contemporary Republican voting base. We knew that at least 4 out of 10 Republican primary voters attended church at least once a week, and that social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage had been hugely important to the coalition that twice elected George W. Bush president.

Yet here was Giuliani, a liberal on the social questions when mayor of New York, attracting a big plurality in the polls. Here was a man married three times, estranged from his children and associated with much of the worldliness that is Gotham, drawing the votes of self-described conservatives and white evangelicals. Both these groups were naming Giuliani as one of their two top candidates (along with Thompson) as recently as October.

But polls in early October also showed that many Americans -- including many conservatives -- did not know much about Giuliani. Everyone had heard of his heroism on 9/11, but most knew nothing else. It now appears that as the debates, the ads, the conversations and the media attention have intensified, more people are filling in the blanks.

A somewhat different problem has afflicted Thompson, who for months ran second to Giuliani in the national GOP rankings. Thompson existed in the popular consciousness as a cross between his political persona (eight years in the Senate) and his celluloid self (several movie parts and a starring role in TV's "Law and Order"). As he has taken part in the debates and turned up in the early voting states, Thompson has resembled the former far more than the latter.

In the Senate, Thompson was eloquent on occasion and important to the issue at hand from time to time. But he was far from a leading figure, and he often seemed less than truly interested. The same could be said of him as a campaigner. He has had a good line here and there, but nothing more than that. Meanwhile, his actual presence on the hustings has been minimal, and his fundraising only average.

Among Democrats, the shift evident in the national polls is less dramatic. In the CBS-Times poll released October 7, Hillary Clinton broke over 50 percent as the choice for her party's nomination. Barack Obama, in second place, was the choice of less than half as many. No one else was within 10 points behind him. It was then the term "inevitability" began being used for Clinton's campaign. Those numbers have since shifted a bit. Clinton is down below the half mark, Obama up above a quarter.

But the chill for Clinton emanates from those frosty, early contests where she had once dominated. She has fallen slightly behind Obama in Iowa, where John Edwards still runs a close third. Obama has also moved within striking range in New Hampshire, where the last ABC News and Washington Post poll had him within six points (a big move from just weeks before).

This makes it possible to imagine a scenario in which Obama wins Iowa and Clinton possibly slips to third. This would be more than just the end of "inevitability." It would leave New Hampshire up for grabs. And the next key tests are in Michigan and South Carolina, which are the two January states with the biggest percentage of African American voters by far.

So a great deal has changed in just two months. Much could change again in the next two. But we are approaching the moment of reckoning. One month from now, Iowa and New Hampshire will be over. Two months from now we will have seen the primaries and caucuses held for states that account for 60 percent of the national population. Odds are, one party or both will have decided.

Don't blink. You might miss it.

8:44 PM ET | 12-10-2007 | permalink

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Romney Makes His Pitch

Sure, there was some bait-and-switch in the speech Mitt Romney delivered on "Faith in America" this week, but those who'd expected the presidential candidate to grasp the nettle of his Mormon faith must blame their disappointment on themselves.

Romney himself never said he would actually defend his familial faith against charges of cultism. That expectation was a product of our own imaginations: How, we asked, could the former governor of Massachusetts address the nation on religion without discussing his own?

We should have known better.

Despite the breathless build-up, this speech at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library in Texas was not going to be about the Latter-day Saints or any of the beliefs that set it apart from the classic Judeo-Christian tradition. In fact, it never made sense for Romney to talk theology, or get into any detailed aspect of his religion.

What he needed instead was to assert his own devotion to his faith -- " the faith of my fathers." Devotion of this kind is of great value to people of faith in general, and those are the people the candidate wanted to reach with this speech.

So, no surprise, the word "Mormon" appeared only once in a text of 2,500 words. And while Brigham Young did come up in a parade of religious dissenters (rubbing elbows with Roger Williams), Young was not identified as Mormon. Joseph Smith, the religion's founder, went unmentioned as did the Book of Mormon, which Smith's followers put alongside the Bible as divinely inspired.

Romney did, however, mention Jesus Christ twice, and he leaned on the word "denomination." So it was easy to get the impression, once again, that Mormons are just like Lutherans (whom he mentioned admiringly) or Methodists or Baptists. The takeaway for an average listener would be that Mormonism resembles these other "denominations" in church doctrine just as it does in church architecture.

In fact, it was widely observed that Romney's speech, save a sentence or two, might have been given by most any of the candidates for president, if not all of them. Except, of course, that none of the other candidates could have commanded 25 minutes of cable news coverage for what amounted to a long campaign commercial. Only Romney could do that, and he could do it only because Mormonism remains an object of curiosity in the culture and a goad to voyeurism in the media.

Give the man his due. A world-class salesman in his career, Romney has not always been at his best in TV debates. But this occasion found him at the top of his game. Wrapping himself in reverence for religion-in-general, and repeatedly saluting the ideals of the founding fathers, Romney looked and sounded more presidential than he has to date.

And let's remember, his practical goal here was not to change anybody's mind about Mormonism. It was rather to soothe the media beast and provide good material for his defenders in the evangelical Christian and Catholic communities. And he has some highly effective defenders: Just before the speech, he was getting a spirited boost on CNN from Ralph Reed. Remember him? He ran the Christian Coalition in its heyday a dozen years ago.

So score this media event a success for the overall Romney effort. It will not win over the hardcore foes of the Latter Day Saints; nothing is likely to do so. But it will probably help the campaign with people of faith in general, a far larger category, and one Romney needs to win to keep the GOP nomination away from Rudy Giuliani.

At the same time, there could be a price for whatever he gains. Romney made several remarks at College Station that will not sit well with some, including some religious voters and others of a more secular turn of mind.

Early in the speech he linked religious freedom to political freedom, suggesting they were not just compatible but co-dependent. ("Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom.") But haven't people pursued faith with great fervor even in countries and eras wherein political freedom was unknown?

But the real thorn in this particular speech pricks those who care about church and state separation. Although Romney himself invoked the famous John F. Kennedy speech to Protestant pastors in 1960 in his own speech, the two texts were at odds on this point.

Kennedy said he might have a different religion, but that it didn't need to matter in governing. Romney said he might have a different religion, but that his religion was good for governing because all religions are.

Speaking specifically to the sealing off of church and state, Romney saluted the idea as expressed by the founding fathers ("no religious test for office"). But he eagerly added that the good idea had been taken too far in modern times. Banning religion from the public square was wrong, he said, drawing himself erect. And the audience of invited guests gave him a sustained ovation.

Romney made it clear he believed that religion was an integral part of the movements that ended slavery and racial discrimination, not to mention the movement to ban abortion.

So while the candidate insisted he would not "define my candidacy by my religion," he also insisted on defining good public policy largely by reference to religion.

That may be a relatively safe place to stand in the Iowa caucuses, or in the rest of the Republican nominating process this winter and spring. But it raises questions that will be around for a good deal longer.

3:53 PM ET | 12- 6-2007 | permalink

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