Bush's faith-based reality: Stop the insanity!

In a roundtable interview yesterday with a group of Texas journalists, as reported by the Post's Dan Froomkin, President Bush addressed Rove, Palmeiro, and intelligent design. (You might want to sit down for this.) In the interview, Bush:

1. Expressed "complete confidence" in top aide Karl Rove -- while stubbornly refusing to say anything more about what he knows about the investigation into the leak of a CIA agent's identity;
2. Said he still believes his friend, Baltimore Orioles first baseman Rafael Palmeiro, has never used steroids -- in spite of the player's suspension Monday for violating baseball's anti-drug policy; [and]
3. Endorsed efforts by Christian conservatives to include the teaching of "intelligent design" as an alternative to evolution in public school science classes.

The complete transcript of the interview is here.

Essentially, Bush believes in Rove, believes in Palmeiro, and believes in something other than Darwinian evolution. Does the evidence even matter? No, of course not. Rove and Palmeiro are friends, each of a sort, and that's all that matters. Bush likely hasn't taken the time to study evolution, nor to weigh the cases for and against so-called intelligent design, and that's all that matters. It's enough to believe that something is true, or at least that something else may or may not be true. And this from the president of the United States! This from the most powerful man in the world!

Okay, it's the second one that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Bush may still have "complete confidence" in Rove even if the latter has committed a crime or otherwise acted unethically. Similarly, he may believe in some sort of divine (which is what "intelligent" means in this context -- it's just a way for creationists to skirt around the issue) order to the universe even if the available scientific evidence would seem to support Darwin. But how can Bush possibly believe that Palmeiro has never used steroids even after the latter tested positive and had his appeal rejected by Major League Baseball? Or is this just a case of Palmeiro's tricky rhetoric coming to mirror Bush's? You know, WMDs become WMD-related programs, the war on terror becomes the struggle against violent extremism, and Palmeiro conveniently inserts the word "intentionally" into his denial.

(No wonder they're friends.)

In Bush's White House, reality stops at the door to the Oval Office. (Is it possible the Bush presidency isn't real? Maybe if I believe hard enough...)

More violence in the Sudan: Whither Darfur?

The Coalition for Darfur has all the latest on the helicopter accident (?) that killed Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) leader John Garang, the appointment of Salva Kiir as his successor, and the U.S. response (a 135-word statement from the White House), as well as some (rather depressing) discussion of what it all means for Darfur . There's a lot of stuff there, but check it all out. It's worth your while.

In addition, there's a link to the latest piece by Sudan expert Eric Reeves at TNR:

The chances for an end to Darfur's genocide were dealt a potentially severe blow this weekend by the helicopter crash that killed the country's new vice president, John Garang de Mabior. But this is not because Garang was, as U.S. State Department officials have disingenuously implied, a powerful force within Sudan's new national unity government, able to exert real pressure on Khartoum's National Islamic Front (NIF) to negotiate a just peace with Darfur's insurgency movements. (In an example of this excessively optimistic reasoning, Condoleezza Rice said two weeks ago that Garang "has been saying the right things" about the genocide and that "we want him to be very involved in Darfur.") Rather, Garang's death imperils the January 2005 north-south peace agreement--and thereby increases the odds that the genocide in Darfur will accelerate. The relationship between Darfur and southern Sudan is complex, but it takes on a terrible urgency in the wake of Garang's death.

Not good.

(For my last post on Darfur (which criticized Congress for scuttling the Darfur Accountability Act), see here.)

...but may be a decade away from a nuclear weapon

In my last post, I noted that Iran was about to remove the IAEA seals from one of its uranium-conversion facilities, thereby re-entering "the nuclear game". That's very bad news, of course, but Iran's latest move surely reveals the limitations of Europe-led diplomacy. That diplomacy ought to continue, if at all possible, but, clearly, Iran is going to be a big problem somewhere down the road -- and it could be a problem that calls for more than the soft hand of diplomacy.

Regardless, a new U.S. intelligence report (see here for the Post article) indicates that Iran may be a decade away from nuclear weaponry:

A major U.S. intelligence review has projected that Iran is about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, roughly doubling the previous estimate of five years, according to government sources with firsthand knowledge of the new analysis.

The carefully hedged assessments, which represent consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies, contrast with forceful public statements by the White House. Administration officials have asserted, but have not offered proof, that Tehran is moving determinedly toward a nuclear arsenal. The new estimate could provide more time for diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear ambitions. President Bush has said that he wants the crisis resolved diplomatically but that "all options are on the table."

The new National Intelligence Estimate includes what the intelligence community views as credible indicators that Iran's military is conducting clandestine work. But the sources said there is no information linking those projects directly to a nuclear weapons program. What is clear is that Iran, mostly through its energy program, is acquiring and mastering technologies that could be diverted to bombmaking.

The estimate expresses uncertainty about whether Iran's ruling clerics have made a decision to build a nuclear arsenal, three U.S. sources said. Still, a senior intelligence official familiar with the findings said that "it is the judgment of the intelligence community that, left to its own devices, Iran is determined to build nuclear weapons."

At no time in the past three years has the White House attributed its assertions about Iran to U.S. intelligence, as it did about Iraq in the run-up to the March 2003 invasion. Instead, it has pointed to years of Iranian concealment and questioned why a country with as much oil as Iran would require a large-scale nuclear energy program...

The new estimate takes a broader approach to the question of Iran's political future. But it is unable to answer whether the country's ruling clerics will still be in control by the time the country is capable of producing fissile material. The administration keeps "hoping the mullahs will leave before Iran gets a nuclear weapons capability," said an official familiar with policy discussions.

The key passages are in bold. Needless to say, one hopes for a diplomatic solution -- well, preferably, one hopes for reform (and ideally for a new regime) that would bring Iran closer to the West (indeed, as I've argued before, the West needs to encourage Iran's reformist tendencies). Iran may yet be looking ahead to building a nuclear arsenal, but at least there seems to be enough time to pursue non-military options.

Everything ought to be on the table, yes, but there's evidently no need to rush into any sort of ill-advised, short-sighted military campaign (or to fix the intelligence around some equally ill-advised, short-sighted policy).