Eric Martin

by Eric Martin

The trouble with socialism is socialism. The trouble with capitalism is capitalists.

That quote is attributed to the late Austrian analyst Willi Schlamm, and its underlying truth is particularly relevant given the current economic crisis and the familiar path that has led us to it.  Mr. Schlamm’s argument comes down to the premise that the inherent weakness in capitalism is not the system, per se, but rather the greed of the actual capitalists operating within it. 

In this context, greed itself is often a short-sighted, impulsive and obsessive animal and rarely, if ever, does it consider posterity or even the next fiscal year. In other words, greed tends to create a system in which short term gain is valued over substantive, balanced and sustained growth. But since you cannot separate the capitalists from the system of capitalism, it becomes necessary to corral the inevitable greed, set parameters on its excesses and channel its incentivizing capacity into productive directions. As capitalist champion Milton Friedman said:

What kind of society isn’t structured on greed? The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm…

Unfortunately, those that most loudly proclaim their faith in capitalism fail to appreciate its basic nature, and are most dedicated to removing the structural regulations and oversight necessary to keep capitalism from bringing about its own demise. Such aversion to regulation has risen to take its place beside the cult of tax cuts and faith in free market solutions as one of the Modern GOP’s three sacrosanct economic principles (call it the "Strong Hayek" troika).  In each case, the faith based, categorical, oversimplified outlook has replaced empiricism, pragmatism and a nuanced appreciation of capitalism’s strenghts and weaknesses. 

According to Grover Norquist’s GOP, all tax cuts are good and all tax increases are bad – regardless of the context, underlying fiscal realities and other variables.  The free market is always more efficient than the public sector – regardless of the relative inefficiency and negative health outcomes resulting from a system of private health insurance (for example).  Similarly, all regulations are an evil impediment to free market dynamism – a market that, if left to its own devices, would self-regulate its way to optimal efficiency.

This isn’t just magical thinking, nor is it simply absolutist. It is an outlook based on a lack of appreciation for human nature that has led to repeated real-world calamities.  Matt Yglesias flags an article that discusses one of the most recent examples of how greed – unencumbered by regulations and unchecked by public sector involvement – undermines a well-functioning capitalist system:

Since the subprime mortgage troubles exploded into a full-blown financial crisis last year, the three top credit-rating agencies — Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings — have faced a firestorm of criticism about whether their rosy ratings of mortgage securities generated billions of dollars in losses to investors who relied on them.

The agencies are supposed to help investors evaluate the risk of what they are buying. But some former employees and many investors say the agencies, which were paid far more to rate complicated mortgage-related securities than to assess more traditional debt, either underestimated the risk of mortgage debt or simply overlooked its danger so they could rake in large profits during the housing boom.

[For the self-regulation] scheme to work the rating agencies need to place a higher value on the long-term viability of their brand than on short-term profit opportunities. But of course we know that people are often short-sighted, and often heavily discount the future relative to the present. Relatedly, for the scheme to work we need the firms to be primarily concern with the long-term interests of the firms rather than the interests of the managers. But even if Moody’s, qua company, winds up taking a giant hit over this, it’s still not clear that Moody’s top executives won’t have come out ahead. […]

[I]t would make a lot of sense to try to develop a public agency that rates credit instruments. [This] wouldn’t stop anyone from relying on private sector ratings if they wanted to. Nor would it guarantee that the public agency would always get things right. But it would provide a check on some of the distortions that the current system produces.

This is a very similar dynamic to the investment banking lapses during the age of the Internet bubble, which I will attempt to explain in general terms (restated, in part, from a prior post).  Within the major investment banks, there are various divisions. One such division handles the underwriting duties, and another conducts market research on various companies on a sector by sector basis.  A quick and dirty definition of underwriting: In an IPO, or any subsequent offering of stock, companies usually seek out an investment bank to underwrite the offering (for a fee) pursuant to which the bank secures buyers for the stock (often times purchasing the stock itself for resale), distributes the stock through the markets and provides rekated services – in essence managing the process for the company looking to sell the shares.

In theory, and in practice for some time, the research and underwriting branches were separated by an internal firewall in order to prevent the imperatives of the underwriting side from contaminating the objective analysis of the research side.  This is important to the health and attractiveness of our financial markets. It is in the interest of investors, the markets, the companies themselves and our economy in general that there is a knowledgeable investor class that can rely on objective research and corporate transparency mandated by disclosures in filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission.  Faith in that transparency spurs investment from Americans and abroad.

Thus, it is in the interest of the banks to maintain the firewall in order to preserve confidence in the US markets, and thus ensure the continued inflow of investment dollars.  But with the burgeoning number of stock offerings being undertaken during the expansion of the Internet bubble, the firewall began to crack. The underwriting divisions began pressuring the research divisions to issue inflated "buy" ratings on stocks and author favorable reports on the economic health of underwriting clients in order to acquire or maintain the banking business of those companies.  The goal of maintaining the long term viability of the markets was jettisoned in favor of the lure of short term profits.

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by Eric Martin

Anand Gopal has an informative piece on the make-up of the "Taliban" movement in Afghanistan.  The piece reinforces a few concepts that should inform our future policy vis-a-vis Afghanistan: First, the Karzai government lacks a popular mandate and, in general, it is unrealistic to believe that the United States can establish a strong central government capable of enforcing its prerogatives on Afghanistan’s traditionally decentralized society.  Our support for the Karzai government drains it of legitimacy in the eyes of many Afghanis, not to mention taints the US with the corruption and criminality rampant within Karzai’s coalition.  Our presence is unsustainable (not to mention costly), and is itself helping to fuel the conflict by giving opposition groups a unified cause and interminable supply of motivated recruits.

Second, while we cannot prevail militarily, there may be openings to pursue negotiated arrangements with certain factions within a Taliban movement that is far from monolithic or uniform in its composition, objectives and worldview.  Third, any realistic framework for stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan will require engagement with Afghanistan’s neighbors who have the ability to play spoiler should their interests not be taken into account (but not necessarily made paramount to the interests of Afghanis).

Here is Gopal on the diversity within the ranks of the Taliban, and on the general unifying principle:

Who exactly are the Afghan insurgents? Every suicide attack and kidnapping is usually attributed to "the Taliban." In reality, however, the insurgency is far from monolithic. There are the shadowy, kohl-eyed mullahs and head-bobbing religious students, of course, but there are also erudite university students, poor, illiterate farmers, and veteran anti-Soviet commanders. The movement is a mélange of nationalists, Islamists, and bandits that fall uneasily into three or four main factions. The factions themselves are made up of competing commanders with differing ideologies and strategies, who nonetheless agree on one essential goal: kicking out the foreigners. […]

Meanwhile, a more pragmatic leadership started taking the reins. U.S. intelligence officers believe that day-to-day leadership of the movement is now actually in the hands of the politically savvy Mullah Brehadar, while Mullah Omar retains a largely figurehead position. Brehadar may be behind the push to moderate the movement’s message in order to win greater support.

Even at the local level, some provincial Taliban officials are tempering older-style Taliban policies in order to win local hearts and minds. Three months ago in a district in Ghazni province, for instance, the insurgents ordered all schools closed. When tribal elders appealed to the Taliban’s ruling religious council in the area, the religious judges reversed the decision and reopened the schools.

However, not all field commanders follow the injunctions against banning music and parties. In many Taliban-controlled districts such amusements are still outlawed, which points to the movement’s decentralized nature. Local commanders often set their own policies and initiate attacks without direct orders from the Taliban leadership.

The result is a slippery movement that morphs from district to district. In some Taliban-controlled districts of Ghazni province, an Afghan caught working for a non-governmental organization (NGO) would meet certain death. In parts of neighboring Wardak province, however, where the insurgents are said to be more educated and understand the need for development, local NGOs can function with the guerrillas’ permission.

While there are legitimate concerns about human rights abuses and brutality committed by Taliban elements, government forces have not been above reproach by any measure.  Further, from a national security perspective, the dangers of negotiating a peace with willing Taliban elements might be containable. 

Despite such foreign connections, the Afghan rebellion remains mostly a homegrown affair. Foreign fighters — especially al-Qaeda — have little ideological influence on most of the insurgency, and most Afghans keep their distance from such outsiders. "Sometimes groups of foreigners speaking different languages walk past," Ghazni resident Fazel Wali recalls. "We never talk to them and they don’t talk to us."

Regardless, reality has its say. Even if there is some admirable imagined idea of liberal democracy enforced from Kabul outward, the facts on the ground suggest that basing our policy on the expectations of reaching such outcomes is folly.  Gopal’s piece discusses some of the actions of the Karzai government, and his coalition’s inherent structural flaws.  While, ostensibly, aspiring to be a centralized, national political power, the Karzai government is riven by the same factionalism that it seeks to broach, and is rife with the same lawlessness it aims to eradicate:

When U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban government in November 2001, Afghans celebrated the downfall of a reviled and discredited regime. "We felt like dancing in the streets," one Kabuli told me…

Meanwhile, the country was being carved up by warlords and criminals. On the brand-new highway connecting Kabul to Kandahar and Herat, built with millions of Washington’s dollars, well-organized groups of bandits would regularly terrorize travelers. "[Once], thirty, maybe fifty criminals, some in police uniforms, stopped our bus and shot [out] our windows," Muhammadullah, the owner of a bus company that regularly uses the route, told me. "They searched our vehicle and stole everything from everyone." Criminal syndicates, often with government connections, organized kidnapping sprees in urban centers like the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar city. Often, those few who were caught would simply be released after the right palms were greased.

Onto this landscape of violence and criminality rode the Taliban again, promising law and order…The guerrillas implemented a harsh version of Sharia law, cutting off the hands of thieves and shooting adulterers. They were brutal, but they were also incorruptible. Justice no longer went to the highest bidder. "There’s no crime any more, unlike before," said Abdul Halim, who lives in a district under Taliban control.

As an aside, the following discussion of the United States’ role in funding and arming some of the extremist groups is relevant in terms of providing perspective with respect to some of the charges being hurled at the Pakistani government for its coddling of extremist groups in light of the Mumbai attacks.  While the Pakistani government deserves its fair share of the blame for having nurtured such radical agents, they are not the only government that has pursued such strategies in the region, nor the only government forced to reckon with the blowback.  The US is by no means guiltless.  Gulbuddin Hekmatyar:

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by Eric Martin

As alluded to in my prior post in what is now a three part series focusing on defense spending, this post will examine the topic of Pentagon spending priorities – and the larger strategic implications that stem from such allocations.  In that previous post, I excerpted the following passage from Travis Sharp’s piece:

The United States could take some current funding away from expensive high-tech weaponry, which may be useless in future Iraq-style conflicts, and redirect it toward enhanced intelligence, diplomacy, counterinsurgency training, language competency, humanitarian assistance, and nuclear nonproliferation programs.

A recent article by David Sanger (which Hilzoy and Publius touched on) suggests that just such a redirection could be in the works, as indicated by those selected by Obama to fill out his national security team:

[A]ll three of [Obama’s] choices — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as the rival turned secretary of state; Gen. James L. Jones, the former NATO commander, as national security adviser, and Robert M. Gates, the current and future defense secretary — were selected in large part because they have embraced a sweeping shift of resources in the national security arena.

The shift, which would come partly out of the military’s huge budget, would create a greatly expanded corps of diplomats and aid workers that, in the vision of the incoming Obama administration, would be engaged in projects around the world aimed at preventing conflicts and rebuilding failed states.

For now, I’ll echo publius’ cautious optimism that Obama does, in fact, mean to follow through on such plans and that, in order to facilitate those efforts, he has surrounded himself with people whose centrist bona fides will provide some political cover.  But a lot depends on just where the redirected resources flow to, and to what extent the overall expenditures can be reduced and not just diverted.

There are, unfortunately, a couple of Obama campaign pledges that should temper the already timid hope that Obama intends to meaningfully alter the national security landscape.  First, Obama has suggested that he plans to continue the expansion of the size of the active duty military.  From the campaign website:

Obama and Biden will complete the effort to increase our ground forces by 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines. They will also invest in 21st century missions like counterinsurgency by building up our special operations forces, civil affairs, information operations, foreign language training and other units and capabilities that remain in chronic short supply.

Second, and relatedly, Obama has promised to increase the number of troops deployed to Afghanistan.

These policies, if pursued in earnest, could undermine any effort to significantly reduce the prodigious size of the Pentagon budget and could render the redirection of resources a meaningless reshuffling of the deck chairs on a slowly sinking ship.  Allow me to explain.

Increasing the size of the our ground forces won’t be cheap, and even if Obama can succeed in trimming the Pentagon’s budget with respect to high ticket items, those savings could quickly be devoured by the considerable costs of maintaining an expanded force.  Further, while there are also potential savings to be realized by reducing our presence in Iraq, shifting those freed-up military resources to Afghanistan would reduce that fiscal advantage. And with little discernible benefit to be had in terms of the effort in Afghanistan. 

Put bluntly, the situation in Afghanistan does not lend itself to military solutions.  Even the optimists – the can-do counterinsurgency practitioners – acknowledge that Afghanistan presents a considerably more difficult set of problems than Iraq (and wasn’t Iraq easy!) and will take many years to get right (if at all, and that’s a big "if").  Trying to impose a centralized, Western-oriented system of governance on a country with little meaningful history of centralized rule and a dislike of foreign interference in general is a fool’s errand, and one that ignores the lessons obvious from the Soviets’ failed effort to remake Afghanistan with a vastly larger troop presence. 

Rather, a negotiated settlement that engages the various regional powers whose interests and concerns must be addressed is the far more prudent course. Although not an easy or guaranteed fix itself, it has the advantage of not requiring enormous military commitments for the next decade or so. 

The hope is that Obama recognizes the complexity of the conflict and the inadequacy of military tools to address it, and means to pursue the negotiated course rather than a troop buildup coupled with the implementation of optimized counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine.  The fear is that the Obama administration will be seduced by the putative efficacy of COIN doctrine and that, as a result, it will do more to realign Pentagon spending than reduce it and increase the costs of doing business in Afghanistan to such a point as to erase the savings to be had from withdrawing Iraq.  The expansion of ground forces can also be seen in this light, as that is seen as a necessary prerequisite to implementing COIN best practices.

While COIN can serve a purpose in limited settings, the fundamental lesson to be derived from COIN doctrine is  political: to avoid, at all costs, situations in which you would need to apply it.  When some of its leading practitioners and scholars liken COIN to "eating soup with a knife" the proper take away is to order something else from the menu.  Put simply, throughout post-WW II history, examples of truly successful COIN operations are few to none, and the prospects going forward aren’t any brighter.

"But what about the necessary counterinsurgency operations that we must engage in?" one might ask.  To which, I would hand the mic to Jim Henley:

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by Eric Martin

In a recent post discussing a conservative post-mortem/where-do-we-go-from-here roundtable, Brad Reed at Sadly, No! had this to say about his own wish list for the reconfigured GOP:

If I could pick one faction of the GOP to be forever purged from public life, it would have to be the neocons. As much as the Christian Right and the anti-tax wingnuts bug me, neither of them is as heinous as people whose sole political ambition is to start unjustified wars.

I agree entirely, but one should not confuse such desires with reality.  I’m not accusing Brad of such delusional optimism, but rather Timothy Burke in the post that Hilzoy linked to over the weekend.  Said Burke:

[T]here’s little need to take the really bad-faith conservatives seriously now. For the last eight years, we’ve had to take them somewhat seriously because they had access to political power…You had to listen to and reply to even the most laughably incoherent, goalpost-moving, anti-reality-based neoconservative writer talking about Iraq or terrorism because there was an even-money chance that you were hearing actual sentiments going back and forth between Dick Cheney’s office and the Pentagon. […]

But I think we can all make things just ever so slightly better, make the air less poisonous, by pushing to the margins of our consciousness the crazy, bad, gutter-dwelling, two-faced, tendentious high-school debator kinds of voices out there in the public sphere, including and especially in blogs. Let them stew in their own juices, without the dignity of a reply, now that their pipelines to people with real political power have been significantly cut."

But this is, sadly, a short-sighted view of political cycles and movements.  Neoconservative thought is not dead – nor its political viability extinguished – simply because Cheney will be out of office come January.  After all, neoconservatives were forced to deal with a hostile Vice President during the Clinton years, and yet neoconservatives were not stewing in their own juices as much as concocting a recipe, agenda and strategy for the ensuing decade (even if 8 years of Bush fell somewhat short of the hoped for "New American Century"). 

While neoconservatism will inevitably, and out of necessity, take on a different posture during the Obama years, progressives must not confuse hibernation for death.  Already, the old fortresses are being refitted, as William Kristol alludes to in an interview with Hugh Hewitt:

HH: And I think he will be very concerned with the two issues I’m going to raise with you – national security and immigration. Now I believe the Committee On the Present Danger filled a need in the 70s which we need to reorganize an equivalent now. But what do you think, Bill Kristol?

BK: Oh, I agree, and we did a little of that in the 90s with the Project For the New American Century. And I actually think there are people talking about this. And there’s a lot of good foreign policy and defense thinking on our side, the Fred Kagans and Bob Kagans and Reuel Gerechts of the world, Victor Davis Hanson, et cetera. But a little bit of a political organization for them wouldn’t be bad. And I think we should support Obama, incidentally, if he does the right thing. [emphasis added]

Right on schedule, Mordor is stirring.  The ring website has awoken in response to it’s master’s call:

Since May, visitors to PNAC’s website were informed that “this account has been suspended,” but now the website is back up, though it does not seem to have been updated with any new material.

Further, what does it mean to say, as Burke does, that "pipelines to people with real political power have been significantly cut" for neoconservatives?  Neoconservatives comprised the upper echelons of the team advising the GOP’s presidential nominee. While McCain didn’t win, it’s not as if the Scowcroft wing has emerged victorious as the new foreign policy gurus of the Republican Party.  Quite the contrary: the Hagels, Powells, Zakarias, Fukuyamas and other alienated right-leaning foreign policy thinkers have gravitated toward the Democratic Party, rather than mount an intra-party power grab. 

While the New York Sun recently went kaput (good riddance), neocons still control – or dominate – two large think tanks (the AEI and Hoover Institution), and have access to, or control of, multiple media venues (Murdoch’s vast media empire – including Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Kristol’s spot at the NY Times, Krauthammer and the Editorial Board at the WaPo, etc.).  In many ways, neocons have a larger support network now than they did in the 1990s – a period during which they were able to lay the groundwork for the invasion of Iraq, as well as greatly influence a shift toward a more belligerent posture vis-a-vis the Israeli peace process.  Not bad for a group then-lacking a "pipeline to real political power."

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by Eric Martin

I must confess that I have an unfair advantage over many of my fellow citizens come election day in that my designated polling place happens to be in the lobby of my apartment building.  No distance to travel, no consulting a map, no mixups: just roll out of bed and pull the lever in my boxers.

Despite my cushy voting existence, today, things didn’t exactly go as planned.  I ended up spending an hour on a line that stretched a full city block just to get back into my lobby.  The line was easily more than twice as long as 2004 – and this is New York City! Where our votes count little!  And yet, there was this interminable line of people exuding a palpable excitement, if a bit dampened with a touch of groginess.

On an unrelated note, my mind kept inserting various Clash tracks into my cerebral disc player while I was waiting to vote, and I haven’t been able to get the buggers out all day.  Then I got to thinking that Joe Strummer would probably be smiling broadly at today’s events – it’s his kind of election.  And that’s when it dawned on me: Joe Strummer has chosen me as his vessel to communicate to the people from beyond the grave on this most joyous of days.  Joe in his own words:

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by Eric Martin

Kevin Drum asks a question:

Back in 2004, I remember at least a few bloggers and pundits arguing that liberals would be better off if John Kerry lost. I never really bought this, but the arguments were pretty reasonable. Leaving George Bush in power meant that he’d retain responsibility and blame for the Iraq war. (Despite the surge, that’s exactly what happened.) Four more years of Republican control would turn the American public firmly against conservative misrule. (Actually, it only took two years.) If we waited, a better candidate than Kerry would come along. (Arguably, both Hillary Clinton and Obama were better candidates.)

Conversely, it’s unlikely that John Kerry could have gotten much done with a razor-thin victory and a Congress still controlled by the GOP…By waiting, we’ve gotten a strong, charismatic candidate who’s likely to win convincingly and have huge Democratic majorities in Congress behind him. If he’s willing to fully use the power of his office, Obama could very well be a transformational president.

So: were we, in fact, better off losing in 2004?

I’m not sure I can answer the question, but in August of 2004, I penned one of those posts discussing the upside of a Kerry/Edwards defeat.  I didn’t go as far as to say, with certainty, that we’d be better off, but I was conflicted and tried to put forth the pros and cons that were then-swirling around my head.  Below the fold is a condensed version of that post, which in some ways looks eerily prescient, and in others frightfully naive (and that’s with some of the warts removed).  Either way, an interesting look back at some of the darker days of the reign of Bush the Younger.

For McCain supporters, perhaps this post will show you that it’s possible to take solace in what-if type rationalizations.  But, uh, don’t get too carried away there.

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by Eric Martin

For those looking to probe the possible motives behind Sunday’s coordinated airstrikes and special forces incursions into Syria, the always informative Daniel Levy surveys a sampling of the most prominent theories, as well as the likely costs.  One such cost was felt almost instantly with respect to the ongoing SOFA/strategic framework negotiations:

Iraq wants a security agreement with the U.S. to include a clear ban on U.S. troops using Iraqi territory to attack Iraq’s neighbors, the government spokesman said Wednesday, three days after a dramatic U.S. raid on Syria. […]

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the ban was among four proposed amendments to the draft agreement approved by the Cabinet this week and forwarded to the U.S. […]

Al-Dabbagh said the Iraqis want the right to declare the agreement null and void if the U.S. unilaterally attacks one of Iraq’s neighbors.

Meanwhile, Eli Lake, in reliable fashion, provides the view of events from the neocon camp: that this military action is one of the first manifestations of a new doctrine of soldiers without borders.

We have entered a new phase in the war on terror. In July, according to three administration sources, the Bush administration formally gave the military new power to strike terrorist safe havens outside of Iraq and Afghanistan. Before then, a military strike in a country like Syria or Pakistan would have required President Bush’s personal approval. Now, those kinds of strikes in the region can occur at the discretion of the incoming commander of Central Command (Centcomm), General David Petraeus…

The new order could pave the way for direct action in Kenya, Mali, Pakistan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen–all places where the American intelligence believe al Qaeda has a significant presence, but can no longer count on the indigenous security services to act. In the parlance of the Cold War, Petraeus will now have the authority to fight a regional "dirty war."

Reliably, again, Lake keeps his eyes on the prize with respect to Iran – even if his own recounting of the new doctrine doesn’t fit quite as neatly with conditions in that country.  Lake says this of Iran:

Strikes within Iran could be justified by the order, since senior al Qaeda leaders such as Saif al Adel are believed to have used that country as a base for aiding the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda affiliates in Iraqi Kurdistan. [emphasis added]

That is an interesting choice of words from Lake.  First, the less-than-forceful "believed to have" formulation should be recognized as the tell it is.  The existing evidence is tenuous at best, and even then, much of it has filtered through dubious channels responsible for so much Iraq war misinformation.  Contra Lake, Saif al-Adel is also "believed to have" been placed under house arrest by Iran, not left free to to plan and coordinate attackes, but that is not mentioned.  In Internet postings and other mediums, al-Adel complains of Iran disrupting al-Qaeda’s efforts and arresting large numbers of operatives looking to escape to Iraq from Afghanistan, through Iran.  It’s not even clear from available evidence that al-Adel is still in Iran. 

Lake then attempts to apply rhetorical brick and mortar to the new framework:

The big mystery now is whether the next administration will dismantle this policy or permit Petraeus to follow it to fruition. Obama has said nothing about Sunday’s strikes in Syria (a silence that has rightly earned him taunting from the McCain campaign).

Um, doesn’t McCain also taunt Obama for his willingness to openly state his support for airstrikes in Pakistan ("You just don’t do that my friends")?  But now that Obama won’t state his support for airstrikes and other military action against Syria, McCain is right to taunt Obama for his reticence?  Regardless, Obama was properly following the lead of the White House and Pentagon in not commenting on military actions that were not yet formally acknowledged.  As Ilan Goldenberg points out:

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by Eric Martin

On Sunday night, the US military conducted airstrikes in Syrian territory – ostensibly targeting hubs used to facilitate the passage of foreign fighters into Iraq, and possibly to target AQI personnel.  Although initially, certain members of the Iraqi government seemed to sign off on the operation, today, the Iraqi government issued a forceful condemnation:

Iraq’s government denounced on Tuesday a U.S. air strike on a Syrian border village in an unexpected rebuke of Washington.

"The Iraqi government rejects U.S. aircraft bombarding posts inside Syria. The constitution does not allow Iraq to be used as a staging ground to attack neighboring countries," spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.

The Bush administration chose an interesting time to go ahead with this cross-border attack, as such aggressive actions could severely compromise the already problematic negotiations over the status of forces agreement (SOFA), with autonomy over military operations within, and launched from, Iraq’s borders being an issue of contention (the SOFA has been discussed in prior posts, most recently here and here).  The article alludes to the delicacy of the situation:

The criticism of the United States was announced after a cabinet meeting to discuss a security pact to allow U.S. forces to stay in Iraq.

The pact has so far been blocked mainly by Shi’ite political parties, and one of their main complaints has been that the accord might allow U.S. troops to use Iraq as a base to attack neighboring countries.

It’s not just the Shiite political parties that oppose the current draft, however.  The Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), one of the main Sunni political parties as led by Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, has also come out in opposition to the SOFA in its current form.  Meanwhile, Maliki’s spokesman has indicated that he will not sign the current draft, and as discussed last week, Robert Gates has stated that this is the final offer:

"The problem is that when we were given the latest draft, we were told the American negotiators will accept no amendments to it, and the Iraqi government has more requirements," said Sagheer, an Islamic cleric who later led the Friday prayers broadcast on national television.

He said that Maliki had come to the Political Council for National Security, a top decision-making body, and said the new accord was the best he could obtain, but it didn’t include everything that Iraq wanted.

If Maliki signed the accord and turned it over to the parliament, "I’m sure that the agreement will not be approved for 10 years," Sagheer said.

Swopa takes the view that Maliki et al are simply trying to squeeze the best possible deal out of the Bush administration, and has been employing classic negotiating tactics (especically effective given the Bush administration’s obvious agenda):

Isn’t that a classic haggling technique in any society?  Let the other side know you’re oh-so-close to a deal, encourage them to make a few concessions to close the gap… and just as they do and reach for the pen, pull back and say, “Wait, there’s one more thing you need to agree to.”

You’d almost think they’re having fun toying with the Bushites at this point.

Certainly a possibility.  Along these lines, Aswat al-Iraq is reporting that the Iraqi cabinet has made major changes to the SOFA and will resubmit the revised version to their American counterparts.  We’ll see if Gates was bluffing, or holding firm.  To counter Maliki’s tactics, the Bush administration has, for the first time that I can recall, attempted to use a bit of leverage itself.  Crude, but perhaps effective – reminscent of the "take all my toys and go home" schoolyard gambit:

The U.S. military has warned Iraq that it will shut down military operations and other vital services throughout the country on Jan. 1 if the Iraqi government doesn’t agree to a new agreement on the status of U.S. forces or a renewed United Nations mandate for the American mission in Iraq.

Many Iraqi politicians view the move as akin to political blackmail, a top Iraqi official told McClatchy Newspapers on Sunday.

In addition to halting all military actions, U.S. forces would cease activities that support Iraq’s economy, educational sector and other areas – "everything" – said Tariq al-Hashimi, the country’s Sunni Muslim vice president. "I didn’t know the Americans are rendering such wide-scale services."

On the other side of the ledger, a triumverate of Shiite religious authorities have weighed-in on the SOFA.  Matt’s Atomic Duss Bin has the details:

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