"Civil War" Threatened in Iraq, Says Wong -- Again
 

     Monday's front-page report from Iraq by the eternally pessimistic Edward  Wong, "Kurds' Return To City Shakes Politics in Iraq," is his latest attempt to portray the situation in Iraq as threatening civil war: "Efforts to restore Kurds to their jobs and property without disenfranchising Arabs are fraught with the possibility of igniting a civil war. The debate has so inflamed passions that Kurdish and Shiite Arab negotiators trying to form a coalition government in Baghdad may have to put off any real decision on Kirkuk's future."

     Three weeks ago Wong  fretted: "The attacks on Thursday raised the specter of sectarian civil violence, as did the violence last Friday and Saturday, when insurgents repeatedly attacked Shiite pilgrims during major religious celebrations. A December Week in Review story from Wong was headlined: "Mayhem in Iraq Is Starting to Look Like a Civil War."

For the rest of Wong on Iraq and "civil war," click here:

Arafat's "Heroic Alternative"
 

     Former Jerusalem bureau chief James Bennet pens the "The Interregnum," the Sunday Magazine cover story on the challenges facing new Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. The feature is embellished with posed photos of, among others, Hamas leader Nizar Rayan.

     After some criticism of deceased Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, Bennet argues that Arafat was politically "right" to take up arms against Israel, and even uses the word "heroic" in a description of the terrorist leader: "[Arafat] was right about at least one big thing. Arafat's core insight, derived in the 1960's from Frantz Fanon, was to reject the ascendant pan-Arabism of Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser and to posit instead a Palestinian exceptionalism. He believed that a distinct Palestinian nationalism would take shape through armed struggle with Israel. After Israel humiliated Nasser and the Arab armies in the Six-Day War in 1967, Arafat and his vision emerged as the heroic alternative."

     Current Israel-based reporter Steven  Erlanger made an even more direct comment on Arafat's "heroism" in January: "Mr. Abbas, with no heroic history like that of his predecessor as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Yasir Arafat, has been campaigning in Mr. Arafat's footsteps if not in his clothes."

     Bennet follows with more soft-pedaling of Palestinian terror against Israeli citizens: "In its early days, the uprising against Israel functioned partly as Palestinian diplomacy by other means. But it became Palestinian politics by other means. From the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinian factions began competing to conduct sensational attacks as much to score political points against one another as to kill and terrify Israelis….It lacks the headline-grabbing drama of attacks or reprisals, but the steady expansion of Israeli settlements has been an engine of this uprising. To Palestinians, it proved that Israel would never permit a Palestinian state. Abbas is betting that if he can stop the fighting, he can shift international attention from suicide bombers to settlements, which are growing on the West Bank."

For Bennet in full, click here:

Liberal Politics Masked As Pop Psychology
 

     Former Los Angeles Times writer Irene Lacher contributes a front-page Arts section profile of one Dr. Peter Whybrow and his book "American Mania," which warns of the psychological perils of America's reward-driven society. Both Whybrow's book and Lacher's glowing review are reminiscent of 60's-style California liberal naiveté.

     Lacher writes for Saturday's paper: "Aldous Huxley long ago warned of a future in which love was beside the point and happiness a simple matter of consuming mass-produced goods and plenty of soma, a drug engineered for pleasure. More than 70 years later, Dr. Peter C. Whybrow, the director of the Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles, has seen the future, and the society he describes isn't all that distant from Huxley's brave new world, although the soma, it seems, is in ourselves….His book is part of a new critical genre that likens society to a mental patient. The prognosis is grim." Lacher treats Whybrow's liberal bromides as if they were fresh concepts.

     She argues: "While the Gordon Gekkos of the world have long had their critics, Dr. Whybrow sees the Enrons and the Worldcoms -- the mess left by unfettered capitalism -- not as a moral problem, but as a behavioral one….People are biologically wired to want it, [Whybrow] contends. We seek more than we need because consumption activates the neurotransmitter dopamine, which rewards us with pleasure, traveling along the same brain pathways as do drugs like caffeine and cocaine."

     The core of Whybrow's thesis dissolves into yet another argument for government redistribution of wealth (while taking a crack at the "problem" of American "individualism and novelty").

     As Lacher explains in apparent approval: "Historically, he says, built-in social brakes reined in our acquisitive instincts. In the capitalist utopia envisioned by Adam Smith in the 18th century, self-interest was tempered by the competing demands of the marketplace and community. But with globalization, the idea of doing business with neighbors one must face the next day is a quaint memory, and all bets are off. Other countries are prey to the same forces, Dr. Whybrow says, but the problem is worse here because we are a nation of immigrants, genetically self-selected to favor individualism and novelty. Americans are competitive, restless and driven to succeed. And we have succeeded. But the paradox of prosperity is that we are too busy to enjoy it. And the competitiveness that gooses the economy, coupled with the decline of social constraints, has conspired to make the rich much richer, he asserts, leaving most of the country behind while government safety nets get skimpier."

For Lacher's full review, click here: