Left Flank

No, Ezra, it's not fear. Whatever marginal value the Olympics spectacle has offered Beijing this chance both to prove to the Chinese and an inquisitive world audience, if economic development has warped PRC faster than is possibly politically sane, then the Olympics spectacle is not an optimal project. The more frantic Beijing becomes to foster economic growth, the less scope provincial governments and the average Chinese community have to advance local solutions. If non-neocons are really serious about not demonizing Beijing, not accentuating Beijing as military and political threat, «faster» is not a prescription to advance. It's certainly advantageous to international business interests to keep the great global growth engine humming. Yet, let's recall where the Chinese Communist Party started: in Shanghai. It's not China I fear, but those who would keep using China until Chinese citizens decide again not to be a dupe.

Ezra Klein and Ross Douthat illustrate why talking heads arguing about the party primaries are bad for politics. In the process, they do make some decent points about the 2008 primary season without end.

I've actively begun to wonder what country media pundits live in, and for what country. Perhaps, there's a state loosely associated with my alma mater, or my workplace, and I just continue foolishly to think I'm American. That I live in ROK, and still hold an American passport, let's put aside. That there's a «narrative» is very collegiate, but the end of the campaign for me is still universal health care. June, August, November are big marks on the calendar, but I'm not getting younger. The characters in my books don't age, but my patience does. So, the election is bad for me, not because I'm losing sleep, but because I'm getting nearer to death, and I doubt my books, my alma mater, or even my workplace will give me health insurance. And, I'd like to live with healthy people, too.

Now, to the understated points both did make. Klein glanced over demography. Demography has taken a backseat to character assassination. If Obama loses, it's because he's a bad politician. But, it could be that Obama offers people nothing, and Hillary does, and vice versa. The people are still sovereign, and more politician roadkill is no big bummer. There's nothing sacred about any three of these candidates' right to run for office. And, if these three were all eliminated (by cardiac or coronary attacks due to over-campaigning), I don't think the US would suffer. I'd like to think America has a good bench.

Douthat brings up a useful corollary for the Dems to consider about McCain's ability to map a demographic strategy watching Clinton and Obama bloody each other. But, again that's just too cynical.

I really do think, contra-Klein, the best outcome is the best America (resulting from a really solid election) where talking heads sleep all day (Douthat's Panglossian optimism around 41:00), because there's no narrative misery to craft. Are these 'heads really bloggers? Or, are they media? But then, I'm a crazy idealist.

As much as Heather Hurlburt talks about the "right incantations" for making security policy a domestic policy issue in the 2008 election primary season, TAP'ers Dana Goldstein and Ezra Klein just don't get the full catastrophe of the Iraq War. It's got little to do with the horserace, espcially the egregious caricatures Eli Lake uses to ridicule both ends of the partisan spectrum (the "hippies" vs. the "nationalists").

To give Klein credit, he sees within his myopia very clearly:

Foreign policy has receded has a definitional issue in the Democratic primary by virtue of the Democrats largely agreeing that Iraq is going poorly. Within that agreement there exist plenty of shaded prescriptions, from Richardson's "all troops out yesterday" to Clinton's "end the war but keep thousands of troops in Iraq to carry out combat missions," but wonks have proven unable to force those distinctions out into the open, and voters don't seem to exhibit much preference for one approach over the other. So the conversation has moved onto other issues where Edwards and Obama see more hope of drawing distinctions with Hillary.

The day the nominee is chosen, however, that ends. The space between the Democrats and the non-Ron Paul Republicans on foreign policy isn't a pothole -- it's a chasm. And the Democrat is going to do everything he or she can to push Mitt Huckabee into it. It will be defining in the general for the very reason that it's been quieted in the primary: Democrats disagree with Republicans, rather than with each other, on what to say about Iraq.

However, I think all miss how the expenditure on the Iraq War has made the conveniently, outdated division between foreign and domestic policy moot. The bank is busted, and there's not even enough largesse for one good reform.

Our analysis starts with the $500 billion that the Congressional Budget Office openly talks about, which is still ten times higher than what the administration said the war would cost. Its estimate falls so far short because the reported numbers do not even include the full budgetary costs to the government. And the budgetary costs are but a fraction of the costs to the economy as a whole.

For example, the Bush administration has been doing everything it can to hide the huge number of returning veterans who are severely wounded – 16,000 so far, including roughly 20% with serious brain and head injuries. So it is no surprise that its figure of $500 billion ignores the lifetime disability and healthcare costs that the government will have to pay for years to come.

Nor does the administration want to face up to the military's recruiting and retention problems. The result is large re-enlistment bonuses, improved benefits, and higher recruiting costs – up 20% just from 2003 to 2005. Moreover, the war is extremely wearing on equipment, some of which will have to be replaced.

These budgetary costs (exclusive of interest) amount to $652 billion in our conservative estimate and $799 billion in our moderate estimate. Arguably, since the government has not reined in other expenditures or increased taxes, the expenditures have been debt financed, and the interest costs on this debt add another $98 billion (conservative) to $385 billion (moderate) to the budgetary costs.

Of course, the brunt of the costs of injury and death is borne by soldiers and their families. But the military pays disability benefits that are markedly lower than the value of lost earnings. Similarly, payments for those who are killed amount to only $500,000, which is far less than standard estimates of the lifetime economic cost of a death, sometimes referred to as the statistical value of a life ($6.1 to $6.5 million).

But the costs don't stop there. The Bush administration once claimed that the Iraq war would be good for the economy, with one spokesperson even suggesting that it was the best way to ensure low oil prices. As in so many other ways, things have turned out differently: the oil companies are the big winners, while the American and global economies are losers. Being extremely conservative, we estimate the overall effect on the economy if only $5 or $10 of the increase is attributed to the war.

At the same time, money spent on the war could have been spent elsewhere. We estimate that if a proportion of that money had been allocated to domestic investment in roads, schools, and research, the American economy would have been stimulated more in the short run, and its growth would have been enhanced in the long run.

There are a number of other costs, some potentially quite large, although quantifying them is problematic. For instance, Americans pay some $300 billion annually for the «option value» of military preparedness – being able to fight wherever needed. That Americans are willing to pay this suggests that the option value exceeds the costs. But there is little doubt that the option value has been greatly impaired and will likely remain so for several years.

In short, even our «moderate» estimate may significantly underestimate the cost of America's involvement in Iraq. And our estimate does not include any of the costs implied by the enormous loss of life and property in Iraq itself.

I would argue the topic of the cost of security will recur in the following years as many of these costs, like soldiers' healthcare, present themselves and play out domestically. But then also politicians and voters will wonder why budget cuts become the default option because of perennial budgetary deficits, and why the money for the optimal plan is just not there handy.