Recommended reading

Susan took all the "fun" out of the little quote contest in the previous post by being a regular reader of The New Yorker. The description, by Edmund Morris, did refer to ol' Ronald Reagan. And there is more I have in common with "this most passive of Presidents":

Reagan needed eight regular hours of sleep—"nine if I can get it." His longtime aide Michael Deaver was amazed to find him beneath a pile of bedclothes at nine o’clock on the morning of his first Inauguration. Although he sometimes had to recite Robert Service’s “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” to conquer insomnia, his sleep was cataleptic. Nancy Reagan was not with him the night a hurricane hit the White House in 1985, so he slumbered right through, and was puzzled to find both doors of their bedroom suite blown open the next morning.

The article is well worth reading, I thought, even if it does get a bit weird at the end, as Kriston pointed out in comments. I enjoyed it because it was actually about the man and not the politics that vaulted him into the halls of hagiography.

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I really wish I could link to an article from this month's Atlantic by Robert Kaplan called "Five Days in Fallujah," but they're holding it for their "premium archive." Kaplan was embedded with the division of marines that invaded Fallujah following the murder and mutilation of four coalition employees. I can't figure out why the magazine didn't give it better play, because I think it's a great insight into why this invasion is so difficult and could actually be worthwhile. Not to mention it's cool to see the intricacies of how the marines work and experience with them their everyday tragedies. I recommend it highly enough that you should pick the mag up if you see it on the rack.

An excerpt:

Smith [the company commander] did not have to order his Marines straight into the direction of the fire; it was a collective impulse–a phenomenon I would see again and again over the coming days. The idea that Marines are trained to break down doors, to seize beachheads and other territory, was an abstraction until I was there to experience it. Running into fire rather than seeking cover from it goes counter to every human survival instinct–trust me ... In one flash, as we charged across [the street] amid whistling incoming shots, I realized that they were not like me; they were Marines.

More on the article at the marine corps moms' blog.

There's also an accompanying interview with the author online that is also worth the read.

Do you think turning Fallujah over to the Iraqis was the right decision?

No. Masked gunmen are now in control of the place, according to The Washington Post. Marines had a victory stolen from them because of policy incoherence at the highest levels of our government. Still, the Marines have been accomplishing a lot since they left Fallujah. They've gone some way toward pacifying Al-Karmah, which is a major town strategically located between Baghdad and Fallujah, and one of the most hostile in the Sunni triangle. They've also been engaged in mortar mitigation. If mortars continue to rain on American bases in Iraq to the degree that they have, it may only be a matter of time before a 1983 Beirut style incident occurs, in which 241 servicemen were killed. So it's not as if they haven't spent the time usefully. In any case, even Fallujah is somewhat of a sideshow compared to the Shiite holy cities of the south. We can afford to make compromises of convenience in the Sunni triangle that we can't in the south. If we lose the south, we lose the war. And it's impossible for the U.S. to be any more aggressive in the south than it already has.

And one more crucial blockquote:

In that article I also warned against any evangelical lust to impose democracy in a society with little tradition of it. Indeed, Iraq is being held together not by any Western-imported democratic governing councils, but by the blood ties of tribe and clan. Given the chaotic situation, the public's stomach for continued involvement will be crucial, so that when the troops do leave Iraq, they can leave behind a functioning governing structure. With a supportive home front in America, countries like Iran may kick and scream at our ruthlessness and staying power, but privately they will seek deals with the United States. At the moment I'm pessimistic less about the public than because the President — despite his May 24 speech on the subject — has yet to articulate a coherent way out of the anarchy that's plaguing significant parts of Iraq.