Sex and the Sissy
PEEGY NOONAN

She was born in Russia, fled the pogroms with her family, was raised in Milwaukee, and worked the counter at her father's general store when she was 8. In early adulthood she made aliyah to Palestine, where she worked on a kibbutz, picking almonds and chasing chickens. She rose in politics, was the first woman in the first Israeli cabinet, soldiered on through war and rumors of war, became the first and so far only woman to be prime minister of Israel. And she knew what it is to be a woman in the world. "At work, you think of the children you've left at home. At home you think of the work you've left unfinished. . . . Your heart is rent." This of course was Golda Meir.

AP

Golda Meir never cried 'sexism.'

Another: She was born in a family at war with itself and the reigning power outside. As a child she carried word from her important father to his fellow revolutionaries, smuggling the papers in her school bag. War and rumors of war, arrests, eight months in jail. A rise in politics -- administering refugee camps, government minister. When war came, she refused to flee an insecure border area; her stubbornness helped rally a nation. Her rivals sometimes called her "Dumb Doll," and an American president is said to have referred to her in private as "the old witch." But the prime minister of India preferred grounding her foes to dust to complaining about gender bias. In the end, and in the way of things, she was ground up too. Proud woman, Indira Gandhi.

And there is Margaret Hilda Roberts. A childhood in the besieged Britain of World War II -- she told me once of listening to the wireless and being roused by Churchill. "Westward look, the land is bright," she quoted him; she knew every stanza of the old poem. Her father, too, was a shopkeeper, and she grew up in the apartment above the store near the tracks. She went to Oxford on scholarship, worked as a chemist, entered politics, rose, became another first and only, succeeding not only in a man's world but in a class system in which they knew how to take care of ambitious little grocer's daughters from Grantham. She was to a degree an outsider within her own party, so she remade it. She lived for ideas as her colleagues lived for comfort and complaint. The Tories those days managed loss. She wanted to stop it; she wanted gain. Just before she became prime minister, the Soviets, thinking they were deftly stigmatizing an upstart, labeled her the Iron Lady. She seized the insult and wore it like a hat. This was Thatcher, stupendous Thatcher, now the baroness.

Great women, all different, but great in terms of size, of impact on the world and of struggles overcome. Struggle was not something they read about in a book. They did not use guilt to win election -- it comes up zero if you Google "Thatcher" and "You're just picking on me because I'm a woman." Instead they used the appeals men used: stronger leadership, better ideas, a superior philosophy.

* * *

You know where I'm going, for you know where she went. Hillary Clinton complained again this week that sexism has been a major dynamic in her unsuccessful bid for political dominance. She is quoted by the Washington Post's Lois Romano decrying the "sexist" treatment she received during the campaign, and the "incredible vitriol that has been engendered" by those who are "nothing but misogynists." The New York Times reported she told sympathetic bloggers in a conference call that she is saddened by the "mean-spiritedness and terrible insults" that have been thrown "at you, for supporting me, and at women in general."

Where to begin? One wants to be sympathetic to Mrs. Clinton at this point, if for no other reason than to show one's range. But her last weeks have been, and her next weeks will likely be, one long exercise in summoning further denunciations. It is something new in politics, the How Else Can I Offend You Tour. And I suppose it is aimed not at voters -- you don't persuade anyone by complaining in this way, you only reinforce what your supporters already think -- but at history, at the way history will tell the story of the reasons for her loss.

So, to address the charge that sexism did her in:

It is insulting, because it asserts that those who supported someone else this year were driven by low prejudice and mindless bias.

It is manipulative, because it asserts that if you want to be understood, both within the community and in the larger brotherhood of man, to be wholly without bias and prejudice, you must support Mrs. Clinton.

It is not true. Tough hill-country men voted for her, men so backward they'd give the lady a chair in the union hall. Tough Catholic men in the outer suburbs voted for her, men so backward they'd call a woman a lady. And all of them so naturally courteous that they'd realize, in offering the chair or addressing the lady, that they might have given offense, and awkwardly joke at themselves to take away the sting. These are great men. And Hillary got her share, more than her share, of their votes. She should be a guy and say thanks.

It is prissy. Mrs. Clinton's supporters are now complaining about the Hillary nutcrackers sold at every airport shop. Boo hoo. If Golda Meir, a woman of not only proclaimed but actual toughness, heard about Golda nutcrackers, she would have bought them by the case and given them away as party favors.

It is sissy. It is blame-gaming, whining, a way of not taking responsibility, of not seeing your flaws and addressing them. You want to say "Girl, butch up, you are playing in the leagues, they get bruised in the leagues, they break each other's bones, they like to hit you low and hear the crack, it's like that for the boys and for the girls."

And because the charge of sexism is all of the above, it is, ultimately, undermining of the position of women. Or rather it would be if its source were not someone broadly understood by friend and foe alike to be willing to say anything to gain advantage.

* * *

It is probably truer that being a woman helped Mrs. Clinton. She was the front-runner anyway and had all the money, power, Beltway backers. But the fact that she was a woman helped give her supporters the special oomph to be gotten from making history. They were by definition involved in something historic. And they were on the right side, connected to the one making the breakthrough, shattering the glass. They were going to be part of breaking it into a million little pieces that could rain down softly during the balloon drop at the historic convention, each of them catching the glow of the lights. Some network reporter was going to say, "They look like pieces of the glass ceiling that has finally been shattered."

I know: Barf. But also: Fine. Politics should be fun.

Meir and Gandhi and Mrs. Thatcher suffered through the political downside of their sex and made the most of the upside. Fair enough. As for this week's Clinton complaints, I imagine Mrs. Thatcher would bop her on the head with her purse. Mrs. Gandhi would say "That is no way to play it." Mrs. Meir? "They said I was the only woman in the cabinet and the only one with -- well, you know. I loved it."

The Obama Learning Curve

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden took to the airwaves this week to "help" the rookie Barack Obama out of a foreign-policy jam. Oh sure, admitted Mr. Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee had given the "wrong" answer when he said he'd meet unconditionally with leaders of rogue states. But on the upside, the guy "has learned a hell of a lot."

Somewhere Mr. Obama was muttering an expletive. But give Mr. Biden marks for honesty. As Mr. Obama finishes a week of brutal questioning over his foreign-policy judgments, it's become clear he has learned a lot – and is learning still.

AP

Right now, for instance, he's learning how tough it can be to pivot to a general-election stance on the crucial issue of foreign policy. He's also learning Democrats won't be able to sail through a national-security debate by simply painting John McCain as the second coming of George Bush.

Remember how Mr. Obama got here. In a July debate, the Illinois senator was asked if he'd meet, "without preconditions," the "leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea." It was an unexpected question, and Mr. Obama rolled with his gut: "I would," he said, riffing that the Bush administration's policy of not negotiating with terror-sponsoring states was "ridiculous."

Hillary Clinton, who still had the aura of inevitability, and who was already thinking ahead to a general election, wouldn't bite. At that point, any initial misgivings the Obama campaign had about the boss's answer disappeared. Mr. Obama hadn't got much traction differentiating himself from Mrs. Clinton over Iraq, but this was a chance to get to her left, to cast her to liberal primary voters as a warmonger. Which he did, often, committing himself ever more to a policy of unfettered engagement.

Today's Obama, all-but-nominee, is pitching to a broad American audience less keen to legitimize Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who provides weapons that kill American soldiers. The senator clumsily invited this debate when he took great umbrage to President Bush's recent criticism of appeasers (which, in a wonderfully revealing moment, Democrats instantly assumed meant them). Mr. Obama has since been scrambling to neutralize his former statement.

A week ago, in Oregon, he adopted the "no-big-deal" approach, telling listeners Iran was just a "tiny" country that, unlike the Soviet Union, did not "pose a serious threat to us." But this suggested he'd missed that whole asymmetrical warfare debate – not to mention 9/11 – so by the next day, he'd switched to the "blame-Republicans" line. Iran was in fact "the greatest threat to the United States and Israel and the Middle East for a generation" – but all because of President Bush's Iraq war.

This, however, revived questions of why he'd meet with said greatest-threat leader, so his advisers jumped in, this time to float the "misunderstood" balloon. Obama senior foreign policy adviser Susan Rice, channeling Bill Clinton, said it all depended on what the definition of a "leader" is. "Well, first of all, he said he'd meet with the appropriate Iranian leaders. He hasn't named who that leader will be." (Turns out, Mr. Obama has said he will meet with . . . Mr. Ahmadinejad.)

Former Sen. Tom Daschle, channeling Ms. Rice, explained it also depended on what the definition of a precondition is: "It's important to emphasize again when we talk about preconditions, we're just saying everything needs to be on the table. I would not say that we would meet unconditionally." This is called being against preconditions before you were for them.

And so it goes, as Mr. Obama shifts and shambles, all the while telling audiences that when voting for president they should look beyond "experience" to "judgment." In this case, whatever his particular judgment on Iran is on any particular day.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Democrats entered this race confident national security wouldn't be the drag on the party it has in the past. With an unpopular war and a rival who supports that war, they planned to wrap Mr. McCain around the unpopular Mr. Bush and be done with it. Mr. Obama is still manfully marching down this road, today spending as much time warning about a "third Bush term" as he does reassuring voters about a first Obama one.

Then again, 9/11 and five years of Iraq debate have educated voters. Mr. McCain is certainly betting they can separate the war from the urgent threat of an Iranian dictator who could possess nukes, and whose legitimization would encourage other rogues in their belligerence. This is a debate the Arizonan has been preparing for all his life and, note, Iranian diplomacy is simply the topic du jour.

Mr. McCain has every intention of running his opponent through the complete foreign-policy gamut. Explain again in what circumstances you'd use nuclear weapons? What was that about invading Pakistan? How does a policy of engaging the world include Mr. Ahmadinejad, but not our ally Colombia and its trade pact?

It explains too the strong desire among the McCain camp to get Mr. Obama on stage for debates soon. There's a feeling Mr. Obama is still climbing the foreign-policy learning curve. And they see mileage in his issuing a few more gut reactions.

'Nothing but Misogynists'

By DONALD J. BOUDREAUX

Hillary Clinton is now complaining that her candidacy has been harmed by sexism. Interviewed earlier this week by the Washington Post, Sen. Clinton said the polls show that "more people would be reluctant to vote for a woman [than] to vote for an African American." This gender bias, she grumbled, "rarely gets reported on."

So a woman who holds degrees from Wellesley and Yale – who has earned millions in the private sector, won two terms in the U.S. Senate, and gathered many more votes than John Edwards, Bill Richardson and several other middle-aged white guys in their respective bids for the 2008 Democratic nomination – feels cheated because she's a woman.

Seems doubtful. But hey, I'm a guy and perhaps hopelessly insensitive. So let's give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that her campaign has indeed suffered because of sexism.

This fact (if it be a fact) reveals a hitherto unknown, ugly truth about the Democratic Party. The alleged bastion of modern liberalism, toleration and diversity is full of (to use Mrs. Clinton's own phrase) "people who are nothing but misogynists." Large numbers of Democratic voters are sexists. Who knew?

But here's another revelation. If Mrs. Clinton is correct that she is more likely than Barack Obama to defeat John McCain in November, that implies Republicans and independents are less sexist than Democrats.

It must be so. If American voters of all parties are as sexist as the Democrats, Mr. Obama would have a better chance than Mrs. Clinton of defeating Mr. McCain. The same misogyny that thwarted her in the Democratic primaries would thwart her in the general election. Only if registered Republicans and independents are more open-minded than registered Democrats – only if people who lean GOP or who have no party affiliation are more willing than Democrats to overlook a candidate's sex and vote on the issues – could Mrs. Clinton be a stronger candidate.

I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican. But if I ever become convinced that Mrs. Clinton is correct that sexism played a role in her disappointing showing in the Democratic primaries – and that she truly is her party's strongest candidate to take on John McCain – I might finally join a party: the GOP. At least it's not infested with sexists.

Mr. Boudreaux is chairman of the economics department at George Mason University.

John Boehner
Minority Leader in a Storm

By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

"Awful. Awful." That's John Boehner's candid answer when I ask what life is like for House Republicans these days. The question the 58-year-old minority leader is pondering is how long that awfulness will last.

The GOP is in a panic after a string of special election defeats that suggest voters haven't forgiven Republicans for straying from small-government principles. Rival wings of the party are fighting over where to go next. About the only thing everyone agrees on: If the GOP doesn't redefine itself soon, it's facing a rout this fall.

Ismael Roldan

Elected two years ago because of his reputation as a reformer, Mr. Boehner and his team recently unrolled its election-year agenda, entitled "Change You Deserve." It will attempt to show voters that the GOP is again ready to lead on everything from health care to energy to taxes.

Yet Mr. Boehner knows he's pushing a big rock up a steep hill. Asked how he might "win" back a majority, he cuts me off: "Earn. Earn back the majority. . . . we have to show the American people that we learned our lesson from the '06 election. That we hear what they are saying. And that means things like getting earmarks under control . . . balancing the budget, being willing to take on the tough job of entitlement reform, or the really tough job of a health-care system that insures all Americans and allows them control over who their doctor is."

Says Mr. Boehner: "My job is to lead the 200 of us on the Republican side into being real agents of change." He adds, "Some are more open to that than others."

That might be the minority leader's greatest challenge. His predecessor, Tom "the Hammer" DeLay from Texas, rankled many with his dictatorial style. Mr. Boehner, from Ohio, has tried to rule more by consensus, pushing members to voluntarily unite. When it works, it works brilliantly, as when Mr. Boehner rallied nearly every Republican to stand against House Democratic attempts to defund the Iraq war.

Getting members to abandon the bad habits that have lost them respect among voters is harder. Mr. Boehner stands as a role model, having never requested nor received an earmark, and having fought for reform legislation like the 2006 pension overhaul. Yet his example alone hasn't moved some Republicans to shape up. Consider his unsuccessful attempt to get House GOP members to agree to a unilateral earmark moratorium.

"The team's not ready to go there," he says, consternation in his big bass voice. Why do so many Republicans refuse to swear off pork? "I'm sure with some it's maybe about elections . . . And another group believes that the Constitution says that all spending rests with Congress; they believe that directing some of the spending to their district is part of their job."

Mr. Boehner is not in that group. "I just happened to tell my constituents when I wanted to come here that if they thought my job was to come and rob the federal Treasury on their behalf they were voting for the wrong guy. I said it, I meant it. It might have been the best decision I ever made."

The recent farm bill was a $300 billion, subsidy-laden grab bag of handouts to special interests. Mr. Boehner railed against the legislation on the House floor, urging GOP members to vote against it. The bill passed by a huge margin with the help of 100 Republicans. President Bush vetoed it, and the House promptly overrode the veto. "I wouldn't describe the farm bill we're voting on as change," he told me in something of an understatement. "As I said on the floor, we can do better."

Perhaps that's why Mr. Boehner has recently switched from cajoling to trying to use the GOP's recent misfortunes to scare Republicans out of their torpor. Some in his party are already marking down the special election losses in conservative districts in Illinois, Louisiana and Mississippi to lack of money, bad candidates and a poor message. Mr. Boehner is painting the defeats as "real wake-up calls" and warning members to think hard: "Every race is different, and there are a lot of reasons why those three races were lost. But it is clear that the American people are anxious for change. . . . and Republicans have to show we can be ready to deliver it."

As for what message Republicans should adopt to prove they've changed, Mr. Boehner is not hurting for suggestions. I ask what he thinks of a 20-page memo recently delivered to the Republican leadership by Virginia Rep. Tom Davis. This analysis declared the environment for Republicans as "toxic," outlined their financial and perception problems, and suggested the House GOP proactively embrace an emergency housing package and jump on board an energy bill that includes global-warming provisions.

"I read it, I thought it was insightful," Mr. Boehner replies. "I thought it was honest. Members all ought to read it and learn from it, in terms of helping them understand that we've got to be serious about delivering change." But he adds a caveat: "We're talking about the right kind of change, not change for change's sake. We want change rooted in freedom."

And how about Mr. Davis's suggestions the party needs quickly to distance itself from President Bush and his subterranean poll numbers? The minority leader suggests that if the party chooses simply to focus on the problems of President Bush rather than its own, it won't do itself any favors. "The president is the president of the United States and will be until January 20 next year. . . . elections are about the future and not about the past, and we've got to show people that if they were to honor us with the majority, this is what we'll do. When people go to the polls in November, they are going to be voting for Barack Obama or John McCain (or maybe Hillary Clinton). Our members are on the ballot, they've got opponents. George Bush isn't on the ballot."

The first part of Mr. Boehner's "Change You Deserve" agenda started last week, with an attempt to pitch the party's free-market ideals at the needs of modern working families with "flex time" laws and better tax policies for small business owners. This week's focus was energy, with promises to boost all energy supplies here at home to help lower prices and create jobs. In subsequent weeks they will tackle health care, taxes and security. This week, however, another blast of advice arrived on Mr. Boehner's doorstep from the conservative Republican Study Committee, many members of which feel the House leadership's new agenda is too diffuse.

Mr. Boehner's view? "As I told the members, our agenda was put together by listening to our members, and as we move forward we are going to continue listening to our members. A lot of what they offered is already in our product. I'm going to announce a meeting later this week to talk about our economic package, and we're going to bring members in who want to bring more to the package."

One message Mr. Boehner is interested in adopting is that of John McCain. The minority leader clearly realizes that at a time when the public is angry with the same-old, same-old, the Arizona senator's reformist line has resonance. He's also no doubt realized it might be in Mr. McCain's interest to run against Congressional Republicans. "I want [the Republican members] to understand, it's a presidential election year, he's our nominee. He has his own Republican brand, and part of my goal, I've told them, is to work with the McCain campaign and our folks so that our agendas are identical, our themes are the same."

Mr. Boehner's hope is that his members can project enough "change" of their own to benefit from McCain voters. "We've got 29 retirements, though 22 or 23 of those are in solid Republican seats with good candidates. But we're going to have a handful of tough open seats to defend. Still, when you begin to look at the 61 Democrat districts that George Bush won in the '04 election, I'd argue John McCain will win more than 61 currently held Democrat seats. . . . The goal is, if they're going to go vote for McCain, we just need them to vote for our candidate at the same time. But it means we need to have a credible candidate on the ballot, we need to have issues."

Another part of the Boehner strategy is hammering Democrats, an approach that has at least some in his conference worried Republicans should be spending more time promoting their own "change" message. But Mr. Boehner thinks part of the approach has to be reminding voters that "all the American people have gotten from the Democrat majority in Congress are long lists of broken promises."

The minority has spent its tenure pushing votes that forced freshman Democrats in particular to choose between their more liberal leadership and their more conservative districts. Mr. Boehner is hoping those votes will play in some of the tougher House races this year.

"These are things like voting for the largest tax increase in American history. They voted for a budget last year that had a $450 billion hole in it; this year a $685 billion hole in it, and at some point they are going to have to say if they are for the 15% capital gains rate expiring, or the death tax expiration expiring, or the 15% rate on dividends expiring, or marriage penalty relief, or the $1,000 per child tax credit. Somebody is going to have to answer. That's going to be a big issue." Republicans are also angling to use what's left of this legislative calendar to pigeonhole Democrats into a few more uncomfortable spots, on Iraq war spending, or the debate over reauthorizing the wiretap law.

And Barack Obama? How does he play into this? What are his weaknesses? "Well," he says dramatically, rolling his eyes. "He has been a member of the United States Senate for three years and four months. And has done exactly one thing for exactly three years and four months: Run for president. He hasn't done anything. Who ever heard of a subcommittee chairman never having had a hearing?" (Mr. Obama chairs a Senate subcommittee on European affairs, which has not held a policy hearing since he took over as chairman in January 2007).

Will this prove enough to get Mr. Boehner out of this "awful" minority purgatory? "You know, I didn't like the cards that were dealt 16 months ago, but . . . my job is to play the hand as best I can. So it is what it is. And my job is to lead an effort for our team to earn back the majority. And I keep pushing them and pushing them and pushing them and pushing them. Because the only way we're gonna win it back is to earn it.

"Oh, we could get lucky and [voters] could get madder at the Democrats than they were at us but what kind of majority is that? I want us to earn our way back. And we're getting there. It's just a long, slow process."

Sudan

The south on the brink

Clashes in the middle of Sudan threaten the entire north-south peace accord

NOBODY seems to know how or why the fighting in Abyei, on Sudan's north-south fault line, began. But everyone knows that if it gets out of hand, the entire peace accord that has kept an edgy calm between north and south for the past three years could dissolve in a bloodbath.

In mid-May, rumours started to spread that a local militiaman in the pay of the northern government in Khartoum had been arrested by the police run by the main southern movement. A government soldier from the north was shot. Within hours, the town of Abyei was reverberating with the clatter of machinegun fire and the crashing of mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. Tens of thousands of the town's residents fled into the bush. UN helicopters were sent to evacuate terrified aid workers under heavy fire. At least 50 people were killed in several days of fighting.

The mood in Abyei, an oil-rich area straddling Sudan's north-south border, had been darkening for months. The ruling parties of north and south—the National Congress Party (NCP), headquartered in Khartoum, and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), with its nerve-centre in Juba—each claim the area as theirs. There had been sporadic incidents between proxies. But the clashes that erupted on May 14th were the first sustained bout of armed conflict between the northern-based national army and former guerrillas from the south.

Abyei is at the nub of the problems that have strained relations between north and south since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA)was signed in 2005, ending two decades of war in Africa's largest country. But an argument still festers over sharing oil revenue and demarcating the border between north and south. Trust between the two sides is patently lacking.

A particular row over drawing the border through the Abyei area was a big reason why, last year, the SPLM suspended its participation in various aspects of the peace deal. It complained that the government in the north was refusing to accept the findings of an international boundary commission, which put Abyei in the south. Though the SPLM later rejoined the Sudanese unity government based in Khartoum, it unilaterally sent one of its top men, Edward Lino, to run the Abyei area, which had had no proper administration for three years. But the northerners rejected him and sent several hundred heavily armed soldiers into Abyei town. “We don't want to fight,” says Mr Lino. “But we're not going to surrender just like that. They can't just come and take over our land and people.”

The mood in Abyei has long been twitchy because of historic animosity between the Misseriya nomads, some of whom are armed by northerners in the government in Khartoum, and the southern Ngok Dinka, who look to the SPLM for protection. Since time immemorial they have clashed over land and water. Such issues can usually be resolved locally but the groups have become pawns in a bigger game. If fighting between them gets bloodier, the north-south partnership in Khartoum could collapse.

In any event, the northerners, who are mainly Arabs, have been dragging their feet over the accord of 2005, not just over Abyei, but also over other border disputes. They have been slow to withdraw troops from the south, as agreed. Some observers think they want to provoke a crisis, so that a general election due next year cannot be held. The northerners are even more loth to contemplate a referendum, due in 2011, that is part of the agreement; the southerners are entitled to opt for secession and full independence. If that happened, the south would draw the benefits of Sudan's 500,000 barrels of oil a day, much of it pumped out of Abyei. Hence the tension over the border. The Abyei area alone is said to have produced oil worth $1.8 billion since the accord was signed. The south says it has seen none of the cash at all.

The SPLM's ability to negotiate and implement a border settlement is weakened by its own disunity. Some of its top men believe in a federal Sudan, with the south getting wide autonomy. Others believe passionately that the Muslim-dominated, Arab north will never co-operate with the Christian and animist south, and that independence is the only way.

Such differences are sharpened by fierce rivalries between the southern tribes. The Dinka, among them both the SPLM's leader, Salva Kiir, and his predecessor, the late John Garang, have long held the upper hand. Several of their top people, known as “the Garang boys”, are amenable, as was Mr Garang, to the idea of a federal Sudan with an autonomous south. Mr Kiir leans towards independence. The autonomy-versus-independence debate bubbles on, sometimes angrily.

The SPLM is holding its first party convention since 1994, when it was meant to heal divisions between Mr Garang and a group led by Riek Machar, now the south's vice-president, whose Nuer people are the Dinka's chief rivals. “Most of us want separation [ie, independence] but we are worried about the problems between the tribes,” says Hassan Kuku, a trader in Juba market. “We don't want more war over this.” Moreover, corruption has worsened, making everyone edgier about the future.

Meanwhile, a fear of lawlessness has returned. Though the southern guerrillas are supposed to have disarmed under the agreement, hundreds of civilians in the past week darted into their huts to grab their hidden AK-47s to join the present fray. The accord provided for joint units of northerners and southerners to act as a neutral force; but they never materialised.

The UN Mission in Sudan, known as UNMIS, is feeble. Its diplomats call for calm, but their ability to do good on the ground is impeded by the government in Khartoum, which never wanted the mission there in the first place and limits its ability even to move around freely. The 10,000-strong mission, including some 7,000 soldiers and police, has a weak mandate; its mainly Zambian units did little more than protect a nearby UN base when the hostilities in Abyei broke out.

Since then, some 50,000 civilians have fled into the bush, leaving Abyei town virtually deserted, a stark reminder that some 2m were killed and 4m displaced during the long conflict that ended in 2005. Hectic talks between politicians of north and south are going on in Khartoum.

Yet the continuing horrors of Darfur, in western Sudan, attract more of the world's attention. Many foreign government agencies and charities have switched their focus to Darfur. For the UN, tackling southern Sudan still seems a challenge too far.

Sex and the Sissy
PEEGY NOONAN

She was born in Russia, fled the pogroms with her family, was raised in Milwaukee, and worked the counter at her father's general store when she was 8. In early adulthood she made aliyah to Palestine, where she worked on a kibbutz, picking almonds and chasing chickens. She rose in politics, was the first woman in the first Israeli cabinet, soldiered on through war and rumors of war, became the first and so far only woman to be prime minister of Israel. And she knew what it is to be a woman in the world. "At work, you think of the children you've left at home. At home you think of the work you've left unfinished. . . . Your heart is rent." This of course was Golda Meir.

AP

Golda Meir never cried 'sexism.'

Another: She was born in a family at war with itself and the reigning power outside. As a child she carried word from her important father to his fellow revolutionaries, smuggling the papers in her school bag. War and rumors of war, arrests, eight months in jail. A rise in politics -- administering refugee camps, government minister. When war came, she refused to flee an insecure border area; her stubbornness helped rally a nation. Her rivals sometimes called her "Dumb Doll," and an American president is said to have referred to her in private as "the old witch." But the prime minister of India preferred grounding her foes to dust to complaining about gender bias. In the end, and in the way of things, she was ground up too. Proud woman, Indira Gandhi.

And there is Margaret Hilda Roberts. A childhood in the besieged Britain of World War II -- she told me once of listening to the wireless and being roused by Churchill. "Westward look, the land is bright," she quoted him; she knew every stanza of the old poem. Her father, too, was a shopkeeper, and she grew up in the apartment above the store near the tracks. She went to Oxford on scholarship, worked as a chemist, entered politics, rose, became another first and only, succeeding not only in a man's world but in a class system in which they knew how to take care of ambitious little grocer's daughters from Grantham. She was to a degree an outsider within her own party, so she remade it. She lived for ideas as her colleagues lived for comfort and complaint. The Tories those days managed loss. She wanted to stop it; she wanted gain. Just before she became prime minister, the Soviets, thinking they were deftly stigmatizing an upstart, labeled her the Iron Lady. She seized the insult and wore it like a hat. This was Thatcher, stupendous Thatcher, now the baroness.

Great women, all different, but great in terms of size, of impact on the world and of struggles overcome. Struggle was not something they read about in a book. They did not use guilt to win election -- it comes up zero if you Google "Thatcher" and "You're just picking on me because I'm a woman." Instead they used the appeals men used: stronger leadership, better ideas, a superior philosophy.

* * *

You know where I'm going, for you know where she went. Hillary Clinton complained again this week that sexism has been a major dynamic in her unsuccessful bid for political dominance. She is quoted by the Washington Post's Lois Romano decrying the "sexist" treatment she received during the campaign, and the "incredible vitriol that has been engendered" by those who are "nothing but misogynists." The New York Times reported she told sympathetic bloggers in a conference call that she is saddened by the "mean-spiritedness and terrible insults" that have been thrown "at you, for supporting me, and at women in general."

Where to begin? One wants to be sympathetic to Mrs. Clinton at this point, if for no other reason than to show one's range. But her last weeks have been, and her next weeks will likely be, one long exercise in summoning further denunciations. It is something new in politics, the How Else Can I Offend You Tour. And I suppose it is aimed not at voters -- you don't persuade anyone by complaining in this way, you only reinforce what your supporters already think -- but at history, at the way history will tell the story of the reasons for her loss.

So, to address the charge that sexism did her in:

It is insulting, because it asserts that those who supported someone else this year were driven by low prejudice and mindless bias.

It is manipulative, because it asserts that if you want to be understood, both within the community and in the larger brotherhood of man, to be wholly without bias and prejudice, you must support Mrs. Clinton.

It is not true. Tough hill-country men voted for her, men so backward they'd give the lady a chair in the union hall. Tough Catholic men in the outer suburbs voted for her, men so backward they'd call a woman a lady. And all of them so naturally courteous that they'd realize, in offering the chair or addressing the lady, that they might have given offense, and awkwardly joke at themselves to take away the sting. These are great men. And Hillary got her share, more than her share, of their votes. She should be a guy and say thanks.

It is prissy. Mrs. Clinton's supporters are now complaining about the Hillary nutcrackers sold at every airport shop. Boo hoo. If Golda Meir, a woman of not only proclaimed but actual toughness, heard about Golda nutcrackers, she would have bought them by the case and given them away as party favors.

It is sissy. It is blame-gaming, whining, a way of not taking responsibility, of not seeing your flaws and addressing them. You want to say "Girl, butch up, you are playing in the leagues, they get bruised in the leagues, they break each other's bones, they like to hit you low and hear the crack, it's like that for the boys and for the girls."

And because the charge of sexism is all of the above, it is, ultimately, undermining of the position of women. Or rather it would be if its source were not someone broadly understood by friend and foe alike to be willing to say anything to gain advantage.

* * *

It is probably truer that being a woman helped Mrs. Clinton. She was the front-runner anyway and had all the money, power, Beltway backers. But the fact that she was a woman helped give her supporters the special oomph to be gotten from making history. They were by definition involved in something historic. And they were on the right side, connected to the one making the breakthrough, shattering the glass. They were going to be part of breaking it into a million little pieces that could rain down softly during the balloon drop at the historic convention, each of them catching the glow of the lights. Some network reporter was going to say, "They look like pieces of the glass ceiling that has finally been shattered."

I know: Barf. But also: Fine. Politics should be fun.

Meir and Gandhi and Mrs. Thatcher suffered through the political downside of their sex and made the most of the upside. Fair enough. As for this week's Clinton complaints, I imagine Mrs. Thatcher would bop her on the head with her purse. Mrs. Gandhi would say "That is no way to play it." Mrs. Meir? "They said I was the only woman in the cabinet and the only one with -- well, you know. I loved it."

The Obama Learning Curve

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden took to the airwaves this week to "help" the rookie Barack Obama out of a foreign-policy jam. Oh sure, admitted Mr. Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee had given the "wrong" answer when he said he'd meet unconditionally with leaders of rogue states. But on the upside, the guy "has learned a hell of a lot."

Somewhere Mr. Obama was muttering an expletive. But give Mr. Biden marks for honesty. As Mr. Obama finishes a week of brutal questioning over his foreign-policy judgments, it's become clear he has learned a lot – and is learning still.

AP

Right now, for instance, he's learning how tough it can be to pivot to a general-election stance on the crucial issue of foreign policy. He's also learning Democrats won't be able to sail through a national-security debate by simply painting John McCain as the second coming of George Bush.

Remember how Mr. Obama got here. In a July debate, the Illinois senator was asked if he'd meet, "without preconditions," the "leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea." It was an unexpected question, and Mr. Obama rolled with his gut: "I would," he said, riffing that the Bush administration's policy of not negotiating with terror-sponsoring states was "ridiculous."

Hillary Clinton, who still had the aura of inevitability, and who was already thinking ahead to a general election, wouldn't bite. At that point, any initial misgivings the Obama campaign had about the boss's answer disappeared. Mr. Obama hadn't got much traction differentiating himself from Mrs. Clinton over Iraq, but this was a chance to get to her left, to cast her to liberal primary voters as a warmonger. Which he did, often, committing himself ever more to a policy of unfettered engagement.

Today's Obama, all-but-nominee, is pitching to a broad American audience less keen to legitimize Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who provides weapons that kill American soldiers. The senator clumsily invited this debate when he took great umbrage to President Bush's recent criticism of appeasers (which, in a wonderfully revealing moment, Democrats instantly assumed meant them). Mr. Obama has since been scrambling to neutralize his former statement.

A week ago, in Oregon, he adopted the "no-big-deal" approach, telling listeners Iran was just a "tiny" country that, unlike the Soviet Union, did not "pose a serious threat to us." But this suggested he'd missed that whole asymmetrical warfare debate – not to mention 9/11 – so by the next day, he'd switched to the "blame-Republicans" line. Iran was in fact "the greatest threat to the United States and Israel and the Middle East for a generation" – but all because of President Bush's Iraq war.

This, however, revived questions of why he'd meet with said greatest-threat leader, so his advisers jumped in, this time to float the "misunderstood" balloon. Obama senior foreign policy adviser Susan Rice, channeling Bill Clinton, said it all depended on what the definition of a "leader" is. "Well, first of all, he said he'd meet with the appropriate Iranian leaders. He hasn't named who that leader will be." (Turns out, Mr. Obama has said he will meet with . . . Mr. Ahmadinejad.)

Former Sen. Tom Daschle, channeling Ms. Rice, explained it also depended on what the definition of a precondition is: "It's important to emphasize again when we talk about preconditions, we're just saying everything needs to be on the table. I would not say that we would meet unconditionally." This is called being against preconditions before you were for them.

And so it goes, as Mr. Obama shifts and shambles, all the while telling audiences that when voting for president they should look beyond "experience" to "judgment." In this case, whatever his particular judgment on Iran is on any particular day.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Democrats entered this race confident national security wouldn't be the drag on the party it has in the past. With an unpopular war and a rival who supports that war, they planned to wrap Mr. McCain around the unpopular Mr. Bush and be done with it. Mr. Obama is still manfully marching down this road, today spending as much time warning about a "third Bush term" as he does reassuring voters about a first Obama one.

Then again, 9/11 and five years of Iraq debate have educated voters. Mr. McCain is certainly betting they can separate the war from the urgent threat of an Iranian dictator who could possess nukes, and whose legitimization would encourage other rogues in their belligerence. This is a debate the Arizonan has been preparing for all his life and, note, Iranian diplomacy is simply the topic du jour.

Mr. McCain has every intention of running his opponent through the complete foreign-policy gamut. Explain again in what circumstances you'd use nuclear weapons? What was that about invading Pakistan? How does a policy of engaging the world include Mr. Ahmadinejad, but not our ally Colombia and its trade pact?

It explains too the strong desire among the McCain camp to get Mr. Obama on stage for debates soon. There's a feeling Mr. Obama is still climbing the foreign-policy learning curve. And they see mileage in his issuing a few more gut reactions.

'Nothing but Misogynists'

By DONALD J. BOUDREAUX

Hillary Clinton is now complaining that her candidacy has been harmed by sexism. Interviewed earlier this week by the Washington Post, Sen. Clinton said the polls show that "more people would be reluctant to vote for a woman [than] to vote for an African American." This gender bias, she grumbled, "rarely gets reported on."

So a woman who holds degrees from Wellesley and Yale – who has earned millions in the private sector, won two terms in the U.S. Senate, and gathered many more votes than John Edwards, Bill Richardson and several other middle-aged white guys in their respective bids for the 2008 Democratic nomination – feels cheated because she's a woman.

Seems doubtful. But hey, I'm a guy and perhaps hopelessly insensitive. So let's give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that her campaign has indeed suffered because of sexism.

This fact (if it be a fact) reveals a hitherto unknown, ugly truth about the Democratic Party. The alleged bastion of modern liberalism, toleration and diversity is full of (to use Mrs. Clinton's own phrase) "people who are nothing but misogynists." Large numbers of Democratic voters are sexists. Who knew?

But here's another revelation. If Mrs. Clinton is correct that she is more likely than Barack Obama to defeat John McCain in November, that implies Republicans and independents are less sexist than Democrats.

It must be so. If American voters of all parties are as sexist as the Democrats, Mr. Obama would have a better chance than Mrs. Clinton of defeating Mr. McCain. The same misogyny that thwarted her in the Democratic primaries would thwart her in the general election. Only if registered Republicans and independents are more open-minded than registered Democrats – only if people who lean GOP or who have no party affiliation are more willing than Democrats to overlook a candidate's sex and vote on the issues – could Mrs. Clinton be a stronger candidate.

I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican. But if I ever become convinced that Mrs. Clinton is correct that sexism played a role in her disappointing showing in the Democratic primaries – and that she truly is her party's strongest candidate to take on John McCain – I might finally join a party: the GOP. At least it's not infested with sexists.

Mr. Boudreaux is chairman of the economics department at George Mason University.

John Boehner
Minority Leader in a Storm

By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

"Awful. Awful." That's John Boehner's candid answer when I ask what life is like for House Republicans these days. The question the 58-year-old minority leader is pondering is how long that awfulness will last.

The GOP is in a panic after a string of special election defeats that suggest voters haven't forgiven Republicans for straying from small-government principles. Rival wings of the party are fighting over where to go next. About the only thing everyone agrees on: If the GOP doesn't redefine itself soon, it's facing a rout this fall.

Ismael Roldan

Elected two years ago because of his reputation as a reformer, Mr. Boehner and his team recently unrolled its election-year agenda, entitled "Change You Deserve." It will attempt to show voters that the GOP is again ready to lead on everything from health care to energy to taxes.

Yet Mr. Boehner knows he's pushing a big rock up a steep hill. Asked how he might "win" back a majority, he cuts me off: "Earn. Earn back the majority. . . . we have to show the American people that we learned our lesson from the '06 election. That we hear what they are saying. And that means things like getting earmarks under control . . . balancing the budget, being willing to take on the tough job of entitlement reform, or the really tough job of a health-care system that insures all Americans and allows them control over who their doctor is."

Says Mr. Boehner: "My job is to lead the 200 of us on the Republican side into being real agents of change." He adds, "Some are more open to that than others."

That might be the minority leader's greatest challenge. His predecessor, Tom "the Hammer" DeLay from Texas, rankled many with his dictatorial style. Mr. Boehner, from Ohio, has tried to rule more by consensus, pushing members to voluntarily unite. When it works, it works brilliantly, as when Mr. Boehner rallied nearly every Republican to stand against House Democratic attempts to defund the Iraq war.

Getting members to abandon the bad habits that have lost them respect among voters is harder. Mr. Boehner stands as a role model, having never requested nor received an earmark, and having fought for reform legislation like the 2006 pension overhaul. Yet his example alone hasn't moved some Republicans to shape up. Consider his unsuccessful attempt to get House GOP members to agree to a unilateral earmark moratorium.

"The team's not ready to go there," he says, consternation in his big bass voice. Why do so many Republicans refuse to swear off pork? "I'm sure with some it's maybe about elections . . . And another group believes that the Constitution says that all spending rests with Congress; they believe that directing some of the spending to their district is part of their job."

Mr. Boehner is not in that group. "I just happened to tell my constituents when I wanted to come here that if they thought my job was to come and rob the federal Treasury on their behalf they were voting for the wrong guy. I said it, I meant it. It might have been the best decision I ever made."

The recent farm bill was a $300 billion, subsidy-laden grab bag of handouts to special interests. Mr. Boehner railed against the legislation on the House floor, urging GOP members to vote against it. The bill passed by a huge margin with the help of 100 Republicans. President Bush vetoed it, and the House promptly overrode the veto. "I wouldn't describe the farm bill we're voting on as change," he told me in something of an understatement. "As I said on the floor, we can do better."

Perhaps that's why Mr. Boehner has recently switched from cajoling to trying to use the GOP's recent misfortunes to scare Republicans out of their torpor. Some in his party are already marking down the special election losses in conservative districts in Illinois, Louisiana and Mississippi to lack of money, bad candidates and a poor message. Mr. Boehner is painting the defeats as "real wake-up calls" and warning members to think hard: "Every race is different, and there are a lot of reasons why those three races were lost. But it is clear that the American people are anxious for change. . . . and Republicans have to show we can be ready to deliver it."

As for what message Republicans should adopt to prove they've changed, Mr. Boehner is not hurting for suggestions. I ask what he thinks of a 20-page memo recently delivered to the Republican leadership by Virginia Rep. Tom Davis. This analysis declared the environment for Republicans as "toxic," outlined their financial and perception problems, and suggested the House GOP proactively embrace an emergency housing package and jump on board an energy bill that includes global-warming provisions.

"I read it, I thought it was insightful," Mr. Boehner replies. "I thought it was honest. Members all ought to read it and learn from it, in terms of helping them understand that we've got to be serious about delivering change." But he adds a caveat: "We're talking about the right kind of change, not change for change's sake. We want change rooted in freedom."

And how about Mr. Davis's suggestions the party needs quickly to distance itself from President Bush and his subterranean poll numbers? The minority leader suggests that if the party chooses simply to focus on the problems of President Bush rather than its own, it won't do itself any favors. "The president is the president of the United States and will be until January 20 next year. . . . elections are about the future and not about the past, and we've got to show people that if they were to honor us with the majority, this is what we'll do. When people go to the polls in November, they are going to be voting for Barack Obama or John McCain (or maybe Hillary Clinton). Our members are on the ballot, they've got opponents. George Bush isn't on the ballot."

The first part of Mr. Boehner's "Change You Deserve" agenda started last week, with an attempt to pitch the party's free-market ideals at the needs of modern working families with "flex time" laws and better tax policies for small business owners. This week's focus was energy, with promises to boost all energy supplies here at home to help lower prices and create jobs. In subsequent weeks they will tackle health care, taxes and security. This week, however, another blast of advice arrived on Mr. Boehner's doorstep from the conservative Republican Study Committee, many members of which feel the House leadership's new agenda is too diffuse.

Mr. Boehner's view? "As I told the members, our agenda was put together by listening to our members, and as we move forward we are going to continue listening to our members. A lot of what they offered is already in our product. I'm going to announce a meeting later this week to talk about our economic package, and we're going to bring members in who want to bring more to the package."

One message Mr. Boehner is interested in adopting is that of John McCain. The minority leader clearly realizes that at a time when the public is angry with the same-old, same-old, the Arizona senator's reformist line has resonance. He's also no doubt realized it might be in Mr. McCain's interest to run against Congressional Republicans. "I want [the Republican members] to understand, it's a presidential election year, he's our nominee. He has his own Republican brand, and part of my goal, I've told them, is to work with the McCain campaign and our folks so that our agendas are identical, our themes are the same."

Mr. Boehner's hope is that his members can project enough "change" of their own to benefit from McCain voters. "We've got 29 retirements, though 22 or 23 of those are in solid Republican seats with good candidates. But we're going to have a handful of tough open seats to defend. Still, when you begin to look at the 61 Democrat districts that George Bush won in the '04 election, I'd argue John McCain will win more than 61 currently held Democrat seats. . . . The goal is, if they're going to go vote for McCain, we just need them to vote for our candidate at the same time. But it means we need to have a credible candidate on the ballot, we need to have issues."

Another part of the Boehner strategy is hammering Democrats, an approach that has at least some in his conference worried Republicans should be spending more time promoting their own "change" message. But Mr. Boehner thinks part of the approach has to be reminding voters that "all the American people have gotten from the Democrat majority in Congress are long lists of broken promises."

The minority has spent its tenure pushing votes that forced freshman Democrats in particular to choose between their more liberal leadership and their more conservative districts. Mr. Boehner is hoping those votes will play in some of the tougher House races this year.

"These are things like voting for the largest tax increase in American history. They voted for a budget last year that had a $450 billion hole in it; this year a $685 billion hole in it, and at some point they are going to have to say if they are for the 15% capital gains rate expiring, or the death tax expiration expiring, or the 15% rate on dividends expiring, or marriage penalty relief, or the $1,000 per child tax credit. Somebody is going to have to answer. That's going to be a big issue." Republicans are also angling to use what's left of this legislative calendar to pigeonhole Democrats into a few more uncomfortable spots, on Iraq war spending, or the debate over reauthorizing the wiretap law.

And Barack Obama? How does he play into this? What are his weaknesses? "Well," he says dramatically, rolling his eyes. "He has been a member of the United States Senate for three years and four months. And has done exactly one thing for exactly three years and four months: Run for president. He hasn't done anything. Who ever heard of a subcommittee chairman never having had a hearing?" (Mr. Obama chairs a Senate subcommittee on European affairs, which has not held a policy hearing since he took over as chairman in January 2007).

Will this prove enough to get Mr. Boehner out of this "awful" minority purgatory? "You know, I didn't like the cards that were dealt 16 months ago, but . . . my job is to play the hand as best I can. So it is what it is. And my job is to lead an effort for our team to earn back the majority. And I keep pushing them and pushing them and pushing them and pushing them. Because the only way we're gonna win it back is to earn it.

"Oh, we could get lucky and [voters] could get madder at the Democrats than they were at us but what kind of majority is that? I want us to earn our way back. And we're getting there. It's just a long, slow process."

Sudan

The south on the brink

Clashes in the middle of Sudan threaten the entire north-south peace accord

NOBODY seems to know how or why the fighting in Abyei, on Sudan's north-south fault line, began. But everyone knows that if it gets out of hand, the entire peace accord that has kept an edgy calm between north and south for the past three years could dissolve in a bloodbath.

In mid-May, rumours started to spread that a local militiaman in the pay of the northern government in Khartoum had been arrested by the police run by the main southern movement. A government soldier from the north was shot. Within hours, the town of Abyei was reverberating with the clatter of machinegun fire and the crashing of mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. Tens of thousands of the town's residents fled into the bush. UN helicopters were sent to evacuate terrified aid workers under heavy fire. At least 50 people were killed in several days of fighting.

The mood in Abyei, an oil-rich area straddling Sudan's north-south border, had been darkening for months. The ruling parties of north and south—the National Congress Party (NCP), headquartered in Khartoum, and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), with its nerve-centre in Juba—each claim the area as theirs. There had been sporadic incidents between proxies. But the clashes that erupted on May 14th were the first sustained bout of armed conflict between the northern-based national army and former guerrillas from the south.

Abyei is at the nub of the problems that have strained relations between north and south since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA)was signed in 2005, ending two decades of war in Africa's largest country. But an argument still festers over sharing oil revenue and demarcating the border between north and south. Trust between the two sides is patently lacking.

A particular row over drawing the border through the Abyei area was a big reason why, last year, the SPLM suspended its participation in various aspects of the peace deal. It complained that the government in the north was refusing to accept the findings of an international boundary commission, which put Abyei in the south. Though the SPLM later rejoined the Sudanese unity government based in Khartoum, it unilaterally sent one of its top men, Edward Lino, to run the Abyei area, which had had no proper administration for three years. But the northerners rejected him and sent several hundred heavily armed soldiers into Abyei town. “We don't want to fight,” says Mr Lino. “But we're not going to surrender just like that. They can't just come and take over our land and people.”

The mood in Abyei has long been twitchy because of historic animosity between the Misseriya nomads, some of whom are armed by northerners in the government in Khartoum, and the southern Ngok Dinka, who look to the SPLM for protection. Since time immemorial they have clashed over land and water. Such issues can usually be resolved locally but the groups have become pawns in a bigger game. If fighting between them gets bloodier, the north-south partnership in Khartoum could collapse.

In any event, the northerners, who are mainly Arabs, have been dragging their feet over the accord of 2005, not just over Abyei, but also over other border disputes. They have been slow to withdraw troops from the south, as agreed. Some observers think they want to provoke a crisis, so that a general election due next year cannot be held. The northerners are even more loth to contemplate a referendum, due in 2011, that is part of the agreement; the southerners are entitled to opt for secession and full independence. If that happened, the south would draw the benefits of Sudan's 500,000 barrels of oil a day, much of it pumped out of Abyei. Hence the tension over the border. The Abyei area alone is said to have produced oil worth $1.8 billion since the accord was signed. The south says it has seen none of the cash at all.

The SPLM's ability to negotiate and implement a border settlement is weakened by its own disunity. Some of its top men believe in a federal Sudan, with the south getting wide autonomy. Others believe passionately that the Muslim-dominated, Arab north will never co-operate with the Christian and animist south, and that independence is the only way.

Such differences are sharpened by fierce rivalries between the southern tribes. The Dinka, among them both the SPLM's leader, Salva Kiir, and his predecessor, the late John Garang, have long held the upper hand. Several of their top people, known as “the Garang boys”, are amenable, as was Mr Garang, to the idea of a federal Sudan with an autonomous south. Mr Kiir leans towards independence. The autonomy-versus-independence debate bubbles on, sometimes angrily.

The SPLM is holding its first party convention since 1994, when it was meant to heal divisions between Mr Garang and a group led by Riek Machar, now the south's vice-president, whose Nuer people are the Dinka's chief rivals. “Most of us want separation [ie, independence] but we are worried about the problems between the tribes,” says Hassan Kuku, a trader in Juba market. “We don't want more war over this.” Moreover, corruption has worsened, making everyone edgier about the future.

Meanwhile, a fear of lawlessness has returned. Though the southern guerrillas are supposed to have disarmed under the agreement, hundreds of civilians in the past week darted into their huts to grab their hidden AK-47s to join the present fray. The accord provided for joint units of northerners and southerners to act as a neutral force; but they never materialised.

The UN Mission in Sudan, known as UNMIS, is feeble. Its diplomats call for calm, but their ability to do good on the ground is impeded by the government in Khartoum, which never wanted the mission there in the first place and limits its ability even to move around freely. The 10,000-strong mission, including some 7,000 soldiers and police, has a weak mandate; its mainly Zambian units did little more than protect a nearby UN base when the hostilities in Abyei broke out.

Since then, some 50,000 civilians have fled into the bush, leaving Abyei town virtually deserted, a stark reminder that some 2m were killed and 4m displaced during the long conflict that ended in 2005. Hectic talks between politicians of north and south are going on in Khartoum.

Yet the continuing horrors of Darfur, in western Sudan, attract more of the world's attention. Many foreign government agencies and charities have switched their focus to Darfur. For the UN, tackling southern Sudan still seems a challenge too far.

Mexican banks

Riding high

Mexico's fast-growing banks appear unusually unaffected by the financial crisis north of the border

AFTER the 1994 peso crash, the risk of Mexico's difficulties spilling over into America was considered so great that the Clinton administration helped bail out its southern neighbour. In the first quarter of 2008, the boot was on the other foot, though the scale was entirely different. Now it was the turn of Banamex, one of Mexico's two largest banks, to help out Citigroup, its crisis-stricken parent. Banamex provided $453m of the $1.1 billion Citi earned in net income from its overseas operations between January and March (Citi lost $5.1 billion overall). You could almost hear Vikram Pandit, Citi's new chief, mutter “Gracias, compadre.”

Yet Banamex was not even the best-performing of the Mexican banks. Of Mexico's five largest financial institutions (which control three-quarters of the market and also include Bancomer, Santander, HSBC and Banorte), it was the only one that did not show a big rise in year-on-year profits in the first quarter. The performance of the banks was impressive for two reasons. Firstly, Mexico has one of the most open banking systems in the world; two of its top five banks are Spanish-owned, one is American, one British, and only one is Mexican. Yet the crisis in global banking has barely ruffled it. Also, Mexico's economy is usually more exposed than almost any other to a slowdown in America. As Alejandro Valenzuela, boss of Banorte, delicately puts it: “Decoupling is the wrong word, but there is now a certain shield.”

That shield, however brittle, has been forged both from financial reform in recent years and from macroeconomic stability. On the financial front, lending has ballooned. According to the central bank, credit to the private sector has nearly tripled since 2001, while consumer credit has increased by around seven times. The banks have also feathered their nests with relatively high consumer-banking fees.

Meanwhile, the market has grown more sophisticated, thanks to some shrewd moves by regulators. Chief among these, according to an IMF working paper released this week, were reforms to bank-secrecy laws which allowed the creation of a successful credit-reporting system, as well as reforms to bankruptcy laws. These have given birth to a thriving mortgage-backed securities industry. If that sets off alarm bells, Alejandro Werner, the deputy finance minister, notes that over the past seven years, the accumulated increase in house prices in Mexico has been less than inflation: there is no bubble yet.

There are also economic reforms to thank. Marcos Martínez, the head of Santander in Mexico, says that infrastructure investment as well as a huge public-sector mortgage programme have boosted demand. It helps that Mexican GDP closely correlates with America's industrial production, rather than its overall economy. The brunt of the slowdown in America has been borne by the services sector.

Although Mexican economic growth is likely to remain sluggish, at something under 3%, the health of the banking industry is a salutary sign. For once, Mexicans can look northward with a sense of sympathy rather than envy.

Colombia and Venezuela

The FARC files

Just how much help has Hugo Chávez given to Colombia's guerrillas?

THEY represent only one side of a story, and most of their claims have yet to be independently corroborated. But Interpol has now concluded that the huge cache of e-mails and other documents recovered from the computers of Raúl Reyes, a senior leader of the FARC guerrillas killed in a Colombian bombing raid on his camp in Ecuador on March 1st, are authentic and undoctored. The documents throw new light on the inner workings of the FARC. And they raise some very pointed questions about the ties between Venezuela's leftist president, Hugo Chávez, and a group considered to be terrorists by the United States and the European Union (EU).

Batches of the documents have been seen by The Economist and several other publications. They appear to show that Mr Chávez offered the FARC up to $300m, and talked of allocating the guerrillas an oil ration which they could sell for profit. They also suggest that Venezuelan army officers helped the FARC to obtain small arms, such as rocket-propelled grenades, and to set up meetings with arms dealers.

Venezuelan officials have dismissed the documents as fabrications. That was contradicted by Ronald Noble, Interpol's secretary-general, who announced in Bogotá on May 15th, after two months of study by a team of 64 foreign experts, that the computer files came from the FARC camp and had not been modified in any way. Mr Chávez called this “ridiculous”, questioning the impartiality of Mr Noble, who is American, and labelling him a “gringo policeman”. However, in one indication of their accuracy, the documents provided information that in March guided police in Costa Rica to a house where they found $480,000 in cash, as an e-mail suggested.

The FARC are in some ways a throwback to a past era in Latin America. In other ways they are part of the new face of organised crime in the region. Old-fashioned Marxists unmoved by the collapse of the Soviet Union, they have flourished since then by drug-trafficking and kidnapping. Their war against Colombia's elected government has almost no public support, especially since they showed no interest in making peace during three years of talks with the government from 1999 to 2002. Since then, a determined security build-up by Álvaro Uribe, Colombia's popular president, has put the FARC on the defensive, driving it into remote jungles and savannahs—and towards the country's borders.

Mr Chávez has long expressed sympathy for the FARC. But Colombian officials, backed by detailed testimony from guerrilla deserters, accuse Venezuela and Ecuador of more than rhetoric, saying they have turned a blind eye to guerrilla camps on their territory. The killing of Mr Reyes, a member of the FARC's seven-man secretariat, underlined the point. The captured documents seem to confirm that FARC commanders have co-ordinated closely with Venezuelan army and intelligence officers on the border for several years, according to a Colombian official.

The documents also cast light on the FARC's strategic thinking. Its overriding objective seems to be to obtain international recognition as a “belligerent force” and to persuade the EU to stop labelling it a terrorist group. The guerrillas are desperate to establish a “strategic alliance” with Mr Chávez. But that was still just an aspiration in early 2007, the documents suggest. “We don't know if we enjoy their trust,” writes Jorge Briceño (alias “Mono Jojoy”), the FARC's military leader, to other members of the secretariat.

Contacts intensified last September after Mr Uribe asked Mr Chávez to mediate with the FARC to release the guerrillas' hostages, including Ingrid Betancourt, a politician with French and Colombian nationality. The secretariat agreed to send one of its members, Iván Márquez, to meet Mr Chávez in Caracas to talk about swapping the hostages for jailed guerrillas—but also, wrote Mr Briceño, “to lay the foundations for mutual political relations...even though this might be in the long term.”

At their meeting, Mr Chávez “approved totally and without batting an eyelid” a FARC request for $300m, Mr Márquez reported to his colleagues in a message published by Spain's El País and Colombia's Semana. In a long e-mail 12 days later, Mr Briceño notes that it was not clear whether the money was “a loan or for solidarity” but that the FARC should offer Mr Chávez help in return. According to a document obtained by the Wall Street Journal, Mr Chávez's interior minister, Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, asked the FARC to train Venezuelan soldiers in guerrilla tactics for use if the United States were to invade.

In an e-mail dated February 8th, Mr Márquez and a colleague report that Mr Chávez (whom they identify with the pseudonym “Ángel”) had told them that the first $50m was “available”, with another $200m over the course of the year. However, there is no corroboration as to whether any money was actually paid. Colombian officials have long said that the FARC was wealthy through drug money. So why were they so jubilant about the loan? Perhaps because army pressure against the guerrillas has disrupted their drug business. The government has evidence that some FARC fronts are short of cash and have trouble paying farmers for coca paste, says Sergio Jaramillo, the deputy defence minister.

The secretariat's e-mail correspondence sheds light on several other matters. It confirms that Manuel Marulanda, the FARC's veteran leader, is still alive and apparently in overall command. It also shows the FARC's cynicism about the plight of its hostages. Mr Briceño says repeatedly that he does not expect to achieve the hostage-for-prisoners swap while Mr Uribe is in power but that the FARC will keep pushing it to create problems for the president. When Mr Chávez asked for Ms Betancourt's release “we told him that if we did that we would be without cards,” Mr Márquez writes.

The e-mails show the extent to which the army has the FARC on the run: the secretariat members often complain of their difficulties in communicating with each other. Days after Mr Reyes was killed another member of the secretariat, Iván Ríos, was murdered by his own bodyguard. This week Mr Ríos's deputy, Nelly Ávila Moreno (aka “Karina”), surrendered. But the FARC is far from defeated. In an e-mail last August Mr Briceño notes that guerrilla landmines are undermining army morale. Their impact is “very good and we are going to increase them,” he writes.

The e-mails released so far represent only a fraction of the almost 40,000 written documents and 610 gigabytes of data on the computers. For all his bravado, Mr Chávez is clearly discomfited by all this. At a get-together of European and Latin American leaders in Lima on May 16th he was unusually conciliatory. Some Republicans in the United States have seized upon the computer cache as grounds for declaring Venezuela to be a state sponsor of terrorism. This could require the United States to impose trade sanctions on a country from which it buys some 10% of its imported oil—and so is unlikely to happen. And the e-mails are not a smoking gun implicating Mr Chávez unequivocally. It was Mr Márquez and other FARC commanders, not Mr Reyes, who handled relations with Venezuela. So there are no e-mails from Venezuelan officials on his computer.

Even so, the documents should trouble Venezuela's South American neighbours. None of them echoed Mr Chávez's call in January for the FARC to be recognised as legitimate belligerents. The centre-left governments in many countries are wary of Colombia's close alliance with the United States, which supplies it with military aid. But all have signed the Organisation of American States' democratic charter, requiring them to support, not undermine, each other's democracies. Last month José Miguel Insulza, the OAS's secretary-general, said that “no evidence” linked Venezuela to the FARC. But the evidence from the laptops suggests that there is certainly a case to be answered—by something more than a blustering denial.

Drug violence in Mexico

Can the army out-gun the drug lords?

Four top police officers, and more than a hundred people, are killed over the course of a single week in drug-related shootings

“FEAR is our chief safeguard,” Pericles declared in his funeral oration, “for it teaches us to obey the magistrates and the laws.” In Mexico, however, fear has become the chief aid not of the state, but of those who are trying to subvert it. On May 8th, Edgar Millán Gómez, Mexico's acting chief of police, was shot nine times as he arrived home late at night. One of his bodyguards, who was also wounded, managed to wrestle the police chief's assailant to the ground and arrest him. Mr Millán was conscious for long enough to ask his killer who was behind the hit, but died before he could get a reply.

The answer to his question, provided later by investigators, helps cast some light on why it is so hard to end drug-related violence in Mexico. They say that his assassin was sent by José Antonio Montes Garfias, another federal police officer. Furthermore, the people who organised Mr Millán's killing were also behind the assassination on May 1st of Roberto Velasco Bravo, head of the federal police's organised crime division.

In addition to Mr Millán's assassination, the past few days have seen the murder of a top official in Mexico City's police force; of the police second-in-command in the border town of Juárez; and of the administrative head of the Estado Mayor, a military body charged with protecting the president. Such targeting of senior law-enforcement officials is unprecedented in Mexican history.

The gangs have not restricted themselves to killing senior policemen, though. According to Guillermo Zepeda of CIDAC, a think-tank in Mexico City, the week leading up to May 12th saw a total of 113 murders in Mexico, including 17 people on a single day. Estimates of the total number of deaths linked to drugs and organised crime so far this year range from 1,100 to 2,500 people. The war on drugs has never seemed less like a metaphor.

The involvement of the police in some of the killings helps to explain the lack of sympathy for dead policemen. “When police die in the line of duty, there is no condemnation of the violence in society,” says Ernesto López Portillo of Insyde, another think-tank. Part of the problem, he says, is that it is impossible to know which police officers lost their lives because they were doing their jobs, and which ones died because they were allied with a drug gang. The lack of public confidence in the police undermines their effectiveness and makes them more open to corruption.

Unable to rely on the police, President Felipe Calderón's habitual response to violence has been to send the army into trouble spots. This week the president dispatched 2,700 federal troops and police to the state of Sinaloa, where much of the violence has taken place. The army is now widely deployed around the country. Some Mexican legislators are even calling for troops to be deployed in Mexico City. Replacing the police by the army while the former were being reformed was meant to be only a temporary measure. But it is fast taking on an air of permanence.

As no figures are available for the volume of drugs being traded, the best way to measure it is to look at what is happening to drug prices north of the border. Mexico used to be one of the world's biggest producers of methamphetamines, and Mexican gangs still control meth distribution in the United States. They also dominate the wholesale distribution of cocaine there, as well as the transit of the drug through Mexico from South America. According to the United States' Drug Enforcement Administration, the average price of methamphetamine jumped 73% between January and September last year (the most recent figures available). The price of cocaine rose by 44% over the same period, despite a decline in purity.

The recent killings are a response to this success. Police officials said the murders of Messrs Millán and Velasco were probably both ordered by Arturo Beltrán Leyva, a capo in the Sinaloa drug cartel. Mr Beltrán Leyva's brother, another Sinaloa leader, was arrested in January. Joaquin Guzmán, the gang's head, escaped from prison in early 2001 under still unexplained circumstances. Government pressure has also prompted infighting among the gangs; Mr Guzmán's son was killed the same day as Mr Millán in a shoot-out thought to have been between his father's faction and a rival group from Juárez.

But setting the army on the drug-traffickers cannot be a permanent solution to the problem. The army was not trained for this job and has come under heavy criticism from human-rights groups. The government has shown little tolerance of this, forcing (according to some accounts) the representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to leave the country for being too critical of the army.

In a speech after the latest killings, the president called for “a transformation in the administration of justice”. Under a controversial new law, due to come into effect soon, the police will be allowed to hold suspected drug-traffickers and other suspected participants in organised crime for up to 80 days without charge. But a real transformation means a greater upheaval of the police, something that Mr Calderón promised when he first deployed the army nearly a year and a half ago, though there is little sign of it yet.

America is partly to blame. Last October the American and Mexican governments announced a plan under which the United States would contribute $500m a year to Mexican law-enforcement, equipment and training. But neither government bothered to consult its legislature. The programme is now stalled in the United States Congress. As its research service dryly noted in March, “there is no legislative vehicle for the funding request”, and that is still true. If the programme does ever materialise, it will almost certainly be a lot smaller in scope.

Thickening the blue line

Furthermore, some say the plan is not particularly well thought through. Geoff Thale of the Washington Office on Latin America, a think-tank, told the United States Congress that the approach to police training, a centrepiece of the initiative, was wrong to focus on creating specialised police units, which could easily be undermined or corrupted, rather than concentrating on institutional reform.

The status quo leaves both the army and the police vulnerable. In a brazen bit of nose-thumbing, the Zetas, a paramilitary wing of the Gulf cartel (the Sinaloa gang's main rivals), recently hung up banners in several border towns inviting current and former soldiers to join them. The Zetas themselves were originally formed by army deserters.

Following this week's murders, Eduardo Medina Mora, Mexico's attorney-general, said that the violence was a sign of “weakness, desperation, and frustration” on the part of organised crime. That is partly true. But as Mr Millán's killing makes clear, the distinction between law-enforcement authorities and organised crime is sometimes blurred. So far Mr Calderón's administration has failed to come up with a solution to an abiding paradox: success in disrupting drug cartels only leads to more violence as gang members fight to fill power vacuums and continue to supply the ever-lucrative drug market.

Kuwait

An election in Kuwait

Kuwait holds a parliamentary election. Is democracy slowly spreading in the Gulf?

WHAT does a parliamentary election in Kuwait, on Saturday May 17th, suggest about the progress of democracy in the region as a whole? Kuwait is certainly one of the more democratic corners of the Gulf, with a freer press and more elections than most. For this round of voting the number of constituencies has been reduced from 25 to five, in an effort to discourage vote-buying. And Kuwait manages to introduce elements of a modern system—these are only the second elections in which women have been able both to stand for office and to vote—while preserving older forms of public expression of opinion: an effort by the cabinet to restrict diwaniyas, traditional public meetings, was rebuffed by popular demonstrations.

It is still far from a democratic free-for-all. The country remains dominated by the head of state, Sheikh Sabah al-Sabah, and his ruling family; its democratic representatives enjoy limited power and their institutions still look pretty feeble. The new parliament chosen on Saturday will be as a result of the third election in just five years. The previous parliament was dissolved after the entire cabinet, which is appointed by the emir, resigned in protest over the lack of co-operation from parliamentarians.

But the parliamentarians have had power enough, according to the cabinet, to do the country harm. Critics say that MPs have prevented much-needed economic reform, while focusing, instead, on local issues or the promotion of Islamist policies. And as they have fiddled, for example in failing to pass a long-awaited bill designed to attract foreign investment, neighbours have moved ahead. Dubai, Qatar and Bahrain are developing more diverse economies, by establishing themselves as centres for finance and tourism, whereas Kuwait does little more than rely on pumping oil.

Whether responsibility for Kuwait’s failure to diversify can mostly be laid at the door of the parliamentarians is doubtful. But others in the region could be forgiven for wondering whether democracy brings any general benefits. Elections in Iraq, or in Lebanon, have done little to suggest that voting helps to sort out the dreadful messes in those countries. In the Gulf those who are experimenting with democracy are mostly doing so only with baby steps: Qatar introduced its first written constitution in 2005 which provided for some democratic reforms; Saudi Arabia has announced that women will be able to vote and stand in the municipal elections next year.

Even if further democratic reform in the region is likely, few expect to see rapid change. High oil prices—the cost of a barrel has passed $127 on May 16th, another new record—are providing governments with the means to buy off critics, for example with hefty welfare handouts. Perhaps it is because Bahrain is likely to be one of the first in the region to run out of oil that it is also one of the most forward in carrying out political and economic reforms. Bahrain has held open elections in which women can take part; as in Kuwait, Bahrain has a (partially-elected) parliament with limited powers. In recent months it has also seen several riots and protests over wages and high prices. If such pressures increase, in Bahrain, Kuwait or elsewhere, the demand for more democratic changes may rise, too.

Yahoo!

Now the rebellion

Enraged shareholders and activists are pushing Yahoo!’s board to revive takeover talks with Microsoft

YAHOO!’S co-founder and boss, Jerry Yang, and his board had this coming. For three months they did everything they could to rebuff Microsoft, which was offering to buy the internet company at a big premium to its value before the bid. They succeeded, if that is the word, when Microsoft walked away in frustration this month. Yahoo!’s shareholders were livid, and have been saying so. The proxy fight that Microsoft itself shied away from now appears likely to start anyway.

The person to launch it is Carl Icahn, a shareholder activist who is feared by boards across America that he has taken on or threatened. Since Microsoft dropped its bid for Yahoo!, Mr Icahn has bought 59m shares, worth more than $1.5 billion, in the company and has applied for regulatory permission to buy lots more. And his first action as a shareholder has been to send Yahoo!’s board a letter that amounts to a public flogging.

Yahoo!’s board, Mr Icahn wrote, “acted irrationally” in its response to Microsoft. It has “lost the faith of shareholders,” he continued. To him it is “obvious” that Microsoft’s bid was “superior” to any value Yahoo! could create on its own. He is “perplexed” by the board’s behaviour, he said, which is “irresponsible” and “unconscionable.”

One pictures Yahoo!’s wounded fiduciaries gulping. They may indeed be on their way out, because Mr Icahn is nominating his own slate of ten directors in their stead. It is a cheeky line-up, consisting of himself and several private investors who have been his partners. There is also a corporate-governance professor and a media tycoon turned investor. Above all, there is Adam Dell, the brother of Michael, founder of the eponymous computer company, who once sold a company to Yahoo!; and Mark Cuban, who got rich by selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo! at the height of the dotcom bubble and now owns the Dallas Mavericks, a basketball team.

Mr Icahn does not always succeed in his attacks on boards he considers soft, but often. He recently played a big role in forcing another technology company, BEA Systems, a neighbour of Yahoo!’s in Silicon Valley, to resume negotiations with Oracle, another software company in the valley, that led to its acquistion.

In Mr Icahn’s favour is that he has a good point. The overwhelming logic for a combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! is that this appears to be the only way that the two can put up a good fight against the new superpower of web search, online advertising and the Internet in general, which is Google. As a reminder, on the day of Mr Icahn’s letter, Hitwise, an online-measurement firm, released the latest market-share numbers in American web searches. Google’s share once again went up, to 67.9%, and both Yahoo! and Microsoft fell, to 20.28% and 6.26% respectively.

And what has been Mr Yang’s proposed alternative so far? To do a deal with Google, in which Yahoo! would outsource part of its search-advertising technology. Mathematically, this could indeed boost Yahoo!’s profits somewhat, and thus raise its technical value, because Google is better at placing ads next to search results that consumers actually click on, and collects more revenue for each such click. But for Yahoo! this would amount to total capitulation in its effort, after years and billions spent, to catch up with Google in precisely this technology. Yahoo! would in effect resign to becoming a second-tier internet player, not unlike Ask.com, another search engine that uses Google’s advertising technology.

Even assuming that Mr Yang and his board now feel the pressure, would Microsoft come back to the table? Mr Ballmer, its boss, may just be playing the game tactically, but his frustration appears to have been real. Engineers in both companies have been griping about a combination. In the bigger battle against Google to attract and retain the brightest geeks—ultimately the crucial factor in the search wars—the uncertainty of an acquistion cannot help. Mr Yang had better become very co-operative indeed, and quickly.

McCain Iraq, Iran Policies Make Him Favored Candidate to Saudis

-- John McCain, who is trying to strike a distance from the policies of President George W. Bush, accuses Saudi Arabia of sponsoring insurgents in Iraq and condemns it for human-rights violations, including imprisoning people whose ``only crime is to worship God in their own way.''

That should make the prospect of a McCain presidency a nightmare for the Saudi rulers, who have enjoyed close ties to the Bush family. Instead, Saudis are privately rooting for the presumptive Republican nominee, discounting some of his rhetoric because he's the only candidate to promise to keep U.S. troops in Iraq and to deter Iran.

``The royal family and other elites would like to see McCain,'' Mai Yamani, a visiting scholar with the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said yesterday in a telephone interview from London.

``He would keep the troops in Iraq, and that is their main worry, that the U.S. may withdraw or minimize its presence,'' said Yamani, whose father, Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, was the kingdom's oil minister from 1962 to 1986. U.S. forces are needed to counter the spread of Iranian influence from Iraq, which many Saudis believe ``now is ruled by Iran,'' she said.

Oil Prices

Bush today will visit King Abdullah's horse farm to mark the 75th anniversary of U.S.-Saudi ties, which have been strained by what the Saudis view as mismanagement of the war in Iraq and soaring oil prices. Bush is set to discuss oil prices with the Saudis, the world's largest producer, during his visit.

As former Texas oilmen, Bush, 61, and his father, President George Herbert Walker Bush, 83, were both known quantities to the Saudis. McCain has no business experience, though the Saudis appreciate his military and national-security credentials.

The Saudis, like other Gulf Arabs, are comforted by McCain's repeated commitment to stay in Iraq. Campaigning in Columbus, Ohio, the Arizona senator said yesterday that he envisions a successful outcome to the war by 2013, when Iraq will be ``a functioning democracy.''

For the Saudis, that is preferable to the positions of either of the Democratic candidates -- Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Clinton of New York -- who both have vowed to undertake an Iraq withdrawal as one of their first acts in office, analysts said.

`Very Nervous'

``They are worried about any deal the Democrats may cut with Iran,'' said Henri Barkey, a foreign policy adviser to Obama and former State Department policy planner, who now heads the international relations department at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

The Saudis are preoccupied by Iranian influence in their region. The McCain campaign points to Obama's pledge to engage in direct talks with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as evidence that the Democratic candidate lacks the experience to become president.

``Unconditionally meeting Ahmadinejad would fatally undermine any chance that we have of building a coalition of Arab states willing and able to contain Iranian power,'' said Randy Scheunemann, a McCain foreign-policy adviser.

Obama, 46, is eager to debate Iran policy with McCain, said Denis McDonough, an Obama foreign-policy adviser.

`Status Quo'

``What's evident is the status quo as it relates to Iran, and which John McCain seems to support, has resulted in an expanded Iranian nuclear program and expanded Iranian influence,'' McDonough said.

McCain has encouraged the perception that he would restore the pragmatist tradition of the first President Bush, and resolve conflicts with Saudi Arabia behind closed doors.

A McCain administration would practice a policy of ``speak softly and press firmly,'' Scheunemann said.

McCain's signals to the Saudis, however, haven't been consistent. On the one hand, he said this month that his personal connections would allow him ``to manage our strategic relationship'' with the Saudis, while also pressuring them on other subjects.

McCain said May 6 aboard his campaign bus that he knows Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to U.S., ``very well,'' citing a 25-year relationship and the bond they share as former military pilots. McCain's campaign co-chairman, Tom Loeffler, is a registered lobbyist for Saudi Arabia, which earned his firm, the Washington-based Loeffler Group, close to $10 million in the last two years.

`They Know' McCain

The Saudis ``feel like they know John McCain,'' said Hady Amr, the director of the Brookings Institution's Doha Center.

At the same time, however, McCain has used some tough language toward Saudi Arabia. He has promised to bring more pressure on the country on human rights and has accused the Saudis of sponsoring the Sunnis who are attacking U.S. forces in Iraq. Last week, McCain lumped Saudi Arabia with Iran, Burma, Sudan and North Korea, describing them as nations that have imprisoned ``tens of thousands of people'' for their religious beliefs.

Wyche Fowler Jr., a U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1996 to 2001 who is now chairman of the Middle East Institute in Washington, said the criticism may not matter to the Saudis. Fowler met in Riyadh last month with senior Saudi officials, including King Abdullah.

``They are used to a certain amount of Saudi bashing every four years,'' he said.

Fed, BOE Foreshadow End of Rate Cuts as Prices Rise (Update2)

-- The world's most powerful central banks are telegraphing the end of interest-rate cuts, and traders already anticipate the first steps in the opposite direction.

Federal Reserve officials this week flagged inflation risks after slashing borrowing costs seven times since September and Bank of England Governor Mervyn King unveiled Britain's worst price outlook in a decade. Faster growth is vindicating European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet's refusal to cut rates in response to the credit crisis.

``The central banks are taking a pause, but that could turn into a permanent end to rate cuts,'' said Thomas Mayer, co-chief economist at Deutsche Bank AG in London. ``The risk we won't see more cuts from the Fed and Bank of England has grown, and markets have pushed out expectations of ECB easing.''

The danger is that food and oil prices are rising so fast that inflation will replace costlier credit as the chief threat to the global economy. That may force the Fed to turn a deaf ear to what King labels the ``siren'' calls for rate cuts and perhaps consider raising them instead.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, 54, and his team reduced their benchmark rate by 3.25 percentage points to 2 percent. The Bank of England has cut its main rate three times to 5 percent and Canada's central bank has moved on four occasions to 3 percent.

Now, Merrill Lynch & Co. forecasts global inflation will accelerate to 4.7 percent this year, the fastest pace since 1999, from 3.4 percent in 2007.

Tying Hands

``Inflation is constraining the hand of central banks,'' said Tim Drayson, global economist at ABN Amro Holding NV in London. ``They are starting to realize that they will have to see weaker economies to control inflation.''

Some traders are increasing their bets the Fed will reverse recent cuts later this year. Fed funds futures traded at the Chicago Board of Trade signal a 22 percent probability the Fed will raise its main rate to 2.25 percent by the Sept. 16 policy meeting, compared with 7 percent a week ago.

While U.S. consumer prices rose less than forecast in April, signs that financial markets are improving have prompted policy makers to reappraise the risks facing the economy. Bank of San Francisco President Janet Yellen said May 13 that rate cuts to date ``could lead to higher inflation expectations and an erosion of our credibility.''

Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker warned on May 14 that ``there is some resemblance to where we are now in the inflation picture to the early 1970s,'' when central banks failed to contain a pickup in prices.

Siren Call

In the U.K., King warned on May 14 against the risk of lowering borrowing costs too much, suggesting the Fed may have overdone it. ``We did not fall prey to the sirens to cut interest rates further as some other central banks have done,'' the 60-year-old King said.

Still, his proclaimed prudence failed to stop U.K. inflation from jumping the most in six years in April as it accelerated to the government's upper limit of 3 percent. The rate on the December rate futures contract has risen 63 basis points to 5.74 percent this week, suggesting traders have abandoned bets on rate cuts this year.

Nevertheless, a further deterioration in credit markets will deal another blow to the global economy, requiring more policy action. Vincent Reinhart, a former Fed economist and now a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, cautions against a ``premature'' end to rate cuts.

Reinhart's Warning

If credit markets deteriorate again and growth falters, ``central banks will have to roll back talk of future tightening and may even ease,'' he said.

King on May 14 said it's ``quite possible we may get the odd quarter or two of negative growth'' and further ``shocks'' could make matters worse. While Bernanke said this week that tensions in markets have eased, conditions are still ``far from normal.''

Inflation concerns in the U.S. and U.K. chime with those often sounded by Trichet and central bankers from Brazil to Taiwan since markets seized up in August. With the Middle East and Asia still driving the global economy and pushing food and oil prices higher, inflation threatens to become entrenched.

The ECB has left its rate at 4 percent since June. Data released yesterday showed the 15-nation euro economy growing faster than expected in the first quarter, while inflation held above the ECB's ceiling for an eighth month.

Risks Undiminished

Trichet, 65, said in a speech in Brussels today that ``there is no place for complacency'' amid clear inflation pressure. In an interview in Vienna, ECB Governing Council member Klaus Liebscher signaled the bank may leave rates unchanged throughout this year.

Asked if the bank could lower rates in 2008, he said, ``given the risks for price stability, I think the answer is a clear one. The risks have not diminished.''

Eonia swap contracts, a widely used market gauge of rate expectations for the euro-area, rose to 4.05 percent yesterday from around 3.2 percent in mid-March, showing traders no longer expect cuts from the ECB.

``Trichet is sitting pretty,'' said Jean-Michel Six, chief European economist at Standard & Poor's in Paris. ``He's been against the consensus in saying of the twin evils inflation is a bigger threat than a slowdown.''

Fed's Lockhart Says Slowdown to Reduce U.S. Inflation (Update1)

May 17 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart said the U.S. economic slowdown may moderate inflation that has been spurred by rising prices of energy and commodities.

``We expect inflation to abate somewhat in the second half and going into 2009 based upon our forecast of weak economic growth,'' Lockhart said in response to a question following a speech today in Atlanta. ``There is some early indication that the strength of inflation has softened.''

Lockhart's comments contrast with remarks this week by Kansas City Fed President Thomas Hoenig and Richard Fisher of the Dallas Fed, who warned about rising prices. Hoenig said inflation was at an ``unacceptable level,'' while Fisher said the economy may recover from its slowdown ``at much higher base rates of inflation than we would want.''

Policy makers indicated last month they may take a breather after lowering the benchmark U.S. interest rate by 3.25 percentage points since September. The reduction in rates this year has been the most aggressive in two decades.

U.S. consumer prices rose less than forecast in April, reflecting cheaper furniture and lodging costs, the Labor Department said May 14. Prices rose 3.9 percent in the 12 months ended in April, down from a 4 percent year-over-year gain in March.

Energy Prices

``The U.S. economy is in the midst of a pronounced slowdown, with very little growth recorded for two consecutive quarters,'' Lockhart said in the text of his speech. At the same time, ``the United States has experienced elevated inflation levels partially driven by a run-up of energy and other commodity prices.''

Lockhart didn't discuss the path of interest rates. The Federal Open Market Committee next meets June 24-25.

U.S. weakness, initially concentrated in housing, has undermined consumer spending, which generates about two-thirds of U.S. gross domestic product, Lockhart said.

``Personal consumption has softened,'' Lockhart told the Southern Center for International Studies at an event at Emory University. ``To the extent the world relies on strong U.S. consumer activity, this weakness could pose a threat to continued global expansion.''

For now, ``growth appears to be softening but still growing nicely'' in emerging economies, he said. While the U.S. slowdown will be felt worldwide, it won't as severe as predicted by some forecasters, he also said.

Lockhart in the question period said the U.S. economy wasn't ``technically'' in recession, adding the second quarter may show economic growth.

Global Problem

Increasing prices have become a global problem, Lockhart said, citing ``unrest'' over food prices in several countries.

``Recently inflation in many parts of the world has begun to pick up,'' he said. That ``is a growing issue for emerging economies.''

U.S. consumers expect an inflation rate of 5.2 percent over the next 12 months, according to a Reuters/University of Michigan survey on May 16, compared with 4.8 percent in the April survey. Longer term, Americans projected prices would increase 3.3 percent, up from a 3.2 percent estimate last month.

Lower demand for energy could bring a reduction in those prices, Lockhart added in the question period, saying prices were likely to be ``somewhat lower but relatively high.''

The U.S. should take a ``realistic'' view of sovereign wealth funds, Lockhart also said, echoing comments made May 15 by Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke. The funds have accounted for about one-third of the capital raised by financial companies during the credit crisis, the Fed chief said.

``There has been a fair amount of hand-wringing recently about sovereign wealth funds accumulating U.S. assets,'' the Atlanta Fed official said. ``I believe our posture has to be realistic. One country's trade deficit -- ours, in this case -- is another country's investment surplus.''

Lockhart, responding to questions, said the U.S. dollar would remain ``the dominant currency'' in the world even though some countries may diversify their reserves.

Dollar Falls Most Against Euro in Seven Weeks on Sentiment, Oil

May 17 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar fell the most against the euro since March as a drop in consumer confidence and record crude oil prices raised concern U.S. economic growth will slow.

The dollar's second consecutive weekly decline against the euro pared its increase from the all-time low reached last month to 2.7 percent. The Australian dollar rose to the strongest level against the greenback since 1984 as oil pushed up prices of other commodities. Mexico's peso rose to a five-year high, while the Brazilian real strengthened to the most since 1999.

``The economic backdrop in the U.S. argues against the continuing gains in the dollar,'' said Nick Bennenbroek, head of currency strategy at Wells Fargo Bank in New York.

The dollar fell 0.6 percent to $1.5577 per euro this week, from $1.5482 on May 9. It touched the record low of $1.6019 per euro on April 22. The yen declined 1.2 percent to 104.04 per dollar this week, from 102.87. Japan's currency fell 1.8 percent to 162.27 per euro, from 159.21, the biggest decline since the week ended April 18.

Crude oil rallied to the all-time high of $127.82 a barrel yesterday as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised its forecast for the second half of this year to an average of $141 a barrel, citing supply constraints.

The correlation coefficient between oil and the euro-dollar exchange rate has been 0.95 for the past year, indicating they have moved in the same direction 95 percent of the time. The correlation is calculated based on the price changes of oil and the currencies.

`Higher' Oil

``There is no fresh catalyst to mount a successful rally in the U.S. dollar,'' said Michael Woolfolk, a senior currency strategist in New York at Bank of New York Mellon Corp. ``Oil prices are significantly higher.''

The Australian dollar increased 1.1 percent this week and touched 95.60 U.S. cents yesterday, the highest level since 1984, on higher commodity prices. Exports of raw materials, such as iron ore, account for 17 percent of Australia's economy. The Brazilian real rose to the nine-year high of 1.6402 versus the dollar, while Mexico's peso appreciated to 10.3912 the strongest in almost five years.

Iceland's krona was the best performer against the dollar among emerging-market currencies, increasing 6.9 percent to 74.69 after the central banks of Denmark, Sweden and Norway pledged as much as 1.5 billion euros ($2.3 billion) in emergency funds yesterday. The krona jumped 3.5 percent to 116.17 per euro. Before yesterday, it had slumped 24 percent against the euro this year.

Weaker Yen

Japan's currency fell against all of the major currencies this week as global stock gains and lower volatility increased carry trades, in which investors borrow funds in countries with low interest rates and buy assets where returns are higher.

The yen fell 4.9 percent to 13.95 against South Africa's rand and 4 percent to 63.48 against Brazil's real. The Bank of Japan is forecast by 35 economists surveyed by Bloomberg to hold the target lending rate at 0.5 percent next week. That compares with 11.75 percent in Brazil and 11.5 percent in South Africa.

Implied volatility on one-month dollar-yen options fell to 11.26 percent yesterday, from 12.70 percent on May 9, approaching the lowest since Feb. 27. Lower volatility tends to encourage carry trades by making it easier to predict profit. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index rose 2.6 percent this week, the biggest gain since mid-April.

The dollar weakened yesterday as a report showed confidence among U.S. consumers fell in May to the lowest level in almost 28 years. The Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index dropped to 59.5 this month, from 62.6 in April.

Sales of previously owned homes probably dropped in April to an annual rate of 4.85 million, the all-time low, according to the median forecast of 46 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. The National Association of Realtors is scheduled to release the report on May 22.

Fed Rate Outlook

Futures on the Chicago Board of Trade yesterday showed 88 percent odds that the Fed will hold the target lending rate at 2 percent at its next meeting on June 25. The balance of bets is for a reduction of a quarter-percentage point. There's a 21 percent chance of an increase to 2.25 percent in September.

The euro got a boost on May 15 as the European Union's statistics office said gross domestic product in the 15 countries that use the currency increased to 0.7 percent in the first quarter. The pace exceeded the 0.5 percent estimate of 32 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Germany's 1.5 percent expansion from the previous quarter was more than double what economists had expected.

European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said yesterday the bank can't relax in its fight against inflation.

``There is no place for complacency,'' he said in a speech in Brussels. ``Price stability in the medium term has to be'' ensured. It's ``a necessary condition to sustain economic growth, job creation and social cohesion.''

The ECB has held its main refinancing rate at a six-year high of 4 percent since last June to control inflation, which accelerated to the fastest pace in 16 years in March.

Colombia-Ecuador-Venezuela: A Close Call

• Santander and Bolivar Called to the Colors to Butress Uribe and Chávez
• Uribe tries out for The Dick Cheney Role
• A Narrow Escape from Brinkmanship
• No victors, but Uribe clearly is a loser

As last week’s diplomatic crisis between Venezuela and Colombia demonstrates, Chávez has once again sought to appropriate historical symbols in an effort to score political points. Employing explosive language, Chávez remarked “Some day Colombia will be freed from the hand of the (U.S.) empire. We have to liberate Colombia.”

At its peak, the political battle lines of the triangular confrontation embracing Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador had been drawn. On the one side was Colombia, a key U.S. ally headed by rightist Álvaro Uribe. On the other side was Chávez, who seeks to turn Venezuela into a powerful regional player that may serve as a counterweight to Washington’s desire to project its authority. Ultimately, Chávez seeks to plant his socialist economic agenda fused with a parliamentary democratic political system throughout the region and to this end he has been able to recruit key allies such as Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and, or course, Cuba.

Bolívar and His Historical Legacy
When Chávez employs the word “liberate,” he conjures up the epic struggles from South America’s stormy political past which gave the continent its present borders. The Venezuelan leader clearly intends to make an association with Bolívar, a Venezuelan native hero who liberated Colombia from the Spanish. Bolívar, the “Great Liberator” is revered by many as a great hero in the lands that he freed from Spain.

A tactical military genius, Bolívar was also a skilled politician who in 1819 adroitly managed to briefly unify Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela and Panama into one large nation state called the Republic of Gran Colombia. The Great Liberator believed Venezuela would carry more prestige as part of a larger entity than it could ever hope to acquire on its own. “Only a Venezuela united with New Granada [Colombia] could form a nation that would inspire in others the proper consideration due to her,” Bolívar once argued. Because of Bolívar’s cult-like status in the region, it’s critical for Chávez to prove that he is on the right side of history, and that he, and no one else, has inherited the true mantle of the Great Liberator.

The Standoff
The recent crisis involving a Colombian military incursion into Ecuador is politically tailor-made for Chávez, and the Venezuelan leader has wasted little time in seeking to exploit it. The diplomatic tit-for-tat was set into motion on March 1st when, in flagrant disregard for Ecuadoran sovereignty, the Colombian government ordered an attack of a FARC guerilla camp site in Ecuador, a mile from the Colombian border. For years, the Marxist FARC has been locked in a protracted struggle with successive Colombian governments in Bogotá.

From a military and strategic standpoint, Uribe has some reason to be pleased: seventeen rebels were killed in the raid, as well as Raúl Reyes, the FARC’s second in command. Though there’s no evidence that the U.S. helped to plan the attack, the Southern Command in Miami might have played a role by providing intelligence to the Colombian military.

For years, the U.S. has provided billions of dollars in military aid to the Colombian government which has been at war not only with left wing guerrillas but also with other progressive forces such as indigenous peoples, human rights workers, and labor union activists. The Uribe government has been tainted by human rights abuses and its association with right wing paramilitary death squads.

While Uribe has been aggressively prosecuting the war almost from the onset of his presidential term, he has now succeeded in escalating the conflict beyond its borders. Predictably, Ecuador immediately recalled its ambassador to Colombia and ordered troops to deploy to the border. Predictably, Chávez backed up Ecuador by similarly recalling its ambassador to Colombia and massing troops on its western border. Uribe then hit back against Chávez, accusing him of supporting the FARC guerrilla insurgency and encouraging terrorism.

Employing Bolívar as a Rhetorical Tool
Although it has always been somewhat unlikely that the border dispute would result in actual military hostilities, it appeared to be very risky (at least for part of the time). For a while, Chávez appeared intent on stepping up his non-stop public relations blitz against President Uribe. For the Venezuelan leader, part of his future efforts are likely to hinge on appropriating historical symbols such as Bolívar and casting the Colombian regime as enemies of the Great Liberator and his legacy. Bolívar, Chávez has said, was a socialist like himself; was stridently opposed to the United States, and, also like himself, was determined to build a classless society. What’s more, the Venezuelan leader argues, Bolívar’s dream of uniting Latin America represented a threat to oligarchs and imperialists, thus awakening the ire of the United States.

Chávez has no doubt taken some historical liberties and embellished his causal intellectual ties to Bolívar. The Liberator never talked about class struggle per se, though he did refer to the need to abolish slavery. The Liberator also issued decrees for the establishment of schools (for boys as well as girls), deplored the misery of indigenous peoples, and ordered the conservation of forest resources.

But Bolívar was perhaps most forward looking when he spoke of the necessity of integrating Latin America. It was Bolívar, early on, who understood that the region had no future unless it confronted both Europe and the U.S. as a unified bloc. The United States, Bolívar once famously declared, seemed “destined by providence to plague America with misery on behalf of freedom.”

Chávez has said that he will not rest until Venezuela is liberated from the “imperialist and anti-Boliviaran threat.” He frequently draws comparisons between Bolívar’s struggle against the Spanish Empire and his own political confrontation with the United States (which Chávez habitually refers to as “The Empire”). Employing his usual penchant for making over self-serving historical connections, however far-fetched they may be, Chávez recently warned Colombian “oligarchs” not to tangle with Venezuela. “Don’t even think about it,” he said, or “you would run into the soldiers of Bolívar.”

Bolívar’s Cult of Personality in Venezuela
Given the prominence that Chávez has attached to Bolívar in his public speeches, it’s not surprising that books about the Great Liberator are briskly selling in Caracas. In Venezuela, Bolívar is revered as a God-like figure and his popularity continues to soar. Indeed, a popular religion based on the fertility goddess of María Lionza has appropriated Bolívar as one of its central ritual figures. The faith is based on indigenous, black, African, and Catholic roots, and priests hold ceremonies in which the spirit of the Liberator is channeled through a medium who coughs when Bolívar is present, since Venezuela’s most distinguished native son had a debilitating case of tuberculosis. Meanwhile, religious altars of the faithful generally feature a portrait of Bolívar.

Venezuela’s currency, main squares, and universities bear the Liberator’s name. His sayings are taught in schools, broadcast on the radio and emblazoned on government buildings. Chávez almost reverentially has referred to his political movement as a “Bolivarian Revolution.” Chávez has renamed his country the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and has reportedly left a chair empty at meetings to honor the Liberator.

Chávez supporters, or Chavistas, have dubbed the areas they politically control as “liberated zones of the Bolivarian Republic,” and adorn offices and homes with portraits of the Liberator. Chávez has promoted so-called Bolivarian Circles, local grassroots groups at the local or barrio level, which lobby the government for important grass-root resources.

Meanwhile, Chávez champions Bolívar’s idea of a unified South America, and echoes the Liberator’s words during his televised speeches. Chávez also likes to appear on television with a portrait of Bolívar near at hand. Riding along Caracas highways, one may see repeated instances of murals juxtaposing portraits of Chávez and Bolívar.

In Caracas, a key historic landmark is Bolívar’s house as a youth. Located along downtown streets crowded with informal vendors, the house is often full of visiting school children. In conjunction with the author’s next book, Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (to be released April 1 with Palgrave-Macmillan), a visit is paid to the museum, and its director, Mercedes García, is interviewed.

According to her, Chávez’s chronically lengthy speeches awakened an interest in the Liberator. The volume of people visiting the museum has been increasing, and at the time I visited, 3,500 individuals were showing up every week. In particular, there was great curiosity amongst the military, and soldiers from all over the county were paying visits to the museum.

War of Words Between Chávez and Uribe: It’s All About Bolívar
Uribe however has sought to question Chávez’s almost exclusive appropriation of Bolívar as a political icon. “The truth, President Chávez, is that if you are pursuing an expansionist project in this continent, Colombia has no place for that, project,” Uribe remarked. “One cannot set fire to the continent, as you are doing, speaking one day against Spain, the next against the United States; abusing Mexico one day and Peru the next, and the day after that, Bolivia,” Uribe continued. “One cannot abuse a whole continent, or set it on fire as you do, by speaking of imperialism, when you, based on your own ambitions, are looking to set up an empire.”

Seeking to rip down Chávez’s historical narrative, Uribe said “We cannot abuse history, we cannot stain the memory of our heroes, by disfiguring them in popular demagoguery, in misleading the people. We cannot mislead the people by misinterpreting the legacy of the Liberator Bolívar. Bolívar was an integrationist, but not an expansionist.”

Bolívar, Uribe continued, brought independence to South American nations, “but he did not bring them [newly independent countries] a new era of subjection.” Turning up the rhetoric, Uribe added, “Bolívar did not spend his time trying to remove European domination from the Americans, only to impose his own terms with the power at his disposal—as you wish to do—on the people of Venezuela and on the people of Colombia.”

Sparing no opportunity to exploit his favorite subject, Chávez has accused Uribe of being a spokesperson of the “anti-Bolivarian oligarchy.” The Colombian oligarchy, Chávez remarked, “Doesn’t want peace and believes it can mess around with us. Neither the Colombian oligarchy nor any other oligarchy can mess with us. Venezuela needs to be respected.” In one of his typical bombastic flourishes, Chávez added that when Uribe accused him of carrying out Bolivarian expansionism in South America, the Colombian politician was talking like the U.S. President. Underneath Uribe’s mask, Chávez said, lurked President Bush.

Colombian Elite: Fearful of Bolivarian Revolution
Uribe’s diplomatic ripostes are not surprising, given the fortress mentality now prevalent within the Colombian elite. Within a rising tide of left social movements and progressive-minded regimes that have flourished throughout the region, Colombia remains a bastion of conservatism and reaction. What’s worse, many ordinary Colombians are beginning to gain inspiration from Chávez and his so-called Bolivarian Revolution, thus adding to the Colombian elite’s sense of political isolation.

In several Colombian provincial states, Bolívar has again been politicized. Recently, Colombians formed Bolivarian Circles similar to those common in Venezuela. In Barranquilla, a Colombian port, barrio and social activists, union organizers and some members from the Polo Democrático left opposition have united to form the Corriente Bolivariana Colombiana (Colombian Bolivarian Current), a political organization that claims almost 5,000 members and fields candidates in local elections.

A worrying consideration for the Colombian elite is that Chávez may have an ideological impact not only upon ordinary Colombians, but also those Colombians living in Venezuela. For years, Colombian immigrants have fled the war in their country, fleeing across the border and seeking greater economic opportunity. Unfortunately for the Colombian elite, many émigrés have returned to Colombia and helped to organize Bolivarian movements at home.

Oscar Manduca, a Bolivarian organizer and candidate in Atlántico state on the Caribbean coast, has remarked, “This is a social movement against poverty in Colombia. Venezuela’s revolution can help change things here through solidarity and cooperation across the frontier.” Meanwhile the Movimiento Bolivariano de Colombia S A (sin armas)—the Bolivarian Movement of Colombia (without arms)—is presenting an electoral challenge to right wing politicians who control politics along the Colombian frontier in Santander state.

Containing the Bolivarian Revolution
Ever since Chávez was elected in 1998, the Colombian media establishment has been implacably opposed to the Venezuelan leader and commonly refers to Chávez as a dictator or caudillo. Venezuelan commentator Gabriel Bustamante believes that Colombian journalists “don’t know, and don’t want to know, anything positive” about political and social changes in his country. “Revolutions threaten their privileges, so there is a need to create ‘Chávezphobia’—an excessive and irrational fear about Chávez and even Bolívar to try to stop Colombians being influenced,” he said.

There would seem to be a fair degree of truth in what Bustamante says. The newspaper El Tiempo, a bastion of elite sentiment in Bogotá, has editorialized that “Caudillos like Chávez have historically impeded the consolidation of liberal democracy in Latin America.” Rafael Nieto, a columnist at the Colombian magazine Semana, worries that “Polo Democrático leaders going to Caracas and Bolivarian officials in Bogotá could become a daily occurrence.”

Echoing elite opinion, the Uribe government has acted to limit Chávez’s political influence within Colombia. Before diplomatic relations wound up in tatters, Uribe was careful in handling Chávez when the latter visited Colombia. Uribe forced the Venezuelan president to meet him at an isolated hacienda rather than allow his presidential motorcade to travel through the capital.

What’s more, a meeting with opposition Polo Democrático leaders had to be conducted after midnight, in private at the Venezuelan Embassy. When Chávez asked to visit Bolívar’s historic hacienda in central Bogotá, the authorities (who were afraid that the Venezuelan leader would come into contact with ordinary Colombians) denied his request. Meanwhile, Colombia’s intelligence services cracked down on the Corriente Bolivariana Colombiana, raiding a political meeting of the group on the coast. Armed Forces Commander Freddy Padilla commented that “Bolivarian circles are spreading all over Latin America, and particularly here in Colombia we want to prevent this from happening.”

Santander: Chávez’s Great Historical Villain
Within this climate of escalating political tensions, Chávez has whipped up a furor by making skillful use of his own historical narrative. He has referred to the “Colombian oligarchy” as the most rancid and criminal elite group in Latin America. The oligarchy, Chávez says, descends from a despicable historical figure named Francisco Paula de Santander. For Chávez, Santander, Bolívar’s Vice President, is a great historical villain.

It was Santander, Chávez charges, who was most responsible for bringing down South American unity and dashing any hope that the Bolivarian independence struggle might lead to real political change. By 1825, Bolívar’s influence on the countries that he had liberated was on the wane. Returning to Bogotá from his military campaigns, the Liberator resumed his duties as president of Colombia but found that he had little political support from government officials and the local citizenry.

In 1827 he pushed for a new Colombian constitution that would have increased the power of the president. But a constitutional convention in 1828 rebuffed Bolívar and rejected any change to the constitution. It was a stunning reversal for him. Egged on by his supporters however, he struck back by assuming dictatorial powers. Predictably, such a move did not go over well amongst Colombia’s political elite.

Sporadic uprisings broke out in opposition to Bolivarian rule, and in 1828 a group of conspirators in Bogotá, tiring of his dictatorship, broke into the presidential palace intent on murdering him. It was Santander, Chávez claims, who was the intellectual author of the plot to kill Bolívar and thus sabotage the Great Liberator’s political project.
Though Bolívar survived the infamous ‘Black September Night’ attempt against his life, Colombia’s continued opposition to his united Latin America dream disillusioned him. Dispirited and disheartened, the Great Liberator resigned as president. By now sick with tuberculosis, Bolívar departed Bogotá for the Caribbean coast.

Gran Colombia was already in shambles: Venezuela had left the Republic as had Ecuador and the new nations Bolívar helped to found were wracked by violence and internal dissension. Bolívar died on the way to Cartagena on December 17, 1830, at the age of 47. Bolívar asked to be buried in his home city of Caracas, but he had so many political enemies that his family feared for the safety of his remains. In 1842, his body was finally taken home.

Seeking to take advantage of Bolívar’s tragic death and political eclipse, Chávez has remarked, in yet another questionable historical leap, that Uribe is a spokesperson for the “Santanderean” and “anti-Bolivarian” oligarchy. Uribe responded in turn that the Venezuelan president was manipulating history and that Santander “gave us the example of adherence to the law. The truth, President Chávez, is that we cannot make a mockery of the law, as you do, trying to abuse General Santander, and exchange the rule of law for personal whim.”

Bolívar’s Death: Chávez Suspects Foul Play
Taking his picturesque concept of history to yet greater political heights, Chávez is now intent on proving that Bolívar was poisoned by corrupt oligarchs and did not succumb to tuberculosis. The Venezuelan leader asserts that in Bolívar’s day, tuberculosis was not lethal enough to cause death in a few scant weeks. As evidence to support his version of the medical arts, Chávez points to one of Bolívar’s letters in which the Liberator discusses his future plans. Bolívar wrote the letter shortly before his own death.

“Some say he [Bolívar] was very ill and knew he was going to die, and he wanted to die by the side of the sea and he died happy, and Colombia was happy and Venezuela was happy,” Chávez said in a long speech. “How the oligarchs fooled us, the ones here, the ones there. How the historians who falsified history fooled us.”

The Venezuelan leader recently convened a high commission, led by his vice president and composed of nine cabinet ministers and the attorney general. Their mission: exhume Bolívar’s remains, which lie in a sarcophagus at the National Pantheon in downtown Caracas, and conduct scientific tests to confirm Chávez’s contention—that diabolical assassins murdered Bolívar. “This commission has been created because the executive considers it to be of great historical and cultural value to clarify important doubts regarding the death of the Liberator,” Venezuela’s official Gazette said.

Even Chávez’s most stalwart supporters say their leader may have gone too far this time. “This doesn’t make any sense,” said Alberto Mueller Rojas, a retired general who works as a presidential adviser on international affairs and military matters. “Why should I care? Bolívar died. If they killed him, they killed him. If he died of tuberculosis, he died of tuberculosis. In this day and age, this doesn’t have any significance.”

In his historical novel, The General in His Labyrinth, the legendary Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez portrayed Bolívar as a man of the people opposed by a reactionary oligarchy. However, neither García Márquez nor any serious historian has suggested that the Liberator was poisoned. John Lynch, a Bolívar biographer, points out that as the Liberator lay dying he was watched over by a “qualified and conscientious” French doctor whose medical bulletins were later published in Caracas. Lynch has accused Chávez of “a modern perversion” of the mythical cult of Bolívar.

It’s unlikely that Chávez will ever be able to prove his historical hypothesis by exhuming Bolívar’s tomb, but at least he will have succeeded in scoring more points in the never-ending propaganda war against Uribe. As the frail diplomatic engagement continues in the upcoming weeks, and Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela try to tame their simmering wrath, it won’t be surprising if we hear yet more Bolivarian rhetoric coming from adjunct professor Chávez. Almost two hundred years after his death, Bolívar is still the central and defining figure in the lands that he formerly liberated, a region still wracked by chronic political instability, poverty, and glaring social inequalities.

UK war costs double as equipment replacement soars

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

The combined cost of Britain's military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq is expected to almost double in the year ending March 2008, according to an all-party group of MPs.

A reported by the Defence Select Committee showed that the cost of operations by British forces in Afghanistan has risen to more than Pnds 1.6 billion (Dlrs 3.2 bn), a year-on-year increase of 122 percent compared with 2006/07.

More surprisingly, given the reduction in troops in Iraq, the cost of Britain's military deployment there has also increased to Pnds 1.6 bn, a year-on-year rise of 72 percent.

The combined costs, about 50 percent more than the government forecast three months ago, come as military officials have made it clear that the number of British troops in Iraq would not now be cut to 2,500 by spring, as Prime Minister Gordon Brown has suggested.

Committee chair James Arbuthnot said that few people will object to the investment being made in better facilities and equipment for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"However, this estimate represents a lot of public money. The MoD (Ministry of Defence) needs to provide better information about what it is all being spent on," Arbuthnot warned.

The sharpest increases were for buying, repairing and replacing new armoured vehicles and other equipment acquired under a special Urgent Operation Requirements system, referred to as UORs.

The total cost of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan since the so-called war on terrorism began back in 2001 now totals some Pnds 10 bn, compared with only some Pnds 7 bn previously set aside.

A new book published last month, co-authored by Joseph Stiglitz, former World Bank, said that the cost of Britain's two wars was expected to rise to more than Pnds 20 bn, including social costs, by 2010.

Nick Harvey, Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, warned that the new parliamentary report "clearly shows how the Iraq war is continuing to bleed our finances dry, leaving soldiers in Afghanistan overstretched and under-equipped."
Kate Hudson, the chair of CND peace group, said there was also clear human costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are clear, with an estimated 655,000 dead in Iraq alone.

"The opportunities lost by spending these billions on further destruction rather than on humanitarian reconstruction adds to the long list of tragedies unleashed by Bush's wars," Hudson said.

Brand Cuba

By MICHAEL CASEY

As Fidel Castro brings his reign in Cuba to a long overdue end, we are left to ponder how a leader with such a dismal economic record could retain power for a half-century.

There is merit to many of the standard explanations for Castro's longevity -- both those of his critics, who cite political repression, and those of his fans, who believe the Cuban majority was won over by advances in health and literacy. There is also some merit in the arguments blaming Washington, either for its self-defeating trade embargo or for not being tough enough.

But these only tell part of the story. Instead, if we view Castro's political machine through the apolitical prism of the market, we can attribute its durability to a concept that's alien to his socialist rhetoric, and deeply rooted in the American capitalist system he claims to despise: branding. Castro's political "success" is a case study in managing the global information economy.

The Cuban Revolution is and always has been a brand. Its face has changed over time -- from the "barbudo" rebels of the Sierra Maestra to Che Guevara's piercing stare, from Cuba's graying salsa legends to its globe-trotting medics -- but incredibly, its essence has survived.

Marketing gurus tell us that a successful brand functions as a store of values. It encapsulates a pool of attractive ideas that satisfy customers' desire for meaning. To encourage loyalty to a brand, they say, the marketer must cultivate a sense of belonging and personal identification with the individual.

For many within a core constituency of left-leaning, relatively well-educated people both inside and outside Cuba, Castro's "revolution" achieved precisely this. To this niche market, Cuba evokes a set of magical buzz words long-favored by the radical left: "resistance," "social justice," "struggle." It represents an idealized, selfless counterpoint to ruthless, greedy capitalism. It is the alternative to brand U.S.A.

This is, of course, a constructed "Cuba," one with little relation to the real Cuba, with its dysfunctional, increasingly inequitable social and economic structure. But savvy brand managers are rarely hindered by a divergence from reality. Has the availability of perfectly safe, free tap water stopped marketers from touting the life-giving powers of their bottled alternatives?

Castro has long been blessed with a great ability to manipulate information and images in the interest of self-promotion. During a pivotal 1957 interview with New York Times correspondent Herbert Matthews, he had his men move around in the trees to create the illusion of a bigger rebel force. Five decades later, the art had not deserted him. After his intestinal illness was first revealed in July 2006, the delayed, staggered release of photos of the convalescing Cuban leader in an Adidas tracksuit seemed designed to give his archenemies enough rope to hang themselves. Many Miami Cuban bloggers prematurely pronounced Castro dead and denounced the first images as fakes.

In the early 1960s, Castro was forever trailed by a clique of talented photographers -- including Alberto Korda, who took the most famous photo of Che Guevara. Preferring Life magazine's documentary style over the bleak genre of Soviet socialist realism, they portrayed the bearded Cuban leader in a humanistic light, and gave his revolution a vibrant, hopeful and distinctly American aesthetic.

Later, when CIA-backed Bolivian soldiers killed Guevara in 1967 -- converting the Argentine-born revolutionary into a martyr-hero for Paris and Berkeley radicals -- Castro wrapped himself in the image of his former comrade-in-arms, which conveniently helped him cover up Cuba's very un-revolutionary submission to Soviet dominance. The Cuban government actively promoted Korda's iconic image, which the country's poster artists soon gave a Pop Art makeover. The now-ubiquitous Che brand was born.

Years later, in the 1990s, branding helped hide the wealth divide and graft in Cuba that arose out of the post-Soviet dual-currency system. Decrepit Havana was marketed as a giant museum, a revolution frozen in time -- complete with rusted '50s Chevys and octogenarian musicians. Later, with the rise of the anti-globalization movement, Che was re-resurrected in a pitch to younger tourists, one that came with Cuban-made calendars, watches, postcards and all manner of trinkets bearing Korda's image.

Now Cuba's brand centers on health care. Its free hospitals are depicted as alternatives to an unfair, inefficient U.S. system, while its foreign-posted doctors put a face on the country's projected spirit of humanitarianism.

Some 200 of these medics turned up at last October's 40th anniversary of Che's execution in La Higuera, Bolivia. They demonstrated how the Cuban revolution's brand has been simultaneously altered and preserved through a period of sweeping transformation on the island and in the world outside it.

These doctors -- members of a 30,000-strong foreign medical corps, whose work gives Havana access to badly-needed goods like Venezuelan oil -- are unwittingly contributing to a mounting problem back home. Their absence exacerbates staffing constraints in Cuba's once well-regarded hospitals, now stretched by the demands of an aging population. Nonetheless, in the long string of speeches at La Higuera, Cuban, Venezuelan and Bolivian officials feted the physicians as model revolutionaries -- guerrillas with stethoscopes in place of rifles. And in case the branding tie-in wasn't clear, each medic was dressed in a white lab coat opened to reveal a red or blue Che T-shirt.

Mr. Casey is Dow Jones Newswires bureau chief in Buenos Aires, and author of "Che's Afterlife," a forthcoming book to be published by Vintage on Alberto Korda's famous image of Che Guevara.

McCAIN'S TAX CUTS PLAN

Bush and the Dollar

By DAVID MALPASS

When President George W. Bush addresses the Economic Club of New York on Friday, his comments on the dollar crisis will be the crucial issue for markets and the economy. The best thing he could do would be to state clearly that he wants a stronger dollar. That would draw liquidity back to the U.S., lower inflation risks, and head off the growing calls for government bailouts and support programs.

Absent administration support for the dollar, recent Fed rate cuts have simply sped up the flood of capital away from the U.S. without providing enough domestic stimulus. The rest of the world is already full of cheap dollars, pushing gold and oil to new highs, European tourists onto Madison Avenue, and petro-dollar sovereign wealth funds into building islands to use up their excess.

A clear presidential preference for a stronger dollar could cause an immediate leap in financial markets. U.S. stocks and corporate bonds are attractively priced -- except for the dollar risk. No matter how high a bond yield or how strong the track record of a U.S. private-equity manager, the threat of continued dollar weakness holds global liquidity at bay. The prospect of a stronger dollar would reverse that.

This week, Mr. Bush may well use the same inadequate mantras that the administration has repeated since 2001: A strong dollar is in the "national interest," and the dollar should reflect U.S. economic "fundamentals." U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson used these standard phrases, now taken to be code words for a weaker dollar, on March 3, with predictable results -- the dollar hit new lows last week. Jean-Claude Trichet, the hard-money head of the European Central Bank, perhaps holding his nose, voiced similar encouragement for the dollar on March 3 (and yesterday): "I consider it very important what has been affirmed and reaffirmed by the U.S. authorities . . . according to whom a strong dollar is in the interest of America."

Damned by faint praise. The officials are not saying they want a stronger dollar, or that they will do something to stop the dollar's plunge. In fact, the U.S. has repeatedly prevented the G-7 group of finance ministers and central bankers from discussing ways to strengthen the dollar, most recently by imposing a dollar-lite agenda at the February G-7 meeting.

The current dollar mantra, coined in the 1990s, never made sense. Saying a strong dollar is in our "national interest" ignored the need for dollar stability. It set no upper bound on the dollar's strength, causing a destructive global deflation cycle from 1997 to 2001.

The dollar is now weaker than the loonie, the Canadian dollar, yet the same hollow 1990s phrases are being mouthed. If a strong dollar is in the "national interest," then the seven-year dollar collapse is clearly in need of a remedy. There's an equally deep logical flaw in claiming that the dollar should depend on economic "fundamentals." A strong, stable currency is itself one of a country's most valuable fundamentals, not a byproduct of other fundamentals. Our fundamentals haven't been nearly as bad as the dollar's seven-year slide. More likely, the weak dollar trend is itself a bad economic fundamental, masking health elsewhere.

The policy shift to a stronger dollar is as critical for national security as it is for economic health. Oil would cost less if the dollar were stronger, slowing the transfers to our antagonists in Venezuela, Iran and Russia. A stronger dollar would allow U.S. wealth to grow as fast as foreign wealth, adding to our strength and independence.

Though many economists still support the theory of unlimited free-floating exchange rates, no weak-currency country has had a healthy economy. Momentum takes over and pushes currencies to extremes that can't be hedged. Many also think current interest rates control currencies. But 1% more or less in annual interest won't make up for a country's longer term intentions for its currency. Markets have labeled the U.S. a weak-currency country. That's an albatross that the president should dump.

An administration decision to support a stronger dollar would be dramatic, and probably so unexpected that it would break the dollar's downward momentum, and with it the defeatism now dragging us down. If the dollar started up, the vicious cycle -- dollar weakness causing economic weakness and more dollar weakness -- could be reversed.

The president's dollar preferences matter even in the short run, setting expectations that become self-fulfilling. The many speculators now short-selling the dollar, or betting against the U.S. in favor of commodities and other currencies, would have to reduce their positions. This would immediately add to U.S. liquidity, and improve the outlook. Treasury would begin working to achieve a stronger dollar, opening the possibility, anathema to dollar shorts, of a G-7 preference for a stronger dollar or even coordinated currency intervention.

There's more at stake in the dollar debate than a recession, inflation and a bear market. In the economic confusion created by the weak-dollar policy, presidential campaigners are blaming Nafta and free trade, not the weak-and-weaker dollar, for hard times.

The president should state a preference for a stronger and stable dollar. It has a good chance of stopping the credit crunch. It's free and easy. And let's face it: Other measures aren't working.

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Political Diary

Just What the Doctor Ordered

House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel has been spending time in the hospital with the flu the last few days, but he is likely to have gotten a real morale booster yesterday with the news of Gov. Eliot Spitzer's meltdown.

Mr. Rangel, who has represented Harlem in Congress for 38 years, is known to hold the prickly governor in minimal high regard. He has often snidely referred to Mr. Spitzer as "the smartest man in the world," a reference to the governor's well-known arrogance.

Should Mr. Spitzer resign, Mr. Rangel would also be in the catbird's seat. Lt. Gov. David Paterson, a former state senator from Harlem, is a longtime protege of Mr. Rangel and would likely grant his mentor wide influence over patronage and fiscal issues. "Rangel could have instant access to Paterson anytime of the day or night," is how one New York Democratic leader evaluates Mr. Rangel's likely importance in a Patterson administration.

So if Mr. Rangel makes an even swifter recovery from the flu than is expected, there will be good reasons for that new spring in his step and twinkle in his eye.

-- John Fund

Deus Ex Machine Politics

There is little chance that New York will be competitive in the presidential race this year, but the Spitzer scandal will breathe new life into New York's battered GOP. Poised to fill the governor's seat is Lt. Gov. David A. Paterson, a Democrat who has little name recognition and lacks the force of personality that animated Mr. Spitzer's political career. Mr. Paterson, an ally of Rep. Charlie Rangel, will likely be a seat-warmer while both parties prepare to battle for the governor's mansion in 2010. Democrat Attorney General Andrew Cuomo will likely now become the de facto leader of his party in the state.

Meanwhile, Senate Republican leader Joe Bruno, a veteran political infighter, will take the lieutenant governor's seat, giving him a larger platform to use for Republican advantage. He could run for governor himself in two years. But it's more likely that he'll find someone else within his party to carry the Republican banner. If Rudy Giuliani wants to get back into the game, this is his chance. There's also a possibility that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg could be interested. And then there's John Spencer, the former mayor of Yonkers who ran against Hillary Clinton for senate in 2006. He has a fundraising base, knows what it takes to run a statewide campaign and has executive experience.

A little more than a year ago, Eliot Spitzer's gubernatorial landslide (69%) was the biggest the state had ever seen. New York seemed on a path to becoming a one-party state. Democrats tightened their grip on the state's General Assembly, won every state-wide elective office and even won in a few upstate congressional districts that traditionally favor Republicans. This year, led by Mr. Spitzer, Democrats looked likely to win control of the last vestige of Republican power in New York, the state Senate. How quickly things change. Republicans now see an opening to reverse their fortunes in New York, only helped if Mr. Spitzer tries to cling to office. It remains to be seen if the state and national GOPs are up to seizing the opportunity.

-- Brendan Miniter

Quote of the Day

"In lead stories Monday night about New York Governor Eliot Spitzer being linked to a prostitution ring, neither ABC's World News nor the NBC Nightly News verbally identified Spitzer's political party. Must mean he's a liberal Democrat -- and he is. CBS anchor Katie Couric, however, managed to squeeze in a mention of his party. On ABC, the only hints as to Spitzer's party were a few seconds of video of Spitzer beside Hillary Clinton as they walked down some steps and a (D) on screen by Spitzer's name over part of one soundbite. NBC didn't even do that. While ABC and NBC failed to cite Spitzer's political affiliation in the four minutes or so each network dedicated to the revelations, both managed to find time to applaud his reputation and effectiveness as the Empire State's Attorney General before becoming Governor" -- Brent Baker of the conservative Media Research Institute.

Follow the Money

The fall of Eliot Spitzer, caught in the roll-up of a high-end prostitution ring, is bound to be an occasion for a great deal of dime-store psychoanalysis about what led to his self-destructive behavior.

But perhaps the most interesting detail isn't the all-too-familiar tale of a politician imagining himself immune to the laws and standards he prescribes for others. The most interesting detail is how he got caught.

The New York Governor, who made his bones doggedly pursuing alleged financial crimes, was undone by his own bankers. The financial transactions by which he endeavored to conceal his payments to the Emperors Club were unusual enough that they prompted a referral by his bank to the IRS, which in turn brought in the FBI and ultimately the prosecutors. Based on the information currently available, Mr. Spitzer himself was the thread that began the unraveling of the Emperor's Club prostitution ring.

Prosecutors are supposed to know better. But in this case, Mr. Spitzer appears to have left behind precisely the kind of paper trail that he once used himself in pursuit of Wall Street malefactors, real or imagined. The latest burble from the TV talking heads this morning now suggests that Mr. Spitzer is delaying his resignation as leverage for a favorable plea bargain. If so, he apparently learned at least one thing from his years as a dictator of humiliating plea bargains to those caught up in his publicity-seeking investigations. All the more ironic, then, that the Sheriff of Wall Street gave himself away with his slippery financial dealings, rather than his sordid appetites, ending in his disgra

Obama, Clinton Turn Focus to Pennsylvania Primary (Update1)

March 11 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton kept up their sparring while campaigning today in Pennsylvania even as voters in Mississippi headed to the polls for a primary there.

Obama made a final appeal to Mississippi voters this morning, talking about energy, education and the economy in Greenville, before heading north. Obama, who's vying to become the first black U.S. president, is heavily favored in the state, where more than half of the Democratic electorate is black.

Clinton renewed her line of attack on the Illinois senator's experience and record, telling a crowd of several thousand people in Harrisburg, ``There's a big difference between talk and action.''

The former first lady ``will say and do anything to win this election,'' Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement sent to reporters ahead of her speech.

Both campaigns are turning their attention to Pennsylvania, which has 158 pledged delegates available in its primary on April 22, compared with 33 at stake today in Mississippi. Clinton, a senator from New York, trails Obama in the race for Democratic convention delegates who will select the party's nominee. She has set Pennsylvania as a key test of her campaign.

Labor Support

Clinton stood on stage at a downtown concert hall with dozens of supporters behind her, including a group representing union workers. She's counting on organized labor to help her score a victory in Pennsylvania, which has lost more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs since the beginning of 2001.

The 35-minute speech focused on the economy and on Clinton's experience as a senator and first lady.

``I want you to be voting on the basis of who you believe will be our best president, who can be our commander-in-chief from Day One,'' Clinton, 60, said. ``I don't want you voting on a leap of faith, I want you to look at the record, I want you to look at the results.''

She told the audience that the ``eyes of America and the world are on Pennsylvania.'' She also drew applause from the audience when she said she would reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

In Greenville, Mississippi, this morning, Obama made a campaign stop at Buck's Restaurant, where he ate a breakfast of scrambled eggs, grits, turkey sausage and wheat toast with the town's mayor and other city officials.

They spoke about education and ``clean energy'' jobs, among other topics. As they talked, some in the crowd outside were chanting ``Yes, we can,'' Obama's campaign slogan.

Obama Supporter

Restaurant owner S.B. Buck, 60, said he's supporting Obama over Clinton, even though he thinks the candidate's husband, Bill Clinton, was a great president. Buck, who is black, said he was turned off by some of the tactics used by the Clinton campaign that have injected race into the political debate.

``I think they did more to put people in his corner than take them out,'' Buck said in an interview.

Obama's aides spoke out against statements made by Clinton supporter Geraldine Ferraro, a former U.S. representative from New York and the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 1984. In an interview with the Daily Breeze newspaper in Torrance, California, Ferraro said Obama has advanced because of his race.

Ferraro Remarks

``If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,'' Ferraro was quoted as saying by the newspaper in a story published March 7. ``And if he was a woman he would not be in this position.''

Clinton today disavowed the remarks and called them ``regrettable.'' In an interview with the Associated Press, Clinton said, ``We ought to keep this on the issues.''

Obama adviser David Axelrod called on Clinton to remove Ferraro from any position with her campaign and said doing anything less would encourage other supporters to make such statements. Another Obama campaign adviser, Susan Rice, said the remarks were ``really outrageous and offensive.''

``It is the sort of comment that we have heard repeatedly, I'm afraid, from some of the Clinton surrogates,'' she said on MSNBC today.

An Obama adviser, Samantha Power, resigned last week after she was quoted in a Scottish newspaper calling Clinton ``a monster.'' Rice said Ferraro's comments were ``far worse.''

Senator John McCain of Arizona, who has secured the Republican presidential nomination, is holding fundraisers this week while campaigning in townhall-style forums.

Economic Downturn

In St. Louis today he promoted his economic agenda and emphasized his understanding that the economy was in a downturn.

``We know that Americans are hurting. We know that these are difficult times,'' said McCain, 71.

He also took shots at Clinton and Obama over their statements that they would begin withdrawing U.S. combat troops from Iraq if elected and would demand that Mexico and Canada agree to modifications to the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Pulling out of Iraq too soon would mean that ``the conflict will spread and we will be back, with greater sacrifices,'' he said.

McCain said an attempt to renegotiate the free-trade agreement with the nation's two neighbors would throw U.S. credibility into question in other treaty talks.

Fallon Stepping Down as Mideast Commander, Gates Says (Update2)

March 11 (Bloomberg) -- Admiral William Fallon is stepping down as head of U.S. Central Command because of perceived differences on Iran policy with the Bush administration, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said today.

Fallon, 63, assumed command of all U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia a year ago, with responsibility for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He informed Gates of his decision today in the wake of an Esquire magazine article that portrayed him as an ardent opponent within the administration of war with Iran to halt its possible building of a nuclear bomb.

While the U.S. is pursuing a policy of diplomatic pressure on Iran at the United Nations and unilateral sanctions to weaken its access to the international banking system, the Bush administration hasn't ruled out military action as an option.

``Recent press reports suggesting a disconnect between my views and the president's policy objectives have become a distraction at a critical time and hamper efforts in the Centcom region,'' Fallon said in a statement.

Fallon said while he doesn't believe a policy rift exists, ``the simple perception that there is makes it difficult for me to effectively serve America's interests there.''

Gates said Fallon ``reached this difficult decision entirely on his own.''

`Right Thing'

``I believe it was the right thing to do, even though I do not believe there are in fact significant differences between his views and administration policy,'' Gates told reporters at the Pentagon.

The Esquire piece praised Fallon as ``the rarest of creatures in the Bush universe: the good cop on Iran, and a man of strategic brilliance.''

The article said Fallon had created tensions with the White House by opposing the administration's Iran rhetoric and cited well-placed observers as saying ``it will come as no surprise if Fallon is relieved of his command before his time is up next spring, maybe as early as this summer, in favor of a commander the White House considers to be more pliable.''

Gates described as ``just ridiculous'' an idea raised in the article that if Fallon leaves, it may mean the U.S. is going to war with Iran.

Fallon will leave his post at the end of the month. Army Lieutenant General Martin Dempsey, the deputy commander of Central Command, will serve as acting commander once Fallon steps down, Gates said.

`Enormously Talented'

``Admiral Fallon will be difficult to replace,'' Gates said. ``He is enormously talented.''

Before taking the Mideast command, Fallon was in charge of U.S. forces in the Pacific.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Fallon's departure ``yet another example that independence and the frank, open airing of experts' views are not welcomed in this administration.''

In an interview last month in Doha, Qatar, Fallon said Iran continued to supply lethal aid and training to extremist militias in Iraq and said the U.S. was looking for ``a long-term change'' in Iranian behavior.

Fallon, a former fighter pilot known to friends as ``Fox,'' routinely rejected news stories that suggested he clashed with General David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq. Fallon's resignation comes just weeks before Petraeus is scheduled to testify before Congress on security conditions in Iraq.

Iraq Pause

In the interview last month, Fallon endorsed Petraeus's decision to pause this summer before deciding whether to continue withdrawing U.S. combat brigades from Iraq later in the year.

Fallon's appointment was part of a broad shakeup of the U.S. military's command structure in the Middle East that coincided with President George W. Bush's decision to add 21,500 combat troops in Iraq to the 131,000 already there, with the primary goal of stabilizing Baghdad.

Bush, in a statement, said Fallon, a Vietnam veteran who previously served as head of U.S. Pacific Command, had served the U.S. ``with great distinction'' for 40 years. He was the first Navy officer to head Central Command.