David Carr, on the media’s increasing use of the term “civil war” to describe the situation in Iraq:

On closer inspection, what seems like a bold, transgressive step by the media is considerably less. It is not a coincidence that some members of the mainstream media were only willing to attempt to redefine the terms of the current debate after a massive electoral setback to the current administration.

. . .

The willingness to use “civil war” now is less a brave declaration than a wet, sensitive finger in the wind because mainstream media is much more likely to follow, than lead, political debate.

Carr’s own paper, the New York Times, isn’t quite there yet. Editor Bill Keller still has a moistened digit held out testing the air currents:

“I bristle at the way a low-grade semantic argument has become — at least among the partisan cud-chewers — a substitute for serious discussion of what’s happening in Iraq and what to do about it. . . . maybe this argument is a symptom of intellectual fatigue in the punditocracy. Don’t get me wrong, obviously I believe words matter. We try to choose them carefully. Sometimes our choices cause offense.”

Meanwhile, Kofi Annan says it’s a civil war, and worse than Lebanon was at its most chaotic.

The Guardian:

The Iraqi government is in danger of being brought down by the wholesale smuggling of the nation’s oil and other forms of corruption that together represent a “second insurgency”, according to a senior US official. Stuart Bowen, who has been in charge of auditing Iraq’s faltering reconstruction since 2004, said corruption had reached such levels that it threatened the survival of the state.

Is the U.S. already taking sides in Iraq?

The overwhelmingly Shiite Muslim military force at the forefront of U.S. and Iraqi plans to secure one of the nation’s most fractious provinces is accused of arresting hundreds of Sunni men on little or no evidence, threatening to rape a suspect’s wife to coerce a confession, and intimidating its commander’s critics, according to interviews with Iraqi and U.S. officials.

Read the whole piece and then ask yourself what “significant changes” to U.S. Iraq policy promised today by Stephen Hadley could possibly put the genie of sectarian violence back in the bottle.

American allies in the Middle East “near state of panic.”

National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley today promised “significant changes” to U.S. Iraq policy, but the Wall Street Journal reports in tomorrow’s edition that senior White House officials say that the ouster of Don Rumsfeld was “misinterpreted as a sign that a significant shift is coming.”

So there you have it. Significant changes but no significant shifts.

It’s been almost a month now since the announcement of Rumsfeld’s resignation. Most of that time has been occupied with a tragicomic guessing game about what our Iraq policy will be heading into 2007. What will the Iraq Study Group recommend? Will the President heed its recommendations? What is Robert Gates’ thinking on Iraq? Will we make a last big push or moonwalk out?

The President and his top aides have been divorced from the reality of Iraq since even before the invasion, but I have a growing sense that our entire political system is similarly disconnected from the scope of the problem.

Most of the public discourse on Iraq is a peculiar blend of small-bore tactical discussions (20,000 more troops? 30,000?) and political odds-making (how will John McCain’s call for more troops play in 2008?). In alarmingly low supply is serious discussion about the broader strategic objectives of U.S. policy. Absent such discussion, tactical decisions become random short-term fixes (at best), and domestic political support will never coalesce for the long slog still ahead.

Michael Isikoff reports that there are videotapes of the interrogation of Jose Padilla.

Update: A more prosaic videotape has also emerged, of a shackled Padilla going to the dentist for a root canal.

Iraq strategy and the problem of psychological entrapment:

[Wesleyan University psychologist Scott] Plous sees the U.S. dilemma about what military course to take in Iraq as a perfect example of psychological entrapment — on a national scale.

“What is remarkable is that the war in Iraq is a kind of super trap that has all these elements,” Plous said. “Some weeks things look better, and then they look worse and then there is a setback. What we need is to take a step back and ask, ‘If we were faced with the choice today without sunk costs, what decision would we make?’ “

Would-be Defense Secretary Robert Gates is raising eyebrows with his extensive ties to corporations, some of whom have snagged no-bid Pentagon contracts. That and other news of the day in today’s Daily Muck.

AP: John Bolton to step down as U.N. ambassador.

Update: Here’s his resignation letter.

Days after he was outed by The Boston Globe for using illegal immigrants for yard work, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is no doubt eager to show he’s tough on immigration. So how about a new policy?