The purpose of these essays is to elucidate the behind the scenes maneuverings which shape current political events; or in other words, to present information that anticipates what are likely to become the headlines of the future. The title of the current one was prompted by a cryptic remark in a “Dear Judy” letter that was sent by I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby to the New York Times reporter Judith Miller who sat in jail for refusing to divulge the name of her source in the Valerie Plame “outing.” The letter expressed surprise that she had not taken him up on his earlier offer to waive his right to confidentiality and ended with,

“You went into jail in the summer. It is fall now. You will have stories to cover – Iraqi elections and suicide bombings, biological threats and the Iranian nuclear program. Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters because their roots connect them [italics added]. Come back to work – and life. Until then, you will remain in my thoughts and prayers.

With admiration, Scooter Libby.”

            Judy Miller took the advice and named Scooter as her source. He was indicted by Patrick Fitzgerald’s grand jury and she thought that she would be welcomed with open arms by her newspaper for having defended the freedom of the press. This hope didn’t last long because it had become apparent that she had simply used the New York Times as a mouthpiece for the administration in its justification for the Iraq invasion. The Editor-in- Chief did not take kindly to this abuse of her credentials and she was suspended from her job. The Times had been confronted with other shills in the recent past and wanted to regain its image of respectability. Thus “Scooter’s” enigmatic words were indeed prophetic and the connected roots are gradually being recognized.

            This is why the American public has to get to know Professor Wohlstetter and his little band of devout followers. His biography reveals an illustrious career. Wikipedia (free on line encyclopedia) states that he was:

“One of the world's leading nuclear and national security strategists. His studies led to the "second-strike" and "Fail-Safe" concepts for deterring nuclear war. These and other methods reduced the probability of accidental war. Wohlstetter was affiliated with institutions such as the European-American Institute, the Hoover Institution, and PAN Heuristics Services. He received the Medal of Freedom for his contributions toward national security. He earned degrees from Columbia University and later taught at UCLA and UC Berkeley and then for many years at the University of Chicago’s Political Science Department. It was in this capacity that he became the inspiration for a number of students who subsequently rose to prominence in the Reagan and the current Bush administration [italics added].”

In an obituary on January 16, 1997 his friend Jude Wanniski wrote:

“Albert never had a serious challenger at the top of the intellectual pyramid, right up until the end of the Cold War. He remained unknown, except to the inner circles of power in our country, because he saw no need to become a public man when his function was to design the grand strategy that would bring military victory over the Soviet Union without a nuclear shot having to be fired. . . . For all practical purposes every editorial on America’s geopolitical strategy that appeared in The Wall Street Journal during the last 25 years was the result of Albert’s genius. If Henry Kissinger was the leading leader of the ‘dove team’ in foreign policy over much of this period, stressing diplomatic stratagems, Wohlstetter was the undisputed  leader of the ‘hawk team,’ which stressed military moves of breathtaking creativity and imagination. . . . . President Reagan’s ‘end game’ with Moscow in the Cold War, replete with ‘Star Wars’ initiatives and the idea of targeting Soviet missile silos with inexpensive ‘smart bombs’ that were chemical, not nuclear, were all advanced as part of the bag of tricks Albert and Roberta [his surviving wife, historian, and co-recipient of the Medal of Freedom] brought to the table.”

Wanniski listed as some of the people who were most influenced by Wohlstetter not only Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Senators Henry “Scoop” Jackson and Robert Dole but also Margaret Thatcher. Well, that was eight years ago. Today the senators and Maggie are in retirement but among others of Wohlstetter’s admirers the unlikely name of Ahmad Chalabi would have to be included.

I now intend to piece together, from a large group of diverse Internet articles as well as the book Pretext for War by James Bamford, how a coalition of devoted Jewish Zionists and a secular Arab Shiite managed to recruit not only our government, but also the media for their purposes. This “cabal,” as they “mockingly” called themselves, according to The New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh (May12, 2003) has led us into Iraq and now intends to reshape the rest of the Middle East in their image with “Wohlstetterian” methods.

When the Cold War ended and the rest of the world breathed a sigh of relief the neocons found themselves not only out of power but also bereft of a target to which they could apply their belief system. But since the membership of that unofficial group is composed of people who have strong emotional ties to the state of Israel it was natural to attempt to direct American public opinion to the threat Arab terrorists posed for that country. This was done not only with the help of AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), which lobbied Congress for favorable legislation (“Scoop” Jackson was their foremost benefactor), but also either by becoming the dominant force in existing “think tanks” or forming new ones. Numerous groups with a variety of names and acronyms began to sprout and it would take several articles to discuss all of them. I shall, therefore, limit myself only to some of the most influential. Among these are: The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). It should not come as a surprise that many of the people involved in these two organizations are members of both because the goals are currently the same. To put them succinctly: American and Israeli interests are identical in regard to the Middle East and the current regimes have to be replaced by democratic ones. This will not only provide security for the state of Israel but also unlimited access to the Middle East’s oil supply for the U.S.    

The driving force behind AEI was Richard Perle and his role in the creation of the position paper for incoming President Netanyahu in 1996 has already been discussed in The Neocons Leviathan (April 1, 2003). The idea to completely reshape the Middle East was first put forth as a strategy for incoming President Netanyahu in 1996 under the title “A Clean Break: A new Strategy for Securing the Realm.” The document advocated as Israel’s foreign policy: regime change in Iraq, Iran and Syria; a missile defense system, and to lobby for the move of the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. “Prime Minister Netanyahu can formulate the policies and stress themes he favors in language familiar to the Americans by tapping into the themes of American administrations during the Cold War which apply well to Israel.”

Among the participants in this Study Group on "A New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000” we find listed not only “Richard Perle, American Enterprise Institute, Study Group Leader,” but also “Douglas Feith, Feith and Zell Associates; David Wurmser, Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies; Meyrav Wurmser, Johns Hopkins University.” Mr. Perle has become somewhat embattled over the years because of financial improprieties but he remains the power behind the throne, Douglas Feith quit his law practice with Mr. Zell and became deputy to Paul Wolfowitz in the Pentagon, while David Wurmser, whose wife Meyrav is an Israeli citizen, ended up as principal Middle East advisor in Vice President Cheney’s office.

Let us remember that this strategy paper was written by American citizens to the Prime Minister of a foreign country. For Perle and like-minded friends this was, however, only a trial run and to implement their goals they had to ensure that these ideas not only became Israel’s policy but also of America’s. For this purpose another think tank was created in the spring of 1997 which called itself “The Project for the New American Century.” It is listed as “a non-profit educational organization whose goal it is to promote American global leadership.” The Chairman is William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard and son of Irving Kristol, the original Neoconservative. The goals were simple: America is the only remaining superpower; it must increase rather than decrease its military strength in order to ensure that this status will be preserved for decades to come. Any perceived threat should be met in a “preemptive” manner by overpowering military force, with allies when available without them when not, and democracy needs to be spread throughout the world. This “hawkish” view was not popular in the Clinton administration of 1997 but became the “Bush doctrine’ in 2001.

Another influential group is the “Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs” (JINSA). It was actually established in the wake of the Yom Kippur war in 1973 when Kissinger fell from grace with some members of the Jewish community because he brokered the armistice deal between Israel and Egypt which prevented Sharon from marching to Cairo and forced him to withdraw to the Israeli side of the Suez Canal. The organization lists itself as “non-profit nonpartisan” and the goals are:

“1) To educate the American public about the importance of an effective U.S. defense capability so that our vital interests as Americans can be safeguarded; and

2) To inform the American defense and foreign affairs community about the important role Israel can and does play in bolstering democratic interests in the Mediterranean and the Middle East.”

It is noteworthy that JINSA’s first executive director was Michael Ledeen, of whom more will be said later. Some of the other former advisory board members were: Dick Cheney, John Bolton (currently America’s ambassador to the UN), Richard Perle and Douglas Feith.  JINSA together with AEI became the leading force for the Iraq invasion.  On September 13, 2001 JINSA published a position paper under the title, “This Goes Beyond Bin Laden.” The key sentences are:

            “A long investigation to prove Osama Bin Laden’s guilt with prosecutorial certainty is entirely unnecessary. He is guilty in word and deed. His history is the source of his culpability. The same holds true for Saddam Hussein. Our actions in the past certainly were not forceful enough and now we must seize the opportunity to alter this pattern of passivity.

In response to the attack on September 11, 2001 JINSA calls on the United States to:

Halt all purchases of Iraqi oil under the UN Oil for Food Program and to provide all necessary support to the Iraqi National Congress, including direct American military support [emphasis in the original], to effect a regime change in Iraq . . .“

Phase one of the Neocons program to reshape the Middle East, by first eliminating Saddam Hussein, was now within grasp. Saddam had been a long standing irritant and the 1991 Gulf War was regarded as a botched enterprise because it had left him in power. The goal now was to remove Saddam by military intervention and establish a proxy regime that is not only friendly to the U.S. but also to Israel. This is where Perle’s and Wolfowitz’s long standing friend Ahmad Chalabi came in who had been introduced to them by Albert Wohlstetter.

Dr. Chalabi has a long and rather checkered career. He was born into a wealthy Iraqi Shiite family that had held prominent posts in the government until the socialist Baath party took over. From then on he has lived abroad mainly in London, where he obtained UK citizenship, and the U.S. He studied mathematics at the University of Chicago and MIT, received a PhD in that field and became a professor of mathematics at the American University of Beirut. He then moved to Jordan where he established the Petra Bank in 1977. The bank collapsed in 1990, Chalabi fled the country under mysterious circumstances and was sentenced in absentia to 22 year in prison by a Jordanian court for embezzling vast sums of money. Chalabi has always maintained that he was falsely accused and the plot to discredit him was organized by Saddam. It is not known when his first contact with the CIA was established but it may even have been when he was a student at MIT or Chicago. I am mentioning this as a possibility because during the Cold War the CIA was in the habit of contacting foreign students for information about their home country and I had some chats with one of their agents during my post-graduate training at the Mayo Clinic. I was never spy material but I can’t blame them for trying to recruit me.

Chalabi, however, had an ax to grind and while in exile in London he founded in 1992 the Iraqi National Congress (INC) which would allow him to topple Saddam. The money obviously came from the CIA and the goal was to repeat the mujahideen scenario that had so effectively driven the Soviets out of Afghanistan. Chalabi returned in the middle 90’s to the Kurdish northern part of Iraq where he allied himself with one of the two Kurdish separatist parties, with the hope that members of the Iraqi army would defect and rally to his cause. Not only did this fantasy not pan out, but the other Kurdish faction, who did not like Chalabi and his supporters, invited Saddam’s tanks to come in. They made short shrift of this enterprise and Chalabi had to flee the country a second time. This ought to have told our policy planners something about Chalabi’s effectiveness when actions rather than words are required.  He again maintained that it was the CIA’s fault for not having supported his efforts sufficiently. But the Clinton administration was hardly interested in starting a war in the Middle East, which would have been the inevitable outcome.

The CIA not only lost its confidence in Chalabi because of his lack of military talents, but there was again the problem that he couldn’t properly account for all the money they fed into the INC. Nevertheless, whatever one may want to say against the man he is not only a survivor, but also a highly determined individual who doesn’t take no for an answer. When the CIA cut him loose, his friends at AEI did not desert him and he became their poster boy for lobbying efforts in Congress. The crowning success came with the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998 which Clinton reluctantly signed because, as a result of the Lewinsky affair, he was in no position to pick a fight with Congress. One hundred million dollars were allocated to the INC and, although only some was actually distributed, it was never quite clear to the State Department where the money actually went and what good it did. It seems that Dr. Chalabi not only lacks military prowess but also fiscal responsibility. The idea of a swift overthrow of Saddam by INC forces, although vigorously supported by the AEI as well as AJNS, was thoroughly discredited in a January/February 1999 article written by Daniel Byman, Kenneth Pollack and Gideon Rose for the authoritative magazine Foreign Affairs under the title: “The Rollback Fantasy.”

But when the Bush administration took over in January of 2001 and members of the “cabal” had moved into the seats of power Chalabi’s INC was again in the pink. The money now flowed freely for an intelligence gathering program through his friends in the Pentagon to the tune of a monthly stipend of $335,000. It is common knowledge today that most of this “intelligence information” was bogus but it served the purposes of the AEI as well as AJNS, and Chalabi defended it after the invasion with the simple statement that: Americans are in Baghdad now.

A key point in gaining the support of Congress and the public for the Iraq invasion was Saddam’s purported possession of WMDs and his work on reconstituting a nuclear program. This information, as we now know came from a small group of people in the Pentagon which Douglas Feith had created under the name of “Office of Special Plans.” Its task was to sift from existing CIA, State Department and the Defense department’s intelligence gathering agencies, those data that fit their purposes and discard qualifiers which the official agencies had inserted in their reports. In addition Chalabi’s INC presented data from defectors much of it was unsubstantiated and had been discredited by the official spy agencies. But that was not all.  It has also been reported that Prime Minister Sharon had set up a similar group under his own auspices in Israel which could bypass the Mossad, work directly with the Feith group, and become a straight “pipeline” via Wurmser and Libby to the Vice President.

As mentioned the September 11, 2001 tragedy was literally a gift from heaven for the people who had a longstanding interest in reshaping the Middle East and they wasted no time to use this human tragedy for their purposes. The American people had to be scared with visions of a mushroom cloud over American cities that would be created by Saddam unless he was immediately removed from power. This is where “The Niger Forgery” (August 1, 2003, on this site) played such a crucial role and why the Patrick Fitzgerald grand jury investigation is so important. Defenders of the administration belittle the prosecutor’s efforts because after nearly two years he could indict only Libby and not even for the crime of leaking the identity of a covert CIA agent but “only” for perjury and obstruction of justice.  As Mortimer Zuckerman Editor-in-Chief of U.S. News and World Report wrote under the headline: Foul-ups – Not Felonies: “To impugn the integrity of our leading officials and poison the atmosphere in which this country is fighting a war is irresponsible politics, and it ought to be stopped.”

This is not so, unless the American people are told the full truth by its leadership, there can be no trust and without trust the President cannot effectively represent us at home or abroad. The names of the persons in the White House who leaked secret information are actually not as important as how these forgeries were perpetrated and then became the casus belli. For that answer we have to go to Dr. Michael Ledeen (currently Karl Rove’s foreign policy advisor and first CEO of JINSA) which surprisingly leads us back to the Regan administration’s ill fated Iran-Contra affair.

The Jewish Virtual Library informs us that:

“Israel’s involvement was stimulated by separate overtures in 1985 from Iranian arms merchant Manucher Ghorbanifar and National Security Council (NSC) consultant Michael Ledeen, the latter working for National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane. When Ledeen asked Prime Minister Shimon Peres for assistance, the Israel leader agreed to sell weapons to Iran at America’s behest, providing the sale had high-level U.S. approval.”

Victor Ostrovsky, a former Mossad officer, provided a more detailed view of that affair in his book By Way of Deception. Radical Muslims were kidnapping Westerners in Beirut, including the American CIA station Chief, William Buckley, and the Reagan administration wanted them freed. Initially the Mossad was contacted and although Prime Minister Peres promised full cooperation, Nahum Admony, the Mossad director, was not particularly eager to do so. Peres then decided to use his personal counter-terrorist advisor, Amiram Nir, as go between. Nir contacted Oliver North, brought him together with Manucher Ghorbanifar and the deal was on. We sold missiles to Iran, some hostages were released and money was diverted to fund the anti-Sandinista Contras. Israel also turned a profit by “secretly selling about $500 million worth of arms to Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini.” Further details are in the mentioned “Niger Forgery” article.

This happened in 1986 and the sequel took place in 2001. The Bush administration had already decided to use the 9-11 tragedy to enact the program of the AEI and JINSA to reshape the Middle East and a viable excuse was needed. Michael Ledeen, who holds a doctorate in History and Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin, was the perfect person to lend a helping hand. He was the Rome correspondent for the New Republic from 1975-1977, had developed excellent contacts there, knew all the people in the Italian intelligence community, and had stayed in touch with them. This is the point where the forged Niger documents come in. During the New Year’s holiday of 2001 a break-in had occurred at the Niger embassy in Rome. The office was messed up but nothing was stolen except some letterheads and official seals. The Italians investigated but no conclusions were reached. In December of that year, Ledeen organized a meeting in Rome which was attended by him, Larry Franklin (then working under Douglas Feith in the Pentagon and currently indicted for spying for Israel), Harold Rhode (works for Feith’s Office of Special Plans and as liaison to Chalabi), Manucher Ghorbanifar (the Iranian arms dealer), as well as from the Italian side Nicolo Pollari (head of the Italian CIA equivalent SISMI) and Antonio Martino (Italy’s Minister of Defense, but apparently unrelated to Rocco Martino who will figure later). What these people discussed is not known at this time but that Iraq, as well as possibly Iran, was on the agenda does not require a leap of faith.

But Ledeen had other contacts in Italy as well, and two of these were Francesco Pazienza, an Italian felon and forger who had been kicked out of SISMI, and Rocco Martino who had contacts with French intelligence sources and was engaged in peddling the forgery to the highest bidder. The Italians are still investigating this whole affair as well as other CIA operations that were illegal under Italian law. The current official explanation by the FBI is that Rocco Martino had acted independently, solely for financial gain and no further investigation is needed. Who did the actual forging is still unknown, and Martino’s bogus information peddling is not likely to be the whole truth.

While our media intermittently report on the new Patrick Fitzgerald grand jury, there is a parallel investigation going on of which the American public is hardly informed. For the past several years United States Attorney Paul McNulty has conducted a grand jury investigation into the unauthorized release of secret documents from the Pentagon to Israel. On August 4, 2005 Larry Franklin (member of the Ledeen Rome meeting) was indicted for that offense and in November two key members of AIPAC, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, were added. In other words: Douglas Feith’s Office of Special Plans for which Franklin worked is now potentially exposed as a spy ring for the State of Israel. Although the Fitzgerald and McNulty investigations proceed separately they do involve the same “cluster of aspens,” to use Libby’s words and this ought to be headline news. The fact that it is not tells us something about how our media still toe the government line. As of now we don’t know how far the two prosecutors will be allowed to proceed. They do report, after all, to the Justice Department and Alberto Gonzales, their boss, is hardly a disinterested bystander. He worked for the Bush White House and is responsible for providing the legal cover that allowed the torture of captives (Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo) in the War on Terrorism.

An honest investigation into the past is, however, not an academic exercise but essential because the same people who pushed this country into the Iraq war are now fomenting another one with Iran and Syria. In the first flush of “Mission Accomplished” JINSA published an address by Michael Ledeen on May 6, 2003 entitled: “Time to Focus on Iran – the Mother of Modern Terrorism.” His concluding remark was: “the time for diplomacy is at the end [sic]; it is time for a free Iran, free Syria and free Lebanon.”

Ledeen is serious about this and in order to understand the man one needs to read his book: The War against the Terror Masters. Why it happened. Where we are now. How we’ll win. The book was originally published in 2002, prior to the Iraq invasion and the paperback edition was updated in 2003. According to Ledeen the way to success has been mapped out by Machiavelli 500 years ago and his methods need to be adopted by the U.S. He emphasizes 5 points of the Machiavelli doctrine: “1) Man is more inclined to do evil than good. 2) The only important thing is winning. 3) If we have to do unpleasant things, it is best to do them all at once. 4) It is better to be feared than loved. 5) Luck can wreck the finest plans.” These ideas were appropriate to suggest to the Borgias of Florence as well as folks like Stalin, Hitler, Mao Ze Dong and most recently Saddam; but is this what the American people want from their government? Let me emphasize that these are only some of the views held by the person who advises Karl Rove. For the full flavor one needs to read the book and it is obvious that whatever he wrote there was followed to the letter via Rove by the President.

Since Americans are currently not inclined to invade Syria and/or Iran unrest has to be fomented in theses countries so that the people will overthrow their rulers by themselves with the CIA’s help. Saudi Arabia is also on Ledeen’s list because it finances Madrassas which recruit terrorists. For the “cabal” the key to success in Iraq resides still in Chalabi and the State Department as well as General Garner (our first Iraqi administrator) are criticized even by the Vice President for not having installed him as America’s Vice-Roy as soon as our troops entered Baghdad. That Chalabi’s “Free Iraqi Forces” happily participated in the looting that went on in those days, we are not told. In 2004 his fortunes waned again. He was accused of spying for the Iranians, his generous stipend was cut off and an FBI investigation against him is under way. This did not deter him from becoming a Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq earlier this year and to visit the U.S. in November. His AEI and JINSA sponsors are still working full steam and he was enthusiastically received at a speech before the AEI as its invited guest at the most appropriate venue: the Wohlstetter Conference Center. The transcript of that speech is available on the Internet and it is obvious why he is the darling of the neocons and the Vice President. He says all the right things including privatization of Iraq’s oil industry. This is of course music to Mr. Cheney’s and his friends’ ears because it is obvious that it won’t be the Europeans or Russians who will get the contracts. The same applies, of course, to the rest of rebuilding Iraq’s battered infrastructure. Carpetbaggers, similar to what went on here after the South had lost its war of independence, are already flooding the country

Chalabi’s trip to the U.S. was obviously a fund-raiser for his campaign to become Prime Minister of Iraq, which is in direct conflict with his repeated assertions that he regards his job as finished when Saddam is overthrown. The fly in the ointment is Machiavelli’s point 5. Luck has a tendency to run out. Although Chalabi is a superb snake oil salesman he will not be able to govern a truly democratic Iraq even if he were to be elected later in the month. His past record speaks against him. There are three likely scenarios: assassination, flight if it were to become imminent, or ruling the country á la Saddam. Democracy does not seem to be in the cards for the long suffering Iraqis in the near future.

It is obvious that in spite of the official party line which proclaims as our only goal the liberation of the oppressed from tyranny, there are more mundane motives. The goal apparently is twofold 1) to create client states in the Persian Gulf area, 2) to export our brand of unbridled capitalism. While Pizza Huts, Starbucks and Radio Shacks are innocuous, the sales of arms and exploitation of local resources for our benefit is not. Americans don’t see themselves in this light but the rest of the world does. The idea, as currently practiced in the U.S., that the value of human beings is to be determined by the rise and fall of stock market shares, rather than the quality of work they produce, should not be the world-wide future of humanity. Even in our country we ought to find a median between the excesses of capitalism, which operate exclusively on greed, and those of socialism which force human beings into an undifferentiated mass that stifles freedom of thought and ingenuity.

The American people are finally beginning to realize that they have been misled in the justification for the Iraq war, but they do not yet know the full extent of the conspiracy of this small group of Wohlstetter’s disciples that has been running the foreign policy of our country as an extension of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. There are, however, some hopeful signs. The State Department under Condi Rice is re-assuming the role that was wrested from it by the Pentagon in previous years. She is to be congratulated for the breakthrough in regard to the opening of the Gaza border which is a first step in the right direction. Since Israel will have elections next March it is unlikely that anything else can happen in regard to the West Bank in the meantime. At home even Congress seems now to be willing to re-assert its role as a separate branch of government. In view of the Fitzgerald and McNulty grand jury deliberations it should start its own truly bipartisan investigation of the “Office of Special Projects” and the associated spy scandal. With next year’s mid-term elections in the offing, Republicans would be well advised to fully cooperate with their Democrat colleagues in this endeavor before they also completely lose the trust of the voters. In the meantime our main hope will have to be that Fitzpatrick and McNulty will be allowed to bring into the open this den of deceit that has been allowed to take over our government.

The Wohlstetter disciples present a classic example of how behavior patterns that were once adaptive become maladaptive when circumstances change. The Soviet Union is gone and a military threat from a major world power, for which a military response might be required, is currently not present. To fight the so-called War on Terror with Wohlstetter‘s ideas is totally inappropriate. Circumstances change, and unless we adapt our responses so that they conform to the new realities we are inviting disaster.

In last year’s December installment I mentioned that the President’s re-election joy is likely to be short lived because there are too many failed policies and too many scandals which cannot be hushed up forever. In September of this year I suggested a speech for him on how to bolster his tattered reputation by announcing, among other aspects, a gradual phased troop withdrawal from Iraq after the mid-December election. He did not do so but it will now be forced upon him by Congress where mid-term elections will dictate his agenda. Unfortunately our President’s character has so far not allowed him to see the world realistically and although he now admits that “mistakes haven been made,” he still claims that “I will settle for nothing less than complete victory.” But he has not yet defined what he regards as “complete victory” and the methods to achieve it. Unless and until he does so he will preach to the choir and continue to lose the trust of the rest of the country.