Is it too late to pick a new committee chair?

December 9, 2006

Back in August, we learned from former Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith that the president, shortly before he ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003, did not understand the religious differences at the heart of Iraqi society. As Galbraith explained, Bush met with three Iraqi Americans, who quickly realized that the president was unfamiliar with the distinction between [tag]Sunnis[/tag] and [tag]Shiites[/tag]. After a lengthy discussion, [tag]Bush[/tag] allegedly said, “I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!”

It was, of course, another one of those amusing-yet-believable anecdotes that leads to questions about the president’s competence, particularly before a war in which these religious differences would be fairly important, but at it appears policy makers at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue aren’t much better. In either party.

We all had a good laugh back in October when Jeff Stein, the national security editor at Congressional Quarterly, had a fascinating piece on the subject in the NYT. He highlighted the fact the vice chairman of the House intelligence subcommittee on technical and tactical intelligence and the chairwoman House intelligence subcommittee charged with overseeing the CIA’s performance in recruiting Islamic spies and analyzing information — both Republicans — hadn’t any idea about the differences between Sunnis and Shiites, nor a firm grasp on which relevant players and countries embraced which tradition.

Ha, I thought at the time, aren’t these Republican lawmakers incompetent. These guys are given enormous responsibilities to understand the challenges we face in the Middle East, and they aren’t even sure about the basics, such as what faith al Qaeda is. Just wait, I thought, until Dems get in there and show them what competency looks like.

Perhaps I was a little hasty.

Stein sat down with Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), soon to be the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and started asking him some of the same basic questions Republicans got wrong a couple of months ago. It didn’t go well.

Al Qaeda is what, I asked, Sunni or Shia?

‘”Al Qaeda, they have both,” Reyes said. “You’re talking about predominately?”

“Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“Predominantly — probably Shiite,” he ventured.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Al Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an al Qaeda club house, they’d slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball.

Asked later about Hezbollah, Reyes said, “Hezbollah. Uh, Hezbollah… Well, I, uh….”

Now, it’s worth noting that Reyes wasn’t completely lost. Stein noted that Reyes, unlike the House Republicans he talked to a couple of months ago, “knows that the 1,400- year-old split in Islam between Sunnis and Shiites not only fuels the militias and death squads in Iraq, it drives the competition for supremacy across the Middle East between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia.” The GOP didn’t even know this much, so Reyes is a little better off.

But in the end, he was still shaky on some pretty basic details. When the typical person on the street doesn’t know about al Qaeda’s or Hezbollah’s beliefs, he or she can be forgiven. When the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee doesn’t know, one has to wonder what members of Congress have been doing the last four years.

What’s more, it’s also worth remembering that this is the same Reyes who inexplicably agrees with John McCain’s plan to send tens of thousands of additional troops to Iraq.

Harman looked too hawkish, Hastings looked like he had some ethical baggage, and Reyes looks … how do I put this gently … not terribly impressive right now.

Is it too late to see who’s behind Door #4?

Saunnah/Sunni and Shi’a/Shiite divisions are to Islam, what Catholicism and Protestantism are to Christianity. Except for all the tortured lives and deaths caused by such theological divisions down through the centuries, I can’t think of anything more trivial and pointless than such airy and irrelevant disagreements. Our Founding Fathers knew what they were doing when they pushed religion off center stage. Too bad we’ve recently forgotten their wisdom.

  • Oh, Jesus. Our rulers are dumber than stumps. How can you fight an enemy if you don’t even know who they are?

    One of the biggest reasons the U.S. needs to stop starting wars in the Middle East is because our leaders are too damn stupid to know how to fight them. Just back away, respond to actual attacks/threats on the U.S., and stop screwing up the rest of the world.

  • It’s one thing to have a thin appreciation for history. There’s just so much past how can anyone ever know all of it? But to have less than rudimentary knowledge about one of the most important challenges facing our world IN THE PRESENT is inexcusable and is an embarrassment.

    In what other industry is ignorance and incompetence so willfully tolerated? Every other profession requires certain levels of knowledge and when said levels are not met there are consequences (not getting hired, getting fired, having to read a book), as there should be. In politics, it seems the consequences are far less stringent, if they manifest at all.

  • Makes one wonder what kind of briefings the Armed Services and Select Intelligence Committees are getting. Then again, Reyes has an absentee problem. Wasn”t he one of the worst 10 when it comes to showing up for votes last year? Great.

  • In our country nothing succeeds like failure, apparently. We give Presidential Medals of Freedom to utter nincompoops while making government service as unattractive as possible (and driving out independent thought, gays, anyone with real talent). Is this a twisted variant of Gresham’s Law or just the sociopolitical application of it?

  • Reyes, unlike the House Republicans he talked to a couple of months ago, “knows that the 1,400- year-old split in Islam between Sunnis and Shiites not only fuels the militias and death squads in Iraq, it drives the competition for supremacy across the Middle East between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia.”

    what does this say about this guy’s deductive reasoning ability? The head of Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, is a Saudi. 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi. we know that he knows that Saudi = Sunni. So why should it even occur to him that Al Qaeda is Shiite?

  • OK.

    So Sylvester ain’t the sharpest knife in the drawer (actually, it’s unknown if there’re any other shivs in there), BUT…

    He’s what we’ve got, and we better start educating him.

  • The difference between Sunni and Shiite is more more like differences between Catholics and Lutherans that has evolved into the differences between Evangelicals and Satanists.

  • And these guys have huge staffs to prepare them any report they want. How about one entitled, “10 Quick Facts about Iraq”. Or 10 Stops from appearing Stupid.

  • I’m not sure that Reyes is the only one confused. I would not have answered that Al Qaeda is Sunni. Why? Because I thought that Osama bin Laden is heavily influenced by the Wahabi fundamentalism in Saudi Arabia. My understanding is that the Saudi royal family is predominately Sunni, but many Saudi subjects are Wahabi (gosh, I hope I’ve remembered the correct term!). Sunni and Shiite are just two traditions/sects that predominate within Islam. If I remember correctly, Sunni predominance within Al Qaeda is particular to Iraq. Elsewhere, I don’t believe that that is the case. So, it is entirely possible that Reyes knew what he was talking about.

  • I’m now a bit troubled by Reyes. When he came out in favor of sending more troops to Iraq, it didn’t bother me because his motives weren’t suspect. With this latest revelation his motives still aren’t suspect, but his competence is.

    Here is a demographic score card on the Shia-Sunni split. Sunnis are the dominant sect world wide. Shia are a large majority only in Iran. In Iraq the Shia are a small majority. Saudi Arabia is about 90% Sunni.
    Here is a discussion of Wahabi fundamentalism as it pertains to Saudi Arabia.

    Wahhabism was revived by the 18th-century teacher Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab in the Arabian peninsula, and was instrumental in the rise of the House of Saud to power. Wahhabism is a puritanical and legalistic Islamic movement under the Sunni umbrella, and is the dominant form of Islam in Saudi Arabia. In addition to the Qur’an and hadith, it also accepts various commentaries including Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s Kitab al-Tawhid (“Book of Monotheism”), and the works of the earlier scholar Ibn Taymiyya. They are often associated with the Hanbali maddha

    A complete discussion of the various sects within Islam is here.

    Finally, here’s the rap on al Qeada.

    Al-Qaeda or al-Qaida (القاعدة, translit: al-Qā`ida; “the Law”, “the foundation”, or “the base”) is an armed Sunni Islamist organization with the stated objective of eliminating foreign influence in Muslim countries, eradicating those they deem to be “infidels”, and reestablishing the caliphate. The most prominent members of the group are adherents of Wahhabism or Salafism, two understandings of Islam which have influenced militant groups. While Osama bin Laden is generally recognized as the group’s leader, the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri has also had a main influence on the groups theory and practice. The group’s operations are not centralized, and many independent and collaborative cells may exist in multiple countries linked by a common cause.

  • I’m disturbed by this post, but a question I’d like to see answered is “Does Reyes want to know?” After the Bush Administration’s intellectual incuriousity and “We know all we need to know” standofishness, I’d at least be happier to see leaders in Congress admitting where they lack knowledge but eager to know more and make better decisions. It’s one thing to be ignorant, but it’s quite another to proudly remain that way

  • petorado, if he were new to the game I’d be willing to cut him the same slack as you are willing to. Unfortunately, we are stuck with him and we will only learn the answer to your question in the course of his doing or not doing his job.

  • Well the bright side is I don’t think the Muslims have any idea how many sects Christians are divided into either. Should make for a hell of a holy war. May be Armageddon is not a myth after all.

  • The view from out here at Homeless on the High Desert is that our Senator Smith has suddenly realized that he may very well be hitting the unemployment line in the near future, and as any competent public trough feeder would, is reassessing his uhhhmmm, … position.

    What exactly is it we need, east of The Rockies?

  • Reyes is a COMPROMISE. Rather than Harmon, who represents a big chunk of the Millitary Industrial Complex, and AIPAC, and votes like it, we got a second-stringer who may or may not already need to know what he needs to know. He may have misspoke — and he may be just as bad as Harmon in his views on policy, and ignorant to boot, but that’s how compromise goes.

    It’s a caucus. If you think you can win all the compromises, good on you, but you’re nuts.

  • “In Iraq the Shia are a small majority.”

    Of Muslims in Iraq?

    It’s a 65-35 split. Not a small majority.

    And, more critically, Shia is a regional supermajority in the South, with major ties to Iran going back decades.

    Sunni Iraqis are in desperate shape, which is why the Saud princes are riding to the rescue, in their horror at being screwed by Bushco, who promised to keep Iraq locked down, and not to let the Sunni’s be slaughtered en masse (though they said nothing about the several pogroms by US forces in Anbar),

    Ultimately, the Ugliness of the Middle East power arrangement is that religion is only meaningful when it allows you to kill your enemy. When it comes to defending your co-religionists, or giving them a lamb sandwich when they’re starving — f’get about it.

  • Not to dump on the Looney Star State or anyhting but… How far is Reyes’ constituency from Crawford? Maybe it’s something in the water?

  • Since we need to pass a test on the rules of the road to get a driver’s license, why not manditory testing of congressmen (and the president) in basic mid-east geopolitics before they drive the nation into a ditch.

  • “Not to dump on the Looney Star State or anyhting but… How far is Reyes’ constituency from Crawford?” — libra

    El Paso, which is in West Texas.

    Waco, and Crawford, are in Central Texas.

    This guy is a longhorn. He’ll probably gore the bastards for hanging the Army out to dry in Iraq. That doesn’t mean that he grasps the ME situation — he is more involved with the domestic aspect of our military arrangements.

    Wikipedia: “Reyes was a key player in the 109th Congress because of his Immigration and Border Patrol experience. He was instrumental in leading the opposition to the House immigration proposal proposed by James Sensenbrenner, H.R. 4437. Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi selected Reyes to present and lead the debate on a Democratic substitute to replace the Sensenbrenner legislation, which was voted down on a party line vote.”

  • What Hankster said In what other industry is ignorance and incompetence so willfully tolerated?

    This is like hiring a doctor to take our your appendix and finding out he’s not really sure what the difference is between an appendix and a gall bladder. If we don’t get this guy out, and (I am afraid) Pelosi too, we are screwed. Our side will be making the same kind of mistakes BushCo has been making, because if the leadership doesn’t know how to spot incompetence, they won’t know which of their advisers to listen to, and we’re going to kill lots of people who don’t need to die.

    The system is badly broken. So how could this be fixed…?

    OK, here’s an idea, it’s not a panacea but it would help enormously… Let’s have standardized tests for politicians. I for one am really, really tired of finding out that our leaders don’t know squat about the subjects we hire them to make decisions on, and that they only seem to know one thing: how to get re-elected.

    This should be fairly easy to do. Put together a list of the top 20 issues concerning Americans, and then a bipartisan panel to create a basic test which can measure the strength of each party’s members on these topics. Test them as we test every other professional class of people.

    Give every member a grade on each subject, especially the ones like committee chairs who are supposed to know WTF they’re doing, and provide US with the results. After the test, post the test questions and answers online. If they refuse to take the test, flunk ’em.

    These people seem to think we don’t care if they’re idiots, as long as they’re OUR idiots. I think those days need to be over a long time ago.

  • Reyes represents us, is one of us, so he is the same result of the same mores which delivered the same education system. What did you all expect? It matters not how many staff they have because the staff are the products of the same dumbed-down, arrogant education system

    What did Saddam know in 1990 that no American under 45 knew? The answer is “How to find Kuwait on a map!”

    Telling ourselves for the past sixty years that we are perfect and all-powerful, that we do not have to know anything about the world and how all “those other peoples’ minds work” is why we are now in our mess.

  • Racerx, I’d suggest that in addition to a current events test that we make all candidates for federal office take the same test which immigrants must pass to become new citizens.

    It may difficult to do this legislatively, but perhaps we could replace the presidential debates with a series of “Jeporadey” like contests between the contenders. “Tim, I’ll take treaty obligations for $400.”

  • No congressmen let behind.. Have their scores on national standardized tests be posted annually and if they fail to make progress each year to mastery then they are given remedial assistance and spend most of their time preparing for the next test.

  • Using our politicians’ own logic with respect to kids, teachers, and schools, perhaps we should tie their success on the tests (raw score and annual improvements) to $$$ in pork and raises?

  • N. Wells, Here is a thought. Why not stage a series of televised contests-a tournament which would be designed to test general knowledge, reasoning ability, and management skills- in which the candidates vie for federal campaign dollars. It make more sense than tying those dollars the ability to raise private funds.

  • “How can you fight an enemy if you don’t even know who they are?” – Steve-e

    Please, that’s not the basic question. How do you make friends and avoid making enemies, which is the basic premise of diplomacy, when you don’t know the countries in the region. We went to war with Afghanistan because they were harboring al-Qaeda. Fine, good enough. Really enemy.

    We went to war with Saddam dispite the fact that he HATES al-Qaeda. And despite the fact we are at war with a Sunni-based jihadist shariaist caliphatist organization the Bushites seem to think the next two countries to fight are Shi’a Iran and Syria.

    The collective stupidity of the Bushites is astonding.

  • rege’s test works for me, but maybe add an extra section for extra credit.

    I sure would like to see intelligence raised as a virtue, instead of “would like to have a beer with”.

    Granted, intelligence is not the only thing that qualifies a candidate, you can be intelligent and evil (i.e. Newt, Rove, Cheney), but it would be nice to know that the politicians at least know what reality IS before they start spinning their approach to it. We’re currently in an age where reality isn’t accepted as objectively verifiable, where opinions count as much as empirical facts.

    I guess that is the premise of Al Gore’s new book.

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