A few further thoughts on the dilemma of trying to break the stranglehold of the Israeli lobby on the Iran issue. In its essence, it's a matter of political psychology. If you spend three years demonstrating in the most vivid ways possible that you're a patsy, as Obama has, your authority and influence to change attitudes obviously is undercut. If the rest of the political class has done the same (at least), the task is doubly difficult. Still if you don't want to be frog-marched over the cliff, you have to try to shift the weights in the equation.

1. Strongly affirm that you are the president of the American people who has sworn a solemn oath to provide for their well-being as you see it to the best of your ability . You are not just one of the crowd trying to elbow your way to the rostrum to make your voice held. Plant that seed and cultivate it assiduously.

2. At the same time foster the notion that the duty of all Americans is to participate in that process of shaping and executing national policy with the United States as their overriding point of reference. The aim of '1' & '2' is to break the momentum of runaway group emotions that implicitly subordinate these two precepts to passions which have been whipped into irrational exhuberance by calculating provocateurs.

3. Call out those those demagoues who rouse people who have allowed themselves to become a 'rabble' against their better instincts. Example: ask the AIPAC audience whether they truly agree with Liz Cheney's calumnies and if they do, why are they applauding him; and, if they don't, why did they applaud her? Shaming can be effective. Act a bit of Marc Anthony.

4. Thereby, weaken and/or drain away the support of the 'fellow travelers' and open a gap between them on the True Believers. Do the same with Congress and the media. Let the Republicans hang themselves or be lynched at the polls .

5. Make the connection between coercive confrontation, the current policy, and war itself which the country fears and loaths. You've already gone far out on the limb and climbing back won't be easy. But this line of approach could be used to lower the rhetorical temperature, drag out the process and amplify the significance of the new negotiations.

5. Believe in what you're doing - for a change.-

President Obama told the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC on Sunday that while containment of a nuclear Iran was not an option, there was "already too much loose talk of war."

The President is right. There is too much loose talk and often by those who know little about the consequences of war. Washington is often an echo chamber. Once an idea has been sent out there is sometimes little afterthought or even thinking about what the idea means. Sometimes ideas are sent out by certain people in power and “thought leaders” in such a way that any criticism of them is taboo per se, or at least it is perceived as such.

The United States looks to be on a perilous path to some sort of conflict in the region. Can we really define prior to the start of the conflict how it might end up and how it might morph into unexpected pathways? Can anyone judge right now what the reactions and counter-reactions would be to an attack on nuclear facilities? How many of the talking heads have considered the political fallout of an attack on Iran even if it goes “well”, never mind if it goes badly? How many talking heads have thought through the health, economic, political and other consequences of an attack on nuclear facilities? That is a different sort of fallout. I know people in Qatar and elsewhere who are quite anxious about those possible results.

Loose talk is not just open talk. When considering entering or not entering a conflict the best policy is to be quiet and don’t let the other side or even some of your allies know exactly what you are thinking until the time is right. Loose talk also means the talk that is unconnected with strategic thinking at a very high level that looks into the manifold complexities of what might happen – and what it means for your country.

Loose talk is most that we seem to be hearing. I have heard little thoughtful, reasonable and strategic thinking on this outside of the warning messages sent from some of the grey eminences of Washington and beyond.

This is a dangerous time. This is not a time for testosterone. It is a time for reason to triumph over score settling. There are clearly some scores to be settled, but sometimes score settling is best done in different way in different, possibly non-violent venues, and without anger, rage, and a taste for vengeance for actual and perceived slights.

Real leaders do the cold calculations and make the best decisions for their countries. Bad ones decide on emotion and the politics of the time.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have reportedly told senior U.S. officials that if Israel decides to strike Iran militarily, it will do so without warning Washington--in an attempt to protect the United States from blowback. Should Israel strike Iran's nuclear facilities?

That is, of course, up to them. However, they should understand the consequences for the region and beyond. Simply looking at the global energy and economic implications of a protracted war should give pause to any strategic thinker of merit. In addition, the energy and economic consequences are just the beginning of the catastrophe that this could become.

Will sanctions ultimately succeed in convincing Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions?

Sanctions may be more effective in the quest for overall security than causing even greater instability in the region and beyond by not letting these quite stringent sanctions squeeze even more so. Tighten them up more. Investigate further what is really happening in Iran. Get the Iranians to be more transparent with what they are doing.

Then there is the obvious question: if the Iranians are indeed putting huge efforts into building a bomb and they succeed at it what will they do with it. If they ever tried to send this in Israel’s direction Israel would have the nuclear and other capabilities to obliterate most of the country. One nuke against many nukes? Who is going to take that bet in Iran? The Iranians are not looking up at Clint Eastwood and wondering whether or not he shot five times or six. They can pretty much guess that Israel and others could vitrify them.

It does not seem wise to assume that the Iranian leadership is completely irrational. If that were the case, this conflict would have started a long time ago. It is also not to the benefit of Iran to ratchet up the tensions further toward war. They surely know that they cannot win in the usual sense and that their economy, infrastructure, and more would be ruined for years to come.

Again, one attack will not be the end of this. It would spin rather quickly into something far more dreadful and far more costly for many countries beyond Iran, Israel, and the United States.

The armchair warriors who seem the be the types who like to watch Dr. Strangelove reruns should be kept out of the real debate in the circles that really make the decisions. This is the time for real thinkers and those with great experience and gut to work toward some viable strategy beyond the simple one of bombing and hoping for the best.

If not, should the U.S. launch its own military strike on Iran - either unilaterally or with a coalition of countries that could include the Jewish state?

If this happens, do you really think it will stop there? I do not. There is a lot of talk about strikes like this is the final answer on some tactics exam. It is not. This is all too familiar to me. I remember the dullards of power running into the wall of the Iraq war in 2003. Do you remember Lawrence Lindsay being fired for stating that the Iraq war would cost $100 billion because some others in power thought that would scare the public? Do you remember General Shinseki’s call for more troops and how disrespectfully he was treated? I expect the same rounding of the wagons to happen for those who think wars can be done on the cheap. Have we not learned our $3trillion lesson? Our thousands or troops dead lesson? Our tens of thousands of troops maimed lesson?

Have we learned anything about the costs of war when other options are available?

We need the A-team on this one. I hope those in power see this as not the political A-team, but the strategic A-team. Let us not repeat the amateur hour that left so many dead, wounded, and maimed.

In addition, ladies and gentlemen, the potential effects of a war with Iran could be far worse. It is a large country than Iraq and Afghanistan combined in population. It has very difficult terrain. It has 80 million people who will gather around the leadership, even if many dislike or hate their leadership, once the foreigners attack. They also have some powerful and deadly friends who may help in other ways.

Do I find an Iran with nuclear weapons to be a big problem? Yes. Do I think there is another way of dealing with this than what will likely be an all-out war in the Gulf? Yes. There are many, more subtle options.

As usual, I am speaking on my own. However, this will not be the last of what I will write or say on this one. As I say in my public talks on such issues: my interest is the national security of my country, full stop.

I don't see any point in proposing measures that are completely outside the realm of the possible.

This set of exchanges is a vast improvement on the intellectually coarse quasi-propaganda that usually passes for policy discussion on the Iran issue(s). Here is an attempt to distill an answer to the oft-posed question: "so what would you do?" It is offered schematically in the form of a few propositions.

1. A nuclear capable Iran is something that the United States can live with. On this, I second Paul Pillar. That covers the acquisition of an actual weapon. It follows that any high risk military action to prevent that occurence should be excluded as a matter of principle.

2. Living with some Iranian nuclear 'capability' implies a serious diplomatic campaign at engaging the Iranian leadership as per their demarche of March/April 2003. Strategic reflection points to the conclusion that a modus vivendi would facilitate devising a coping policy in other places where our aggressiveness has proven counter-productive, e.g. Iraq and Afghanistan and pakistan.

3. As to Israel, we should undertake an active campaign to prevent them from taking military action on their own. Abstention is not enough. Credible threats of a politico-economic nature should be an essential element.

4. An Israeli assault would do vast damage to American interests and to the long-term stability of the region. Most will blame us for not stopping Israel. So we must act preemptively.

5. The wave of orchestrated domestic support from a military confrontation is not a fixed feature of the political landscape. It grows with each passing month because its leadership and thinking going unchallenged by any person in a position ofauthority. Yes,there would be political costs to anyone who does challenge that crowd; but I believe them to be overstated. Few Americans are hot for war. An overwhelming number of Americans give their allegiance and devotion to the United States- that includes the large majority of American Jews. Some have drifted toward an Israel above all attitude because of both spurs from israeli and Jewish leaders and the timidity of those who know better. Standing out in the latter category is the President of the United States. Time for him to do his job.

It is interesting that the question as posed does not ask whether a war with Iran is in America's genuine national interrest, or whether the AIPAC fifth column ought be consulted by Obama in place of the Congress and the American people. Obama, in essence, stood before AIPAC as a despot, presenting himself -- all to accurately these days -- as the sole decider in the United States on the issue of going to war. In this practice, he follows other recent Democratic and Republican presidents who have illegally arrogated to themselves the Congress's sole prerogative to declare war. Indeed, from out on the campaign trail Mitt Romnet spoke to AIPAC and sounded as if he intended to out-despot Obama.

But the real oddity of Obama's weekend performance and Romney's statement is that they adroitly mixed the two roles they had to play before AIPAC, not only that of the despot but also that of the slave. Even in the Internet Age, some news seems to travel slowly. Neither man seemed aware that the U.S. Constitution was long ago amended to outlaw slavery.

Last weekend, Barack Obama dutifully reported to the AIPAC meeting and pathetically begged his audience of wealthy and disloyal U.S. citizens to be patient with him as he needs more time to prepare to attack Iran. To protect his reelection chances, Obama in essence explained, he needs to keep pursuing sanctions against Iran to prove to his party’s Pacifist/peace wing that he has exhausted all non-military options. (This, in itself, is a certain sign of Obama’s innate duplicity as there obviously is no Pacifist or pro-peace wing in the Democratic Party — nor is there an American peace movement — unless there is a Republican president in the White House.)

“Please, please, please — oh, please!,” the enslaved-to-AIPAC Obama pleaded, give me a few more months to fool the American electorate with talk of effective sanctions and then I will go to war for you against Iran and provide as many of America’s soldier-children as necessary to be killed for the Israeli theocracy. This sort of supine “Yes, Boss” performance meant to elicit campaign contributions must have been galling to an African-American like Obama — at least I hope it was. Tragically, such unmanly groveling before AIPAC is now a regular practice whoever is the president of our once-proud and once-independent republic.

Not able to tolerate the chance that he might be out-groveled — and so out fund-raised — while away on the hustings buying his party’s 2012 nomination, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney put on his best Buzz Lightyear war-face and thundered “me too — and then some!” to attract the same fifth-column, and its campaign contributions, that Obama had addressed in person. The Obama administration, said Romney, was weak and feckless when it comes to Iran, claiming that it had utterly failed to impose sanctions that would wreck what remains of Iran’s economy. This was just boilerplate, however, as Buzz Romney made clear — like Obama — that he thirsted for war with Iran. He pledged that a Romney administration would provide as much degradation of the U.S. economy and as many dead American soldier-children as needed to protect Israel and keep campaign contributions flowing from AIPAC leaders.

One can only conclude from the performances of Obama and Romney that it as not as onerous or personally degrading as it once was to be a slave. Indeed, both men were obviously secure and proud of their status, believing that a few thousand wealthy and disloyal U.S.-citizen AIPAC members wielded more retributive power than the American voters, who they simultaneously told that neither the Congress, nor the Constitution, nor genuine U.S. national interests, nor their economic future, nor their children’s lives would stand in their way of a certain-to-fail U.S. war against Iran on behalf of Democratic and Republican campaign coffers and Israel.

One can only imagine that at the end of a day in which Obama and Romney tugged their forelocks in obedience to this fifth-column, the AIPAC big-wigs must have joined their war-mongering Neocon operatives, retreated to Legree’s Big House Restaurant, and enjoyed a lavish meal that resembled the barbeque-picnic scene from Gone With the Wind. There, over cigars and bourbon, they surely laughed heartily at the memory of the music-less minstrel show they had just watched, one in which two servile men masqueraded as U.S. leaders and, in their search for lucre, had willingly demeaned the security, integrity, manliness, independence, and future of the American Republic.

The meetings with the Executive Branch are mostly ended. The wild chanting of the maenads at the AIPAC conference are stilled for a time. The devotees disperse to their abodes on the left and right coasts, and Chicago. All is left is the "Triumph" of Natanyahu before the Congress. Garlands will be scattered before him. Some suitable victim will be reviled. Dempsey would do. In olden times the victim would have been strangled once the arena was reached. In these days symbolic destruction is the available means with which to express victory over opponents. Perhaps Eric Cantor can whisper in Bibi's ear that he is human.

Actually, I do not think Bibi won much on this trip. The president's AIPAC speech and rhe "swordplay" in the Oval Office looked very "tongue in cheek" to me. Bibi once again lectured the president/commander in chief before the world, but that is a privilege that may have a high cost in the new year..Paraphraing Bibi, he said that Israel must exist because only Jews can be trusted to protect Jews. He also said that Israel and the US are one and the same. I have pondered the meaning of this haiku like set of statements. In my opinion it means that although the US can not be trusted as a country, the US is nevertheless bound by pseudo-familial obligation to act as though it is bound by Israeli needs for "defense." Some plantation owners used to think of slaves that way in the South. The slaves were members of the household, were sometimes allowed to own arms and use them to defend the planter but they really did not have any "say" about anything. I think Obama recognizes the situation and does not like it. His gesture of recognition to his Chicago friends in the AIPAC audience probably had real meaning. He is a clever man.

What to do? Israel seems determined to attack Iran. The only hang-up is their military insufficiency to do more than annoy the Iranians with conventional weapons. Would two years damage be worth the trouble? The IDF General Staff dies not think so. It is a thousand miles to the targets even if some "Slobbovia" in the Trans-Caucasus lets them re-fuel and recover on an old Soviet base. The Iranians will resist to the best of their ability. In the end there is only one solution to this dilemma. The US must be made to carry most of the weight.

Israel is a US ally. There is no treaty of alliance or mutual defense pact that obligates the US to go to war for Israel, but, no matter. Israel is an ally because AEI, MSNBC, etc, says it is. That being the case, the US has the option of supporting an Israeli attack on Iran. This could be an attack that the US agrees with in advance, but Natanyahu and Barak have been explicit in saying that such a request for agreement will not happen. Presumably this is becasue the US might object. As Bibi said yesterday in the Oval Office, Israel is a soveriegn state that will make its own decisions.

The US position should be that:

if Israel decides to attack Iran and obtains US agreement, then Israel should be goven every intelligence, operational and logistical support available to the US

if Israel attacks Iran wthout obtaining US agreement in advance, then they should not be supported at all; no targeting or BDA help, no air to air refuelling, no SAR, no attempts to get governments to allow Israeli aircaft on their bases or for overfligh, etc.

Contrary to the propaganda drivel in the media, the US Government has believed since 2007 that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program and has not had one since the Autumn of 2003. That remains the US Government position, expressed recently by James Clapper, the DNI, in testimony before the senate. The "rent a media" crowd keep trying to make a separate case for the existence of such a weapons program. Most recently the failure of the IAEA to insoect the facility at Parchin has been held up as eviden of dark secrets. Iran today offered to allow the IAEA to inspect the facility. What will be next as "proof" for Joe Scarborough and the New York congressional delegation?

President Obama has stated clearly that the US will not allow Iran to achieve weaponization. When the US Government decides that the Iranians are actually proceeding toward that goal, that will be the time to act militarily. When that happens Israel's assistance will be irrelevant.

The President is walking a delicate tightrope. On the one hand, he does not want to encourage bellicosity, but on the other, he wants to signal that all options are on the table. He is --- according to the NY Times --- under severe pressure from the Israel lobby. At the same time, my bubbas, the Republicans, are falling all over themselves to be phoney tough and make the President look like some sort of wuss. (I don't accept the Israeli claim that Iran is irrational or erratic. I find no proof that they are anything worse than vile and crazy as a fox.)

At the end of 2008, I wrote in the Armed Forces Journal against bombing Iran and in favor of diplomacy, sanctions, and if necessary, containment. I argued that an attack would give this dying regime a new lease on life and cause the young to rally to the Mullahs. Sadly, the containment option has been mocked and spit on by both sides in the issue, even though it may be the best course of action to deal with a nuclear Iran. Deterrence will work between the militarily superior Israel and the Mullahocracy in Tehran.

Preventive war, we have learned of late, is an awesome beast. No one knows where it will go or how it will end. I am particularly disturbed by military "experts" who show no appreciation for the complexities of this operation or the abyss that we know as "the day after" problem. As I argued in 2008, we may not be able to prevent Iran from going nuclear, but we can contain its influence and block them every time they try to use it. If the world can endure North Korea and Pakistan as nuclear powers, an Iranian nuclear weapon will not crack the earth.

When it comes to loose talk endangering national security, the President would be far better off some times if he put White House broadcast on mute.

All the president's talk about engaging with Iran and Syria and brokering a Middle East peace has not made things any better.

Cheerleading for an Arab Spring that may bring more anti-American regimes to power rather than create liberty-loving governments hasn’t helped much.

Telegraphing his cut and run strategy for Iraq and Afghanistan wasn't all that great either.

It’s fine that THE president says he has Israel's back. It would have been better, however, if there were three years of words and actions that actually helped make the Middle East a safer place for peace, freedom, and opportunity.

It seems ever more likely that neither Israel nor Iran will step back from the brink in terms of playing their respective parts in the continuously unfolding Iranian nuclear saga. Meanwhile, American policy is moving in the direction of rendering the behavior of both that much more ominous.

For the good of all, President Obama should have maintained that although the US will do all it can to deter Iran from pursuing the development of nuclear weapons, should deterrence fail in that respect, Iran's possession of nuclear weapons would not necessarily be the proverbial end of the world for Israel (or the US). While not taking US military action off the table, it would not be assured, nor would such action on the part of Israel be endorsed.

Instead, in effect, the President accepted in his Sunday speech the "basic truth" that no Israeli government could live with a nuclear armed Iran. One wonders whether he would have been nearly so outspoken had this moment in time not come amidst an intensifying presidential election campaign. In any case, the trigger that the Netanyahu government apparently has set in place for military action against Iran under such circumstances was reaffirmed.

This places even more pressure on the US and the international community to pressure Iran to stop short of that threshold. Yet, I fear the present Iranian regime remains determined to press forward with its nuclear program regardless, quite possibly to the point at which it could weaponize rapidly if it chose to do so. If that point were reached, it would be unlikely that Israel's current leadership would tolerate a situation in which this Iranian gevernment might be able to weaponize at any time without much warning. Such could well be judged by Israel to be a strategic red line (virtually the same as actual possession of a weapon).

Conflict probably is never "inevitable," but the flow of recent events would seem to be pointing in the direction of eventual Israeli military action against Iran (albeit on terms set by Israel and the US). Although Tehran surely is aware of this threat, considerable doubt remains as to whether the Iranian leadershp is sufficiently sensitive to the grave danger that could very possibly loom ahead if it fails to respond more positively to the overtures of much of the international community.

The short answers to the questions of the week are: no, an attack on Iran would not serve either Israel's interests or those of the United States; and sanctions can help only if they are firmly wedded to the sort of patient and comprehensive diplomacy with Iran that has not yet been tried. I refer readers to this new article of mine in the Washington Monthly, which examines in particular the grossly underexamined question of just what difference an Iranian nuclear weapon would make:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/marchapril_2012/features/we_can_live_with_a_nuclear_ira035772.php

as well as this shorter item with particular reference to this week's AIPAC meeting:

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/the-iran-crescendo-its-sources-6601

The United States is on the brink of war with Iran with no more understanding - or discussion - of why than we understand or discuss why we are fighting an all out war in Afghanistan. What has become a national habit of acting without public deliberation is a clear and present danger to the country’s well being – not to speak of others’ well being. President Obama’s remarks this past week in an interview in the Atlantic with Jeffrey Goldberg, together with his address to AIPAC, present a stark picture of this troubling state of affairs. Here are some thoughts on why both the substance of his views and the diplomatic modus operandi they represent should make us worried about our leadership in the White House.

Key premises unstated are now standard presidential fare in the absence of critical policy scrutiny and debate. The implicit, if unvoiced, preface to all comments is “as we all know.” No one holds the White House to account by pointedly asking: “but do we all know that?” So Mr. Obama’s leaves unexamined the core premise that the Iran government is hell bent on acquiring nuclear weapons despite his own intelligence agencies concluding otherwise. So Mr. Obama declares that his patience is running out in the light of Iran’s refusal to accept the hand of negotiation which he has offered. Yet no such diplomatic hand has been extended – unless we so interpret the offer of a handshake upon the Iranians accepting the onerous terms that we set as a precondition for further talks. So the President calmly states that there is no alternative to ratcheting up the pressure - with war in full view on the table – even though broadly cast talks on their concerns as well as ours never have been considered by Washington. So Obama presumes that a nuclear capable (something we have yet to define) Iran is inimical to American national interests without specifying what they beyond the vague objective of maintaining stability in the region which, he declares, would be disturbed by a ‘nuclear Iran.’ Does “nuclear capable” mean possessing an actual weapon? having “a breakout capacity? In what time-frame? Who applies the criterion – Washington or Jerusalem? Who makes the assessment? No answers are given

Failure to engage the public on matters of great national importance is fraught with danger. Woodrow Wilson’s fate should stand as a signal example of what awaits a president who ignores that lesson. FDR, in the years leading up to WW II, clearly had made up his mind that it was critical to the country’s well-being that the United States join the war against Hitler before making that judgment explicit. Still, a series of speeches associated with steps that brought America to Britain’s side laid out the rationale. On Vietnam, JFK and LBJ were less than forthright about means and level of commitment; but there the explanation was rooted in the commonly held view that the spread of Communism in Vietnam and threat worldwide provided sufficient reason and explanation. Even George W. Bush felt that he must define national interests endangered by Saddam’s Iraq. Of course, the case was built on lies and some of the thinking was concealed from public view. Nonetheless, the Bush people did not limit themselves to ex-cathedra pronouncements that the situation was simply intolerable.

The theme line running through the Obama interview and speech is that somehow the United States is beholden to Israel – that we have some indisputable obligation to indulge their fears and ambitions even if based on dubious judgments. This unspoken vow of fealty goes far beyond the commitment to come to Israel’s defense in extremis. The companion notion is that the thinking and calculations of today’s radical leadership in Jerusalem cannot be influenced by Washington. And, even if it were, the United States has “no say” in what another sovereign government decides is critical to its national survival – as Mr. Obama stated a couple of weeks ago. He reiterated the point Sunday in speaking to the AIPAC conference: “We do not doubt Israel's sovereign right to make its own decisions about what is required to meet its security needs…..I don't presume to tell them what is best for them." As if telling other countries what they should do is not a staple of American foreign policy. Again, there is no critical commentary on these odd pronouncements by an American president ready to take the country into a war carrying with it enormous unpredictable consequences.

Mr. Obama seems never to have fathomed that when a president expresses himself in public with multiple audiences in mind, all of them will hear everything that you say; there can be no compartmentalization. So the President, in his interview, is addressing at one and the same time: American voters, AIPAC, Netanyahu, and the Iranian leaders. The phrase “I don’t bluff” seems directed mainly at the American audiences with his electoral fortunes clearly in mind. This kind of empty verbal gesture is standard stuff on the campaign trail. Few take it literally. By contrast, it is taken seriously in the diplomatic realm. There, such a self-conscious statement reads as: “you have reason to wonder whether I’m bluffing, so I’m telling you that this time I really mean it.” Netanyahu surely doesn’t believe it if – however unlikely – Obama is referring to a possible reining in of the Israelis. Nor does Netanyahu believe those words if he sees them aimed at Tehran since he cannot imagine how a weakling President whom he so easily manipulates can be counted on to be tough with anyone. The Iranian leadership, for their part, certainly see in this remark further sign of kowtowing to Israel. That might indeed scare them – but Obama’s obeisance to Netanyahu doubtless has been recognized as a worrisome truth for quite some while.

“Words cannot harm me” is an American saying. So, too, is “ignorance is bliss.” Let’s remember, though, international affairs is mainly about words. There, they can and do have profound effects. That is a basic truth that Mr. Obama – and we – ignore at our peril. As to studied ignorance about Iranian thinking and the country’s psychology, that kind of indulgence already has cost us dearly in the 9/11 decade. The cost will mount astronomically were we to continue to so act on Iran.

In this regard, we have been ill served by both the MSM and the institutionalized foreign policy community which has served as lead bottomed ballast keeping the ship of state on a hazardous course.