Foreign policy fit for the playground

Is an ill-advised footwear decision enough to bring down an Iraqi insurgent leader? Oh, if only. Yet the chatter over outtakes from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's recent propaganda video seems to suppose it may.

As reported quite snappily by the New York Times, "In an effort to turn Mr. Zarqawi's own propaganda against him by mocking him as an uninspiring poseur, the American military released the selected outtakes at a news briefing in Baghdad."

The clips reveal the anti-Western jihadist enemy du jour pairing white New Balance sneakers (yeech) with his menacing black terrorist garb, and shows him fumbling inexpertly with a machine gun.

"We have a warrior leader, Zarqawi, who doesn't understand how to operate his weapon system and has to rely on his subordinates to clear a weapon stoppage," the general said. "It makes you wonder."

Apparently military officials think this is going to turn Iraqis against the insurgency by painting one of its leaders as incompetent–never minding how their own commander in chief has played up just such a persona as a congenial and nonthreatening simpleton to win popular esteem.

Good strategy, boys, no wonder that whole Iraq campaign is going so swimmingly that you have to resort to counter-spin like this to try and change hearts and markedly dull minds.

Come on, people, this is why powerful, violent deviants have henchmen (and if they're really cool, hench-wenches) to do their dirty work for them. I'm sure President Bush knows how to personally operate the high tech military weapons he has ultimate authority over–he's certainly never struggled on film broadcast worldwide to operate anything so mechanically sophisticated as, say, a door.

And at least Zarqawi only looked like a phony acting for the cameras during an outtake–"Mission Accomplished," anyone? Not to mention our fearless leader's seeming inability to speak a sentence in public composed exclusively of actual words.

But the whole Zarqawi tape affair isn't much more mature than Dick Cheney's little speech taunting Russia for picking on other, punier countries over oil and other assorted infractions:

"In many areas of civil society – from religion and the news media, to advocacy groups and political parties – the government has unfairly and improperly restricted the rights of her people," Mr. Cheney said in a speech to European leaders in Lithuania's capital, Vilnius.

In response, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin retorted with a vaguely threatening allegory involving rubber and glue, and then told the vice president he smelled funny.