john yoo's stupid 'creativity' comment

* the other day I higlighted john yoo's stupid 'creativity' comment. others, not surprisingly, picked up the same thing. billmon and t.rex at fdl

* drum reviews suskind:

"More than a broad rationalization of mere hawkishness, the One Percent Doctrine is actually a justification for ignoring unwanted analysis. After all, nearly anything has a one percent chance of happening, and if that's the threshold for action, it means we can take action anytime we want. Under the OPD, there is literally no reason to waste time with analysis or policy discussions."

* billmon:

"This is something the Vulcans probably should have thought about before they took their shiny new doctrine out for a test drive to Baghdad. When you launch an aggressive war after going through the motions of diplomacy, your opponents are entitled to assume you're likely to do it again in a similar situation.

Indeed, such expectations themselves can make war more likely. Believing your diplomatic gestures completely insincere, your opponent may choose defiance, forcing you to either follow through on your "doctrine" or suffer an enormous loss of credibilty -- the coin of the realm in international relations. This, in turn, can lead other players (like those pesky global energy markets) to ratchet up their perceptions of the risk of war, which in turn provides ammunition to those on your side who argue (or like Frum simply imply) that war has become the lesser of two practical evils -- i.e. if you want to bring those oil prices down, you gotta send in the Air Force.

This is all Game Theory 101, and my guess is that the neocons understand the dynamic perfectly well -- and in fact are now counting on it. But I'm not entirely sure even the saner members of the regime, like Secretary Supertanker, recognize the bind they are now in. I'm reasonably sure the vast majority of the American people don't. "