Poker and Chess

A new National Intelligence Estimate says that Iran ceased active efforts to acquire nuclear weapons technology in 2003 – damned odd timing, that – while retaining a capability to get back in the game again at some point in the future.

The future is always theoretical. You look at where you’ve come from, take stock of where you’re at. Try to connect those dots to project forward into the future.

Ecce: A brief recap of the past and present:

• Iraq – the heart of the Arab world – liberated from a brutal and fascist tyranny. The democratic election of a broadly representative government there. The forces of terrorist reaction forcefully suppressed.
• Lebanon freed from Syrian military occupation.
• Libya abandoned a long-term WMD program and is coming in from the international cold.
• The governments of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are allies in the fight against terror.
• North Korea has agreed to disable its nuclear weapons processing plant.
• Pro-US governments elected in Germany and France.

Gains in the international sphere are notoriously difficult to consolidate, even when progress is undeniable. Even when progress is undeniable on stubborn problems that had previously seemed intractable. Nations continuously tack to the breezes of their own interest through the use of balancing strategies, among others.

Speaking of strategy, the Persians invented chess:

Chess strategy is concerned with the evaluation of chess positions and setting up goals and long-term tactics for future play. During the evaluation, a player must take into account the value of the pieces on the board, pawn structure, king safety, position of pieces, and control of key squares and groups of squares (e.g. diagonals, open files, black or white squares), and the possible moves the opponent will make after any move made.

But Dubya, famously, is a poker player. Poker strategy is different:

The fundamental theorem of poker, introduced by David Sklansky, states that every time you play your hand the way you would if you could see your opponent’s cards, you gain, and every time your opponent plays his cards differently from the way he would play them if he could see your cards, you gain. This theorem is the foundation for many poker strategy topics. For example, bluffing and slow-playing are examples of using deception to induce your opponents to play differently than they would if they could see your cards.

Who knew that one side could play chess and the other poker?

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Newspaper reporters are proud to write the “first draft of history,” but like most first drafts there is a very great deal that they are going to get wrong. Based mostly on events overseas, the US news media has formed the collegial consensus that the Bush presidency has been an unmitigated catastrophe.

When a consensus model ceases to adequately explain events there are two choices: Change the model, or change the subject.

How ’bout those illegal aliens getting driver’s licenses?

Lord, I wish I could live long enough to see how future historians view what we’ve just gone through. What we’re still going through.